HAK Poll

[Halfbrood]

From my point of view as someone who enjoys this age old game, I am always for something that will increase that enjoyment and overhaul some of the chunkier graphics and vanilla content. I used HAKs and advocate more!

[CondorHero]

I would never try EFU if there wasn't a downloader. The biggest hassle in any PW is that I have to download individual hak packs and placing them into the proper override and hak folder.

Same reason I dont download any of the portraits in the portrait thread. I'd rather have one big download with all the portraits rather than one at a time.

[Frostbite]

Same reason I dont download any of the portraits in the portrait thread. I'd rather have one big download with all the portraits rather than one at a time.

This I think is one of the bigger things, I can download haks....but I -much- prefer launchers, It's to much work for single files that constantly need updating.

[TroublesomeTree]

The strangest information that has come out of this thread is that there are still people who think adopting CEP is a good idea.

I honestly don't know why it isn't! I was hoping someone would explain why.

[Hhean]

I also don't understand what's wrong with CEP

[Knight Of Pentacles]

CEP contains tons and tons of junkie stuff that doesn't fit into EFU.

[Siren]

CEP contains tons and tons of junkie stuff that doesn't fit into EFU.

Which needn't have a place in the module. I personally think CEP would be a good addition, or at least some of CEP's content. I'm fairly certain that all servers (or at least the ones with an active playerbase, with the exception of Arelith) already use CEP. Neverwinter Nights has become such a niche game that I doubt CEP would affect the influx of new players. Gamespy's server browser is long gone, as is their account system, anyone capable of finding servers to join is also capable of getting CEP (that comes in very user-friendly install packages).

Our Kuo-Toans in-game are lizards, CEP would address this. Same with the myconids, even if we have a HAK for that now. There's just an absurd amount of creatures that CEP brings, a variety of new costumization options (some good, others very questionable), a ton of new icons for the inventory (no longer would raw chicken look like fire-beetle bellies), aswell as some great portraits to make use of.

The game is dated and old, anything to "refresh" its appearance would be welcomed by most players, I think. I don't like everything about CEP but it does add a bit of novelty to the game.

I get wanting to minimize the amount of .hak content to facilitate access to the server, but at this stage in the game's life, what could potentially drive people away from trying EfU: the inclusion of easily obtainable haks that vastly expand the game's visuals or limited amount of visual resources?

I think restricting custom content and sticking with vanilla NWN stuff is fairly limiting, specially inside the toolset... If the areas look good now, imagine how much more detail could be added with CEP content. I think most new players here would be NWN veterans or former NWN players who're returning to try the game out... I don't think there's that many newcomers who're entirely new to the game aswell and if there are, surely CEP will be the least of their worries, since it's a requirement to play on most servers nowadays. Geez, chances are that by the time someone finds out about EfU, they already have CEP installed... That was surely my case.

Anyway, just my opinion. My experience with the toolset is limited, so if CEP's a "bad idea" because of any conflicts it could cause with certain scripts or compability issues, then I understand... but otherwise I don't see what's so bad about it...

[Howlando]

The issue with CEP is that it would bring a lot of stuff we don't need. The original intention of CEP was that it would be a single hak that all servers would require, but that wouldn't work for us anyway because we'd need to slightly modify it even if we did want to incorporate the whole thing.

Continuing to carefully select excellent hak content and slowly add it to EFU seems a far sounder proposition rather than immediately going for some massive hak that would still need to be edited and bring with it a lot of junk. If there's some individual files in CEP that are good I'm all for including it. It's just a question of taking the whole hak into EFU which seems like a bad idea.

Anyway, I think EFU will continue to gradually and slowly add super high-quality hak stuff while maintaining a core player experience that is accessible for new players without needing to get extra files.

Players are free to recommend or request particular hak(s) and features.

[MaimedGod]

While I agree that implementing CEP, particularly in the rather bloated form of the last few releases, would be a waste of time, I think there is a pretty substantial amount of high-quality hak content that could be implemented. Unfortunately, I am not really sure as to the technical limitations on this kind of thing and don't know what haks could be implemented without being required and which ones could not be, so I don't even know where to begin making suggestions.

[Paha]

90% of CEP is steaming pile of carbage, and I do not support the quality of most of it at all. I'd just take bits and pieces of individual haks in it, and it'd just be very time consuming project. If some solid individual bits or models strike our fancy, I am definitely open to take a look. As long as I stand in DM team, I will never, ever take CEP in as it is, however. I am too much of a quality nerd for that.

When it comes to haks being required, we can add anything. The core of the matter is that we need to keep specific hak content, like tilesets and such away from entrance / core area if we want to allow people to join the server without files. We've already circled around the mechanical requirement for haks to log into the server. You would simply face horrible errors if you entered the game and it was right off the bat made with hak tilesets or such.

[Dillusionist]

Keep barriers to entry to a minimum. The current, minimalistic use of optional haks (Heads, isolated bits of clothing, and special areas of the underdark) has worked well.

Now to jump on the hate train...

CEP is a bloated mess that grinds the toolset to a stand-still. Its a builder's nightmare of fishnet stockings, pregnant torsos, over 50 variations on aribeth's head, random asian weapons, and lightsabers. The NWN2 placeables are probably the most useful thing about it.

I've always been deeply impressed with how despite its lack of haks EFU has managed to produce stunning, detailed, and atmospheric areas using only content from NWN 1.69. Its really a tremendous achievement. Not using haks also keeps things a lot more stable client-side leading to fewer crashes, untargettable monsters, etc. in the server's already deadly environment.

[Valo56]

and lightsabers.

Funny story. Even the Star Wars servers refused to use CEP's lightsabers, they made their own lightsabers.

I think having more monster appearances would be great for EfU. I imagine there's a lot of aberrant creatures we could bring to life with haks. :)

[Bouquet of Roses]

Personally, I don't really care about the number of haks we need. I downloaded everything manually before the launcher, and with it, it's even easier.
I do, however, support the notion of keeping the server open to non-hak usage.
I get that some people don't want to download 'em.
I also get that it's a poor first impression to be unable to log onto a server, 'caus you're missing a laundry list of files.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

EFU builders have made awesome stuff without haks for years.  Honestly the hak minimalism encourages builders to innovate new things at a far higher quality than just simply having extra content they can place about.  But that's not to say that haks couldn't be used to make the already awesome content even better.

[Aspirinsmurf]

Support this claim with evidence.

One of the main reasons I stopped playing on this server was due to the hassle of having to juggle and maintain the custom content. It's pretty much necessary to be able to see the heads of other characters on an RP server. I had some issues with the downloader, and having to manually maintain the files is a pain. One of the music files even replaced a default NWN resource, which is a big no-no for me.

I recognize that I am in the minority though.