RPG Modding Interview

RPG Codex has published a massive interview with ten different developers responsible for some of the more popular role-playing game modifications. The games covered include the Infinity Engine titles, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Neverwinter Nights, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Witcher, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. A bit from the Q&A with “CamDawg”, who you might recognize as the creator of the Baldur’s Gate II fixpack and several Infinity Engine tweakpacks:

3. Speaking about your latest mod, what did you think of the original game? Do you think that the developers did a good enough job with the original game given the time they had, or were there problems in it that drove you to modding?

I’ve never viewed modding as an attempt to address perceived mistakes or shortcomings of developers. After all, if I felt the game was poor I never would have kept playing it and enjoying it to the point of modding! Most of my early efforts could really be grouped under the aegis of “D&D house rules”.

The BG2 and IWD Fixpacks are a slightly different story as they are, by definition, intended to fix bugs left over after the release and official patches. Even so I still think it’s important to distinguish between technical issues–where the Fixpack really makes its living–against storytelling, character development, atmosphere, etc. They’re the reason why BG2 is consistently mentioned as a top CRPG game. There are only a handful of nasty leftover bugs; for the most part a lot of the stuff we address simply fixes minor dialogue issues, or a spell not quite working the way it should, and so on and so forth. They’re still bugs, but the real quality of the game comes from well beyond what we’re addressing.

4. Modding for games that have development tools is relatively easy, but for games that have no tools it can be quite difficult. How did this affect your decision to mod? Were there any particularly challenging bugs that you fixed or any features that you are particularly proud of modding into the game?

By the time I started modding, there were already some pretty good tools and resources available. I’ve always loved teaching and I’ve written a fair number of tutorials as a result, and they’ve been pretty well received. Even prior to the Fixpack my mods have been on the fairly technical side, and in that regard I’ve been one of the folks able to push for some very technical (though ultimately pretty powerful) features in modding tools. In the context of the Fixpack itself, with the help of many others I’ve written a debugging tool that helped automate the identification of common bugs and flag possible issues. It ultimately got released, as many of the checks it performed could be used to debug mod content just as easily.

There have been some very challenging bugs to crack, but for the most part I’ve been aided by people even better versed in Infinity Engine arcana, like devSin, Nythrun, igi, and many others too numerous to name. Credit for the really impressive (and the minor stuff, too) can, and should, go to the team who made it possible. I’m simply one part of that.