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[foil-]

Thought this would be of interest to the NWN2 modding community.  Good discussion about mods and DLC and the future of modding in video games in general.  Not much said directly about NWN, but a quick mention on Temple of Elemental Evil and how Circle of Eight "Finished" the game:

http://www.gamerswit...com/node/107393  Starts at 23 minutes into the podcast.  Can also download from itune store for ipod listening.

[dunniteowl]

Thanks, foil- !

dunniteowl (Curses! foil- ed again! [twists mustache evilly])

[foil-]

No problem. What did you think about their comments about DLC being a reason for game companies to avoid producing toolsets?

[dunniteowl]

foil- wrote...

No problem. What did you think about their comments about DLC being a reason for game companies to avoid producing toolsets?

For Those of You Who Don't Wish to Read a Thesis, Follow the Happy Face Icons and skip when you see a Sad Face. (for those of you who only want the final punchline, go to the bottom and read after the last happy face.)


It was interesting.  I don't know their credentials as players, yet it seemed like they had a good topic and just couldn't run with it.  It's the kind of topic that really does deserve some research and history.  That said, I think the importance of modding (as opposed to mods, which is another way to say, game hack) tools included with games definitely varies.

Examples: Sims.  It's nothing but modding tools.  You are essentially given a toolset and it has some basic rules, but beyond that, there's no real structure or format you have to follow and it's a HUGE sucess.  The Medieval pack is out now.  SIMS meets NWN2, I guess.  Yet, there is still this incredible hunger for more DLC, expansion packs and feature additions that come from the developers.

FPS games, like ArmA and ArmA II have huge modding communities, similar in scope to NWN & NWN2, perhaps larger in size, but in scope, about the same, if not smaller scale in many ways.  This is due to the incredibly advanced tools and toolset that ArmA and ArmA II came with.  Crysis, has such a strong modding Community that someone decided to build a Mechwarrior game from it.  The Wandering Samurai: Mechwarrior: Living Legends and I haven't had the opportunity to play it because I don't have Crysis.  I'm champing at the bit to find out.


However, I perused the webforums and watched demo videos and I can only say that it's pure Awesome in a Bottle.  And this sort of modding effort, where it literally completely repurposes the tools the game comes with makes it's impact in several ways.

NWN and NWN2.  They come with complete toolsets that allow you to build modules just as the Developers did.  You get all sorts of creative folks making modules, but did that really halt requests for more expansions?  No, it didn't.  *(I do attribute the lifecycle of these games as retail endeavors to be a victim of a fatally flawed financial model, a la the requirement to have the original game before you can play the expansions, which inherently created reduced sales, because if you missed the first boat and don't have access to the OC, the expansion is a "No Sale" on the shelf for you.)

People have admitted to wishing the Developers could take it a step further, all the while there are these teams and indviduals tinkering away at the toolset, building adventures, making improvements to the game mechanics and creating new assets.  These are the more serious folks in any Community and they are driven by a devotion to excellence or a design idea that they envision and cannot or will not be stopped.  The tools given are never enough to satisfy this small core group.

And in all this, there are folks literally begging for another Developer made Adventure.  Even while the Community hopes another baron and Hellfire team will pop up, or that ArtEChoke, Evil Edison and others will continue to create content, they are also (well, not now, anyway) continually asking the Developers to continue making new stuff, new stories and new adventures, fix the game and provide more features.  Even though the other folks work for free and they produce some astounding and high quality stuff, there is always a hue and cry for more "Professional Grade" work by the Developers.


So the argument, as I see it, of Developers making a conscious choice to not provide the most robust tools to the Community, or to continue developing a product are born of the mind set that a game is played once by the vast majority and they move on.  And this mentality is, in my view, myopic, becuase digital creations have the potential to be used forever -- or at least a really long time.  The tools empower a cadre of Community members to create and enthuse the other less creative or less talented or those who's only interest is in playing more stuff to continue to buy expansions, to continue to encourage their friends to buy the game, and who will, in fact, buy more Developer made stuff, even though their hard drives may be full to bursting with Free Community content.

The divide and the question is:  How much more does it really cost to provide the tools, continue to develop and support a game for, say, 6 years, or 8, as opposed to making 7 newer games in the same time frame?  With development costs being what they are for "AAA" production values, it seems to me that the Producers and Developers are sailing on a Ship of Fools when it comes to cost to produce new games, versus cost to continue to produce on an older engine and support something already produced.


