Custom Music

Development for CoPaP
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Druid523
Clueless Prime
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Custom Music

Post by Druid523 »

I have come across some very excellent uses of custom music in and outside of CoPaP, and have been thinking about current and future area development in this regard. To make adding in future custom music to areas easier, without requiring hak downloads after each instance of adding new music, I am wondering if adding placeholders to the CoPaP hak for custom music could be considered.

For example, Hades requires players to download their Hades Music hak just once, within which is contained placeholders labeled "hades_mus_1", "hades_mus_2", etc. (or something along those lines). Afterwards, the files are offered for download with those names once it is finally decided what they actually are. Thus, there is only one hak download initially, with enough placeholders in there so that music could be added in later without requiring additional hak downloads.

If the CoPaP hak could be updated to include a significant (i.e., reasonable) number of music placeholders, I think everyone would benefit.

What do you all think? :)
Zebranky
Ambassador: The Grey Wastes
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Post by Zebranky »

We've found that this is a pretty good solution. I'd be in favor of this (of course, we'd have to figure out what to do with our existing placeholders. C'est la vie.)
Themicles
Leader: Tairis'nàdur & CoPaP Hak-Master
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Post by Themicles »

There is no good reason to add this to the CoPaP hak since it is world specific content. Furthermore, I find the generic naming, while useful for one world, a bad idea in a group of multiple worlds. Why? Ending up with identical files that have different names, resulting in users having multiple copies of the same data, wasting space. We already have a lot of duplicate models and textures for tiles, or monsters, or placeables just by worlds adding existing NWVault hak contents into their world specific hak, instead of using the NWVault Hak release as is.

It could be argued that if the file already exists, that a world could use that filename even though it was for another world. But that would require someone staying on top of what everyone has for their music on each world. While cooperation in CoPaP is higher than ever, I don't see that ever happening. It's the job no one wants, just like doing the CoPaP Haks was a job no one wanted to do, and then when it was done, there was no consistent control over it, resulting in the mess I cleaned up when I first took over.

Anyway, the biggest reason it wont be done is because it's world specific content. It'd require a merge of all existing music 2das, and getting everyone to remove the same 2da from their top level haks. Remember that world specific haks (ie. Avlis Hak, Trav Main, etc) are at the top, and contents of those haks override everything below, including the CoPaP Hak. This is why there are rules about what worlds can change in their top level haks, because certain changes, especially those that would cause BIC or inventory changes, can cause serious problems when portalling if done only on one world.
"A wise man does not dwell on his past. He learns from it, he grows from it, and then moves ahead into his future." -me
Sarmanos
World Leader: The Grey Wastes
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Post by Sarmanos »

I don't see much of a reason to do this in a widespread way. Only Hades as of now uses a large amount of custom music, Avlis uses some as well but to a far lesser extent. It should be left up to individual worlds as to whether or not custom music is used as you don't even need the music files in question to log in and play, just the 2da. However, I can set up other worlds with a music 2da placeholder with a different name scheme if they really want to use it since I did the one used for Hades.
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