Neverwinter Night for Baldur's Gate mod

[Morgoth]

Posted by error.

Edited March 15 by Morgoth

[Acifer]

12 minutes ago, Daulmakan said:

I'm sorry I can't allay your fears, but I won't lift an eyebrow based off of the opinion of some random gaming journalist.

Then I expressed myself incorrectly: I'm not concerned about a gaming journalist writing something, but about the quite obvious, objective problems of this mod that he addresses.

12 minutes ago, Daulmakan said:

IMO, Microsoft has bigger stuff to worry about and probably doesn't need the extra negative points with their own public that go along with persecuting non-profit modders.

Well, it's your decision, but if I'm going to invest a lot of my free time into something, then I want to make sure that someone else can't undo my work with the snap of a finger if they feel so inclined.

[Daulmakan]

Just now, Acifer said:

Then I expressed myself incorrectly: I'm not concerned about a gaming journalist writing something, but about the quite obvious, objective problems of this mod that he addresses.

Then you have several more concerns as well, because as I expressed earlier, there are many other mods around that use other games' assets.

Quote

Well, it's your decision, but if I'm going to invest a lot of my free time into something, then I want to make sure that someone else can't undo my work with the snap of a finger if they feel so inclined.

Heh, if I was as great as you at creating areas, I wouldn't reuse assets from another game either.

But still, to my knowledge, since I've been around (says 2007, was a lurker before), no mod has been "undone with the snap of a finger".

[paladin84]

If somebody wants to redraw some (or all) areas from the mod, I will gladly replace the existing ones taken from other games. But honestly, I don't think it is possible, there are 351 areas and probably around 300 of them are not areas taken from IE games.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, Acifer said:

And making NWN available for BG2 is basically a good idea.

But it’s not just area graphics that are taken from other games. The entire NWN story, and characters, and .dialogues, are protected IP. IMHO you are either in the “some mods just shouldn’t exist” club, or you are okay with modders doing what they can with what resources they can, as long as no one is harmed by it. In case it is not clear, I think the “your mod shouldn’t exist” mindset is an extremely shitty attitude. Not for nothing, there are lots of tutorials for the kind of modding that I have done (and I’ve written some) but I don’t see a single tutorial on making/using area graphics. Which means a lot of potentially great writers are not equipped to make mods, or are limited to writing NPCs os something. And the flip side of the coin, modders who are equipped to make new areas end up publishing big splashy quest mods even though they… may not be the best writers. 

Given that area graphics, in particular, are generally considered to be the hardest and most onerous part of making mods, being overly critical of modders who scrounge what they can risks veering into a gross kind of clubby gatekeeping. 

tl:dr: help, don’t hinder, people making fun new stuff. 

Neither here nor there, but this conversation has wandered quite far afield, and should probably be split into its own thread, so that this thread can focus on issues pertaining specifically to the NWN mod. 

Edited March 15 by subtledoctor

[Acifer]

7 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

IMHO you are either in the “some mods just shouldn’t exist” club, or you are okay with modders doing what they can with what resources they can

You're right, the discussion is drifting. Just to add that: Between "You are not allowed to do anything" and "You are allowed to use 300 assets from another game", there is still a modest middle path that almost all modders I know follow.

And this would also be my advice to stay on this path and not to overdo it. 

[paladin84]

Here is the new release: https://github.com/abalabokhin/NWNForBG/releases/tag/0.97, alternative link is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ts7Uu0nXNwQJmzS22V1KV691Ws7mzQMu/view.

No big changes, but may small fixes. All the details are in README, as usual (https://github.com/abalabokhin/NWNForBG/tree/0.97?tab=readme-ov-file#version-history)