I'd like to see evidence that EE is generally incompatible with existing modules - otherwise we should dismiss it as the fake news it truly is. I've published my findings on this site more than once - so far, everything tested has been compatible, except 3 community tilesets which are rarely used (and now fixed) and two very trivial graphical glitches (see my bug reports).
Anyone can see the ceiling issue for themselves by downloading any community tileset with ceilings and putting a dragon in it.
The plain fact is that NWN was designed primarily for building modules (including PWs) which has produced a wealth of excellent work. No one who built a module ever harmed anyone else's campaign.
In contrast, overrides which affect every module are using an emergency backdoor as an exploit. They can and do cause serious compatibility issues when playing modules. Over the years, there have been many well-documented examples in the forums, too numerous to recap in detail.
However, I've recently recognised that EE is likely to attract more newcomers who don't understand or respect our traditions. Sadly, we now live in a world where many feel entitled to spam or hack to their heart's content, regardless of the harm to others. So, I'm making constructive proposals on how Beamdog can help module builders to defend ourselves, and on how the well-intentioned global modder can behave honourably...
...but there will always be those who don't listen and remain in denial, preferring paranoid insults to serious discussion. Whatever.
so @Proleric to the ideology the new players "infect" the development of NWN: EE with ideas that break the compatibility ruining "your" modules and those of other people ... but then tell me my little boy, why ...people like @Andarian modder of Sanctum of the Archmage: Enhanced Edition and @Savant1974 of Aielund Saga: Enhanced Edition, are you making changes you have modules? not because the first time they tested the modules in NWN: EE were not compatible they were not, but they are making changes using the new scripts to "improve" their content and new graphic options to make their universes more intriguing, and clear that on many things some modd year had some conflicts but it is normal this depends on the storage limit of NWN, but apart from them I have not seen other people or modders "old guard" of NWN, post its modules showing the changes you make with the EE, why? I think because they are perhaps too proud of their work thinking that as they are well and that any change you make to the game and the kind "sacrilege! breaks my game ... my texture!", I think that in addition to @Shadooow you, Savat and Andarian of NWValut people there is not much visibility ... it seems cone if the community of NWN is closed in a pore world apart, in which that comes from outside they do not enter and already excluded, because the new and innovative things are evil, and that is anti-progressive because if you are tied back to the past and do not improve as we hope to improve NWN: EE. so just whine and try to be "all open" to ideas and changes.
Ceilings would be great. But if the monsters can chase you from area to area, such as the dragon. There needs to be a way for a script to check and see if such a large creature comes into the area so the ceilings can be turned off.
This would also be true if we get scaling for characters, creatures and objects. The turning off and on of the ceilings needs to be done by scripts. If it is done through scripts then old modules will not be broken and the best way to opt into using the ceilings. (this is just my idea of how to handle it, if it can be done that is)
Ceilings would be great. But if the monsters can chase you from area to area, such as the dragon. There needs to be a way for a script to check and see if such a large creature comes into the area so the ceilings can be turned off.
This would also be true if we get scaling for characters, creatures and objects. The turning off and on of the ceilings needs to be done by scripts. If it is done through scripts then old modules will not be broken and the best way to opt into using the ceilings. (this is just my idea of how to handle it, if it can be done that is)
I don’t see how any of that would be backward compatible.
How do I change my vote on this poll? I didn’t realize it was proposing a non-backward compatible retro-fit of existing Tilesets. Or am I missing something?
already the fact that most of the existing mods in NWValut is not compatible with NWN: EE makes you already understand that ... by force of things every single mod (those not compatible) must be updated, so from that point of view for me BD has partly failed on the compatibility side, so do not come to tell stories and fantasies about "BD must maintain compatibility" because this does not it's true, compatibility or not BD will have to break something to make the game better.
If we can turn them off with a setting on a given area, then I don't mind; otherwise, I'd prefer not.
We have outdoor areas built using things like the caves & mines tileset. Built-in ceilings tend to limit some of the tilesets from doing stuff like that.
