What's GOOD about NWN2?

[Kest]

This is why this thread irritated me...it was an invitation to annoy people.

This. The very question is ridiculous - like asking "is this game dogshit?"

[bartleby]

What's GOOD about NWN2?

Books ... and for that matter direct access to the Games GUI system which when devoloped fully realy could change the face of the game and add to immersion and differentiation profoundly.

[Nalo Jade]

I am very excited about that Bartleby...

What about database access / manipulation ... I thought I heard something about having more control there?

[zicada]

I am very excited about that Bartleby...

What about database access / manipulation ... I thought I heard something about having more control there?

Excellent question.

With NWNx4, especially version 1.09 which was just released last month, the opurtunities are endless.

We already use a central mysql server for NWN2, as more servers join, and as we put even more stuff into it (1.09 allows storing objects), the posibilities, especially together with the new website design, is truly endless.

Say you're a HDM and you have a quest where you would like to turn every server into night time, you could do that, from the website, with the press of a button.

Say you want to know where item X is currently, you get who has it, and where that character is currently. (module, area, etc)

Say you would like to get a breakdown of wealth, based on certain criteria, you could get that directly in a web interface.

The options are truly endless, and opens up for pretty awesome integration with the website, if we want to.

We can display what time it is in the world on the website in real time, together with amt of players on, etc etc.

So, yeah, that part of NWN2 with the nwnx4 plugin added, is pretty awesome. The question now is wether its possible to put a whole bic into mysql. The jury is still out on that though, as in wether its practical and efficient. Some testing will give us the answer.

[bartleby]

This stuff sounds absoultely amazing tightly tying the web page to in game is a big plus for organization and PR

... Zic do you know how hard would it be and would it be possible to persestently store and retreive a string stored in a data base in game via a script?

[zicada]

This stuff sounds absoultely amazing tightly tying the web page to in game is a big plus for organization and PR

... Zic do you know how hard would it be and would it be possible to persestently store and retreive a string stored in a data base in game via a script?

I'm no expert on nwnx4, but I believe a string is considered an object in nwscript jargon, so with nwnx4 you can do that now, as of mid october. According to AL, OAS2 has nwnx4 1.09 running on it now, so, afaik, thats possible right now, and will be on the live server(s) once we actually get that in there.

So, really, the data is there, the big job to do some of the stuff i was talking about is really on the web side of things. Just actually writing the frontends to display that data, based on user input, which we are in fact already working on. We are taking it one step at a time though. So the first stuff is going to be plain stats. Then later on, we can start adding more functionality. The first, very simple functionality from that module will most likely show up fairly soon on the site if everything goes as planned, and roekemoes doesn't get hit by a bus or something

This is all part of my really wanting to focus more on the website in terms of functionality, and leaving the forums to what they're for, namely discussion. It is what we did with applications, which we are still working on perfecting, as well as any other functionality we USED to do solely on the forums.

[ayergo]

The conversation wizard is a lot nicer. Working more with 3 dimensions and being able to "paint" is nicer.

My only complaint: No penguin models yet. : (

[Nalo Jade]

The conversation wizard is a lot nicer.

How so?

[AcadiusLost]

Just FYI: essentially all the database connectivity NWNx4 stuff we're doing is just as feasible with NWN1 and NWNx2, which is the NWN1 version of NWNx4. The difference is that we've built our core scripting systems to take better advantage of these powerful tools, something which is extremely challenging to do for a preexisting set of scripts like the NWN1 ACR. Murky spent a very long time indeed setting up Shadowdale as a testbed for NWNx2 database connectivity a long time back, but I believe it proved more trouble than it was worth at the time. (Legionnaire, Chamu, Wvicente and others can attest to the difficulties in making it work after switching hosts, and again after the 1.69 update).

So, it's not an advantage of the game itself per se, but is something that opens a lot of exciting potential for future development based on the choices we made early on with the NWN2-ALFA development.

In terms of the conversation editor, it's pretty much the same as the NWN1 toolset one from what I can remember, though maybe some parts are slightly more user-friendly than before.

The NWN2 toolset, incidentally, incorporates third-party plugins that can automate many building tasks if you know how to use them well, and allows use of multiple windows at the same time, something which was always a frustrating limitation of the NWN1 toolset.

[Mayhem]

What does NWN2 have that NWN1 doesn't ?

Just enough lag between clicking and reacting to really bug me...

[Lusipher]

there is nothing good about the game hence why I quit playing it. To each their own, just wasnt my bag.