@Shin You're kidding right? With how many things are STILL hardcoded? Unity and Unreal can be fully moddable with dev support. There's nothing to the IE that many other engines don't offer, and better.
That's why I support GPL'ing the engine itself, or some other disencumbering of the engine code such that it can be both publicly accessed and freely redistributed, though the process itself would be encumbered by the hardcodiness. Particularly in cases where non-engine assets are hard-coded into the engine.
I recant what I stated before about reverting the combat UI's behavior to 1.67 status. I've been so wrapped up in my outright contempt, disgust, hatred and rage for this bug, that I wasn't thinking clearly. My apologies to the NWN Community and the Gaming Community as a whole.
@Beamdog Both Whirlwind Attack and Improved Whirlwind Attack should remain being done at full base attack bonus. However, there are still corrections to the combat UI that must be made for the quality of life of NWN:EE.
1. The extra attacks granted by Attacks of Opportunity, Flurry of Blows and Haste should all be done at full base attack bonus, subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated. Also, both FoB and Haste attacks should be done at the beginning of a character's attack schedule for the round, not at the end.
2. Circle Kick should grant one free unarmed attack per round to a nearby target at the same base attack bonus of the attack that triggered it, subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
3. Both Cleave and Great Cleave attacks should be done at the same base attack bonus of the attack that dropped the previous target(s), subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
4. There should be no, I repeat, no additional penalties applied to the above attacks or any attacks for that matter, other than the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
5. All attacks per round should be done in sequence from highest base attack bonus to lowest base attack bonus. Currently, the combat UI arranges a character's attacks out of sequence during every round of combat.
For the love of God, please drive a wooden stake through the heart of this damn bug, stuff its mouth with holy wafers, cut off its head, and drag both pieces of its carcass into direct sunlight at high noon. Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
@Pokota Alas. I think the various licences around BG may well prevent this let alone the question of why would BD want to do this anyway.
The first part of the statement may very well be true, or not, we don't know the license owners' opinions on this matter. As for why a developer/license owner might decide to make their game engine open source, the answer is manyfold. The IE:EE still has numerous bugs which Beamdog has been struggling to fix in a timely manner, and the player community could help alleviate the problem if they also had access to the code. It could also help keep the games future-proof beyond the point where official development stops due to dwindling sales. Modders could explore exciting new possibilities, like support for AI-enhanced high-res graphics. Last but not least, the IE games are timeless cultural milestones, and at the point where Beamdog stops maintaining them, unless it's made open source the official engine's development will probably stop for good, with nobody left to work out the remaining bugs or add new features, which I think we can all agree would be a shame.
It's also worth pointing out that the engine being open source wouldn't necessarily mean the games couldn't still be sold as products. The developers could make the engine open source and still charge for the content files that make up the rest of the games, without which they aren't playable.
@Shin You're kidding right? With how many things are STILL hardcoded? Unity and Unreal can be fully moddable with dev support. There's nothing to the IE that many other engines don't offer, and better.
Really? I'm not that familiar with Unity, but as for Unreal, games like the Mass Effect trilogy and the new X-Com games come to mind, and while they're both somewhat moddable, they're not nearly as accessible as the IE games, and there are other differences on top of that:
- If you have to depend on dev support and bottom-up design in order to mod your game, you're already at a disadvantage. Games usually aren't developed to be extensively moddable through easy means, and even some who have that aim from the start still end up being less than moddable in the end due to different priorities in the development process. The IE isn't as moddable as it is because it was designed that way; rather the fanbase adapted tools for it that ended up being more effective for changing the game than what the original developers used.
- As far as I can tell, there's little translatability. Even if you've worked out how to mod Mass Effect fairly well, that doesn't mean you'll be able to jump right into modding X-Com or Gears of War. On the other hand, if you know how to mod Baldur's Gate, your knowledge of that will help a lot with attempting to mod the other IE games.
@Shin " If you have to depend on dev support and bottom-up design in order to mod your game, you're already at a disadvantage."
That's almost exactly how it works though. Modding in the old IE engine was incredibly basic and very restricted. Mods are only able to do what they can do now BECAUSE Beamdog specifically opened up a lot of the coding.