I definitely agree with this. If adding an area switch isn't possible for Beamdog to do, I would definitely switch to No if I could.
@HunterRayder93 : Please do not presume to speak for me. For the record, I agree with @Proleric’s remarks here.
no, my wanted to be an example to make understand that modder like tea and Savat, make changes to make changes in EE.i was not talking for you mine was just a reference (not a talk about other people),
Ceilings would be great. But if the monsters can chase you from area to area, such as the dragon. There needs to be a way for a script to check and see if such a large creature comes into the area so the ceilings can be turned off.
This would also be true if we get scaling for characters, creatures and objects. The turning off and on of the ceilings needs to be done by scripts. If it is done through scripts then old modules will not be broken and the best way to opt into using the ceilings. (this is just my idea of how to handle it, if it can be done that is)
I don’t see how any of that would be backward compatible.
How do I change my vote on this poll? I didn’t realize it was proposing a non-backward compatible retro-fit of existing Tilesets. Or am I missing something?
actually with the changes to the scripts to change the size of a creature this should not be a problem there..and we are a little more open, in any case you have confused yourself with this judgment of @raz651 but I think that here is a bit of a probelma enerale ... is not reflected before writing and then you immediately think "No no no this is not good, break my form, scio scio scio" here ... I think this and the general thought ... on the other hand, if you stop for a moment, reflect and try to create a meaningful discourse, then you can find a meeting point.
already the fact that most of the existing mods in NWValut is not compatible with NWN: EE makes you already understand that ... by force of things every single mod (those not compatible) must be updated, so from that point of view for me BD has partly failed on the compatibility side, so do not come to tell stories and fantasies about "BD must maintain compatibility" because this does not it's true, compatibility or not BD will have to break something to make the game better.
Every word of that is absolutely false.
sorry rifelttiun moment if you think many old modd that are never astatine updated etc..oppure that exploited the CPP those modd or Hack that are already broken for me because the old CPP corrected things that were partially adjusted in previous version of Head-Start quidni for me those modules are already incompatible unless the modder wants it or not and is not too proud to change it making it compatible with EE.
Imo, if ceilings are added, they need to be high enough to fully display biggest vanilla dragon.
Ah but this is part of the issue and the reason for discussion. What if someone thinks the ceilings should be 3 dragons high? Or even higher in some huge underground dwarven city. Maybe someone else thinks they should be only high enough to fit a half orc character. Maybe it completely depends on what a builder has envisioned for a particular area. Could need to be higher or lower. There is also the problem of huge sprawling empty looking ceilings that go on for miles (I tried the haks too) and look worse than having no ceiling. How do we handle all of this? I really do like some of the ceilings and they could be a nice feature. But just so long as you have a simple check box in each area so builders can turn then on or off.
Backwards compatibility is king, but I don't see why this can't be a default: opted out, but available opt-in feature.
Area properties: Show Ceiling, or better yet, have it take the place of Skyboxes (as I've already previously mentioned), meaning that no old modules are ever broken with this.
If the old modules want to utilize new ceilings, they can always be opened up, and have the skyboxes changed to 'ceiling'
New tilesets yes (where applicable), old tilesets no (If there is some manner of default-off builder switch to display or not, then sure, though I'd personally rather they tackled the "hard" stuff... Builder-control switches are a different topic altogether but one worth talking about and voting on, so in that sense if we get more suggestions that module-builders only want if such toggles exist, it may encourage development in that direction :P)
Backwards compatibility is king, but I don't see why this can't be a default: opted out, but available opt-in feature.
That's the thing.
Almost every feature request in this forum has some form of compromise ending in "Well lets just make this a toggle" in which case... Why is development time and money being put into a feature only some people will use some of the time?
I would rather have one difficult to add feature that everyone benefits from rather than 3 half cocked features people can toggle off.
Backwards compatibility is king, but I don't see why this can't be a default: opted out, but available opt-in feature.
That's the thing.
Almost every feature request in this forum has some form of compromise ending in "Well lets just make this a toggle" in which case... Why is development time and money being put into a feature only some people will use some of the time?
