Is it time to bring on HAKs?

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by flower » Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:22 am

One of the biggest advantages for Arelith, for new players, is click and play.

Dowload, fiddle with files, and THEN play may slow down income of new players.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Liareth » Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:56 am

Irongron wrote:
SwampFoot wrote:Where I get frustrated with Haks is the need to have said haks before you can enter a server. New update? Everyone has to update the haks. With as many updates as Arelith has been grinding out recently this would likely mean a new hak every week.
Yes, this is absolutely my concern with HaKs too. Quality could be controlled, bugs/instabilities fixed, but asking players to download new updates every x days would be horrible. But this really isn't aronud the corner just yet, there are others things, and even if/when we do try haks, we'd schedule specific hak updates to happen very rarely indeed. It would just be a constant headache otherwise. We may even be able to automate that for our players, who knows?
I don't think this would be an issue. We could probably separate them into two groups of haks ...

- Mandatory [new models and other visual assets]
- Optional [useful stuff like new icons, spells, menu options, etc]

We could aim for updates every six-eight weeks for the mandatory pack. We could release updates to the optional pack daily if we wanted to, but players wouldn't need to download it (except every six-eight week update period) unless they wanted to see those updates. For most people they could just use the launcher to start their game, and boom everything would work and be completely up to date. For others with more awkward requirements, they could manually update the mandatory and optional haks every two months.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Rodent » Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:00 am

flower wrote:One of the biggest advantages for Arelith, for new players, is click and play.

Dowload, fiddle with files, and THEN play may slow down income of new players.
I've always found that argument to be a little spurious. As SM said, a simple launcher will take care of all that mess for the vast majority of players. Its not too tall an ask for people, in my opinion. Most likely the path taken for HAKS will be to introduce them piecemeal, and one-by-one as the devs get used to the liberty those tools offer and start making use of them. I don't suspect we'll ever get crazy with it, for the vanilla look is a draw towards Arelith IMO.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Seekeepeek » Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:13 am

I have played on a few servers with haks in the past, so when those servers was updating their haks i kinda ended up playing Arelith again. i am kinda to lazy to update them and eventually ended up not returning to the other servers or having month long breaks from them. I admit i been curious to try the nwn1 server Ravenloft since it was made by parts of an old nwn1 server called Anphilla, but the haks kinda keept me from doing so. i do wonder how Arelith on haks would be thought, and is curious how the end product will be.

Do keep in mind that's just my own humble experience with haks, but just figured it'd share my experience.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Rwby » Tue Jun 13, 2017 1:59 pm

I feel the issue people are forgetting that was brought up a lot in the other thread is several players said they just didn't have the download capacity. It wasn't that they didn't know how to figure it out, it was that they had stupidly small download caps for various reasons and they just could not afford regular Hak updates.

To me, that's one of the biggest reasons for no haks. We might actually be closing our door on existing players.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Cybernet21 » Tue Jun 13, 2017 2:02 pm

Rwby wrote:I feel the issue people are forgetting that was brought up a lot in the other thread is several players said they just didn't have the download capacity. It wasn't that they didn't know how to figure it out, it was that they had stupidly small download caps for various reasons and they just could not afford regular Hak updates.

To me, that's one of the biggest reasons for no haks. We might actually be closing our door on existing players.

What about only optional haks,like area music,menu icons,etc...?
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Our Endless War » Tue Jun 13, 2017 2:04 pm

Cybernet21 wrote:
Rwby wrote:I feel the issue people are forgetting that was brought up a lot in the other thread is several players said they just didn't have the download capacity. It wasn't that they didn't know how to figure it out, it was that they had stupidly small download caps for various reasons and they just could not afford regular Hak updates.

To me, that's one of the biggest reasons for no haks. We might actually be closing our door on existing players.

What about only optional haks,like area music,menu icons,etc...?


that seems worse than going full hak, it still alienates people who don't have download capacity & doesn't add much to the game as a whole (most people who enjoy haks & overrides also already have these)
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by milosr » Tue Jun 13, 2017 3:35 pm

I'v come to realise something from playing on HAK servers. Developers get...lazy as heck.
Don't get me wrong, I love ALL the devs, but the HAK devs just say its impossible if its not in the HAK pack.

The first thing that goes down the drain when haks start, its the performance, somehow...devs lose track of that, and just focus on how fluffy something looks.

But sure we can all live with a bit less performance on a 15 year old game, but I really do hate it when Devs stop trying to think how they can break NWN in order to get what they want, and just start to think along the lines of...meh, if it ain't in the pack, it ain't doable, MOAR FLUFF!


