Just for fun, I re-imagined Tivook Inn ...

Please keep in mind, this is not my best "work" by far.

I also have absolutely no idea, how to spawn and create such interiors via NESS or Sparkly Spawner ... But, I was thinking about CEP 6.5 , and how an updated look of Tivook Inn ( a popular hang out in AR) would be, just given some decor and a facelift.

Long shot of most the INN near front door.

A closer look at the door going up to the rooms.

Most the kitchen area

A look into the Kitchen, from outside it behind the bar

Gave Eri a makeover, added some liquors to the behind the bar area ( CEP 6.5 appearances used. )

Close up of Fireplace area , I did not add the "spit" , forgot.

The cheese bar, everyone loves ... now with cake too!

A different take on the back door

Totally re-did/dressed up the portal area

Trying hard to get somewhat a better shot of the back door/portal area

New front door area, isn't it beautiful and nice?

truing for 3rd person perspective of most the tavern part

I could add a few more tables and sitting areas, to help cozy it up I guess, but I did this in about 45 minutes ... took longer to find the placables in the menu than it did to decorate.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

You stumped me.

BenevolentDevil wrote:...I was thinking about CEP 6.5

What's that?

community expansion pack hak 2.65, I meant , lol ...

Friend Benevolent Devil,

Ahhh, CEP 2.65, now I understand.

We still use CEP 2.1 here. Later versions of CEP included materials not made by the 'community' but pilfered from other games (often with dubious permissions, if any). I've long hoped that some new version of CEP would sort out the community made from the other material in a way that would allow me to ensure that no pirated material gets used in the module, but to date that hope has not been met.

I have been admiring the many community monthly releases on neverwintervault.org, but alas, I don't want to force people to download more hak packs as that has always been a bit of a hurdle many do not cross. CEP for this module was a decision I sometimes regret, but until they sort out the community from the rest, I'll pass on updating (I'm an author and content creator and I respect copyrights).

I did not know this ....

Do you know what content was pirated?

I mean, just look at the Inn ... I didn't use but a sliver of 2.65 content actually, some of those are from 2.4 I think.

I'm not saying, "look at me and what I can do" , I actually slapped that together, waiting for the reset. It's by far, not my best NWn "building" work.

But the more "updated" material really makes things pop at times.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

I have no doubt that there is some nice stuff in the later CEPs but I also have no doubt that there is pirated material included. Mostly when Barry1066 was the admin, he allowed a load of 3d assets to be converted from other games and added to the CEP. I don't have a list nor a link to give you that would illuminate exactly what was added - and there was so much of it added that it would take a gargantuan effort to remove even if documentation were available. I've discussed it a number of times with Barry1066 and AmethystDragon too. *shrugs*

As an author it would be hypocritical of me to use pirated stuff and expect money for my own works.

On the flip side, the ease of download for the EE edition and the workshop means it's almost a non issue. Making an Argentum Regio HAK pak download file on the workshop would be of little difficulty, and for players to join a server that needs it, it's one click, handled all by steam, and it's a painless process.

Just food for thought ODA. I just want to open up opportunities to make you and Eris life easier.

Game On!

joo3 wrote:On the flip side, the ease of download for the EE edition and the workshop means it's almost a non issue. Making an Argentum Regio HAK pak download file on the workshop would be of little difficulty, and for players to join a server that needs it, it's one click, handled all by steam, and it's a painless process.

Just food for thought ODA. I just want to open up opportunities to make you and Eris life easier.

Game On!

Agreed there.

I'm not so certain, that any content in CEP is absolute pirated material, and the long term of it's existence, surely means if there was issues, it would either have been removed ( or face legality), or is a non-issue via some clause where any assets were free to be used , kinda like an OGL.
Maybe not, I'm not disputing the validity of there probably was content ported from other games or works. Just saying, there should have been things done about it, long before now that being the case.

Most of CEP was individual haks in the first place. If it was content put up by others on the vault, it was basically "free domain" ... I'm sure CEP should have listed credit to these authors, but lisa's clothing ... POD's content, much of these things were just combined from NWN content creators to make the CEP. So, it' s possible, to find those individual hak downloads, re-combine them for a non-cep , but custom AR hak file. Skipping any that would offer any pirated or illicit gained assets.