I would rather have one difficult to add feature that everyone benefits from rather than 3 half cocked features people can toggle off.
Which is a perfectly fine argument. Then it comes down to considerations of how hard this is to implement, and what the adoption rate of it is.
I for one, would definitely use ceilings given the option, but if it's very difficult to add, then I agree that it is probably not worth it.
Backwards compatibility is king, but I don't see why this can't be a default: opted out, but available opt-in feature.
That's the thing.
Almost every feature request in this forum has some form of compromise ending in "Well lets just make this a toggle" in which case... Why is development time and money being put into a feature only some people will use some of the time?
I would rather have one difficult to add feature that everyone benefits from rather than 3 half cocked features people can toggle off.
Which is a perfectly fine argument. Then it comes down to considerations of how hard this is to implement, and what the adoption rate of it is.
I for one, would definitely use ceilings given the option, but if it's very difficult to add, then I agree that it is probably not worth it.
And already made available by the community.
Personally, I want to see Beamdog spend time and money on making things I can't just download from The Vault.
Almost every feature request in this forum has some form of compromise ending in "Well lets just make this a toggle" in which case... Why is development time and money being put into a feature only some people will use some of the time?
I would rather have one difficult to add feature that everyone benefits from rather than 3 half cocked features people can toggle off.
This. Thank you.
I have limited time to post on the forums this week, but I just want to say that I am very much opposed to proposals like this. I'm supporting NWN:EE precisely because I understood that Beamdog's vision was not to "blow up" existing content in this way.
I'm not really sure how adding ceilings you can toggle on and off or even other features on a whim is "blowing up" existing content. In my eyes, its not so much as a "half cocked" feature as much as it is "giving people options," which seems like a nice fit in a game that already gives you lots of options in normal play. If it takes away from the development of something else that's more important then obviously they should be managing their time better, but its inclusion would be a nice quality of life feature. As I said above, though, if they don't implement it as opt-in I'm against it due to reasons others have stated.
Imo, if ceilings are added, they need to be high enough to fully display biggest vanilla dragon.
Ah but this is part of the issue and the reason for discussion. What if someone thinks the ceilings should be 3 dragons high? Or even higher in some huge underground dwarven city. Maybe someone else thinks they should be only high enough to fit a half orc character. Maybe it completely depends on what a builder has envisioned for a particular area. Could need to be higher or lower. There is also the problem of huge sprawling empty looking ceilings that go on for miles (I tried the haks too) and look worse than having no ceiling. How do we handle all of this? I really do like some of the ceilings and they could be a nice feature. But just so long as you have a simple check box in each area so builders can turn then on or off.
This interest me. I would like to see a selection for different ceiling heights, this would give buildings, caves and dungeons a variety of different over all feeling. Ceiling height to be chosen by area or scripted by position. It could give that illusion of walking into a large cavern.
Also if we could get a character crouch we can have areas only accessible by small or crouching characters.
I'm not really sure how adding ceilings you can toggle on and off or even other features on a whim is "blowing up" existing content. In my eyes, its not so much as a "half cocked" feature as much as it is "giving people options," which seems like a nice fit in a game that already gives you lots of options in normal play. If it takes away from the development of something else that's more important then obviously they should be managing their time better, but its inclusion would be a nice quality of life feature. As I said above, though, if they don't implement it as opt-in I'm against it due to reasons others have stated.
Did you try the experiment I suggested? Paint a dragon in any community tileset with ceilings? Then you will see why it breaks existing stuff.
I can assure you that authors would not waste time posting here if compatibility were not a major issue for us.
Giving people choices is fine, but not at the expense of actively damaging other people's work.
Fortunately, there is a solution, which has been mentioned many times. If potentially incompatible changes have an option switch, which defaults to "off" for existing modules but "on" for the OC and new modules, then everyone wins. Players get all the new features, but the old modules still work.
(...) why ...people like @Andarian modder of Sanctum of the Archmage: Enhanced Edition and @Savant1974 of Aielund Saga: Enhanced Edition, are you making changes you have modules? (...)
