Work on the new interior level is progressing well. The basic structural pieces are in place now. The tricky part is in finding the right VFX for the level. At this point, I'm not there yet and quite likely, won't get to that part till later. Why? This level was conceptualized around a big boss battle and until I have the mechanics of the battle in place and tested, the level will remain in it's rudimentary form. This way, if at all a rework is required, I can re-do the level quickly and re-test. This will also be one of the final areas the player encounters so as such, there won't be any screenies coming out on this area till release.

In addition to the level building, I have been working on some of the systems within the game, most notably the loot system. I mean, it's high time some of these are done and integrated into the module for balance testing.
First off, the loot system designed for Dragon Age is a very versatile one; requiring one to just modify 2DAs or add additional ones if required. I consider this much more flexible than manually assigning loot for every container/mob and is also much easier to tweak and adjust. So, I won't be making many changes to this system in its basic form.

However, there are a couple of issues with the actual loot in Dragon Age.
One, loot distribution was bad. I am not talking about vendor trash here. Vendor trash is an essential component of any loot system - it is not possible to have every drop contain an item that will be an upgrade to the player. Besides, vendor trash helps generate gold which can be used to purchase other useful things.

This fish is not meant to be cooked!

The problem I see with DA loot is that the distribution of the items for the different treasure levels was bad. Towards the very end, you come upon a locked chest that requires level 4 lockpicking and possibly, extra cunning to break through. You eagerly open it...and find a Health Poultice inside. Oh, the disappointment! Or you find the rare Manuscript Copy. Most of the highest level chests/creatures either gave you potions or money or trash, with some giving runes - which can be more easily purchased.

Second, usefulness of the items. Either the items were inferior to what you already had (even in late-game loot since some of the best items can only be purchased) or you ended up with lots of salves and poisons. Now, if the game mechanics required you to use them, it wouldn't be so bad but I hardly recall using any salve or poison when playing in Hard difficulty. Maybe in Nightmare? Further, unless you are min-maxing and/or playing with a reduced party size, you don't need the best equipment to get through DA. Which results in a lot of gold lying around in the player's inventory. Admittedly, it is not possible to implement a good economy in a single-player game but nevertheless, I think some of these points can be addressed.

How? I cannot just cut down the loot drastically because players expect some reward for the fight they just won. In the same vein, I can't just give out rare and powerful items because that will trivialize the gameplay. There has to be a balance between the two and while there are multiple ways to go about it, I hope to deliver an enjoyable and useful system with BaL. I will cover the details in my next post.

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When Dragon Age was first released and players were talking about having a tank in the group and discussing whether Alistair or Shale was a better tank, I admit I really didn't understand why you'd need a tank in the group. In almost all encounters, a couple of mages in the party will wipe the opposition before the tank even has time to pull aggro. In rare cases when it is required and the tank goes in first to draw threat, the battle is anyway over soon enough. Couple that with the fact that party members cannot die and I didn't see any role for a tank in Dragon Age.

Now, most of my gaming has been with single-player games and the ones I have played multiplayer (Unreal and Shadow Magic), the concept of a tank is non-existent. Well, maybe a little in Shadow Magic but since that was PvP always, that didn't work as expected.

Enter World of Warcraft. Yesterday, I did my first dungeon run - two actually. Being the first time, I didn't even know every member had to talk to the quest-giver to get the quest to show up in the log; just assumed it was handled on a party basis. Even worse, I had a full inventory (I was out doing the regular campaign while queued) and couldn't pick up the items I needed. Second run, I died and couldn't remember the path to get to the other members (this was in Blackfathom Deeps). Anyway, the thing that really struck me about these runs was the importance of a tank. The tanks really played a part here - unless they maintain aggro, it usually leads to a wipe. The mages and other DPS had to make sure they are not drawing too much threat or it's back to spirit form - I learned this the hard way the first time.

Transposing this to Dragon Age, one gets similar skills in the Warrior Shield tree. However, the effectiveness is vastly reduced due to two important factors -

• threat calculation missing/removed from a lot of rogue/mage talents. These classes, primarily DPS, can do damage without being at risk most of the time.
• the mobs (and even bosses) are too weak or too few for the tank role to really shine.

