NWN Enhanced Edition Notes and Discussion

[Gorgon]

I also asked what happens during a MS outage. In Classic NWN there's a server flag to ignore it. Would not surprise me in the least if they left that one out.

Either way, if they won't commit to letting PW's manage their own authentication then I very strong advise against using NWN:EE for PW purposes.

Just did a quick test of the 2 flags for this, with no internet connection at all, while using the EE Linux server in a VM with EE connecting.

Code: Select all

Master Server Authentication Required For Player Login=1

This refuses player connections to the server, and allows them when set to 0

Code: Select all

Account validation required during Master Server down times=1

This shuts down the server's online connections.

When both are set to 0, I can connect. This is with an empty new test module. Forget using an Avlis module with no NWNX. It blows up real fast.

This doesn't mean much at this time, since they are planning all sorts of changes, and the Linux server is still an infant. They may decide not to allow them in the future, but having them allowed ~may~ mean we can continue to use the current alpha. I wouldn't be surprised if we lost our listing on the game client browser though, which would be bad (I couldn't see my own local VM with them switched, but this wasn't exactly a proper test). I also wouldn't be surprised if Beamdog's legal dept. clamped down hard on anyone posting ways of replacing their game server listing too, like we have with NWNCX and the current game.

---

People are trying all sorts of things with the early stuff, including tweaking the net code to allow access for EE clients to old servers (PJ mentioned that in his post), but that could stop working at any time with their updates. The reverse (old clients playing on updated EE servers) is unlikely, but I never say anything is impossible with this community. It is all wishing and dreaming ATM though, so don't assume anything that works now will continue working (not when lawyers and the almighty $dollar are back in the picture).

Until we get their totally redone NWNX source to update for Avlis, see what else they change before release, and get it all into some kind of test environment (which all needs people doing the work), I wouldn't assume anything. It's easy say we can do stuff, from a bunch of forum posts that other people made using their own servers, when they don't know what Avlis uses. I'd listen to PJ on that topic, since NWNX came from Avlis (far smarter people than me), and he's written/created or been involved with most, if not all, aspects of the very custom setup we have here.

People here are very aware of EE, and are looking at everything, so have some faith in the team (or apply to help even ).

[Sarmanos]

Some of the PW admins have been making unreasonable demands and even threats to protect their turf as far as player retention goes.

Did you actually read the concerns or did you dismiss them as poors? There are valid concerns beyond not willing to part with $20.

Since the kerfuffle I'm adding poor developer attitude as a big one. It could be a case of cranky software hack. We'll see if what was said gets walked back or not. If not I'd be very wary of trusting that outfit.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and venture that the claims of a substantial amount of remaining NWN persistent world players still being on Vista or even XP is being exaggerated greatly by those over there making said claim. I really doubt that all 7% of the remaining users with PCs online are still bothering with XP are playing NWN.

From what I've gathered of the doomsaying here and there I would be led to believe:

1) Current players won't buy it and pay $20 because the game is old and looks bad.
2) New people won't buy it and pay $20 because the game is old and looks bad.
3) Lapsed players that used to own it but stopped playing for whatever reason won't buy it and pay $20 because the game is old and looks bad.
4) No one will move forth because a lot of remaining players are apparently running on obsolete software and hardware that they can't afford to or otherwise won't upgrade.

I can tell you right now reasons 1-3 aren't true at all because games that arguably look worse than NWN get re-released and people buy them instantly with the promise that it has gotten some updates so that it works just as good if not better with whatever modern hardware or console they run it on, and this is with no real new additions to the game except HD graphics or higher res and widescreen if that. As for number four, unless I see some credible data, I'm gonna assume the number of people actively playing on PWs on an unsupported OS is maybe 50 tops and I am being extremely overly generous with that. The Windows XP usage market share is barely 7% now and Vista can't even manage a whole number.

I am willing to hear out any number of technical reasons that make moving forth prohibitive and risky, especially with the master server. The four reasons above though are just excuses to stubbornly hold out or otherwise attempt to rationalize not moving on for whatever internal real reason it is. I am truly sorry if anyone does genuinely get left behind because they just can't afford to get some more current hardware and software, but holding everything back just to retain an extreme extreme minority isn't fair to those who want a stable and relatively bug free NWN that isn't slowly falling apart on modern systems. It is also showing a mindset that there's a belief that there will be zero player gain and growth in NWN EE and that's it is better to hold out and stubbornly try to maintain what you have.

[Gorgon]

Wasn't the last post you made here (that you deleted) saying people are too fixated on that $20, after still miss-reading PJ's:

There are valid concerns beyond not willing to part with $20.

