Raising awareness of new CC in the community?

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <pulling off his deerhunter hat...>

OldTimeRadio wrote...
@Rolo - That's a pretty good list of bullet points for the overall situation.  One of my questions was basically "Who's currently downloading and using the CCC?"  Any idea on your end who is mostly downloading and using the CCC?

Honestly, all I can see is the download counts and who posts. 

There *are* quite a number of people who post who I do not see on these forums, but I can't tell you more than you can see yourself. :-/

<...and slipping some brit's magnifying glass into his pocket>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

@henesua - That stuff about community clout and me not understanding the impact of my words seems overly dramatic for this kind of topic, don't you think?  What gives?

Tis the season?'> I dunno. But more soberly, I'm not sure what you mean.

What I meant was people listen to you in the community, and so I surmise that a word here and there from you is a sound endorsement and could draw in new blood. After all if I can draw people in here to participate I'm confident that your mentioning the CC goes a long way as well.

I appologize if what I said offended you. I didn't mean it that way at all. It simply was an argument in support of word of mouth.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_T0r0]

               Kalbaern " Pillars of the community here like "Rolo", "OTR", "Amethyst Dragon" and countless others have answered my PMs or posts, sent links when needed and sometimes just let me vent frustrations. '>"

Well said ! This has been my experience too and wanted to sincerely say "Thank you"
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               I'd also like to use this thread to thank people.
There's been a lot of feedback from other people who create CC themselves. I'll just name Rolo and Baba Yaga here, but there have been many more.

My experience with PW builders has not been quite so good though.

There seem to be four kinds of PW builders.

Type A: The ones who say 'We keep our PW hak-free' and then use CEP which interestingly doesn't count as a hak.

Type B: People who use lame excuses for not using new content. Excuses like pathfinding doesn't work well.
I just played the OC as a ranger and you know what? My henchman got constantly stuck between walls and doors and I could kill hordes of monsters in the cavern tileset without getting a single scratch because they couldn't cross the water by the means of a 'bridge' that was only a few metres away from them. They always tried to cross the water in a straight line.
So saying that pathfinding doesn't work well is a lame excuse, because it doesn't work well in ANY tilesets.

Type C: Those who still live in the past decade and think CEP is the only custom content there is and the TNO tileset is new.

Type D: Those who use new content. You can split this group into two. One that uses new content and doesn't give any feedback and one that does give feedback.'>



So there are three types of PW builders who wouldn't use new content against only one type of them who would.

I want to thank those few of them in the last group and especially Henesua. Not only does he use new content, he also gives very useful feedback like thoughts on what could be improved and bug reports.


Thank you, Henesua! Without people like you I would have stopped working on custom content a long time ago because the number of PW builders who ignore new content or just want to use the CEP sadly is far too high for my liking.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Zwerkules, 20 décembre 2012 - 07:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               @OTR:
what i mean is i take the time to create custom content and then i share it with all of you here and trough the vault. So thats my take on it, nothing more. When i count all hours or days together to get my stuff complete i think i can say, ok thats what i have to offer but i dont knock on every door to advertise my stuff. Thats not why i do content, i dont sell it. When someone is realy interested he can find my projects in less an hour, compared to my work hours it´s nothing... thats what i meant as i said "dont know what to feel about".

p.s. the feedback for my stuff has always been great and i appreciate it, realy i do. But as zwerkules said and i agree with you, the whole cc community is my backbone for support.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 17 décembre 2012 - 06:08 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               Hehe...I'm a pillar?  Thanks. '>

As far as PW builders using new custom content...I think I fit into a slightly different category...I use new stuff, plus CEP (and soon to be plus Project Q), and I try to provide comments/feedback for everything I might have an interest in...I also do a lot of custom content, so my players are used to getting new stuff all the time (and they aren't shy about suggesting new stuff).

But yeah, there's definitely a learning curve when it comes to adding/merging custom content from multiple sources (even from a single source).  If we could get more players to ask their PW builders for it though, we might see more taking the time to at least learn to merge 2da files. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 17 décembre 2012 - 08:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Yes TAD. Like this.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Hey, Amethyst Dragon, you might be just the person to ask about this:  I vaguely remember that there used to be a hak in CEP which was attached to the module but was otherwise empty.  From what I understand, the concept was that this way PW Maintainers/Module makers could add server-specific content to that hak.  If players had the server's version of the hak, they could see the new content.  If not...well, I dunno but for placeables and simple stuff like that I believe the idea was they just wouldn't see it.

Do you know what I'm talking about?  How can I find more about how that works? 

My thinking is if something like that exists, a PW could kind of hold its own intra-server mini-CCC challenges.  I was playing on a server and was getting shown around and the person doing the showing pointed out this billboard poster kind of thing and asked if I could make more.  I told her they'd have more fun if I gave them a blank and then they could each pick images they liked for the billboards.  But I came up short on how they could do it without the whole "new hak" thing...until this recollection bubbled up, anyway.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               cep2_custom.hak

It's an empty hak in the regular download.  Builders can use it to drop server-side things like blueprints, scripts, and certain module-only 2da files (ones never called by the player client).

It's a way to slow advancement on the 16k resource limit.  Since it's only filled with stuff server-side, any player with CEP installed can still play on any server.  It's not really meant as a way for new art assets to be added for players/builders.

For basic content additions, a server-specific top hak is easy enough to add...it would just go above any CEP haks in the list, with any 2da files based on the CEP ones (so CEP stuff stays useable).

