NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[rogueknight333]

...Only suggestion I’d make at this stage is improving the summoning system by adding variety of summons perhaps by alignment. The old default summons are dull. There must be a summoning system on the vault that is already balanced.

Well, it is just using Bioware's default summoning spells. Obviously it would be theoretically possible to improve these in numerous ways, but I have mostly left the game's default systems alone since 1) doing anything else would be too much work and 2) I do not think players should be expected to learn a completely new system every time they download a module. That said, I did make some modest improvements to many summoning spells and powers in later chapters (mostly making summons powerful enough to last more than a few seconds against Swordflight mobs).

Also, though there may be some exceptions I have forgotten about, Clerics should normally be able to cast Summon Creature spells from scrolls themselves, without relying on an arcane-capable companions, since most summoning spells show up in both the divine and arcane spellbooks. Unless you meant that you were summoning a creature yourself and also having Zarala do so, for even more summons, in which case kudos for coming up with a clever trick.

rogueknight333 It looks like I lost Zarala's scimitar in the third chapter, is there a console command for it?

Depends on the specific item. Typically yes, but there are some cases where there is an item in one module but no version in others (so you could only have it by importing it along with your character). You could spawn in any item present in the specific module (or any default Bioware item) by using the "dm_spawnitem [resref of item]" debug command. That requires the item's resref, and I would have to know the specific item to tell you what it is. Alternatively, you could open the module in the toolset and look up the item's resref yourself (if you are familiar with using the toolset). I believe Lilura's blog also has an entry somewhere giving item codes for some Swordflight specific things.

You actually can console in custom items (including ones you make yourself) not present in a particular module, but the procedure is rather complicated and perhaps too tricky for someone not accustomed to using the toolset. Basically, you would have to open a module containing the item in the toolset, then, while the toolset is open go to the "temp" folder in your NWN/Modules folder and find the item file somewhere in there (IIRC the file would be [item resref].uti) and copy it to your override folder. It would then be possible to console in the item in any module.

Spoiler

And he's still out there somewhere...

Spoiler

Adventurers get to reload or respawn when they get killed, so in keeping with my design scheme for the hobgoblin bosses, they get to have similar capabilities.

 

[AdamReith]

Oh I also wanted to comment on Snaj, definitely one of my favourite companions in a CRPG ever. Just enough *snarl* to be interesting and unique without being overdone, useful equipment and doesn't talk too much. I just load him up with critical heal potions and he mostly takes care of himself.

 

[The Jester]

...Only suggestion I’d make at this stage is improving the summoning system by adding variety of summons perhaps by alignment. The old default summons are dull. There must be a summoning system on the vault that is already balanced.

Well, it is just using Bioware's default summoning spells. Obviously it would be theoretically possible to improve these in numerous ways, but I have mostly left the game's default systems alone since 1) doing anything else would be too much work and 2) I do not think players should be expected to learn a completely new system every time they download a module. That said, I did make some modest improvements to many summoning spells and powers in later chapters (mostly making summons powerful enough to last more than a few seconds against Swordflight mobs).

Also, though there may be some exceptions I have forgotten about, Clerics should normally be able to cast Summon Creature spells from scrolls themselves, without relying on an arcane-capable companions, since most summoning spells show up in both the divine and arcane spellbooks. Unless you meant that you were summoning a creature yourself and also having Zarala do so, for even more summons, in which case kudos for coming up with a clever trick.

rogueknight333 It looks like I lost Zarala's scimitar in the third chapter, is there a console command for it?

Depends on the specific item. Typically yes, but there are some cases where there is an item in one module but no version in others (so you could only have it by importing it along with your character). You could spawn in any item present in the specific module (or any default Bioware item) by using the "dm_spawnitem [resref of item]" debug command. That requires the item's resref, and I would have to know the specific item to tell you what it is. Alternatively, you could open the module in the toolset and look up the item's resref yourself (if you are familiar with using the toolset). I believe Lilura's blog also has an entry somewhere giving item codes for some Swordflight specific things.