I must say, those dungeon runs were a revelation. As I've said before, Blood and Lyrium will feature custom classes for the player and most companions. In fact, except for the Warrior class...at least, till yesterday. The warrior class in BaL already has no access to the 2H tree so this gives a perfect excuse to maximise the utilization of the Shield tree and design the combat around the concept of a party as in WoW. Since the classes for most companions are fixed, I don't have to deal with the possibilities of a significantly gimped party due to player choice and can pretty much anticipate how strong the party is going to be at key points in the story. I tell you, this is going to become very interesting.

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The second Community Contest to create one or more props for use in a level is now complete and the entries consolidated and uploaded to DA Nexus!

Though we have only three entrants for this competition, two of them have submitted multiple props which should be nice additions for different kinds of level settings. We also have a cool-looking fountain from Mike for use in those upscale city neighbourhoods.

Download and judge for yourself the contest entries here.

While packaging the module, the toolset again exhibited one of it's many quirks - it can post level files which generates all those .rim files but apparently, it cannot package them up for distribution! You have to manually do that yourself.

• Rename the .dazip to .zip
• Extract the contents
• Add a new env folder under the (addin-name)\core folder
• Copy the posted level files into the env folder. Going by Bioware's example, just place the .rim files there. Don't package it into an .erf or the layout won't be available in-game.
• Zip up the contents again - make sure the root contains the Manifest.xml and Contents folder or DAUpdater will throw an error while installing.

It's a good thing the .dazip format is just a renamed .zip format - I cannot think how difficult it would have been had it been a proprietary packaging format!

This highlights one of the problems David Gaider touches upon here - it's not a trivial task to package up a toolset for the community and test it and support it. I would go so far as to say that it is not restricted to the toolset alone but is relevant for any kind of modding capability. I just hope that when (if?) they do release a toolset update after DA2 (is anyone still hopeful that we will get a toolset patch before then? :p), it will fix some of the obvious flaws in the toolset.

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Continuing on from my previous post about the importance of marketing in the modding arena, I would like to touch/expand upon the means by which one can market our mods.

How successful is my marketing?

Blogs, as I've mentioned before, are a very good means of showcasing the development of a blog. However, I've found that when the blogs go beyond the standard fare - i.e., go beyond just the mod updates and include articles on inspirations behind the mod, design decisions, analysis of game mechanics, to name a few - I find them more enjoyable and the impression it creates of the author is better. One excellent example is Challseus' posts in July about the inspirations behind RoE. That made for a fascinating read - I was on vacation so I read through those posts later in one go but I can see how readers will want to come back and read more of those inspirations. It also lends some credibility to the modder; that they are not just changing things to be different but in fact have a good reason to do so.

I actually penned a series of articles related to BaL's design and why certain things were being changed/added/removed but I felt that it would give too much of the game away and I had to stop after a few posts. There's that fine line between revealing too much thus destroying the element of surprise and revealing just enough to build up the anticipation for release and I've yet to find that sweet spot.

The other important aspect is presentation; especially now when there are so many modules to choose from. It makes your content stand out - be it good screenshots (I'm guilty of taking too many dark ones myself), an attractive project page layout or a well put together trailer. If the presentation is good, it will automatically draw people's interest and then, you have to make sure that the content within stands up to that presentation ;)

(c) designmind.frogdesign.com

What are the other means by which modules can be promoted?
Some time back, Mikemike37 suggested Twitter as a means for promoting my blog. The only time I've used Twitter so far is for the Bioware challenges during the infamous Bazaar event but I can see the potential there. It might be more so for a module like Baldur's Gate Redux since it comes attached to a familiar name but who knows! I'll have to get around to doing that soon...

The other option - interviews! In the context of Dragon Age, getting interviewed on the Dragon Age Podcast is sure to get you and your module those few seconds of mass recognition which will, in most cases, translate to increased visibility of your module - more views, more downloads, more ratings.

Well, that concludes my thoughts on marketing for now - this can easily change into a discussion about using social media for online brand marketing but that is an entirely different subject and too vast to be handled here! As always, I'm interested in hearing others' opinions on this subject.

Now, if you've been reading my blog before, you would have noticed these last two posts are not the norm. I was recently interviewed by a thesis student doing his Masters in Communication in Singapore and one of the aspects of modding we talked about was marketing. It was a lengthy interview and a lot of time was spent on this subject which served as inspiration to post here - an evolution of the discussion we had, if you will.

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Anyone creating content - be it a video game mod/module, a home video, fan fiction or mobile apps, to name a few - realizes the importance of marketing or if they don't, should realize and respect it's importance. The ultimate goal of content creation is consumption by the public; a narrow demographic for certain types of content like video game mods or the general public for things like home videos.

