A Land Far Away

The Great Commandment in the Bible is essentially

"Do it, and go teach others to Do it as well". (Sniggering aside)

If one of ALFA's core principles is to recreate the forgotten realms, then we'll need a heck of a lot of servers. And thats a good thing. We have the "Doing it" bit progressing nicely for quite some time now, but the 'teaching others to do it" info is lagging behind. It's essentially about how long ALFA will last.

Every time I get to building, I get excited about the possibility of creating an ALFA server, only to face the reality of the fact that I have no idea of all the steps involved. I'm good at one small piece of the pie. I am quite computer literate, but with almost no knowledge of scripting. I can however, follow instructions.

Is it the case that running a server is only for those few who already know how to do it?

I propose that ALFA has a complete guide, step by step, to building, hosting, and running an ALFA server, to open up the possibility of other less technically minded people successfully setting up and running one.

Does it already exist?

I for one would be willing to put together a section on toolsetting a new area for said manual, in addition to all the excellent material already available.

Heck, if it is good enough, sell it on amazon for kindle to raise funds for ALFA (meager as those funds would be)


I want to travel across the vast land of Faerun on a epic quest, seeing the many sights along the way.

"It will dilute the player base" They Cry.

Build it and they will come.

ElCadaver wrote:Build it and they will come.

Come from where, exactly?

From all our brilliant marketing of course. Which reminds me. Is there anyone who plays ALFA who specifically works in Marketing in RL?

ElCadaver wrote:I propose that ALFA has a complete guide, step by step, to building, hosting, and running an ALFA server, to open up the possibility of other less technically minded people successfully setting up and running one.

The links at the top of the page, and the search box, contain ALFA's documentation on the creation and administration of servers on the ACR. They're not organized linearly because server build is generally a fluid process driven by one or two people's interests and creative energies, which is generally well-supplemented by searchable articles on specific topics that those making a server would likely have questions on. They're not written for a less-technical audience because making a server is a technical task.

I'd still encourage interested parties to learn, of course, but the best way to do so is usually to try to assemble a server and to tackle each challenge as it comes and learn from it-- and to take it with the perspective of "I must become a technical person to do this thing that I want to do" instead of "Someone should reframe this activity to make it non-technical for me"

Zelk,
surely, those who have servers up and running would know all the pitfalls to avoid, and how to make the job much easier. All a guide for dummies would provide is a construction schedule, much like you have when you have a home built. It details the order in which jobs need to occur, to make sure nothing gets missed, and nothing has to be redone. Plus, you have tips on how to get it done better.

It seems that the player documentation gets a lot more reworking thant the technical documentation, where as if the technical documentation was made into the one resource, as a guide for people who have not done it before.

Like I said, I could do a bit on procedural area building, but I don't know enough to do the whole thing.

It can only be good for ALFA, to have a lot more server proposals coming in.

P.S. I am making my way through the technical documnetation, and reading www.nwn2scripting .com, so not just having a whinge.

surely, those who have servers up and running would know all the pitfalls to avoid,

I find your abundance of faith... disturbing.


Seriously, though; we do try to keep that all up to date, and there really isn't a good step-by-step process to bring a server up-- there can't be, really. The only things we even can schedule generically are already done by getting a base mod. Beyond that, the most specific we can be is "Build a server that represents the region you wish to play in. We will label your server's status by these guidelines."

If there is a topic that you find lacking in documentation, I'd encourage you to write something about it-- and if you do try to build a server and can draw together a guide-like process, write that down. Our documentation exists only by the contributions of our members, and something missing usually means that either no one knows, no one's sure, or no one agrees.

We also have an IRC Builder Support chat channel: #alfa-builders where you can ask toolset and server questions.

I think we could organize things topically. having built 2 servers here I can offer how I (and I emphasize "I") would go about it were I to build a 3rd - however Zelk is right - there is no easy way to build w/o getting into technical stuff. there are however things ALFA could do to ease the burden. Number one would be to release an up to date base module set up with blueprints and all the alfa scripts.

00. Obtain ironclad approval for your ALFA project from admin before building. If you do not have a commitment that the server will go live when completed, you may end up with a largely useless module, useable only by those who own the ALFA haks. You can always make a really fun module w/o the ALFA hak content in which case skip Item 1 below. There are a highly vocal group of ALFA people who do not want new servers, keep this in mind - it is a risk to build w/o commitment.

