14 réponses à ce sujet

[Morfedel2069]

 So, question in the subject: how active is the toolset community? I've wanted to write modules and the like. I remember that the NWN 1 toolset was incredibly active, while NWN2 seemed less so... is it dead, active, something else? 

If it's nearly dead, is there another toolset community that is more active? I understand that DA2 will not have a toolset, so....

[Rasputin]

Check out Dragon Age Nexus. The Nexus (for many SP games including F3, TES4, TES3, F:NV) is the best place to go for MODS and a Modder Community:

http://www.dragonagenexus.com/

[Beerfish]

The community doesn't appear massively active certainly not near like NWN but there is a fair buit of stuff going on behind the scenes so to speak. One problem as pointed out by Rasputin is this social site is not effective at this time show casing or promoting projects.

[Mengtzu]

Dragon Age is the first game I've produced mods for, so I don't really have a good basis for comparison, but I've shipped four modules (15 hours of gameplay total) and I've found the community to be a huge help.

In particular the Community Contests have let me make modules that otherwise I'd have no chance of actually shipping.

I think given the nature of the parent game, the nature of most projects is probably different to NWN. While I've focused on shipping a lot of gameplay frequently, many projects are large team efforts aiming to give the full experience - voices, cutscenes, custom models, entirely new areas etc. That means there's been less visible activity than you might expect over the DA:O --> DA2 period, but as these teams complete their furious work and release these big projects, you'll get a lot of high-quality additions to the game.

[Rasputin]

Yeah, Nexus is most busy on Oblivion, followed closely by F3 but I think Skyrim will overtake all of these after it comes out for years to come. Lets face it, Bethesda releases an easier to use modding kit and people are VERY good at it and VERY familiar with it. If you haven't tried The Lost Spires, Montanna's work, Et en Arkay Ego or Adonnay's work, you have not lived ;-) Oh I suppose I should mention the massive work done on Nerim by so many people - its like a whole new game...

[jackkel dragon]

Freeform/Bethesda games have the most active modding communities I've seen. NWN probably next, as I'm still playing recently-made modules (yesterday, in fact.) NWN2 has a great modding community to rival NWN, but almost no players in comparison. DAO has plenty of modders, but most changes are small-scale and the large-scale projects are only now coming to light (except for that beast called Mengtzu who opened and closed DAO's official life with his mods. ;P)

DA2 isn't necessarily devoid of toolset, but it's not on the priority list for the devs when the game isn't even out yet. Don't get your hopes up, but don't give up on DA2 modding. Even without a toolset people make crazy mods. *coughkotor2cough*

[Morfedel2069]

I'm nit even sure what F3, skyrim, Bethesda, and all that is referring to. Is there some game / toolset that is seeing a ton of people using/interested in? I remember NWN had a huge active community, and I'm interested in something that has a lot of people involved.

I'm an ex-programmer. I don't balk at complex toolsets, as long as they are well-documented (as I don't like playing guessing games), but I also don't want to work on something that might get 4 people looking at when I'm done.

So, is there something more viable than DA for toolset module creation? I don't like fps and the like, I'm interested in rpg development.

[Morfedel2069]

oh, wait, Bethesda, Obvlivion and Fallout 3. Duh. Do those have toolsets, or are people modding those even without toolsets (and how are people modding such things without toolsets, hehe!)

Aren't those 1st person types? 1st person shooter style makes me motion sick. I hate it, but it's true.

[Miobako]

Morfedel2069 wrote...

oh, wait, Bethesda, Obvlivion and Fallout 3. Duh. Do those have toolsets, or are people modding those even without toolsets (and how are people modding such things without toolsets, hehe!)

Aren't those 1st person types? 1st person shooter style makes me motion sick. I hate it, but it's true.

Hey buddy, do some homework before posting in here.

I'd suggest that to begin with, you should find a game/world you like to adventure at, and then start modding at it. Programming/scripting is (extremely) handful, but you can't make a mod just because you are good at that. Take your time and familiarize yourself with the modding scene.

[Proleric]

The DAO toolset arguably has the most advanced RPG features.

Bioware hasn't yet announced whether there will be a toolset upgrade for DA2. The differences are minor, and largely immaterial, so we'll continue using DAO for a long time to come.

It's early days, given the effort required to make new campaigns, but there are already some on this site (see Community Index).

AFAIK this forum is the focal point for technical discussion. Have a look at DANexus, then judge for yourself.

The community isn't as active as NWN or NWN2 yet, but those tools are very old now. As DAO campaigns in the pipeline come on stream, we'll see whether more builders are tempted to move across.

[Morfedel2069]

Miobako wrote...

Hey buddy, do some homework before posting in here.

Well, that was rude.

Seriously, there is no reason for you to be a jerk. I was doing my homework; this post was part of that. It takes one post and a couple replies to get an answer that could otherwise take me hours of  "homework" elsewhere, and it's both more efficient for me to post a question like this, and very little skin off other people's noses, to take a couple of  minutes to answer. 

And so far, you seem to be the only one bothered by my "lack of homework." I'm new to the idea of modding. Well, not entirely - I did some with NWN 1. But that is my sole experience base, and there is a LOT of information out there, so since no one else other than you seemed to be bothered by my question, I'm not sure what harm I was doing by asking it - one that saved me hours of research and took only a minute or so for most people to respond.

So in the future, if it bothers you that a "newb" is in here asking questions, you can either be helpful, or feel free to not get involved. No excuse to take the time just to be a jerk.

And as a side note, having messed around some with NWN 1, I DO realize it takes more than programming skills to make a good module. But it isn't a bad place to start from either as a beginner.

To everyone else, thanks a lot for your responses, especially those links to Dragon Age Nexus and the community pages, et al. I think I'll stick with the DA:O toolset for now.  Unfortunately, it looks like my toolset install is bad, it had a problem with installing the SQL server and isn't working right, so I'll have to reinstall it.

Again, thanks for the help!

[Rasputin]

There is a post to attempt to sesolve the SQL issue here:

http://social.msdn.m...0e-a4318982c41c

There is also a thread on this website (somewhere about that - I had the same problem and still do)

PS I can't believe I forgot to mention NWN modding community - what an ass I am... I loved NWN - it was so stable compared to NWN2... which I understand has now been somewhat fixed...

Anyway - I digress...

Modifié par Rasputin, 02 mars 2011 - 06:39 .

[Morfedel2069]

I agree, NWN was great, especially in that it was simple and yet still capable of some very impressive things.

I know NWN2 and DA:O toolsets are supposed to be more powerful, but it seems like they also struggle with problems that NWN1's toolset never had to worry about.

[Proleric]

I wouldn't say DAO has more problems than NWN.

I find that the DAO toolset tends to do exactly what it says on the tin most of the time. There's more configuration of tried-and-tested code, more tools, less scripting, less guesswork.

The bug list might seem a little daunting at first sight, but there's nothing we can't handle.

The learning curve and build time are longer than NWN, of course. In particular, the level editor is much more flexible but time-consuming. Also, while conversation can be just as simple as NWN, it's always tempting to spend longer than intended, simply because the cinematic tools are so nice.

[Mengtzu]

DAO also has the advantage of a pretty nice combat system, if slightly hampered by wonky class balance Threat + pause&play is a good environment for encounter design, it makes it possible to present a multiplayer-like encounter to a single player.