70 réponses à ce sujet

[Stalky24]

I was playing with lot of toolsets, W3, NWN1 etc but always on elementar level with small amount, if any, scripting.
More like LEGO.
But this... this is much much more harder to use then any before.
I cant even create zone.

Any basics around?

[DSWDalish]

LOL its liek back at school kids would whine how they had to learn. you know using your brain is so rare now a days. Now for creating a item and porting it in game use this. http://social.biowar.../5339/blog/576/

[Adinos]

To be fair, this toolset has a rather steep learning curve - and there is a lot of things to master before you can make anything of reasonable size and complexity.



If you are planning to master the toolset, expect it to take all your spare time for at least a month or two ... depening onn your skills and previous toolset experience.

[weriKK]

The Toolset is definately not easy to use and quiet confusing with all the manual file editing that is required. That being said, the Toolset is also very powerful in return

[st4rdog]

Actually this is as much like lego as NWN1/2 was and probably has less limits.



After struggling massively for a day I finally have a conversation which adds a quest to my journal and I've set up cameras for the convo etc.



I recommend using a pre-made Level and use that in your first Area (File > New > Area > Object Inspector > Area Layout - choose premade one). The wiki needs better docs on creating your own custom Level with lightmaps.

[Dmuse]

I agree it's not exactly user friendly, but having used many various resource creation tools I think it's pretty in line with the power/function vs ease of use balance. That is, it's a powerful tool that you can do many great things with once you begin understanding how it works. It's a developer's tool, not a polished piece of release software you would buy somewhere. Trust me, as far as developers tools go, it's not bad! Most have _many_ more aspects that you just learn to live with or avoid.



Luckily, unlike in many professional positions where you are expected to just pick up on proprietary software, the community here is active (currently) and helpful. As time goes on there will be more and more streamlined tutorials as well as (I would expect) updates to the toolset itself to make it more inline with that of a community tool.



Remember, you didn't buy a "make a game" piece of software. You purchased a game. Bioware would like to increase the longevity of the game and so they make their creation tools available. If you can't find a way to use it, then they didn't release it for you. - sorry -



They are hoping that a few star individuals (the more the better) will produce additional content for the game that will encourage the community of players to continue playing, which will in turn encourage Bioware to produce more expansions for purchase etc.



Rather long story short (and harsh reality unfortunately), is that it is what it is, you can choose to use it or not. If you don't, it doesn't much matter because others with the drive to create will.



My suggestion, if you have a hankering to create, is find one aspect of the toolset that you are most interested in and focus on that. Play around with it, read the tutorials, then play with it some more. Get as good as you can with that one aspect of it and then gather some friends online and work with them to create a project while you do your specialized part alone. There were lots of teams that were involved in creating the game. Why should your module be any different? Nobody, not even anyone at Bioware most likely, are going to be experts at every aspect of the toolset. Start with one part, expand from there. Eventually you will be able to start your own projects and pull in people you know are good at the things you aren't as good in (or use resources that were already created by someone else) to make your own module.



If you have the drive to do it, you can. So go do it! I want to see what you'll make.

[asw122]

I get what Stalky24 means about NWN's being like lego and this not being like it. In the NWN toolset, if you wanted a creature, you went through a few nested lists, double clicked "Balor", then clicked the spot in the area that you wanted it to start. I'm not denying that its more powerful, but it is a huge trade off in terms of learning curve and user friendliness, which my software design tutor is constantly drilling into us as a key aspect of the design process.

Now admittedly, I haven't used a toolset since before NWN2 came out, but unless I've missed something, its not anywhere near that easy. I've had it installed for about an hour now (took me 10x that to get it DLed and installed. If they released the toolset installer with that steam install issue, and the inability to make its own uninstall file, I can't imagine how bad it must have been to delay the release), but so far, I've not even managed to create something I've recognised as an area, never mind put something into it.

That said, I can't agree more about specializing and working in a team.

Modifié par asw122, 09 novembre 2009 - 11:01 .

[Fachir74]

I have used toolset from nwn1 and 2 and i must say that this one do look like the nwn2 toolset, but i still have to learn it all again, some things have changed and i don't seems to find a default area, such as woods, cities... with nothing in it, but it is my first day of working with it, maybe i will find it some where.

[FalloutBoy]

Everyone complained about NWN2 being too hard compared to NWN1. I expect more of the the same complaints here. You're right. It's hard. Nobody ever said it was going to be a super-easy RPG Construction Kit. Read the tutorials on the wiki and try to figure out. That's what everyone is doing.

[Fachir74]

as for the wiki, i can't log in, they say i have to have the cokies enabled and it is, all i get when i log in, is a white page.

[Axe_Murderer]

Power and complexity vs. simplicity and limitation is an age old trade off. If you want the power of a DA style toolset you aren't going to find it in an NWN style toolset. Leggos are a fine toy, easy enough for a child to learn. But it doesn't take very long to outgrow its simplicity and limitations, so to build really interesting things most will look to move up to an erector set before too long. Of course nuts and bolts don't just snap together like leggos, so naturally one will need to learn how to use a screwdriver and wrench.

