Schazzwozzer

Blizzard probably came down hard and merciless on this guy simply because it was so prominent. The Twin Blades of Azzinoth are those two big crescent sword things, the iconic weapons of Illidan -- Illidan being sort of the "final boss" of WoW currently. I'd suspect there are only a handful of players, perhaps under 100 out of millions that actually possess those things. As far as I know, Blizzard has steadfastly maintained an anti-real money trade (RMT) stance, and I think this is appropriate, as the majority of players consider it unfair and feel it cheapens their own experience. I think it'd actually be more of a surprise if Blizzard hadn't acted upon this.

Games are overwhelmingly commercial products that fulfill real consumer needs/wants. A developer ignores player input at his or her own peril. And who says the Reavers being cut out was due to public pressure? I'd be really surprised if a Blizzard employee actually confirmed this. All I saw was this bit of news drop at Blizzcon, and it's hardly surprising. Starcraft has always been a very tightly designed RTS, and it looks like Blizzard wants to cull redundancy whenever possible. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I mainly wonder who they could get to actually develop this thing. Are there any veteran (at least one title under their belt) MMO teams out there with their hands relatively empty? There are probably a lot of interesting directions in which one could take a Fallout MMO, but I don't think you can just trot out an IP these days and say "hey, we're making an MMO!". You've got to identify a reasonable gap in the marketplace you look to target. For example, consider Warhammer Online. They look set to fill the gap between WoW's PvP-lite and the hardcore PvP of games like EVE. If you're just making paint-by-numbers MMO, then you're going up against WoW, and I don't think you'll make a lot of headway there. At this moment it unfortunately sounds like, "let's milk this cow while we can", but we'll see, I suppose.

Ohhhh, okay. I've actually had access to the 3dsmax/Granny plugins for a while (was in the beta test), so I didn't make the connection. It's worth saying though that both of those "walls" I mentioned were overcome in the past couple days, when I revisited them after at least a month of putting it off. One was an error on my part and one was solved when I patched NWN2 (I had neglected to for a while). Huzzah huzzah!

Walls? Whutchu talkin' bout? I ain't no Soviet Russia all up in here!

You know, this bit about Infinity Engine/Elder Scrolls type modding versus Neverwinter Nights modding is actually really interesting. I understand why the Neverwinter Nights series has taken the approach it has -- because one of the central selling points is that users are able to author their own Dungeons and Dragons modules. However, I think the IE/Elder Scrolls approach is probably superior. The major reason is that completely new, authorial modifications (i.e. entirely new modules) are almost always going to be more difficult to create than additive ones (a mod that simply adds a new creature, NPC, or item). For this reason, among others, the majority of modifications are going to be smaller, additive ones. It makes sense then to implement a system that will make it easier for the majority of modders and end-users. It's interesting to note that, even though the NWN2 OC isn't as free-roaming or expansive as an Elder Scrolls or even Baldur's Gate, and the game itself is not set up to support it, a lot of the most popular modifications are still additive ones. Look at what is one of the most popular haks on NWVault. That's an additive release. It allows players to have their female characters in the NWN2 OC (and any module, I imagine) half-naked. This is a problem though because additive content uses the Override directory. I won't go into it here, but this is not a user-friendly solution and is a giant headache to mod authors, because it's MUCH more prone to bugs and conflicts. By the way, for Morrowind and Oblivion (and I think for the Infinity Engine games, but I am not certain), you CAN create you own entirely new worlds. Yes, it's more difficult than with the Neverwinter Nights games, but I expect that anyone SERIOUSLY commited to authoring their own epic role-playing experience will overcome those hurdles anyway.

The big question on my mind is, does it feel like the MOST EXPENSIVE GAME EVER CREATED? Like, if it were an article of clothing, would it be a money hat?

A couple nuggets of anecdote from my end, as an artist modder: - My experience with NWN1 definitely did jade me a bit, or at least make me less willing to spend hundreds of hours on something that isn't personally compelling in a very immediate sense. I was very lucky and had the opportunity to work on two commercial projects with/for Bioware. Both were unceremoniously cancelled and everybody involved was left empty-handed, as far as I know (for the record, Bioware was great and not to blame for the cancellations). Now, the number of people with similar first-hand experiences is probably pretty limited, but I'm sure loads of people closely involved with the NWN1 community, perhaps with their own dreams of modding grandeur, saw much of this play out, and I imagine it left them a bit jaded as well. - Everything is harder with NWN2. Yes, you can do more, but it doesn't change the fact that things just plain are harder. Personally, I've had a couple pieces of work that I put a solid amount of time into, a few dozen hours each, perhaps, only to get near implementation and then hit a wall. Not like an obstacle, where you can sort of puzzle out how to proceed, but a flat-out wall, where you have no clue how to get around it. And I might be flattering myself in saying this, but I think I'm one of the more knowledgeable people involved with NWN2 art-side modding, so I can imagine the experience is only worse for people who are just starting out. Anyway, the big thing there is, when you hit a wall, you lose your momentum, and momentum is hugely important when you're not getting paid. I expect this is true for the actual design-side of modding too.

