One of the projects that I have followed for NWN2 was Adam Miller’s next home-grown module: Dark Waters. I haven’t had the opportunity to play it, but this is more of a commentary on the NWN community and how, at least in my opinion, the time has run its course for single person development teams and in some ways part of what drove me away.
I don’t know Adam on a personal basis, but I’ve worked with him on the boards and through the beta and watched the website and seen his prior work so I think I have a decent feel. He is mature and professional and has sunk an absolute huge volume of time into the development of the module. I have no doubt that what he has put into the module is far beyond what most would even consider doing unless they were working towards a career in software, gaming development.
I got my first taste of just how high expectations were in the beta. During the beta, Adam released his Pirate Card game. It had custom graphics, custom UIs, voice overs and a game that was far MORE complex than the mini-games in the KOTR series. Granted, maybe the game wasn’t bug-free and maybe it didn’t have the polish of a professional team, but the scope and effort was simply amazing. I was shocked to open up this module in the beta and thought it was simply jaw-dropping that he could do so much in so little time. That said, comments on the beta board, while they were good and encouraging fell waaay short of my internal enthusiasm.
I think that is the point of this post. Expectations have risen to the point that I’m not sure it is that fun to try to meet them. I look at the reviews and comments on Dark Waters and think “wow” (in a sad way). Not that everyone doesn’t have the right to voice their opinion, but 4’s. Stephan Gagne released some early modules for NWN1 that basically were a few functional shops in a town setting. That effort received 10’s from the community.
Again, I haven’t played his module, but the point is that there used to be a clear 2 tier rating system. One for professional content and one for community content. Community content was expected to be faaaar less professional and it was given huge credit for expanding the current standard. Now expanding the standard is expected and it had better get it accomplished at a professional quality. This is really, in many ways, a credit to the NWN1 community and to what we were able to accomplish but in many ways, I think it has crippled new adopters into the NWN2 community. So we are left with a small group of developers from NWN1 and specialized groups developing projects that are far beyond what a single person can do.
Anyway, I see the work and I think the rewards are less this time around.
How does this relate to the DMFI and my experience, “The DMFI has great marks, you might say”? Yes it does but the numbers of downloads and the overall size of the DM community is but a fraction of the NWN1 community at this time. Secondly, OEI realistically did a poor job delivering a playable DM client and so the DMFI looks good next to the official product that has several basic UIs that are broken or non-functional. Even still, the bar is high and the documentation standards and my personal standards were high enough that I needed a group to continue development and without that support I decided to walk away.
I guess I wish we could all back up in time and lower expectations and just be happy with what we are given. There’s the thought of the day for May 1.
Here’s a link to Adam’s development webpage / blog:
