275 réponses à ce sujet

[Thorsson64]

I do not use nwn 2. the second game changed a lot

 

That's generally the idea.

 

As far as modding goes, there are plus points for making it easy to mod, and there are minus. There were a lot of less than mediocre PWs in NWN1; many of these were run badly, often for the benefit of a small clique. I've never seen an NWN2 PW that was anywhere near as poor as many of the NWN1 ones I had the misfortune to play.

 

I don't know the state of NWN1 PWs today, but are there any that are as well put together as BGTSCC or RoT (to name but two)? There certainly weren't in a similar timescale, despite the tools being easier.

[Eternal Phoenix]

I was disappointed with NWN2 but it was an okay game. I tried modding but its toolset is far more complex than the one for NWN1 so I gave up as I couldn't be bothered investing another year in learning a new toolset. Perhaps other NWN1 modders couldn't deal with the transition either as the toolsets are vastly different (with NWN2's being more alike to The Witcher 1's and Dragon Age: Origins than NWN1's).

 

Besides, you stick with what you're familiar with and new content and haks are still being made for NWN1 so my logic (and perhaps the logic of others here) is why move to NWN2 when you can build similar campaigns still in the first game? Mods like Project Q and CEP really do extend what NWN1 is capable of too.

[Dann-J]

 I tried modding but its toolset is far more complex than the one for NWN1 so I gave up as I couldn't be bothered investing another year in learning a new toolset.

 

A year to learn to use the NWN2 toolset? Do you have a learning disability, or have you suffered some sort of brain injury?

 

The average person, following the guides and tutorials available, could learn the basics of the NWN2 toolset in a couple of days. I learned how to use it simply by fooling around with it and figuring things out for myself, using the built-in help as a basic guide. It's not exactly a NASA control centre!

[WhiteTiger]

not like nasa centre, but my first sensation to the nwn2 toolset was like a airplane cabin

1 month to learn and use as well
1 year to professionalism

[Eternal Phoenix]

A year to learn to use the NWN2 toolset? Do you have a learning disability, or have you suffered some sort of brain injury?
 
The average person, following the guides and tutorials available, could learn the basics of the NWN2 toolset in a couple of days. I learned how to use it simply by fooling around with it and figuring things out for myself, using the built-in help as a basic guide. It's not exactly a NASA control centre!

Takes a year to master at least as WhiteTiger also notes.

[Dann-J]

I released my first module well before I 'mastered' the toolset (if indeed that's possible, as it often feels like *it* is the master of *me*). It certainly isn't my best work, but then again it was quite playable and didn't suck too badly, which is all you can really ask for in a free download.

 

There's no need to start with an enormous campaign full of custom content and hideously complex scripting. There's much to be said for quick and simple modules. Sometimes you just don't have enough time to commit to lengthy campaigns. I'm always on the lookout for good short modules to distract me for an hour or two.

 

I created Shaar Moan specifically because there was a complaint in a forum post about people spending years developing large campaigns, resulting in releases being few and far between. I threw that module together in a couple of months.

 

It wasn't until I was highly proficient with the toolset that I released something larger (Isle of Shrines), which took a couple of years to complete. I've been working on my current (even bigger) project for a couple of years now too.

 

If you start small and work your way up to a more complex project you not only learn the toolset through practical experience (which beats any tutorial), but the community will get to experience your efforts sooner and more frequently. Everyone wins.

[Eternal Phoenix]

True enough I suppose. I myself lost all patience with modding eventually though after three years with NWN1. Putting your ideas to fruition and creating a new world and characters is the fun part but then there's all the scripting which is simple enough at first until you want to build something more complex than a simple fetch quest. I found scripting incredibly tedious and once you've built your world, your characters etc then the rest of the development time is spent scripting, bug testing and writing dialogue with branching trees. Perhaps I should have stuck with smaller projects as you suggested.

 

Still, those three years taught me of the excruciating work (at least I would call it this) of modders and developers so I have more respect for them especially for you modders.

[Dann-J]

One person's 'excruciating work' is obviously another's 'enjoyment'.

 

I for one enjoy the challenges that creating a playable module throw at you. I especially like the experimental process involved in trying to achieve something no-one else has ever done. Even when I fail (which happens frequently when you're trying to break new ground), I always end up learning something new in the end. That's a win in my book.

 

I've always created modules for myself to play rather than for anyone else, so play-testing is always a pleasure for me. I like to build in an element of randomness, so that even I as the module author won't know exactly what to expect. Hopefully that also improves replayability and helps to mitigate metagaming to a degree, but those are side-effects rather than primary intentions.