CEP is great for ease of access, and super improved looks and placebles and creatures ... , but it' s not the "end all hak" really either.

I just find generic NWN very , dull looking ... it was great when it was a new game, and nothing like it before, and not knowing any better. Part of the immersion aspects is simply ability to make your character's avatars look different, unique, or set apart a bit.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

While you might feel it reasonable to assume that the material that _was_ included in the CEP and taken from other game products without permission of the copyright owners would be removed by now. You would be completely wrong in such an assumption. I've been following this topic since CEP2.2. Removing the material would make the CEP no longer backward compatable. CEP _is_ backward compatible through CEP 2.1, therefore the material IS still in  there and has NOT been (as I have repeatedly requested of the CEP teams) not been segregated into separate optional HAKs. I wish it were otherwise, but it is what it is.

B A wrote:Most of CEP was individual haks in the first place. If it was content put up by others on the vault, it was basically "free domain" ... I'm sure CEP should have listed credit to these authors, but lisa's clothing ... POD's content, much of these things were just combined from NWN content creators to make the CEP. So, it' s possible, to find those individual hak downloads, re-combine them for a non-cep , but custom AR hak file. Skipping any that would offer any pirated or illicit gained assets.

It is not the case that just putting it up on the vault makes something "free domain". Copyright requires permissions in writing. There were specific discussions on this topic with the CEP team where some material was 'converted from other games' and put on the vault by others without permission, AND those haks were included into the CEP, starting with CEP 2.2.

I _love the community made stuff_ and when it is released for me to use, I love to use it. That said, and referring back to the quote above, it is no small amount of effort to make a hak pack from those other haks. Getting all the conflicts sorted out, let alone verifying copyrights is a massive chore and far beyond anything I would undertake given our modest staff size.

The fact is, way back when, I chose to use CEP 2.1. For good or for bad, I made that choice. Now that I use the CEP 2.1 in my module I can either freeze with that version (which I have reason to believe is purely community made materials), or I can update. If I update, I loose all assurance of the CEP being purely community created and thus totally legit materials. It would be a gargantuan effort to remove the CEP from the module, so that is not on the table as an option. Yes, I _could_ create a CEP 2.1 compatible hak or haks from community made materials to enhance what we offer, but again, making a hak (to work with other haks) is not a trivial matter.

As an FYI a great deal of the placeable objects you used in your images ARE in fact available in the CEP 2.1.

We do intend to create a custom hak for the module that will enable psionics, astral space, and new classes like Psionicist - but that will be at a later time for many reasons including modest staff size.

I suppose it's kinda odd from the point, no one had gotten sued , content taken down/removed for such infringements.

Thats why i'm having a hard time with this , especially not knowing what parts are legit, and what parts are not.

If I build in NWN, I always use latest CEP , as long as it's not a beta test. Especially how EE make sit sooo easy to have CEP or any modifcation hak now.

But I'm like you, I don't want to use illegally sourced material.

But default NWN looks like garbage in many ways.

Ahh, I see now why I was confused on the individual haks being avaliable ( some still are , not many though.) ...

That was when CEP first started , it was more of a collection of good haks, up on the vault... you could get the individual ones then.

I guess they stopped doing that at some point?

BenevolentDevil wrote: I suppose it's kinda odd from the point, no one had gotten sued , content taken down/removed for such infringements.  

 Thats why i'm having a hard time with this , especially not knowing what parts are legit, and what parts are not.  

If I build in NWN, I always use latest CEP , as long as it's not a beta test.   Especially how EE make sit sooo easy to have CEP or any modifcation hak now.

But I'm like you, I don't want to use illegally sourced material.  

But default NWN looks like garbage in many ways.

Friends,

I understand others do not have the same concerns that I do. Everyone is free to build with what they choose. My reasons are my reasons and are clearly stated here. Pirated material has no place in my creations.

That nobody has been sued is irrelevant. You can rob banks all day until you get caught. I choose not to rob banks.

I don't use just 'default NWN' I use NWN with CEP2.1. I don't have time nor sufficient help to even consider adding a new custom hak at this time. My resources are very limited, time chiefmost among them.

BenevolentDevil wrote:Ahh, I see now why I was confused on the individual haks being avaliable ( some still are , not many though.) ...

