Arelith - Hak Server

[Peppermint]

One thing that seems to be overlooked in this discussion is that at some point, we'd be offering a downloader. This also means we can partition files down and give players only exactly what they need.

Updating haks isn't going to be a hassle. It isn't 2005 anymore.

Also, haks means a lot more than just glitter. It means full customization of core mechanics. You know all those clunky special abilities Arelith has (e.g. -ward, -teleport)? We can make those actual spells now. You know all the limitations we have when implementing those? Gone. We could swap out -teleport for, say, Dimension Door, where you point and click a target destination to jump to. This is completely impossible to do right now.

The extra glitter is nice too, sure. But speaking as a scripter, that's not why I'm pushing for haks.

[Seekeepeek]

Any idea what the size of this bundle of haks will be in bytes?
the space on my laptop is already rather limited.
a rough guess would help a long way

[Urch]

If this was to become a thing and custom content was to be considered for the hak server, I can offer 3d modelling experience in my free time, should the desire be so for such things. Low poly modelling especially considering the nature of NWN.

Edit: Just had a thought, given the expansive environment that the various planes of existance in D&D gives opportunity for, perhaps I may be so bold as to suggest the hak server to take place on another plane of existance. One that could influence the main server with global events, but not actually interact side by side with.
E.g. A new Devil assumes power in the hak server and raises a giant army. In Hakless Arelith, the presence of more devils is felt around Benwick ruins.

[Purplemyst]

I personally am all for the haks, but I'm not too keen on the idea of creating a third server with shinys and the others kept the same. I'd suggest trailing new haks with the FL server rather than creating a third server with haks. You' would be able to see if this increases its player base and if folks struggle to get the required haks and then this wouldn't even effect the main server. Then depending on the outcome you wouldn't have to rip the new shinys away if it didn't go well.

[Peppermint]

The main and FL servers have different dev teams, so that's not practical. We don't work with them at all. FL is left up out of respect to its developers, but that's about it.

It's to my understanding that Arelith will either go full hak, or the experiment will be considered a failure (in which case the ones being implemented may well be rolled back). Consider this just a "trial" thing for now.

[Dunshine]

My vision.

I'm not against HAKs, but hesitant. I do see the great possibilities it offers, but also see a huge workload ahead, if we want to do this right. And we already have a nice to-do list without it. I'm not sure about the available time of the other devs, but mine is a lot more limited then in the Andunor project days.
I'm also a little worried that with introducing HAKs a lot of devtime will be spend on re-working existing content that we already have, where I rather see it spend on entirely new content.

I'd rather we focus on finishing the current projects first before we add another huge one to our list. We still have lots of work to do on improving loot, crafting, enchanting, artifacts. The entire AI could use an overhaul. A new website (Although I have faith this will be done soon-ish now!), more new options for awards, the resource system could use improvement. All of these I prioritise before going HAK.
If we do it, we should do it properly, and that requires a lot of effort and dedication from the devteam.

[Horselords]

Sorry, second post from me; Just that I made up my mind about it :

1) To me the only argument that stands ground is wether or not the devs want to burn some man-hour into haks maintenance.

2) Most multiplayer game that we know, 95% of them, have player-side patches, some, huge, some, small. Every bloody game, worse, every bloody software we know of does that, we're in 2017, how are we even debating wether or not patches are a problem or not? Even more if it's made via an arelith downloader? Now that I thought about it, i find the very question strange, we all download patches every day wether we're made aware of it or not. And I'm absolutely convinced that haks is the only way for 10 more years of Arelith. And I'm also pretty convinced IT WILL HAPPEN, the question is, will the community rejoyce in the new golden age, or grumble their way into resistance to change.

3) I understand however the pain with crappy connections, but as stated above, hak-updates could be VERY infrequent, which make it a non issue unless you live in the deepest corner of Greenland. And even then, you won't be able to play for maybe a night? two days? I mean, I downloaded For Honor (only immaterial PC version) in about 3 days, the game was out, I was dieing with hype, but I survived. People can be patient too, they will survive.

Note : I am not demeaning those against haks, I totally respect those opinions. I just realized my own fears about them are ill-founded, and wanted to share my own reasonning as to why I wyped out my conservatism about this.

Cheers dear community, and long live Arelith!

Addendum : Point and click dimensional doors? Need!

Addendum 2 : Actually I still have a slight concern that the devs would go too overboard with changing "the NWN feel", making the game less clunky, funnier, more original, more modern, why not, but there's a fine line that if it's crossed, Arelith/NWN will lose its soul. That would be my last standing concern.

