A Scary Trend In Game Editors

[jcompton]

I think that his complaint is that energy spent on making a tool-set user friendly is energy that is not spent on improving the gameplay. Thus with an improved toolset comes an inferior game which is bad news for anyone who has no interest in the tools what so ever.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My strong intuition is that most of the time, "we'll need to cripple the engine, and therefore the content creation tools, so that the average retail customer content creation enthusiast can use the tools" is not the case. Sticking with the item creation example, it seems a slam-dunk that a "friendly front-end" lets anybody who can hold a mouse make a Sword of Wounding that, say, does double-damage on hit, lets an intermediate content creator slap a script on it which also plays a special sound effect and a color pulse (or something) through a simple short block of code, and lets an advanced content creator cause the sword to also solve all Sudoku puzzles within 100 meters of the wielder using a complex script involving a call to _fold. A sensible, consumer-oriented toolset would make it easy to do the first, doable to do the second, and probably offer no advice whatsoever about doing the third.

 

My point is, I would be shocked if any engine designers deliberately omitted features because they didn't know how to expose them in a friendly toolset. It's far more likely that an engine wouldn't have, say, a _fold function because the designers didn't think anybody at all would use it, not because they were obsessing over ways to explain complex math within a friendly toolbox window.

[Gorgon]

I don't think there are that many of those editors that were actially designed with the intent of being easy to begin with.

[Tale]

Even RPG maker had a learning curve. It wasn't a giant learning curve, but it existed.

Edited January 15, 2007 by Tale

[jcompton]

I don't think there are that many of those editors that were actially designed with the intent of being easy to begin with.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In part that's because the model has inverted over the past 10 years or so.

 

In the past, "games you build other games with" typically fell into one of three categories:

 

- An end-of-life way to squeeze more out of a successful game engine at the end of its life. Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set, Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set, Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker, Bard's Tale Construction Kit, "gold box" Unlimited Adventures, etc. The public product reflected a proven game engine which probably wasn't going to be used for any new titles, and a mixture of internal developer tools, cleaned up somewhat for the general public.

- A failed attempt to build a commercially viable engine, repackaged as an editor.

- A game shipped with some tools as a "here ya go, kid" afterthought.

 

(I'm sure there are a few exceptions, but you get the point.)

 

NWN(2) were expressly different, and of course the widespread public Internet has increased pressure to allow more content creation because it's drastically easier to share your content with more than just a few friends. (You see the occasional person asking "Hey, does anybody have that ACS/BTCK game I uploaded to Q-Link/CompuServe years and years ago? I've lost my original disks!" here and there, but for the most part, those mods and modded products just didn't have legs.)

 

So it's changed the order and the timing of when developers may start caring what the public thinks of the tools, but I still say little has changed from an engine development standpoint. It's true that you don't get the advantage of "ripening" the engine over a few public products before releasing the tools like you did with ACS/BTCK/etc., but I think most eager modders are happy to take that trade.

[Cantousent]

I think the example of the "sword of wounding" is particularly poor. Of course, it's easy to point to some sort of generic weapon that functions the same whether it's packaged in the orginal game or custom created by the end-user. That's not the point.

 

Alan understood me correctly when he cited the tileset. The point isn't creating some sort of common or reaonablly commen effect on a weapon. The point is that, to make area creation easier, the design team used a toolset that looked ugly. ...ramps instead of trails in mountain areas... caves that look more like square niches... weapons that looked increasingly generic as time progressed.

 

Let's not even include graphics. Let's just talk about those swords of wounding. Because the design team must concentrate on the toolset as well as the level design, they're already constrained from the very beginning. Sure, the toolset is designed to allow for a great variety of experiences, but what happens if the toolset doesn't support some cool idea that someone has in later development. What if they want to throw a twist into the sword of wounding that isn't feasible with the current toolset? This is not an idle example. There were changes in NWN2 in the late stages of development. So, if these ideas aren't possible with the toolset, then they can't go into the packaged game unless the toolset is also changed. If the developers didn't have to worry about an end-user toolset, then they'd have half the work. At the very least, they'd have less work.

