how short is too short?

[Gromnir]

Well, that's not a good thing either.

 

Personally, I think Obsidian is screwing itself by choosing to do "safe" games as they are fettered by the limitations other companies impose on them.

 

K2's ending and editing for example, and the reduced game here.

 

Maybe we'll get lucky and at least get a "complete" game, chopped as it is, rather than one that tapers off at the end

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well if you are going to do some chopping it's best done in the middle where it's less noticable.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

with kotor2 we knows that lucas moved up the release date by a full fiscal quarter. nwn2, on the other hand...

 

am having far less sympathy for obsidian this time 'round. sounds like there were some bad planning involved and now they gotta scramble and scrape to try and reworks things so they not end up with a troika kinda product come september.

 

no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy... and the enemy for obsidian is time. am getting that no 'mount of planning coulda' saved them from having to make adjustments... but this is sounding like substantial adjustments... right after ferret leaves.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hassat Hunter]

WHat?

 

 

Would a shorter game not be easier to run through QA?

 

Are games made for QA in the present day or for us costumers? Point not found...relevance not found...

 

Even at 5 years, Half-Life 2 was still in development longer than Half-Life 1...before Source was leaked.

 

And look it ain't no RPG. Better is to actually use Vampire bloodlines, and that one made it longer than 20 hours of gameplay, nah?

Basically I have never fully completed both Half-Lifes (hate them both) to tell anything about the time needed for it; but if HL2 is really shorter...could you give an explanation why that is?

 

Which engine is it?  The graphics of NWN2 don't really look like NWN.

 

The original. As we all know Electron is the same engine but with the graphical engine upgraded. Since the underlying rules are still the same that shouldn't prevent OE from building up the game...

 

I'm talking about the toolset that comes with the game for us to use.  Resources have been spent to significantly improve the toolset (I think Llyranor even posted a PPT presentation about it) to make content creation for the end user less of a challenge.

 

And a friendlier to use toolset should how block devs from making the game itself from being bigger? Sure you can alter the toolset, but that wouldn't mean that at the same time the current couldn't be used for levelbuilding...

[Hassat Hunter]

When you modify engines and toolsets to a great degree, you can't just bomb forward and make the campaign at the same time, that's like trying to write on paper that is still in the factory being converted from tree kaka. You're going to have to go back for things, to check for thigs, to change things, to add things. It's called, Shortcut to Bugs and Inconsistent Quality/Design.

 

Ofcourse you can. If you make a map, fill it with quest and enemies and such and a programmer adds in a new shader for the map, would you really think all quest have to be re-added, enemies replaced, AI reconfigured. And maybe maybe that even has to be done sometimes... but that is the job of the QA deparment, not those individual creators to find out. In the meantime they can continue on either making new stuff or upgrading their already made stuff with these new thing. IF that has to be added in with the map/editor/code at all. If you go from creation outside areas on a different way (UT/UT2K4 style different) does that mean all the old outside areas have gone to waste? Don't think so...

If it was the way you mentioned it nothing could be done gameplaywise untill FAR at the end of Beta... too bad usually all the gamecode/mechanics and stuff are in in the earliest ALPHA.

 

Uh.... no. What "other toolsets"? They don't make more than one "toolset" for a single engine and game, now THAT would be a premium waste of time. If you mean the version that is not "slightly modified for users", again, you think it took them only 2 months to get it up to that level? You have to finish the engine first, THEN you have to finish the toolset. Then you do the campaign, amongst other things.

 

Kotor's, infinity, unfinished versions of the NWN toolkit etc.

The devs can get around with more difficult toolsets than the one that the user finnally gets and has to use. They REALLY don't have to wait till the final user-toolkit is finished before they can start doing there stuff. They might make adjustments as seen fit but first finalising the kit and then starting on the game...nah. And as the engine gets updated you can also adjust the campaign. There is REALLY no need to actually have the engine ready before starting the lvl/monster etc. design...

If that was so explain to me why the UT2K7 devs can play their levels in UNTEXTURED, WIRE-FRAMED levels and when deemed "good to play" the actual engine-stuff is added (an engine BTW who keeps getting additions adjustments even if several dozens of devs already use it to make a game)???

Edited April 25, 2006 by Hassat Hunter

[alanschu]

Would a shorter game not be easier to run through QA?

 

Are games made for QA in the present day or for us costumers? Point not found...relevance not found...