[Iceborn]

I actually don't think the game could lose its essence, Horselord.
What was stated that would be added certainly is the very basics of variety, and tweaks to turn everything that we have as scripts into something more... intuitive.

Graphics - models, tiles, effects - there's a limit to all that. Even with HAKs, Guldorand will not turn into Skyrim.
...
It will be closer to Morrowind.

[Irongron]

I really appreciate the offer of help/testing to that have offered it, and when we move ahead with this I'll definitely be contacting some of you.

[Horselords]

I actually don't think the game could lose its essence, Horselord.
What was stated that would be added certainly is the very basics of variety, and tweaks to turn everything that we have as scripts into something more... intuitive.

Graphics - models, tiles, effects - there's a limit to all that. Even with HAKs, Guldorand will not turn into Skyrim.
...
It will be closer to Morrowind.

I was more thinking about new battle features that stray away from NWN to import some tabletop stuff. On paper, the example given (dimensional door), is just soooo freaking cool, but it brings a dynamism/responsiveness to battles that are closer to a blink from a MOBA, which could potentially be super-weird in a NWN and turn based environment. I don't know how it would affect "the feeling", that's why it's just concerns, but I believe any "super-cool-kid" idea should be carefully reviewed and tested not to 'break' what makes NWN, NWN. and I'm not even saying Dimensional door would do that, but add 10 more ideas like that and maybe, in a cumulative way, battles will not feel NWNish anymore. Anyhow, I've talked enough Don't want to hog the thread.

[Morderon]

That's a bit of an assumption.

Dimensional door (if implemented, as an example) would have the same round casting as any other spell, wouldn't at all be instant, and have limited uses.

That's more than the current -epic spells which while they do have an animation, it can be canceled with the -epic spell still going off.

[Dalenger]

I haven't read the whole thead, just the first few posts of the main page, but I'd be quite opposed to a change like this. It's split the playerbase, Dev team, and introduce the headache of updating your haks every now and then.

That being said, if it does go through I'd be 100% behind the Dev team and totally willing to give it a try.

[Iceborn]

I've seen other serves use "teleport" abilities.
They are generally okay, but... the problem is that they are easily exploited. You can get to a -lot- of areas where you aren't supposed to.

I loved, utterly loved the teleport surge from the Wild Mage, but since it could be -fated, you could ignore a lot of walls. That's why it tragically had to be nerfed.

[Gable Morninglord]

I usually don't, but I feel like I need to step up and speak out against this idea.

One of the reasons I was drawn to this server, many years ago, was because it was specifically HAK free. Ultimately, if HAKs are implemented, I would eventually leave the server. And, considering the lack of HAK free servers elsewhere, I would probably be forced to stop playing NWN altogether. It's my feeling that the number of people doing the same will be greater than what you think.

I run a Linux Operating system, but I am by no means a Linux Administrator. I do not want to have to dig through files, change scripts, or troubleshoot issues at the command line. I remember when I was forced to do it, NOTHING ever went right, and the process always took much more time and energy than expected. These technical challenges seriously deterred from the pure enjoyment of the RP, character creation, and build which I know everyone is after. There are certainly Windows and Mac users who feel the same.

For me, and I am sure that many people will agree, I get enjoyment from clicking the icon, logging on and playing the game. Not from the technical challenges posed by getting the software to run on my computer.

I truly hope this does not happen. I love this server and the player base. And with the uptick in numbers recently, it's clear that others must agree. Please do not change it.

[Liareth]

I've said it before, and I'll repeat: if we do this, you will double click an icon to start and update the game. Don't worry about the specifics. Just know the user flow will be identical, you'll just occasionally have a few mins gap before the game starts as the launcher auto updates.

[Trunx]

Ultimately, if HAKs are implemented, I would eventually leave the server. And, considering the lack of HAK free servers elsewhere, I would probably be forced to stop playing NWN altogether. It's my feeling that the number of people doing the same will be greater than what you think.

Yeah, I doubt that. People would leave the server and quit the game (since there aren't any real alternatives to Arelith, much less hak-free alternatives) because they have to click on an installer once, same as you do with any game, DLC, expansions pack, or patch? From how it's described, haks would be less trouble than what getting vanilla NWN multiplayer to work is.

[One Two Three Five]

I had to edit my hosts file to get NWN to run satisfactorily, and that was the easiest thing I had to do to make it work on windows 10. We'll manage, I promise. There's a whole community here to help, no one will have to go it alone.

