NWN PW inner workings
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Hi Team,
I've been playing NWN for some time now and am curious how the persistent worlds work. If i'm playing a multiplayer NWN game with a friend we both need the module, correct? I load it up, he joins in and we play.
For COA (and other PW) I don't need any mod or hak, I just log in and everything is stored there for me.
How do PW set this up?
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If your playing over lan it is relatively easy to create and save your progress in a game. As for the modules you don't both need it. The server creates, the player joins. The server will save both characters and world. (I Think)
If your playing over the internet, you may need to download hamachi. Sometimes you won't be able to see a friends server but hamachi will create a virtual lan, and act like a lan.
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How do PW set this up?
The module is only on the server. When you log in, the game downloads parts of the module it needs. In a LAN game, you can save/load progress; in a PW characters are stored in the server vault, and other information in the NWN database via scripts (or other if you use NWNX). CoA doesn't use any hakpacks, but if a PW uses one, all players have to download it independently.
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If i'm playing a multiplayer NWN game with a friend we both need the module, correct?
Only you need it (provided you are hosting). Things get more complex when you add haks and overrides (these are optional addons).
We at CoA made the choice to not support haks in an effort to make it as easy as possible for people to join, this unfortunatly leaves us without many of excellent additional content out there but it makes joining the server easy for everyone.
When you look at the basics, hosting a module for a friend or hosting a PW isn't really all that different, the basic different is that we use a dedicated server to host the module and leave it on at all times.
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Well, I approve of the no hak pack plan (otherwise I wouldn't have discovered CoA).
So if I load a module that doesn't have a hak pack or additional override then the other player doesn't need to have it, correct?
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If your playing over lan it is relatively easy to create and save your progress in a game. As for the modules you don't both need it. The server creates, the player joins. The server will save both characters and world. (I Think)
If your playing over the internet, you may need to download hamachi. Sometimes you won't be able to see a friends server but hamachi will create a virtual lan, and act like a lan.
+1 for Hamachi; my brother lives in Atlanta, so we play multiplayer games all the time. Unfortunately, our computers hate each other on teh Interwebs, but with Hamachi running, there's no problem.
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This is the CoA machine:
Downtimes happen when we need to change dead hamsters.
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The exception is if you're playing one of the Premium Modules, in which case, you do both need to have it.
Also you and your friend need to have the same version patch-wise and expansions.