You know...

I really want to believe this toolset is everything we hoped it would be.  I want to believe it's maybe the greatest toolset ever released in the gaming industry and will be the benchmark for others to follow in years to come.  I read the forums and everyone says it's fantastic.  I want to believe that as well.  There's some excellent tutorials out there and I've read two through already as well as the documentation in the game folder.  I have a couple plug-ins to help me ease into the basics and I've tested a couple features and imported and checked out every available prefab on the vault so far.

I decide today I'm going to start rebuilding my NWN mod in NWN2 from scratch.  I'll start simple...just recreate the 2x2 interior start area I use for Emerald Isle.

I start a new mod and save it while empty because there's a bug where you may lose all your work on the first save.  It's hard not to save because everytime you open, close or new something it comes up asking if you want to save.  Even with nothing there in front of you it asks if you want to save it.  I assume it means the settings I've selected so paranoia tells me yes absolutely save the nothing before you.

I then build a new interior and with all I've read I go through the basics and setup the data for my first area.  I'm also running the NWN toolset at the same time and switching back and forth for data values and whatnot.  Things are running smoothly.  I go to type in a general builder comment in the correct box and nothing.  It won't accept my keystrokes in that one box.  I look for a drop down box to open a insert panal like on a couple other lines but no.  There's nothing I can see that will let me add comments in the comment section.  I say okay, no problem, it's not like I don't know what this area is and need comments to remind me.

I start to place the interior and stop and look.  I assume it's there cause I just placed it but because it's pitch dark I have to zoom in inches from the floorboards to see they are there.  I know how to brighten up the exteriors so I pursue the same course.  It says outdoor conditions but I hope it also applies to lighting interiors.  I go to adjust the numbers and no.  It won't accept my keystrokes, the numerical ones at least, it will let me copy/paste numbers over the current ones no problem, delete and also cursor through them.  It just won't accept my numerical keys.  No problem I can deal with it.  It'll be annoying having to type anything I want to insert in the fields into notepad and then copying it to paste in the toolset.  Something as excellent as this next gen toolset I would think you could directly edit key fields but who am I to say.  If I have to copy/paste then that's what I will do.

So I adjust the values great ready to see the work I've done so far in a better light and .....nothing.  There I am still in the dark.  I have been using the NWN toolset for years now and just learned it as I went.  I had no problems picking up the general flow of learning the system through intuition and was up and building in no time without any manuals or tutorials to guide me.  Now here I am in this alleged fantastic toolset bar none, have read all the tutorials have been following the discusions on the bioboards, have sought out what I would assume to be obvious avaenues in the toolset itself...and yet find myself standing here in the dark without the slightest clue how to turn on the frakking lights!   ...and only other 99 interiors to go before I tackle the exteriors.

It is obvious to me now that we have some of the greatest intuitive brainiacs of our generation as builders of this wonderful piece of beauty...

...but could someone please tell this simpleton, me, how to turn on the frakking interior lights!

I think to myself...I could be having a ball exploring and adapting the new CEP 2.0 to my NWN mod, but no, I have to feel Obsidian and NWN2 deserves a chance to prove itself and the deeper I delve into it the closer I'll get to finding the intuitive rosetta stone that will unlock the secrets of this brick.

While I will NEVER be a builder, I will continue to hold the high hope that the devs and the community will make it work and that it WILL be everything we want it to be and more. Pollyanna-ish maybe but I have to hold onto that or else I've simply wasted 2 years of my life. :TONGUE:

Five thousand two hundred an eighty one items.

That's how many I created in my PW with NWN.

I can't figure out how to create ONE in NWN2.

I thought you were a builder.  That's all my time Obsidian gets for today.  I'll continue looking for a lightswitch tomorrow.

The components of the toolset are good.  can do some interesting things.  The toolset itself is flexible and that can allow some interesting things.  It just seems put together badly or maybe hastily. 

The Classical toolset was dated, simple, intuitive and elegant.  You couldn't do everything you wanted with it but you could easily do everything it was capable of fairly quickly, in learning it and delivering it.  It was fun to build with.

The dawn of another day.

The copy/paste is resolved and I have the method of illuminating interiors.

I was trying to solve my problem with lighting by assuming it was something obvious like a lightswitch and I was just being obtuse and failing to see it right there in front of me.

Wasn't the case.  There seems to be no internal display window light source at all to help in building.  You actually have to pull up a light source placeable for the area and go in an adjust it's intensity and range and carry it around with you like a torch?????

We need a ingame flashlight to see our way around an external application.  That is so messed up for a A title game and toolset.

You can always simply (for interiors and exteriors works well), click on Daylight for the time of day, makes it bright so you can see. Then when you want to see what it looks like under normal lighting (for interiors, that'd be nighttime for a cave or whatnot) you swithc it back, take a look around, make adjustments, then switch back to daylight to get back to work.

I've made a couple suggestions now to Digital Sin in the hopes he'll mount a portable light source on his WASD Camera Plugin. *fingers crossed*