[Groove Widdit]

I make mods on NW1 and would love to make them on NW2, but they always lock up when I try to use them--even one with nothing in it. The glitches in NW2 are notiorious. I'm not a programmer, and I can't install the patch in-game, so I'm forced to use a seriously stunted version of NW2. All the hate from the NW1 people is not out of nowhere.

[Dann-J]

Unfortunately NWN2 becomes glitchier as time passes, thanks to it not fully supporting more recent video cards. It especially hates recent NVidia cards, despite the fact that is was made specifically for them. If there was ever another official patch, or the source code was released enabling a good quality community patch, then the first thing I would request would be better support for modern graphics cards (which would no doubt include support for Direct X 11). The lighting and shadow algorithms could do with a bit of tweaking as well.

 

When I first installed NWN2 many years ago, I was forced to turn a lot of the graphics options down. Within a couple of years better video cards and processors caught up, and it was running beautifully for me. A couple of years (and a couple of computers) later, and graphics glitches started showing up as video card technology advanced too far for the game engine to cope with. I suspect newer operating systems aren't helping either.

 

I have the DVD versions of NWN2, MotB and SoZ (bought from actual shops by handing over actual cash to actual people!), and I haven't encountered half of the problems mentioned on various forums. It would seem that some of the digitally downloaded installations are buggier than the DVD versions. But then, they always made things better in the old days...

[WhiteTiger]

A project (nwn1) containing 741 areas can not be transformed to the nwn2 today. The rebuilding time will be really long. Years of work.

Now if there's nwn3 certainly worth it.

[Groove Widdit]

Programmers have limited time to get a product out. I'll give the NWN2 guys the benifit of the doubt and assume they did the best they could, but NW2 is a seriously flawed piece of programming.

[Tarot Redhand]

I tried the NwN2 toolset and went yuch!!! If I wanted something like that I would be selling the soft ice cream out of a van. Why oh why did they have to make creating a cliff nigh on impossible? Not being an artist I do not have good airbrush skills, yet for terrain building they go and give us something that is controlled in a manner very similar to using a professional quality airbrush. I just gave up at that point.

 

Another thing was that they so went and did their own thing that it was apparently impossible to automatically convert modules from NwN to NwN2. That was such a missed golden opportunity.

 

In this thread I have read people over stating the case for the difference in quality between user made sp modules for both NwN 1 & 2. My experience in this is limited as I am on 10 gig a month data limit. So far I have only tried one such module for NwN 2. It promised much and was a HOF. It apparently takes the player several hours of play to finish. It is called "Fairy Tale". For the life of me I do not understand how it made HOF. No potions to buy and very limited healing kits. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy linear games but if this had been any more on rails I would have called it the Union Pacific! Then there was the inability to walk through very wide and obvious gaps between trees. Let me put it this way, I sincerely hope that when I get over this experience, I hope that the quality of the next NwN2 module I try is better.

 

So to sum up, it is not fear (like someone else in this thread suggested) that has stopped me from using this toolset. It is that my perception is that it is overly complicated to use and I thought that the only user made module that I have tried (and gave up on) playing was over-hyped rubbish. But that is just my opinion, not an invitation to all-out war.

 

TR

[Tarot Redhand]

@ Iveforgotmypassword I did not slander you, I merely did not think much of your module. I did not call you names. Your response was impolite and uncalled for. I am sorry that I was not a fawning fan boy but everyone has different tastes.

 

I had thought that I was participating in a reasoned debate. Unfortunately, it appears I may have been wrong.

 

TR

[rjshae]

I tried the NwN2 toolset and went yuch!!! If I wanted something like that I would be selling the soft ice cream out of a van. Why oh why did they have to make creating a cliff nigh on impossible? Not being an artist I do not have good airbrush skills, yet for terrain building they go and give us something that is controlled in a manner very similar to using a professional quality airbrush. I just gave up at that point.

 

I expect they took that approach because it is a fairly rapid and flexible means for an artist to create various types of terrain. Yes, they could have created terrain using tiles, but then they would still need an artist to build all of those tiles so there wasn't really a speed benefit that would sway them to that path. It's unfortunate that the exterior area tools proved a hindrance to you, but there are always area prefabs you could use instead. As for cliffs, well there are some pretty nice placeables available. I plan on using those myself in the near future.

 

Another thing was that they so went and did their own thing that it was apparently impossible to automatically convert modules from NwN to NwN2. That was such a missed golden opportunity.

 

I suspect it was a rational business decision. To do so, they would need a 1-to-1 map between all of the content that needs to be converted, which would have taken time and money away from building the new content and somewhat different artistic styles for their modules they needed to sell. They just didn't have the extra time, budget, or incentive to implement this.

