Welcome to My Hell, Pt 1
I've been planning to pen my thoughts and experience about the contest for some time now. It's so that all of you would understand the Hell I went through and why I did it. If it encourages you to vote for my module, To Hell and Back, after that, then it'll be an added bonus. 
The Journey to Hell
I found out about this contest from Brassfire's LJ on 13 Friday. I didn't think much about it then and didn't bother to read up about the contest details. I just wasn't interested in taking part when school had started and when I had no experience with the toolset.
After the Gaming Talk on that very day, I was rather disappointed as the speakers had emphasized on how they wanted programmers and 3D modellers. The industry here isn't ready for storywriters, or 2D concept artists, or game concept designers. The impression I got from the talk was that my experience with the 2D adventure gaming projects might not be enough, since I did no coding nor 3D modelling work. Then I met Ahmed on MSN and he brought up the subject about the contest. When he mentioned it, I was pretty open to the idea as I'd realised that I probably needed to make a few mods for my portfolio to gain a better chance of employment.
Ahmed: hey u heard abt biowares competition? hold on lemme check the url
Me: i found out from brass' lj
Ahmed: aah ok
Ahmed: gonna take part?
Me: i don't think i'll be able to take part, though i might take a look and see if it's doable
Me: do they allow team-efforts?
Me: maybe a few of us ought to form a group and try it for fun! :P
Ahmed: you know, it doesn't say!
Me: hehe, quick! we should take advantage of that!
Me: maybe we can even rope in alex to help out as an advisor!
Ahmed: haha that would be cool.
Me: you know, we really should actually get alex to take a look at our work before submitting it
Me: Each of the eight (8) winners will receive a selection of merchandise from the BioWare Online Store, which includes:
* BioWare coffee mug
* BioWare wool cap
* Jade Empire soundtrack
* Jade Empire t-shirt
* Copies of all Premium Neverwinter Nights Modules
this sounds unbelievably non-cool
Ahmed: gee the contest closes jan 30th!!
(later on...)
Ahmed: well, let me know if u intend to go forward with the plan to write a story for the game. i've no background with neverwinter nights, but i'm willin to give it a go.
Me: i want to see if we can even take part in the first place!
Ahmed: hmm... even if we work as a team, we could submit it under 1 persons name?
Ahmed: a bit dubious, but how'd they know?
Me: after all, the prize is a job offer. would they really want to open this contest to people from overseas?
Me: true
Ahmed: aaah... they do hire ppl from overseas i think. well, other companies do. but the talent would have to be high-calibur.
I tried looking through the forum topic to find out whether it was open to all countries and whether it had to be a solo effort or if teams were allowed. As the topic consisted of 21 pages, I stopped searching after the third page and thought that I'd get the answer a lot quicker by simply asking in the forums rather than look through all 21 pages. After that, I extended the invitation to Joshua to join in and posted the news in the IVLE forums. I figured that Ahmed and Joshua can work on the storyline and quests while I learn how to use the toolset. With Joshua having so much experience as a writer for an MMORPG, Ahmed being good at dialogue writing, me actually having the toolset and having Alex as our lecturer-cum-secret weapon, what could possibly go wrong? Well, everything.
Hell Froze Over
I didn't receive any official reply about the number-of-people-allowed-to-work-together question, but I did find out that it was opened to all countries, so I started looking through the online tutorials about journal entries and conversation handling. The back of my mind started having some doubts with regards to the solo/group question, and I soon started looking through both ends of the forum topic to see if there was any official reply. I eventually found it on page 6.
Official reply
1 Person Only Please.
The technical side is really not the focus here and when the module is judged, it will be judged based on the writing, not scripting. (posted by Georg Zoeller, Bioware's Designer).
I was kinda crushed when I saw it. There went the teaming up idea. Neither Joshua nor Ahmed had the toolset, so neither of them would be able to take part on their own. Joshua turned down the offer because of the solo critera, but Ahmed offered to help out anyway even though he couldn't formally take part in the contest.
Over the next few days, I brainstormed on what scenario to use for the contest. In the end, I settled on the rp story idea Jigen used during our role-playing session. The original consisted of the protagonist going to Jigoku (the Japanese version of Hell) after being killed in a ritual by Darkpeace Cult, meeting a horsehead guard that didn't speak, two Onis, two spirits and the King of Hell, Lord Emma-O. The highlight of the RP was the trial, where the normally truthful magic mirror showed a different death instead of the actual death, and the protagonist had to try to clear his name. In the end, the protagonist was given the chance to say his last goodbyes to any person of his choice. I got Jigen's permission to use the bare bones of this rp idea for the contest.
The tricky part was trying to adapt the story for the module, expanding it for two more NPCs (because the trial consisted of an NPC and a PC talking to each other), and making sure that the story is playable regardless of alignment and character backstory. The original was such that the only way the protagonist could convince Emma-O was to test him on his heart. Evil characters will surely fail miserably, and I have no idea what would happen if the character were neutral instead.
Ahmed and I met on Wednesday to discuss possible solutions and character motivations. Perhaps one NPC could offer to sneak the PC out if the PC agreed to do something evil, or an NPC has a message that he wants the PC to pass to someone from the Land of the Living. Or maybe the Judge caused the mirror to show the untruths to test the PC, but that only gets revealed in a cut-scene. There were many nice ideas, but I had no idea if it were possible to incorporate any of it in time, and there was homework to attend to first. In the end, I had to put off the contest until everything else was settled. It was during the last week of January that I finally had the time to get started on the contest writing.
(To be continued...)