 

Your example fixates on a trivial matter, a single weapon, whereas I'm talking about the whole product.

 

Modding is great. There are many mods out there for games that didn't have a toolset packaged with the original product. ...And the majority of mods for those games have one significant advantage: the folks who created the mods were dedicated enough to train themselves.

 

I don't even mind toolsets. What I don't like is when the end product must be made only using a toolset that must be reasonably simple enough for the avergage player to use. Look at the premise of this thread. Not only are Toolsets getting to be too difficult to master for the average player but, more importantly, difficult toolsets are a bad thing.

[Wistrik]

Being a fast learner isn't the same as being adaptable. If you want to jump into modding a newer engine, you'll have to bite the bullet and be flexible enough to accept the changes in the new toolset. Once you've overcome your resistance to change, your fast-learning capability will kick in and everything will become easy again. Complaining won't cause the developer to rewrite the toolset, though they might make a few changes here and there, as has already been done with NWN2's toolset.

 

Otherwise, consider staying with the game you know well.

[alanschu]

Alan understood me correctly when he cited the tileset.

 

Do I get TOMBS points?

 

Let's not even include graphics. Let's just talk about those swords of wounding. Because the design team must concentrate on the toolset as well as the level design, they're already constrained from the very beginning. Sure, the toolset is designed to allow for a great variety of experiences, but what happens if the toolset doesn't support some cool idea that someone has in later development. What if they want to throw a twist into the sword of wounding that isn't feasible with the current toolset? This is not an idle example. There were changes in NWN2 in the late stages of development. So, if these ideas aren't possible with the toolset, then they can't go into the packaged game unless the toolset is also changed. If the developers didn't have to worry about an end-user toolset, then they'd have half the work. At the very least, they'd have less work.

 

To be fair, this situation can happen even with a private toolset. Time invested on making a toolset is not necessarily time that could be spent on making a better game, since the designers will probably use the toolset themselves. So there is already going to have to be some sort of time concentrated on the toolset, regardless of a release.

[Lokey]

The point is that, to make area creation easier, the design team used a toolset that looked ugly.  ...ramps instead of trails in mountain areas...  caves that look more like square niches... 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's not the choice to use tilesets that resulted in a lackluster element of the end product. Remember, you're talking about a game that was designed for a middle-of-the-road machine in 1998 or 99 among other design choices.

[Dark_Raven]

Modding is great. There are many mods out there for games that didn't have a toolset packaged with the original product. ...And the majority of mods for those games have one significant advantage: the folks who created the mods were dedicated enough to train themselves.

Yes we were/are.

 

Many of the Baldur's Gate mod tools were intimidating to the person who didn't know anything about it. Those who succeed were those who adapted and learned to use them. Hell there's even a DOS based tool called Weidu, which is great and far more functional than some of the GUI editors.

[Cantousent]

Good points, all around.

 

I dunno. I feel it's a bit unfair for Elizabeth when folks dispute her points from both sides. I contend that toolsets shouldn't be easy while others contend that the toolsets out there are actually quite easy enough.

 

I do have to say that I admire folks, like DR, who can delve into the engine and create mods.

 

Alan, of course, has points than he needs, but I'm more than willing to give him more. Have some points.

[alanschu]

The point is that, to make area creation easier, the design team used a toolset that looked ugly.  ...ramps instead of trails in mountain areas...  caves that look more like square niches... 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's not the choice to use tilesets that resulted in a lackluster element of the end product. Remember, you're talking about a game that was designed for a middle-of-the-road machine in 1998 or 99 among other design choices.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I doubt NWN was released for 1998 middle of the road computers. 1998 middle of the road computers would be Pentium MMX processors and AMD K6 processors. Not to mention Winchips and . The minimum requirements for NWN is a Pentium II 450 MHz processor. Pentium III processors were just coming out in 1999, and a Pentium II 450 was still an excellent, high performance gaming machine. As was the brand new TNT2 chipset just released by nVidia later that year. The system requirements much closer to a 2002 (the game's release year) middle of the road computer.

