AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Last edited by Xiru on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 15:11 PM, edited 1 time in total.

I was reading this thread, and afterwards did a forum search on haks. This topic was one of the results, in which Disco proposed introducing new tileset haks on B, while keeping them off A. People brought up reasonable arguments on why this shouldn't be done, such as the jarring difference new areas would have in looks compared to old ones, and the large download sizes a hakpak with new tilesets would have.

These are certainly good reasons. What I don't understand however, is why small content-modifying haks aren't allowed. I have seen the following arguments against implementing any kind of haks:

1. Less tech-savvy users may not be able to download and install hakpaks.

We already have a picture guide for direct connecting, I think we could have one for installing a hakpak as well. Heck, I'd make one personally.

2. Amia has always been hak-free, and should remain so.

This is subjective opinion, and it's impossible to find counterarguments for it. I, for one, would prefer additional flexibility over tradition.

3. No haks, period.

Probably the same as #2.

4. Haks are not essential for a good experience.

Of course not. Then again, one could say that about any kind of enhancement. You don't need a bio, it's not essential. You don't need DC items, they're not essential.

5. Dowloading haks is tedious and/or frustrating, especially on slower or unstable connections.

That's why we'd have content modifications instead of new content. Feat edits and such. No new content equals small download size.

6. Since Amia uses no haks right now, introducing them could scare new players away.

As a consequence of #1, adding more information to the rules-placeables in the entry areas would solve it, especially if the placeables would be made more obvious. Otherwise, I don't think anyone would avoid haks out of principle. Unless someone had his or her parents killed by a hak pak or something.

What's the point of all this?

The forums are littered with posts which start out as hopeful suggestions, but quickly get shot down with a "That would need a hak" reply. Implementing haks would make things more interesting for players both old and new, and give an additional degree of flexibility to the server's rule system.

What do I propose?

The introduction of a hakpak which adheres to the following criteria:

1. No completely new content (ie. tilesets, placeables, clothing, weapons etc.). Only modifications to already existing content are allowed (EDIT: ie. feat modifications and other game mechanics changes).

2. Total hak file size must remain under or exactly X megabytes.

I believe this would be a fair compromise.

I think it should be hak free. It's a god thing that one can just drop by and try out the server, rather than having to run out half your bandwidth before you can even have a go.

I have nothing against haks whatsoever myself but am very much aware that most of Amia will not want them.

Probably a lost cause.

Silvarus wrote:

I have nothing against haks whatsoever myself but am very much aware that most of Amia will not want them.

Seconded.

Silvarus wrote:

I have nothing against haks whatsoever myself but am very much aware that most of Amia will not want them.

Silvarus's thoughts are similar to my own. I do not care for haks, they could be neat but amians do not seem to like them.

Option 2 is very much the case. While haks offer more eyecandy, it does make accessing the server harder for new players.

Personally I've never bothered checking out servers with haks because I'm super lazy and don't want unnecessary crap to my computer. Amia had no haks, so I began to play here.

Last edited by Xiru on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 13:48 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Yurell wrote:

(...) rather than having to run out half your bandwidth before you can even have a go.

Consider PRC's PRC Pack: it's a massive total conversion, yet it's below ten megabytes. The Amian hakpak would be much smaller than that. Probably.

Ziacat wrote:

While haks offer more eyecandy (...)

Except we'd keep eyecandy out, and only make changes to pre-existing content.

I was exaggerating. But the point I was trying to make is the same as Zia's - if I want to test a server, I want to double click it and try it out, rather than having to go through fifty million steps (another exaggeration) before I can even see what the servers like, in the meantime having wasted a lot of time and put unnecessary rap on my computer.

Most NWN servers already require haks, so I'd say new players are more likely to expect having to download one.

And seriously, it's one or two files you put in your NWN folder. It's hardly filling your PC with useless crap.

Xiru wrote:

Most NWN servers already require haks, so I'd say new players are more likely to expect having to download one.

And seriously, it's one or two files you put in your NWN folder. It's hardly filling your PC with useless crap.

I disagree. Being able to play the server without trying to discover where their website is, manually retyping it into your web browser, searching through it for the necessary files, following the links to a likely third-party site to download, waiting five minutes for the download, installing the haks, restarting NWN to just have a look is a god thing.

Last edited by Pony on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 14:00 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Haks give you the possibility to do the nicest things, especially for designers, as you can create beautiful areas, add new creatures, give characters and npcs more unique appearances, add new weapons...