The Journey to Hell
I found out about this contest from Brassfire's LJ on 13 Friday. I didn't think much about it then and didn't bother to read up about the contest details. I just wasn't interested in taking part when school had started and when I had no experience with the toolset.
After the Gaming Talk on that very day, I was rather disappointed as the speakers had emphasized on how they wanted programmers and 3D modellers. The industry here isn't ready for storywriters, or 2D concept artists, or game concept designers. The impression I got from the talk was that my experience with the 2D adventure gaming projects might not be enough, since I did no coding nor 3D modelling work. Then I met Ahmed on MSN and he brought up the subject about the contest. When he mentioned it, I was pretty open to the idea as I'd realised that I probably needed to make a few mods for my portfolio to gain a better chance of employment.
Ahmed: hey u heard abt biowares competition? hold on lemme check the url
Me: i found out from brass' lj
Ahmed: aah ok
Ahmed: gonna take part?
Me: i don't think i'll be able to take part, though i might take a look and see if it's doable
Me: do they allow team-efforts?
Me: maybe a few of us ought to form a group and try it for fun! :P
Ahmed: you know, it doesn't say!
Me: hehe, quick! we should take advantage of that!
Me: maybe we can even rope in alex to help out as an advisor!
Ahmed: haha that would be cool.
Me: you know, we really should actually get alex to take a look at our work before submitting it
Me: Each of the eight (8) winners will receive a selection of merchandise from the BioWare Online Store, which includes:
* BioWare coffee mug
* BioWare wool cap
* Jade Empire soundtrack
* Jade Empire t-shirt
* Copies of all Premium Neverwinter Nights Modules
this sounds unbelievably non-cool
Ahmed: gee the contest closes jan 30th!!
(later on...)
Ahmed: well, let me know if u intend to go forward with the plan to write a story for the game. i've no background with neverwinter nights, but i'm willin to give it a go.
Me: i want to see if we can even take part in the first place!
Ahmed: hmm... even if we work as a team, we could submit it under 1 persons name?
Ahmed: a bit dubious, but how'd they know?
Me: after all, the prize is a job offer. would they really want to open this contest to people from overseas?
Me: true
Ahmed: aaah... they do hire ppl from overseas i think. well, other companies do. but the talent would have to be high-calibur.
I tried looking through the forum topic to find out whether it was open to all countries and whether it had to be a solo effort or if teams were allowed. As the topic consisted of 21 pages, I stopped searching after the third page and thought that I'd get the answer a lot quicker by simply asking in the forums rather than look through all 21 pages. After that, I extended the invitation to Joshua to join in and posted the news in the IVLE forums. I figured that Ahmed and Joshua can work on the storyline and quests while I learn how to use the toolset. With Joshua having so much experience as a writer for an MMORPG, Ahmed being good at dialogue writing, me actually having the toolset and having Alex as our lecturer-cum-secret weapon, what could possibly go wrong? Well, everything.
Hell Froze Over
I didn't receive any official reply about the number-of-people-allowed-to-work-together question, but I did find out that it was opened to all countries, so I started looking through the online tutorials about journal entries and conversation handling. The back of my mind started having some doubts with regards to the solo/group question, and I soon started looking through both ends of the forum topic to see if there was any official reply. I eventually found it on page 6.
Official reply
Quote: Posted 12/03/05 20:15:59 (GMT) by Vaporak
I didn't see this written on the page so I have a question. Does all the work have to be done by 1 person? AKA can 1 person do all the writting, but have other people help out on the technical side?
1 Person Only Please.
The technical side is really not the focus here and when the module is judged, it will be judged based on the writing, not scripting. (posted by Georg Zoeller, Bioware's Designer).
I was kinda crushed when I saw it. There went the teaming up idea. Neither Joshua nor Ahmed had the toolset, so neither of them would be able to take part on their own. Joshua turned down the offer because of the solo critera, but Ahmed offered to help out anyway even though he couldn't formally take part in the contest.
Over the next few days, I brainstormed on what scenario to use for the contest. In the end, I settled on the rp story idea Jigen used during our role-playing session. The original consisted of the protagonist going to Jigoku (the Japanese version of Hell) after being killed in a ritual by Darkpeace Cult, meeting a horsehead guard that didn't speak, two Onis, two spirits and the King of Hell, Lord Emma-O. The highlight of the RP was the trial, where the normally truthful magic mirror showed a different death instead of the actual death, and the protagonist had to try to clear his name. In the end, the protagonist was given the chance to say his last goodbyes to any person of his choice. I got Jigen's permission to use the bare bones of this rp idea for the contest.
The tricky part was trying to adapt the story for the module, expanding it for two more NPCs (because the trial consisted of an NPC and a PC talking to each other), and making sure that the story is playable regardless of alignment and character backstory. The original was such that the only way the protagonist could convince Emma-O was to test him on his heart. Evil characters will surely fail miserably, and I have no idea what would happen if the character were neutral instead.
Ahmed and I met on Wednesday to discuss possible solutions and character motivations. Perhaps one NPC could offer to sneak the PC out if the PC agreed to do something evil, or an NPC has a message that he wants the PC to pass to someone from the Land of the Living. Or maybe the Judge caused the mirror to show the untruths to test the PC, but that only gets revealed in a cut-scene. There were many nice ideas, but I had no idea if it were possible to incorporate any of it in time, and there was homework to attend to first. In the end, I had to put off the contest until everything else was settled. It was during the last week of January that I finally had the time to get started on the contest writing.
(To be continued...)
posted by Swift at
5:41 pm
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