Module: Neverwinter Nights and the Binding Formula Ch.1: You gotta go to these four places and do these four things before you can go to this fifth place and do this fifth thing. Ch.2: You gotta go to four more places and do four more things before you can go to this other fifth place and do this other fifth thing. Ch.3: Alright, we're shaking things up a little this time - now you gotta go to these three places and do these three things before you get to do the final thing. Ch.4: Holy shit, are you still with us? I honestly can't remember much what happens in this chapter but it probably involving going to a number of places and doing things there, then you actually get to the climax!
@BelleSorciere - I must apologise, I got annoyed by the dismissive tone in the original comment and decided to be an ass about it to you. I hope you can forgive my idiocy.
I see what you mean. When Beamdog make a new Module or Campaign there gonna have to avoid this type of formula and really get the player involved, instead of just being pick up and delivery man...or woman.
I'm very disappointed because in the last live stream it seems that Treant does not want to make any changes for any reason, and the umpteenth time I hear those words ... I say ... we're not thinking about asking us to completely redirect the campaigns there ... in short, we just want you to adjust the quests cut for all the content for example, update the henchman's HoTU system for all the available campaigns and that's it ... you have to add the missing weapons of all the expansions.
This we ask ... but if Treant does not understand peace ... I'm beginning to understand that they bet more on PW than to those single-palyer players, and this is not right because the comunity is not just that.
But BD's peace of mind at this point, it will mean that the game will buy him only the PW players and the single palyer users will get him to smear.
It's not like it's PW or official campaigns. There's also modules.
Yes. Thank You.
Any attempt to depict an antagonism between the interests of PW and SP players on this issue is absolutely false. As a purely SP modder, I want to say emphatically that the poster Belle is responding to does not speak for me, nor for many others like me. There is no "we" representing the SP player community as a whole demanding updates to the NWN OCs. In fact, many of us (such as myself) are supporting the EE precisely because Beamdog has laid out a strategy that emphasizes backward compatible engine upgrades that enable new content development that is up to modern standards.
According to the streams Trent is playing the OC and has commented on how bad it is and despite this he's still not interested in Enhancing the games original modules. It's not likely to happen but even if it did what would we get? With that lack of enthusiasm we'd likely get more inferior modules. Our only hope is Trent learning from his gameplay and they make a Campaign worth buying. I'm not buying an updated engine, I need superior Modules made by Beamdog.
According to the streams Trent is playing the OC and has commented on how bad it is and despite this he's still not interested in Enhancing the games original modules.
I'd think, at least in part, because of it. Why is a mediocre OC (in the opinion, as you say, of its lead designer, no less) worth fixing up, and at exorbitant cost? When those resources could instead be devoted to enabling and creating new, modern content?
Our only hope is Trent learning from his gameplay and they make a Campaign worth buying. I'm not buying an updated engine, I need superior Modules made by Beamdog.
I'd certainly like to see new, high quality campaigns built and/or commissioned by Beamdog in a modernized NWN engine. But isn't that the whole point of modernizing the engine in the first place? To enable what you're hoping for here?
I'm also curious. Why are "superior modules" built for free in a modern game engine by experienced modders not good enough for you? I think that NWN's modding community has demonstrated over the last decade and a half that it's pretty good at this.
I was talking about "Superior Modules" compared to the official releases, the OC was lame, XP 1&2 was much better but needed more work, and the Premium modules where left in limbo never to be completed. These are only some of the problems and what I want Beamdog to learn from, if they're only interested in new content they need to make a Campaign worth buying. As for Community made Modules I'm interested in what Beamdog can make and after I'm finished with that I'll check out Community Modules later on down the road.
As for Community made Modules I'm interested in what Beamdog can make and after I'm finished with that I'll check out Community Modules later on down the road.
Then you're missing what made NWN great. Modules like the Aielund Saga, Swordflight, Sanctum of the Archmage, and so so so many more.
Is that what a game is suppose to be? The community content is far better than the paid content, along time ago I played community content and it great but right now I want Beamdog content.
Is that what a game is suppose to be? The community content is far better than the paid content, along time ago I played community content and it great but right now I want Beamdog content.
