Sir-builds a-lot

I've been hacking at KToD bugs for hours now.
My eyes are crossing and caffeine isn't working any longer.
I just thought I'd give a big shout out to everyone who had an influence or a hand in building this server. I really didn't have a grasp on everything that was really put into KToD and i had no idea there were this many areas lol!. You guys did a fantastic job and anyone who ever reads that should know it. Players and DM's alike.

This thing is an emotional rollercoaster. I'm jumping between maps that bring back both good and sad memories. I hope one day that everyone can finally come back home. Lol. I know your all caught up in RL but just keep in mind that there are little people in the shadows still hard at work :]

Well....

Thank you. I'm sure Kiri will say the same, we put a lot of time in on it,
and many don't even realize just how much really is there. When I say there's over 2500 areas I mean there is litteraly over 2500 areas or so that are over 1/2 to 3/4 developed for game play.

We were trying to make every door, nook and cranny worth something. We simply ran out of room, "so to speak" in the actual toolset and that was what caused us to have to stop expanding and start remodeling. Remodeling, meaning we have to make universal conversations and shops in order to cut back on space used so that we could add more.

The Crafting system was one of those things I started to add... but ran out of room on, the horses we added before the official scripts were released so we had to back track on that one also.

Like I mentioned in the pm and e-mail,
right now we have to fix the bugs, rework some of the main scripts and consolidate the shop scripts in order to free up resources for adding any of the new stuff.

CEP 2.3 or what ever it is at right now...hasn't been added yet either I was waiting until I got some of the weeds out of the pond before adding more to put it plainly lol

*chuckles*

~SB

What ever happen to the new Module/server that Kiri was building?

Honestly, I don't know myself.

Everyone seems to have vanished or gone on vacation for a bit lol.
He might be hard at work on it though. It's very consuming work and both him and Storm are psychotically dedicated.

Bunch weirdo's if you ask me! Lol! I'm sure he'll pop in every once in a while and give you an update. Just hang around and try to harass him. KToD2 is undergoing a makeover right now. So regardless something should be up in no time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqFE52lcyBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG0K-ogLrVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxBvWzUYs8c

I was checking out CEP 2.3
I think you guys should take a look at this. The power of the DM widgets is amazing. I think it would be a damn shame not to put it into KToD.

Oh and get this. They have houses in giant trees... Go figure right?

You're a brave man for even sticking your nose into this module in the toolset, and I thank you for it. It's been an honor and pleasure to be part of the legacy. The module has changed hands so many times, and has been changed in countless ways over the years. (Which was often a source of much grief, but each person contributed something unique to the module itself, builders, players, & Dms alike.)

I can honestly say, it was a learning experience for me, in more ways than one. There is so much in the module that is setup to work and just not implimented, or was just never finished, I dunno where to begin.

I've been developing NWNs on and off for years, when I can stay focused, and it is a game unlike any other out there, and has alot more unrealised potential.

I stopped working on this module because we did, in fact, hit the resource(Creatures/Items/Placeables/Scripts/etc) cap that NWNs cannot exceed. They fixed some of those issues with the 1.69 patch, but alot of the same issues remain. Also with the compiling of the community content (CEP/CCP/CMP/etc), there is so much content added to the module/toolset via haks, it didn't make sense to keep revising and trying to update the module. It was simply impossible to re-work all the internal stuff on a module that big, and no sort of conformity to the systems...

So I struck it off on my own with a vision of making a Dragonlance module unlike any other, several times. Come pretty close a couple times too, But it seems like I never make any progress that adds up to anything, be it due to RL issues, lack of interest in building, giving my free time to other video games, or the direction I wanted to go with it changing... But I always maintain a vision of a NWNs module...

The vision has changed many times, but it's always been inspired by my time & experiences here, with this community. It's for the players and peoples imaginations that I got into this to begin with.

...It's like the inspiration to build hits me every once in awhile, burns like a star for a few weeks, and fades away.... then I wander off, and wander back, with a new idea of how to improve what I was currently workin on and start all over... I'm not a very realiable person, and I apologize to all those I've dissappointed along the way... I've promised such wonderful things, and never come through... I -am- sorry...

p.s: But, I think I'm onto something this time, though don't get your hopes up, as usual. ~wink~

...I can't escape Neverwinter Nights, and the freedom for creativity it provides. There is not another MMORPG that offers the kind of open 'sandbox' NWN offers, especially when you get alot further into Developing it and see it's true potential.... Which I hope I can exploit.


On a technical note: If you have any questions about the original coding or w/e, just let me know and I'll help you best I can as you make your way through the mire, you brave brave soul.