Modifié par Axe_Murderer, 10 novembre 2009 - 12:20 .

[jodlaurie]

It's supposed to be somewhat unfriendly towards users. I've found that the more complex something is the more you're forced to learn, the more you learn the better your results.

[Miinas]

Yea. It's not very intuitive. I'm still trying to figure out the very basics and decide if it's worth the trouble. Just labeling the status tooltips would be nice. wtf is a Light Probe? It could say right there.



NWN1 was pretty easy to get into. Sure Dragon Age is more powerful, but the fact that the toolset is hard to understand makes the toolset less powerful.

I'm still looking for the "Run Module" button which I don't think exists. None of the labels make sense yet.

This is important for them if they want lots of people to start modding.

The easier it is, the more modding that will happen.

[Miinas]

DSWDalish wrote...
LOL its liek back at school kids would whine how they had to learn. you know using your brain is so rare now a days. Now for creating a item and porting it in game use this. http://social.biowar.../5339/blog/576/

How do you know?  They could be a quantum-physicist who thinks all day, and just wants to come home and make a mod.... without searching the web all night.

[Stalky24]

Looks like theres a lot to do before me.

I didnt knew about toolset wiki, thanks for it, a lot of helpful info there.

Well, Im gonna sit down and play with it until I figure out how things work here.

[st4rdog]

I made an Area/Conversation with NPC video for beginners:



I'll have a Stage (cameras during conversations) and Plot video next.

Modifié par st4rdog, 10 novembre 2009 - 12:38 .

[ITSSEXYTIME]

Most development tools aren't easy to use: considering that this seems to be the exact toolset the devs used to make the game it is most certainly very powerful but with such power there's a lot of learning involved.

[freddern]

I'm just waiting for some kind fellow to make a nice tutorial with images and text.

Something like a recipe for how to make a mini mod from step 1 to step 200...



The tutorials on the wiki are probably good, but a little too detaljed. It's more like a... yes wiki -> for detaljs.

[tryst91]

I think the main issue is that despite being told otherwise right from the beginning, people assumed that the toolset would be a simple "construction set" for building mods. The fact that there is a massive learning curve turns most people off because they don't want to invest the time and effort into learning it. The average user won't be able to mod stuff as easily as they were in say NWN. The DAO toolset is much more powerful but the average person simple will not take the time to use it. Instead they will wait for others to do something with it so they can download it.

[Dave Mason]

I seem to remember that when NWN1 came out, people complained that because the toolset was too easy to use, too many people (who apparently shouldn't have been modding in the first place – harsh!) were uploading their underdeveloped stuff. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise for the playing community?



After having used DA’s toolset for an afternoon, I will say it is far more complex than NWN's (I never used NWN2's) but there are some transferable skills from NWN's. I remember being similarly overwhelmed with all there was to learn when I started the first time, so I’m not so intimidated. And I take solace in the fact that learning to use the toolset was the most entertaining aspect of NWN for me personally.



Now if I could just quit playing the game itself...

[Chris_Really_Rocks]

tryst91 wrote...
. The average user won't be able to mod stuff as easily as they were in say NWN. The DAO toolset is much more powerful but the average person simple will not take the time to use it. Instead they will wait for others to do something with it so they can download it.

You're right.  But, then again, is this really significant -- after all, how many truly excellent mods made by the "average person" did you play at any length in NWN?  Me, I only played the good ones.  

[CID-78]

LEGO is the best toy ever made. and there isn't any real restriction beyond not owning the right pieces, or enough of them. if you still enjoy playing do it no matter what your age is.



the toolset is powerfull and i keep wishing that i had more time spending with it.

[M-zero]

Hm. Never used the NWN toolsets. In terms of complexity/ease of use, how does this compare to the TES construction tools? I plan on playing with it later, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

[AnTeevY]

I like to compare it with Blender. When you first start it, you think it's the most complex and unintuitive program you've ever seen. But after a while, you'll see that it is not only powerful, but also the workspeed improves significantly.

[Tasker]

The way I see it, a toolset like this should have a retard mode for people like me. - A mode that uses drop down menus and wizards on a par with NWN1 which lets us create simple adventures running simple scripts.

Then on top of that it should have an advanced mode behind all the wizard and menus, for those that are capable of utilising the more complex functions.

Take NWN1, the toolset for that was simple enough to learn, yet allowed you to make quite cmplex modules if you wanted to. It was a huge hit and loads of people loved to use it.

Now take NWN2, the toolset was horrific, only the people that programmed computers for a living could work it out, and everything took bloody ages to do. 

People who gave up on learning the NWN2 toolset, waited for those that could work out what they were doing to produce stuff. Unfortunatly those people were taking so long to create their stuff, that half of it never saw the light of day and people grew tired of waiting and moved on to other newer games.

Hell, Obsidian even added menus and wizards to the toolset to try and get people more interested in it, but it was to late.