Hello. I have a new win 7 computer. I have NWN and NWN2 newlly installed. Both are working fine. NWN installed directly to hard drive C: while NWN2 installed programs(x86). I downloaded a few mods for NWN2 and tried to unzip them to the override file( in the x86 folder) and could not. It stated "could not open output file". While reading install instuctions for the mods they stated to install in documents\\Neverwinter Nights2\\overrride. I located the file and was able to unzip to location. Have not checked to see if they are working yet. My question is why do I have nwn2 in the (x86) folder and in my documents, and what is the difference that I cannot unzip mods into one but not the other? Should I have installed nwn2 in a different spot? Does any of this matter? Just want to make sure I don't need to change anything before I start playing nwn2.
Installation path question.
Débuté par
_L Brown
, janv. 12 2012 05:50
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#2
Posté 12 janvier 2012 - 06:27
painofdungeoneternal
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Its how microsoft recommends you to do things. The programs should be as the programmer set them up in their folder, and your computers security should protect them. Basically if they get changed you end up with things getting a lot buggier. It also allows multiple users to use the game at the same time and quite a few other advantages.
Now if you put files in my documents, the game reads those INSTEAD of what is in your program files type folder. Basically if a modder says put things in program files, ignore them and put them in my documents - the only exception is, well if it does not work you probably don't want to use the mod anyway.
Now the benefit of all this is, your game is protected and you should NEVER have to reinstall it. If you install a mod that jacks up your system, you can just delete the player folder and it will be recreated. In addition you can use the -home parameter to specify any folder you want as your player folder, which allows you to have multiple configurations of custom content all in separate folders. The game will create the folder and you can then install anything you want to this folder.
Now if you put files in my documents, the game reads those INSTEAD of what is in your program files type folder. Basically if a modder says put things in program files, ignore them and put them in my documents - the only exception is, well if it does not work you probably don't want to use the mod anyway.
Now the benefit of all this is, your game is protected and you should NEVER have to reinstall it. If you install a mod that jacks up your system, you can just delete the player folder and it will be recreated. In addition you can use the -home parameter to specify any folder you want as your player folder, which allows you to have multiple configurations of custom content all in separate folders. The game will create the folder and you can then install anything you want to this folder.
#3
Posté 12 janvier 2012 - 06:33
_L Brown
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Thanks for the reply. That helps. So, what is up with nwn1 installing itself directly on C:. Is that a bad thing, or is it just that if something goes wrong I have to reinstall.
#4
Posté 16 janvier 2012 - 07:22
Kaldor Silverwand
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NWN is just old. That is why it installs itself on C:/ instead of in a Program folder. It isn't a problem. NWN doesn't have a separate My Documents setup.
There are in fact mods that do go in your Programs folders, but they are rare. My own OC Makeover and MotB Makeover are installed in the Program folder rather than the Documents folder. This is because the makeovers are designed to only affect the OC and MotB specifically and allow compatibility with most other mods. Installing them in the Documents override folder will prevent them from working properly and interfere with other mods.
So in regards to my mods you should follow my instructions. Which include making backups of your campaign folder so that you can uninstall if you like.
Regards
There are in fact mods that do go in your Programs folders, but they are rare. My own OC Makeover and MotB Makeover are installed in the Program folder rather than the Documents folder. This is because the makeovers are designed to only affect the OC and MotB specifically and allow compatibility with most other mods. Installing them in the Documents override folder will prevent them from working properly and interfere with other mods.
So in regards to my mods you should follow my instructions. Which include making backups of your campaign folder so that you can uninstall if you like.
Regards
#5
Posté 06 février 2012 - 12:07
painofdungeoneternal
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Note i am using kaldors mods placed in my documents, no idea what the problem is with it there. I'd really like to know what issues are caused by that, but i have verified it's using the scripts, xml, blueprints and the like in the campaign folder in the current player folder. Really not setting it up like this is not an option, as i need be able to use -home parameter to use different sets of content.
Being forced to use the application folder is in fact a step backwords, as it sends users into a folder they probably shouldn't be touching to begin with unless they follow instructions exactly which they rarely do, often requires a complete removal of the game and reinstallation to completely undo any damage they do, and misses the point of the -home directory parameter. Of course this is based on talking to a lot of end users over the years, and its why grinning fool fixed these issues in 1.23 to begin with.
If it's not working for content you develop, it should be discussed -- and unless you verify with someone like Grinning Fool or Skywing it does not work, i'd not assert that you can place the files under "my docs" or other folder as set by -home. I've helped numerous folks and generally there are only extremely rare instances where this does not work universally. And in the exceptions hopefully we'd be able to address those with the client extension at some point, or find some other fix.
Note that any content that says otherwise, tends to be from before the release of 1.23 which is when Grinning fool implemented the -home folder option. When that was released as a beta i did look for issues where content had to be program files and except for a few resources ( fonts and fontfamily.xml was a rare exception ) it just works. Generally it only affects rarely used content Grinning Fool did not think about.
Being forced to use the application folder is in fact a step backwords, as it sends users into a folder they probably shouldn't be touching to begin with unless they follow instructions exactly which they rarely do, often requires a complete removal of the game and reinstallation to completely undo any damage they do, and misses the point of the -home directory parameter. Of course this is based on talking to a lot of end users over the years, and its why grinning fool fixed these issues in 1.23 to begin with.
If it's not working for content you develop, it should be discussed -- and unless you verify with someone like Grinning Fool or Skywing it does not work, i'd not assert that you can place the files under "my docs" or other folder as set by -home. I've helped numerous folks and generally there are only extremely rare instances where this does not work universally. And in the exceptions hopefully we'd be able to address those with the client extension at some point, or find some other fix.
Note that any content that says otherwise, tends to be from before the release of 1.23 which is when Grinning fool implemented the -home folder option. When that was released as a beta i did look for issues where content had to be program files and except for a few resources ( fonts and fontfamily.xml was a rare exception ) it just works. Generally it only affects rarely used content Grinning Fool did not think about.
Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 06 février 2012 - 03:17 .
#6
Posté 07 février 2012 - 01:39
Kaldor Silverwand
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It's a free country. You can install my mods however you like and I can give you a blank stare when you ask for support. That is the tradeoff. All development and testing was done with my modifications installed in the actual campaign folders, not My Documents. This was done to ensure that when people choose to install things they like in their override folder because they don't like something I did that that they will override my stuff rather than vice versa.
The only reason to not update the campaign folders themselves was to prevent interference with future patches. There will be no future patches, so that is no longer a concern. If people do not know how to read directions and compress a folder then they certainly shouldn't be installing things they download over the internet.
I think you should speak about your own mods, not someone else's. I give explicit directions with my mods and I expect them to be followed by people who use them, otherwise I cannot support them effectively. If they choose to do otherwise, then they are on their own, which normally results in PO'd people. So I'd appreciate if you would stop advising people to not follow my directions when it comes to my mods.
Thanks.
The only reason to not update the campaign folders themselves was to prevent interference with future patches. There will be no future patches, so that is no longer a concern. If people do not know how to read directions and compress a folder then they certainly shouldn't be installing things they download over the internet.
I think you should speak about your own mods, not someone else's. I give explicit directions with my mods and I expect them to be followed by people who use them, otherwise I cannot support them effectively. If they choose to do otherwise, then they are on their own, which normally results in PO'd people. So I'd appreciate if you would stop advising people to not follow my directions when it comes to my mods.
Thanks.
#7
Posté 07 février 2012 - 08:28
painofdungeoneternal
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It is indeed a free country. More than that, it's a community where what we do affects far flung members of that community in ways we often don't realize. When what we do has negative consequences, we should try to mitigate those as much as possible, and we should cajole others in the community to raise their standards and do better when we see something needs improvement.
I have spent a lot of time helping end users, discussing their issues, troubleshooting their systems, and learning what works and does not work. I have not been in IRC lately, but I spent a good 5 years lurking there, helping everyone who asked for help from fellow modder to just regular players. This is not some random issue, but something i dealt with on a weekly basis, there even is a thread right next to this one dealing with this exact same issue.
I also fought the powers that be to get certain features added to NWN2 based on the above discussions. Really I am less of a modder and more of a person who connected the far flung dots in the community and tried to figure out ways to solve the problems NWN2 had at the time. Often we end up just focused on our own little corner of the universe and forget that things are a bit bigger.
This is not about how hard it is for you to support your users, it's about making it hard for the community to support those end users, and the fact it makes it almost impossible to fix problems caused by custom content if that custom content is not restricted to the players folder.
Now you are free to instruct as you so wish, and you are free to only offer help if users follow your instructions.
But you are also AIMING users at an area where they are being very creative in following instructions. I have written a few instructions on how to do things and i can pretty much say the only time people read them is when i am reading them to that user AFTER they come into IRC because it does not work. And this is not just end users, this is fellow PW admins. ( ah you actually meant it when you wrote that ).
What i am saying is that i am talking to end users, who are under the impression that you should be doing things in program files. Sometimes its instructions for plugins, for really old content from the dawn of NWN2, or perhaps just because that is how you do it for NWN1. These folks are mucking things up for themselves, and they are very PO'd to learn they have to reinstall. If i am lucky i can figure out what they did, sometimes there is no way to tell.
And the sad thing is, i can take that same content, plugins for the toolset, even your campaign folder, and i test it out, and I don't see why using "My Documents/NWN2" won't work. As for compatibility, what you describe is not compatible since it's basically breaking what you have done. The only real issue here is that you aren't doing it this way, have not really given it a chance to begin with. Based on what i know about kaedrins, i am pretty sure he released a feature to call his module events from your module events which seems like it would be a lot better than the current situation. Basically this an issue a direct discussion with kaedrin would make your users much happier than they are now.
Now pointing out a different way to do things is not an attack. I have logical reasons why it's better, which are why effort was put into both the -home feature and just fixing content so you can stay out of program files entirely. I even read on the MSDN that it's better, that microsoft does not even want you touching anything in program files ( it even warns you by default when you open that folder ). Even apple and linux do it this way, it's pretty much accepted as a best practice at this point for all programs. I also see horror stories coming from other games where using mods ends up requiring you reinstall the entire game.
If these users were in a well run corporation, they'd not even be given administrative rights to enter the program files folder and would be forced to stay in their respective user folders which does indeed restrict their freedom, but it also dramatically reduces problems for those users. We cannot really do that to gamers, but we can recommend, point out, cajole end users to do so.
It's a new way to do things, which actually adds options for the end users, increases the stability of the game, and makes everything more flexible, and it allows the user to take advantage of other features in the OS ( multiple users, migrating contents of your documents folder between systems, etc ).
Sure it's more work on your part, but it's well worth it to those end users, and to those who end up trying to help them.
And as for my recommending how other projects work. Well most of those projects were released prior to 1.23 and their authors just didn't have the choice. I suggest if you are told as a user you HAVE to use program files, you should try just using the "my documents" folder. If it does not work, or you have an issue, post a thread describing the issue and very likely me or someone else can help figure a way to solve the problem.
If you are doing a mod, you should strive to make everything work in my documents. Sometimes things won't, but it's pretty rare and if they in fact don't work outside that folder, you just don't have a choice. Even then i'd try to ask one of the cutting edge folks and see if there are any work arounds.
( I personally am trying to figure out how to get the fonts out of the folder. The only thing which should be inside program files are the hook files for nwnx, and that only affects the server admins, and IF the end user has an actual installer it should mitigate the problems which can occur in that case).
I have spent a lot of time helping end users, discussing their issues, troubleshooting their systems, and learning what works and does not work. I have not been in IRC lately, but I spent a good 5 years lurking there, helping everyone who asked for help from fellow modder to just regular players. This is not some random issue, but something i dealt with on a weekly basis, there even is a thread right next to this one dealing with this exact same issue.
I also fought the powers that be to get certain features added to NWN2 based on the above discussions. Really I am less of a modder and more of a person who connected the far flung dots in the community and tried to figure out ways to solve the problems NWN2 had at the time. Often we end up just focused on our own little corner of the universe and forget that things are a bit bigger.
This is not about how hard it is for you to support your users, it's about making it hard for the community to support those end users, and the fact it makes it almost impossible to fix problems caused by custom content if that custom content is not restricted to the players folder.
Now you are free to instruct as you so wish, and you are free to only offer help if users follow your instructions.
But you are also AIMING users at an area where they are being very creative in following instructions. I have written a few instructions on how to do things and i can pretty much say the only time people read them is when i am reading them to that user AFTER they come into IRC because it does not work. And this is not just end users, this is fellow PW admins. ( ah you actually meant it when you wrote that ).
What i am saying is that i am talking to end users, who are under the impression that you should be doing things in program files. Sometimes its instructions for plugins, for really old content from the dawn of NWN2, or perhaps just because that is how you do it for NWN1. These folks are mucking things up for themselves, and they are very PO'd to learn they have to reinstall. If i am lucky i can figure out what they did, sometimes there is no way to tell.
And the sad thing is, i can take that same content, plugins for the toolset, even your campaign folder, and i test it out, and I don't see why using "My Documents/NWN2" won't work. As for compatibility, what you describe is not compatible since it's basically breaking what you have done. The only real issue here is that you aren't doing it this way, have not really given it a chance to begin with. Based on what i know about kaedrins, i am pretty sure he released a feature to call his module events from your module events which seems like it would be a lot better than the current situation. Basically this an issue a direct discussion with kaedrin would make your users much happier than they are now.
Now pointing out a different way to do things is not an attack. I have logical reasons why it's better, which are why effort was put into both the -home feature and just fixing content so you can stay out of program files entirely. I even read on the MSDN that it's better, that microsoft does not even want you touching anything in program files ( it even warns you by default when you open that folder ). Even apple and linux do it this way, it's pretty much accepted as a best practice at this point for all programs. I also see horror stories coming from other games where using mods ends up requiring you reinstall the entire game.
If these users were in a well run corporation, they'd not even be given administrative rights to enter the program files folder and would be forced to stay in their respective user folders which does indeed restrict their freedom, but it also dramatically reduces problems for those users. We cannot really do that to gamers, but we can recommend, point out, cajole end users to do so.
It's a new way to do things, which actually adds options for the end users, increases the stability of the game, and makes everything more flexible, and it allows the user to take advantage of other features in the OS ( multiple users, migrating contents of your documents folder between systems, etc ).
Sure it's more work on your part, but it's well worth it to those end users, and to those who end up trying to help them.
And as for my recommending how other projects work. Well most of those projects were released prior to 1.23 and their authors just didn't have the choice. I suggest if you are told as a user you HAVE to use program files, you should try just using the "my documents" folder. If it does not work, or you have an issue, post a thread describing the issue and very likely me or someone else can help figure a way to solve the problem.
If you are doing a mod, you should strive to make everything work in my documents. Sometimes things won't, but it's pretty rare and if they in fact don't work outside that folder, you just don't have a choice. Even then i'd try to ask one of the cutting edge folks and see if there are any work arounds.
( I personally am trying to figure out how to get the fonts out of the folder. The only thing which should be inside program files are the hook files for nwnx, and that only affects the server admins, and IF the end user has an actual installer it should mitigate the problems which can occur in that case).
#8
Posté 08 février 2012 - 04:30
Kaldor Silverwand
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painofdungeoneternal wrote...
And the sad thing is, i can take that same content, plugins for the toolset, even your campaign folder, and i test it out, and I don't see why using "My Documents/NWN2" won't work. As for compatibility, what you describe is not compatible since it's basically breaking what you have done. The only real issue here is that you aren't doing it this way, have not really given it a chance to begin with. Based on what i know about kaedrins, i am pretty sure he released a feature to call his module events from your module events which seems like it would be a lot better than the current situation. Basically this an issue a direct discussion with kaedrin would make your users much happier than they are now.
You have it backwards. I modified my scripts to call Kaedrin's. Which is why there is almost complete compatibility between the Makeovers and Kaedrin's. Where there is not it is because Kaedrin has his own way of doing something and that overrides my way. I documented those differences with the Makeover.