You actually can console in custom items (including ones you make yourself) not present in a particular module, but the procedure is rather complicated and perhaps too tricky for someone not accustomed to using the toolset. Basically, you would have to open a module containing the item in the toolset, then, while the toolset is open go to the "temp" folder in your NWN/Modules folder and find the item file somewhere in there (IIRC the file would be [item resref].uti) and copy it to your override folder. It would then be possible to console in the item in any module.

Spoiler

And he's still out there somewhere...

Spoiler

Adventurers get to reload or respawn when they get killed, so in keeping with my design scheme for the hobgoblin bosses, they get to have similar capabilities.

Yea I was wrong, it wasn't a scimitar it was the Calishite Short Sword +3 [calsihsword204].

 

[d1nolore]

...Only suggestion I’d make at this stage is improving the summoning system by adding variety of summons perhaps by alignment. The old default summons are dull. There must be a summoning system on the vault that is already balanced.

Well, it is just using Bioware's default summoning spells. Obviously it would be theoretically possible to improve these in numerous ways, but I have mostly left the game's default systems alone since 1) doing anything else would be too much work and 2) I do not think players should be expected to learn a completely new system every time they download a module. That said, I did make some modest improvements to many summoning spells and powers in later chapters (mostly making summons powerful enough to last more than a few seconds against Swordflight mobs).

Also, though there may be some exceptions I have forgotten about, Clerics should normally be able to cast Summon Creature spells from scrolls themselves, without relying on an arcane-capable companions, since most summoning spells show up in both the divine and arcane spellbooks. Unless you meant that you were summoning a creature yourself and also having Zarala do so, for even more summons, in which case kudos for coming up with a clever trick.

rogueknight333 It looks like I lost Zarala's scimitar in the third chapter, is there a console command for it?

Depends on the specific item. Typically yes, but there are some cases where there is an item in one module but no version in others (so you could only have it by importing it along with your character). You could spawn in any item present in the specific module (or any default Bioware item) by using the "dm_spawnitem [resref of item]" debug command. That requires the item's resref, and I would have to know the specific item to tell you what it is. Alternatively, you could open the module in the toolset and look up the item's resref yourself (if you are familiar with using the toolset). I believe Lilura's blog also has an entry somewhere giving item codes for some Swordflight specific things.

You actually can console in custom items (including ones you make yourself) not present in a particular module, but the procedure is rather complicated and perhaps too tricky for someone not accustomed to using the toolset. Basically, you would have to open a module containing the item in the toolset, then, while the toolset is open go to the "temp" folder in your NWN/Modules folder and find the item file somewhere in there (IIRC the file would be [item resref].uti) and copy it to your override folder. It would then be possible to console in the item in any module.

Spoiler

And he's still out there somewhere...

Spoiler

Adventurers get to reload or respawn when they get killed, so in keeping with my design scheme for the hobgoblin bosses, they get to have similar capabilities.

The summoning thing isn’t a big deal just I’ve played NWN for yonks so summoning badgers for the 11000th time is less enjoyable for me but for newer players I imagine they care less. All I’d really suggest is a simple change to the spell like:

summon 1:
If good summon Wisp
Else if neutral summon fire beetle
Else if evil summon goblin.

just for flavour.

And yes my cleric already has a summoned shadow from the death domain so can’t summon another creature. So I figured I’d try seeing if Zarala would use the scroll, which gave us 2 summons. It was really only because of the swordspiders.

Anyway I’m enjoying the mod, you are an excellent creator. Have you considered working in game development? You have the skill set for sure. Or is it just a hobby?

 

[rogueknight333]

Anyway I’m enjoying the mod, you are an excellent creator. Have you considered working in game development? You have the skill set for sure. Or is it just a hobby?

It is just a hobby. As best I can tell, current game developers regard actual competence as a disqualification, and so are unlikely to hire me. It is possible I will try my hand at making an actual indie game at some point, but obviously that would be much more difficult than working with NWN's pre-existing system, so it would take a very long time to produce anything functional, if I ever did.

