Dragon Age Toolset - Good/Bad?

[Legacy_Bubba McThudd]

               So have any veteran NWN modders dipped their toes in the Dragon Age Toolset?

Impressions?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jez_fr]

               vastly more powerfull, vastly more complex to use, takes insame amount of time to make anything. DA toolset is much more like a professionnal tool, where as Aurora is more a game by itself. Its my take anyways =)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TSMDude]

               And is not for those who desire Multiplayer so not really versatile enough for many folks in a social setting game like DnD.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bubba McThudd]

               One of the great advantages of NWN is that one person can make a module.  I get the impression DA needs a professional team.  Sound about right?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_B_Harrison]

               For any sort of large project, I'd say that's accurate - I took part in the toolset beta and didn't have much difficulty with it, but I tend to pick things up quickly and am something of a jack-of-all-trades in NWN modding as it is, and I had some experience with Morrowind and Oblivion's construction sets going into it as well. And even so, I wouldn't have realistically attempted anything more than a mini-adventure on my own in the DA toolset.

Various factors prevented my interest in the toolset continuing beyond the beta, so I can't give you a proper review of it as it stands now. But it's certainly more difficult than Aurora in pretty much every regard, from artistic and time requirements to, from what I hear, unpatched bugs.

Great power over cinematic single-player RPG mods is what you get, though, so if you have a team, or a lot of skills, I wouldn't not recommend it based on what I know.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jez_fr]

               

Bubba McThudd wrote...

One of the great advantages of NWN is that one person can make a module.  I get the impression DA needs a professional team.  Sound about right?

Exactly.
Well I suppose 1 person alone can do a half hour duration module, but for anything else you'd need a skilled team. The time you'd have to spend would depend on the number of people working on the project. The more you'd have, the less time it'd take of course.
Anyways, DAO is widely popular, its been realeased since a good while now. Just have a look at actually released playable modules, and you'll have an idea about how easy it is to achieve something '>

Now, saying if its good or bad, depends largely on what you'd want to do. Like B_Harrison said, if you want to tell a cinematic story, with some interactions, DAO might be the way to go.
Depends really want you want to do. DAO, NWN1 and NWN2 each have their pro's and con's and there is no clear "winner" that does it everything perfectly. A shame, and a waste really.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Beerfish]

               I wouldn't say a professional team is needed by any means but a group is probably the best way to go.  A real jack of all trades type of person could do one on their own.  Conversations and scripting seem to be on about par with the other games.  



Area creation is along the lines of NWN2 perhaps even more difficult from what I've heard (also an on going problem with lightmapping.)



Things like the Morph editor area easily mastered and really can add a nice level of change to a module.



The cutscene editor is just tremendous and not terribly tough to use (though tougher to master).



The actual system of making modules (database vs file system) take a lot of getting used to and has some advantages but some disadvantages as well.



One plus is that it has been out long enough so that there is some level of expertise on the toolset forums so road blocks are much more easily circumvented.



As for the 'market' for modules.  From a module maker point of view Dragon Age is a HUGE untapped source for players.



I think a small team could put out some really good stuff.  It's just a matter of finding the people that like to do each of the tasks.



I'm working on cutscenes for a couple of modules in progress but I still have an idea and a general design of a module I'd like to make.  One of these days I'll have to put out the recruiting call.  '>