 

Not sure what disliking a particular module has to do with it. Everybody has their own tastes and its a matter of finding modules that suit your preferred style.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Programmers have limited time to get a product out. I'll give the NWN2 guys the benifit of the doubt and assume they did the best they could, but NW2 is a seriously flawed piece of programming.

You already stated that you are not using a patched version of NWN2. That is your problem. The final version of the toolset has some bugs but it is very usable. If you cannot use it then you need to look at your hardware and set up, not fault programmers.

Regards

[Kaldor Silverwand]

A project (nwn1) containing 741 areas can not be transformed to the nwn2 today. The rebuilding time will be really long. Years of work.
Now if there's nwn3 certainly worth it.

How many exterior areas, how many interior? How many of the interiors are homes or inns that are essentially identical? How many of the exteriors are fairly non-descript? Obviously there would be challenges. But perhaps not years.

Regards

[Kaldor Silverwand]

True enough I suppose. I myself lost all patience with modding eventually though after three years with NWN1. Putting your ideas to fruition and creating a new world and characters is the fun part but then there's all the scripting which is simple enough at first until you want to build something more complex than a simple fetch quest. I found scripting incredibly tedious and once you've built your world, your characters etc then the rest of the development time is spent scripting, bug testing and writing dialogue with branching trees. Perhaps I should have stuck with smaller projects as you suggested.
 
Still, those three years taught me of the excruciating work (at least I would call it this) of modders and developers so I have more respect for them especially for you modders.

So you spent 3 years modding NWN1 and were burned out before even picking up NWN2? It would not have taken a year for you to learn the NWN2 toolset. That you were burned out on modding is not reflective of some lack in the NWN2 toolset or incredible difficulty.

I agree that for non-artists painting exterior areas can be challenging and intimidating. But considering that the game ships with dozens of pre-made exteriors and hundreds more are available for free, that is hardly a significant obstacle. Scripts and conversations are easier in NWN2.

I suggest when you no longer feel burned out you give NWN2 an honest effort. Using freely available areas and standard scripts it does not take that long to produce something enjoyable and playable.

Regards

[WhiteTiger]

How many exterior areas, how many interior? How many of the interiors are homes or inns that are essentially identical? How many of the exteriors are fairly non-descript? Obviously there would be challenges. But perhaps not years.

Regards

 

There is a lot of items, monsters, all placeables and there is also a lot of "action scripts" that must be created one by one

 

perhaps yes =/

[rjshae]

There is a lot of items, monsters, all placeables and there is also a lot of "action scripts" that must be created one by one

 

perhaps yes =/

 

All done in a matter of hours in NWN, naturally...

[Tchos]

Actually, most action scripts don't need to be created one by one in NWN2, because of parameterised general-use scripting.  Most common actions can be done with just the built-in scripts, and no need for making copies or changing them.

[Shallina]

Also many script from NWN actually works in NWN2.

[Tarot Redhand]

Let's clear a few things up. I chose not to go to the trouble of trying to make a module in NwN 2 entirely because of the sculpting tool. I happen to know my limitations and drawing is not one of my plus points. To be honest a penguin with saint vitas dance can probably draw better than I can. Therefore expecting me to create an exterior area using a tool that requires a level of dexterity beyond my capabilities is just not going to happen (in D&D terms I've probably got a dex of 7 or 8 and my perception of that tool is it has a minimum requirement of a 10 and recommendation of a 12). I had hoped to convert my NwN module "Hrothgar's Resting Place" to NwN2 but I don't think that is doable even with the pre-fabs available (but I really do stand to be corrected if I am wrong on this).

This does not mean I am entirely against NwN2. Heck, I pre-ordered it and stuck with it even though it took IIRC somewhere around 5 patches before it was properly playable. Also I have both expansions and MoW. In the past I have asked in the NwN2 threads for recommendations of user made modules to play. If you were to twist my arm and demand to know one feature of NwN2 that as a player I am so less than impressed with, it is the faux wide-screen used for some conversations that so many times has you looking at the back of a different NPC to the one you are talking to. Other than that I have no problems worth mentioning with the modules that I paid for.