If you look at the games with the best mod support, its specifically the devs either designed it that way on purpose at first, or opened it up later at customer request.
@Shin " If you have to depend on dev support and bottom-up design in order to mod your game, you're already at a disadvantage."
That's almost exactly how it works though. Modding in the old IE engine was incredibly basic and very restricted. Mods are only able to do what they can do now BECAUSE Beamdog specifically opened up a lot of the coding.
What? Not so at all. I agree that with the EE engine more options have opened up, but most of those are fairly specific and for fairly advanced modders. If you consider the mods and modding options available pre-EE, they were, by any measure, extremely generous, and not because of design. Take a look at the Big World Project; it predates the EEs by years, and originally came into being due to the need for a compatibility guide for the various mods available. Tools like WeiDU, Near Infinity, DLTCEP and the various Keeper programs all come from the modding community and have nothing to do with the original developers, nor with Beamdog. It took literally years before the mods available for the EEs could match the ones available before them. Furthermore, even this many years later, all but a few mods (albeit an ever-growing number) that are compatible with the EEs are also compatible with the base (ToB engine) games.
If you look at the games with the best mod support, its specifically the devs either designed it that way on purpose at first, or opened it up later at customer request.
This kind of goes back to my original point. Consider the BG:EE and BG2:EE development and support processes. Some things that were supposed to happen roughly on release didn't, and support and updates that were supposed to be provided later on weren't, or were heavily delayed. And this was with the way already paved: it was a continuation of the same engine, the workings of which were widely known; and there was a very active modding scene available, some of the members of which were recruited into Beamdog. Do you think that if they'd taken on a new engine unfamiliar to them and built a new game from scratch without all those pieces already in place, that they'd somehow magically end up with a more mod-friendly and more bug-free game? I just don't see the odds being in favour.
(And this isn't meant as criticism of Beamdog, rather a consideration of how this kind of stuff tends to happen in spite of the best intentions.)
@Shin That entire post is wrong. I'm sorry, but this discussion is just going to go around in circles until you actually educate yourself on what modding for IE was ACTUALLY like before the EEs and after. And then compare that to absolute EASE that something like Torchlight 2 or how literally anything Bethesda DEPENDS on mods to succeed.
@ThacoBell I wasn't aiming to get into a lengthy discussion but rather in brief provide some examples of how modding was very much a thing and could get a whole lot done before the EEs -- but by all means, if you think there was such a significant division of before and after with their advent, feel free to educate me on a few of the ways in which the EEs revolutionized IE modding, and what kind of previously impossible mods they resulted in. Like I said I agree there are differences, but you're overstating them.
@ThacoBell and @Shin as someone waiting in case I get an answer to a question I asked BD I have a question for you both. Wouldn't what you are discussing be better continued either in a thread of its own or via pm's?
Non-game related question: I have tried seeking an option to update the email address currently linked to my Beamdog account on https://www.beamdog.com since it no longer works, but there doesn't seem to be one available at this time. I can only change my password and nothing else. I would hate to delete my account in order to update my information, as that would mean having to repurchase all my games just to access them through the Beamdog Client again. What's the best way for me to do this? Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
Non-game related question: I have tried seeking an option to update the email address currently linked to my Beamdog account on https://www.beamdog.com since it no longer works, but there doesn't seem to be one available at this time. I can only change my password and nothing else. I would hate to delete my account in order to update my information, as that would mean having to repurchase all my games just to access them through the Beamdog Client again. What's the best way for me to do this? Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
I already know that general users can't see that information, sir, so how are we supposed to get that information? Through a PM? An announcement? Patch notes? I don't mean to bug you guys (no pun intended) about this, and I realize you're working on finally releasing patch 2.6, but I'm at my wit's end with this thing. I simply cannot take having these constant, cumulative negative modifiers in my single-player game anymore. I swear to God, if this bug were alive, I would have killed it a long time ago. That's why I reactivated my subscription to World of Warcraft. I'd rather pay a subscription to play a game I know will work as intended, than play a game I've already bought twice over with an annoying bug virtually old enough to start its Freshman year of High School. Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
Of course, there will be patch notes. We always release patch notes when there is a patch. You can't see what is fixed until then (except for the cases when the fix is announced in advance).
