A Land Far Away

Hi folks,

It's great to see that ALFA is still going strong. Maxcell recently contacted me to ask if I would be playing again and I told him all about my old frustration with the NWN2 graphics....Fugly faces, bad walk animation , no ridable horses, limits on how many tree seeds you can have in an area, etc.

Over the years I have occasionally popped in here to read the forums and everytime I do I spend a week or two daydreaming about creating Cormanthyr and Myth Drannor. There is always this frustrating feeling like it already exists and is trying to get out...eternally pregnant with an that is never born.

Anyway I have a few days off of work and figured I'd play with the toolset. I bought the full game and am downloading it now. I remember that the haks were tricky 4 years ago. Am I seeing correctly that now you just login to the server you want to play on and the haks will load for you? Each server has a different set of haks? Also if you want to build, I remember there were several extra steps and possible things you could do wrong or put in the wrong place.

Could someone give me a walkthough for getting the building materials?

Thanks in advance for any help!

- Aelred

EDIT- I think I found the answers here? http://www.alandfaraway.org/downloads

Hey!

Nice to see you back sir .

I'm sure the Curmudgeon will hook you up and help out with any additional questions. Perhaps hunt him down in chat?

We also got a lovely #alfa-builders channel for such a purpose .

Also, I'm sure all of the HDMs will be happy to give you tips, advice and help.

Good luck and best wishes, and I hope you end up sticking around for more than toilsetting!

Cheers,

Few points to answer on!

Fugly faces

Well, the old ones still exist, but we've been adding the good ones as they appear. Problem is largely that they're detailed fugly, so compatibility is a challenge. Better than it was, at least.

bad walk animation

You mean real women don't constantly walk like strippers trying to make rent!? Blasphemy!

Yeah, nobody's been working on this. Still a problem.

no ridable horses

We're closer than we were, being that there are at least models and animations. The problem is that the guy who made the models decided to use a scheme that gives us models without skeletons or complete animations, so we have some challenges in how to implement fairly (most servers just say "Screw the shortcomings, we're gonna hack this in and you're all going to like it, its bugs, and its deficiencies!"-- which we're trying to avoid). It'll happen, definitely, but we haven't put that to a timeline yet.

limits on how many tree seeds you can have in an area,

Still an issue, yeah.

etc.

What's the et cetera? We might've fixed it-- plenty of things have changed in the last six months that previous folk just kinda assumed impossible. We've been attaching release notes to the Technical Documentation page since tech has returned to repository use.

Am I seeing correctly that now you just login to the server you want to play on and the haks will load for you?

Yes.

Each server has a different set of haks?

No; they're just all on the auto-downloader.

Each server has its own set of walkmeshes, though, so there are server-specific files. Haks are centrally-controlled, and all but alfa2_acr.hak should be identical between all live and beta servers (alfa2_acr.hak is frequently redeployed on BG, because Paazin has the tech chops to identify safe builds, make them, and compile against them reliably).

Also if you want to build, I remember there were several extra steps and possible things you could do wrong or put in the wrong place.

Could someone give me a walkthough for getting the building materials?

Sort of? It's more that the toolset is annoying and will badger you about things without some good setup.

The toolsetting forum has some handy Q&A threads worth reading, and there's a thread which specifically covers setting up your toolset.

PM sent.

Steer clear of the downloads linked on the page that follows the one you pointed at.

Log on a Live server to get the current hak and tlk files.

I've given you membership in the TSM Builder usergroup. Go the 03 Builder Forum for the login info for the Builder FTP. Look in the Builder Files folder on the FTP for a current build mod and other useful files.

Though Cormanthor itself may be down the road, the existing servers could really use builders to flesh them out/ update stuff as well. Shoot some pms to the hdms of each and see if anyone needs anything. The only reason I suggest this is, smaller projects will ease you back into the toolsetting.

If you do decide to do anything, thank you in advance, you got skills I wish I had! And if not, still stick around, hang out and make fun of paazin or burt. We all do.

Hello,

Consider playing even a little bit to get to know how the "look and feel" has been advanced in haks and whatnot since peeking in. If that makes you want to tool something, fine. If that doesn't, fine too. Have fun!