A vocabulary guide to NWN, and NWN EE
mlkent22
Member Posts: 41
Greetings!
I have been reading through these forums for a few days now and have noticed in some of the requests some uncertainty of what to call specific parts to NWN. This is a guide for those unfamiliar with the large number of parts to NWN, and NWN EE.
PC- the player character. -this is a players toon, the one they have full control of.
NPC- Non Player Character/Creature this is any creature in the game that is not controlled by a player.
Item- this is something the PC can pick up in game, and possibly equiped. There are items that can not be equiped, these can be held in the PC inventory.
Placeable- these are the extra decoration items that are added to the areas of the game. A placeable can be a set to open with an inventory, or be static and not clickable by the player.
Script- this is the code that makes something happen. Scripts can be "fired" (set to run) when a PC enters, acquires, un-acquires, dies, re-spawns, or rests.
Area- The areas of the game are made with Tilesets. Tilesets can be indoor, outdoor, and even inside large creatures. Check the vault for that last one- there is a stomach tileset available!
O.C. The Original Campaign, the set of Modules that came with the initial release of NWN.
S.O.U The first expansion to NWN, Shadows of the Undrentide, which added new content and a new set of Mods to play.
HotU The last official expansion to NWN, Hordes of the Underdark. HotU added new content and new levels 21-40 to the PC.
Premium Module Mods made and released by Bio ware, Kingmaker, Witches Wake, Infinite Dungeons are all Premium Mods.
Hak: a hak is new content for the game. a hak can be a single item, creature, sound, portrait for a creature, or placeable, or a large combination of all of these things.
Mod: This is short for Module- a Mod is the file contains the areas that the player plays. A mod is the story- or lack there of that contains the areas, or area a PC explores. A Mod can be a single area, with nothing, or an entire adventure of hundreds of areas, monsters, and placeables. The O.C. S.O.U. and HotU stories are Mods.
P.W. Persistent World, this is a Mod that is hosted for play for Multi-player. A PW usually has some sort of consistency. As an example, many PW have the scripting in place that if you log out with a dead PC, that PC will still be dead when the player logs back in. The PW is multiplayer, but multiplayer is not necessarily on a PW.
C.E.P The CEP is a Hak set. It contains a large amount of content made by members of the NWN community. The CEP has had a long time status of the popular Hak to have for PWs, and has had several updates and additions, along with changes of management.
Project Q Q is also a Hak set that contains a large amount of content. Much of the base of that content was made by the Q team, some of who worked on the Darkness over Daggerford Premium Mod. Q in my opinion has better quality than the CEP, all be it less quantity. Q tends to asthetically match the Castle Rural tileset that was apart of the 1.69 patch.
The Vault This is the place to get community made content for NWN. there are thousands of haks, mods, scripts, portraits, and starting builds that are free to DL and use. there are active community members who answer questions and offer help with scripting needs. The vault is your friend! https://neverwintervault.org/
Feel free to add to this list!
I have been reading through these forums for a few days now and have noticed in some of the requests some uncertainty of what to call specific parts to NWN. This is a guide for those unfamiliar with the large number of parts to NWN, and NWN EE.
PC- the player character. -this is a players toon, the one they have full control of.
NPC- Non Player Character/Creature this is any creature in the game that is not controlled by a player.
Item- this is something the PC can pick up in game, and possibly equiped. There are items that can not be equiped, these can be held in the PC inventory.
Placeable- these are the extra decoration items that are added to the areas of the game. A placeable can be a set to open with an inventory, or be static and not clickable by the player.
Script- this is the code that makes something happen. Scripts can be "fired" (set to run) when a PC enters, acquires, un-acquires, dies, re-spawns, or rests.
Area- The areas of the game are made with Tilesets. Tilesets can be indoor, outdoor, and even inside large creatures. Check the vault for that last one- there is a stomach tileset available!
O.C. The Original Campaign, the set of Modules that came with the initial release of NWN.
S.O.U The first expansion to NWN, Shadows of the Undrentide, which added new content and a new set of Mods to play.
HotU The last official expansion to NWN, Hordes of the Underdark. HotU added new content and new levels 21-40 to the PC.
Premium Module Mods made and released by Bio ware, Kingmaker, Witches Wake, Infinite Dungeons are all Premium Mods.
Hak: a hak is new content for the game. a hak can be a single item, creature, sound, portrait for a creature, or placeable, or a large combination of all of these things.
Mod: This is short for Module- a Mod is the file contains the areas that the player plays. A mod is the story- or lack there of that contains the areas, or area a PC explores. A Mod can be a single area, with nothing, or an entire adventure of hundreds of areas, monsters, and placeables. The O.C. S.O.U. and HotU stories are Mods.
P.W. Persistent World, this is a Mod that is hosted for play for Multi-player. A PW usually has some sort of consistency. As an example, many PW have the scripting in place that if you log out with a dead PC, that PC will still be dead when the player logs back in. The PW is multiplayer, but multiplayer is not necessarily on a PW.
C.E.P The CEP is a Hak set. It contains a large amount of content made by members of the NWN community. The CEP has had a long time status of the popular Hak to have for PWs, and has had several updates and additions, along with changes of management.
Project Q Q is also a Hak set that contains a large amount of content. Much of the base of that content was made by the Q team, some of who worked on the Darkness over Daggerford Premium Mod. Q in my opinion has better quality than the CEP, all be it less quantity. Q tends to asthetically match the Castle Rural tileset that was apart of the 1.69 patch.
The Vault This is the place to get community made content for NWN. there are thousands of haks, mods, scripts, portraits, and starting builds that are free to DL and use. there are active community members who answer questions and offer help with scripting needs. The vault is your friend! https://neverwintervault.org/
Feel free to add to this list!
11
Comments
WTF! = Wizards To the Forums!
GTFO = Gnomes Truelly And Frankly Overpowered
FU = Falchions Useless
Mod often means "modification" i.e. any sort of fan-made contribution to NWN. Module is just one kind of mod, in that sense. Using the whole word is unambiguos.
The wiki is a really useful glossary & guide. I find it best to search with Google or whatever:
nwnwiki [keyword]Calling NWNX a "script system" is similarly confusing, I think
NWNX is an open-source, community-made extender of NWN's capabilities, giving you access to new functions, or unhardcoding things that might have been untouchable without it. It's the only way to use an external database, and is where EE's area instancing (and a few other things!) started from. Some have even used it to to allow their scripts to be written in higher-level languages.
Now that NWN is being actively worked on again, more things that were once NWNX-only may well become part of EE, while others may be too niche/advanced or just not fit scope of "base game" - which is where NWNX can shine. The new NWNX that's being developed alongside EE is still working on its* Windows support, but once done it's supposed to be much easier to write plugins that are automagically cross-platform - so in a way, this is just a short-term outage on the way to stronger support! Pretty much a forever-newb in all areas though sooo nothing I say is gospel, hehe.
*Sorry to sherincall and Liareth for making it sound like "Windows Support" is just some process that happens in the background by itself !
The term Mod, has been associated as Module since the initial release of NWN rather than as a new content/ change to the game. In NWN this makes the most sense since in the NWN file tree, the mod folder is for modules. It also has been re-enforced with the 3 ways to add new content/ changes to the the base game. Either by Hak, Override, or Patch.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050401000000*/forums.bioware.com