Old user starting over.

[Legacy_Narzugon]

               I played NWN1 and 2 during thier initial releases. I've dabbled with the Toolsets over the years and have a general idea how things work. Back last year I picked up 3 copies of the Diamond edition in hopes of starting custom content for my two sons and I (possibly recruiting friends and family along the way).

Well, as life would have it, those 3 copies have been sitting on the shelf and shuffled around on my "List of Things I Want to Do". Finally, the time is near for me to get started! I'm currently sketching out ideas as well as gathering information sources.

I've been reading mostly the Stickies here on the new forums which has sparked a few questions to you guys. What add-ons are now considered to be the absolute must have in a module? For example, I'm assuming CEP would be one suggestion. Back in the day the Camera hack was just making a name for itself. If I remember correctly, back then the camera angles were pretty basic. Did Bioware ever do more with the camera in NWN1 or did the community develope the difinitive camera system?

I'm considering building as a persistent world. Most likely will use prefab areas at first to get things going and really focus on stories, quests and characters. Ultimately I want smart encounters. What I mean by that is I do not want X number of creatures to spawn just to give them something to kill. I want creatures that force the players to use stratigies. I remember a battle system that was in heavy developement back then. Did anything such as this make the main stream?

I know this could be taken as a very broad and subjective question. I
don't know any other way to ask it. My goal is to start with a solid
foundation and build slowly from there as I learn. What I'm trying to
avoid is to have a large portion of my work done only to find out that I
need to go back and adapt things to something new.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Axe_Murderer]

               My advice...figure out what you need first, then go look for it. Don't start by putting everything you can find into it and then try to build. If you do, there will be a tendency to add things just because you haven't used them yet which can make the module chaotic to play and distract you from the goal of the story you're creating. If your plan requires CEP then use CEP, if it doesn't, why put it in? In my experience, it is best to know everything you can think of about what you're going to do first, then assemble the content you need to pull it off, then go build it...then leave it alone until the whole module (or region or level) is done or nearly done when you can tweak everything together so it flows.
Of course there are a few basic systems you should have in place when you start from scratch. Like resting, death, treasure, travel, etc. And having an idea of the world map ahead of time makes it easy to decide what tilesets will be needed and you should probably have them in there straight away too.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Narzugon]

               Sound advice and I agree. I was under the impression that there would be certain things that the community as a whole would say "Oh yeah, this fixes or adds this that was never implemented by Bioware.". On the other hand, you as a reader have no idea what I plan to do.
I tend to put the cart before the horse when planning things. I'll be back when I have more specific questions.

Thanks!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Craden]

               I've recently revisited NWN to do some module building and I have found Gestalt Cutscene Scripting System nwvault.ign.com/View.php   very useful for dealing with camera in cutscenes. You should check it  out.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Craden, 18 octobre 2011 - 12:08 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               I also recently started building a PW.
I'm more interested in the Project Q hak pak and then also the CTP tilesets...

But I have to say I have also played at excellent PW servers that don't use any extra files what-so-ever...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 18 octobre 2011 - 01:30 .