Hack Paks?

[homer]

Please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly are “hack paks”. I have noticed that in some of the modules I have downloaded, they are included. My real concern is this: if I put these “paks” in my NWN directory, will it modify all the modules or just the one it came with?

[Larry_OHF]

A hak pack is probably more easily explained as a code that was created by people like you or me, and are not official packages. These haks can be textures for animal coloring, making women nude, designing new varieties of trees, and alot of other things that were never programmed in by the people that made the game. Some of them are very good additions to your game-play experience. There is a problem. Haks do not upgrade when you upgrade your game. A hak that was designed in version 1.25 would probably not work in V1.27. In fact, my entire module that I created deleted when I upgraded to 1.27...just because the upgrade made the hak-based mod corrupted. It was a sad day.

If you downloada a game taht incudes haks...the makers of the mod should have been considerate enough to let you know in their game description what version of NWN it will play in.

I hope this helps.

[homer]

Thanks [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Chamberlain]

woa so if i spend a couple of months making a mod...and they upgrade...then im screwed?
how often do they upgrade(i just got the game recently so i wouldnt know)

is there any way to make a mod that will be friendly to future version?

thanks in adavance

[Larry_OHF]

Then don't use haks. Though...not all of my mods were hacked...but when I upgraded...all of them kinda went away. I have no idea why. I understand the hak not working in upgrades...but all of my files?

So...maybe I had a bad experience. I will wait to see if anybody can tell us all how to upgrade without losing our life's work.

[Wulfere]

Larry is correct ... you need to be careful about the haks you install.
But, I have upgraded many times and not lost a thing. Most haks are relatively small but, I have seen hak packs of 20 megs! These contain more than one hak for the game. I don't often install haks. Most modules you download that use them can be played without them. So if you don't want them then just delete them from your directory after you unzip the downloaded file. You can also download alternate movies and other items to enhance your game experiance. But, to play it safe you should remove them from the game folder prior to upgrading.

The NW Camera hak is great, but it did cause me to uninstall then reinstall the game. It corrupted my nwn.exe file and wouldn't allow me to auto update. I followed all the instructions too, but it still caused trouble.

So in the end you have to decide whether you want to try them or not yourself. They add alot, but can be a pain.

Larry...Couldn't you have zipped the mod up and then saved it somewhere else on your harddrive? That's what I would do or attempt anyway.

[ 01-21-2003, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Wulfere ]

[Chewbacca]

It does pay to have a back-up of a mod that you alter with a hak pak. I have encountered some bugs expirimenting with haks, but they are mostly the hak's fault, not the game engine or toolset. If a hak author doesn't consider future bioware updates when altering files types like 2da then you may get strange results at update.

I am considering using haks. I recently downloaded at NW Vault a mega-combo hak-pak that has 15+ new reskinned tilesets, hundreds of items and placeables and a few dozen creatures. It was a whopping 650 MB unzipped but worth it for the enourmous amount of great work!

Velmar's towers are beyond cool and the LOK paks are cool as well. The tavern bar placeable makes the LOK worth the small download itself.

Something I am excited about is Bioware will soon add multiple-hak pak functionality, so a person will be able to download a whole bunch of small haks and use them all at once with-out all the technical mumbo-jumbo that goes with combining haks. Revolutionary!

[Larry_OHF]

Originally posted by Wulfere: Larry...Couldn't you have zipped the mod up and then saved it somewhere else on your harddrive? That's what I would do or attempt anyway.

I'm sorry...you've mistaken me for somebody that would be smart enough to do that!

Besides, the haks I had were very much a part of the whole game. I was using the shadow castle hak and Cyril made some creature skins for me that were also major players. When I upgraded....nothing was there! Not even the name of the mod. It had completely vanished. Oh well...Back to the drawing board.

[Luvian]

The "word" hak get on my nerve. Is that really how people call hacks in the NWN community?

[Wulfere]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: I'm sorry...you've mistaken me for somebody that would be smart enough to do that!

LOL ... cripes Larry you about made me spit coffee all over my screen. [img]graemlins/1drinkspit.gif[/img] I know the feeling...believe me. But that's how folks like us learn I guess. One kick in the cojones at a time!

[ 01-23-2003, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: Wulfere ]