Going Hakless?

[Legacy_Numos]

               For a long time I've eroneously assumed that at this stage of NWN's life that the use of haks was a given. That with so much beauitful custom content availible no one was going to tolerate the old 2002 clothing and tilesets from when the game was released. But I've found recently a small number of servers that use no haks (but offer a number of optional overrides) that are doing quite well. When I check my server logs I sometimes find people who try to join, are either missing or haven't updated their CEP, and never come back for another look.

I thought the days of people just browsing through servers were over. Maybe this changed with GoG?

So I'm curious as to everyone else's thoughts on not using haks in order to make a server more accessible to players? Is there a significant enough population within the playerbase that's leary of downloading them?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lightfoot8]

               My feeling is that games af all types are needed.  It is true that most people who have been playing this game for years, have no problem downloading a Hak to play on a PW.  That is al long as the location to download the haks is easiely found.  

But even many of old players  may have never  gotten to that point if there where not some hakless servers around when they started to play.   In my opinon,  If NWN lost all hakless servers, It would cut the number of new playes that join multiplayer games in at least half.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_acomputerdood]

               my server (dalakora.com) only uses CEP v2.1.  no other haks are necessary to create tons of custom content if you're handy with scripting.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               Likewise, we use CEP2.1, so users with CEP 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and iirc even 2.4 can join our server with no problems. We still find some without CEP, usually gog.com'ers or NWN purists. We get good 'browsing' traffic, and retain a good number of regulars from that pool too. Scripting is key to making a NWN module come alive, that is certain.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ruadhri10]

               I'm one of those gog.com'ers, and yes it took me a little while to learn how much better hak-pack content is than the 2002 default content.

We're not lazy, I promise, we are just learning about 10 years of change and community content development...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Numos]

               Oh, I didn't mean to imply GOG'ers were lazy! But I noticed, for example, that CEP 2.4 is packaged as a rar file with no installation instructions. Plus when you get the error message for not having the correct haks NWN doesn't really explain how to fix the problem. Now granted all servers with haks should have their forum address in their module description at least... but...

I would imagine if you're just trying out multiplayer and can't log onto one server, and don't know much about custom content or even that its possible... why not go somewhere else?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Numos, 14 juin 2012 - 12:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Knight_Shield]

               When I was a new player I was very annoyed that when I tried to join servers ,kept saying you dont have this hak.No idea what it meant.

Later a friend showed me how to install haks and played on servers with them.

I still find haks annoying but I like some custom content.

I would say a computer friendly person wont have a problem but someone who games and only knows where the power button is you will loose them.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               This game would really need something better than gamespy server browser integrated.

I think it would be possible to create a web-application that will show all servers (easiest to do would be by adding a server manually by admin on ask) that will allow to run nwn with the server ip. But the most advantage would be direct link for download required files.

Biggest problem would be to convince this community to use it though.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 14 juin 2012 - 02:38 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tyndrel]

               

Numos wrote...

I noticed, for example, that CEP 2.4 is packaged as a rar file with no installation instructions.

Following a discussion on the old CEP forum I put this together, it is also available on the CEP 2.3/2.4 NWVault page under the title "Downloading_and_Installing_CEP.pdf". I hope this helps.




P.S. CEP has new forums but it is a bit quiet there at the moment,  please drop by and make some noise!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tyndrel, 14 juin 2012 - 03:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Groove Widdit]

               Is my mod gonna suck if I don't use haks?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ruadhri10]

               

Numos wrote...
I would imagine if you're just trying out multiplayer and can't log onto one server, and don't know much about custom content or even that its possible... why not go somewhere else?

I did that.. but luckily "somewhere else" was single-player modules, some of which have detailed instructions on installing hakpacks '>

And thanks Tyndrel, very helpful for n00bs!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ruadhri10, 20 juin 2012 - 03:42 .