Neverwinter Nights For Players CEP CEP FAQ

CEP FAQ

Your questions answered by the CEP Team!

Welcome to the CEP FAQ. The community has created the Community Expansion Pack (CEP) as a Neverwinter Nights add-on. Following are questions asked by NWN fans and answers from the CEP Team.

Q&A from Community Expansion Pack team members for NWN.

Recent Updates: (24 Mar 2004)

1.04	Hey! This is mostly content that has been on NWVault for a while now! This isn't new content like you promised...what gives?

Please select a question:

1.01	Did Bioware make CEP?
1.02	How much will the CEP cost me?
1.03	Why no tilesets?
1.04	Hey! This is mostly content that has been on NWVault for a while now! This isn't new content like you promised...what gives?
1.05	How large a download is CEP?
1.06	I have a 56K modem - can I get CEP on CD?
1.07	Will there be a CEP II?
1.08	Can you play the Brownie and Wemic by just installing CEP?
1.09	Will there be feats for the new weapons?
1.10	Can I use CEP if I don't own SoU or HotU?
1.11	Will CEP still work when Bioware releases a new patch?
1.12	Is there a CEP Original Campaign?
1.13	Will CEP be really easy to install for the average NWN player?
1.14	Can I use CEP for my PW or for multiplayer?
1.15	Can I use CEP with other Hak Paks?
1.16	How can I learn more about CEP?

1.01: Did Bioware make CEP? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: No. No. No. and... No. This is a common misconception. Bioware didn't make *any* of the content here! The CEP team did not make most of it either. Everything was made by people in the community spending time and learning 3D modeling, texturing, etc. All for you! The CEP team has simply filtered, organized, tested, and fixed it (oi, did we have to fix a lot). While there is some material in the CEP that was created by CEP team members, the VAST majority was made by other individuals out there. They are the ones to thank here.

Bioware's involvement includes making the awesome game and tools that made all of this community content possible. They have also very generously provided their resources and manpower to publicize the CEP for us to make sure that everyone knows about it. However, their involvement goes no further than that.

I suspect that Bioware would love to be more heavily involved in CEP but the legal aspects of including user-made content will make sure that this never happens. This isn't Bioware's fault - don't complain to them about it. We live in a society where you can sue large restaurant chains for millions of dollars because you spilled hot coffee on your legs. If intellectual property laws and today's general litigious environment changes, it might be possible - however, we’re pretty sure monkeys will fly out of SBird's butt first.

1.02: How much will the CEP cost me? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: NOTHING! NADA! ZIP!

It's completely free!

That right, folks, come on down to Crazy Eligio's Custom Content Center where our prices are INSANE!!! If our prices were any lower, we'd be PAYING YOU to take this stuff!

1.03: Why no tilesets? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]:

1. They can be really big - the CEP is already going to lay the hurt down on dial-up users amd we figured that adding tilesets was just too much for the 1st release.
2. Tilesets are very complicated. Stroll around the Custom Content forum sometime and read the discussions about tilesets. If it looks like Greek, there's a reason for it. Back when we were first assembling the material to put in the CEP, there were only one or two of us qualified to do tileset work. Now, the rest of us have enough experience to start realistically tackling the problem. Adding tileset would have probably set us back more than a few months had we tried to put them in at the start.

Although we can't promise anything, tilesets are being VERY seriously considered for a future update. We're gearing up to look at the next release as soon as CEP 1.0 goes out the door.

1.04: Hey! This is mostly content that has been on NWVault for a while now! This isn't new content like you promised...what gives? (Back to Top)

New content was not promised. The idea with a title like Community Expansion Pack was that people would understand that this is a combination of some of the best community-made content that is available. What the CEP group did was screen the current content for quality, debug a lot of it, complete some of it and package it into a very convenient group of .hak files free of charge for the community.

1.05: How large a download is CEP? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: That depends on which version you install. At present, the last RAR compressed version of the complete Beta was about 131 megabytes. That will be a little larger with the self-installer because it is zip-compressed, but we don't anticipate breaking 200 megs even for the largest version.

1.06: I have a 56K modem - can I get CEP on CD? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: We're looking into this. A CD distribution system might not be in place when we do our initial release but we are actively looking at it. Also note that one of our key testers downloaded 8 different beta versions of the CEP over dialup! It is generally best to do this overnight and with software that supports restarting a download where it left off.