 

Then you're not looking hard enough. They said they want to release a quality game. If there's less game to run through QA, there's a greater chance that a larger percentage of the bugs will be caught.

 

Even at 5 years, Half-Life 2 was still in development longer than Half-Life 1...before Source was leaked.

 

And look it ain't no RPG. Better is to actually use Vampire bloodlines, and that one made it longer than 20 hours of gameplay, nah?

 

No. What sense would it be to compare Bloodlines, a game where the developers didn't have to make or modify the engine in any way, where tools are provided for them to make the game, with a different game? Bloodlines has much more in common with KOTOR2 than it would with NWN2, since it's built upon existing technology.

 

Basically I have never fully completed both Half-Lifes (hate them both) to tell anything about the time needed for it; but if HL2 is really shorter...could you give an explanation why that is?

 

Because much of the 6 years of development was not dedicated to actually making and creating the game story. You see, Half-Life was developed on top of existing technology from the Quake engine, and built with the same tools. Half-Life 2 was developed completely from scratch. Completely new engine, which would require their own toolset. The reason why HL2 definitely isn't longer (despite years more production time) is because they had so much more to do

 

 

Which engine is it?  The graphics of NWN2 don't really look like NWN.

 

The original. As we all know Electron is the same engine but with the graphical engine upgraded. Since the underlying rules are still the same that shouldn't prevent OE from building up the game...

 

Brian Lawson would disagree:

 

"While we "started with" the "Aurora Engine" many things have changed. The toolset has been complpetely rewritten...from scratch. Hence, there is no underlying Aurora Tool code or anything of that nature. The tool that will be used to "build" the game will be brand new.

 

Electron is the new rendering engine and the same goes for it. It's 100% stand alone in the sense that it uses nothing from Aurora."

 

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...&forum=95&sp=30

 

By the sounds of it, both the toolset and Electron are brand new.

 

I'm talking about the toolset that comes with the game for us to use.  Resources have been spent to significantly improve the toolset (I think Llyranor even posted a PPT presentation about it) to make content creation for the end user less of a challenge.

 

And a friendlier to use toolset should how block devs from making the game itself from being bigger? Sure you can alter the toolset, but that wouldn't mean that at the same time the current couldn't be used for levelbuilding...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It blocks the devs because instead of taking the time to make game content, they are spending time making the toolset. Toolsets don't just make themselves.

[Hassat Hunter]

Then you're not looking hard enough.  They said they want to release a quality game.  If there's less game to run through QA, there's a greater chance that a larger percentage of the bugs will be caught.

 

If a game has to be 20 hours because otherwise the QA team cannot cope up with freeing it of bugs you either need more or more competant testers...

Personnally if a game is only 20 hours because of the QA-team cannot handle more I would opt to sack them all...

No, there are other reasons why NWN2 could be a 20 hours game

 

No. What sense would it be to compare Bloodlines, a game where the developers didn't have to make or modify the engine in any way, where tools are provided for them to make the game, with a different game?  Bloodlines has much more in common with KOTOR2 than it would with NWN2, since it's built upon existing technology.

 

Actually it would be more valid. Source was totally new. Electron is build upon Aurora, like Troika had an (very) early version of Source and had to adjust/clean it of bugs/memory leaks, add in the wanted graphical adjustments etc. themselves.

 

Because much of the 6 years of development was not dedicated to actually making and creating the game story.  You see, Half-Life was developed on top of existing technology from the Quake engine, and built with the same tools.  Half-Life 2 was developed completely from scratch.  Completely new engine, which would require their own toolset.  The reason why HL2 definitely isn't longer (despite years more production time) is because they had so much more to do

 

Does the building of the engine compares to the building of the game. Does UT2K7 been in production as long as UE3... nope. But damn well they started building UT2K7 was FAR from finished and needed several adjustments. Would that mean all the early work done on rules/design/levelbuilding etc. would go to waste. I doubt it. And once again HL2/UT2K7 cannot really be compared to NWN2 since NWN2 HAD a basis.

 

Brian Lawson would disagree:

 

"While we "started with" the "Aurora Engine" many things have changed. The toolset has been complpetely rewritten...from scratch. Hence, there is no underlying Aurora Tool code or anything of that nature. The tool that will be used to "build" the game will be brand new.

 

Electron is the new rendering engine and the same goes for it. It's 100% stand alone in the sense that it uses nothing from Aurora."

