60 réponses à ce sujet

[dunniteowl]

The Fred wrote...

dunniteowl wrote...

And then there's the lower Southern Continental area that I don't even have a name for yet and it's full of dinosaurs and lost civilizations stuff.

Kinda like an Aztec-esque, Maztica-like setting? You used to be able to get the oooold Maztica (and other) stuff here, but the link seems to be broken.

Mmmm, maybe.  I wanted to place an entirely old pre-Colombian civilixation down there that used nothing but Shamanic/Druidic/Ritualistic type magics.  And of course, the dinos and other gigantic beasts.

dno

[M. Rieder]

I am most motivated when my story takes on a life of its own. This seems to happen best when I have developed a workable and logical concept and a framework within which characters interact. Then it is much less work to flesh out the plot, which is a energy-draining aspect of building for me.



I make outlines and draw areas and do all the hard stuff when I am motivated, then I do the easy stuff that naturally flows from the structure and framework when I do not feel as creatively inspired. That helps me.

[NWN DM]

Usually I take May-September "off" from DMing and just build more content into my campaign for the coming year.

This year I haven't opened the toolset since late June... really needed a break. 

Now I can feel the drive starting to return... will try to hold out for another week or two so when I finally get back at it, the energy is strong and sustainable.

[Eguintir Eligard]

Im gonna be honest with you Tobinus:

Keeping a pad and writing your ideas down; that type of general practice, has sunk more campaigns then it has launched. Once the campaign is in motion, it should already have all its ideas. If it doesnt, you are going to become a victim of a possibly unfinished project. If it does have all its ideas, and you are adding more randomly, you will become a victim of scope creep.

When you build your campaign, do your absolute best to make it endable (satisfying or not) at ANY point.

Example:
Don't do -> 10 areas, then fill them with stuff and then script
Do do -> One area, fill it fully, script it. Do the next if you feel interested still.

Chapterize, modularize, this is key. Few of you new guys were around to see it, but the most over ambitious projects early on that involved custom EVERYthing were lost and never heard from again. They spent all their time customizing the grass graphics and building large landscapes and doing promotional youtube videos and we never got so much as a prefab out of them when they gave up. Not a good bye either.

By doing an entire area at once it keeps the variety (not doing all scripting in a row, but doing everything) so it reduces burnout. Keeping the game endable at any time means you wont falter in obligations in other parts of your life because you can shut the project off. You can always resume as a 2nd chapter; you can never release a chapter you didnt make endable if your time/interest runs out.

If I knew then what I knew now my project currently ending its 3rd summer, would have been 5 months, in and out, and I might have made more than 1. Completely burnt out here, and its not about motivation so much as ensuring you have an out and limiting scope creep.

LATE EDIT: Upon reading the thread I heard mention of "not being in a hurry as the toolset will be viable 10 years from now". That is the exact opposite of the message I am sending. Do be in a hurry and be concise. The first modules had downloads in the tens of thousands and were much simpler. Now its a fight to clear 1000 with 3 year projects full of effort and skill. The number of posters here to create a buzz in the modules forum was visibly many times what it is now, back when I began my project. Simply screenshots posted there used to generate multiple replies and appreciation. But people got tired of anticipating projects that never came. Fact is a lot are now coming out that were only discussed back then; but people didnt want to wait even that long. Just because the toolset has no replacement on the horizon doesn't mean players want to play a 8+ year old game forever because a module was released for it. People do grow, and move on. The majority of the original population already has. Just making sure you know what you are getting into.

Modifié par Eguintir Eligard, 02 septembre 2010 - 06:26 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

Btw this thread is something that should be made in the modules forum. This one is for technical help, but I rather think you would get a lot more replies in modules, plus we could use some discussion pieces there anyway as its been ghostly the last year or so.

Modifié par Eguintir Eligard, 02 septembre 2010 - 06:21 .

