astrallite wrote...
Sir Caradoc wrote...
Dragon Age engine is not bad. they just don't use it well. If it doesn't support large cities, well don't use large cities as a setting. I have to question this though. Just look at the latest Warden's fall episodes on youtube and compare it to DA2. Those amateurs proved that Dragon age engine has tons of untapped potential. Even the dragon orgins used the engine far batter than the updated sequel.
To be fair, modders almost always make better looking areas than paid professionals for a simple reason--they are doing it because it's their passion, not because they need to show up 9 to 5 every day to earn a paycheck and do work they are told to.
I think you're perhaps missing a bit of a point here. Not to diminish any of the awesome work that modders do - there are lots of fan creations that blow me away. Part of the reason I stick around on these forums is because we have some very talented and creative fans, and I think it would be silly of me to think that there's nothing I can learn from them. Cinematic design is a profession still in its infancy, after all, and everyone's still learning how everything fits together - including those of us paid to do it.
But there's a difference regarding what constraints a modder must work under and what a 'professional' must work under. And that does mean that, sometimes, a modder can do things that can't be done in the main game - while I might want to do a scene with two dozen soldiers all fighting each other, for example, I have to be conscious of limitations (it needs to work on min spec machines, at least acceptably) and need to make sure it's testable and easy to upkeep. If the level art changes, for one, I need to be able to move the scene without significant rework, as any amount of rework I do is going to come out of the overall 'time budget'. If character art changes, or someone decides to trim a line, I need to be able to patch the scene back together without significant issues.
Another one is localization - the way our localization works, scenes need to be able to work regardless of VO length. This removes the ability to do lengthy, multi-line cutscenes, as what works fine in English might end up with lines overlapping multiple times in German. All of these are constraints that aren't really necessary to keep in mind when doing mods or fan work. Again - I have a ton of respect and admiration for our fans, and I keep in constant contact with a couple of the authors of fan content because I believe I can learn from them. But to say that the difference is because 'it's their passion versus their job', well, if all I were looking for was a job, there are certainly easier ways to go about it than videogames. I do it as my job because it
is my passion. Some people discuss sports or politics when they go out for drinks. Me? I discuss narrative design in interactive media.
Whoops. I went off on a bit of a rant there. Ahem.
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