How do we get people to consume the content we create? Obviously, the first step is to make them aware that such content exists. Now, some modders might say (and I have heard this before) - I'll let my work speak for itself ; I don't need marketing. My question is - how will the work speak for itself if it is not even in the radar of the folks looking for such content? Alley of Murders, an excellent add-in for Dragon Age and if I recall, one of the first, had less downloads than other add-ins that were released after it. I think one of the problems was marketing.

Granted, most hosting sites have methods in place to show new content that has been uploaded. However, when there is so much content being released on an almost daily basis, will that one day of visibility be enough? It will most definitely be enough for a very small amount of content - The Phoenix Armory for Females is one such example. An extremely well-crafted, beautiful armor set that doesn't look out of place in the Dragon Age world and it's already garnered over 200 endorsements in the past 2 weeks.

It will also quite likely be enough for any content related to sex, as the BSN project page shows.

How can we modders then ensure our modules - which have had hundreds of hours sunk into them - are given that visibility? How can we keep them in the public eye even during development so that we will have an eager audience waiting to play it upon release?

One obvious method is to use signatures. Almost every module creator I've seen for Dragon Age has the project link in his/her signature bar. Signatures, however, are only effective if the module creator takes the time to post in a variety of forums - not just the DA Toolset forum, which is frequented only by other module makers and it is a reasonable assumption that they are already aware of your work. The task here is not only to maintain visibility to those who know about your project but also to pull in new people.

The other option that works well in the BSN forums is the 'What's New' feed. Everything you post in your project page (be it private or not, hehe) and status updates are visible to your friends. Making regular updates to your project discussion pages and friends posting in groups/discussions related to that propagates those posts to the 'What's New' feed of their friends. It's a fragile chain to be sure but a chain, nonetheless.

Blogs, I've found out, are really good tools for marketing. For one, there is the cross-promotion that happens as the "mod-blogger" community evolves - modders link to or follow other people's mods and this is usually reciprocated, resulting in increased traffic which translates into increased visibility. The other advantage is that visitors know that you are working on the module - especially when you post screenshots and provide regular updates on where development is at. Of course, stagnant blogs quickly lose the edge so you have to keep posting and updating your blog to keep the interest up.

One common denomination among all the above methods is that you have to keep working on the PR front as well as doing the actual modding if you want to ensure your module is consumed by a large portion of the community.
What do you think - is marketing necessary or are we over-burdening ourselves? Are there alternate means of promoting our content?

More on this in the next post...

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During my weekly visit to Gamespot, I came across this video article talking about DLCs as the future of gaming. DLC, as most gamers are aware, refers to DownLoadable Content and this is a topic I (and many others, it would seem) have strong opinions on.
When I started playing games - which was pretty late, in my late teens - the additional stuff was always free; primarily because almost all of them were community content done by fans. Map packs, custom clothing/armor, total conversions, unofficial patches, new creatures, etc. All free.

Quake TC for Doom 3 - FREE!

I guess it was just a matter of time before someone in Corporate noticed the demand for these extras and decided that this was a good money-making opportunity. That's a perfectly good capitalist thought and it was a win-win scenario for both parties - more content, polished and with the official seal of compatibility for players and more revenue for the studios. The fallout of this model, at least in my eyes, is the death of the expansion pack. Games hardly have expansion packs nowadays - it's just more DLC to bridge the gap between sequels.

Civilization 4 - Fall from Heaven 2 - Better than most DLCs and free!

In the past couple of years though, the DLC scene has come to signify corporate greed and an utter lack of principles on the part of the publishers/studios. That's not to say all DLCs are bad - some rare ones are good but many of them don't justify the price tag. For example, the Bioshock 2 MP DLC - Sinclair Solutions - was already on the disk and the $5 price for the DLC was to get an unlock code. The reason behind the decision - players need to have exactly the same content to play online (btw, when has this ever been different?) and the DLC potentially is tied to engine updates and such that it had to be included in the disc. Then, there was the infamous Versus Mode DLC for RE5, a fiasco if ever there was one - a 1MB download for playing online, which made it so obvious the content was already there.