 

By the sounds of it, both the toolset and Electron are brand new.

 

Last time this came up here on the forums somebody (dev) told us that that was only the graphical engine that got total revamp. Thus not the things like levelbuild, quest-building, AI etc. etc. etc.

 

It blocks the devs because instead of taking the time to make game content, they are spending time making the toolset.  Toolsets don't just make themselves.

 

Really, do you think the leveldesigners or Chris Avallone would be working programming the toolset...

You have programmers for that usually... the storywriters don't do it... (hell, I don't even wan't them to)

 

EDIT: On the Electron stuff:

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=38146&hl=

 

EDIT2: (to make it even easier)

Okay. You may want to go back and edit your post where you wrote, "And, 2 year sor so for NWN2 isn't bad since they didn't start the graphics from scratch. That's a myth."

 

In fact, that is precisely what Brian did. No one is saying that the scripting language and underlying game logic is different.

Edited April 25, 2006 by Hassat Hunter

[Tigranes]

Ofcourse you can. If you make a map, fill it with quest and enemies and such and a programmer adds in a new shader for the map, would you really think all quest have to be re-added, enemies replaced, AI reconfigured. And maybe maybe that even has to be done sometimes... but that is the job of the QA deparment, not those individual creators to find out.

 

QA is designed as a stopgap for any unforseen errors that emerge, not a reliance as part of game development. This approach will work but will produce more errors. Given OE's past friendship with bugs, do you really want that? As I said before: it is not impossible, but it hurts continuity, consistency of quality, polish and design linearity. I believe one game where they kept updating engine/toolset was Torn. Heh. You know about Torn, right?

 

If it was the way you mentioned it nothing could be done gameplaywise untill FAR at the end of Beta... too bad usually all the gamecode/mechanics and stuff are in in the earliest ALPHA. original.gif

 

That's because for a game to be CALLED alpha, it has to have gamecode/mechanics and everything else. That has to be the most illogical argument I've heard from you in this thread. The Toolset/Engine may not have to be 100% complete, but they must be completed to a reasonably high degree. This rules out your "But they had 3 years to make the OC!!!" argument.

 

Kotor's, infinity, unfinished versions of the NWN toolkit etc.

 

If you think they could use KOTOR's toolkits, or the infinity engine to make things for NWN2, you are an idiot. Yeah, why dont' we just go and make those NWN2 levels in the Source Engine? I'm sure it'll be real easy and not time consuming to port all that stuff into the NWN2 Toolset when it's done. You don't have to give a diatribe about what devs do and don't do, it's common knowledge.

 

If that was so explain to me why the UT2K7 devs can play their levels in UNTEXTURED, WIRE-FRAMED levels and when deemed "good to play" the actual engine-stuff is added

 

Missing textures is not a problem. Textures are one of the last things to be created graphics-wise. Now answer me this: from the status of No Engine (or NWN Engine that needs to be rebuilt from ground up), how much is there before Textures?

 

(an engine BTW who keeps getting additions adjustments even if several dozens of devs already use it to make a game)???

 

Already addressed above. You have to hit a certain level of dev. with engine/toolset, which means more than 2 weeks, before you can start any serious degree of level design, especially in CRPGs.

 

Thus not the things like levelbuild, quest-building, AI etc. etc. etc.

 

This would imply that such things did not undergo significant change in the way they are coded.

Edited April 25, 2006 by Tigranes

[Camael]

What confounds me is that Obsidian is loaded with RPG veterans who have worked on many RPGs over the years and have had a great deal of experience with all of the planning and project management involved. And, they have the experience of having run into the kinds of problems that RPG developers typically have again and again as well. Now it looks like their second project in a row has had content gutted and work wasted. I understand that big projects like this might be tricky to manage, but this sounds like a complete project management breakdown and disaster. J.E. Sawyer posted recommendations for project management for mod makers on this forum a while back:

 

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=8168&st=0

 

It is full of a lot of basic, solid project management advice and it is hard to imagine that this could have happened to NWN2 if it had been managed even in this way. It seems like these problems should have been caught a long time ago before they actually progressed to the point of cutting content, 20 hr campaign, etc. Are people out there actually managing their mods more carefully than a project the scale of NWN2? Who was in charge of managing this project? This might be more understandable for a first time RPG developer , but Obsidian?

[mkreku]

Who knows if they cut out content because it wasn't up to snuff (quality-wise) and not because they were under time pressure?