How about letting things sort themselves out for a little while, and at least see what is doable, before stirring up more torches and pitch forks.

[Gorgon]

If you haven't been keeping up with the weekly EE streams and updates, there's a lot changing every week (and breaking ).

The Beamdog forums are horrible for navigating and tracking things (and even searching sucks), so it is hard to follow the multiple posts and topics for all the requests and discussions. Thankfully Beamdog did a smart move and added a few Trello boards. One to to track their development , and another to gather all those ideas and requests together, and let everyone vote on them, so they can get a better feel for what matters to the majority of us.

The main Trello topic/forum is here: Welcome to the NWN:EE Trello Board Discussion, and it has more information, links to both Trello boards, and discussions about the "cards" that seem to be popular.

Trello is pretty simple. You log in, then vote for anything you think should be done, so those votes make a difference in what happens. You can also discuss those things after they get on Trello, in the forum for it (they make topics for anything popular).

Don't make the mistake of voting for everything that sounds good though. They can only do so much, so if everyone loves the idea of a total overhaul of the horse system, then that will eat up a bunch of dev resources that could be used to fix and change a bunch of other things instead. Also remember that a good chunk of those suggestion ideas are things that already have been done here or by the community, and it is just folks who want it built in the game itself that are asking for it (many are clueless about what already exists, or won't go near something complicated like NWNX and other stuff on the vault). A lot of those suggestions will totally break stuff we have right now too, and mean more work if/when we switch, but not much can be done about that.

Choose wisely, and no you can't have pink bunny ears on your pony!
*edits* That may be a lie with the model customization stuff they are talking about. It already has per part coloring, and some other fun stuff on the way, like model scaling. Adding bunny ears to things might be easy one day.

[GrimlyAxefingler]

Don't make the mistake of voting for everything that sounds good though. ......................................................... A lot of those suggestions will totally break stuff we have right now too, and mean more work if/when we switch, but not much can be done about that.

which topics are most beneficial to avlis? maybe a coordinated voting effort could push things in Avlis's favour.

[Nighthawk4]

Don't make the mistake of voting for everything that sounds good though. ......................................................... A lot of those suggestions will totally break stuff we have right now too, and mean more work if/when we switch, but not much can be done about that.

which topics are most beneficial to avlis? maybe a coordinated voting effort could push things in Avlis's favour.

That might be a good idea

[Gorgon]

Choose wisely, and no you can't have pink bunny ears on your pony!
*edits* That may be a lie with the model customization stuff they are talking about. It already has per part coloring, and some other fun stuff on the way, like model scaling. Adding bunny ears to things might be easy one day.

Just because I love to be wrong about this stuff: Costume VFX (head aligned)
More listed in this post, and around the vault.

No pony ears, but they already exist for PCs.

I saw several of the vfx sets listed there before, but don't remember the bunny ears one. There's so much out there that I still haven't seen on the vault and other places, all of it available for 1.69. Regular players and casual builders don't know about it, so they keep asking for everything to be added to EE. Then there's the big modding community who want to keep it out, so they can keep tweaking and improving it, without having to wait for a game update, or dealing with whatever restrictions come with it being "built in". Gonna be fun to see what happens there.

[Gorgon]

There have been a few web articles about EE so far, but a new one just came out that is a pretty good read:
How devs and fans are coming together to rebuild Neverwinter Nights

While they don't really say anything new (watch the weekly streams for that), it does rehash a bunch of different things they have been saying so far in one article.

The constant Arelith plugging in all the promo stuff they do is getting a bit obvious (read: annoying) now, with them saying their new staff used to (or do) work there, so hopefully they will start moving the spotlight around to other worlds soon.

Still no mention at all of where NWNX came from originally, and I have no clue how they can ignore the GPL, and redo it without even recognizing the origins of it (I'd ask my lawyer mum, but I never understand that legal stuff, heh).

[PlasmaJohn]

Still no mention at all of where NWNX came from originally, and I have no clue how they can ignore the GPL, and redo it without even recognizing the origins of it (I'd ask my lawyer mum, but I never understand that legal stuff, heh).[/i]

Simple, they wrote their own. They haven't used any of the old NWNX code.

[Gorgon]

Works for me then.

Like I said, I don't do the legal stuff, so if no one has any complaints with it, game on!

[Sarmanos]

Just a quick note, NWN EE is getting fully released on March 27th.

[Nighthawk4]

My copy doesn't work any more.

I updated it and verified it - all successfully - but now it just fails to run with error code 3221225781.

