21 réponses à ce sujet

[edw3rdwood]

 To start I just want to say that I don't mean to offend anyone who's been creating things with the toolset.  But, from what I can find, the mods for this game are nothing like the community was yielding for Neverwinter Nights.

Everywhere I look, the top-rated mods are nude skins for characters, new romance trees within the main game, etc etc.  I can't find a single stand-alone adventure, dungeon, arena, puzzle, or anything of the sort like were being made in spades with NWN.  Furthermore, I'm shocked that there isn't a sort of home-base for mods.

This forum is incredibly unefficient -- tacked unceremoniously at the bottom of the dozen different Origins forums, not even a single sticky with "post your mod here" or "top-rated community mods", and with fanfiction dominating the most popular threads.  Dragon Age Nexus is almost impossible to navigate, with more emphasis placed on the Welcome message, the near-useless "Latest Mods" and "Latest Images" section, and with the only method of searching for mods jumbled into text links on the side of the page that look like text ads.

It seems to me two things: that the community is rather uninterested in actually creating games with the toolset, and that there isn't a single dominant platform to encourage it in the first place.  Am I wrong?

[jackkel dragon]

I take it you haven't played classic Week?

Edit: If you're looking for standalone modules, off the top of my head I can point out a few for you to try:
- Fragments of Ferelden, classic Week, Dirge of Coldhearth
- Craggy Island

DT:CoM, Alley of Murders, and Bloodworks extend the main campaign.

There are also some WIP standalones, like Blood and Lyrium, The Shattered War, Scars of War, and Rose of Eternity.

Remember: mods take a long time to make.

Modifié par jackkel dragon, 03 février 2011 - 10:14 .

[mousestalker]

You did see the entire section of the forums dedicated to the toolset?

[Face of Evil]

Community Creations is supposed the sub-forum for fan art and fan fiction.



Try posting your argument in the Dragon Age Toolset sub-forum.

[LadyKarrakaz]

@OP, search better for mods before throwing the baby with bath water : dark times, tombs of the undead, emissary, alley of murders, carrion birds, etc.

[mikemike37]

edw3rdwood wrote...

 Dragon Age Nexus is almost impossible to navigate

don't know if you've found your way to the Browse Categories on Dragon Age Nexus, but that's probably your best bet. choose your category and then sort by release date, popularity, etc.

Modifié par mikemike37, 04 février 2011 - 12:23 .

[Mengtzu]

DaNexus becomes a bit more manageable if you browse the categories.

Making modules with similar production quality to the original campaign - cutscenes, voiceovers, new levels etc - takes a long time, and really demands a team.  That makes it tough to punch out modules at a NWNesque speed.

I don't do that, opting to reuse levels, skip V/O and cutscenes, concentrating on gameplay and dialogue, so I can develop modules reasonably rapidly.  I have about 10 hours worth of playable stuff out, and I'll be adding another 3-4 hours with the upcoming sequel to Fragments of Ferelden in the next couple of weeks.

Understandably though, most modders don't want to make the compromises I do.  Hence the modding community's gathering momentum has been off the public radar while they've been hard at work, but we are starting to see some very impressive stuff released to players.  A lot of talented people are making good steady progress on modules that will be released, so while we're not going to have an NWN situation, don't uninstall DA:O when DA2 hits.

[DahliaLynn]

It is indeed a shame when things aren't as intuitive as they can be in the mod sites There are many mods out and in production. You might be interested in viewing the following this list of quality mods which are becoming a part of a special evolving project

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 04 février 2011 - 12:49 .

[edw3rdwood]

Sorry guys, no I didn't see the Toolset forums. I thought the Community Creations forums was as far as it went. And I wasn't talking about Bioware-level production quality games, just a lot of little one-off adventures and 3-5 hour quests. But it looks like those are indeed out there.



I'll be sure to check this stuff out, starting with the suggestions in these replies.

[maxernst]

Neverwinter Nights isn't really a fair comparison. NWN was designed for player-built modules and multiplayer. DA:O was intended as a signle-player game with one campaign; the toolset is just a bonus.

[Proleric]

The community index of mods on this site opens with standalone campaigns and new adventures for the OC.

There's a lot more in the pipeline, generally produced to a higher standard than NWN, but taking correspondingly longer to make.

[Mengtzu]

maxernst wrote...

Neverwinter Nights isn't really a fair comparison. NWN was designed for player-built modules and multiplayer. DA:O was intended as a signle-player game with one campaign; the toolset is just a bonus.

While that's true, I think the bigger impact is that it's hard to produce modules for a modern AAA game for the same reasons it's expensive to make that sort of game in the first place.  Art and V/O is serious business.

[Beerfish]

I do agree with the poster about this site not making module projects as accessible or promoting them as much as they could. You can find projects if you go digging for them or if as this poster did you come right out and ask about them. You don't have to look any further than the 'featured projects' window on the right hand side of the opening screen. They do not change very often at all, there needs to be something more to attract peoples attention to them. Perhaps a Banner like they have on the main site that promotes BioWare games and DLC accessible somewhere that could promote peoples projects.