 

I believe they cut it because of quality concerns and the 20 hour main campaign is a result of that.

[Tigranes]

What management failures / project breakdowns are you referring to? It's hardly any surprise for things to be "cut" along the way. Or do you mean that they recently cut from 30+ hours to ~20 hours?

[alanschu]

Then you're not looking hard enough.  They said they want to release a quality game.  If there's less game to run through QA, there's a greater chance that a larger percentage of the bugs will be caught.

 

If a game has to be 20 hours because otherwise the QA team cannot cope up with freeing it of bugs you either need more or more competant testers...

Personnally if a game is only 20 hours because of the QA-team cannot handle more I would opt to sack them all...

 

A claim you can only make if you are in the loop. Which you aren't. They clearly have a goal to get the game out by a specific date. And since you mentioned KOTOR 2, all the "40+ hours of quality" doesn't mean much if it's a buggy mess. Given how people were all over them because of KOTOR2 being buggy on release, they'd probably rather NOT destroy their image any more.

 

No. What sense would it be to compare Bloodlines, a game where the developers didn't have to make or modify the engine in any way, where tools are provided for them to make the game, with a different game?  Bloodlines has much more in common with KOTOR2 than it would with NWN2, since it's built upon existing technology.

 

Actually it would be more valid. Source was totally new. Electron is build upon Aurora, like Troika had an (very) early version of Source and had to adjust/clean it of bugs/memory leaks, add in the wanted graphical adjustments etc. themselves.

 

They didn't adjust it, nor did they fix memory leaks. And according to Brian Lawson, a man much more credible than you. Electron is the rendering engine. In other words...graphics. Source (which is a graphics engine) was not developed by Troika. Electron is.

 

 

Because much of the 6 years of development was not dedicated to actually making and creating the game story.  You see, Half-Life was developed on top of existing technology from the Quake engine, and built with the same tools.  Half-Life 2 was developed completely from scratch.  Completely new engine, which would require their own toolset.  The reason why HL2 definitely isn't longer (despite years more production time) is because they had so much more to do

 

Does the building of the engine compares to the building of the game. Does UT2K7 been in production as long as UE3... nope. But damn well they started building UT2K7 was FAR from finished and needed several adjustments. Would that mean all the early work done on rules/design/levelbuilding etc. would go to waste. I doubt it. And once again HL2/UT2K7 cannot really be compared to NWN2 since NWN2 HAD a basis.

 

You're just grasping at straws now.

 

 

Brian Lawson would disagree:

 

"While we "started with" the "Aurora Engine" many things have changed. The toolset has been complpetely rewritten...from scratch. Hence, there is no underlying Aurora Tool code or anything of that nature. The tool that will be used to "build" the game will be brand new.

 

Electron is the new rendering engine and the same goes for it. It's 100% stand alone in the sense that it uses nothing from Aurora."

 

By the sounds of it, both the toolset and Electron are brand new.

 

Last time this came up here on the forums somebody (dev) told us that that was only the graphical engine that got total revamp. Thus not the things like levelbuild, quest-building, AI etc. etc. etc.

 

Errr, that's exactly what Brian's quote said. "Electron is the new rendering engine." I never assumed anything other than the Graphical engine was revamped. But try making a level when you have no engine to design it with. Nor tools to design it with. Try editting a previously built level with a completely different toolset.

 

 

It blocks the devs because instead of taking the time to make game content, they are spending time making the toolset.  Toolsets don't just make themselves.

 

Really, do you think the leveldesigners or Chris Avallone would be working programming the toolset...

You have programmers for that usually... the storywriters don't do it... (hell, I don't even wan't them to)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

He'd be working in preproduction. Kind of like the state Fallout 3 would be in right now. It's why game development takes so long.

 

Furthermore, Lawson's post gives the indication that these rewrites didn't happen right away. You also introduce the possibilty of new bugs, new problems, and different hurdles. Even if they can still use pre-rewrite assets, it's hard to write and test scripts if the map you designed has now exploded due to the changes in the toolset.

[Hassat Hunter]

QA is designed as a stopgap for any unforseen errors that emerge, not a reliance as part of game development. This approach will work but will produce more errors. Given OE's past friendship with bugs, do you really want that? As I said before: it is not impossible, but it hurts continuity, consistency of quality, polish and design linearity. I believe one game where they kept updating engine/toolset was Torn. Heh. You know about Torn, right?