Coincidental that they are about to start selling the full version and my advance copy just stopped working?

[Elradra]

I just updated mine and was able to play just fine. Perhaps they just messed something up with linux compatibility by accident?

[Nighthawk4]

Windows, not Linux

[Sarmanos]

There will probably be another patch by or on release date, so maaaybe that will fix it? After that, unless something game breaking pops up they said they'll be slowing the patch cycle to have bigger patches so PWs aren't getting impacted every other day.

[Xaila]

The March 27 release seems to be for the Steam version only so far. No word on other distribution platforms yet like GoG. They have said that if you bought it direct from Beamdog, you'll get a Steam key. A bit odd to me that they're releasing there first and not via the Beamdog launcher itself...but it seems like they're using Steam for rolling out the weekly-ish dev builds.

[Xaila]

It's not quite auto downloads, but steam workshop seems useful for stuff like putting all your server's required downloads in one spot for easy access and minimal fuss? Not too many PWs functioning on Enhanced Edition right now, but a handful seem to have done that - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... 1323035693

[Nighthawk4]

Seems to be a problem with a missing DLL.

I have the installer for that from Beamdog but my Windows10 refuses to let it install - even with Run as Admin and an Admin ID.

I have found a guide on making Windows10 allow this to run (maybe). Will try when I get Home

[Nighthawk4]

I got it working!!

For some strange reason it allowed me to open the zipped file but not write the dll files.

The solution was to right-click the file, check the "unblock" box on the properties tab, where it says the file was downloaded from the Internet and then run as Admin. Now it works and so does the Beamdog Client and NWN:EE

All happy now

[Sarmanos]

NWN: Enhanced Edition is now fully released on Steam!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70445 ... d_Edition/

[Xaila]

I've been a bit out of the loop again lately due to RL/vacation/etc. and I'm not sure which patch(es) did it, but the NWN:EE version of the toolset seems to have fixed some of the very annoying slowdowns that people were experiencing with the standard 1.69 NWN one, especially on Windows 10. Previously it was taking me 10 to upwards of 15 seconds to open object properties, and now it takes about 3. They also added a double click feature to open the properties (handy) and made it so objects don't automatically move if you click them once (which was really annoying). I think they fixed some memory leaks. Note I've only used the Steam version of NWN:EE.

[Tel]

Can things be built using NWN:EE for Avlis or are there issues getting all the haks and whatnot loaded?

[Sarmanos]

Can things be built using NWN:EE for Avlis or are there issues getting all the haks and whatnot loaded?

No, assets created in the NWN EE toolset can't be backported to older versions of NWN. You can't even import it into the 1.69 toolset.

That said, the haks do load fine at least from my own admittedly brief tests.

The devil is in the details like NWNX, NWNTX (this is an extender for the toolset), and so on.

[Tel]

bah, was almost worth the purchase.

[Vorlis]

Hi all, old player from a very long time ago (like 10 years.) I saw the EE release on Steam and was consumed with nostalgia, so I picked it up! While I was doing so, I was thinking "Does Avlis still exist and will this be compatible???" Because that's what I was really nostalgic for! And whee, I remembered userid and password first try!

Reading through this thread a few times left me without a sense of what the state of compatibility is and what's needed, and whether the team is decided on if it's worthwhile (in a cost & effort vs. reward sense.) If it's not too much to ask, a recap would be nice.

Technically, what are the challenges as currently known? There was apparently a workaround earlier in the thread [poster Gorgon]. It felt insecure to me and probably obsolete.

There was some info about porting characters from an older version PW to a new version. Still feasible? Also I assume if you don't have your original CD key your are just out of luck?

Theres a lot of custom content for Avlis (which is a feature!!!). Some may be incompatible. Sarmonos did "brief tests". What's needed for fuller testing? Will there be things that can't be imported and must be abandoned or recreated?

Is there a budget need here? Or just paid for in team labor and frustration?

Has there been a poll or discussion along the lines of:

IF Avlis upgraded, I would...

(a) gleefully purchase NWN EE
(b) reluctantly purchase
(c) can't really justify the $20, would have to sadly leave
(c) can't afford to upgrade computer, would have to sadly abandon Avlis

Honestly I'm not really interested in any other PWs, even those connected to Avlis when I was playing didn't give me that Avlis tingle. And I don't want to force you to anything just for me... That being said, I'd love to visit Avlis again and if there's ways I might help, PM me.

4/6 update - got the diamond edition from GOG now. So one way or the other, I plan to visit Avlis again! All the stuff I wrote above is still meaningful to me.