Are there any plans to bring the two recent pc dlc modules to consoles? I have them on pc, but am hoping I can eventually play them on console as well. Thanks.
More of the same: are there plans for bringing new (old) modules or giving access to more PW for the console players?
If you have plans for a “Leto” kind of module for Switch I wouldn’t mind - just so you know...
The two recent PC modules to consoles is a slight maybe. It might happen eventually but we can't confirm that at this moment. As for other modules or more PWs on console - no information at this time as well.
The rules on the console are pretty rough regarding any modifications of game files, so the chances of something like you suggest are slim.
Not sure this is the right place to ask: I noticed that I do not get a notification when someone quotes what I wrote. Is this normal behavior or is there anything I can do to get notifications in this case if someone replies to what I wrote without tagging me explicitely, too? This is not what "Notify me when people comment on discussions I've participated in." in the Notification Settings is referring to, is it?
The forum software doesn't provide an option to get notified when your answers are getting quoted.
@JuliusBorisov Just informing you that I have submitted NWNS-2748 as my support ticket regarding my Beamdog account's email address. I couldn't delete my account anyway, because the confirmation link to delete my account had been sent to the email address that no longer works. I swear, this is material written for a sit-com.
Of course, I realize I can't see what has been fixed until the patch notes have been released. I've always known that. I was put into a frenzy and temporarily forgotten, after one of your "junior" developers responded to my inquiry regarding the attack bonus miscalculation bug report I made on the deactivated Redmine. This is what he had to say:
"Ultimately, this is likely something that will have to be dismissed, since correcting it could cause a lot of damage to existing continually developing communities, who are very careful with how the numbers translate to power for all of their PC and NPC instances, whereas, the benefits to some slightly more favorable rolls has less impact on a single player game beyond the presence of something more benignly fixable like a dialogue typo. Small changes to things like Red Dragon Disciple to make them finally work in a less silly manner than Bioware’s original hack, for instance, have garnered a lot of rage from the player community when their fixes for Bioware’s version suddenly were breaking a fixed ability score bonus system. Players are extremely sensitive to combat changes."
Extremely sensitive to combat changes? Extremely sensitive to combat changes? You're damn right. I happen to be one of those players extremely sensitive to combat changes. Ever since Patch 1.6H8 applied penalties where there should not be any, combat in NWN has felt like a slap in the face after a kick to the balls. The only damage I have seen caused in the last fourteen years is the damage to my calm. Once again, sir, I beg of you and the Beamdog Development Team: Please don't dismiss this bug.
Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
Edit: Mr. @TarotRedhand has been patiently waiting for an answer to his question. My apologies for indirectly overshadowing his plight. @TarotRedhand Please forgive me, good sir.
@jastey It's around about halfway down on the previous page. Giving a link wouldn't help that much as, unlike Discourse, this forum software doesn't link directly to a message, just a page of messages. It's that far back because (in part at least) various people got sidetracked responding to each other.
@Prince_Raymond That's the one. Thanks for the link. @jastey I didn't know that. I'm so used to just scrolling to a post in Discourse (we use it on the vault) and grabbing the link from the address bar without having to do anything else.
@TarotRedhand my pleasure! That's one of the things one needs to know. Once you know it, you start to find these direct links in all forums (and don't give up clicking around in the posts until you do. At least that's how I discovered it.)
Don't worry, if you hadn't told me about the edit I wouldn't have known. To address such things about forum software you (or BD themselves hint, @JuliusBorisov) might like to create a thread that tells people about such things. One like I created and pinned over on the vault (which it seems loads of people miss anyway cest la vie) called "A Short Tour of These Forums" to help people navigate Discourse's foibles.
I am currently sitting on some stuff that relies on 2 of the texture maps that we were told were coming before the new renderer was cancelled. Are we likely (note I am not asking for certainty nor any dates here) to get glow and/or height maps any time in the future. Of those 2, the glow maps are the more important.
TR
Waiting for someone else from the team for an ability to reply. Sorry about the wait.