 

The idea for design to include the tile-based toolset is very much motivated by Bioware's desire to make the game mod friendly. They were setting up infrastructure for the online computer, and were very much hoping that the game's success would be accentuated with the online community making high quality adventures themselves. In fact, they even created the NWN Live team to create their own free adventures to prolong the use for their fans, which lead to projects such as The Witch's Wake (which a continuation was cancelled, likely due to the realization that this business model is not particularly profitable).

 

Placing tiles is not a particularly difficult thing to do. There was no reason why they had to go with a tile-based system, from a hardware perspective. You were already getting more intricate level designs in games like Half-Life and Unreal. The problem of course, was that this was not easy. So the focus for the toolset was much easier content creation, which lead to artificial looking ramps for hills and whatnot. And because Bioware wanted to make the OC using only the toolset (likely to demonstrate that the toolset is powerful enough to make viable commercial game - a claim I wouldn't dispute despite what issues many seem to have with the OC). As a result, we get rather artificial looking areas.

 

The choice to use the user-friendly tileset creation very likely resulted in the "lackluster" visual quality of the end product.

 

 

 

And thank you for the points Cantousent.

[ElizabethLestrad]

True, but at the same time, it doesnt mean you cant be user friendly with more modern technology. Just look at a game like Pariah. Granted that game got absolutely panned by critics and gamers alike (from what Ive heard), but having seen their editor (and actually goofed around with it) it was userfriendly and powerful, with possibly the lowest learning curve Ive possibly ever seen. Granted it had about as many placables and textures as the Saharrah Desert has life, but the fact that they at least tried (and almost succeeded) to make a point definitly is worth some respect.

 

My concern was actually answered really early on in...I cant remember the persons post...when they said game editors were being made more complicated for the modders. Well if they keep getting made more complicated, the number of new modders are eventually and inevitably going to die off so how would modding continue if editors are getting exponentially harder to use all the time? And in a way your right. I didnt have to pick NWNII over NWN it had several things that NWN didnt.

 

1.) The Graphics - no way to truely do a grand project justice than with excellent graphics

 

Ok, maybe only one thing...I would have put number of monsters, item customibility options, etc but NWN did at least have it beat there. And I would have put a community (of which NWN was dying by the time I was forced to stop due to Internet Nazis at college 3-4 years ago, but unfortunatly the NWN II community has not taken off like was expected for reasons I cant comprehend. So at this point, sadly, ive resigned myself to the fact that theres absolutely no insentive in trying to fulfill a "grand vision" at this point since nobodys going to see it even if I tried anyways...and I wouldnt dare put something up of a quality that Id never play on just to try.

 

But hey, when you cant even get people at $15 an hour to help out theres really no reason to bother anyways. I'll just probably wait till I have enough fleshed out and sell the idea for a stand alone game and then at least Id make some money off all the waiting I had to do to finally get something worth while done (Heavy sarcasm). Heh, at this point I dont even have the incentive enough to update my webpage that I put up to advertise the mod. But even if I had the incentive and abilities required to do the project, it would never be finished. Not because of the scope, but Rakasha are kinda a important part to it and without them its kinda mute.

[Diamond]

Well if they keep getting made more complicated, the number of new modders are eventually and inevitably going to die off so how would modding continue if editors are getting exponentially harder to use all the time? And in a way your right. I didnt have to pick NWNII over NWN it had several things that NWN didnt.

No. Modders learn, and they don't suddenly "forget" all their experience when a new editor comes out. Heck, Photoshop and 3DSMax are getting more and more complex with every version and noone "dies off", because artists learn and require more powerful tools to get the job done quicker. However for a newcomer it will be harder to learn those tools than, say, 5 years ago.

[Volourn]

"And I would have put a community (of which NWN was dying by the time I was forced to stop due to Internet Nazis at college 3-4 years ago,"

 

NWN's community is pretty much nearly as strong as it always has been community wise. In fact, it hasn't lost all that many players even with NWN2's release.