...and now, Dragon Age.
Admittedly, we know that the teams that do DLCs are separate from the 'main' development team. However, with the core development team concentrating on DA2 for quite some time now and the game and the toolset in desperate need of some patchwork, does it make sense to keep churning out additional DLCs? I swear the Feastday Gifts/Pranks was one of the worst ideas EVER - when players were still experiencing game-breaking glitches. And what do we get in the patch? Compatibility files for Awakening for the most part.
Why can't this DLC team work on fixing the bugs in the game? Most of these bugs are in the same category as content creation - they can be fixed with a toolset. Why can't some of these guys move over to DA2 development and free up one or two resources in the 'core' dev team to patch the toolset/engine? What's even more frustrating is that these bugs are acknowledged by Bioware. A couple of these (that I know of; maybe more), related to the chargen process, have even been fixed but apparently, there is no time to test and include the fixes in a build. Isn't that sad?

As I said, not all DLCs are bad. I am looking forward to The Witch Hunt for I know it will be good! Why? One word - Morrigan. Bioware knows that if they screwed up her story, it will be their worst debacle yet, bar none. I mean, they can't create a character such as Morrigan, give her the great build-up as in Origins and just let her fade away in a quick adventure, can they? I hope not.

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If I were a Blizzard employee, I would probably say 'When it's done'. If I were employed in the game industry, I would probably be bound by contracts, deadlines, etc. However, as a hobbyist working on a module in his spare time, where should I draw the line?

When I started writing the story for this module, I had a very clear objective in mind - the story should progress in a very organic manner and the character driving the story (you, the player) should never feel that the story is taking a backseat to some inane side-quest. Of course, there will be times when the story takes precedence over the player's actions - the bane of every RPG in the eyes of the hardcore role-player but that is a limitation of the process.

As the plot progressed and I started making the levels and writing dialogue, so many possibilities sprung to my mind - why is this character behaving like this? Should he have a back-story? Should I have a side-quest where the player uncovers the truth behind the NPC's actions? After spending a week revising the story, I realized - why would the character, undertaking a critical task that is of personal importance, take the time to learn about every person he meets? It just didn't seem logical; the flip side is, without a convincing backdrop against which the player-NPC interaction occurs, the experience can turn out to be shallow, to say the least.

Then, I had what can only be termed as a serendipitous moment - in my attempt to provide many of the NPCs a background, distinct patterns had emerged. Taking that a step further, I revised the story again to introduce multiple factions into the story - each with their own objectives - and while they might collide with the player's story at some point, the ends are distinct.

...and then came DA2 and a brief PM chat with David Gaider.
After the initial DA2 announcement, I hadn't been following that too closely. I needed some clarifications on certain things I was including in the module and wanted to make sure it would fit in with the lore so I pinged David. Between the PMs and the initial promos for DA2, I realized some of the story I was including would vary from minor interpretational differences to portraying a completely different world. That resulted in the final revision which I have decided I won't change, come what may.

That defiant stance is primarily because most of the areas where I have applied my creative license to the lore would likely be delivered in a sequel to the current module - more on this later (it's all in a flux in my mind right now)

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The hangover from a long vacation is always bad - unpacking, a ton of work waiting to be done and on top of all this, several interesting happenings on the BSN forums.

One of the exciting things is the new Community Contests initiative started by mikemike37. The idea is to hold content-creating competitions on various aspects of DA modding with the entries being available for the entire community to modify and use - freely. It is an excellent idea for generating community content, which has been extremely scarce in the DA.
The other interesting part are the prizes - in the absence of material prizes for now (there are talks underway to get them), interested community members can devote a fixed amount of their time as a prize to help the winners with their projects. This will definitely help bring together community members and provides an option to help people who are lacking skills in a particular area while also giving exposure to those who are proficient in their own areas.

Go here to read more about this effort - Community Contest Wiki Page and sign up here if you are interested in helping out. Two contests have already been announced - a level building one and a prop design.

The other 'happening' I want to touch on is one that is generating a bit of controversy - the Open House initiative started by Proleric. The idea is to make freely available all the projects hosted on BSN with a wiki list to make navigation easier. The ultimate goal of the project, while good, has led to some friction between community members due to the way it is being implemented. While I endorse the idea of open content, putting the onus on project creators to classify their works as 'not open' is a bad idea. The stance that 'open is the default mode' for projects seems to be driven by community members coming from the NWN/NWN2 modding scene - which, to my mind, is against most of the other modding communities I have seen. It's still in the early stages though so it might mature out to be a palatable option for all content creators but then again, it might not. We just have to wait and see how it evolves.

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