That was when CEP first started , it was more of a collection of good haks, up on the vault... you could get the individual ones then.  

I guess they stopped doing that at some point?  

Friend Benevolent Devil,

The constituent haks from which the early CEP was made may or may not still be available somehwhere. Likely I have those haks (I have the whole NWN vault from back when it was IGN run). That said, it is a gargantuan effort to comb over that stuff and pick out only what is 'copyright clean' - and how the hell I would know one model from another at this point is beyond me. The investment of time would be too large and I will not even take such a suggestion seriously because we are a two member team here and we would never get a damn thing done if I undertook to chase that rabbit.

I am not even one iota interested in 'fixing the cep' not now, not ever.

Well, here's the long term ... IF legality became an issue , and PWs, modules, even like my night-gaming group world I was working on ... CEP having to be taken down/stripped ruins the works already done, no one from that point could join in , lacking means to get the same hak.

I know NWN well enough, it's too specific regarding haks. You can have the same haks, but nammed differently, and it will not work on one end or the other.

Seems like a big blunder for those of us, completely un-aware of pirated material/copywrite infringements.

I'm gonna scratch my project now, ... which I really wanted to do a complete custom hak for anyways. And figure out alts to improve over default NWN looks.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

The community being largely ignorant of the fact that contents in the CEP are in part stolen from other games without permission is irrelevant. I know what I know and I act according to my own moral compass. I have a firm rule, never sleep on the railroad tracks, because of this I know I will never be run over by a train. I will never be run over by the CEP train either. I like it that way.

I think we are misunderstanding each other a bit on the subject.

I know "updating" AR would be a huge time consuming task, even if there wasn't any issues , and I wasn't really asking for such.
Joo3 and I just knew ease of access/implantation for latest CEP was already handled by workshop and steam, making it easy to have, or ANY hak really easy.

I ONLY did the Tivook thing, cause we were waiting for a reset, and I was bored ... If I had been uber serious on it, I would have spent days working on the little area, not 45 minutes.

I do think there should be or are ways to have the infringed material worked around, or not used ... I mean the fact this wasn't common knowledge floors me. I don't personally go to every forum/discussion on every little thing, to research and find out these buried little tid bits. One simply doesn't look for things "wrong" unless something is broken , or obviously wrong right?

But I wasn't asking you to do anything persay , ... not really. It' s not needed here in AR.
Only after you mentioned the material wasn't legit ... did it get my wheels turning. It turned from me just posting some re-imagining a popular area, into a CEP discussion ... I was carrying on with the discussion part , not asking for anything to be done specifically for AR here.

This info just really threw me for a loop. I honestly had no idea , and it's hard to swallow a Team" that stuck together the CEP allowed it, and continued on with it, and ... no one ... not one single legality issue has popped up due to it? ( at least in public eye I suppose, Google didn't yield much help in any official way. )
As a long time adamant user of CEP ( there are PWs I would not even try because it lacked CEP content ), now I'm disheartened, and looking at having to stop what I was doing , scratch the project, and start over. ( Not that my project was profound , just a "set up" for a weekly gaming night, but still. ) It makes me disheartened I've "promoted" and spoke well of CEP all this time , just now realizing I had been supporting something not 100% legit.

Like you said, you don't lay on the train tracks ... not only do I feel I laid on em, I helped lay some of the very tracks in my own way!

I simply can't look at it the same way now. Once you know something, you can never unknow it ...

But, we can close the discussion. Sorry for going on with it, I suppose it is rather like beating a dead horse.

Screenshots have been de-leeted , so links shouldn't work now.

Or soon once Steam catches up to the removal of content.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

I want you to also understand i am not opposed to having some areas re-imagined for use on the server, but I stay away from CEP more recent that 2.1... and ask all our BUILDERS to use CEP 2.1 (any other cep and it gives the toolset fits because my build includes only 2.1).

IF you'd be interested in re-imagining some of the areas we have here - I would be keen to get some of them done... so long as it uses CEP 2.1.

I know that there ARE other haks that ARE cep 2.1 compatible, including the CTP (community tileset project) and many of worms' haks too. I could be persuaded to consider adding those to our 'other modules'.

