275 réponses à ce sujet

[rjshae]

Compared for the work needed to produce them, D&D PnP modules made little money for TSR/WotC. Hence, that approach might not work for CRPGs either. My understanding is that most of WotC's D&D PnP income was in the sales of rulesbooks and fiction.

[Jfoxtail]

Specifically regarding the "complexity of tool" of any such game. 

 

The tool needs neither to be "too simple nor too complex" ala NWN1/2. It simply has to be stable and accommodating to desktop/laptops about 1 generation old.

 

"Clean if simple 3D artwork" will always drive loyalty if the "content is available". 

 

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Frankly that was the great red herring of the debate between NWN1 / NWN2. It wasn't the toolset (alone)!  

 

It was design choices of the game that were far more reaching. One was a "single player focused game with limited party dynamics" that allowed dynamic coop play hence the PW scene.

 

The other choose a "party dynamics game" that impacted (for example) the potential persistent world modding. File size loading time transitions. These design choices were non issues in the single player campaign mode but were more problematic (likely) for the persistent world artists.

 

Some artists crossed the platforms ; others did not because of design choices. 

 

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The accessibility of a robust toolset will result in many many amateurish attempts; especially if attempts are offered free.

 

However over time the most dedicated artists will persist in "sharing their vision" and the quality will rise. See NWN1 NWN2 see all other games.

 

Sure you always get "jiggly body part" haks for any game; but they wouldn't be officially blessed.

 

Again if the gaming industry offered a meager royalty to the fan base for content, while retaining the right to set some limited boundaries (nudity, language, mythos cannon) and published the content on their official app store with the stamp of approval .... well how many thousands of adventures would be sold for $10 USD or 7 Euro or $11 CAD or 7 Sterling ?

 

Millions. Millions monthly.

 

The Fan that published and sold 10000 downloads (officially blessed) would also be motivated to do more quality work. Even if it only netted him ~ $500 every 6 months... in his/her pocket. Hobby money. Kids spending money. New PC money. New sofware money. Need to buy my spouse a forgive me present money... etc

 

If I (BIG TECH CO LTD)  deigned a game/ dmclient/ toolset for the "Icey Fens that had 20 towns in southern Abererth".

 

I launched my game with 20 town prefabs but allowed my mythos fans to "mod the prefabs" with new adventures, interior areas, new dungeon levels, different time periods (a range), extra details in the nearby forest, extra details in the nearby "huge swamp" or "nearby huge sandy hill"....

 

The fans were even allowed to expand into art working new nearby areas such as the "Sandy Veins of the world" sand hills nearby to compliment those adventures. 

 

Eventually I would have an app store full of high quality mods that gamers would play for years and continue to mod for years. 

 

Instead of a whole new game I could relaunch the same game/ dmclient / toolset / prefabs for the nearby  "Goldysun Region" with all new areas to mod and adventure in. 

 

Then I could relaunch the game / dmclient / toolset / prefabs for the nearby "Scimitar coastline"...

 

In 10 years I could have thousands upon thousands of apps in my official store earning millions per month out of one game platform that was neither too simple nor too complex.

[Jfoxtail]

Compared for the work needed to produce them, D&D PnP modules made little money for TSR/WotC. Hence, that approach might not work for CRPGs either. My understanding is that most of WotC's D&D PnP income was in the sales of rulesbooks and fiction.

 

Perhaps now...you may be much more aware than I about the economics. 

 

But not "then". Not then in the 1980s. Mr Gygax et al made some very very good money and at one time TSR was rich (even if mis managed).

 

D&D now faces every "period publisher's" issue... Digital !!! This is not about WOTC now... 

 

We are not talking about paper book mods - we are talking about digital content for a game !! 

 

Is the Apple Ap store not successful ?

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I would hope after so many years many of the old wounds have healed. There is a history lesson if nothing else in this. 

 

Never expect a second generation game to only accentuate the positive of what "you like".

Don't troll and inflame opinions on the Net as you end up locked into silly isolated positions and unsustainable factions.

Accept what is different and move on with your choice. Accept others choices for them.

 

I did not create this thread as a trolling exercise. I've been a participating member of the NWN2 community since its inception, so I ain't no troll.