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but the reason I recently updated one of my mods is that it contained bugs (and still does, for that matter, but not game-breaking ones hopefully) and it used older rules (NWN ca. 1.62 or something). I didn't update the mod BECAUSE of the EE, I updated the mod because I wanted to fix some game-breaking bugs and update the rules to 1.69 and make it playable with NWN Diamond Edition (1.69) - that it happens to be perfectly playable in the EE also is just a bonus. And the reason it does work is because Beamdog (so far) only has introduced new visual options and new scripting features in EE (which I can't use in the DE, but further development using the EE will allow it, though the mod THEN won't be playable in DE anymore, since those features don't exist there...), but not, say, changed tilesets or fundamentally altered the game mechanics in another way.
And now the short version: mods created with "old" (non-EE) toolsets will generally be playable in the EE regardless. Mods created in the EE however, using new features, will most generally NOT be playable in "old" NWN.
I welcome ceilings and other improvements, but they must be implemented thoughtfully - if they DO break old modules, it's probably best not to implement them. However, there are ways to do this properly - e.g. if this option by default is off, then there are no ceilings. If the builder enables them (generally by ticking a box in the area properties) then that area has ceilings, though it won't break older modules that were built with no ceiling in mind (i.e. like those that use the Underdark tileset for exterior areas).
already the fact that most of the existing mods in NWValut is not compatible with NWN: EE makes you already understand that ... by force of things every single mod (those not compatible) must be updated, so from that point of view for me BD has partly failed on the compatibility side, so do not come to tell stories and fantasies about "BD must maintain compatibility" because this does not it's true, compatibility or not BD will have to break something to make the game better.
Every word of that is absolutely false.
I agree with @Andarian here. I think you will find that MOST mods on the NWVault for NWN1 actually DO work fine with the EE (though there may be graphical glitches with older stuff that e.g. use the pre-1.66 female heads, like my Eryndlyn mod did). However, you have to install them using the rules that come with the EE, which means that the mods go to the modules folder in \mydocs, not the install directory. Same goes for haks etc. Naturally, if you put things in the wrong places, they won't work.
I'm not really sure how adding ceilings you can toggle on and off or even other features on a whim is "blowing up" existing content.
As I wrote earlier, I don't have much time to comment on the forums right now. I'll try to get back to it a bit over the weekend. But on the question of whether baking what is essentially a "ceiling facelift" into the core game's existing assets could have deleterious effects on existing modules, I'd just like to point to something I wrote on the Neverwinter Vault forums recently:
Basically, I tried installing a "forest facelift" hak in my first mod. It broke two cutscenes in the first three minutes by introducing new foliage right in front of the camera. And I think it illustrates one of many reasons why people should be extremely circumspect about making demands on the forums that Beamdog "facelift" the game's existing assets. Even seemingly innocuous and well meaning changes of this kind will mess up, or even break, existing mods.
I strongly agree with @Proleric here. Something like this would need to be done in such a way that it was an option that had to be turned on by the module developer. (And in that case, I'm not sure I see the point.) Anything else risks spreading ruin throughout a priceless RPG game archive of custom modules -- one that needs to remain playable in NWN:EE for it to succeed.
Builders like Proleric and I are still around to fix our work -- at least, for now. Most of those other authors are not. I think we should think twice before playing with matches in the Library of Alexandria.
EDIT: Another couple of quick points.
- Players can already do this with existing override mods. For the reasons I stated above I advise players to do this with great caution, but it’s by no means something Beamdog needs to implement. - My modules were updated years ago to use tileset haks that added ceilings, or to add them as placeables. I had to do a lot of work to handle exactly the kind of exceptions being described here (like golems and a dragon that would have had those ceilings go right through their bodies). Getting that sort of thing right requires effort on the part of the builder. - I didn’t start work on the Sanctum of the Archmage: EE Edition to make the mods compatible with NWN:EE. As others have also pointed out, the Enhanced Edition is already being developed to be compatible with existing mods. I started modding again because I was excited about the announcement. It motivated me to make new improvements, and to continue new development work that I’d stopped years ago.