My strategy here was to keep the whole as simple as possible (in part because, back in the NWN days, installing haks was not something all the users could successfully accomplish for various reasons; many complained or just avoided servers with HAKs). I reasoned that many already have the CEP so we would 'loose few' by having it. At that time CEP 2.0 was the current CEP. We integrated CEP 2.0 and they released 2.1 about 2 months later. We upgraded to it and it broke a boat load of our systems (there were some marked changes from 2.0 to 2.1). We spent some time adapting our module to work with 2.1... a few months later 2.2 was released. We examined it, determined it had some materials used without permission from other games, and opted to not advance beyond 2.1 until that matter was resolved properly (either permissions obtained or materials compartmentalized into other optional haks).

My plan here was to make the "ENTRY MODULE" very easy to enter. . . and connect it to additional modules that would include (require) more haks. In this way we could catch the eye of the casual user, and ultimately help them as needed to obtain the haks for the rest of it. We still offer a huge module to the casual players, but will double that or more for the hardy folks who dare to enter those other modules. We have some 1000+ areas prepared for the next module and are at the stage where we need to select the haks that will be added to it. If you'd care to get some input on that, please feel free to examine haks that are out there, test them with cep 2.1 and if there are no or easily fixed issues, we'll consider that hak. I stalled at this stage because we lack help to accomplish the task and my time is largely spent just keeping things operating at this time. If I could find quality help to aid me in advancing that 'other module' that is the first of many, I'd seriously be in for that.

Feedback?

Well, here' s my issue ... regarding design/building ... I do not know how to do things with the spawn in scripts. meaning I have to place objects manually, and that will eventually lagg the servers. ... I think, I'm not an expert.

When making my own Sp stuff, I've managed to even "lagg out" my own creations, going too placable heavy in almost all areas.
I forget what it is too, NWN does have somewhat a limit to how many assets you can have it , I forget if it was objects, placables, or scripts ...

But, I'm not opposed ... just kind of need heavy direction I think.

Other haks ... man, to be honest that WAS the reason I used CEP , because you didn't really need any other haks using it.
I looked into Project Q at one time ... at the time it was widely incomplete, and things were similar to CEP , yet didn't look as good, and most of it was very buggy at the time. I stopped following it, well again CEP grew by leaps and bounds, everyone used it already ...

I mean, ... lets break this down ... NWN areas alone are very ... sparse and plain looking. But areas don't have to look the best, if the game-play is good.
But there is a tad bit of "hope" even if you don't have a list of 300 placeable appearances to use. Creative lighting , and even creative use of tilesets where they weren't exactly originally intended to be used as such can go a very long ways.

Appearance modification, I think is important for characters, more "heads" , more clothing/armor options , shields and weapons too.
with-out this ... it's very, very limiting. I don't think I could even get Fei Yan's "look" in default NWN ... BTW I totally re-done her "look" , I wasn't happy with the all flat black "suit" ... , I could have a avatar in game, that basically looked like other commonly used avatars, if customizing wasn't an option. It tends to detract from what immersion, you can get while RP-ing. But I have no idea now, outside of CEP , if there are individual haks to compensate for this ... at least those that aren't intended for Erotic RP servers that is. I don't do ERPs , so I have no idea on that either, but probably much nudes/perverted stuff.

Pure action servers, are the only "junk" that don't need "immersion quality" ... whats the point in looks, if all you are going to do is slay baddies, loot, sell, repeat, or PvP?
RP servers, have to have some immersive quality to them. It' s easier to have great unique characters , if you can somewhat provide the uniqueness of how they dress, what they wear in battle or adventure, little things that set them apart from " everyone else".

even if you didn't ever use CEP here on AR , the systems and subsystems ... the " Gygaxian" like means it was all designed and put together , make the game play at least 100% top notch!