Personally Treant has disappointed me greatly, as long as at least update the HoTU companions system to SoU and OC and make the SP players happy, give us even new henchmen who can cover the discrepancies, maybe some multi-class character like a cleric / thief like Drona TrapSpringer (I hope you call it so in game) in SoU for example ... do a similar job to the BG series here.
I repeat the players are not asking to redo the content, we just want to fix the cut content and improve the quality of life in the experience of official campaigns ... come on Treant ... come on against ....
If anyone would like to help work on this project please get with me. Long as you have the time and want to learn you can. I didn't know how to do anything I do now a little over a year ago.
The goal is to rework all the standard tilesets without messing up the walkmesh for any of them. I would like to add ceilings to all the interior tilesets as well.
If anyone would like to help work on this project please get with me. Long as you have the time and want to learn you can. I didn't know how to do anything I do now a little over a year ago.
I find your project ambitious, a small masterpiece! I saw the photos on the page of your project and I must say that I am stunned ... but even if I like this one side and I put it on the other side I would not mind if BG was also doing projects of reverberation, this shows how can make nicer NWN: EE without changing the graphics too much, I reiterate the thought, for me by BG I expect a similar treatment to the BG and IWD series I would like new characters, quality of life improved from every point of view, not only for the builders and the editor Aurora but also for the SP and MP users, system of follow us updated for all campaigns base HoTU, in short and this I hope they do, but if trent refuses to listen to our ideas we can not do anything we will remain with the idea of an uncertain future for NWN: EE.
That said, most of the people at Beamdog seam to be scripters/coders to me. If you listen when they say they are hiring they are asking for more coders/scripters. If you look at the work they have done and are still working on it mainly has to do with coding/scripting. When they talk about models they say things like we might do something like X, Y, or Z. Or they say something like we will need to look into doing something like X, Y, Z.
What I'm getting at is if we as the community would like to see something done when it comes to scripting/coding then I think Beamdog is the ones to turn to. I think they can and would be willing to take care of scripts/coding if enough people wanted it.
However if we the community want better looking models with more polly's and or better textures. Then I really don't think your going to see much of that coming from Beamdog. We as the community are going to have to do this work if we want it.
I could be totally wrong on all this, but from everything I have read and heard from Beamdog this is what I took away from it.
However if we the community want better looking models with more polly's and or better textures. Then I really don't think your going to see much of that coming from Beamdog. We as the community are going to have to do this work if we want it.
I believe that the community must take care to create new content, not to modernize existing content, something that BG should do instead, for years from the point of view the community has done nothing (in most of the projects I see) to settle the BUGs and the aesthetic problems and not of NWN what an official developer should do instead as he has the knowledge of the scripting code, just tell stories efantasie that BG does not have the resources to do that, stop useless justifications just to scale the own theory, for me my iea and so BG modernize system bugs etc ... "update" we should create new content ebasta, we are not developers.
I'm not sure how long you have been in the NWN community but I have been here since 2002 and I have to say the best custom content for NWN1 has been made by the community hands down.
There are tilesets, creatures, character models, and so much more that was and is made by the community that is far far better looking then anything Boiwares ever made in my opinion any way.
That said the one thing I always heard from the community is your can't do this or you can't do that because its hard coded. This is where Beamdog comes in, because they can unlock/change the hard code and open the game up to the community more then it has ever been.
Is that what a game is suppose to be? The community content is far better than the paid content, along time ago I played community content and it great but right now I want Beamdog content.
Actually, it is (as far as I know). The idea was to give a great tool to DMs around the world to make their campaigns "alive", so everyone could see their characters, monsters, the dice rolls and all calculations would be easier and so on. The official campaign (OC) was an example of that many instruments and demonstration of what those tools can do. The rest on the official modules are the true modules/campaigns from professionals. But OC - just an example.
I totally agree with Treant - OC has to be cut and changed to become an interesting story (oh, thouse absolutely endless repetitive dungeons filled with identical mobs and trapped locked chests containing 3 golds each!). So "additional content to OC" would not do it for me. For the rest - sure, but OC needs to be changed entirely (or not changed at all story-quest wise but get QoL changes, like companions inventory).