While I personally prefer tilesets with ceilings, I don't think they should be something that is included with the core game. The community has already created ceilings for just about every one of the BioWare tilesets and there are numerous custom tilesets that include ceilings.
From a content creator and builder's perspective, if I need a ceiling for an area I'll just modify the tile myself.
As for fading, I can see where having an option to just have ceilings turned off might be a good thing for players. Right now I have this, imho, wonderful looking tavern group that has a ceiling with beams. From the top down, the ceiling is invisible, but the beams and wall tops remain. Thus, it can be a little hard to navigate from that perspective.
@Andarian The textureless part of an object is normally completely transparent, meaning ceilings can't block the camera unless they clutter it with useless details. Assuming they do, I understand your concerns, which is why I've been asking for it to be opt-in on an area by area basis - as in, you have to turn it on manually - and if Beamdog wasn't willing to add it this way I'd be opposed to this. Unless I've misunderstood something, I think we're actually in agreement here, so I apologize for any misunderstanding.
Guys...just take for example NWN2 there are ceilings in the Tileset and disappear when playing in 3rd person and appear when playing in the 1st person, then the fact of the size of the creatures is not a problem if they add a script to decrease or enlarge models of NPCs, creatures etc ... (I do not remember if it was already put) so it should not be a problem ... and of course ... a cave with the blue sky for example breaks a bit immersive, but having the Celling comuqnue repeat, could open the doors to several new options, make the walls streaked with paintings, trophies of tapestries ... in short ... makes the environments less "in heaven".
But I agree with the idea in part to use an on-off option to hide Ceiling in Tileset in such a way that compatibility does not break, then obviously it is up to the modders to decide whether or not to put Ceiling in determining internal areas .
Some good points all around. I suggest as a compromise that all the original indoor tilesets be redone with ceilings and given new resrefs so that we get the choice to use the new without disrupting the old. This has been done before by the CEP- and others to avoid the it will break existing content problem that does indeed show up when changing the basic game.
Comments
https://trello.com/c/5y5SXG2h/134-add-an-option-to-have-indoor-ceilings
I'd like to see evidence that EE is generally incompatible with existing modules - otherwise we should dismiss it as the fake news it truly is. I've published my findings on this site more than once - so far, everything tested has been compatible, except 3 community tilesets which are rarely used (and now fixed) and two very trivial graphical glitches (see my bug reports).
Anyone can see the ceiling issue for themselves by downloading any community tileset with ceilings and putting a dragon in it.
The plain fact is that NWN was designed primarily for building modules (including PWs) which has produced a wealth of excellent work. No one who built a module ever harmed anyone else's campaign.
In contrast, overrides which affect every module are using an emergency backdoor as an exploit. They can and do cause serious compatibility issues when playing modules. Over the years, there have been many well-documented examples in the forums, too numerous to recap in detail.
However, I've recently recognised that EE is likely to attract more newcomers who don't understand or respect our traditions. Sadly, we now live in a world where many feel entitled to spam or hack to their heart's content, regardless of the harm to others. So, I'm making constructive proposals on how Beamdog can help module builders to defend ourselves, and on how the well-intentioned global modder can behave honourably...
...but there will always be those who don't listen and remain in denial, preferring paranoid insults to serious discussion. Whatever.
This would also be true if we get scaling for characters, creatures and objects. The turning off and on of the ceilings needs to be done by scripts. If it is done through scripts then old modules will not be broken and the best way to opt into using the ceilings. (this is just my idea of how to handle it, if it can be done that is)
How do I change my vote on this poll? I didn’t realize it was proposing a non-backward compatible retro-fit of existing Tilesets. Or am I missing something?
I really do like some of the ceilings and they could be a nice feature. But just so long as you have a simple check box in each area so builders can turn then on or off.
Area properties: Show Ceiling, or better yet, have it take the place of Skyboxes (as I've already previously mentioned), meaning that no old modules are ever broken with this.