 

I wan't a job in QA now... as I just found out you can sit on your ass siping a drink for the first 2.5 year of development. *sigh* What kind of bugs is QA supposed to be finding in the begin of dev cycle when everything is bound (and WILL) to change? Think about it...

 

That's because for a game to be CALLED alpha, it has to have gamecode/mechanics and everything else. That has to be the most illogical argument I've heard from you in this thread. The Toolset/Engine may not have to be 100% complete, but they must be completed to a reasonably high degree. This rules out your "But they had 3 years to make the OC!!!" argument.

 

And that usually does NOT happen 2 years after the starting of the project... and these gamecodes and mechanics can be changed too... unlikely, but alterations are always possible ofcourse. Really, you do NOT have to have a finished engine and toolset to start making the actual "visible" content for a game. If that was the case it would take ALOT longer to actually create games...

 

If you think they could use KOTOR's toolkits, or the infinity engine to make things for NWN2, you are an idiot. Yeah, why dont' we just go and make those NWN2 levels in the Source Engine? I'm sure it'll be real easy and not time consuming to port all that stuff into the NWN2 Toolset when it's done. You don't have to give a diatribe about what devs do and don't do, it's common knowledge.

 

I was mentioning that they had no problems making 40+ hours games with these tools. Seeing how those did not have to be presented to the community it was likely these were alot more complicated to use than NWN2's. Yet still you think they cannot use such a toolset wisely to also make a 40+ here? Odd...

 

Missing textures is not a problem. Textures are one of the last things to be created graphics-wise. Now answer me this: from the status of No Engine (or NWN Engine that needs to be rebuilt from ground up), how much is there before Textures?

 

I know... but the fact is that the Epic people just play a level without ANY fluff whatsoever (wireframe etc.) untill they fit it fine to make textures, models, GFX etc. for it... which they should not be able to do according to you since an engine change would seriously alter the levelbuild, or something like that it was...

 

(Already addressed above. You have to hit a certain level of dev. with engine/toolset, which means more than 2 weeks, before you can start any serious degree of level design, especially in CRPGs.

 

Why so. They already got a toolset with the Aurora engine. Despite altering the graphics engine completely the fact that the other codes still worked as should should make them able to actually go work on the areas they wanted and then later add in the fluff made by the graphics engine...similar to UT2K7's level design, just with more looks from right away...

 

This would imply that such things did not undergo significant change in the way they are coded. 

 

They change, indeed they do. But that does not mean that levels cannot be created and filled till all of this has been finalised, as you are claiming. They can just make it and then when there is a newer model for the char they replace. If the convotree is altered they change... etc. etc. etc.

[Dark_Raven]

Judging it "only" on length?

 

Yeah, that's not a good idea.

 

But it DOES matter.

 

Length is always important.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good quality length is important. It could be long but boring.

[thepixiesrock]

Morrowind.

[Dark_Raven]

Looks like you already pointed out problems.  The beginning and end are subpar.  Not to mention the large amount of problems people have had with playing the game at times.

 

There's also people that would argue that it isn't a 40+ hour game.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

There is nothing particularly wrong with the begining. Just like any RPG the further in you get the more things you have to play around with. The end, well it's well known that the end wasnt as intended so you it's not really anything you can relate to another product.

 

People said the same thing about Irenicus' dungeon in BGII and Telos as they did about Peragus. It's one of those RPG things.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Being in the BG2 mod community, I heard many complaints about Irenicus Dungeon being boring and dull. I myself never had an issue with it.

 

Peragus is another beginning I hear about being boring, worthless. I agree its boring and tend to go through it quickly.

[Tigranes]

I wan't a job in QA now... as I just found out you can sit on your ass siping a drink for the first 2.5 year of development.

 

That's why they aren't hired for the first 2.5 years, at least for that project. Knock knock, Brain.

 

And that usually does NOT happen 2 years after the starting of the project...

 

Where did I say 2 years? Neither you nor I know the exact date, you'd have to have specific knowledge of this particular project as a whole to give an estimate.

 

eally, you do NOT have to have a finished engine and toolset to start making the actual "visible" content for a game.

 

HH, Meet Reading Comprehension. I said a significant degree must be finished, at least the basics. I strongly suggest that they did NOT have 2 full years to do their OC based on this fact. Perhaps you disagree.

