There has been some discussion on withdrawing NIT’s support for the Development folder.
Although I agreed to remove support, I have been having second thoughts about whether NIT should force users to work out where and how to place files that Mod authors have decided should use the Development folder to overcome particular issues.
Seems to me that it is Mod authors who should have the biggest say in this matter, so here is a poll to help me make a final decision.
Should NIT provide support for Beamdog’s Enhanced Edition Development folder?
I encountered a similar issue in a tool that i developed for a different game: XCom/OpenXcom
It has what’re called MCD files that are basically an array of ~64 byte-values. The problem is that most of those values have meaning for the game-executable only within limited ranges. Eg bool, [1…14], etc etc.
However. Things are modifiable to the extent that a user may want to specify non-standard values.
So i put a checkbox STRICT (default on) with a description “for expert experts only blah blah blah saying why.”
Perhaps you could do something similar in NIT, but keep the option buried somewhere, such that only persons who know what they’re doing and what the potential ramifications are might turn STRICT off … or if they don’t at least they are in some sense forced to become aware that they’re entering the netherworld
ps. If I were you … (and went this route) … i’d also put a nag every time NIT starts, if the option was left on from a previous run. Or just don’t save the option.
that should strongly discourage people from using the dev folder for distribution … while still allowing its use for a special case.