 

[AdamReith]

Anyway I’m enjoying the mod, you are an excellent creator. Have you considered working in game development? You have the skill set for sure. Or is it just a hobby?

It is just a hobby. As best I can tell, current game developers regard actual competence as a disqualification, and so are unlikely to hire me. It is possible I will try my hand at making an actual indie game at some point, but obviously that would be much more difficult than working with NWN's pre-existing system, so it would take a very long time to produce anything functional, if I ever did.

Can we give you cash?

If beamdog had any sense they would be beating down your door to make premium modules for EE.

 

[LibertyRansom]

Anyway I’m enjoying the mod, you are an excellent creator. Have you considered working in game development? You have the skill set for sure. Or is it just a hobby?

It is just a hobby. As best I can tell, current game developers regard actual competence as a disqualification, and so are unlikely to hire me. It is possible I will try my hand at making an actual indie game at some point, but obviously that would be much more difficult than working with NWN's pre-existing system, so it would take a very long time to produce anything functional, if I ever did.

Are you going to have NWN: EE have Swordfight available for easy download on it's new Community Tab? They've added Reptile God and a few other popular ones. Would love it if Swordfight was one click to download and play.

 

[Gargaune]

rogueknight333, I'll echo the above. Once you've completed the series, it'd be well worth trying to feature it on Beamdog's content list since there may be plenty of EE players who just aren't looped into places like the Vault or the Codex to hear about it.

Speaking of, have you decided whether Ch.5 will be the last one or if you'll still have a Ch.6 after that?

 

[LibertyRansom]

rogueknight333, I'll echo the above. Once you've completed the series, it'd be well worth trying to feature it on Beamdog's content list since there may be plenty of EE players who just aren't looped into places like the Vault or the Codex to hear about it.

Speaking of, have you decided whether Ch.5 will be the last one or if you'll still have a Ch.6 after that?

I'd say to include it with the chapters we have now, even before you complete the series. It's one of the best modules and should be front page for new players.

 

[AdamReith]

I'm not sure if this is an NWN thing, or a Swordflight thing. But I notice I've been able to rest fairly safely in caves and secret rooms.

Is that an actual thing? Or just coincidence?

 

[The Jester]

I finally managed to beat the Neverwinter Night's original campaign with the help of Cheat Engine's Speed Hack.

What I expected:

What I got:

 

[Gargaune]

I'm not sure if this is an NWN thing, or a Swordflight thing. But I notice I've been able to rest fairly safely in caves and secret rooms.

Is that an actual thing? Or just coincidence?

If you're talking about ambushes, it's down to how the areas are set up and luck. The OC and SoU didn't have random rest encounters, it was just a toggle for rest allowed, HotU first provided an implementation for them. I've forgotten the particulars of Swordflight's rest encounters, but I'd say don't jinx it.

 

[AdamReith]

I'm not sure if this is an NWN thing, or a Swordflight thing. But I notice I've been able to rest fairly safely in caves and secret rooms.

Is that an actual thing? Or just coincidence?

If you're talking about ambushes, it's down to how the areas are set up and luck. The OC and SoU didn't have random rest encounters, it was just a toggle for rest allowed, HotU first provided an implementation for them. I've forgotten the particulars of Swordflight's rest encounters, but I'd say don't jinx it.

Yeah I'm wondering if it's possible to do variable ambush probability per room in the editor or something like that. I just thought it was a fun idea to make resting safer in a secret locations and such since they won't have as many patrols going through them and such.

 

[Gargaune]

Yeah I'm wondering if it's possible to do variable ambush probability per room in the editor or something like that. I just thought it was a fun idea to make resting safer in a secret locations and such since they won't have as many patrols going through them and such.

Eh, not quite like that. I've only briefly looked at it thus far and I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall that the standard scripting would pull a chance and spawn table for the current area (as in "level"). I'm not aware of any method to attach variables to particular cells. Off the top of my head, you could, for instance, set up some waypoints to qualify proximity and apply modifiers when calling the rest, but it would be a radius rather than a "room" and I've never looked at whether Swordflight does anything in this regard.