So, I'm not so certain ... adding any more haks would be a good thing. Haks do need to serve a purpose. Cep's "purpose" was a general " catch all", so everyone had the same content to use and play with. Some things in CEP aren't "great" either.
If anything, I'd keep it to what you have/know right now, and adding in the custom haks later on for your specific purposes. Like Psions, and ... did you say Astral? ...
( I did a mod that had "copies" of areas, where one set was "normal plane" and the other was a custom lighted and different spawn options , representing the "astral plane" ... only certain characters could enter the astral or perceive it at will, everyone else needed special portals or some other things to do so. ... I wound up scrapping that project, because it "doubled" the amount of areas by default, I didn't have time to keep working on it/debugging it. It was also, before CEP was a thing too lol, so many , many moons back. )

Another "fail point" of CEP is/was ... probably is ... the fact it is extremely difficult or almost impossible for anyone this side of Russian hacker skill level, to use other custom content with CEP.
PRC - Ok, I both love and hate the Hak ... I LOVE it adds in more classes to play, and some different things ... I HATE that it's a clustered up mess, you can't easily configure it, and some classes ar either OP, or just different "versions" of the same stuff. Really what's the difference in playing an Elven fighter/wizard ( or bard) and having to make an elven fighter/wizard to get the "Spellsword" PRC? ... kind of redundant in my eyes. Some of it is STILL "broken" as well, never fixed despite it's went onto different versions adding in more content.
ACP ... I REALLY LIKE that one , but as you said, it would mess with CEP phenotypes , the .tlk files aren't even compatible. ( I had to google phenotypes, to understand what you were saying there.) < That one, because it would Aid immersion ... is the only one I know of right now, I would even consider trying to find compatibility/use for.

Over-all though, I am willing to help in anyway I can. I can't code or script ... so my "useful ness" is rather limited.

I had noticed last night , that Humfoodale Fort was as far that way as one could go ... Humfoo's crossroads area seems a tad empty, it's tavern was deviod of NPCs.
I had wondered, if that area was for another "sister module" ran on a server ... ( oh, the portal in Humfoodale's inn, I tried using Humfoodale as a tag for the portal , but did not recognize it as such. Humfoo and Humfoodale was the only "clue" I had at the time, to try and guess another portal activation. )
If you look at the logs for last night, the caravan wagon gave me a ticket , but said I couldn't use that wagon for the ticket. I wound up paying for the wagon-to-wagon teleport option.

many complained or just avoided servers with HAKs

I remember those days of old ...
The inter-disgruntled "Hak wars" I called them ...
Some haks were by and large a pain in the butt to get. You HAD to join forums, had to sign up for websites to access some, and they at the time, were large enough it taxed internet connections , and filled up hard drives.
Some PWs back then, did go "way overboard" with custom content used.

Now modern times here ...
Most the above is a non-issue. The EE workshop makes it easy to get... just click "subscribe" , and nabbing stuff off the vault isn't too bad to install still if going that route. Internet sends more data transfer now, modern computers have ample HD space.

I think the only peoples that would be anti-hak now, are the non-role-players, action server junkies, or OC content players.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

When building, we build to avoid lag. You may have noticed that there is (or should be) no lag on the server in general (server side lag). Users may occasionally experience lag caused by local issues or communications system issues but we work to keep server lag out of the picture. I mention lag because you too expressed concerns :

BenevolentDevil wrote: Well, here' s my issue ... regarding design/building ... I do not know how to do things with the spawn in scripts. meaning I have to place objects manually, and that will eventually lagg the servers. ... I think, I'm not an expert.

When making my own Sp stuff, I've managed to even "lagg out" my own creations, going too placable heavy in almost all areas.
I forget what it is too, NWN does have somewhat a limit to how many assets you can have it , I forget if it was objects, placables, or scripts ...

But, I'm not opposed ... just kind of need heavy direction I think.

Our scripts do a LOT of the work. We do use NESS here, it helps reduce lag, but, our genius Lead Scripter took it to the next level. Most of our areas, when finalized get reduced to NESS waypoints and tiles, but some of our builders do not do this or do not do this completely, also, areas not yet finalized often have some number of placeable objects in them. As you noted, too many placeables _can_ be a factor that leads to lag. Eriniel's module load scripts look at each area as it is loaded, and replace placeable objects with NESS waypoints automatically, thus minimizing the memory used for placeables in areas not in use. Hence our builders don't have to 'build with NESS' but have an option to build normally, perfect the look and function then if they like, convert to NESS (or leave it to the scripts). We use an enhanced NESS too btw.