Will of Lett wrote:

What ever happen to the new Module/server that Kiri was building?

The aim of the project shifted, and the methods used have changed dramatically. I'll clue in on these as I prepare the documentation. I should hopefully have my webserver back up and running soon, and all information can be obtained there.

Blue_Dragoon_Knight wrote:

...I was checking out CEP 2.3
I think you guys should take a look at this. The power of the DM widgets is amazing. I think it would be a damn shame not to put it into KToD.

Oh and get this. They have houses in giant trees... Go figure right?

I've actually been keeping up with the CEP, and they are accomplishing amazing things for builders who rely mainly on their haks. It puts alot of the actual toolset power into the hands of the DMs, which makes 'on-the-fly' quests just that much better. I'm using the custom content from the CEP 2.3 myself, as well as their horse systems, integrated with my own....

You can't go wrong w/the CEP... usually. =p

LOL Kiri,

It's my pleasure. I've helped build and scripted several servers for friends or just acquaintances. All, simply, for the satisfying my curiosity. Now i actually have a server i call home and I'm very passionate about. ^ ^

I thought I'd come in and give an update.

I've decided to take the harder route in fixing the small bugs and or script errors.
I've exported each area into an .erf
That way i can work on them one by one, then when finished, i can put them back into one module.
I've created a copy that i can go back to. I'm going to delete all of the shops and compile them into one script.
A simpler GetnearestObjbyTag script. Instead of the GetObjwithTag "Blahblah" That is currently in place.

That will work great for everything except the Tailoring shop. My opinion on that is to just give players the dye kit on entry that allows them to color there clothing whenever they like.

I'm going to try a different spawn script with its own cleanup. I'm not sure which one is used in KToD ... it looks like there was an attempt at a few and only one is being used lol!!! ....

Well. Thats it from me for now.

One mooorrre thing!

The spawn system i want to use is AmanShadar's Spawn System 2.1.1

It will allow us to spawn placeables in rooms, so that will save a lot of loading i think? I've never tried it. In theory lets say there are area's that players don't flock too all the time that have a crap load of placeables. This script will load them onentry, then remove them if no one is there. :O

Try it and we'll see what happens...
And that statement brings back many memories..... lol

Like I mentioned before, when we started we did a lot of, well lets try this or that out to see if it'll work for us...then we'd go back in and fix it to our standards... but if it didn't work out then we'd have to try to remove it... and sometimes removing something that doesn't work tended to be the hard part in many of the cases. Because scripts that get added by the "new" thing may change other scripts or may look similar to other ones ect ect...

When adding or trying new things I started sticking them in there own one area mod by themselves to make sure that I knew what was being brought into the main mod so that I could remove them if needed... This however was learnt by "Accident" for lack of better words on my part... as I admit there are a lot of things that I tried / or wanted to add or thought would be neat to add to the current mod... but after adding somethings off of the vault I would find out after bringing them in that the builder that posted them to the vault forgot to mention that they didn't work properly or had bugs.. ect ect.. and then I would either have to fix the darn things and make them work or try to remove everything that came with them.

then.. there were things that were cool that we added , but we had those that would exploit the heck out of them... so we had to either remove them or put them in very hard to reach areas or unreachable areas all together..that turned them into DM/QM objects for quests and such...cause some players simply couldn't be trusted with em...and we couldn't script every aspect of everything into or out of them so they were not exploitable...

alright...so I'm rambling now....

*chuckles*

Lol, i don't mind the rambling at all.

Thats basically what i did though. I made smaller version of the module. Consisting of Solace and the surrounding areas to test out certain scripts. If it works and everyones happy with it -then- i'll put the other scripts and areas back in. Start from the bottom they say.

I know what you mean about items being abused. Many of them have such great concepts though. It's a pitty people couldn't just be honest. I really hate that the enchant-able gems at the gnome shop are so abuse-able i really liked having Harm lmao!

I guess thats what DM tokens are for though right? ... That way you can determine which players are trustable and would appreciate and not abuse certain powers/dragon forms/ dragon companions/ enchantable or epic items lol!

That's probably the best route to go, as far a tryin to fix the mod, especially since nothing more exotic than the CEP is being used, the rest is just scripting, redoing the creatures & items (Since they each alternated between over/under-powered to compensate for eachother.)

If you have any questions about the existing stuff, just lemme know, and I'll go digging around and get your answers.

I will send over some more information too when I have the time to Blue.

So how are things going Blue?
Have you made any progress or have you given up on it?

I'm really interested to see what you can do with it.