If NWN2's engine was more akin in spirit to, say, the UnReal Engine, they could have continued to pump out different games, even if they were in the same series, all tied to the same engine and toolset and still made a boat load of cash.  They could have done this and released the toolset (as they did) and allowed the community to sort of give them new ideas, provide them with smaller, independant teams that could take a title and move it along cheaper, while still allowing some of the more dedicated folks to "make it" into their dream job of being a paid game developer.  They could have continued to make game performance improvements and additions, new games, new sequels and completely new genres, where, because they have the additional tools and assets to make new models, new terrains, etc. they'd be in a superior position to capitalize on their initial investment.

Now, of course, this is just me talking.  The argument, though of DLC providing the Developer with more overall ability to generate revenue than offering a fully featured set of building tools to the Community is, in large part, wholly unsupported as a set of qualified facts. It's a gut feeling based argument and, because it sounds more lucrative up front, the Big Cheese Heads buy into the ideas, even though there is no substantiation for it.

Think about it.  To create the game, a Developer must already make a toolset of some sort to develop the game.  Or have one provided by a third party.  This being the case, not offering the toolset to the player base is just being stingy or short sighted or both.  In the case of making a new game, even the older game companies would use an engine until it could no longer handle the technological advances of the current market.  Now correct me if I'm wrong, but how many engines use dynamic lighting like the Electron?  How many have powerful scriptable code that can be added to, improved upon and featurized over time like the Electron?  

Sure there are some.  But NWN2's engine for rendering is still quite viable.  If they had just made another game, completely standalone capable, called Mask of the Betrayer, called it the Stunning Sequel to NeverWinter Nights 2 and released it, knowing the toolsets with the assets could make modules using both games (and the players would have to have both games to play those modules) wouldn't the overall market for something like that have been at least equal to the  OC + Expansions concept, only without the strong limitations of having to own the original to make modules, or to have only the toolset be included in the original but not the expansions?


The key I am focussing on here is that the DLC model, in my view, does not negate the Community Driven Content Creation model or vice versa.  I would argue that they both enhance it and for much less overall cost than making a completely new game and selling that to the Short Attention Span Play Once Move Along Majority.


In fact, I would argue that, on the whole, a reset of the mind set would make the strategy not only cheaper for the company initially, it would allow them to do both, DLC and SP play once games, combined with MP able games that get sequels, updates, new features and fixes -- in the same package as long as they had all their ducks in a row in the first place.  This would allow companies to leverage their costs and development time over a slough of games covering different genres, playstyles, and milieux, such that one engine to rule them all would be a really great way to cut costs over time.

I apologize to all who couldn't stand reading the whole thing (which may be hollow as they probably haven't gotten this far) and thank the rest of you who did.


Short version for the TLDR afflicted:  DLC is not a bad idea, nor is providing a fully featured toolset and have a community of modders accrue around it.  They are not mutually exclusive. By doing both and using a different perspective on development and game financial marketing models, it could work in their favor, whereas one or the other both leave money in pockets that might have crossed over into the "Holy Crap, We're Really Making  a Mint Off This!" by leveraging costs and more nimbly navigate the field of games.

best regards,
dunniteowl

[foil-]

Unfortunately I can't really make this an interesting conversation and disagree with any of that

I would agree that even with tool set produced content people still fall all over official content either for the collectibility, completion, extra perks that come with it, or professional voice acting ( which in my opinion, voice acting is the only place where the community has a hard time competing with developers: all other assets they produce seem as good or better than official content).

The one place where developers really dropped the ball was Temple of elemental evil.  ToEE, as mentioned by the GWJers is one of the most faithful adaptions of 3.5, "almost to a fault".  It had a fantastic interface and visual feedback, many of the fun D&D rules for combat implemented, incredible monster effect, and on.  They refused to distribute the tool set and ToEE died a quick death commercially.  Circle of Eight modding community picked up the dropped ball and improved it in many ways.  They even eventually stated after many petitions to get the toolset released that they had hit a point where they had essentially created their own toolset and having the official toolset would no longer benefit them.  Unfortunately getting to that point took them many years and many people lost interest in that time span.  The NWN games had the advantage of hitting the ground running and producing content from the get go.

Regarding your comments about producing sequels rather than expansions: gotta agree.  And I think companies like BioWare, Ubisoft, and Activision get it.  Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Modern warfare, Assassins Creed, and others.  They release sequels every 1 to 2 years essentially based on the same engine.  Some tweeks here and there, some graphical improvement, but essentially many of the same assets that they built on from the previous in the series.

