modding posts

This presentation was shown at PAX 2008, showing off the many features found in the Dragon Age: Origins Toolset. The video is a little bit heady, but provides a wealth of information for modders and campaign builders to tell the stories they want. Dragon Age: Origins is currently expected to release early 2009.

Download the HD Dragon Age: Origins Toolset Video (116 MB)
Check out all the Dragon Age: Origins Downloads

Obsidian's Josh Sawyer (no relation to Tom Sawyer) recently spoke in a session at the Paris GDC. Discussing their follow-up to Bioware's incredibly popular Neverwinter Nights, the discussed one of the major things they did wrong: making the tools too complex. From Josh Sawyer's seminar:

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. 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.

You can only get so far as an amateur designer if the tools given to you are so complex that they require far more investment of time than you can put in.

Just over a month ago, development studio CD Projekt released an adventure editor for its mature-themed RPG The Witcher. Now, in order to foster an active modding community, the company is holding a contest for upstart adventure creators. This is a good move for CD Projekt; modding communities are one of the PC gaming industry's greatest assets. It worked for Neverwinter Nights!

The contest will be split into five stages. At each stage, CD Projekt will provide some assets and basic guidelines. For example, stage one directs each contestant to use provided character and town assets to create a short quest based around some critical player choice, to be defined by the contestant. This reflects the narrative formula used in the official game content.

Stage one is already underway so if this interests you, download the tools, visit the official wiki to learn them, and get to building!