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Neverwinter Nights Forum News (Dec. 04, 05)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Dec 7, 2005.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Remove all ads!
    Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

    Derek French, Live Team Producer

    NWN Diamond edition and failing disk check
    Diamond only exists as a DVD version. It should say that on the box.

    More:
    does this also re-create the old need to be online to run & play the premium modules?
    Running the update only fixes the disk/DVD check. It does not alter the behaviour of the Premium modules ability to play offline.

    Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

    30 Nov 2005 - The Contest That Might Become Your Career
    The word from Kevin B.: "Scripting is fine. Any scripts should be fully commented and, if taken from someone else, fully accredited." So there you go. I'll get the contest page updated with this new bit for the FAQ.

    More: To address some of Llandru's questions from back a few posts- all entries are welcome even if you have no plans on coming to Canada. The moving the Canada thing will come from a more formal job application discussions that beyond the scope of this contest. Treat this contest as a way to get your foot in the door rather than the winner gets hired. In the FAQ I do mention that winning does NOT mean you’re hired as there are a great deal of factors involved in that call. It will get people's attention however if you do well in the contest as we started this whole thing to see if we can discover some talented people out there who are interested in being professional game writers.

    The second question about format- if you send in a module that can be played by us with a regular install of Windows NWN then however you get that is just fine. Keep in mind that the public will be playing all the modules and voting on them in addition to our as-yet unnamed panel of judges before BioWare looks at the entries so if the public can view the module with no problem then we should too.

    More: Valid concerns certainly. I am hoping that the restrictive parameters that we have in place to ease the reading of the story will help curb the flashy stuff from being put in the module first place because that is not what is being evaluated but...I know better. :)

    Maximus and I are working out the details on how submissions will work and how and when voting will be possible on the submitted work. It is correct that we wanted the community’s thoughts on the submission but we also will have a panel of judges as described in the contest details to pick out their favorites. These judges will be looking only at the writing to make their decisions

    I think this is very cool opportunity for the community to show us what writers they like. Some of the writers featured here may actually work for BioWare one day and so this is a great time to be heard as a fan on what you like. If you vote flashy special effects and slick cut scenes over what may be much better writing then I guess that is what you prefer. This is not to say that exceptional writing does not have all these elements but in this contest if you can tell a heck of story with a open field and 4 people standing in a circle then you really are a person of talent and we will take a long look at your stuff. Bells and whistles won’t help in this case. Focus on the writing.

    Robin Mayne, Webmaster

    That was very fun, thank you!
    I assume you are refering to Pirates of the Sword Coast. :) Glad you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for more Premium Module goodness in 2006.

    Georg Zoeller, Designer

    30 Nov 2005 - The Contest That Might Become Your Career
    Couple of questions:

    1. If someone is intrigued by the contest (and the work) but don't see themselves moving to Edmonton in the near (or medium) future, should they not enter?

    2. If someone is on a platform that didn't get a retail toolset (Linux, Mac), but is able to cobble together a module that conforms to the requirements using 3rd party tools, is that entry eligible?
    1. I'd enter the contest anyway.

    2. The result counts - if the module runs with NWN for Windows, I don't think we care how it was created. After all, it's about the writing, not the technical aspects of the module.

    More:
    Aha! I guess I'll have to find a work-around for those "non-conversation" texts then.

    By the way, Jay; I suppose the scripts for furthering conversations should be left out as well (For the sake of being able to explore the rest of the conversation)?

    In other words; the following example can't be created (Due to the lack of localValues).

    Example:
    Bob- "Ahh, Tim, did you visit Luc yet?"
    Tim- "Of course I did!"
    Luc- "Yes, Tim stopped by earlier."
    I don't think you need to avoid using local variables to track plot flow.

    The reason for not using actual skill checks is that the results would be random and make it hard for a reviewer to see parts of what you have done. Using local or global variables to control the flow of the plot is pretty much necessary to create any kind of plot that makes sense. Just don't go crazy to the point where 60% of your available module text is "hidden" in some obscure conditions that you can only ever see if you do things in the right order or so. And remember that in the end it mostly about your writing, not about fancy scripting - if you are really good at that, there are other positions available that you might want to look at too. But I'll get Jay to clarify this tomorrow.

    More:
    I have some questions of my own:

    1. What defines a Character? IE is it a literary definition or simply the placement of NPCs? For example, if I were to make a placeable or a door have a dialog, is that a character? What if the door object speaks for someone behind it? Furthermore, can you make more than 3 NPCs if only 3 ever appear? Say you have a choice and depending on your choice, a different NPC appears, do they both count towards the limit despite being mutually exclusive?

    2. I assume we don't have to worry about stupid-talk since that would really cut into how many words we get, right?

    3. Do NPC and placeable descriptions (Examine Window) count towards the word count?
    1. Jay would have to suppy an official answer on that from James or Kevin. One of the things they are probably looking at is a writer's ability to create interesting character personalities within the given restrictions, so a door or rock would probably not be the most optimal choice for that, but maybe it can be done. Again, wait for an official answer from Jay, I'm sure he's already looking into these questions and post some answers tomorrow or so.

    2. I'd avoid stupid talk, yes. It's not really a good way of showing off your writing skill and we haven't been using it since SoU.

