Mod News NWN2's mod tools coming to an RPG near you

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href="http://www.developmag.com/news/30028/Obsidian-Mod-makers-wont-tolerate-poor-toolchains">In a summary of Josh Sawyer's comments about the NWN2 toolkit</a>, find out how the decision to give modders more power potentially back-fired. However, it also talks about Obsidian's upcoming titles:
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<blockquote>"BioWare's approach to the Neverwinter Nights toolset was to go for ease-of-use, so that people could get small things running quickly and then expand from there," said Sawyer. "Obsidian's approach was to cater for the hardcore, though - dramatically increase the level of control, meaning that more things could be altered. That would make the barrier to entry higher, but we thought that would similarly raise the quality of what was produced."...
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And while it may seem that the company fluffed its chance with Neverwinter Nights 2, continual patches - and improvements brought about during the development of the game's expansion packs - have helped address some of the issues that disappointed the community at launch, and have helped shape the development of the next generation of Obsidian's tools now being used on both the un-named Aliens RPG and forthcoming espionage RPG Alpha Protocol.</blockquote>
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It's okay, they'll get it right <i>this time</i>.
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>

 

[Wyrmlord]

Oh Josh Sawyer, usability is supposed to be a priority. Sacrificing it in the name of making it "hardcore" is just ridiculous. Complexity =! Quality

 

[Lumpy]

Oh Josh Sawyer, usability is supposed to be a priority. Sacrificing it in the name of making it "hardcore" is just ridiculous. Complexity =! Quality

No. You're dumb. People who aren't able to use a complex toolset would probably make crappy mods anyway. A toolset should allow dedicated designer to do as much of what they want as possible, rather than allow Jimmy to create his Dragonfairy module in 2 hours.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Oh Josh Sawyer, usability is supposed to be a priority. Sacrificing it in the name of making it "hardcore" is just ridiculous. Complexity =! Quality

Yes, and this is why the Onyx tools (used for Aliens) have been designed with usability as a very high priority. When I said "we" made a choice to develop the toolset in a certain way, I'm speaking of Obsidian as a whole, not individual team members (such as myself).

No. You're dumb. People who aren't able to use a complex toolset would probably make crappy mods anyway. A toolset should allow dedicated designer to do as much of what they want as possible, rather than allow Jimmy to create his Dragonfairy module in 2 hours.

I think if we put more forethought into the toolset, it could have had 90% of the overall capability and a great deal more usability, stability, and general reliability. Also, very few people make mods on their own. Instead of thinking about Jimmy's Dragonfairy module, it might be better to think of someone coming on to a mod team to help by making a bunch of items. Even if the person has a list of item stats, appearances, and descriptions, it would be a (needless) pain in the ass for them to go about actually making and integrating them.

 

[LRP]

Whatever anyone thought about the NWN 1 OC, the toolset for it's time was awesome spawning a lot of very very creative mods, pw's and dm run games. Though I never finished out the OC nor either expac, I spent years and years using them to play online dm run games, and running several myself. A dm could build the next adventure in a couple, three days and have it ready for a group's next weekly session. Especially with the advent of CEP packs etc, the only limit was really imagination. Be it a traditional d and d game or the Firefly series, the play offered was amazing. I more than got my money's worth out of the game despite how horrible the OC was.

I think the NWN community really had their hopes up, and hoping to keep on keeping on. Yet the NWN 2 toolset is so clumsy and so hard to use, it basically killed off everything the former NWN game had made possible. What in the hell OBSE was thinking?! NWN 1 sold for years, just so people could go online and play the mods and play the dm run games, play with their friends on pw's. No dm client, a very very unfriendly muliplayer game, twice me and some friends tried to get on and play through the OC, only to give up in the end.