P.S. Actually, I suppose you could do it better with a trigger. Just toggle a variable on the PC when you enter or leave its bounds and check it on rest, that way you can precisely determine the affected area like you want.

 

[Poseidon00]

Yeah I'm wondering if it's possible to do variable ambush probability per room in the editor or something like that. I just thought it was a fun idea to make resting safer in a secret locations and such since they won't have as many patrols going through them and such.

Variable ambushes can be handled through the spawn system can't they? I am almost certain I made them when I was placing spawns in this forest maze I was messing around with

 

[rogueknight333]

Can we give you cash?

I have hardly thought about it. I suppose I might be able to set up a Patreon account or something of that nature? Not sure if that would run afoul of NWN's EULA, or if enough people would actually be interested for it to be worth the trouble.

If beamdog had any sense they would be beating down your door to make premium modules for EE.

Setting aside the question of whether I should be involved for people with more objectivity to discuss, I do wonder why Beamdog has not been making more of an effort to release premium modules. I suspect some sort of licensing issues might be involved.

Are you going to have NWN: EE have Swordfight available for easy download on it's new Community Tab? ...

Beamdog actually did contact me about including Swordflight on that feature. At least for the time being, I have held off agreeing since 1) Swordflight uses custom content created by people other than myself, some of which was released on the Vault under very restrictive conditions that would appear not to allow such a thing (such things are not really legally enforceable, but I would prefer to respect the creator's wishes where possible, and presumably Beamdog would not like the bad press that could result from ignoring them), and 2) Any updates to modules using that feature have to go through Beamdog first, which concerns me since it could result in considerable delays (especially by my standards - I once uploaded an updated version of one of the Swordflight modules within hours of a potentially serious bug being reported).

In general, Beamdog's QA tends to be considerably inferior to mine, so adding them into the QA process seems questionable.

I do not think the series being incomplete is relevant. FesterPot's Auren series was included in the Beamdog program despite being also incomplete (or at least Fester Pot has allegedly been working on a sequel to the first two Auren modules for some time now).

Also, given the difficulty of the series, I am not sure it is entirely a bad thing to put a few obstacles in the way of it being downloaded by casual players who would have no clue what they are getting into.

Speaking of, have you decided whether Ch.5 will be the last one or if you'll still have a Ch.6 after that?

According to my current plan, the series will have six chapters when complete.

I'm not sure if this is an NWN thing, or a Swordflight thing. But I notice I've been able to rest fairly safely in caves and secret rooms.

Is that an actual thing? Or just coincidence?

You were probably just lucky, though there are a few dungeons in which it is possible to rest safely after having cleared them. The specific room you are in would not matter. It should be possible to set up a system where that does, but I did not go to the trouble to do so.

 

[The Jester]

rogueknight333
Chapter 3, some creature's portraits aren't showing up (EE).
Cornugon
Greater Cornugon
Otyugh
I have never encountered this problem in DE.

rogueknight333 My problem with portraits in EE have been solved after using 169 Portrait and Soundset Unlocker

 

[AdamReith]

Just finished Swordflight Chapter 2, great escalation, great ending, just a joy to play through. Writing and character pay off was completely satisfying. I kept waiting for a drop in quality that never came. The pacing was spot on throughout.

Really hard to believe that what I just played was free. I guess the future of the hobby is clear.

That improved invisibility thing on companions is complete arse though. The only negatives with Swordflight come with the NWN engine but if you can see past them it is up there with the best CRPGS of all time.

 

[rogueknight333]

... I kept waiting for a drop in quality that never came...

Just to prepare you for possible disappointment, most people think Ch. 2 is the high point of the series, and Ch. 3 & 4 are not as good.

Variable ambushes can be handled through the spawn system can't they? I am almost certain I made them when I was placing spawns in this forest maze I was messing around with

They can be, and that is how Bioiware handled the ambushes in HoTU, but I use a custom ambush system of my own.

