PW How To Tutorial

[Legacy_Wordeee]

               Hi Guys!

Back again! I was building a module long ago and making it a PW.I believe i was using NWNX but its been so
 
long i cant remember. Anyway, id like to get into it again and i am wondering where is the best place to get a run

down on how to build a PW. Is NWNX still the way? I remember a download where the MySQL database was

created for you and you had to modify your journal scripts and other things for it to work. It was basic but pretty

good for a noob. Id like to have all the regular things persistent gold, quest prgress, player location, items, 

lvl etc.  Anyhow, can anyone point me in the right direction on where i might get started?

Thanks


Wordeee
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Well, generally, you might find the information in the NWN Omnibus useful along with doing searches on this site.  There was a lot of information on the old Bioboards that got moved over but I'm sure they missed a thing or two.  The Omnibus is an archive of a good chunk of that old wisdom.

The best advice I can give is don't go overboard.  It's better to determine what systems you actually want for your PW and add them rather than downloading a basemodule which is completely overloaded with crap you're never going to use and having to spend time ripping all that extra stuff out.

NWNX is still, IMO, "the way to go".  But because of how NWNX works, there's no reason (AFAIK) that you can't start out using regular persistency with the default Bioware db and then switch over to NWNX sometime once you feel like you're back in the saddle again.  You may even find out that the level of persistency you want doesn't require NWNX for DB purposes but there are many other NWNX plugins which have useful additions/features beyond that.

I don't know what SQL setup you were using so I don't have a good link there but here's the download section at NWNX.org.

BTW, you want to go balls to the wall, you can also take a look at NWNCX, which is a relatively new creation of Virusman's.  Here's a thread which includes some discussion and a number of videos showing off some of NWNCX's benefits.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 14 décembre 2012 - 05:37 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               OTR has a lot of great information there, but there is one thing that he did not mention:

A PW is a module like any other with two critical differences: it is designed to be served as a multiplayer module, and aspects of module state are designed to be persistent across server resets. For that reason there is no set way to do it. Its all about design choice.

I've played in PWs that had very little actual persistence. Others have had remarkable levels of persistence.

To each their own. You'll need to make your own choice.

The first system I would consider is DM related.
you'll likely want a team of DMs, and they will want tools to manage play. DMFI and ShadowM HR DM Tool are good for this.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Wordeee]

               Hey guys thx for the awesome responses. Im by no stretch a scripter, but i found what i was using

before. It was Fast Frenches setup which was working really well for me. Where might i be able to

read up about biowares built in DB and how to implement it? Or do you think Frenches is a pretty

good way to go. This is something im building because i find it enjoyable and will at some point

host a server for a bunch of friends so i dont need anything too serious. Just character locations,

their items, lvl, quests, exp, gold etc.

Thanks for the quick replies! Awesome! Thx OldTimeRadio for the links!

Wordeee
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Nice, I got started on FF too!  If you download the Omnibus I link to, above, it has a copy of the NWN Lexicon and so if you search for "persistent db zoeller" (without quotes) the first hit that should come up should be an "introduction to databases" from it.  You can also download the Lexicon separately, here.  You can find a lot more in the Omnibus just by searching around for various topics or functions.

If you're not much of a scripter, I would say don't even worry about the persistent aspect of your module until you actually need the persistency for something.  IMO, this is key and I can't stress it enough.  Just build a world and have fun.  Players don't care how much scripting or elegance is behind something, they just care about whether it looks interestng and engages them.

If you have to go for something-bigger-than-Bioware persistency, use the NWNX stuff.  It's more recent and there are more cool plugins.  FF and NWNX do basically the same thing, IIRC (it's been years since FF for me!), but NWNX gives you a lot more options.  Still, you may not need to go all the way to NWNX for DB reasons, anyway.  NBDE by Knat is the next step up from the default Bioware DB in that it caches DB writes at least (IIRC) so you don't have any slowdowns.  If it's just you and buddies playing, and your server is stable (which it probably will be), "tricking it out" will be taking the time to add NBDE at some point after you start doing regular DB stuff with the default Bioware DB.

Just my 2 coppers and my memory is a bit rusty so I can't say my opinion is definitive.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 15 décembre 2012 - 12:20 .