To this day, most dm run games and pw's still use NWN 1, the number of mods for 2 are few, dm run games non existent and very few pw's around, and the OC was only average at best. I don't think there is any getting the toolset to 2 on a par of usability as 1 had. Perhaps someday, some release will come along with a toolset that will once again set off the load of dm run games, pw's and mods that 1 did. NWN 1 set a standard or bar of achievement I hope that some company, somewhere meets and exceeds and we see another creative outpouring that 1 spawned.

 

[Starwars]

While I've never spent any time in the multiplayer side of things of the NWNs, there is just no fucking way I would go back to NWN1 toolset after using the NWN2 one for singleplayer. NWN1 is easy to use though, which was great (and still is) for people who want to make a module faster. And I can definetely understand why one would use it.
Also, I wonder how much of a draw the whole multiplayer bit was for NWN1, didn't even a Bioware dev say something that it was a very small minority of the buyers that even touched multiplayer?

I also feel that the rumors about the NWN2 toolset being teh hard are overrated. I didn't know a fucking thing about creating mods aside from making a sucky area or two in NWN1, and I did not have many problems with the NWN2 toolset aside from things that are naturally difficult for a lot of people (scripting for example). Those people who mastered the NWN1 toolset, but are complaining about how impossibly hard NWN2 are talking bullshit. If you prefer one over the other for the sake of completing things faster, but saying that NWN2 is oh-so-hard compared to NWN1 is not true. The learning curve is not nearly as great as some would have you believe.

It does take longer, but you can create some really awesome things as well. While I still don't think any NWN2 project has touched my favourite NWN1 mods, there are still a lot of mods in development, and the NWN1 mods that I felt were really good didn't come until 2-3 years after its release. While it's not a roleplaying masterpiece by any means, a mod with the overall aesthetic quality like Harp & Crysanthemum makes me giddy with the possibilities of people combining fantastic area design skills with good adventures in general. There is a lot of life left in NWN2, and there will be even when Obsidian stops supporting it.

That's not to say things couldn't be better of course, far from it. There are loads of improvements to make, but so is there for NWN1 even though we're up to the 69th patch. That's the nature of these types of games.

 

[elander_]

Usability is only required when there is complexity to master. You can make a TV remote control very easy to use with only 4 buttons to turn on/off the TV, change channel and adjust the volume. I'm sure only a moron would have an hard time using it but usability is not required here.

The question is if NWN2 Toolset could improve with better usability and for who this would be an improvement. Improving the Toolset while making it harder for noobes and people who just want to use it for quick mods is not the right way to do it. The work you take for learning a tool and use it should be proportional to the size of complexity of what you are trying to do with it, otherwise we can say it's a tool made for hardcore moders.

 

[Truth]

So...we can expect the mod tools that come out with the Aliens RPG and AP to be more useable, or Aliens RPG and AP are going to be great games because Obsidian learned how to make the tools for them more useable. Swell.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Hand me over some postapocalyptic RPG, if ya want to movtivate me doing mods.

 

[easychord]

The main issue with the NWN2 is the specialist skill required to make exterior areas without spending twenty times the amount of time that you would have spent in the original. Unlike NWN, if you have plenty of time and artistic ability then you can create areas that are impressive. Not prepared to spend most of your time putting your 31337 pre-raphaelite skillz to work on the exteriors and you end up with a module set only indoors. The exterior maps are also quite large causing problems for online games.

The toolset is generally more modern and usable.

 

[Azarkon]

Unfortunately, it's too late for NWN 2 - unless there's some massive revamp of the toolset in SoZ that I haven't heard about. I doubt either the Aliens RPG or Alpha Protocol are designed with module-making in mind, so while I reckon that they'll be moddable, the flagship has sailed, so to speak, and it isn't looking pretty for the long-term viability of NWN 2 as a community-driven game.

 

[Jaesun]

So...we can expect the mod tools that come out with the Aliens RPG and AP to be more useable, or Aliens RPG and AP are going to be great games because Obsidian learned how to make the tools for them more useable. Swell.

