Arelith - Hak Server

[High Primate]

I have no objection as long as it never comes to a point where you need haks to play Arelith. We don't have Gamespy anymore, but we do have noobs who download NWN from GoG, and adding haks to the server would just confuse them or make them less likely to try Arelith.

[Cortex]

I find the idea of someone new randomly buying NWN(an early 2000s game) and expecting to find any unmodified vanilla server to be naive at best.

[WinkinBlinkin]

You don't just download NWN from GoG, though. You already have to navigate downloading critical rebuilds, getting your own copy of the key and getting the server details, along with quite possibly fighting your computers ports, version of Windows, graphics drivers, turning off Shiny Water.... If you don't have the tech skills to get the HAKS, you probably wouldn't have got this far without them either.

[One Two Three Five]

I find the idea of someone new randomly buying NWN(an early 2000s game) and expecting to find any unmodified vanilla server to be naive at best.

[Shadofury]

@Maladus

in five years with the 2nded xp charts i got to level 19

i wasnt a major player like bird lord or the veil or high druid or anything but its was neat how my level 5 at the time with one shape known was able to roll a 20 and change the world keeping evil from destroying the plan

[Rwby]

I find the idea of someone new randomly buying NWN(an early 2000s game) and expecting to find any unmodified vanilla server to be naive at best.

This seems an odd thing to say, given that they often still find Arelith in all it's hak free glory.

You don't just download NWN from GoG, though. You already have to navigate downloading critical rebuilds, getting your own copy of the key and getting the server details, along with quite possibly fighting your computers ports, version of Windows, graphics drivers, turning off Shiny Water.... If you don't have the tech skills to get the HAKS, you probably wouldn't have got this far without them either.

Just to expand on this and note the GoG has vastly simplified the CD Key process, and now supplies you with your own unique CD Key immediately on purchase of the game. [Perhaps they got sick of Arelthians whining they want their own!

[JediMindTrix]

I have no objection as long as it never comes to a point where you need haks to play Arelith. We don't have Gamespy anymore, but we do have noobs who download NWN from GoG, and adding haks to the server would just confuse them or make them less likely to try Arelith.

How would they be randomly trying arelith without gamespy to facilitate it? Or without having to download a .exe patch to use night wing's server list?

[Cortex]

This seems an odd thing to say, given that they often still find Arelith in all it's hak free glory.

Just to expand on this and note the GoG has vastly simplified the CD Key process, and now supplies you with your own unique CD Key immediately on purchase of the game. [Perhaps they got sick of Arelthians whining they want their own!

Yes, after getting the critical rebuild, looking up Arelith, and joining, they don't just install the game and have the title ARELITH on the menu screen, nor can they find it online without searching for it. This would change nothing, you just support my point.

[Shadofury]

and we still advertise the server on facebook and other social media

[Gable Morninglord]

I find the idea of someone new randomly buying NWN(an early 2000s game) and expecting to find any unmodified vanilla server to be naive at best.

It may be naive, yet Arelith is a perfect example that it does happen. I would consider Arelith to be the closest thing to "unmodified" as there is. And, considering that Arelith is probably one of the most, if not THE most, populous NWN server these days. You must come to the conclusion that they are doing something right the way it is.

[One Two Three Five]

What attracts me to Arelith is the modifications from base, personally. I have a separate NWN install that I play other servers on (Because Arelith uses overrides instead of haks, which is mildly inconvenient to me.)

[DM Symphony]

What attracts me to Arelith is the modifications from base, personally. I have a separate NWN install that I play other servers on (Because Arelith uses overrides instead of haks, which is mildly inconvenient to me.)

We could likely be running "optional" haks right now instead of overrides to mitigate this. We could put the "overrides" we're already using in a 2da hak, people could download it, and we could make Arelith a "hak" server, tomorrow, after configuring our NWNX to "hide" which haks we're using from the playerbase. Then everyone can play, and if you had the hak, you would use the hak, and your override folder would be empty.