[Deadmac]

edw3rdwood wrote...
It seems to me two things: that the community is rather uninterested in actually creating games with the toolset, and that there isn't a single dominant platform to encourage it in the first place. Am I wrong?

If you are referring to quality mods, I can agree with your assessment. Without getting into too much detail, I find the DAO tool to be too convoluted. Maybe the tool-set is getting in the way of creativity. When people are too busy learning how to use the tools, creativity takes a back seat during the education phase.

*shrugs*

Unlike the community tools available for "KotOR", the DAO tool-set tries too hard to do everything at once. I would rather have separate programs for file extraction, editing, and module building.

Just my preference.

Modifié par Deadmac, 04 février 2011 - 06:19 .

[Deadmac]

When it comes to the organization of DragonAgeNexus.com, I also happen to agree with your opinion. Its a mess.

[edw3rdwood]

So there haven't been many replies to this, but it seems:



-the Toolset has a steep learning curve, and therefore is leading to mods taking longer to complete

-what mods HAVE been completed are being found, yeah, if you search for them, but aren't exactly being advertised or thrown in your face

-the most popular website for mods, Dragon Age Nexus, could use a redesign to say the least



Now that we're over a year in, could it be time to consolidate what we have into a new website perhaps? One that features current mods in a more streamlined form, right alongside organized tutorial sections (ie, separate lessons for the 2-4 hour adventure, 5-8 hour, and 8+ hour quests that would explain the different factors that need to be balanced, in addition to specific tutorials on cutscenes, scripting, modeling, file editing, etc)?



I would love to head up such a website, at least to help design it. Is there room for it, or demand enough for it? Maybe I should post a poll both here and in the Nexus forums? I'm not talking just another mod hosting site, but an entire place dedicated to the taking advantage of the Toolset inside and out, something easy to read and navigate.

[DahliaLynn]

edw3rdwood wrote...

So there haven't been many replies to this, but it seems:

-the Toolset has a steep learning curve, and therefore is leading to mods taking longer to complete
-what mods HAVE been completed are being found, yeah, if you search for them, but aren't exactly being advertised or thrown in your face
-the most popular website for mods, Dragon Age Nexus, could use a redesign to say the least

Now that we're over a year in, could it be time to consolidate what we have into a new website perhaps? One that features current mods in a more streamlined form, right alongside organized tutorial sections (ie, separate lessons for the 2-4 hour adventure, 5-8 hour, and 8+ hour quests that would explain the different factors that need to be balanced, in addition to specific tutorials on cutscenes, scripting, modeling, file editing, etc)?

I would love to head up such a website, at least to help design it. Is there room for it, or demand enough for it? Maybe I should post a poll both here and in the Nexus forums? I'm not talking just another mod hosting site, but an entire place dedicated to the taking advantage of the Toolset inside and out, something easy to read and navigate.

You may be interested in joining The Dragon Age Friendly Toolset Initiative. We are actively working on improving the toolset / accessibility issues and you are welcome to give ideas, input and anything else you would like to offer

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 05 février 2011 - 12:52 .

[ladydesire]

edw3rdwood wrote...

I would love to head up such a website, at least to help design it. Is there room for it, or demand enough for it? Maybe I should post a poll both here and in the Nexus forums? I'm not talking just another mod hosting site, but an entire place dedicated to the taking advantage of the Toolset inside and out, something easy to read and navigate.

We don't really need another site for information; we should work to improve the site we have instead of splitting the community yet again.

[AndarianTD]

jackkel dragon wrote...

Remember: mods take a long time to make.

What he said.

[ladydesire]

Deadmac: Bioware has always said of the DA Toolset that it wasn't intended for a lone modder to learn every aspect of the toolset; it was designed for a team-based nodding approach, since it is the very same toolset they used to make Dragon Age: Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II.

[Apolyon6k]

it is possible to create a module on your own in about 6 weeks, without much modding experience. with more team members it would be faster and with enough experience it could also be faster alone.

Getting the voice over from voice artists was the biggest waiting factor for me but the time can be used to expand other aspects of the mod.

[AmstradHero]

edw3rdwood: I made a thread not too long ago asking players about why they didn't use mods, and several points came up repeatedly:
 * Unaware of mods
 * Believing mods would be of low quality
 * Believing mods would not adhere to the lore of the game
 * Unaware of the existence of mods of the style that they were interested in

Many modders (and also generous members of the forum community) have advertisements for mods in their signature, but these are frequently ignored by other forum-goers. I've released trailers on youtube for my mods, but the number of views for my forthcoming module The Shattered War are sitting at around 800 and 300 views. This compared to around 15,000 for the trailer for Alley of Murders. If you have any idea how to advertise mods or encourage players to try them out, I am certain that all modders would be glad to have your input and support.

However, in terms of a website to store modules, it is likely that we are still best off to stick with the BSN and Dragon Age Nexus. The BSN is the easiest for players to find, and the Nexus series of sites is well known thanks to the mods for Bethesda's games. Building up a base of modders, mods and players to download them would be a difficult task for an entirely new site.