Weapons addition causing lockups

[Ziroc]

I have spent 7 hrs on this, and FINALLY figured out the issue. GOD what a pain [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] But these new weapon models are freaking AMAZING looking guys.

Glad I tested this. Or we would have had some issues after the hak release.
Thank god I am testing the hell out of this. I have found some things that would have been baaaad. [img]smile.gif[/img] But I'm almost done, so hang in there.

I'm SURE we'll still find small issues after release, nothing big, but we'll have a small patch to fix whatever it is.

[robertthebard]

Cool...Don't forget, there are known CEP issues with the new patch right now. Creatures and weapons not showing up in the modules, even though they made the lists in the tool set. The issues I've seen are the trident, and all the sharks.

[Mozenwrathe]

I saw you posting on some of the forums when the new patch first came out, RTB. I knew you were involved with a lot of this stuff, but not to such an extent. I have to get myself all caught up as to understand all the ramifications and possible permutations of issues because of this patch. (translated to regular person speak: gotta do a lot of reading to see exactly how many things can screw up thanks to the new material.) Are there any specific threads/guilds I should be reading though in order to see where some of these problems are originating from?

I know that with some of the characters I made once, they all refused to work until I realized that the PRC used a "skin" to generate all the effects - even when the character was made normally through their Character Creator program. Had to learn that the hard way. Would have been easier if I had known that from the start. So to prevent such "learn from your own mistake" moments, I want to see how the experts make their moves with CEP and the new patch.

I saw the post about the trident. Is the new trident model for patch 1.67 JUST a model, or is it supposed to be a new weapon? As far as I can see so far, it's only a model. Thing is, if it is only a model, what weapon type does it come under? As I am sure there's a lot of people who are kicking themselves because of that one thing alone. As for the sharks, did the CEP already have sea creature models floating around? (pun intended) Everyone has seen the crab and giant crab models, but were there any other aquatic life forms of major note?

[ 05-08-2006, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]

[robertthebard]

It's going to come down to things like .2da's. If Bioware crosses one up with a new creature, say a crab, for example, then the new one won't render, or won't render correctly. That's the issue we had at Fates, anyway. Even in the toolset, with CEP associated with the module, the creatures and the trident wouldn't draw in. They are listed, but they won't show up. In the case of the trident, I believe it's a weapon, and it would qualify as a spear. I'll have to open the toolset to find out for sure though. More on that later.
As to my involvement, it would be deceiving to base it on my posts at Bioware on the issue. Yes, I'm way involved with building at Fates, but I primarily serve as "Liason to the masses", or maybe intermediary would be a better term, between the builder, and the players on the module. We want this, we want that, what's up with this, etc. I get to field about 90% of that stuff, and then I sort it out, and forward the pertinent stuff on to the builder. However, I do construct areas, and items for the world, as well as some "creative writing" for quest items. I have a working knowledge of the toolset, but that's about it.

[Ziroc]

Actually, what is happening is the CEP 2da is overriding the 1.67 patch 2da, and so the new 167 creatures and such are not working.

I have corrected ALL cep and new patch 2das, so CEP and everything will be updated to work with it all. (Took a while, but its all good).

When the new hak is out, IT will overlay all other hakpaks 2da's, so this will fix everything, and call all items from the new one.

So many variables... Sometimes I felt I was gonna overload from data.. lol.

[robertthebard]

Yeah, that's what we came up with. Your hours of work will fix it, Bill is just going to wait for CEP to fix it. He's already cussing them for being slow, but, hey, they don't get paid, and they've done a bang up job so far.
The base item type on a trident, btw, is trident. Hopefully Bioware thought to add that to weapons that you can specialize in for weapon masters, but I haven't gotten around to generating a char to find out. Chewie's mod, here I come...Fastest way to get to weapon master...

Edit: You cannot focus in tridents. Not sure why they would bother to add them, if they are no better than the CEP version of the weapon. In this instance, they should have left well enough alone. You would expect that adding them officially would allow you to build a weapon master with them, being as they are a melee weapon, but this is not the case.

[ 05-08-2006, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: robertthebard ]

[Mozenwrathe]

Well, that is still more involved than I have ever been with anything based on the NeverWinter Nights/Aurora Toolset platform. The most I have ever done was be a "designer" for magical weapons on an online game I used to play on. To be accurate, I wrote backstories for magical items and their effects. (Come to think of it, I miss doing that.) That was some time ago, and it was fairly easy as it was purely based on in-house rules and rolls and such. Sort of like "pen and paper meets the digital age." Ran completely off of IRC channels, the game itself was far more roleplaying than roll-playing (which is how most of NeverWinter Nights works without DMs).

So, Bioware made a new weapon essentially just for show. Now that has to be the most foolish thing I have heard of them doing. Why not add on a new weapon feat and be done with it? I have even seen threads on scripts that give all the new CEP weapons their own customized feats. If I find it later on (as once more I am at work), I will post up the link to said scripts.

==edited for flavour==

Found them.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...Detail&id=2859
This is the rendition by Vaei. I thought it was great work this person was attempting. Argueably unfinished, but gives a great start to anyone who wants to retool their modules to use the CEP weapons in the same fashion as the official ones provided for us by Bioware.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...Detail&id=2682
The legendary Shadowhawk's take on this particular problem. Sure, it is now slightly under a year old, but I am sure that those who wish to take the work already completed farther may do so.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...Detail&id=2928
Elthair's attempt at the task. I don't know about this one, given the issues listed within. Still, it can't hurt to give it a run through. After all, the person is asking for suggestions or tips in order to improve their script.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...Detail&id=2878
vlodoshi's work. Still no real documentation from previous users. I'd also suggest trying out this one on a small CEP armed module to help this person out. I would love to see what makes this one tick, so I may download the text files to peruse later today.


###And because you know you wanted to see this...###
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...Detail&id=6490
Vulcano was working on a script that related to this topic. The main thing I can say is that Primogenitor (one of the people from the PRC) commented in his thread when it came to suggestions and the like. So this one definitely is worth looking into.

[ 05-08-2006, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]