Wednesday, December 20, 2006

First Google Hit

I got my first hit from a Google today, a sure sign that I'm hitting it big. :) The keywords?
rogue dao studios nwn2 planescape
This can hardly be a surprise, because Rogue Dao Studios' Planescape series has to be considered among the two most eagerly anticipated upcoming community releases, along with Adam Miller's Dark Waters.

I have to admit, I was a skeptic when I first saw their announcement last September. Rogue Dao seemed, at first, to be a pale emulation of Ossian Studios, who were making a huge splash at the time with their recent release of Darkness over Daggerford. They seemed perhaps overly confident, and were throwing out very aggressive timelines along with bold claims about their upcoming product. Furthermore, as a group that originated, in part, as a NWN1 Persistent World team, I had doubts about whether they'd recognize what it really takes to make a quality single player module -- narrative, writing, etc. It's not just about custom content and the combat balanced, after all.

Since their annoucement, however, Rogue Dao has done nothing but build their reputation as a productive and quality community group. From the looks of their recently released trailer, they seem to be making great progress -- in precisely the right areas -- on their first module. Their forums are very active, and include a series of "developer journals " by everyone involved in their project, tutorials, and general discussion of modding and design--and that's just their public forums! Clearly, a lot of good work is going on.

I can't judge the module before its release, of course, but Rogue Dao seem very organized and rich with talent. And, of course,they have the advantage of working on a module in Sigil, which was an underutilized setting among NWN1 modules -- even given the custom content challenges that would be necessary to bring it to life..

4 comments:

  1. Your reviews are great, Berliad!!! I'm a fan.

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  2. Just wanted to note that it's a very nice blog that you've got here. I'll be checking this out now and then, for sure. :)

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  3. Thanks, I appreciate that! We'll see where this blog goes, if anywhere. At the minimum, I'll post and keep track of my comments on modules, which might be a decent resource for other players. But I'll probably also do a running commentary about happenings in the community here as well.

    I run a another blog about my favorite baseball team, and it gets pretty good traffic during the season (at least 100 unique visits/day). I have my doubts about whether a blog about the nwn modules community can have that sort of appeal, but who knows? :) Traffic isn't all that important to me--though it is nice. :)
    -B

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