To avoid pathing issues, avoid locating placeables on the red lines you see in the toolset. To avoid lag in general don't overload an area with placeables. For myself, I usually build areas in a minimalist style - so that I can add all the functional stuff and make sure that it is working lag free, when I'm satisfied with that I then go back and "dress up the area" taking some time to add the fluff, the non-functioning stuff to pretty it up some, this is something I think of as the "final pass". ONLY when I'm reasonably convinced an area is "done" do I make an effort for the "final pass"... so some areas are yet austere-looking for this reason. Don't get me wrong, you'll find trees in all the forest areas and all the 'basics in place' (enough objects are in each area so that the 'functional pieces' don't stand out horribly), but the "final pass" really does make a difference in appearance.

We do have some special considerations about areas - for example, (in part) because we have functional windows, we like that building interiors' shapes match the exterior shape of the building. This allows a rogue to "case a target building", choose a window and enter at an expected place (usually). Yes, with magic, building interiors can be larger than the exterior, but those buildings are the exception, not the rule.

BenevolentDevil wrote: ... lets break this down ... NWN areas alone are very ... sparse and plain looking. But areas don't have to look the best, if the game-play is good.
But there is a tad bit of "hope" even if you don't have a list of 300 placeable appearances to use. Creative lighting , and even creative use of tilesets where they weren't exactly originally intended to be used as such can go a very long ways.

I agree, much can be done with lighting and other subtle controls. In our module, some areas, such as the maze, are very 'vanilla' intentionally because it lends to the "making players/PCs tend to get lost here" theme.

BenevolentDevil wrote:

Appearance modification, I think is important for characters, more "heads" , more clothing/armor options , shields and weapons too.
with-out this ... it's very, very limiting. I don't think I could even get Fei Yan's "look" in default NWN ... BTW I totally re-done her "look" , I wasn't happy with the all flat black "suit" ...
RP servers, have to have some immersive quality to them. It' s easier to have great unique characters , if you can somewhat provide the uniqueness of how they dress, what they wear in battle or adventure, little things that set them apart from " everyone else".

I agree customizing a PC look is important (cookie-cutter looks do nothing to enhance immersion). That's why we do support appearance changes. The tailor needs a tweek in both our NWN and EE servers but we're working on those scripts as time permits. What is there is, as you noted, functional; you got a good look with that PC, but the appearance systems have rough spots and need some TLC.

BenevolentDevil wrote:

even if you didn't ever use CEP here on AR , the systems and subsystems ... the " Gygaxian" like means it was all designed and put together , make the game play at least 100% top notch!

So, I'm not so certain ... adding any more haks would be a good thing. Haks do need to serve a purpose. Cep's "purpose" was a general " catch all", so everyone had the same content to use and play with. Some things in CEP aren't "great" either.
If anything, I'd keep it to what you have/know right now, and adding in the custom haks later on for your specific purposes. Like Psions, and ... did you say Astral? ...

Thank you for the compliment. At least for the 'entry module' the main city of dohral module, we plan to stick with CEP only, but the plan is to use more haks in the connected modules. This will keep the entry bar suitably low and those who login and like it have lots of space to move about and play even before they need to download any more haks to access the 'other modules'. We planned to build a world here, so 1337+ areas is really just the beginning.

Yes, Astral space, Etheral space and more. NWN:EE will have a solid advantage over NWN in this regard as you now have a command to 'copy area' similar to what you mentioned below later in your post.

BenevolentDevil wrote:

Another "fail point" of CEP is/was ... probably is ... the fact it is extremely difficult or almost impossible for anyone this side of Russian hacker skill level, to use other custom content with CEP.
PRC - Ok, I both love and hate the Hak ... I LOVE it adds in more classes to play, and some different things ... I HATE that it's a clustered up mess, you can't easily configure it, and some classes ar either OP, or just different "versions" of the same stuff. Really what's the difference in playing an Elven fighter/wizard ( or bard) and having to make an elven fighter/wizard to get the "Spellsword" PRC? ... kind of redundant in my eyes. Some of it is STILL "broken" as well, never fixed despite it's went onto different versions adding in more content.
ACP ... I REALLY LIKE that one , but as you said, it would mess with CEP phenotypes , the .tlk files aren't even compatible. ( I had to google phenotypes, to understand what you were saying there.) < That one, because it would Aid immersion ... is the only one I know of right now, I would even consider trying to find compatibility/use for.