Aliens RPG = Onyx Engine
AP = Unreal Engine

Just FYI

 

[Texas Red]

Were you allowed to leak info that Aliens will have tools there, buddy?

 

[Depressinator]

It's just that the programmers suck at making GUIs. It's no harder to make something easier to use than something difficult to use, but it take experience and design talent. Anything else is just an excuse, but it's a stupid excuse because I'd be more pissed if they intentionally made something retarded than if they just didn't have a good design to start with, which is the case.

 

[cardtrick]

[stuff]

As long as you're in a sharing mood . . . when's The Black Hound coming out?

 

[cardtrick]

It's no harder to make something easier to use than something difficult to use, but it take experience and design talent.

That sentence makes no sense. Read what you write. If it "takes experience and design talent", then it is harder. People with experience and talent are known for being able to do harder things than people who lack those traits.

And what, do you think developers make things difficult to use because that seems like a good idea to them? Obviously the reason you see so much software with bad UI design is because it is hard. Interface design is a complex field, and even with plenty of research into human/computer interaction over the years, a lot of it still boils down to vague guidelines, heuristics, and lots of guesswork. Making a good UI often ends up being more a matter of having the money and time to test and redesign extensively rather than having "design talent" -- and it's far easier to complain about a bad UI than it is to make a good one.

Which is not to argue that the NWN2 toolset necessarily has a good UI -- I haven't used it much, and can't speak from experience. But you're trivializing the issue.

 

[Depressinator]

It's no harder to make something easier to use than something difficult to use, but it take experience and design talent.

That sentence makes no sense. Read what you write. If it "takes experience and design talent", then it is harder. People with experience and talent are known for being able to do harder things than people who lack those traits.

And what, do you think developers make things difficult to use because that seems like a good idea to them? Obviously the reason you see so much software with bad UI design is because it is hard. Interface design is a complex field, and even with plenty of research into human/computer interaction over the years, a lot of it still boils down to vague guidelines, heuristics, and lots of guesswork. Making a good UI often ends up being more a matter of having the money and time to test and redesign extensively rather than having "design talent" -- and it's far easier to complain about a bad UI than it is to make a good one.

Which is not to argue that the NWN2 toolset necessarily has a good UI -- I haven't used it much, and can't speak from experience. But you're trivializing the issue.

What are you, stupid? It does not get any clearer than that, though I did leave off an s because I type so fast and somehow put easier instead of easy.

It's no harder to do it right than to make a retarded mess, if you have the talent. They just don't have the talent, just like you obviously don't have the talent for reading motherfucking English.

Moreover, you are claiming the GUI is good when the company itself, in this article about the GUI not being easy to use, is making excuses for it.

Your brain must be malfuctioning because I have not seen you say such retarded things before this.

 

[cardtrick]

Hmmm . . .

1 -- If something cannot be done without a great deal of talent, then it is hard. I don't think this is controversial.

2 -- I can read English rather well.

3 -- I specifically stated that I wasn't claiming the GUI was good, but was merely disagreeing with your claim that making a good GUI was easy

4 -- I'm no longer in school and have started working a full time office job at a huge bank, so it's entirely possible that I have actually become dumber. That is to say, if you're actually being sensible and I'm being stupid, it's not a matter of my brain malfunctioning . . . it appears to be a defense mechanism I'm developing for dealing with banking regulations and my coworkers.

 

[aboyd]

I'm with cardtrick. I've been doing usability work for Silicon Valley Internet startups for about 14 years now, and in my experience, the work involved in doing it "right" far exceeds the level of work to do it wrong. It isn't just about talent. It's about research -- have you read Nielsen, Norman, Tufte, and other experts in the field? And did you actually comprehend what they were teaching? It's about schooling -- have you practiced grouping features into logical clusters, and learned to avoid all the first-timer type of mistakes? Have you learned how to think outside of the project so that you have the perspective of a new user? The very concept hasn't even occurred to some amateurs in the design business. Have you learned how to do usability studies and actually quantify the resulting data and take action on it? Do you know what forcing functions are, what the promenade is, how to hide and reveal functionality in intuitive ways? Do you know the limitations of short-term memory and can your designs cater to the average thinker while allowing exceptional minds to do exceptional work? This is hard stuff. This is not easy.

