Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Hi everyone!

The admins were asked to make a decision tonight, and, after giving it some thought, I figured it was a question better posed to the community at large.

Chambordini is prepared to grant the builders a cornucopia of new placeables and textures for their use (it's basically everything off the NWN vault), but it'll cost end-users (that is, you guys) about 3 GB worth of downloads, and 6 GB worth of hard drive space.

The trade off is that the builders will, in theory, be able to create amazing new area maps and have a lot of new tools for updating existing maps.

So I want to get a feel from the community before we further consider doing this: Is this something you'd be willing to sit through a download for and have on your computer? Or do you prefer we stick to vanilla textures and placeables, and have builders only add new ones on a case-by-case special request basis?

Tiny example of some of the stuff in the package:

So this is a dump of undifferentiated assets? I don't know how much of it is useful/quality vs what is not. Wouldn't it be better to have it in a couple of packs, try to judge beforehand 'this is good, this is crap' etc? Its not an unsubstantial download and disk size.

I want more of everything!
MORE!
WOO!

Tantive wrote:So this is a dump of undifferentiated assets? I don't know how much of it is useful/quality vs what is not.

Essentially, yes. It's equipping the developers with a full kit from which they can pick and choose the tools they want to use.

Some of the tools in the tool kit may never get used, either because they're poor quality, don't fit the server setting, or are missing textures, but most at least seem like they could have some potential for use.

At the end of the day, it's the difference between giving the builders everything they could possibly need (but asking all of us to give up more space on our hard drives), or asking them to comb the vault themselves to find unique things they might want and probably don't know exist that they can then ask us to put into their toolbox on a case-by-case basis instead (which is how we've mostly done it in the past -- though it's historically resulted in very few "new" things, as it's more often guilds making guildhalls that ask us to put in new placeables than actual devs asking for them ).

Tantive wrote:So this is a dump of undifferentiated assets? I don't know how much of it is useful/quality vs what is not. Wouldn't it be better to have it in a couple of packs, try to judge beforehand 'this is good, this is crap' etc? Its not an unsubstantial download and disk size.

This.

Let them use all the new toys they want locally, on their own computer, but only add what they actually used to the server haks.

Valefort wrote:Let them use all the new toys they want locally, on their own computer, but only add what they actually used to the server haks.

This sounds like a great middle ground

I'm all for giving builders all the creative tools they need, when I look at my hak folder now 6GB more seems almost laughable. But I guess I agree with Valefort that if possible, only extract what is really needed. I used to play on a laptop too once upon a time... So yes, but maybe?

I would prefer not to have 6GB of hard drive space eaten for assets that may or may not ever be utilized. If the details have been documented of the assets builders should be able to reference back and more easily locate the specific asset they're looking for if we don't already have what they need to support the area they're working on.

Zanniej wrote:

Valefort wrote:Let them use all the new toys they want locally, on their own computer, but only add what they actually used to the server haks.

This sounds like a great middle ground

This. Im sorry but i not only do i not want to download 3-6 GB of stuff that may not even see the light of day. Its also going to take a while before any of it even starts to show up on the server.

I voted yes, but for selfish reasons. I recently got a sweet new monster gaming rig that can run like any game on max settings. It also has space to spare. So I figured, "Pfft, why not?"

But if I did not have this sweet new monster gaming rig, I would probably be a lot more reluctant to vote yes.

Valefort wrote:Let them use all the new toys they want locally, on their own computer, but only add what they actually used to the server haks.

Is this a middle ground, or does it amount to builders adding new stuff on a "case-by-case special request basis"? (Not a rhetorical question, I actually do not know.)

Valefort wrote:Let them use all the new toys they want locally, on their own computer, but only add what they actually used to the server haks.

That would honestly be the ideal solution. However, if individually flagging assets to be included with updates is more of a hassle for mappers than simply having all the ones they'd want to use already available, it may sufficient motivation to simply avoid using them altogether.

Sadly, in our current state where new games often have a couple dozen gigs of uncompressed sound/music files bloating their download, 6 GB seems like a drop in the bucket for me. On the simple divide between having everything (both the good and the unused) and having nothing, I'd lean towards the former option. However, I'd certainly be for some preemptive pruning of notably low-quality assets that would obviously never see the light of day on the server, as Tantive suggested.

I am fine with a large download so long as it's a once of rather then a constant.

If one and done I am content with it going in.

I prefer valefort's approach. "Add when needed". This is the most reasonable one.

Otherwise it'll be just a pile of dead content added "just in case" and not actually used by anything.

Also, for what I see on the screenshots, 6gigabytes of hdd space is WAY too much. This suggests dubious content organization and excessive detail.

For comparison, entire first dark souls is smaller than this.