I think I know what you're talking about, but I was alluding to a different case, in which a different ex-designer made some critical posts in the official Elder Scrolls Lore forum (where many of the most hardcore TES fans would gather), shortly after Oblivion's release. To be fair though, I think he deleted his harshest criticism.

Just wanted to express my agreement with this quote. Well, perhaps not the "lack of focus on quality/fun" (that's for the devs to judge), but the general idea that these games are simply trying to do too damn much. I really think that, in terms of sheer number of classes, character abilities, character customization options, both NWN games aspire to MMO levels of scope, but just don't have the budget or development cycle to bring that vision to fruition. Moreover, NWN has to provide things that MMOs never have to worry about: a satisfying single player experience and the toolset, to name a couple. It's almost a hopeless battle from the get-go. Also, this may not be entirely comparable, but I recall shortly after Oblivion's release, an ex-Bethesda writer/designer (was around for Morrowind and Tribunal) was quite openly critical of the game. I think lots of development studios have these sort of things going on, but you have to be a savvy fanboy to ever hear about it. I recall also a couple instances of Todd Howard (head Bethesda guy, I believe) acknowledging faults in Oblivion. Not exactly Josh's Straight-Talk Express style, but it was also not pure PR.

If you're not averse to user-made modules, you may want to keep an eye on Mysteries of the Moonsea: Melvaunt. It's one of the modules I'm most keeping my eyes on, as his screenshots are perhaps the most visually stunning I've seen come from NWN2, and he sounds like just a plain smart guy, who enjoys what he's doing. Some images: Thar 01 02 City of Melvaunt 01 02

Deng, only $5,750,000? All us forum jerks probably coulda raised that much! Like, maybe an internet bake sale or something.

Yeah, if you're shooting for a design position, showing that you know your way around game editors and toolsets would no doubt be a huge boon. Morrowind, Oblivion, and NWN1 & 2 all would be good choices to dig into if you're interested in creating RPGs. NWN1 may be the easiest to learn and begin from scratch with. Try to find tutorials where you can, and use those. There's a wealth of information on the web, if you know where to look. Here are a few links... NWN1 tutorials Official Oblivion construction set wiki [ here is the Tutorials section ] NWN2 tutorials Also, since you're young, I'd recommend taking some beginning programming classes in high school. Knowing at least basic coding would no doubt come in handy in a lot of design positions. You may also want to learn about modelling and art creation at some point as well. I think, perhaps even moreso than programmers and artists, designers benefit from having a holistic grasp of game development.

I don't know if I'd agree with the better custom content support line. At least, if you're talking about support from the devs. It took Bioware quite a long while to get official 3dsmax exporters out to the public. Obsidian has quite a few things that could be worked out to be work more smoothly, but I'd rank them as equal or better than Bioware's support. I am, however, slightly perturbed at the apparent lack of new modules and custom content. Personally, as an artist and creator, I see virtually no reason to stick with NWN1, with its dated, muddy graphics and limited toolset potential. Yet, NWN2's community just hasn't seemed to take off yet. It's strange, and I wonder if it's just taking a while to heat up or if it just doesn't have wings, for whatever reason. One thing Bioware definitely did better though, was they had their Neverwinter Wednesdays, when they'd highlight new community stuff and the sort every week. I think that kind of stuff goes a long, long way in terms of keeping the public engaged and interested. Agreed on NWN2's poor optimization, but NWN1's engine was never a prize horse either, I felt.

You had the trial, and the whole struggle between the thieves and the guards of Neverwinter, and the scenario wherein you were protecting the old guy, and managing the stronghold, and you had to hunt down the Gith lady. Perhaps "character-driven" isn't exactly the right way to phrase it, but these things felt personally compelling to me. At least, much moreso than enchanted statues sword shards and shadow kings or whutevah.