On a final note:  I think now NWN2 will just start showing its value.  Nothing comparable has been released as far as tool sets.  The new Neverwinter Game, while Im looking forward to it, doesn't appear to be trying to reach the depth of NWN2 as far as tool sets go.  I've had no time to play with Neverwinter Nights 2 for the last year or so, but my interest hasn't waned.  I've still got plans to play misery stone, IWD remake, Purgotoria, etc.  Its likely that without alternatives, and recent steam exposure, the NWN2 engine will still have a pretty significant slow burn lifespan.

[Banshe]

Didn't NWN1/2 have both a toolset and DLC (Adventure Packs)? Don't those count as DLC?

[foil-]

Banshe wrote...

Didn't NWN1/2 have both a toolset and DLC (Adventure Packs)? Don't those count as DLC?

I think ya.  But I don't think it had been recognised as a serious business model at that point.  It wasn't structured into their plans, rather it was tacked on.  I recall companies sort of getting into DLC as a definite part of their company endevour around the time Mass Effect 1 came out.  And even then they were'nt 100% sure how to handle it.  Now they have definite teams working on DLC with a goal for production rather than DLC being an afterthought that was produced  when the core team had some free time.

But sure, the adventure packs that came out could certainly be seen as some of the first DLC not called DLC.  And I think I recall BioWare stating that they basically broke even on profit from it.  Now its a genuine revenue source.

Modifié par foil-, 12 février 2011 - 03:46 .

[M. Rieder]

I will probably not buy another RPG that does not have a toolset. Modding is about 563 times more fun than playing, unless you are altering .2da files, then it evens up a bit.

[dunniteowl]

I'm going to hazard a guess and offer that I believe DLC really got it's start with MMOs offering content that you could get if you paid for it. It's called Micro Transactions, but you're essentially gettting DLC. And the idea just grew. I again iterate that I don't believe DLC and a Toolset (the more robust the better) are mutually exclusive. After all, DLC isn't a scripted system or a module adventure, per se (though it can be, I suppose.) The real point of DLC is that it includes stuff the average player and above average Community content creator doesn't have the wherewithal to create for the Community. And even if they did, there's just so much one handful of people can do in their spare time, for free with other RL pressing concerns. Developers get to do that as their job.

There's also the perception that if the Developers did it, it's just got to be better than anything an "amateur" can do. (Now, before you start getting out the pitchforks and torches for my blasphemy I'd like to stress, this is *NOT* my point of view, it's the perception of many folks who just don't want anything added to their game unless it's "official." You know what I'm talking about.) For that reason, I see DLC as a viable economic generator, with or without a toolset. If you provide a toolset, what you're really doing as a Developer/Producer, is raising the bar of expectation for High Quality DLC -- which, as I recall is a good thing. I'd call it "competition" in the marketplace -- even if it's internal to the customer/provider relationship.

I always heard that in a capitalistic society and a "free" market environment, competition was good for business, not stifling it. And I think in that light, having folks be able to make models and assets for the game not only raises the quality bar for the Developers when they provide DLC, it also raises the bar for those Community members creating content as well. All that makes, ultimately, for a better gaming experience for the player base, and keeps interest up in the Community between Developer led DLC. The fans can keep enthused with releases by CC makers until the next DLC pack.

Hell, if they're smart about it, they can (the Developers) check out the work of some of the more talented folks and "commission" them to create content and make new adventures (a la the Adventure Packs or Premium Modules plan in NWN & NWN2) and also commission model artists to create specific genre type or feature type asset packages. All in all, it sounds like a potential win win win to me.



dunniteowl

[The Fred]

Certainly, not providing a toolset under the premise that it damages expansion sales etc is a more excuse, if you ask me. If I hadn't had an NWN toolset, I probably would have packed it in long before buying the expansions. You've also got to remember, than the expansions can contain engine improvements and updates, changes to hard-coded things which are beyond the scope of the community's tools. In fact, giving modders more to play with is one of the biggest sells (look at SoZ, it provided a love-or-hate, very light-on-story adventure, but what makes me want to buy it are the Overland Map and Party Creation systems etc).

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

In a more cynical bent, developers/publishers might not like modding communities because they tend to raise the bar a bit for 'professional-level' content. I soured on the Total War series when they stopped fixing bugs and started spending more time on DLC that was little more than re-skinned units with tweaked stats, the kind of thing that it would have been very easy for community modders to make, if the game code had allowed it.