There once was a topic about making amia b with haks and keeping amia a hakless. I believe that would be a very nice compromise, and I honestly doubt there is a chance to turn all of amia into a hak needed place.

If we only use area and creature haks and have those only on amia b, there would be no problems to jump between servers from a tech issue (meaning you wouldnt have a suit of armor on b that couldnt be done on a). It would also be great for those lazy gits like Zia entering a, getting a taste of the server, and then download a small easily installed package (another important thing, this would need to be dummy proof and it can be) to enter b.

The only question is if there is an easily installed pack available to download like the amian headpack for b, would it really cause problems for people if the size wasnt done to in a gigantic proportion? Amia would still be as noob friendly, and like with the headpack, the veteran players will be more than glad to help the newcommers if they have a question with the haks.

Have them downloaded directly from the site, no links. No anoying searching and finding out one is missing, and no huge size.

Phearnun wrote:

There once was a topic about making amia b with haks and keeping amia a hakless. I believe that would be a very nice compromise

People who don't have the hak not having access to the epic hunting grounds is a nice compromise?

Yurell wrote:

Phearnun wrote:

There once was a topic about making amia b with haks and keeping amia a hakless. I believe that would be a very nice compromise

People who don't have the hak not having access to the epic hunting grounds is a nice compromise?

Its not meant to have one group have it and another not, its meant to allow newer people to enter the server a without problems to look around and not be scared off and people like you will not have a bigger problem to install them than you have putting in your headpack.

I would not mind Amia using haks really, not using them is a pretty big limit on what the devs can do, judging from the frequency at which ideas and suggestions get answered by ''Can't be done without haks''

I like haks, but doubt it will happen on Amia.

Last edited by Xiru on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 14:14 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Yurell wrote:

I disagree. Being able to play the server without trying to discover where their website is, manually retyping it into your web browser, searching through it for the necessary files, following the links to a likely third-party site to download, waiting five minutes for the download, installing the haks, restarting NWN to just have a look is a god thing.

The site's URL is already in the server description (at least, it should be). Sending players to the site for the hak would at least introduce new players to the forums. Besides, the whole process wouldn't take more than two minutes.

EDIT: It's actually not in the description. How come?
EDIT2: Whoops, yes it is. My bad.

Xiru wrote:

Yurell wrote:

I disagree. Being able to play the server without trying to discover where their website is, manually retyping it into your web browser, searching through it for the necessary files, following the links to a likely third-party site to download, waiting five minutes for the download, installing the haks, restarting NWN to just have a look is a god thing.

The site's URL is already in the server description (at least, it should be).

I know, that's why I said manually retyping it afterwards.

Xiru wrote:

Sending players to the site for the hak would at least introduce new players to the forums.

They're already told to go there.

Xiru wrote:

Besides, the whole process wouldn't take more than two minutes.

The whole getting to the download would take at least that, and then there's the download itself. In that time I'd much rather try out another server without haks. I know going through that list I don't even bother trying servers that need haks, which I believe is part of what makes Amia so popular.

Yurell wrote:

I know, that's why I said manually retyping it afterwards.

No offense, but your attention span must be abnormally low if you consider typing "www.amiaworld.net" in your browser a dealbreaker when trying out a new server.

Yurell wrote:

They're already told to go [to the site].

Well, it's one more reason.

Yurell wrote:

The whole getting to the download would take at least that, and then there's the download itself. In that time I'd much rather try out another server without haks. I know going through that list I don't even bother trying servers that need haks, which I believe is part of what makes Amia so popular.

That's hardly a problem, unless Amia caters specifically to players who only spend two minutes on finding a server to play on.

I know that if I have a choice between servers to try out, and one doesn't require me to sing and dance to to just have a go, that's the one I'll try.

To be honest, I'm one of the people who actually seek hak-with servers. I only joined Amia due to recommendation. I don't find it exceedingly hard to check out the forums first (mostly in order to see what changes to spells and classes have been implemented) and get a sense of the community before actually joining.

I can see though how most would like to experience the game itself before downloading the headpack for example.

Even if a hak download would put a dent in the influx of new players, Amia's already the most popular RP server. We have enough players to fill five less popular servers.

If we are talking about visual enhancements to the game, I am with you. If we're talking about mechanic haks that alter feats and all that, no thanks.

Why not?

Ugh. No mechanics altering, I'd image those would be the largest for the hak, but it would be nice if flowers looked like flowers.

Sylfwe wrote:

Ugh. No mechanics altering, I'd image those would be the largest for the hak, but it would be nice if flowers looked like flowers.