I agree, especially when you have a hak, such as CEP, it can be very difficult and a great deal of work to make other haks 'play nice' with any previously adopted hak packs. The PRC is a special case, one that scared the be-jeebus-outa-me. It is, at heart a chimera made up of dozens of ambitious projects created by persons of varied skill levels working entirely independent of one another. This lead to a huge case of 'spaghetti code' in the PRCs that I looked at... and I looked very closely at it (to help a fellow builder resolve some questions they had). In the end, I could not adopt it as it had just way too much redundant and plain 'bad code' in it. Much of the PRC was, as you mention, redundant in its nature, part in parcel of the "many makers working independently".

BenevolentDevil wrote:

Over-all though, I am willing to help in anyway I can. I can't code or script ... so my "useful ness" is rather limited.

I had noticed last night , that Humfoodale Fort was as far that way as one could go ... Humfoo's crossroads area seems a tad empty, it's tavern was deviod of NPCs.
I had wondered, if that area was for another "sister module" ran on a server ... ( oh, the portal in Humfoodale's inn, I tried using Humfoodale as a tag for the portal , but did not recognize it as such. Humfoo and Humfoodale was the only "clue" I had at the time, to try and guess another portal activation. )
If you look at the logs for last night, the caravan wagon gave me a ticket , but said I couldn't use that wagon for the ticket. I wound up paying for the wagon-to-wagon teleport option.

I could surely use some help and THANK YOU for offering.

If you're up for building I have a builder module I can share with you - and you'll need to use ONLY cep 2.1 (if you have anything else it ruins the chance of me being able to import your work as it includes 'invalid references' as far as the toolset is concerned). I know it can be a PITA but what I do is, I keep all the install files for CEP in my download folder. When I need a cep, I delete all the cep files in my hak and tlk folder then install a fresh cep of the correct version. In the past I've even automated the process with a batch file - I'll make a batch file for you if you like.

Humfoodale is one of two "new" regions added to the main module. Way back when, it was common lore that you could not have more than a certain number of areas in a module or it would be a crashy laggy thing. Well, when I got to "that number" of areas and discovered that the common lore was not correct (if you build very efficiently) I kept on going. I had originally planned on modules of about 200 areas each but later chose to consolidate a few of those smaller modules into the main one.

Humfoodale needs a lot of love. It is functional as it is, and has a few nifty secrets included, but many areas need a bit of extra dressing-up at the minimum. The fortress itself does not have an interior as yet. If you're interested in working on that or some other area sound off and we'll send you the areas and resources you need.

BTW portals - Detect Magic reveals the name of the portal, in this case it is Hillsbottom named for the tavern.

BenevolentDevil wrote:

many complained or just avoided servers with HAKs

I remember those days of old ...
The inter-disgruntled "Hak wars" I called them ...
Some haks were by and large a pain in the butt to get. You HAD to join forums, had to sign up for websites to access some, and they at the time, were large enough it taxed internet connections , and filled up hard drives.
Some PWs back then, did go "way overboard" with custom content used.

Now modern times here ...
Most the above is a non-issue. The EE workshop makes it easy to get... just click "subscribe" , and nabbing stuff off the vault isn't too bad to install still if going that route. Internet sends more data transfer now, modern computers have ample HD space.

I think the only peoples that would be anti-hak now, are the non-role-players, action server junkies, or OC content players.

Friend Benevolent Devil,

I am still supporting a NWN version of the server, those folks do not benefit from the automation offered by steam. If I had my druthers, my "entry module" would be hak-free and I'd only require haks for the "other modules", in this way I would maximize my ability to give the public a taste that could convert them to regular players.

I agree haks were much more of a chore in the days of yore - dial-up users rightly and loudly complained. Most folks have faster connections but are really not much more technically inclined so that lack of technical know-how is the last hurdle to cross and one the user must negotiate on their own. The lower that hurdle the better. Not everyone is using the steam version, even if they _could_ benefit from it at least in as far as the auto-hak management.

BTW portals - Detect Magic reveals the name of the portal, in this case it is Hillsbottom named for the tavern.

* head desk*

The name of the inn, not the area ... I'm a dummy.