 

I was mentioning that they had no problems making 40+ hours games with these tools. Seeing how those did not have to be presented to the community it was likely these were alot more complicated to use than NWN2's. Yet still you think they cannot use such a toolset wisely to also make a 40+ here? Odd...

 

1/ Using a toolset wisely has nothing to do with making longer games. Your logic is nonexistent. Of course OE knows how to use toolsets wisely. Your point? It's not THAT which has impeded them from making a long game.

 

2/ Therefore the entire paragraph becomes irrelevant.

 

I know... but the fact is that the Epic people just play a level without ANY fluff whatsoever (wireframe etc.) untill they fit it fine to make textures, models, GFX etc. for it... which they should not be able to do according to you since an engine change would seriously alter the levelbuild, or something like that it was...

 

CRPGs are different from FPS. What is essential to test your levels in FPS? Recognisable floors, walls, moving blocks labelled "ENEMY A" and something that fires projectiles. Balancing according to different guns and physics can take place after, because the primary concern in FPS level design is navigatibility and atmosphere, which can be estimated with a pac man engine. CRPGs require dialogue systems, inventory systems, character building systems, magic systems, a more complicated combat system, etc, to be in place at least. None of this is in regard to graphics, although that certainly helps.

 

Why so. They already got a toolset with the Aurora engine.

 

Which you can't use for NWN2. They could make "drafts" and port it over later, yes, but then you could just make "drafts" on paper. "Port it over" pretty much means, "make the whole thing again".

 

You seem to be saying that I believe an engine/etc needs to be FINISHED first. I have stated repeatedly that this is not my argument. My argument is that it needs to be finished to a reasonable degree, and without knowing how much work/editing went into Electron and the NWN2 Toolset you cannot give callous statements such as "they had 2 years to work on the OC". I would suspect it was a lot less than that.

Edited April 25, 2006 by Tigranes

[Darque]

Morrowind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...is a game where you make your own fun

[Hassat Hunter]

What management failures / project breakdowns are you referring to? It's hardly any surprise for things to be "cut" along the way. Or do you mean that they recently cut from 30+ hours to ~20 hours?

 

Do you really mean you think cutting 33% of a game 6 months before release after 2.5 year of creating does NOT worry you?

 

A claim you can only make if you are in the loop.  Which you aren't.  They clearly have a goal to get the game out by a specific date.  And since you mentioned KOTOR 2, all the "40+ hours of quality" doesn't mean much if it's a buggy mess.  Given how people were all over them because of KOTOR2 being buggy on release, they'd probably rather NOT destroy their image any more.

 

We all know that is because LA has an incompetant team. Which is why Obsidian hired an internal team. If that team is not capable of keeping more than 20 hours bugfree though it is more a step backwards than one forwards...

Once again, I doubt that will be the reason for a 20 hour game, if the game is 20 hours at all...

I repeat: If you have 40 hours of quality game yet have to make it 20 because the QA team couldn't cope up something is SERIOUSLY wrong there...

 

They didn't adjust it, nor did they fix memory leaks.  And according to Brian Lawson, a man much more credible than you.  Electron is the rendering engine.  In other words...graphics.  Source (which is a graphics engine) was not developed by Troika.  Electron is.

 

Maybe they did more than you think they did. Did you work at Troika? Knew how the engine came in and left?

And rendering is graphics, yup... what does that have to do AT ALL with levelbuild/story and or quest-design I wonder... ofcourse I am missing such an obvious link

 

Errr, that's exactly what Brian's quote said.  "Electron is the new rendering engine."  I never assumed anything other than the Graphical engine was revamped.  But try making a level when you have no engine to design it with.  Nor tools to design it with.  Try editting a previously built level with a completely different toolset.

 

Did you miss my telling how the Epic-people test UT2K7's level. IN WIREFRAME. Tell me what (next-gen)engine you need to run wirefrime... and you also mention yourself the tools and engine changed OVER TIME. Thus they had tools, but they became different the further into the dev. process... and to end completely different...

 

He'd be working in preproduction.  Kind of like the state Fallout 3 would be in right now.  It's why game development takes so long.

 

Probably helping for the stories of PNJ and PG I think.

 

Furthermore, Lawson's post gives the indication that these rewrites didn't happen right away.  You also introduce the possibilty of new bugs, new problems, and different hurdles.  Even if they can still use pre-rewrite assets, it's hard to write and test scripts if the map you designed has now exploded due to the changes in the toolset.