0. Learn how the toolset works

A. Learn to save your module as a directory. If you cannot do this, see step 0, do not proceed to step 1 or even read further. Save as directory is located under "file". I still get contributors emailing me RAR'd module files...

B. Learn what the majority of the toolset butons do. You should know what Terrain is, what Tiles are, what Blueprints are (and the various types of blueprints (creatures, placeables, items, trees, triggers, waypoints, lights, place effects), and most importantly what Properties does for each blueprint and object. - You will live in properties if you want custom stuff.

C. Learn what the file extensions mean in the directory you will be saving your work into:
UTI - items
UTC - creatures
UTP - placeables
UTW - waypoints
UTM - stores (merchants)
UTE - Placed effects
ULT - Lights
See: http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/File_formats for the complete list

D. Learn the 5 area file extensions: .ARE, .GIT, .GIC, .TRN, .TRX (see the link in my signature)

I. Get your "Base Mod" in order before you do anything else. Just like the Cylons need a Base Ship to function, you will need a Base Module with blueprints for the "things" you place in your module - this makes it tons easier than trying to back fill a module build with non-alfa stuff. We need this because (1) while you could exist just off the original game placeables, none of the original game creatures are balanced for DnD, nor are the spells, or the items. So at best w/o a Base Module, you could only make somewhat pretty areas, minus the cooler placeables such as walkable ships etc.

You base module should contain a pallete of:

A. alfa-compliant item blueprints,
B. placeables based on the alfa haks and the original game (OG) content only (by default you have the OG cotnent already when you fire up the Death Star (toolset).
C.alfa complaint monsters & background NPCs
D. alfa compliant stores (at least one)
E. alfa compliant spawn waypoint examples
F. all the alfa scripts
G. proper lights - please see the toolset forum for the settings- DO NOT EVER USE THE OG lights int he toolset - they weren't even used in the original game - whoever put them in the toolset should be flogged - they suck badly and give people epilepsy.
H. all or most of the cool placed effects from the haks

To obtain said base module it helps to ask for a copy of a module, for example BG, and strip out the areas. By doing this you will end up with customized scripts in your base mod which can either be a blessing or a curse, however it is the fastest way to get a base mod. I picked BG on purpose as it is the leanest and most tested module when it comes to scripts and stuff. MS contains some exodus stragglers we still need to tease out and TSM has all the UNI, phat loot etc scripts etc.

The better way to get a base module is to make one from scratch by loading up haks into it (module properties), then loading up a pallete of the files listed in step 0.C and then making any missing ones from the haks (by usign the porperties tab on an existing object and modifying it to be another object).

Building servers would be tons easier if someone volunteered to make an Alfa Base Module - but living as we are we must make our own or use some of the older paks of placeables, items and critters available on the builder links...I would not recommend these as they are not complete, contain bad monsters etc.

2. Build your first Area.

This assumes you actually spent time at step 0 learning the controls. If you did not everything below will be gibebrish - go back to step 0.

I suggest buildign one of the medium sized towns that will be on your server and have a water feature, because such an area will be complex enough to have everything you will need learn to work with (lighting, stores, NPCs, placeables, complex terrain textures)

A. Do your elevations first. This means the terrain tab, raise, lower, flatten, water, etc. Make it look as real as possible (you will come back to fine tune the topography again when you lay down roads and such). it helps if you have ever studied a topographic map or can conceptualize what a real world area would look like if the water & trees were gone. I really approach building a town as if humans were coming into an area for teh frist time and cuttign roads etc. and then i fast forward 50 yrs to cover such things as rutted roads and other broken things.

B. Lay down a base dirt texture. Use a color layover (light brown) to create shadows for the side of hills, use color blues for water depth etc. Then use 2 grass textures, 1 rock texture, and 1 road cobble texture. There are a number of good YouTube tutorials on this. Roads require a covering of dust to look real this is where dirt set at like 15% comes in handy. There are countless other tips to be found on the interwebs.

C. Layout the blocks for your town by running the roads out. Then add buildings. Then add all the little placeables that people leave around, trash barrels, rakes, shovels, clothes lines, fences...think if you lived there what would you need and don't be a minimalist. Then do the trees, bushes and grass.