Yeah the loot is so lame. If I was making an engine and campaign I'd definitely want my content to be all it could be and give high value for players, without players coming back your not gonna keep making money. If they did overhaul the OC I'm sure Beamdog could make a much better campaign but at the moment I don't see it happening.
Well if they wanted to redo the story/quests that wouldn't have anything to do with models and or tilesets so it wouldn't effect other peoples content. So you never know, other then they keep saying they don't want to do anything with the old content.
I have started on the Castle Interior Tilesets as well, which I'm adding ceilings and reworking it to match/blend with what I have done with the City Tileset so far.
It's been a while but I seem to remember that you could make changes to the official campaigns if you wanted, but you couldn't post them online for anyone else to use. If Beamdog could change that then fans could make whatever updates or changes they wanted and share them with the world, much as they did with the Infinity Engine games. I imagine that's not in the cards contractually, though. Perhaps a special set of overrides for the official campaigns? That would probably involve cost prohibitive amounts of work though.
...for years from the point of view the community has done nothing (in most of the projects I see) to settle the BUGs and the aesthetic problems and not of NWN what an official developer should do instead as he has the knowledge of the scripting code...
First of all, yes it has. Second, scripting knowledge is not the issue here. The community has no lack of expertise in this area. We can and have already created sophisticated scripting systems for NWN that go well beyond what Bioware did for the OCs.
What we need is someone to modernize the source code. To fix and to expose hard-coded features of the engine, so that the game can be more effectively customized. To enable passing parameters into scripts. To bring the renderer up to date with 2018 standards, by supporting things like shaders and higher-resolution models and textures. All of this is necessary as a pre-requisite to making anything even remotely resembling an "Enhanced" version of the game.
I think it would be a fine thing if Beamdog built a new adventure with new content. But EE does not require anything of the kind to be successful. As the Premium Modules Program proved (to say nothing of the modding community as a whole over the years), high-quality NWN adventures do not need to be created by the game's developer. They can be commissioned from indie studios that would form to build them (as DLA and Ossian did, until Atari killed most of those projects).
The community can make brilliant custom content like this tileset. We can use the toolset to make great adventures. What we can't do (as voidofopinion aptly put it on another thread) is fix the parts of the game that require access to the source and engine code.
It's been a while but I seem to remember that you could make changes to the official campaigns if you wanted, but you couldn't post them online for anyone else to use. If Beamdog could change that then fans could make whatever updates or changes they wanted and share them with the world, much as they did with the Infinity Engine games. I imagine that's not in the cards contractually, though.
As I recall, Trent's already stated on the forums that this would be fine. I'll see if I can find a link to the post.
Comments
Module: Neverwinter Nights and the Binding Formula
Ch.1: You gotta go to these four places and do these four things before you can go to this fifth place and do this fifth thing.
Ch.2: You gotta go to four more places and do four more things before you can go to this other fifth place and do this other fifth thing.
Ch.3: Alright, we're shaking things up a little this time - now you gotta go to these three places and do these three things before you get to do the final thing.
Ch.4: Holy shit, are you still with us? I honestly can't remember much what happens in this chapter but it probably involving going to a number of places and doing things there, then you actually get to the climax!
@BelleSorciere - I must apologise, I got annoyed by the dismissive tone in the original comment and decided to be an ass about it to you. I hope you can forgive my idiocy.
When Beamdog make a new Module or Campaign there gonna have to avoid this type of formula and really get the player involved, instead of just being pick up and delivery man...or woman.
https://trello.com/c/h3niGMzG/117-new-content-for-oc-sou-hotu
Trent's not giving any hope for this to happen
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/68351/community-cut-original-campaign-rus-eng
This we ask ... but if Treant does not understand peace ... I'm beginning to understand that they bet more on PW than to those single-palyer players, and this is not right because the comunity is not just that.
But BD's peace of mind at this point, it will mean that the game will buy him only the PW players and the single palyer users will get him to smear.
