Synchronizing Journals Across Disguises/Stealth

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Twily
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Synchronizing Journals Across Disguises/Stealth

Post by Twily » Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:17 pm

There is a way called Softlinks, to make it so that you always see the same journal in game regardless of whether you are disguised or stealthed.
Doing this will prevent accidentally erasing journal entries by changing disguises while the journal is open. It will need to be done for each disguise you use.

In short, this makes programs open the contents of File A whenever it tries to open File B.


Proceed with caution: While not likely to be an issue as long as you're close, the 'mklink' command this process uses can cause severe issues when used incorrectly, including data loss.

Step 1: Create a backup of your character's journal.
Go to your doccuments\neverwinternights\localvault folder and create a backup of your character's journal. If you have any disguise or stealth journals you plan to link, rename them(you can just add "-old" to the end of the name).

Step 2: Open the command prompt as administrator.
Type CMD in the search bar, right click, open as admin, hit yes.

Step 3: Copy your directory path for your localvault.
Click on the top bar to get the file path. Press Ctrl-C to Copy it.

Step 4: Go to your command prompt window, type: mklink "(ctrl-v)"
If you are using an older version of windows, Ctrl-V may not work in the command prompt. If not, you will have to paste into a text editor and manually type what is written.
It should be something along the lines of:

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mklink "C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault"
Step 5: Inside the right hand quotation, type: \(disguise name).txt
Or for the stealth fix: \c(charactername)c.txt

Do NOT use caps or spaces. DO use apostrophes(ie: xal'rae).
IE: If you disguise as 'Innocent Thief' in game, type: \innocentthief.txt

Code: Select all

mklink "C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\innocentthief.txt"
Step 6: Press space, add a quotation, press Ctrl-V again, and add a second quotation.

Code: Select all

mklink "C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\innocentthief.txt" "C:\Users\(USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault"
Step 7: Just inside the new righthand quotation, type: \(character's actual name)
So if your character's name is 'Maria Du'ponte', type: \mariadu'ponte.txt


This makes the full command:

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mklink "C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\innocentthief.txt" "C:\Users\(USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\mariadu'ponte.txt"
For someone using this to fix the journal with stealth, they would see:

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mklink "C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\cmariadu'pontec.txt" "C:\Users\(USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\mariadu'ponte.txt"
Press Enter, and you should see:

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symbolic link created for C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\innocentthief.txt <<===>> C:\Users\(YOUR USERNAME)\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\localvault\mariadu'ponte.txt
If so, you are finished.
Now when disguised as 'Innocent Thief', the game will open and save the journal file for 'Maria Du'ponte' instead.
This will need to be done for each disguise the character uses.
If the stealth fix was also done, Maria Du'ponte would now always see the same journal in and out of stealth mode.

You will see a .symlink file in your local vault folder for the disguise name, this is the file that points towards the actual journal file. Delete this to end the link.


I'm very rarely on the forums, so if anyone wishes one on one help with setting this up, my username in the Official Arelith Discord is anntari. Feel free to message me there and I'd be glad to help you get the command exact for your system. :)

cakewalk
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2020 11:16 am

Re: Synchronizing Journals Across Disguises/Stealth

Post by cakewalk » Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:14 am

Thank you so much for posting this!! It’s a great idea I wish I had heard years ago.

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