What happened to the project of making new high poly models like the weapons and hall of justice that were released? Was it cancelled or continued?
We're not ready to comment about them. Right now, we're fully focused on the Dev build that is available and work with the feedback to it we're getting.
Comments
That's why I support GPL'ing the engine itself, or some other disencumbering of the engine code such that it can be both publicly accessed and freely redistributed, though the process itself would be encumbered by the hardcodiness. Particularly in cases where non-engine assets are hard-coded into the engine.
TR
@Beamdog Both Whirlwind Attack and Improved Whirlwind Attack should remain being done at full base attack bonus. However, there are still corrections to the combat UI that must be made for the quality of life of NWN:EE.
1. The extra attacks granted by Attacks of Opportunity, Flurry of Blows and Haste should all be done at full base attack bonus, subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated. Also, both FoB and Haste attacks should be done at the beginning of a character's attack schedule for the round, not at the end.
2. Circle Kick should grant one free unarmed attack per round to a nearby target at the same base attack bonus of the attack that triggered it, subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
3. Both Cleave and Great Cleave attacks should be done at the same base attack bonus of the attack that dropped the previous target(s), subject to the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
4. There should be no, I repeat, no additional penalties applied to the above attacks or any attacks for that matter, other than the -2 penalty from FoB while it is activated.
5. All attacks per round should be done in sequence from highest base attack bonus to lowest base attack bonus. Currently, the combat UI arranges a character's attacks out of sequence during every round of combat.
For the love of God, please drive a wooden stake through the heart of this damn bug, stuff its mouth with holy wafers, cut off its head, and drag both pieces of its carcass into direct sunlight at high noon. Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
Edit: Added text to line 1. Added line 5.
The first part of the statement may very well be true, or not, we don't know the license owners' opinions on this matter. As for why a developer/license owner might decide to make their game engine open source, the answer is manyfold. The IE:EE still has numerous bugs which Beamdog has been struggling to fix in a timely manner, and the player community could help alleviate the problem if they also had access to the code. It could also help keep the games future-proof beyond the point where official development stops due to dwindling sales. Modders could explore exciting new possibilities, like support for AI-enhanced high-res graphics. Last but not least, the IE games are timeless cultural milestones, and at the point where Beamdog stops maintaining them, unless it's made open source the official engine's development will probably stop for good, with nobody left to work out the remaining bugs or add new features, which I think we can all agree would be a shame.
It's also worth pointing out that the engine being open source wouldn't necessarily mean the games couldn't still be sold as products. The developers could make the engine open source and still charge for the content files that make up the rest of the games, without which they aren't playable.
Really? I'm not that familiar with Unity, but as for Unreal, games like the Mass Effect trilogy and the new X-Com games come to mind, and while they're both somewhat moddable, they're not nearly as accessible as the IE games, and there are other differences on top of that:
- If you have to depend on dev support and bottom-up design in order to mod your game, you're already at a disadvantage. Games usually aren't developed to be extensively moddable through easy means, and even some who have that aim from the start still end up being less than moddable in the end due to different priorities in the development process. The IE isn't as moddable as it is because it was designed that way; rather the fanbase adapted tools for it that ended up being more effective for changing the game than what the original developers used.
- As far as I can tell, there's little translatability. Even if you've worked out how to mod Mass Effect fairly well, that doesn't mean you'll be able to jump right into modding X-Com or Gears of War. On the other hand, if you know how to mod Baldur's Gate, your knowledge of that will help a lot with attempting to mod the other IE games.
That's almost exactly how it works though. Modding in the old IE engine was incredibly basic and very restricted. Mods are only able to do what they can do now BECAUSE Beamdog specifically opened up a lot of the coding.
If you look at the games with the best mod support, its specifically the devs either designed it that way on purpose at first, or opened it up later at customer request.