On the servers I was on, the HAK servers had gigabytes of content, and yet...none of their features had the quality and performance of Arelith features. And somehow, Arelith being without HAKs has managed to outperfrom them all on every account.

So...why fall into the same hole they did, that is fluff over substance?

Oh and have I mentioned I love you guys for fixing the expertise and other combat stances?...cause I really do. <3

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by LichBait » Tue Jun 13, 2017 3:48 pm

I do miss the appearances of more visual diversity, as I do come from a server that used the CEP (Community Expansion Pack). It helps with personalization, and more 'accurate' representation of monsters, weapons, ect. However, I haven't missed it as much as I thought I would playing on Arelith. Arelith's performance is top notch, and the ability to make fixtures/descriptions adds quite a bit.

I suppose I'm of two minds for it. HAKs for visual things such as better textures/models/ect. would be great, but I came from a place that was visual heavy and I don't miss it as much as I thought I would.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Ebonstar » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:12 pm

I had stated before for those with limited bandwidth or net access, that I would be happy to burn the Haks and updates and send them out to those that didnt have the access to do major downloads.

I think our Dev Team would take Haks and push them beyond what Haks even thought possible, just because they are doing so without them.

Not even thinking about the eye candy and to make it so ten people in a group all dont have the same heads or hair length, but to have actual classes that fit their PnP function.
Assassins that can actually assassinate people without needing a gank squad to help because they are too squishy.
Shadowdancers that can actually use their abilities as described.

The other PrCs as well being as planned. Main classes and skills working as intended.

Haks just are not about the fluff.
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by DM Symphony » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:18 pm

Scholar Midnight wrote:
I don't think this would be an issue. We could probably separate them into two groups of haks ...

- Mandatory [new models and other visual assets]
- Optional [useful stuff like new icons, spells, menu options, etc]

We could aim for updates every six-eight weeks for the mandatory pack. We could release updates to the optional pack daily if we wanted to, but players wouldn't need to download it (except every six-eight week update period) unless they wanted to see those updates. For most people they could just use the launcher to start their game, and boom everything would work and be completely up to date. For others with more awkward requirements, they could manually update the mandatory and optional haks every two months.
I think this is really ideal, since the cosmetic hak files could be updated as often as the server is (new areas/scripts), whereas the "Mandatory" hak files would be the one's that required "compatibility". There would need to be a consensus with the mandatory haks — everyone on the build team and the players would need to be using them. Although, there's 2 things involved with this:

1) They would probably be the hak equivalent of Arelith's override collection. Baseitems.2da, tileset .set files, .mdl files, this is all really small stuff.

2) At least for the beginning, it would be as Irongron mentioned in the last TWO threads about haks, that there would be an area of the server that used the special content, and, you wouldn't need to have these extra models to play on the server.

Hak sets that are gigabytes in size are usually gigabytes in size because of large textures. This is because the data size of increased texture resolutions is exponential, because they are 2D, and because a lot of the content I've seen in those gigabytes hak suites are uncompressed TGA format, unfortunately enough, put into the haks for "compatibility".

Additionally, most of these "gigabytes" hak suites are mob grabs of all of the resources the developers think they might ever ever ever have maybe a use for, just in case, since changing such "mandatory" haks is an extremely painful often server-breaking prospect. It is less of a problem now that we don't have to worry about Bioware rolling out a patch, but it is still a big deal.

This is totally different from the cosmetic haks. They can come and go, be deleted or be readded, and won't really effect the game beyond aesthetic purposes. Proper placeable positioning, area lighting considerations, et cetra.

Furthermore, I would feel very comfortable making a "lite" version of the cosmetic haks that have a much smaller file size. Even taking a large 512x512 texture and shrinking it to half the detail takes up 1/4th of the data. It would be very easy (for me) to run batch scripts on the images to make a — still optional — cosmetic enhancement hak less than a tenth of the size of the main cosmetic hak.

And of course, again, these optional haks would be likely put together much more deliberately by the team given the approach on this server to development, and our ability to split data this way. Because the cosmetic hak can be changed every day, if desired, we don't need to make sure we grab everything we think we'll ever ever need.

Additionally, I am currently replacing a lot of Bioware's TGA graphics with compressed DDS files that look 10(0)x better and take up 1/4th of the space of the originals, and in terms of performance, have a dynamic scaling for your computer memory with which, for example, a high res face (1024x1024) a long ways away will only act like a 64x64 face until you get closer to it.

In the other TGA giant haks, these TGA files might have a face that is 256x256 (worse), and they always take up that much memory at all times.