Edited to add: If my PW's players are any indication, if they get new stuff, they won't mind periodicly downloading new content.  Haks are so easy to install: decompress and put into the NWN/hak folder (and maybe NWN/tlk), and they're good to go.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 17 décembre 2012 - 11:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Ah, thank you.  That makes sense.  I was hoping there was some kind of trick involved.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_T0r0]

               Nah no trick, I wish there was. Not that I need to elaborate on what TAD said but I will for new readers.

"It's a way to slow advancement on the 16k resource limit. Since it's only filled with stuff server-side, any player with CEP installed can still play on any server. It's not really meant as a way for new art assets to be added for players/builders."

So if you use this hak to add those types of resources (art, mdl's, etc) you run the risk of changing things in other cep mods/pw's you play on. Not good.

"For basic content additions, a server-specific top hak is easy enough to add...it would just go above any CEP haks in the list, with any 2da files based on the CEP ones (so CEP stuff stays useable)."

This is what kindof this thread was about, the reluctance of some to add something other than CEP.
*shrugs*

OTR ~ check out City of Arabel. They do have an optional hak thing going which is cool. I think it has to do with a  combination of NWNx and the nwnx_haks, or something like that. I don't know much about that stuff.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               I'm both old and new to CC. When I first got into it, I had about a month per year from 2005 to 2009 to work on anything. It was annoying at best. I think these quotes sum it up:

kalbaern wrote:

"Speaking from my own experiences, I think it's the "learning curve" that has always limited how many folks get involved in making or even using most custom content."

I write scripts for facebook, with great interfaces, and still people don't have the logic to figure out simple things. They don't want to try. Its immediately too hard at page one.

For many other games, the content is simply not hosted well for long term use. I mean, go out right now and try to find stuff to mod sims1 or sims2. Its all broken link hell. Even dealing with gMax is difficult because not everybody has it, stuff for it is hard to find, including proper documentation.

"I can easilly see how most folks would simply give up on custom content and just use a premade compilation like the CEP..."

But when you want something bad enough, and/or you want to modify it slightly for your own purposes, you just gotta try. This of course only affects those will knowledge about the thing, and a willingness to investigate. Er...and the time too I suppose.

""Seeing" all this has been the impetous for learning and asking questions."

So true.



I personally try to make scripts for everything. I'm both lazy, and I put a crapload of effort into trying to get somebody else to do my work for me. I write javascript to do my bidding through GreaseMonkey in a browser. I write maxScripts to do my bidding for repetitive modeling, and especially animation. Visual studio has always been "my ****" for all my mass file processing. I've always taken t+x time making a script to save me just a fraction of t. But knowing I will use the code somewhere else in the future makes it worth my lost time.



I agree strongly with this:

kalbaern wrote:

"In a perfect world, most if not all custom content would not conflict with default options or others of their kind. You could pick and choose from a list, adding what you desired and leaving out what you did not."

Really there needs to be a program that sees and interprets custom content in a way that is usable by the non-technical masses. Years ago I wrote my own custom TLK file modifiers. I also wrote BIF file parsers as well as anything else bioware formatted. I had GFF de/compilers for old bioware BAM files when I was adding totally new content to infinity engine games. While its all kaput now, there's no reason not to start again and build a CC manager script. I don't work well in teams, but if a team did try to tackle this issue with a script, I could be there.


When I need something answered, I check out as much forum content as I can find. And what I do find is that the best answers, content finds, backdoors, and new ideas come from or through you few "pillars".

henesua wrote:

"...a word here and there from you is a sound endorsement and could draw in new blood..."

And it is true. Your finds brought me back to NWN after all these years. Your finds show me new things I can do. I see that I CAN do stuff I always wanted to do, through OTR's videos and tutorials. If you can reach me, then you can reach others like me. They just have to exist first.



sidetracking:

zwerkules wrote:

"... because they couldn't cross the water by the means of a 'bridge' that was only a few metres away from them..."

I tend to make tilesets with the best choice of path nodes. But often I want a tile that does not conform to ANY path node type. I hate that! It sometimes even makes me scrap a project just because pathing is impossible for that tile.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

MerricksDad wrote...
I tend to make tilesets with the best choice of path nodes. But often I want a tile that does not conform to ANY path node type. I hate that! It sometimes even makes me scrap a project just because pathing is impossible for that tile.

It's a pity if you scrap them, because if there are no pathnodes that fit (like there are absolutely no pathnodes with combinations of two lines and three lines, the ones I miss the most) you can use one that nearly fits and it won't always work, but in most cases it does, whereas all your pathnodes can be correct and pathfinding still doesn't work because NPCs always try to walk in a straight line and get stuck behind a barrel, an opened door or some part of a building jutting out.
I'd like to have those missing pathnodes but I won't let the lack of them dictate how I build my tilesets. I have far more problems with NPCs getting stuck on tiles with correct pathnodes than on the ones for which there are no correct pathnodes.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <whistles...>

Sneaky dwarf's holiday present  -->  Arabian Nights tileset release

edit: Just in case someone missed it, Z being all quiet and modest and everything...

<...innocently>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 20 décembre 2012 - 10:21 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_3RavensMore]

               

Rolo Kipp wrote...

<whistles...>

Sneaky dwarf's holiday present  -->  Arabian Nights tileset release

edit: Just in case someone missed it, Z being all quiet and modest and everything...

<...innocently>

*thud*  Nice solstice present!  Z continues to shine -- in a quietly modest way of course.  And it's just in time to start on a new island -- or so I've been informed.  Wonderful work, yet again.  Is there a suitable interior anywhere to pair with this lovely exterior?