Since the release of the Presale Toolset, it has now become very apparent that PWs, as we know them, are not possible, at this time, and likely not for quite some time.

Reasons for this should be obvious to those of you with the toolset in hand.

1. Exterior Area Size: This is the slayer of worlds, so to speak. A 32x32 area weighs in at 56MB with zero detail. A 16x16 is at 28MB or so. Add some quality detail to your area and you end up at 150ishMB or 75isMB respectively.

Now, do the math. That means that Persistent Worlds will have less than 10 exteriors at 32x32 or less than 20 if using 16x16 to weigh in at 1.5GB for module size. That's not counting scripts etc in your module. I'm not sure about you all but I just don't find that acceptible for something called a "Persistent World."

The only option so far is to either reduce the number of exterior areas to almost nothing and just world map everywhere or have a pitifully few, less than 10, exteriors and just make large numbers of dungeons, OR you can run 5-6 high end(I.e. 4GB RAM) server machines and interconnect 5-6 modules together to get your skeleton exterior.

I understand that PW building will need to be seriously evaluated with NWN2 but I just can't see how it's a PW if it's got less than 10 exterior areas.

What I would like to know, is how many of the PW developers here have the Presale Toolset and how many of them are going back to NWN because of the impossibility of even a remotely detailed PW with NWN2?

If been reading, checking Vault content and exploring the NWN2 toolset.  Advanced or not I prefer the Classic toolset to this next generation one.  I am learning it as I go and testing the PW numbers and wishing Acrodania stuck around long enough to give us her take on the situation, but I'm not being overwhelmed by this toolset at all. 

The fact that our original estimates were no where's near the actual reality annoys me.  I easily gathered the numbers I have in about 30 minutes which means Obsidian also had those numbers and knew our estimates were way off.  That's annoyed me but we have the numbers now and are getting a clearer picture as we go on our own.

I may set up a second monitor here to see how that affects the interface and whether I can arrange a more user friendly system .  I've imported parts of my NWN server projects for conversion but am not about to commit to a NWN2 project yet.

As for TTL itself.  My admin was in the toolset betatest and was invisible for a month.  When he finally showed up he of course wouldn't say anything about the beta but was very moody and has refused to even discuss any future TTL2 project.  Last I heard he's waiting for a few patches to make sure the game is fixed before wasting any time on it.  He's now busy with NWN adding in CEP 2.0 and is continuing development there. *shrugs*

I think your lead dev and myself had the same reaction.

Layonara is not going to NwN2 for at least 9 months and I don't think we will ever go over to NwN2. The time sink, manpower sink, and server requirements are just not worth it. Yes I could certainly change the way I think about the world I want but why? I mean it is a hobby, a hobby that I pay a lot of money for, a hobby that my team and I spend tons of hours on, a hobby where we are not allowed to make money at, why do we need to change when we have NwN and it works just fine. Sure it is outdated....but we are able to do what we want with our own hobby world and are not being forced to do things that should never be forced down our throat for a hobbiest tool.

The modules are huge (understandable)....but why are we being forced to accept additional bloat with the 4x4 grid that is unwalkable on every single area? Talk about silly. I mean let the PW/MP operators/creators decide if they want the unwalkable area...we have a tool in the toolset that makes terrian unwalkable after all. If we wanted a section that was unwalkable for transitions we would build it and mark it as unwalkable. It is that sort of thing that just boggles my mind and makes me step back and say "what and why?".

Now...with all of that said, Layonara also has other reasons that we are not switching over to NwN2 but up until a very short time ago I always felt we would go to NwN2--not any more though.

Don't get me wrong, as I have always stated... NwN2 is gorgeous and powerful, no doubt about it. But the limitations on PW's is just too much at this time in my opinion. In due time I think OE and Atari will come around and make some much needed changes/additions but until then it just is not for Layonara. I just hope they do it before the PW community begins to disappear...once a community starts to shrink it is hard to get people back. And lets face it, we put our PW's online in order to have players play in that worlds sandbox--without player why create the sandbox in the first place.

I think the numbers are a bit off.

My Module is around 80 megs at the moment with 7 areas (including 1 fully populated 32x32 area).   If you figured about 15 32x32 areas for the module, that would be roughly the equal of 60 16x16 areas in NWN1.   My 400+ area NWN1 module has less than 60 exterior areas anyway.    So not quite as big a deal as it seems ASSUMING 32x32 areas are not huge lag fests.

There are still some very serious issues with NWN2, but I do not think that the module size issue is certainly not a showstopper.    That doesnt mean there wont be some issue that are showstoppers, I just think that the module size is not it.