 

They invented something for that. It is called QA...

[Dark_Raven]

Morrowind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...is a game where you make your own fun

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That it is. I held off doing the main quest and decided to do the side quests. Prolong the duration of the game.

[Cantousent]

How do we know what content was cut and why? The only comment I've seen specifically regarding this regards the number of areas in a PW sort of setting. That's not cut content. I hear all sorts of things about placeables and statics and whatever. Are there fewer object but the player is better able to manipulate those objects? Anyhow, the fact is, we assume the campaign will only be 20 hours and then we assume that something must have been cut and the material cut must be related to the quality of the overall game. Too many suppositions (just for you, dega) for my tastes.

 

I'm still trying to get my feeble brain around the issue, but I do know one thing: it's perfectly reasonable to expect that Obsidian, if not Feargus, will clarify the issue. The real question is, how soon? I'm willing to keep my ear to the ground and just hear the news within the next couple weeks. Nevertheless, the longer the speculation continues, the more folks will assume the statement, as it continues to remain unanswered, is valid at some level.

 

Now, as I said in the previous thread, it's probably in Feargus best interest not to answer us right away. In fact, it might be in his best interest to let us stew and then have the official assessment of the exact hours come out later from a different source within the company. Even so, it's in my best interest to agitate for an answer. However, I'm willing to sit back and consider the issue.

 

No matter what, I think Feargus was unwise to make these comments and, since no-one has flatout denied the comments, Feargus must have said something to someone.

 

I agree with Llyranor. It would be quite good if someone could root out the source and give us a first hand account rather than the source we have now. For one thing, the Codex fellow says that NWN2 will suck anyhow, which sounds pretty damned charged in the first place.

[kumquatq3]

How do we go 12 pages in a thread called "How short is too short" with no **** jokes? HOW?

[Llyranor]

I agree with Llyranor.

Me too.

[Darque]

Morrowind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...is a game where you make your own fun

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That it is. I held off doing the main quest and decided to do the side quests. Prolong the duration of the game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just don't get overwhelmed.

[alanschu]

And that usually does NOT happen 2 years after the starting of the project... and these gamecodes and mechanics can be changed too... unlikely, but alterations are always possible ofcourse. Really, you do NOT have to have a finished engine and toolset to start making the actual "visible" content for a game. If that was the case it would take ALOT longer to actually create games...

 

5-6 years isn't long enough for you? Why do you think people license engines?

 

I was mentioning that they had no problems making 40+ hours games with these tools. Seeing how those did not have to be presented to the community it was likely these were alot more complicated to use than NWN2's. Yet still you think they cannot use such a toolset wisely to also make a 40+ here? Odd...

 

Because they didn't change the toolset for KOTOR 2.

 

Why so. They already got a toolset with the Aurora engine.

 

Because they also redesigned the Toolset for NWN2. It's not the Aurora toolset anymore.

 

Despite altering the graphics engine completely the fact that the other codes still worked as should should make them able to actually go work on the areas they wanted and then later add in the fluff made by the graphics engine...similar to UT2K7's level design, just with more looks from right away...

 

It doesn't....because they did more than alter the graphics engine....they redesigned the toolset. Trust me, building levels with one toolset, only to scrap that toolset and bring in another one is not a good idea. And it's not going to be that easy of a transition to just load stuff designed with one toolset into another. Unless they built their toolset in that way (which would take even more time).

 

I know... but the fact is that the Epic people just play a level without ANY fluff whatsoever (wireframe etc.) untill they fit it fine to make textures, models, GFX etc. for it... which they should not be able to do according to you since an engine change would seriously alter the levelbuild, or something like that it was...

 

You can do it if you anticipate it from the beginning and incorporate it directly into your design patterns. Furthermore, UE3 has been in development for a long time. Finally, UE3 hasn't been released yet, but UE4 has already been in development for two years, so it's not like the designers at Epic are shooting from the hip when it comes to expectations of how levels are created. They didn't decide to suddenly rewrite the graphics engine for UT2K7....the concept of the UE3 engine existed long before UT2K7 would have left preproduction.

[Cantousent]

I agree with Llyranor.

Me too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What a yutz.

[Dark_Raven]

Morrowind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...is a game where you make your own fun

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That it is. I held off doing the main quest and decided to do the side quests. Prolong the duration of the game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just don't get overwhelmed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why?