    3. Jay would have to answer that officially but I suspect that you won't need to put a lot of focus on these, most players never look at them.

    More:
    Hi There,

    I have a question regarding potential writers who responded to your jobs page listing. I just finished and submitted a module, using the guidelines that were listed in the jobs page. These guidelines are a bit different than the contest guidelines; my module uses several small areas (easy to navigate with plenty of direction and map notes), over 4100 words, and has numerous NPC's (really only one "main" guy, the rest are much smaller roles). I definitely tried to make the story very easily playable, with ridiculously easy combat that only occurs when totally required by the story.

    I've been pretty excited about getting a shot to show my writing/storytelling ability, but now that there is a contest as well as a job listing, do I need to resubmit another module that fits the contest parameters to have as good a chance as the other folks for the job? If so, I'd be perfectly happy to do that. Will another submission that fits the contest parameters be disregarded because I already turned one in yesterday?

    Thanks, and good luck to you all! I'm sure there are many brilliant writing talents out there in the BioWare community.
    Hey,

    As you said, regular job applications have somewhat different parameters than the contest and their review process is different, so don't worry about your application being invalidated by the contest or so, that's not the case.

    More: One of the most challenging thing in game development is to work with the resources available to you and under the restrictions imposed on you.

    By being able to create a good story / believable characters by the parameters of the contest, a writer demonstrates that (s)he is able to do just that.

    By the way, those restrictions aren't arbitrary, they are there for good reasons.

    Example: If you require the player to read/click through 10 lines of dialog before making a decision / giving him a choice, you can be sure that you lose about 50% of the players around line 5 and probably around 75% of the players around line 10. After all people want to play a game if they buy one, not read a novel :)

    It's definitly challenging to tell a good story under those restrictions, no doubt about that.

    More: You can use SoU and/or HotU. It's way to complicated for the average user to make a plain vanilla NWN module with anoy of the XPs installed.

    More:
    1) A module or not?

    On the contest page, it clearly says you *must* send a NWN module as your entry. But on the job recruitement page (the one that says Bioware might be looking for writers), it says you can send a movie-like script or play-form text of your writings if you don't have the toolset working.

    So my question is this : which information is accurate? The contest or the hiring page?
    Shayna is right, both the job recruitement page and the contest are right. If you want to enter the contest, please follow the rules outlined on the contest page.

    If you instead want to use the traditional way of applying for a job, you are free to do so, but please follow the guidelines on the job description page for that job on http://jobs.bioware.com.

    More:
    I'm also concerned that only the "big names" will get high votes from the community. Nothing against marvellous Adam Miller, but I suppose he'd get a 9,x for a dark room without
    I wonder if not disclosing the author of a module to the community judges might be a good way to avoid that kind of problem.

    More:
    I didn't see this written on the page so I have a question. Does all the work have to be done by 1 person? AKA can 1 person do all the writting, but have other people help out on the technical side?
    1 Person Only Please.

    The technical side is really not the focus here and when the module is judged, it will be judged based on the writing, not scripting.

    More:
    Hey... just finished my entry (well, it works... has three endings and lots of multiple paths. I might polish the dialogue a little but all the main bits are in place.)

    This is actually the first time I've ever managed to complete a mod, it weighs in at an impressive 186kb... most of my unfinished efforts are many times larger.

    Maybe I should try building more smaller mods instead of diving into epics in future... this was really fun and I actually got it winished in less than 3 days from planning to fully written, which is great!

    Anyway... my question is where do I submit it to, and how?

    Thanks for holding this competition... it's actually inspired me to get back into writing mods again, if nothing else. I forgot how much fun writing dialogue is ;)
    Jay will be putting out exact details on how to submit your work soonish. Stay tuned.

    More:
    Hi folks, sorry to the folks in the writter submision department for my e-mail, I realised after I sent my mail that I should have posted here (I'm a writer not a reader lol!!!).

    Its just a quick question. It has been established that 3500 words is for the entire module, but what has not been clarified is how linked text threads in a conversation are counted. Does each line of a link get recounted or is it just counted once since it has only been written once?

    Hope someone can clear this up for me.

    Thanks.
    I do not think Linked lines are counted, but Jay will clarify with KevinB on monday.

    AGP only? What about PCI Express?
    Many of us run PCIe cards at work and NWN runs just fine on those :)

    2 Scripts causing a mod to crash.
    try moving your effect loop into a seperate function and run it delayed on the entering player by 0.0 seconds.

    Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer

    DM client wish list for 1.67
    Another issue I remembered:

    When targeting items in inventories with unique power/activated items, the DM avatar runs off toward the corner of the area. It would be nice to get that fixed.
    I believe I fixed that issue a few months ago, so the fix will most likely be in the upcomming 1.67 upate.

    Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance

    Bored! Need suggestions...
    Perhaps a craft like crocheting or macrame would excite you? i know the Knit-O-Matic 4000 is due to be released next year. ;) But seriously, many people find persistent worlds to be a great past-time, since you have the same old school RPG adventuring feel to it, but also the interaction with other real players and characters. For extra interaction, find yourself a role-playing server!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    chevalier, Dec 7, 2005
    #1
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