But enough about me. The OP asked why NwN modders haven't migrated across to NwN2. Now here's the odd thing, they didn't ask this in the NwN community but here. If I was a totally unbiased outsider (which I am not) I would be asking myself "Why?", as it seems to be counter productive and illogical to do so. Surely if you want to know why a group of people behave in some manner the logical thing to do is to ask them in a place where you will actually get some answers from the only people who really know. What is even more surprising is that no one in the NwN2 community who have read and posted in this thread chose to point this out. Instead they mostly chose to denigrate a game that a lot of people still enjoy. They put words into our mouths and make sweeping statements and call us names. A most mature community is it not. And yes this is a sweeping generalisation but isn't that what has been happening here? At this point I suspect our mythical outsider would be wondering if this is not in reality an exercise in self-reassurance instead of a genuine desire for knowledge. On the off chance that there is actually a desire to know what the NwN community actually thinks on this matter I have created a thread that asks the original question but in the NwN threads.

Now let's look at tile-sets. While sculpting may have many asthetic advantages over them there a couple of things in tile-sets favour that haven't been mentioned. The first is that you can create random dungeons with them something that I don't think is anywhere near easy to do when you are working with sculptured terrain. This was taken advantage of in the "infinite dungeons" premium module. NwN is not the only game that has used tile-sets. One (I'm pretty certain it uses tile-sets just not 100% certain) that immediately springs to mind is "Hellgate London" which incidentally was released in 2007 (i.e. the year after NwN2's launch) and has randomly generated areas (Actually their community has released a combined patch/modding toolkit here). The other advantage is more one of perception. Due to the lower investment of time and effort required to build areas in NwN it is much less of an emotional wrench to discard areas (or even whole modules) when they turn out to not "work", whatever the reason, for you. Something I have taken advantage of over the years.

Given that the NwN2 toolset is inarguably so much more powerful than the NwN one I find I am curious about somethings. Now I genuinely don't know the answers to the following questions, which is why I am asking.

1. Have equivalents to the following NwN user created systems been made?
   1. D20 modern
   2. Hard Core Ruleset (aka HCR)
   3. Classic Roleplay Adaptation Project (aka C.R.A.P.(that is its official acronym))
   4. Player Resource Consortium (aka PRC)
2. What about Spelljammer? Can you create Atmosphere, Phlogiston or Wild-Space areas with the NwN2 toolset?
3. Are there decent cave (as opposed to mine) entrances and exits among the custom content created for NwN2? I ask this because in the oc (and expansions) there only seemed to be mines and the entrances/exits had doors.
4. Are there any placeable buildings?

To clear up a misconception. The majority of the stuff from the old vault was transferred to the new vault over a year ago. Not by any stretch of the imagination can it be said that all of it has made it to being accessible for download yet. But it is being transferred to where it can be accessed by users even if somewhat slowly. So, as one of those that did some of the transferring in the early days, and as a person who has respect for both you and your work, I have to say that you were not entirely accurate kamal_ when you posted message number 21 on page 2 of this topic. The reason that there seem to be flurries of activity with old stuff surfacing is because they are being transferred from a user inaccessible part of the new vault to one where they can be downloaded. Recently this has been done in batches when the people doing the transferring have the time.

Now prior to writing this (occasionally rambling) post I went back over all 6 pages of this topic and with the exception of just one message (by Jfoxtail page 4 message 24) you would get the impression that every module/pw was of the highest quality. This surely can't be true can it? In order to balance this I offered my honest opinion on the only user made module that I have so far played. I did not "attack" the module, I just gave my honest opinion of it. I did not attack the author or those who had played it. While I expect an author to defend their work I do expect them to be polite in their response. When this author wasn't, I expressed my displeasure. I said that I wasn't a fawning fanboy (see research below). I neither said or implied, that those that liked this module were. The author's response to this was to invite me to take my views and use them for a suppository. Interesting concept (anatomically impossible but unteresting nonetheless). This author missed a golden opportunity. By coming out snarling with teeth bared and claws extended they lost the chance to ask certain pertinent questions. Such as Wasn't there anything you actually liked about the module? (answer yes) Was there anything you admired about the module? (answer yes). What precisely made you think that about the module? Could the module have been easily fixed if I saw what your problem was and agreed with it? (answer probably yes). Instead the author failed to realise that you can't please all of the people all of the time, that one negative review will have little to no impact on downloads and that with the (very probable) demise of the old vault that Hall Of Fame has less of a bearing these days.

Finally Iveforgotmypassword your comment on page 5 (message number 19) came across as at best patronising and at worst as insufferably smug. Was this your intention?

Research

Putting words into our mouths - Too numerous to mention
Making Sweeping Statements - again too numerous to mention
Name calling - Luminus Page 2 message 17 (calling us all fanboys),
Eguintir Eligard Page 4 message 10 (calling us idiots),
Dann-J page 6 message 3 (inferred that the previous poster had learning disabilities thus insulting to both said poster and to those with genuine learning disabilities)

TR