Downloads on Steam

Neverwinter Nights 1 Enhanced Edition
#1

Looking back over the last year, downloads of my modules across all sites have increased by roughly 50% as a result of publishing on Steam Workshop.

Steam now accounts for about half of the total (downloads from the Vault and proleric.com are down slightly).

The underlying trend year-on-year is otherwise fairly flat, which, considering the age of the game, is a tribute to the continued interest sparked by Beamdog.

4 Likes
#2

i frequent the facebook community groups and it seems most interest’s of playing modules come from returning players, rather than new players to the community.

#3

I haven’t published any modules - YET - but downloads of the more recent CC I’ve made, not counting Project Q, have been mostly through Steam.

I’m certain that the uptake in Steam downloads is largely owed to the fact that when downloading content from Steam, you don’t have to do anything special to install it. However, Vault content requires moving things into their proper directories.

#4

Which is why I keep pushing NIT which (AFAIK) works with all versions of NwN.

TR

#5

Does it work on Macs,Tarot ? Also, have you tried it and is it as easy as it sounds ? Is the interface easy to follow?

If I understand correctly, when you use it to download a module it also downloads the associated files and puts them in the right place? If you want rid of a module it clears up and disposed of all the files ?

Sounds too good to be true but happy to give it a shot,

#6

Alas I believe it’s Windows only. Look on the project page under requirements, one of which is the .net framework 4.8 (or higher). I think it was written in Visual BASIC or C#, but @Surazal will be able to confirm or deny that.

TR

#7

@jimdad55, as @Tarot_Redhand said, NIT only works on the Windows platform and is written in VB.NET.

Yes, you understand correctly.

#8

Steam downloading is indeed highly automated. Watchpoints:

  • To use Steam Workshop, you have to buy the game from Steam or Beamdog
  • Although the OC is DRM-free on Steam, Workshop Items only work when the Steam client is running
  • The vast majority of NWN mods are not available on Steam but can be downloaded from the Vault
#9

Thanks, guys. It was just a thought. I’m guessing this .net thing of which you speak is more than just a program which might work with WINE ?

EDIT: just had a look and found this.

I have the strangest feeling I’d be getting in over my head if I started using WINE to run Mono to run . Net to run NIT to run modules from the Vault though … maybe leave that one alone for now :coffin:

@Proleric, yeah I’ve had no problems with Steam although they do seem to have a lot of control over your game, updating without me agreeing etc. I know I can use it in offline mode but haven’t tried it with anything other than the OC so that’s news to me. I suppose anything that keeps interest up in the game can’t be all bad.

Certainly it has been a good thing for smacking users like me.

#10

i’m not expert but this is what I’ve gleaned over the past several years:

 
.net is a framework for Windows that pre-implements lots of stuff that is generally tedious for high-level coding. (hardware input/output, rendering, base classes for shapes, drawing, textboxes, standardized window-borders etc etc etc)

Mono is a cross-platform framework that closely mimics .net … I don’t know about VB, but C# compiles rather nicely on linux simply by compiling against the Mono libraries instead of .net libraries (and using a Mono compiler). There are a few things to beware of: no p-invoke, use crossplatform constants/macros for directory separators, etc.

A mono-built binary should run natively on linux or mac (or windows) if they have the mono libraries installed*. No need for wine.

Wine works on a deeper level than either .net or Mono; it is an operating-system interoperability layer that simulates windows on linux. But a program that’s built directly with Mono will perform better than a program that’s built against .net and run in Wine.

That is, programs that were built against .net (for Windows) should run on Wine (in linux). but you might not like it …**

Mono and .net do not run together, it’s one or the other.

Programs built with Mono do not need Wine. but i get yer point, just sayin all this for general perview …

all That said… i can only imagine what a bother it would be if Surazal wished to rework NIT for usage on linux systems: the expected file and directory structures are… different, as in very different,

 
* not sure about that, it might be possible to use static linking, resulting in a standalone executable.

** do NOT try that with NIT – at least not without consulting @Surazal first.

note: I made my decision to stick w/ Windows a long time ago (no regrets!). But if i had even a single Linux machine I’d be writing for Mono instead of .NET

… obviously, i guess

#11

Thanks for that rundown. By the sounds of it, if you’re not an expert there aren’t many around !

It was interesting and easily enough to convince me not to go near this in the foreseeable future. Btw, I use WINE as I have a Mac not Linux. My reason for needing NIT was that I’ve been looking at Voicesets and the Custom Guide uses that. However, that’s for a separate thread.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain that.

#12

i’m not insane, Sir.  ;)

tks, I wasn’t aware of that …

the reason i know a bit about this is because I rewrote a c#/.net app that a lot of Linux people use (and a few Macs) … there were a few issues before it compiled well in Mono

np. if anyone has corrections or fine points to add, g’ head