Any attempt to depict an antagonism between the interests of PW and SP players on this issue is absolutely false. As a purely SP modder, I want to say emphatically that the poster Belle is responding to does not speak for me, nor for many others like me. There is no "we" representing the SP player community as a whole demanding updates to the NWN OCs. In fact, many of us (such as myself) are supporting the EE precisely because Beamdog has laid out a strategy that emphasizes backward compatible engine upgrades that enable new content development that is up to modern standards.
It's not likely to happen but even if it did what would we get? With that lack of enthusiasm we'd likely get more inferior modules.
Our only hope is Trent learning from his gameplay and they make a Campaign worth buying.
I'm not buying an updated engine, I need superior Modules made by Beamdog.
I'm also curious. Why are "superior modules" built for free in a modern game engine by experienced modders not good enough for you? I think that NWN's modding community has demonstrated over the last decade and a half that it's pretty good at this.
These are only some of the problems and what I want Beamdog to learn from, if they're only interested in new content they need to make a Campaign worth buying.
As for Community made Modules I'm interested in what Beamdog can make and after I'm finished with that I'll check out Community Modules later on down the road.
I repeat the players are not asking to redo the content, we just want to fix the cut content and improve the quality of life in the experience of official campaigns ... come on Treant ... come on against ....
Neverwinter Nights Revamped
If anyone would like to help work on this project please get with me. Long as you have the time and want to learn you can. I didn't know how to do anything I do now a little over a year ago.
The goal is to rework all the standard tilesets without messing up the walkmesh for any of them. I would like to add ceilings to all the interior tilesets as well.
That said, most of the people at Beamdog seam to be scripters/coders to me.
If you listen when they say they are hiring they are asking for more coders/scripters.
If you look at the work they have done and are still working on it mainly has to do with coding/scripting.
When they talk about models they say things like we might do something like X, Y, or Z.
Or they say something like we will need to look into doing something like X, Y, Z.
What I'm getting at is if we as the community would like to see something done when it comes to scripting/coding then I think Beamdog is the ones to turn to. I think they can and would be willing to take care of scripts/coding if enough people wanted it.
However if we the community want better looking models with more polly's and or better textures. Then I really don't think your going to see much of that coming from Beamdog. We as the community are going to have to do this work if we want it.
I could be totally wrong on all this, but from everything I have read and heard from Beamdog this is what I took away from it.
There are tilesets, creatures, character models, and so much more that was and is made by the community that is far far better looking then anything Boiwares ever made in my opinion any way.
That said the one thing I always heard from the community is your can't do this or you can't do that because its hard coded. This is where Beamdog comes in, because they can unlock/change the hard code and open the game up to the community more then it has ever been.
I totally agree with Treant - OC has to be cut and changed to become an interesting story (oh, thouse absolutely endless repetitive dungeons filled with identical mobs and trapped locked chests containing 3 golds each!). So "additional content to OC" would not do it for me. For the rest - sure, but OC needs to be changed entirely (or not changed at all story-quest wise but get QoL changes, like companions inventory).
If I was making an engine and campaign I'd definitely want my content to be all it could be and give high value for players, without players coming back your not gonna keep making money.
If they did overhaul the OC I'm sure Beamdog could make a much better campaign but at the moment I don't see it happening.
What we need is someone to modernize the source code. To fix and to expose hard-coded features of the engine, so that the game can be more effectively customized. To enable passing parameters into scripts. To bring the renderer up to date with 2018 standards, by supporting things like shaders and higher-resolution models and textures. All of this is necessary as a pre-requisite to making anything even remotely resembling an "Enhanced" version of the game.
I think it would be a fine thing if Beamdog built a new adventure with new content. But EE does not require anything of the kind to be successful. As the Premium Modules Program proved (to say nothing of the modding community as a whole over the years), high-quality NWN adventures do not need to be created by the game's developer. They can be commissioned from indie studios that would form to build them (as DLA and Ossian did, until Atari killed most of those projects).
The community can make brilliant custom content like this tileset. We can use the toolset to make great adventures. What we can't do (as voidofopinion aptly put it on another thread) is fix the parts of the game that require access to the source and engine code.
EDIT: Here it is.