I'd have thought visuals and graphics would be larger, since they need to have the textures and models and everything.

Yurell wrote:

Sylfwe wrote:

Ugh. No mechanics altering, I'd image those would be the largest for the hak, but it would be nice if flowers looked like flowers.

I'd have thought visuals and graphics would be larger, since they need to have the textures and models and everything.

I really don't know, you're probably right, didn't think of it that way.

Yup. Textures and models take up much more space than mechanics-altering scripts.

Xiru wrote:

Why not?

Becuase it makes classes and class combinations completely broken.

Visuals: yay
Mechanics: nay!

Overrides are the "quick fix" to allow everyone to simply hop in the game and play on Amia. What it does though, is break the CEP heads for everyone who uses CEP and has the Amia heads in his override. It will make people with CEP heads appear to have a different head than intended. As such, I think overrides are a very selfish policy in regard to players wanting to play on other servers too (where it breaks the heads). De facto, everyone who plays here downloads the heads anyways. I'd call that not optional, but mandatory.. unless you wanna roleplay with a bunch of headless zombies (that's what I thought was going on when I first came to play here). Good for Amia if people do it, but I'd either like to see this as a HAK or to have no special heads at all. The override folder should remain empty except for client-side changes to game appearance that the player will use on every server.

Last edited by Xiru on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 15:26 PM, edited 1 time in total.

hendrack wrote:

Becuase it makes classes and class combinations completely broken.

But it doesn't.

EDIT: I think you misunderstand. This change would enable the devs to introduce class changes and implement modifications that wouldn't be possible without a hak. I'm not suggesting to implement anything in particular.

As much as I love Amia, I do get annoyed by the fact that Amia doesent have CEP, simply because I find the amount of different armour appearences extremely limited as it is now. The lack of the hood appearence instead of helmet is itself usually enough for me to drop a server. Amia is well functioning without Haks, but I do miss being able to craft a greater variety of armour appearence. So me, i welcome Haks as long as they arent extremely many and very huge. CEP is usually quite enough to add candy.

While I agree with you, implementing CEP (or any other graphics/content mod) isn't feasible on this server because of the filesize-related complaints.

In any case, going from no haks at all to CEP would be too big a jump. This change would be the first step.

Xiru wrote:

Even if a hak download would put a dent in the influx of new players, Amia's already the most popular RP server. We have enough players to fill five less popular servers.

Hence my suggestion, allow a to be accessable by all without haks and have b given them. New players are not turned away and it gives a chance to use new visual stuff for new ideas.

If there is no visual changes or any new content then what would be the point of haks? If I was to download haks, I would like to have new content, especially stuff from say CEP but I do not mind not having haks that much.

The idea of having B (OR C!?) include visual haks and A (and B) be hak-free is actually an excellent idea now that I think about it as long as nothing that characters can take with them is changed so transitions are fluent.

I am all for it.

Not to mention with mechanical changes there is no way to avoid making both severs hak required.

That would mean giving the B server the bells and whistles and leaving A as it is. As much as it would circumvent the problem of keeping Amia open for newbs, this idea doesn't serve much purpose IMO.

You can already get new visuals by downloading overrides. What I'd like is the possibility to implement game mechanics modifications.

Let's take Dev Crit for example. The way it is coded into the game, it can only be either disabled or left alone. With a hak, it could be modified.

Another example is the first topic I linked to in my original post.

QPR wrote:

I couldn't find an answer to this on the nwn wiki: Is the UBAB hard coded to only work with unarmed strike and Kama's, or is there a remote possibility to add more weapons to it?

If so.... Quarterstaff. It would be so awesome.

Dwagin wrote:

That's something that'd likely require a HAK.

So, that's a no go.

See what I mean?

Last edited by hendrack on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 15:56 PM, edited 1 time in total.

With the door open to mechanical changes everyone and their grandmother will call for changes in devcrit, hips and tons of other things. Do the DMs really need or want that workload?

Just about all haks also increase server instability and lag. Even if it is mostly just visual lag. (Which is why several models are unused on Amia, that exist without haks)

hendrack wrote:

With the door open to mechanical changes everyone and their grandmother will call for changes in devcrit, hips and tons of other things. Do the DMs really need that workload?

Well yes, that's what it's all about. Opening the door to mechanical changes. To help the server further evolve.

Gravemaskin wrote:

Just about all haks also increase server instability and lag.

