BioWare is excited to announce the official public release for the highly anticipated Community Expansion Project (CEP) will be March 24th! For more information about the CEP, visit BioWare's CEP info page. While you have your calendar open, note that NWCon II: Hordes of the Internet will take place online April 16th-18th. Play in games and attend expert panel discussions on a wide variety of topics! Want to get involved? Visit www.neverwinterconnections.com.

Edited By mikang on 03/17/04 19:41

Edited By MacGamer on 03/17/04 20:00

Edited By griphook on 03/18/04 01:09

Quote: Posted 03/18/04 01:07:18 (GMT) by griphook

sorry about this but just to be clear (i,m not gonna read all pages again) if i install cep in a mod.
if i then wan,t to make a mod without cep... can i do it
(that prob won,t happen but just to be sure)
thank,s in advance

Quote: Posted 03/18/04 02:55:39 (GMT) by Architeuthis

Well, I wish I could say that I am excited about CEP, but I have a hard time getting excited about a group of people downloading things made by other people, compiling them into a big hakpak like a whole lot of others have done before, and then making a big production out of it. I'm sure it took a lot of time and effort to put it together, but CEP isn't the first group to compile a giant hakpak. There are many hakpak compilations already available on NW Vault, with a lot of the same content. CEP is really just another such compilation. Additionally, by hyping CEP as the best the community has produced, they are basically saying anything that isn't in it isn't worthy, and I'm convinced that's just not true. By making such a big deal out of it here, BioWare is also giving it their seal of approval. I don't think that's fair. It minimizes the contributions made by others, and in some way, the whole thing takes credit away from those whose content has been included by CEP and will now be viewed as "CEP content", contributor lists notwithstanding. Besides, the power of Neverwinter Nights is in customization, not standardization. One thing I would hate to see is people refusing to download game-specific hakpaks or to try new games because they don't use the CEP hakpaks.

Have a nice day.

Archi

Quote: Posted 03/18/04 03:33:59 (GMT) by NWC Snake

Hail! It's interesting to me that DLA's work, which is some of the best the community has to offer, isn't going to be included in CEP. Was DLA asked if they wanted their content included, or did they request exclusion on their own initiative? Nobody ever asked me if I wanted any of my work included in CEP, and I was never told that some of my work was being included, I had to look through the contributor lists to see that. I don't object, but the courtesy of a request or some notice would have been a very nice gesture. Others have asked, and I have always said yes.

Quote: I'm flattered that my Usable Loom is included in CEP, but I do wonder what went into the decision not to include my placeable houses in the placeable structures section. I consider the placeable houses I made to be much more important work than the loom. The far larger number of downloads of my placeable houses hakpak supports that opinion. The six placeable houses I made are the only available placeable structures that actually have working doors with open and close animations as part of the models themselves, eliminating the need for builders to use a separate placeable door when they place these houses. The placeable structures that are listed as being included in CEP lack such functionality. My placeable houses were created from BioWare's own house models, so their quality is at least fairly good. The hakpak containing them is tiny, too. Am I permitted to ask why they aren't included in CEP?

Your Humble Serpent,

Snake
Neverwinter Consortium

Quote: Posted 03/18/04 03:53:49 (GMT) by Squidget

Well, from the CEP Placeable release...

Supercedes all other house placeables. Works okay but requires scripting and the entire house is clickable. Need to be redone so that the door is a separate placeable.

I haven't really tried your placeables, but I think the CEP generally stays away from things that are too complicated on the user or builder's end. I'm sure SBird could give you a much better answer than I could.

Quote: Posted 03/18/04 05:02:52 (GMT) by NWC Snake

Hail! The whole point of making these houses was so they would NOT need separate placeable doors, enabling the simplest possible method of placing the entire thing! They can even be placed by players if Rich Dersheimer's player-placeable furnniture script is used. I don't see how doing the same thing everyone else was doing, namely making houses with big black holes for doorways that the placeable doors don't even fit into properly, or with no doorways at all, would be an improvement. Placing a house and separate placeable door isn't less complicated, it's more complicated. Furthermore, ALL placeable doors require a script to function, so that's not a particularly valid criterion for exclusion. Besides, a working door script was included in the hakpak. Yes, the whole house is clickable. ALL placeables work that way when made usable. It's not a disadvantage, it's a benefit. You click on the house, even if you aren't standing right in front of the door, and your character walks around the house to the door and opens it. It's quite simple, really.

I'm not quite sure what "supercedes all other house placeables" is supposed to mean. If it means that the previous house placeables are no longer necessary if you have these, then I would agree. If it means no other house placeables can be used if these are being used, that's just plain wrong. These are just like any other placeable models. They do not replace or interfere with any other placeables as long as they are properly listed in placeables.2da. They have unique names that do not interfere with anyone else's placeables.

Ah, well, so it goes. I spent many hours learning to use Gmax and making placeables that add new functionality, and now someone has decided they aren't good enough for their self-styled "community standard" hakpak, for reasons that don't appear to me to make any sense, especially when you look at the known flaws in what was included. Ah, what the heck. I wasn't going to rebuild all 9 modules that make up Neverwinter Nights: Resurrection to make them use CEP anyway.

Your Humble Serpent,

Snake
Neverwinter Consortium