1.07: Will there be a CEP II? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: We're planning on it. I mean, if a meteor or something hits the Earth and wipes out all life, the schedule will probably slip a bit, but we ARE actively gearing up for CEP2. That doesn't even include the smaller updates we'll be doing to address bugfixes and new Community Content that's come out recently.

Timeframe? Too early to tell.

Compatibility - of course, we will strive as hard as possible to make CEP2.0 completely compatible with CEP1.0 so that someone with CEP 2.0 can play modules that are CEP1.0 compliant without any hitches.

Content - still too early to say. We are looking at a number of areas and have received some good suggestions in response to the first Bioware Wednesday as to where else to look. Not everything out there will go into the CEP since one of our guiding principles is not to include content that rewrites default Bioware behavior. The watchword of the CEP is More! (not Different!)

1.08: Can you play the Brownie and Wemic by just installing CEP? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Installing the CEP is one of two things that you need to do. The other is you need to download CODI’s Character Creator. You can get it here:

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/other/data/1050041596353.shtml

The only real limitation with the Wemic that we know of is that robes do not work on them. We have converted over all of the other armor parts, including the new custom armor pieces that the CEP includes. But we aren’t too upset at this: I mean, come on, it is a Wemic! Don’t expect to see one in a ball gown dancing the Cha-Cha at the royal banquet. Brownies, however, can be fully armed, winged, tailed, armored and robed – they’re just so cute! Don’t put them under your pillow though – they smother easily.

1.09: Will there be feats for the new weapons? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: The short answer is that the NWN game engine does not, at this time, support custom weapon specialization or feats. Who knows what the future holds for the engine? But yes, it does mean for the initial release that players won't be able to take specialization in the violin bow or epic falchion of uber destruction feats.

Having said that, you have not yet experienced the joy of skewering a water elemental on the pointy tines of a trident, or the sheer mouth-dropping amazement of getting your a** kicked by a nunchaku-wielding monk opponent. There are lots of ways that new weapons add that wow effect to a campaign that aren't dependent on feats.

1.10: Can I use CEP if I don't own SoU or HotU? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Yes. We support the base install (also know as the Live version), SoU (XP1) and HotU (XP2). You will have to have the latest patch version from Bioware to use the CEP, though. Currently, that means version 1.62 for the initial release of the CEP. We apologize to players from other countries where version 1.62 is not available yet. However, there are key features in these releases that are required for the CEP and it was not possible for us to make versions for older games.

1.11: Will CEP still work when Bioware releases a new patch? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Yes. We will be patching the CEP at the same time or shortly after Bioware releases an update. We've put in very generous padding into the CEP to avoid any potential problems with future patches. Of course, we cannot predict what the future holds or what the Live Team may come up with, but we have done everything we can to maintain compatibility in the future. In the case of conflicts, you can rest assured that we will have prompt patches and are even working on update utilities that will bring your modules and PW's back up online in record time.

1.12: Is there a CEP Original Campaign? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Not with the initial release. We do have a short little demo module that showcases some of the new content but is probably not the epic role-playing experience you were hoping for. I won't go into details, but one of the team members is working on a truly epic module - look for it some time after the initial release!

1.13: Will CEP be really easy to install for the average NWN player? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Yes. We will be using the auto-installer that Bioware provides. If you are a non-Windows user or are the sort that blanches at the thought of running an executable on your machine, we will also have a do-it-yourself versions where you get to drag and drop the files around. The install takes less than a minute on most machines (much of that time is spent watching Windows scroll the file copy progress bar.)

1.14: Can I use CEP for my PW or for multiplayer? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Yes, we believe that CEP is ideal for PW servers. You have two big advantages:

1. The CEP will be widely available on people's computers and they won't have to download it for just your PW – they are downloading it for all of the multi-player and single-player CEP compliant modules out there.
2. If a Bioware patch breaks something, you have a dedicated team of people who are working on a fix for you. Spend your time making your world, not 2DA wrangling!

1.15: Can I use CEP with other Hak Paks? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: Yes. We've padded out 2DAs so that adding custom content on top of the CEP is a snap. The advantage, of course, is that lots of the content you'd probably be putting into your own hak will already be in CEP so that it greatly reduces the work on your part and the download size of your own hak pak when you are done.

1.16: How can I learn more about CEP? (Back to Top)

[CEP Team]: We have a spiffy website that you can get tons of info from. We haven't taken it online for public use yet since we're upgrading to a monster new server that can handle the traffic load. Expect it soon!