 

I created it because considering the significant similarities between NWN1 and NWN2 for modders, I did not see any valid reason for the stubborness of NWN1 modders that continues to be exhibited after several years despite the availability of NWN2 and the lack of any other successor:

• if someone was modding NWN1 then their hardware was probably good enough to mod and play NWN2
• the same OS supported by the client and the same Windows only OS required for the toolset
• a fairly easy switch for a modder from the NWN1 toolset to the NWN2 toolset
• many NWN1 scripts work in NWN2 with no changes, and most functions are identical
• structures for conversations are essentially the same
• both D&D based, so you know what players expect

Considering all of these similarities I just don't see how the claim that NWN2 is not the successor to NWN1 can be considered valid. What seems to have happened is that NWN2 was just not adopted fast enough by players and modders alike. So NWN1 modders who had invested significant time decided to stick with what they knew and so players who were familiar with playing NWN1 community adventures weren't in any way compelled to purchase NWN2. NWN1 modders diidn't see players leaving for NWN2 in droves or asking "why isn't there an NWN2 version of this?" so not surprisingly they continued as they always had. NWN1 remained available for purchase in stores so there was probably additional growth in the NWN1 community long after NWN2 was also being sold.

 

The conclusion I have come to is that NWN1 was successful enough with a large enough groups of modders that they needed a compelling reason to change course, and the improved capabilities of the NWN2 toolset just were not compelling enough from the onset and by the time many of its issues were corrected by patches it was just too late. Certainly no one currently modding for NWN1 has such limited hardware that they could not also mod for NWN2. And the price of NWN2 is no longer a significant factor either.  Nor are there any unknowns regarding compatibility with future patches because there won't be any future patches. But I suspect that most NWN1 modders simply believe that modding for NWN2 is a waste of their limited time. For those of us playing NWN2 that is unfortunate but I certainly understand why they would be hesitant to reduce the time they spend on the NWN1 community that holds their favor.

 

Regards

[kevL]

I think Semper nailed it. NwN2 is more complicated than NwN -- and not in a purely good way.

the change to tag-based scripting was the first thing that threw me for a loop. I've nearly quit modding NwN2 several times because of the masochism involved


/ymmv. It just doesn't feel good to have mastered NwN1 scripts and then not be able to get a simple Activate Item on Self dialog to start ...

[Loki_999]

Interesting, NWN2 tag based scripting seems simpler for me.

 

And due to the increased functionality, NWN2 seems easier to script in for me.

 

YMMV of course.

[Dann-J]

Tag-based scripting appears to have been introduced in Hordes of the Underdark. Is the way it was implimented in NWN2 much different?

 

I've always found NWN2 tag-based scripting both easy to use and extremely powerful. It's not very well documented in official tutorials though (but then again, what is?).

[kevL]

TBS in NwN2 *is* simpler -- and all round better.

but after doing it the NwN way, that and 5000 other little things add up to **bother**

 

 

[edit] that is, if a person starts in NwN2 great. But that isn't the OP ...,

[kevL]

Dann,
here's the first page I learned the difference w/ TBS

( beyond that all i remember is long lists of 'check this & check that' )

[Tchos]

That tutorial perpetuates the irritating practice I keep seeing in these forums (though almost never in the NWN2 forums) of shouting (putting in all-caps) the word "tag" as if it's an acronym.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

You can still use the NWN tag-based scripting system in NWN2, it's just some flag you set on module properties.  It's all I ever use on my modules.

[kevL]

That tutorial perpetuates the irritating practice I keep seeing in these forums (though almost never in the NWN2 forums) of shouting (putting in all-caps) the word "tag" as if it's an acronym.

prolly because it's sorta like a constant, as in

const string sTAG = "tag_of_thing";

- constants are allcaps by convention.

[Jfoxtail]

I did not create this thread as a trolling exercise. I've been a participating member of the NWN2 community since its inception, so I ain't no troll.

 

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The conclusion I have come to is that NWN1 was successful enough with a large enough groups of modders that they needed a compelling reason to change course, and the improved capabilities of the NWN2 toolset just were not compelling enough from the onset and by the time many of its issues were corrected by patches it was just too late. 

 

Sorry I did not mean to imply you were trolling.. not at all.

 

--

 

Yes you have boiled it down to the essentials:  The capabilities of the NWN2 tool set were not compelling enough from the onset. 1) It was very buggy in honesty and 2) the DM client was delayed.

 

The only other point I would emphasize is the game design choices. 

 

Kaldor - you yourself are a talented artist in the electronic D&D medium. In party based single player games I have enjoyed all your contributions.