What? Not so at all. I agree that with the EE engine more options have opened up, but most of those are fairly specific and for fairly advanced modders. If you consider the mods and modding options available pre-EE, they were, by any measure, extremely generous, and not because of design. Take a look at the Big World Project; it predates the EEs by years, and originally came into being due to the need for a compatibility guide for the various mods available. Tools like WeiDU, Near Infinity, DLTCEP and the various Keeper programs all come from the modding community and have nothing to do with the original developers, nor with Beamdog. It took literally years before the mods available for the EEs could match the ones available before them. Furthermore, even this many years later, all but a few mods (albeit an ever-growing number) that are compatible with the EEs are also compatible with the base (ToB engine) games.
This kind of goes back to my original point. Consider the BG:EE and BG2:EE development and support processes. Some things that were supposed to happen roughly on release didn't, and support and updates that were supposed to be provided later on weren't, or were heavily delayed. And this was with the way already paved: it was a continuation of the same engine, the workings of which were widely known; and there was a very active modding scene available, some of the members of which were recruited into Beamdog. Do you think that if they'd taken on a new engine unfamiliar to them and built a new game from scratch without all those pieces already in place, that they'd somehow magically end up with a more mod-friendly and more bug-free game? I just don't see the odds being in favour.
(And this isn't meant as criticism of Beamdog, rather a consideration of how this kind of stuff tends to happen in spite of the best intentions.)
TR
https://forums.beamdog.com/profile/edit/Prince_Raymond
I dont know, If that changes your E-Mail for Beamdog aswell.
Good luck!
It does not. They are considered separate. You need to contact support. Uh, good luck with that. Its been incredibly unreliable since it changed.
Please contact us at https://beamdog.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portals and we'll handle that.
Not sure, really. All will depend on what the final list of changes is. Usually, mods do require updates after patches.
Of course, there will be patch notes. We always release patch notes when there is a patch. You can't see what is fixed until then (except for the cases when the fix is announced in advance).
The two recent PC modules to consoles is a slight maybe. It might happen eventually but we can't confirm that at this moment. As for other modules or more PWs on console - no information at this time as well.
The rules on the console are pretty rough regarding any modifications of game files, so the chances of something like you suggest are slim.
The forum software doesn't provide an option to get notified when your answers are getting quoted.
Probably significant, if the team hasn't been considering it as they go forward.
Of course, I realize I can't see what has been fixed until the patch notes have been released. I've always known that. I was put into a frenzy and temporarily forgotten, after one of your "junior" developers responded to my inquiry regarding the attack bonus miscalculation bug report I made on the deactivated Redmine. This is what he had to say:
"Ultimately, this is likely something that will have to be dismissed, since correcting it could cause a lot of damage to existing continually developing communities, who are very careful with how the numbers translate to power for all of their PC and NPC instances, whereas, the benefits to some slightly more favorable rolls has less impact on a single player game beyond the presence of something more benignly fixable like a dialogue typo. Small changes to things like Red Dragon Disciple to make them finally work in a less silly manner than Bioware’s original hack, for instance, have garnered a lot of rage from the player community when their fixes for Bioware’s version suddenly were breaking a fixed ability score bonus system. Players are extremely sensitive to combat changes."
Extremely sensitive to combat changes? Extremely sensitive to combat changes? You're damn right. I happen to be one of those players extremely sensitive to combat changes. Ever since Patch 1.6H8 applied penalties where there should not be any, combat in NWN has felt like a slap in the face after a kick to the balls. The only damage I have seen caused in the last fourteen years is the damage to my calm. Once again, sir, I beg of you and the Beamdog Development Team: Please don't dismiss this bug.
Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
Edit: Mr. @TarotRedhand has been patiently waiting for an answer to his question. My apologies for indirectly overshadowing his plight. @TarotRedhand Please forgive me, good sir.
Even a short one making use of the new visual capabilities?
What happened to the project of making new high poly models like the weapons and hall of justice that were released? Was it cancelled or continued?
TR
TR
Example: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143831/#Comment_1143831
Thank you for reading, and happy (healthy) gaming to all.
TR
Ediit: Sorry, accidentally tagged Prince_Raymond instead, first.
-Sorry for OT.
TR
Waiting for someone else from the team for an ability to reply. Sorry about the wait.
Never say never.
We're not ready to comment about them. Right now, we're fully focused on the Dev build that is available and work with the feedback to it we're getting.