If the old modules want to utilize new ceilings, they can always be opened up, and have the skyboxes changed to 'ceiling'
Almost every feature request in this forum has some form of compromise ending in "Well lets just make this a toggle" in which case... Why is development time and money being put into a feature only some people will use some of the time?
I would rather have one difficult to add feature that everyone benefits from rather than 3 half cocked features people can toggle off.
I for one, would definitely use ceilings given the option, but if it's very difficult to add, then I agree that it is probably not worth it.
Personally, I want to see Beamdog spend time and money on making things I can't just download from The Vault.
I have limited time to post on the forums this week, but I just want to say that I am very much opposed to proposals like this. I'm supporting NWN:EE precisely because I understood that Beamdog's vision was not to "blow up" existing content in this way.
Also if we could get a character crouch we can have areas only accessible by small or crouching characters.
I can assure you that authors would not waste time posting here if compatibility were not a major issue for us.
Giving people choices is fine, but not at the expense of actively damaging other people's work.
Fortunately, there is a solution, which has been mentioned many times. If potentially incompatible changes have an option switch, which defaults to "off" for existing modules but "on" for the OC and new modules, then everyone wins. Players get all the new features, but the old modules still work.
And now the short version: mods created with "old" (non-EE) toolsets will generally be playable in the EE regardless. Mods created in the EE however, using new features, will most generally NOT be playable in "old" NWN.
I welcome ceilings and other improvements, but they must be implemented thoughtfully - if they DO break old modules, it's probably best not to implement them. However, there are ways to do this properly - e.g. if this option by default is off, then there are no ceilings. If the builder enables them (generally by ticking a box in the area properties) then that area has ceilings, though it won't break older modules that were built with no ceiling in mind (i.e. like those that use the Underdark tileset for exterior areas).
Graphical Updates: Pros and Cons
Basically, I tried installing a "forest facelift" hak in my first mod. It broke two cutscenes in the first three minutes by introducing new foliage right in front of the camera. And I think it illustrates one of many reasons why people should be extremely circumspect about making demands on the forums that Beamdog "facelift" the game's existing assets. Even seemingly innocuous and well meaning changes of this kind will mess up, or even break, existing mods.
I strongly agree with @Proleric here. Something like this would need to be done in such a way that it was an option that had to be turned on by the module developer. (And in that case, I'm not sure I see the point.) Anything else risks spreading ruin throughout a priceless RPG game archive of custom modules -- one that needs to remain playable in NWN:EE for it to succeed.
Builders like Proleric and I are still around to fix our work -- at least, for now. Most of those other authors are not. I think we should think twice before playing with matches in the Library of Alexandria.
EDIT: Another couple of quick points.
- Players can already do this with existing override mods. For the reasons I stated above I advise players to do this with great caution, but it’s by no means something Beamdog needs to implement.
- My modules were updated years ago to use tileset haks that added ceilings, or to add them as placeables. I had to do a lot of work to handle exactly the kind of exceptions being described here (like golems and a dragon that would have had those ceilings go right through their bodies). Getting that sort of thing right requires effort on the part of the builder.
- I didn’t start work on the Sanctum of the Archmage: EE Edition to make the mods compatible with NWN:EE. As others have also pointed out, the Enhanced Edition is already being developed to be compatible with existing mods. I started modding again because I was excited about the announcement. It motivated me to make new improvements, and to continue new development work that I’d stopped years ago.
From a content creator and builder's perspective, if I need a ceiling for an area I'll just modify the tile myself.
As for fading, I can see where having an option to just have ceilings turned off might be a good thing for players. Right now I have this, imho, wonderful looking tavern group that has a ceiling with beams. From the top down, the ceiling is invisible, but the beams and wall tops remain. Thus, it can be a little hard to navigate from that perspective.
TR
But I agree with the idea in part to use an on-off option to hide Ceiling in Tileset in such a way that compatibility does not break, then obviously it is up to the modders to decide whether or not to put Ceiling in determining internal areas .