 

However the "party based mechanic", "infant DM Client" , "long loading times at transition", "more complicated multiplayer PW set up" did not appeal to many of the D&D NWN1 Toolset artists ; especially those that had largely fragmented into the PW core of NWN1.

 

Tiberius (Maimed God), Hugie (his early mod), most the guys at Ossian, etc etc etc. Many talented artists did cross over to the new tool set in the single player mod art form. Other did not. Old Festerpot, Andarian for their own artistic reasons choose not to. Further there are likely even some PW artists that crossed the boundaries as well though I don't know them by name. However they were the minority by numbers.

 

Bottom line is that the complexity and capability of the tool-set was at best only a small part of the reason NWN1 artists did not migrate. 

 

Artistic choices was always the bigger factor.

 

I hope that many of those still around would consider more collaboration. 

[Tchos]

prolly because it's sorta like a constant, as in

const string sTAG = "tag_of_thing";

- constants are allcaps by convention.

 

Yeah, constants are, but it's the constants themselves, not the word "tag" itself, and this is in casual writing, not in the code that I'm talking about.  People say "Be sure to make your TAG unique for this object," "Use this function to get the TAG," etc., as if it's an acronym.  I don't see anyone going around always shouting CONSTANT in all-caps.

[GCoyote]

... The conclusion I have come to is that NWN1 was successful enough with a large enough groups of modders that they needed a compelling reason to change course, and the improved capabilities of the NWN2 toolset just were not compelling enough from the onset and by the time many of its issues were corrected by patches it was just too late. ...

 

Another way to understand this is that the group dynamics keeping them together in a 'NWN1' community were (and to a degree still are) stronger than the perceived benefits of the NWN2 Toolset.  It's similar to the endowment effect in behavioral economics.  For many people new product must be seen as roughly twice as good as the one you have before you will spend the money/time/effort to "upgrade".  Except for the cash outlay, all of these factors are subjective.  

[kevL]

even cash is subjective : the price of it keeps going up

[Dann-J]

Yeah, constants are, but it's the constants themselves, not the word "tag" itself, and this is in casual writing, not in the code that I'm talking about.  People say "Be sure to make your TAG unique for this object," "Use this function to get the TAG," etc., as if it's an acronym.  I don't see anyone going around always shouting CONSTANT in all-caps.

 

It certainly seems to be a popular acronym (126 listed here). Not that I think the Tacoma Actors Guild or the Tasmanian Association for the Gifted have much relevance to NWN2 scripting.

[Tchos]

Totally Awesome Gaming.

[GCoyote]

 

There is actually an economic rationale behind that change as well but it's a topic for another time. 

[Mr. Dave]

To answer the OP from the perspective of a modder/developer:

 

While NWN had its shortcomings, it was still fairly straight forward to mod. Added to this was the fact that what you were adding or altering really showed in game, meaning your changes stood out. The toolset was simple, and had fairly well laid out script wizards which aided the process.

 

With NWN2, the toolset was made overly complex for simple things (keymash lower left half of keyboard while holding all 3 mouse buttons and dragging in a zig zag pattern, then hit enter with your nose), and there were no script wizards whatsoever. This made for a very annoying modding experience. Added to this was the fact that there were so many shaders muddying things up that most of the changes made did not show up in game. I retextured eyes, chainmail, etc. and literally could not see the improvements in game.

 

NWN2 really did bring the modding experience down. Modding is supposed to be fun. When it isn't fun, people find other things to do with their time. Hope this helps shed some light on the question.

[rjshae]

Well I'm from Seattle, where the NBA is now a dead sport to many of us. So wawawawa... go Hawks!

[kamal_]

Well I'm from Seattle, where the NBA is now a dead sport to many of us. So wawawawa... go Hawks!

Steve Ballmer is going to personally throw all the seats up to Seattle as part of the Clippers move.

[Eguintir Eligard]

 

With NWN2, the toolset was made overly complex for simple things (keymash lower left half of keyboard while holding all 3 mouse buttons and dragging in a zig zag pattern, then hit enter with your nose), and there were no script wizards whatsoever.

If it's that difficult for someone to hold ctrl while moving the mouse, I'm surprised said someone can effectively power on a computer let alone mod nwn1 or 2.

[WhiteTiger]

I do not use nwn 2. the second game changed a lot