BTW, I haven't heard mention of Dragon Age on this thread yet. Anybody that follows the game and our sister community know how that's working out with DLC and mods? Best I can tell the DA modding community is mostly a way to get adult content in the game without scandalizing the publisher.

[The Fred]

Lugaid of the Red Stripes wrote...
Best I can tell the DA modding community is mostly a way to get adult content in the game without scandalizing the publisher.

If by "adult" you mean the sorts of things on the top of the projects list... 
Still, there is something to be said for the fact that player-made mods allow games to be played in different ways, and let it hit more of an audience than the "official" version.
To my mind, though, a good moddability just greatly extends the game's lifespan, which can only be a good thing - even if you plan on releasing another sequel in only a short amount of time. Why, I bet even if they released another expansion for NWN1 now, people would still buy it.

[foil-]

Lugaid of the Red Stripes wrote...

In a more cynical bent, developers/publishers might not like modding communities because they tend to raise the bar a bit for 'professional-level' content. I soured on the Total War series when they stopped fixing bugs and started spending more time on DLC that was little more than re-skinned units with tweaked stats, the kind of thing that it would have been very easy for community modders to make, if the game code had allowed it.
BTW, I haven't heard mention of Dragon Age on this thread yet. Anybody that follows the game and our sister community know how that's working out with DLC and mods? Best I can tell the DA modding community is mostly a way to get adult content in the game without scandalizing the publisher.

I was actually wondering about how well the DA toolset faired since several of the NWN2 mod people moved over to dragon age toolset.  I haven't really followed the Dragon Age 1 toolset at all.  With Dragon Age 2 comming out this march, it will be interesting to see if they continue supporting the toolset.   It's too bad it didn't take off.  Initial reactions to it when dragon age 1 came out were positive (also some negatives as with any toolset/game).

[MachinSin]

Hi to all,

Yes, it will be good to know about the prophets that were moving to DA toolset (I still remember the echoes of the "multiplayer soon" mantra ) Anyhow, in my opinion we will not see any other toolset-product like NWN in a very long time...

But well, we have NWN2 and, after more than 4 years developing with it, there's still so much funny things to do...

MachinSin

[dunniteowl]

I didn't use DA as an example for several reasons. First, I beta-tested the toolset and found that it had a lot going for it, but a lot more (IMO) going against it. That's merely the methodology of how the toolset was set up and so didn't wish to go there as the salient point is that it did come with a toolset and it also got DLC. The next reason I didn't include DA is that, beyond my beta-testing (which completely turned me off to DA as a purchase choice) I know little to nothing about what's going on with it. Haven't bought it, played it, and do not intend to do so. Lastly, I would cite that DA and it's "lifecycle" (and this includes upcoming DA2) along with the development turns it has taken can mean many things, but have little directly to do with the OPs question per se.



All that said, I believe you can easily view a mindset and methodology of that mindset in DAs production, post release development, DLC vs Toolset modding Community charted clearly. Toolset released, no MP capability, DLC available almost immediately, but not in any clear or designated "path" to improving the game's features, just adding assets and some story content. Next, DA2 with no MP, no toolset and only DLC. Clearly, this is aimed at ignoring the smaller PC market for this type of game (because no toolset with the console versions) and ignoring the value of MP's potential in an increasingly "connected" segment of the gaming population, which, all demographics you can cite, show is an increasingly important component of game play -- to play with and/or against others, live.

I mean no disrespect to the game or it's creators and developers. That said, I would cite DA(2) as a prime example of the "Ship of Fools" reference I made in my first post, with regard to not being "on the ball" of navigating gaming and it's fairly rapid changes in nature in the last 4-8 years.

I do not mean to imply in any way, that DA and DA2 aren't or won't be successful, financially. I will argue that they could be listed as an example of the amount of money invested in an engine and game series devised to support a Community -- and then to leave that Community, essentially completely at the mercy of what the Developers/Producers decide you want to have for that Community. This, to me, is the Dark Side of DLC's current mindset. At that point it's got nothing to do with how good a game is or what it's potential to create customer loyalty in that game, franchise or even the Developers/Producers and everything to do with how much more money can be made by finding more ways to charge the gamers for more stuff.

To me, this is clearly the indicator of the mindset that I find, in most respects, to be repugnant with regard to how they view their customer base.



dunniteowl