Our hak would not, since there would be no new graphics or actual, tangible content. Amia already has scripts running in the background, we'd just be able to have more kinds of scripts with the hak.

EDIT: From here:

Quote:

Resources -- useless resources -- clearly you fail to understand the nature of such. Scripts in a hak are not counted in module resources and they do not cause your server to lag. Such notions are pure poppycock. Resource count is in the module container -- moving scripts from the module container to a hak can free up resources and greatly increase the speed and function of a server. Please get your facts straight before acusing someone of something in the future. I have run a NWN server on line 24/7 for over six years, Annakolia. I also am in close contact with Higher Ground, a highly scripted server with years of such experience. Acaos, 420 and I all have 24/7 servers that have been up for over six years, we do know a thing or two and we certainly do not want to bog our own servers down with lag -- so please stop suggesting such allocations, they are completely untrue.

As far as people on slower connections are concerned, moderation is best. Even medium sized hak packs are manageable on a 56k connection. Take it from someone who has been there, and spent about a week worth of late nights downloading haks for a server I played for all of 15 minutes.

Not saying I'm for or against haks at this point, but download size within reason should not be a negative factor if the inclusion of hakpaks would actually add something of substance to the module.

Disco:

Quote:

I've been thinking about this time and time again, and I guess it's a nice moment to throw this before the sharks.

How do you think about making Amia B using HAKs? I am thinking creatures, tilesets and placeables here that add new opportunities for areas, not clothing or other character related stuff that would make A and B incompatible.

Things I'd love to use are for instance...

Spiderweb Tunnels (10Mb):
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=7241

Kuo Toa (3MB)
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=5309

Dwarven Halls (5 MB)
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=4392

But above The Seasonal Forest tileset... which weighs in at 170 MB
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=6631

Anyway, this would be a break with the previous 'no haks, nada haks, nyet nein basta!" policy, although the main server would still be HAK free.

The above suggestions are all stable, btw. I don't fancy adding buggy poo that needs an update every 3 weeks.

O, and this is not about adding CEP. To that the answer is still "nyet nein basta!".

O, mind that this is just testing the water. I haven't made any decision whatsoever.

And something I would personally love to see: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=1725

Yurell wrote:

I know that if I have a choice between servers to try out, and one doesn't require me to sing and dance to to just have a go, that's the one I'll try.

I agree with Yurell.

No to Haks!

-Cloak-and-Dagger- wrote:

Yurell wrote:

I know that if I have a choice between servers to try out, and one doesn't require me to sing and dance to to just have a go, that's the one I'll try.

I agree with Yurell.

No to Haks!

Hence the one you try is amia a, and it would remain hakless. Amia b wouldnt, and if you like the sever you download the single package, place it in your hak folder and are ready to go.

Hmmm.....

I can visualise that B having them and A being hakless might well add to the discrepancy in player numbers though....

Last edited by Dwagin on Tue, Aug 18 2009, 17:33 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Can't be arsed to fitz with haks myself. Its why I like Amia. Its part of it's appeal, and character.

Feet in the door is important. But I've seen people play amia on Bmia and never ever having tried AmiaA because Amia A is always full.

To me, overrides are fine as you can already tweak your own eyecandy to a modest degree.

Haks require download, bug busting and cause lag for people, and people can't 'opt out' of haks unlike overrides.

Between usability issues, stability issues, and getting/keeping feet in the door, I just say no.

Brown Blur wrote:

Hmmm.....

I can visualise that B having them and A being hakless might well add to the discrepancy in player numbers though....

I doubt it will have that effect. People downloaded the head pack so they dont see headless people. They will download the hak pak to access hunting areas, certain towns and look at the new stuff.

Phearnun wrote:

Brown Blur wrote:

Hmmm.....

I can visualise that B having them and A being hakless might well add to the discrepancy in player numbers though....

I doubt it will have that effect. People downloaded the head pack so they dont see headless people. They will download the hak pak to access hunting areas, certain towns and look at the new stuff.

You are probably right in that.....I just posted the thought as it occurred to me.

Seems a bit pointless to add HAKs to B, truthfully. We couldn't do the cool stuff anyway: new PRCs, feats, spells, all the stuff that makes HAKs interesting. We could only use monster models and tilesets.

But yeah, as has been pointed out: being HAK-free means new players can freely try the server before logging in. New players are the lifeblood of a server. Therefore, we should stay as accessible to new players as possible.

Do you think it's coincidence that the most populated NWN servers are still HAK-free, or at most, require only CEP?

On the topic of haks

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