Also, I mean, we're all already playing a 15 year old game, right? If there was a satisfactory Arelith alternative, the people playing sure haven't found it. (And honestly, the further Arelith gets from that 15 year old game base, the better. There's only so far you can take a game almost two decades old, isn't there?)

[If Valor Were Inches]

With HAKs we can finally remove dwarves as a race. Think of the good!

I'm happy to support any direction the server takes. Arelith could have zero changes and I'd still be happy with it, I appreciate the hard work and dedication the entire team and community has put into it. I don't think a third server with a trial using Guldorand would hurt it at all, in fact, I think there's a good chance of the opposite occurring, at least initially. I'm curious what will happen after the initial spark.

(And no, you can take an old game pretty far.)

[A little fellow]

With HAKs we can finally remove dwarves as a race. Think of the good!

I'm happy to support any direction the server takes. Arelith could have zero changes and I'd still be happy with it, I appreciate the hard work and dedication the entire team and community has put into it. I don't think a third server with a trial using Guldorand would hurt it at all, in fact, I think there's a good chance of the opposite occurring, at least initially. I'm curious what will happen after the initial spark.

(And no, you can take an old game pretty far.)

You need us, you need us!


As for the Haks, I'm a little bit nervous. I've yet to see any specifics, but digging around what I can find on the internet currently there are some tilesets and monsters that look great and some that look awful.

I'll also say that the one reason I picked Arelith to start playing in the first place was because there was no faffing around with mods as a prerequisite for playing, and if that wasn't the case I likely wouldn't have started playing Arelith at all.

[Shadofury]

I see Haks in many ways.
- races and classes can actually function with all abilities
- spells can be how they are meant to be
- tilesets allow more variety and flow of the world
- placeables and monsters variety
- our coders and devs can have much more to work with to provide an outstanding world even more than they do now
-the diverse races we have can have more diversity, not every goblin is the same color, or every kobold. allowing more customizations

the possibilities are endless with haks, I have seen it, and if the devs on course had stayed on course and didnt get an MMO going to be rich taking over the mindset, I might have never come to Arelith,but im glad in a way because of all the people I interact with here over these years.

[Shadofury]

With HAKs we can finally remove dwarves as a race. Think of the good!

I'm happy to support any direction the server takes. Arelith could have zero changes and I'd still be happy with it, I appreciate the hard work and dedication the entire team and community has put into it. I don't think a third server with a trial using Guldorand would hurt it at all, in fact, I think there's a good chance of the opposite occurring, at least initially. I'm curious what will happen after the initial spark.

(And no, you can take an old game pretty far.)

You need us, you need us!


As for the Haks, I'm a little bit nervous. I've yet to see any specifics, but digging around what I can find on the internet currently there are some tilesets and monsters that look great and some that look awful.

I'll also say that the one reason I picked Arelith to start playing in the first place was because there was no faffing around with mods as a prerequisite for playing, and if that wasn't the case I likely wouldn't have started playing Arelith at all.

as its been said, a one click fix nothing to worry about as most games current have much more involvement

[A little fellow]

With HAKs we can finally remove dwarves as a race. Think of the good!

I'm happy to support any direction the server takes. Arelith could have zero changes and I'd still be happy with it, I appreciate the hard work and dedication the entire team and community has put into it. I don't think a third server with a trial using Guldorand would hurt it at all, in fact, I think there's a good chance of the opposite occurring, at least initially. I'm curious what will happen after the initial spark.

(And no, you can take an old game pretty far.)

You need us, you need us!


As for the Haks, I'm a little bit nervous. I've yet to see any specifics, but digging around what I can find on the internet currently there are some tilesets and monsters that look great and some that look awful.

I'll also say that the one reason I picked Arelith to start playing in the first place was because there was no faffing around with mods as a prerequisite for playing, and if that wasn't the case I likely wouldn't have started playing Arelith at all.

as its been said, a one click fix nothing to worry about as most games current have much more involvement

Can we give Dwarves hoods?

[Shadofury]

haks do lots of things real beards too

[Obsidian]

"you'll just occasionally have a few mins gap before the game starts as the launcher auto updates."

Ummm this. I'm certain I am one of few who can not just download updates because of limited data but this^ is what worries me. Having to go download once every six months? fine, a pain with three laptops but doable. The risk it will auto update every time I log in? That won't work. It would ever so slowly chew threw the limited amount of data I have each month.

[One Two Three Five]

Could a 'new updates available y/n?' be implemented, maybe? A warning of how large they are, too?