There's a lot of misconceptions floating around in this thread, so, everyone needs to second guess themselves (even me, I might not know that we have some sort of NWNX conflict that prevents us from using the specific NWNX hak plugin I'm referencing), and second guess the commentary of others.

This is a concept that Irongron is approaching carefully, sympathetically, and professionally. Scholar Midnight has stated that executable files would be made available, and that's very easily done, but for whatever reason, seldom used in a number of "horror story" "worst case scenario" hak stigma floating around our no-nonesense server.

If the server had haks, I would very very much doubt they'd be updated more often than 3-4 times a year, with the real number probably being like "once" per year, and probably in the realm of "add-ons" to a core hak package.

CEP is always a terrible example, CEP was a collection of nearly everything in the custom content community at the time specific edited so as not to overwrite itself.

In the beginning, if Bioware made 45 heads, every new head would be called head46.

CEP was a group of renamers, so that all of the content could be used at the same time.

This was something to help mainly with single-player community authored content. Grabbing the CEP and installing it in your module meant you COULD put Pumpkin head scarecrows in your module, and if you didn't, the players would never know it was in your hak, so it made sense to include everything.

Sure, if you don't use it, it seems like an oversized hak, but, not if your downloaders who wanted to play it, already had this hak compilation.

Theoretically, it meant 1 Hak package could be made for a variety of genre of single player modules. This means if you're making a NWN module, instead of writing a fantasy novel, you can focus on the writing, and not on the content searching and hak assembling.

It does not make any sense for us to go anywhere near CEP. This is an established PW. CEP was designed for "quick and dirty". Our staff is very competent.

Meanwhile, while CEP was the first, even the later era compilation projects have become a little out-of-date by this point, not just because they are old, but because new stuff has come out that is better than ever, even in just the last two years.

The worst thing to do regarding this subject, is compare. The purpose of hak systems is to add more resources to the game engine. This, combined with NWNX, allows us a large and not easily explained range of options, far beyond "hi poly heads for everyone!" and kung-fu animations.

If there were problems on another server because of haks, we will have those problems too, IF we have the same devs that they did. We probably don't.

If I needed to guess, and I hate to guess, I'd say an Arelith hak set would be likely between 300 mb and 2 Gigabytes, which is about the same as one hour at 480p on youtube to 1 SD Netflix movie.

If I needed to guess, and I hate to guess, I'd say since a set of haks would need to be relatively set in stone BEFORE building with them could start, the playerbase will probably have MONTHS of advance notice and opportunity to download.

[Stath]

Haks for more customization are cool, but i don't think dividing hak and hak free is a good idea.

[Peppermint]

And, considering that Arelith is probably one of the most, if not THE most, populous NWN server these days. You must come to the conclusion that they are doing something right the way it is.

So's Sinfar. Obviously, they're doing something right. So we should have haks. Haks with horsecocks in them, and by golly, those horsecocks had better come in at least 50 different sizes.

...

Okay, so I'm being facetious, but real talk, guys: this is one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book. Arelith isn't doing well because it's hakless. It's doing well because of good design. Amia, another hak server, has competed with Arelith for years, and until very recently (i.e. with the change of the dev team), had a player base larger than Arelith's.

At any rate, as I already said, player bases are self-selecting. Taking a poll won't give us any meaningful data, because Arelith's community isn't an unbiased sample group.

[WinkinBlinkin]

Arelith's player base may be an biased sample group, but that doesn't mean that it isn't meaningful data, because if you lose this playerbase, there isn't necessarily a wider population to pull a replacement playerbase from. It may well be the case that what you have in Arelith isn't a sample at all, but the entire interested population, in which case, you would not be taking a sample at all, but rather a census.

[Cuchilla]

I can't but give a personal respons to this. Although I am absolutely sure that quite a few players would find it an improvement, I have to say that I always had troubles installing Haks aso. I might be from an elder generation, simply not getting how to do it, and something mostly always go wrong because I "dont' get it". What some players might find simple, is complicated to me.

I would of course never go against improvements that would make it a better world for most of the playerbase, and lead Arelith to yet another high level. But I have to admit, that if it gets above my level of understanding the mechanics behind this wonderful world, I dare not even think about what it would mean.