I'd love to see how you got a 32x32 under 100MB.

I did one, height mapped it a bit, added water, 3 textures, grass on 4 squares, 10 trees all the same tree and walkmeshed it.

Baked, that single area mod was 70MB

That was with the presale toolset.

That sounds about right...

Placeables dont take up that much space.   I have about 100 trees and maybe 500 placeables (all converted to enviromental objects).   I carefully cut out the walkmesh in every place I could; under placeables, on hill tops, bottom of lakes, etc...

I think it would take a lot of work to reach 100 megs for an area.  You would have to make a huge city and have 1000s of placeables (not to mention several hundred NPCs).  Such a city would rivial the CityState of the Overlord in scope.   The largest city I have so far has 35 buildings and since it was a Dwarven city, I moved it underground into a large cave complex.  

Here's how I view it as it is right now.

For the current technology, at best you are goinbg to be straining your server and player base.  With what is availible today, it is not feasable for most people to find and run an NWN2 (ie: slobs like me with limited resources).  I can easily run an NWN1 server with 20 player limit for about $40 a mo.  I cannot find a server to meet the specs for NWN2 for the same price.

Will it be impossible to run an NWN2 server? Not at all. Just not feasable at the moment.  Down the line I will re-examine the possibility and see how things turn out.  For now, I will place Grim's Tavern II as an NWN1 PW and make Single Player/Multiplayer mods for NWN2.

And if I find that no one is playing NWN1 a month or two down the line, at least not enough to make GT2 semi-populated, I will shut that down and go back to NWN2 module making.

We will not go back on NWN1. However we are realistic with the PW needs and may end up making a private campaign MOD with the current player base we have.

Again, by the time we are done with the areas building perhaps the community will have come up with the ultimate solution for PW and from there we would only have to make the necessary change to switch the MOD from campaign to PW.

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Lycius wrote:I think your lead dev and myself had the same reaction.

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Well do count me in to the both the reaction and the general feeling. In SAGA's case I am going to build for NWN2 and hope something is found to solve the problem Obsidian decided to create.I hate to flame Obsidian because I know they are working but as a NWN community member I think they should never have called this new game NWN2. Why? When you create a sequel you really MUST give word to the community and have careful 'ears' on the community forums and really invistigate why there is a community after all.

They should have heard the community: NWN2 will never be a real NWN2 if it isn't able to be dungeon mastered ('where-is-the-DM-client' syndrome attacking me now), persistent (where are the promised databases?), shared (how can you share even a small SP with 100's of MB?)...

I heard people say that they are only worrying with SP and the OC because it's what brings the big bucks. Honestly I think that this is a valid reason for a whole NEW game, not to a NWN sequel. NWN community is based on SP modules made by players, custom content and freedom to add spices and salt to our own likings, MP games and specially PW's. Don't tell me that PW's and MP's don't bring them the big bucks! Even piracy stops here: people that usually use pirated/hacked games do it for the crappy (or not) SP/OC and on the other hand multiplayer gamers HAVE TO buy the game so they can play it (NWN still sells thanks to us PW's and not to the crappy OC's).

I think Obsidian has a very nice game put together and a very nice toolset too. But they shouldn't call it NWN2 EVER because as it is going they will ruin the game's reputation and scare the community.

SAGA (members and team) will keep developing the future PW even if out of pure faith in the community and we won't go back to NWN1 because we have other projects to have our world applied to (upcoming browsergame, upcoming online boardgame, upcoming play-by-post website).

As for myself I will remain with this 'bad taste in my mouth' about NWN2... utterly disappointed.

OT: Would any of you mind if I wuoted you (or used your words anonimously) for an article  posted on my website? I think my community should be warned of the future ahead and see what others of the same field think on it.

My feeling, and of course I didn't write anything you'd want to quote, is that it should stay anonymous since this is a 'private' forum. But that's just me. :p

I have no problem with as long as it's taken in context but since TTL is not technically my server but in fact were I build for an admin, just quotes dealing with my opinion towards the game please.

When and if I make this article I'll post here first for general approval my idea is to pass out the general idea to people so they know as we stand now. I won't surely break NDA nor mis-use your opinions but as I read your opinions I think you successfuly put mine into english (which at times for me is not that easy, specially when i'm venting frustrations - for that i prefer my own language).

Well...Kalia (the site manager) thinks it should be private since these are private forums....I tend to agree. Since she is managing things I would think her request would come in the forefront of any decisions.