Recent polls have identified that CEP 2 should keep moving forward as the custom content collection for builders, by including popular content that adds distinctive value. The priorities are creatures, placeables and tilesets.
To reassure everyone, we will
seek permission from the author to include their work in CEP 2 (even if it’s on open licence)
ask builders before committing to add anything
continue to use optional haks for content that only works in EE
This means there are no constraints on what you can suggest, but some suggestions won’t happen
We’re going to post our suggestions in this thread, and we hope that builders using CEP 2 will, too.
Amongst many other things, I’d personally favour a trawl through the CCC, picking out the priority items that add distinctive value - for example, almost all of the human models that aren’t already in CEP.
No doubt some builders already have the older ones in their top haks, so maybe start with the newer ones?
This runs with a new topic each month and members of the Vault ( although not me as I lack the talent !) contribute new assets on a given theme. However, I’m sure @Tarot_Redhand will be along soon to give you more info.
CCC == Custom Content Challenge. Each month creators are invited to take part in a challenge to create something new for NwN based around a theme. Themes for the following month are voted on each month. What can be submitted? Basically anything that you can create for use by module builders, as long as it fits within the theme. So no whole modules (prefab areas are fine) and absolutely no copywrited material.
I maintain a catalogue of what has been produced in the 11+ (since August 2010) years that these challenges have been running. This catalogue additionally contains links to every completed challenge.
then go to the Updated header and click on it twice.
You will then get the latest or most recently updated content to browse through. This is a great way to find new content. You can also use the comments sorter as sometimes, the most popular content are the ones with lots of comments.
some suggestions from me
A while ago, I compiled a list of interesting mods, mostly concerning space/futuristic/sci-fi themed content. Not sure about how lore friendly they are, if that is a parameter CEP works to. I got a few interesting replies for further suggestions on that compiled list the link of which is here: (Compiled List of Futuristic Modern Space and Similar Themed Mods | The Neverwinter Vault)
Here are the links which I listed on that compiled list.
There’s a model for a Tarrasque which is quite interesting (Tarrasque For NWN | The Neverwinter Vault), though there are some issues with close range combat, but then people love seriously OP stuff.
There is still such a vast amount of content that could be integrated into the CEP. Of course, there is the case that many of the original creators might not be around to get hold of anymore to get their permission to use it in CEP, but its always worth a try.
I hope to be able to help if and when I can, without bombarding the forum
The D20 Modern project has tended to be the go-to collection for modern and sci-fi content, but CEP 2 does have some planar / arcane stuff, so we’ll see what builders think.
@Proleric Thanks! Another thing with CEP is that the list for the tail selection within creature properties is confusing quite a bit. Some of it is alphabetically listed, but it is kind of all jumbled up, with about 3 sections of A-Z, then a lot of non alphabetically organised stuff. When you want a scaled creature for a blueprint, it can be troublesome finding the model you want lol. Not sure how other builders find this. I know it can be done with a script as well.
Unfortunately that’s a toolset limitation - it probably should sort tail descriptions (like appearances) but it doesn’t. Sadly, we can’t reorganise the list, becase existing modules depend on no change to the tail numbers.
I tagged Virusman on Discord about this. It’d be nice to get the sorting straightened out on the 2da, assuming that’s something he can code into the Toolset easily enough.
I don’t think parameters/limitations as pointed out here really matter beyond whether or not Virusman is still coding the toolset upgrades for Beamdog. If he is, it might not be too difficult to implement.
I’m not talking actually changing the 2DA file, just changing the way in which the Toolset sorts and displays the data passed into it. As Proleric points out, other 2DAs are sorted by the Label field. I don’t see any reason why tailmodel.2DA should be any different.
@Pstemarie that would make more sense, I would love to make some suggestions for future toolset updates, but don’t want to confuse the purpose of the forum here.
@Proleric would there be the possibility of adding some extra item properties? CEP already expands the die roll for weapons and spell resistance which is quite nice and I’m very grateful for cause I use it a lot. Could there be some other extensions to AC (to maybe +20-50, Ability Bonus to about the same and skills to +100? That sounds crazy but there are some genuinely good applications I’d have for those. those in some cases. Having some extra Bonus feats would be great as well, currently for example, there’s only overwhelming and devastating critical for unarmed strike, rapier and some other thing. There’s other times as well, when for example, I might like an item with +50 regen, but need to have three separate properties 20,20,10.
The ultimate thing would be to have it so you could just literally type in what you wanted into one or two boxes like [26]d[4] or +[25]AC, then it would be all integrated. But imagine that would be a big change to the toolset.
…but right now we’re following the priorities agreed in recent discussions with builders.
A key goal emerging from this thread is to add new creatures, which has an obvious synergy with deprecating low quality creature models (aka Cosmetic Appearances). We’ve decide to merge those projects as a Creature Update project (of which more shortly) and focus on that.
After that, placeables and tilesets are next on the list.
