State of NWN2

Alazander has a great post over on his blog about the current state of productivity of the Neverwinter Nights 2 modding scene. He notes that productivity is down--substantially--compared to where it was for NWN1 at this point in time. The list of high-quality modules that were out 5 months post-release of nwn1 is a bit staggering compared to what we have now.

I can think of three explanations for why this might be:

• The toolset is harder to use. Honestly, I think these claims are far overstated, as my experiences with the toolset have been largely positive. It does take longer to do some things--especially rough out basic areas--but other things, like writing conversations and scripting (especially when swapping between windows like I like to do) goes much faster in my experience. But there's no question that a module involving a lot of area construction will probably take longer to make in NWN2 than NWN1.
• Several prominent and productive builders from nwn1 have been gobbled up by groups like Ossian Studios, Rogue Dao Studios, and DLA. Some of these individuals might have released modules for NWN2 by now had they not had other distractions.
  
• Finally, and by my estimation, probably the most important factor, is that builders have a choice of platforms now whereas they had little or no choice when nwn1 was released. NWN1 is still a great game to design modules for, even as the player base is shrinking. There are a bunch of builders for nwn1 who have yet to switch over, either because they are in the middle of projects, or because nwn2 won't do some things that nwn1 can do already. Or, because they're comfortable with nwn1 and don't feel like changing.

I still have every bit of confidence that nwn2 will continue to grow and flourish as a community. But I am a bit, well, disappointed is too strong of a word, but I will say surprised, at the sparse number of modules that have been released thus far. At two months, it was understandable not to see much out there. But at 5 months, we certainly could have seen some progress by now. Still, when you look at Hugie's thread on all that is currently in the works, it's very hard to be pessimistic for long. There's a lot of great stuff to look forward to. :)

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In the meantime, I'm sort of on a break from NWN2. I didn't mean for it to happen, and I doubt that it will last long. But baseball season has begun, and as usual, I'm feeling a great draw towards my Cincinnati Reds (following and writing about them is my other hobby). I've also been playing a bit of Galactic Civilizations II, as well as the recently released Out of the Park Baseball 2007. But I'll still be around and keeping tabs on things--and I intend to keep updating this blog whenever I have something to say. :)

Update: Maerduin, who is one of the new breed of nwn2 builders, posted his take on this issue on his blog. An excerpt:

What are we builders supposed to do? Keep building, and, at those times when building has gotten the better of us, talking to each other and making our conversations visible. Keeping discussion about the game alive is vital, which is part of the reason I think blogging about mods is a good thing (the other reason is that it is psychologically motivating for builders).