NWN2 PW pain

[NEXUS7]

Hi all
Well Ive been away for a bit playing NWN2 online trying out some of the few persistant world RPG servers out there, and I must say the game NWN2 is very good buggy yes but good.

Put O please o please could the be a sweet Layonara NWN2 world with the sain rules that mark out Layonara as being one of the best RPG PW going.

I know its hard redoing things, and I know its been talked about (my even have been done and I thick and missed it)
but Layonara would ROCK! the NWN2 online world.

Just saying

all the best

Nexus7

(Ill never grunble about levels again ever)

[Tanman]

I think you might find the link here:

http://www.layonaraonline.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=30619&start=1&highlight=Layonara+future&highlightmode=1

as to Layonara's future. NWN2 probably is better graphics wise. One of the problems that NWN2 poses on Layonara, from my understanding is to do mainly with the sheer magnitude of the port to NWN2. There are well over 1200 areas of Layonara and its growing. It would take a long time to cover that magnitude. I even get the impression that some of the DMs have never been to any of the areas. Its that vast. Coupled into that, IF the world was ported, its the overhead on the machines. NWN2 requires a lot of horse power on the server and client end. I read in a magazine that based on a similar spec machine that is specified in the web site  2.4 GHz 512 MB RAM, that NWN2 can accomodate at most 30 people. Additionally people have older machines on their desktops, so using NWN2 will also make it a burden.

Edit:
Plus, the content team would have to incorporate LORE, the CNR, all the haks back into NWN2. It is by far no easy feat.

[darkstorme]

And someone would have to convert the entire CNR system.  *shivers*

[Weeblie]

If I remember correctly, another main concern is the HUUUUUGE module sizes in NWN2. I heard someone mention that a module at the size of... say... 25% of West would be gigabyte sized and.. umm...

To make it short, NWN2 is even less suitable for PWs than what NWN is.

[Talan Va'lash]

Simplified list of reasons why NWN2 isn't great for PWs (numbers are specific to layonara):

1 - The downloads for the players (which are already about 500+ megs) would probably be about 4-12gb.
2 - ALL of that would have to be re-downloaded every MODULE update. Module updates are relatively frequent. Hak updates much less frequent. Hak updates are the only time players have to re-download anything now.
3 - Security. With NWN players just download the haks. With NWN2 the entire module in full needs to be provided to each and every player. That means everyone can open the toolset and find where all the CNR is, where all the loot is, what all the items are, what the stats of every monster are and on and on. With this information a sufficiently clever and determined individual can create all kinds of exploits. Not to mention anyone could steal the module and decide to run their own server using the Layonara module, which we would be required to provide in full to all comers.

IMO #3 is the reason layonara will not be going to NWN2 unless it undergoes some large changes in later patches/expansions (this is my analysis of the situation, not the "official reason" or anything.)

There are more than enough reasons that NWN2 is not a good choice for Layonara at this time. Depending on what Obsidian does this may change in the future though I kinda doubt it.

[Dorganath]

To add...
  The simplest way is to have the entire modules downloaded to the client, but I believe it's possible to "just" make the maps and walkmeshes available without exposing the rest to the public. But it's still a ridiculous amount of data for a world the size of Layonara. Updates would go slower. People with slower machines or who are still using dial-up would be left out, as would those who use Macintosh or Linux OSes.
  We'd not be able to adequately represent the world in NWN2 because the total module sizes would be enormous if we even tried. If we could do it, we'd have to break up the world into many smaller modules to keep things realistic, each running on its own dedicated server process. Then we get into issues of server power, server count and bandwidth costs, the latter which have gone up dramatically.  
  I know there are other PWs out there who are going to NWN2, at least in part, including one of the other big ones. Though even in that case, it seems that the NWN2 version is of a much smaller scope and is still running in parallel to the NWN PW.

[NEXUS7]

thanks guys
the size of stuff is hard i see your point

yours
nexus7

[OneST8]

If I recall correctly, during one of our [many] examinations of NWN2 as a potential vehicle for Layonara's future... the size of the module with one, yes that's right just one, fully fleshed out area with a few simple creature encounters, triggers, ambient scenery, NPCs and so forth... the resulting module size was somewhere around 25Mb.  Sure it can be argued that some of that 25Mb is in re-usable resources (ie: usable in other areas within the same module), however, let's compare a similar setup in NWN... somewhere in the area of a few Mb. A number so inconsequential that I can't even recall the specifics heh. Aaaanyways. Let's do some guestimates and add it all up. Let's say for the sake of argument that there's 500Mb of re-usable resources (that make up the entire of Layonara as we know it), and let's say that each area actually takes up only 15Mb.    1,200   areas x   15   Mb ------------ 18,000   Mb +  500   Mb (art, content, etc) ------------ 18,500   Mb /1,024   Mb in a Gb ------------  17.57   Gb   This is of course only using content from the OC and not including any of the plethora of twistedly advanced systems implemented within Layonara already.  Every module update, that would have to be re-downloaded.  17Gb.  Not going to happen.  Ok, so what about scaling back the world? Let's find where we'd sit to be around the size of downloads right now with NWN.      35   areas x  15   Mb ------------   525   Mb   [not including re-usable resources]   35 areas?  Seriously.  Based on that alone you need to question it's viability as a PW environment.  Then there's the security and other critical complications as mentioned in above posts by Talan and Dorganath.    As a consolation prize to all this negative PW talk about the obviously quite beautiful looking NWN2....  I hear Avlis is moving to NWN2.

[lonnarin]

Maybe when technology increases exponentially over the course of a few market years.  In the past three years I noticed digital camera chips bottom out from 50mb for 200 bucks to 2gb for around 50-80.  I got my dad a flashdrive this xmas for 30 bucks on sale that had 2gb on it as a stocking stuffer.

Keep in mind also that we're playing a game 5 years old that runs on 400mhz.  That was about mid-range back then.  5 years from now we'll likely command supercomputers, more plentiful badnwidth and some kind of nifty laser visor.

[OneST8]

It's not a question of storage, it's a question of bandwidth and usability.

Open up a 5Gb archive with thousands of files in it... extract the files... do some work... pray the toolset doesn't crash... save the work... re-build the 5Gb archive... playtest locally... rinse... repeat... find a build that works the way intended... upload (at ~80kbps to the servers) ... restart world ... watch Leanthar's bandwidth bill shoot right through the roof as the entire playerbase downloads the new module.

With today's hardware and today's general internet connectivity, that does not sound like fun to me.

Perhaps in 5 years when we're all running machines with terabyte hard drives, gigabytes of RAM and processors ten times the speed of today's average... perhaps then NWN2 would be a functional PW game engine.

I'm not trying to burst everyone's bubble here, nor am I attacking anyone and I'm sorry if it comes across that way. I'm just trying to shed a little perspective on the sheer complexity of the problems that have hindered any move of Layonara from NWN1 to NWN2.

[lonnarin]

pffft, if everybody had Celgar's computer setup we would be able to fend of the Borg by now.