I have hesitated to answer to this thread, as I hate to sound negative, but ... there I said it. Keeping in mind that the devs have done wonderful things during all those years.

[One Two Three Five]

It's doing well because of good design. Amia, another hak server, has competed with Arelith for years, and until very recently (i.e. with the change of the dev team), had a player base larger than Arelith's.

Also had a lot to do with a toxic community finally bubbling over, I think.

if you lose this playerbase

To what hakless server? You try RPing in an MMO these days? Ho-boy. The closest alternative I've found is PnP and that's a good bit more work than installing haks.

I have to say that I always had troubles installing Haks aso.

It's been mentioned a good fifty times the haks would be packaged in exe that just gets clicked on. Believe in yourself, you installed nwn and you can install that too.

[Astral]

I think all the people who speaks against haks, coming from fear of dysfunctionality on the player end side, not because some fear of progress and change. So there's a chance that a significant amount of the long lasting player-base will not be able to play Arelith if it goes haks. It simply is a scary thought for anyone who experienced losing a server like that before.

[DM Symphony]

I've said it before, and I'll repeat: if we do this, you will double click an icon to start and update the game. Don't worry about the specifics. Just know the user flow will be identical, you'll just occasionally have a few mins gap before the game starts as the launcher auto updates.

It would even still look like the NWN.exe.

I've spent more than a decade helping people get NWN running who couldn't get it running, and the same amount of time helping people get their haks installed who couldn't get their haks to work. Meanwhile, of all the people I've run into, there is no level of NWN player who is already playing in Arelith every day, successfully, who won't be able to properly move forward with a change like this. The only issues we would face would be limits imposed upon certain players as towards their data consumption limits by their telecommunications providers.

[Cuchilla]

I have to say that I always had troubles installing Haks aso.

It's been mentioned a good fifty times the haks would be packaged in exe that just gets clicked on. Believe in yourself, you installed nwn and you can install that too.

Thankies! Most appreciated

[Shadofury]

I was reading another thread and it made me think about another thing Haks are good for.

There is good and bad feelings about nerfed areas and spawns for xp and coin.

Imagine an Arelith where you wouldnt have to have nerfed areas to keep characters from reaching 30 in a matter of months.

An Arelith where DMs can plan major server wide events that can last months and involve almost everyone in some way, without having to worry about every character being level 30 in that timeframe.

Where there can be events and xp given for being major and or minor players in said events without the worry of the amount being near a cap.

The answer is in the choice of Haks.
A 2da hak that can change our xp charts to those closer to that used back in 2nd ed. Where you will be level 10 in short order but than after you actually have time to earn a name for yourself in your church, or your watchmens group.

I played a server where the DMs ran super events, actually had time to make special items for those major players in those events as rewards and after 5 years was I level 40, not even close. level 19 and single classed due to server policy that you had to have a good reason for a multiclass not just cause i want umd. I do know, that not once in playing there during all the events and major server campaigns did i worry about what my level was or where was i going to go to get xp.

Just a thought oh and at level 19 to hit level 20 the chart was 5.5 million xp, then it was 500k to go epic and if i remember right then 300k afterward for each level.

[Iceborn]

While I do like a more... strict approach to building, we are unlikely to see anything of that in Arelith.
Tweaked? Yes, it may be, but not completely overhauled.

[Trunx]

I played a server where the DMs ran super events, actually had time to make special items for those major players in those events as rewards and after 5 years was I level 40, not even close. level 19 and single classed due to server policy that you had to have a good reason for a multiclass not just cause i want umd. I do know, that not once in playing there during all the events and major server campaigns did i worry about what my level was or where was i going to go to get xp.

The potential for favoritism is immense with a system like that, and that's the exact reason most of those servers died.

[Shadofury]

agreed although this one died due to they went to turn it into an mmo to make money

[Mithreas]

You don't need haks for changing XP scaling. We could do that with a server side override, or indeed just by scaling the XP that spawns give in scripting.