Also, Depressinator, resorting to ad-hominem attacks against cardtrick doesn't help make your point.

 

[kris]

I think the NWN community really had their hopes up, and hoping to keep on keeping on. Yet the NWN 2 toolset is so clumsy and so hard to use, it basically killed off everything the former NWN game had made possible. What in the hell OBSE was thinking?! NWN 1 sold for years, just so people could go online and play the mods and play the dm run games, play with their friends on pw's. No dm client, a very very unfriendly muliplayer game, twice me and some friends tried to get on and play through the OC, only to give up in the end.

the ones that got away first was guys like me, but I don't really cuont. things is, after having tried the very easy to use NWN1 toolset I quickly got stuck in the NWN2 toolset. Many things that before had been so easy now came to trial and error and lots of looking aruond. All was not bad, but I quickly lost interest.

 

[Gragt]

[stuff]

As long as you're in a sharing mood . . . when's The Black Hound coming out?

Nice try.

 

[Depressinator]

I'm with cardtrick. I've been doing usability work for Silicon Valley Internet startups for about 14 years now, and in my experience, the work involved in doing it "right" far exceeds the level of work to do it wrong. It isn't just about talent. It's about research -- have you read Nielsen, Norman, Tufte, and other experts in the field? And did you actually comprehend what they were teaching? It's about schooling -- have you practiced grouping features into logical clusters, and learned to avoid all the first-timer type of mistakes? Have you learned how to think outside of the project so that you have the perspective of a new user? The very concept hasn't even occurred to some amateurs in the design business. Have you learned how to do usability studies and actually quantify the resulting data and take action on it? Do you know what forcing functions are, what the promenade is, how to hide and reveal functionality in intuitive ways? Do you know the limitations of short-term memory and can your designs cater to the average thinker while allowing exceptional minds to do exceptional work? This is hard stuff. This is not easy.

Also, Depressinator, resorting to ad-hominem attacks against cardtrick doesn't help make your point.

I don't care if you get my point or not, let alone believe it. My 'attacks' are because I can't believe how fucking retarded he is being.

HMI bullshit is just that, mostly, bullshit. Same with software engineering.

As for experience - it is helpful, but you can't polish a turd as anyone who does have some experience programming knows. You are a good programmer, or not. A good designer, or not. Education and experience don't matter without the talent, though you need a bit of both to be at your best. But, it doesn't take 9 years of experience or a phd to make a great programmer or GUI designer, and anyone who did have 14 years of experience would know that. A lot of the programmers in games seem to be around 24 so lack of experience might be an issue, but in general I don't think it's the issue people have with making good software.

If you believe me, so what. If not, it's your loss I guess, but again so what.

 

[Thrasher]

some peope require being taught more, and some have more natural talent. it's not black and white.

 

[aboyd]

My 'attacks' are because I can't believe how fucking retarded he is being.

Says the man standing in a glass house.

HMI bullshit is just that, mostly, bullshit. Same with software engineering.

Lack of industry experience FTW!

But, it doesn't take 9 years of experience or a phd to make a great programmer or GUI designer, and anyone who did have 14 years of experience would know that.

I never suggested someone needed a PhD or 9 years of experience to be a great programmer or GUI designer. I simply agreed that it was misguided to say that good design is no more difficult than bad design. If that were true, then companies would always opt for the easy-to-use interface, and we'd never see the bad stuff. Yet difficult interfaces exist. That's empirical evidence that you're wrong. All the other ways to refute you are just icing on the cake.

If you believe me, so what. If not, it's your loss I guess, but again so what.

Yes, it's my loss for rejecting nonsense. I'm regretting it already.