D. Add a merchant, this means making a store, settign the buyback to 50% and sell to 100% and loading it with only alfa complaint items. Let's make a potion vendor. Then click on the littel red/yellow icon for the store (it looks like a waypoint, but is not a waypoint) and choose make blueprint. Now your store is hard coded into the pallete and can be instanced (placed) anywhere. You will want to spawn shops not instandce them as it makes updating all the shops of the same type on a server really really easy, but that is for later. Also for later is making a pallete of stores

E. Make an NPC and make his conversation. Copy an existing merchant conversation and change the action variable to be the store's resref. This will have the merchant call the sotre to open when a PC talks to it and choses the right reply. Place the NPC in the area.

3. Proper Use of Prefabs

You can import really nice already made areas off the nwn2 vault, they will lack creature sand stores etc. but that is ok. Be sure to change them significantly otherwise people will get deja vu on your server badly. Significant means moving hills, shorelines, adding rivers, etc., not just changing the trees.

4. Make Your Pallete of Customized Blueprints for the Server

A. Stores of all types and varieties having varying amounts of gear to fit their location.

You will need at least:

i. weaponsmith - subdivided into one or more of melee weapons, archery, etc. the possibilities are limitless.
ii. armor - metal and leather/fabric are the usual division
iii. temple stores
iv. tavern stores
v. gear and other RP items like tents, torches etc.
vi. bard shop/music instruments
vii. mage shop for scrolls etc.
viii. magic item shops with +1 skill items, and the usual magic stuff (again settign appropriate
ix. rogue shop (theif type gear, ropes, thief skillitems perhaps)

B. Customized NPCS both background commoners (wearing the attire appropriate to the setting) and named NPCs

C. Lights - see the toolsetting forum post on this for the settings, make at least the proper firelight.

D. Spawn waypoints for those NPCs/monsters you will be spawning everywhere. (I strongly recommend copying some templates from existing servers along with their NPC UTC files and then editting the NPCs until you learn how to make your own, hopefully by closely studying what you copied)

5. Linking Areas

A. Using ATs - all ATs are triggers which when clicked on port a PC to a waypoint someplace else. Thus to connect 2 areas back and forth you will need 2 AT triggers and 2 waypoints.

B. Using Doors - you only need 2 doors (one in each area), with unique tags e.g. Enter_Really_Cool_Bar and Exit_Really_Cool_Bar

I'll write a Summary here, which is what I should have done first, we can then write chapters for each:

1. Political Approval of Project

2. Learn to Use Toolset & Setup Your Toolset
A. Study Toolset Functions and Practice Each
B. Add ALFA Terrain Files

3. ALFA Base Module

A. Add Haks

B. ALFA Blueprints:
Items
Creatures
Placeables
Stores
Waypoints
Triggers
Doors
Placed Effects
Lights
Prefab Placeable Groups

C. Basic Conversations

Merchant Conversation
Exemple Quest Conversations
Example PC Portaling Conversation
Basic Commoner Conversations

D. ALFA Scripts

4. Create Server Custom Content
A. Stores
B. Creatures (region specific Hostiles and NPCs)
C. Scripted Systems

5. Building & Linking Areas
A. Exterior Map
B. Interiors

6. Spawning Creatures & Stores

7. Server Border Portal Areas

Castano,
that is right along the lines of the sort of advice I was looking for. I cannot believe that AFLA does not have a universal base module! I was planning on stripping TSM's but if BG is more lean , that would be better. I take it unused scripts has something to do with the performance of the module, or just its final size?

I guess I'd have to find out if that vocal minority were willing to have another server.

I actually have connected and stripped areas for West Harbor and surrounds up to fort locke done already. Interestingly I left all the farm animals from the game in for effect in west harbor, and when Kert walked out the door of the house, he was pecked to death by a bunch of indestructible plot chickens. So my server has just the right old school ALFA feel, so far.

lol El Cad...chickens.

This is why you need a base module. We have directions to make a base mod someplace in the wiki by adding in the right files which are stored someplace, but it's years out of date.

use BG - having scripted systems floating about encumbers performance and can lead to weird bugs, like we experienced on MS when the exodus loot scripts were in by accident, but without the loot items they did bad bad things...thankfully Zelk hopped in and sorted out the bug.