 

[curds]

Not sure if that would run afoul of NWN's EULA

You could just not say it's for NWN modules, right?

 

[AdamReith]

... I kept waiting for a drop in quality that never came...

Just to prepare you for possible disappointment, most people think Ch. 2 is the high point of the series, and Ch. 3 & 4 are not as good.

I'm not like some of the others on this site, I haven't finished a long- 40+ hours CRPG since... KOTOR I guess? Back when it first came out. Only finished JRPGs since then, though of course I put time into countless CRPGs; none of them hooked me enough to get through to the end.

I'm trying to figure out what made it so easy to stick with your game, it has to come down to the writing and sense of place. I really loved the idea of being a member of that guys guard based in Calimport. The combat difficulty and intricate world also kept me guessing at what you were going to throw at me next. Every time my brain was predicting a rubbish filler section there would be something novel there instead.

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that's impossible to disappoint me at this point. You've already outdone everything else in the market.

 

[rogueknight333]

Not sure if that would run afoul of NWN's EULA

You could just not say it's for NWN modules, right?

It rather obviously would be though, as I cannot think of any other reason why random strangers on the internet might want to give me money. I suppose I could set up a fund to hire a lawyer to let me know what I am allowed to raise funds for.

 

[Sabotin]

There are various modders on there, there shouldn't be legal issues. Besides you're not selling anything and it's all voluntary donations.

 

[Sabotin]

I wanted to ask something regarding EE on the Beamdog forums and noticed this in the rules, is this standard?

NOTICE: Unless otherwise expressly stated, Beamdog are the owner or licensee of all intellectual property rights in this Site and the materials you post related to Beamdog's licensed intellectual property. By submitting (e.g., uploading) content to the official forums for Beamdog games, you automatically grant Beamdog the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sub licensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.

Anyway on the off-chance someone knows OpenGL:

I've been trying to get the EE lighting look closer to the original since it's so vastly different normally.

Mucking around with debug views and browsing around the .shd files I've gathered that that's because the old game was using static lights for ambience (circles or fairly uniformly applied lighting around the source) while the new one has diffuse for everything (a source is bright and light spreads from it in a more realistic fashion.
Now the difference is that on the new version the light sources have to be very bright so that they can cover an area of similar size, so you end up looking almost like under a spotlight when close to the source of light and it results in a colorful glow expanding over the rest of the area. Lowering the lighting setting alleviates this issue, but then the lighting doesn't reach very far from the source and you end up with much darker areas.
I've tried changing various values in the lighting.shd/common.shd files, like changing the base lighting color from black to grey or some light multiplier here and there but the results weren't good (sometimes just outright breaking graphics). Rewriting some formula would probably work but I'm a layman at programming and math.
So I was wondering if it would be possible to make the game use the basic static lighting while in enhanced mode, by changing some values and/or commenting out some stuff in those shader files (they're plain text). Or conversely make the old-school mode use specular for the shiny bits.

Spending a few hours customizing EE to my liking I've figured out it does have a lot of options and makes things easier/possible compared to the original, but it really does require some time to try out everything and see what's what, even just going through the options menu. I've gotten rid of those wavy edges around keyholing that were bothering me by just finding one value in the game files. I've changed the main menu to my liking by editing 1-2 files and sticking a picture in the override. Etc. But then you gotta google everywhere what a certain option or function does or experiment ingame if you can spot a difference. I really wanna like this thing but there's always some stumbling stone that makes me play diamond instead cause I'm already familiar with its flaws.

 

[Gargaune]

I wanted to ask something regarding EE on the Beamdog forums and noticed this in the rules, is this standard?

I believe that's a growingly common boilerplate disclaimer with corporate online communities. Basically, if you post a meme or screenshot and they recycle it on their social media, you don't get to claim copyright and hassle them over it.

Can't comment on the graphics questions, I just flipped a few in-game settings, changed the menu background and rolled with it. The new lighting model isn't perfect, but I like it better than the original.