I understand you use the -home feature so that you can run multiple copies. Most people do not do that. They have one override folder and they throw everything into it. That won't work with the Makeovers unless a person is only ever playing the OC or only playing MotB. I don't want the Makeovers messing up someone playing another campaign. By having multiple folders you are doing something more complex than most and I think you are mistaken if you think people are going to regularly use that feature. I don't believe they are and I don't believe they will.
Regards
#9
Posté 08 février 2012 - 09:12
painofdungeoneternal
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They will once tools support that feature. ( note i am making tools that do that and also help manage things for those users so more than the power users can use this, in fact it should allow much more elaborate modules. ) While not universally a way of doing things, if it were it would make the users have a much better experience.
If you look at all the programmers doing windows programs getting them to use "my documents" still has holdouts preferring old ways since it's easier for the programmer, but it's better for the user and peer pressure is making it happen. Yes its more complicated, most new technology is.
Ignoring your project - as this your project is just a single aspect to this issue - sending users into program files is just not a good idea, and communicating to those users that when using things on the vault that they will generally work under my documents is going to result in those users having less problems in the long run. I suggest they first do their "trying to install" work under my documents since they can just delete the NWN2 folder and undo any errors on their part.
AGAIN: my point to you is to explore this option for your project in the future, see what happens, perhaps see if it can be an option for those users not using any other content or just tonyK's. Don't dismiss this out of hand, I don't think you understand what i am describing very well, it's not putting your content into override under my documents, but putting a new campaign folder under "my documents/NWN 2/campaigns/" and inside this folder ONLY put those files you have changes and the main campaign definition. Files will inherit and both campaign folders will be merged by the game itself, and you will eliminate the need to back anything up before installing your project.
If you look at all the programmers doing windows programs getting them to use "my documents" still has holdouts preferring old ways since it's easier for the programmer, but it's better for the user and peer pressure is making it happen. Yes its more complicated, most new technology is.
Ignoring your project - as this your project is just a single aspect to this issue - sending users into program files is just not a good idea, and communicating to those users that when using things on the vault that they will generally work under my documents is going to result in those users having less problems in the long run. I suggest they first do their "trying to install" work under my documents since they can just delete the NWN2 folder and undo any errors on their part.
AGAIN: my point to you is to explore this option for your project in the future, see what happens, perhaps see if it can be an option for those users not using any other content or just tonyK's. Don't dismiss this out of hand, I don't think you understand what i am describing very well, it's not putting your content into override under my documents, but putting a new campaign folder under "my documents/NWN 2/campaigns/" and inside this folder ONLY put those files you have changes and the main campaign definition. Files will inherit and both campaign folders will be merged by the game itself, and you will eliminate the need to back anything up before installing your project.
Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 08 février 2012 - 09:14 .
#10
Posté 08 février 2012 - 11:22
Kaldor Silverwand
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painofdungeoneternal wrote...
I don't think you understand what i am describing very well, it's not putting your content into override under my documents, but putting a new campaign folder under "my documents/NWN 2/campaigns/" and inside this folder ONLY put those files you have changes and the main campaign definition. Files will inherit and both campaign folders will be merged by the game itself, and you will eliminate the need to back anything up before installing your project.
You're right, I didn't. I wasn't aware that the game will automatically merge two like named campaign folders. I've never heard of that capability. If it works with include files, modules, conversations, scripts, and UI changes, then that is fine. I'll give it some thought.
EDIT: It doesn't seem to work as you describe. If I leave the campaign folders in the Program Files/Atari/Neverwinter Nights 2/Campaigns untouched and instead create a My Documents/Neverwinter Nights 2/Campaigns/Neverwinter Nights 2 Campaign folder and put the OC Makeover content, including the updated campaign.cam file in that folder, then when you go to start a new campaign what you see in the menu are two instances of NWN2 OC Makeover instead of one NWN2 OC and one NWN2 OC Makeover. If I rename the My Documents folder to NWN2 OC Makeover then the menu correctly shows both the OC and the OC Makeover but starting a new campaign with NWN2 OC Makeover only results in starting the unmodified OC.
Modifié par Kaldor Silverwand, 09 février 2012 - 03:27 .