Here's some rough references.
1024x1024 dds = 1 MB
64x64 dds = 4k
256x256 TGA = 200k
1024x1024 TGA (rare) (Skybox) = 3 MB

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Gable Morninglord » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:21 pm

NO HAKS
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by JediMindTrix » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:23 pm

HAKS

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Hunter548 » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:30 pm

Rodent wrote:
flower wrote:One of the biggest advantages for Arelith, for new players, is click and play.

Dowload, fiddle with files, and THEN play may slow down income of new players.
I've always found that argument to be a little spurious. As SM said, a simple launcher will take care of all that mess for the vast majority of players. Its not too tall an ask for people, in my opinion. Most likely the path taken for HAKS will be to introduce them piecemeal, and one-by-one as the devs get used to the liberty those tools offer and start making use of them. I don't suspect we'll ever get crazy with it, for the vanilla look is a draw towards Arelith IMO.
Not to mention that NWN is, by and large, dying outside of Arelith, Amia, and similar servers.

No one can click and play anymore - You have to either visit the website for the IP address, or one of the NWN server listings. Either way, you're having to put some effort in to log in. Add to it how old NWN is, and I'd seriously doubt we got >20 players in the past year who weren't migrating from another (Hak using) server, or being dragged here by a friend.

As for the constantly downloading new haks thing, not every update would necessitate a hak repacking. New areas don't mean a hak update unless they're using a new tileset/placeable. Spell adjustments don't need a hak update because that's a server-side .2da edit. New craftables don't need a hak update unless they have a custom base item or custom appearance.
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by JediMindTrix » Tue Jun 13, 2017 4:55 pm

And then there's Sinfar, which has been disproving (download cap included) the worries espoused in this thread for a long time now.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Nitro » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:01 pm

JediMindTrix wrote:And then there's Sinfar, which has been disproving (download cap included) the worries espoused in this thread for a long time now.
Well, let's not kid ourselves here. Sinfars popularity comes from it basically being an sexy elven fun times server.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by flower » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:09 pm

Hunter548 wrote:
Rodent wrote:
flower wrote:One of the biggest advantages for Arelith, for new players, is click and play.

Dowload, fiddle with files, and THEN play may slow down income of new players.
...

Well i still do not believe Arelith NEEDs haks for content or even would need that content requiring haks that much. Yes, i would like more clothing options, and so on. But is it neccesary? No.

Because, once you put it in, it is not reversible.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by JediMindTrix » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:36 pm

Nitro wrote:Well, let's not kid ourselves here. Sinfars popularity comes from it basically being an sexy elven fun times server.
That doesn't really have any bearing on my statement. It used very expansive haks and even requires special modifications be made to the .exe, and it's grown to a behemoth regardless.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by kittenblackfriends » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:43 pm

Let's face it. What we really need to do is just update the entire NWN engine with a fan-made copy, fix all the bugs, and introduce pixies that don't look like shit.

Sadly, that takes more effort than it would be worth. Which is why we do HAKs and scripting.
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Hunter548 » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:51 pm

flower wrote: Well i still do not believe Arelith NEEDs haks for content or even would need that content requiring haks that much. Yes, i would like more clothing options, and so on. But is it neccesary? No.

Because, once you put it in, it is not reversible.
There's a lot that can't be done without haks; Changing how sneak attack works, changing death attack, changing feat descriptions to match what they do, making warlock/true flame/healer/etc all seperate classes rather than paths. Favored Soul could be reworked to be closer to PnP, new feats could be added, etc etc etc.
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Orian_666 » Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:52 pm

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Liareth » Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:19 pm

kittenblackfriends wrote:Let's face it. What we really need to do is just update the entire NWN engine with a fan-made copy, fix all the bugs, and introduce pixies that don't look like shit.

Sadly, that takes more effort than it would be worth. Which is why we do HAKs and scripting.
There's nothing that can''t be done with NWNCX modifications. That's something Arelith would have if we introduced haks. We could implement similar features to Sinfar, e.g. per clothing piece colouring and manual positioning and scaling of clothing parts.

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by Cortex » Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:36 pm

in 4k when?
:)

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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by kittenblackfriends » Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:36 pm

omg midnight stop trying to seduce me D:
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Re: Is it time to bring on HAKs?

Post by DM Symphony » Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:52 pm

kittenblackfriends wrote:Let's face it. What we really need to do is just update the entire NWN engine with a fan-made copy, fix all the bugs, and introduce pixies that don't look like shit.
If we introduce haks, I can and may literally, steadily, single-handedly, reskin the entire game with high resolution textures, and your computer will be fine with it.

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