[The Fred]

dunniteowl wrote...
Mmmm, maybe.  I wanted to place an entirely old pre-Colombian civilixation down there that used nothing but Shamanic/Druidic/Ritualistic type magics.  And of course, the dinos and other gigantic beasts.

dno

I gather Maztica was unpopular with a lot of people (that's probably why they ditched it for 4th Edition, though then they did a lot of things for 4th Edition, including ditching Neverwinter, from what I hear...) but the source on it was interesting because (though it was 2nd Ed I think), they had no metal weapons (stone and obsidian were the things) and, iirc, no pure mages, only rogue subclasses which could perform 1st- to 5th-level spells. It interested me a bit, but I' currently thinking of doing (afte rmy current project, and possibly after the Norse campaign I have planned ) something more like an Arthurianish (as in actual Arthurian rather than jousts and banners and things), post-Roman Britian sort of setting (whether actual Britain or a custom setting based on it) which would be mostly about Druidic magic.
Anyway, I'm digressing from the topic a bit...

Eguintir Eligard wrote...
Keeping a pad and writing your ideas down; that type of general practice, has sunk more campaigns then it has launched. Once the campaign is in motion, it should already have all its ideas. If it doesnt, you are going to become a victim of a possibly unfinished project. If it does have all its ideas, and you are adding more randomly, you will become a victim of scope creep.

When you build your campaign, do your absolute best to make it endable (satisfying or not) at ANY point.

Example:
Don't do -> 10 areas, then fill them with stuff and then script
Do do -> One area, fill it fully, script it. Do the next if you feel interested still.

Personally, having ideas may have been the bane of my projects many a time, but I never have a problem with not having all my ideas when my campaign is in motion (well, right now I'm still trying to think of a main plot, but yeah) because I will generate more ideas as I go along - rather, I have too many, and usually, they don't fit. So, a few weeks after starting my Oriental campaign, I think "Hey, Norse is a pretty under-represented setting", and want to do something like that, then I think "Post-Roman Britain!" etc etc... In the past, I've tried to incorporate too many ideas into one project and sank it that way.

You're damn right about finishing things as you go along, though... it's just very difficult to actually do it.

[Eguintir Eligard]

Ya Im not sure why. I guess I got sick of one area and wanted to do another? But that doesnt even make sense, cuz if you do like I said, terrain, objects, scripting, it should be all shaken up on a regular basis.

[M. Rieder]

I think that what Eguintir Eligard is saying is very valid and practical. Maintaining a sense of urgency and producing a concise, focused module is a good way to prevent burnout. If you can get a good module produced in a few months, then take another to test it, it is alot easier to prevent the burnout.

[M. Rieder]

Finishing one area before moving on also makes tracking completion and debugging easier.

Modifié par M. Rieder, 02 septembre 2010 - 04:14 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

A point regarding taking time off; thats something I did but it didnt help. It just kind of made the thing (massive as it is) loom in the back of your mind like some nagging extra duty you don't need on top of work school etc. I literally took a whole school year off and that just made it harder to remember what variables are where and scripts etc. Plus with a diminishing community (and not to harp on that point, as EVERY community is diminishing once it begins) but the longer you wait, the smaller your audience gets. Like the math calculation done here, number of users x hours spent playing your game. Its a scale of diminishing returns. M Rieder has the right idea when it comes to chapterizing and you should play his work to get a feel for it.

[The Fred]

That's true... I know that once I get out of the swing of things, it's an effort to get momentum going again.

[Eguintir Eligard]

Drinking a lot helped Shaughn and his campaign is a near 3 year one as well.

[The Fred]

Someone once said to me that "it's all about the balance of stimulants and depressants", meaning he had a coffee on one side and a beer on the other, so he could sip each as needed.



He wasn't talking about toolset building, mind, but I think his comment extends to all walks of life, really.

[AmstradHero]

My first tip would be to remember why you're modding. What is it that drove you to do this in the first place? Make sure that desire matches your expectations for the type of mod you're trying to produce. If it doesn't, then you're likely to become disheartened and let it fall by the wayside. Fate of a City took me a little over 9 months. Could I have done more? Certainly, but I was happy that I'd made the story I'd set out to create, and a little bit more besides.

Next is to take pride and pleasure in what you're doing.  Eguintir suggests making complete segments, and I definitely agree that can help. But at the same time, you need to make sure that you're being productive with your time and enjoying what you're doing.  Some nights I might have slated for level design... but it just isn't working. So I'll go and write some dialogue, or do some scripting. Another night I might try for half an hour to get one lie dialogue just right before I realise it's just not working.  At this point I might switch to writing dialogue for a different character, do some proofreading, or go onto something else that needs to be done that I'm more motivated to do.

I personally don't really drink and mod - I remember writing some dialogue after a few beers one evening, and then the next day looked at it and wondered what on earth I was thinking.

Enjoy little milestones you set for yourself, whether it is finishing a level, getting a quest complete, setting up a script system, etc, etc. I also blog a lot about game design and progress I've made so I can keep thinking about ways I can improve what I'm working on. The main thing is to pick a project with a size you think is manageable, and enjoy the creative process of making it.

[The Fred]

I've never tried modding with any level of alcohol in my blood at all, but I have it on good authority that it makes even Group Theory easier (read: "less evil") so the might be something in it... ;-)

[Eguintir Eligard]

Keeps up your ability to endure mind numbing crap though. Making creature stats and terrain is all fun and games. When it gets to conversations in that horrible tiny little editor window I can barely stand it. I hope my campaign doesnt show too much my distaste for writing and making reply trees.



Lets just say my campaign is a little terse .

[AmstradHero]

Hehe, horses for courses. I love writing dialogue, but making creature blueprints and stats sometimes felt like pulling teeth.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 05 septembre 2010 - 10:46 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

If I ever never type another sentence again that is half cut off by the window I'm using I'll die happy. If I never have to set a condition on a line for a quest I haven't got the tag memorized of, I'll die laughing.

[rjshae]

Eguintir Eligard wrote...

If I ever never type another sentence again that is half cut off by the window I'm using I'll die happy. If I never have to set a condition on a line for a quest I haven't got the tag memorized of, I'll die laughing.

If I'm working on a rich conversation (or an item description), I just use a friendly text editor for massaging the words, then do a copy and paste. You should be able to write out the meat of a conversation without ever putting it in the Conversation editor. It's less painful that way, and you get the built-in spell checker.

I like to stay motivated by having 2-3 projects going at once. When I get bored with one, I switch to another. Yeah, you can't get as ambitious that way, but at least it remains interesting and I don't suffer from burnout like I once did.

[kamalpoe]

There's the flamewind conversation editor, which lets you do conversations entirely outside nwn2. It exports to standard nwn2 formats. It's on the vault. Doesn't allow you to put scripts to the conversation though.

[Eguintir Eligard]

Ya using word went great. I had to replace every ' in the game because while they were ' in word, they became " in game, and I'm still finding them. Flamewind I thought would be good turns out not being able to use variables and being just as ugly as the toolset editor isnt really an improvement.

I hate writing in this editor and in general its my most hated thing when modding. Nothing to do about it, everyone has one.

If I had to put a finger on it, it might be the way that thoughts are forced into brief, 2 lines or less spaces, using narration looks bad and the general having to stop and think unlike other modding functions you just hammer away at.

Modifié par Eguintir Eligard, 09 septembre 2010 - 04:32 .

[Shallina]

Some poeple love to have all the area and then script them.



Some poeple like to do one part after the other.



The only thing that really keep me motivated is the feeling that what I am doing is going to be alive, and fun to play. That's why I like to do every thing possible in a area before going to the next.



But some poeple prefer doing all the area and then scripting them.

[NWN DM]

It is very difficult to stay motivated when your player base shows little interest in what you are doing to expand your world/campaign/adventure.

[Banshe]

NWN DM wrote...

It is very difficult to stay motivated when your player base shows little interest in what you are doing to expand your world/campaign/adventure.

As both of us are tracking along the same path: Dm'd campaigns, I would be especially interested in hearing more from you about this.

[The Fred]

That's true. Imo we should use the Capers (a.k.a. Projects) pages here more, for one thing (nobody really discusses much on those, and the NWN(2) ones all have like 0-10 popularity as compared with up to 2000 for some of the DA ones, though I know they are older and it's a bigger fan base). Obviously this is just one thing we could do, but since we've been made to use this site we may as well make the most of it, and these strike me as a good way for people to talk about their capers and get feedback etc. This is probably more applicable to module development rather than active PWs, though.