Ideas…

Gamer has some ideas contest ideas:

I was wondering if it might be a more egalitarian and profitable idea if BioWare were to set up a contest to write the best module using the NWN toolset and involving the BioWare offices and BioWare staff.

Thus, BioWare could pick from the best authored module and maybe find an extremely skilled writer to help construct more modules with them. Yes, we good authors tend to be divas and have tremendous egoes, but it would advantage not only BioWare but their audience to harvest the best and the brightest through this means.

There is precedent for this in the industry, actually. Valve hired the Team Fortress guys, for instance, and maybe the Counter-Strike team as well (I’m not sure of that one, though). For that matter, Mike Geist, formerly of the BG Chronicles team, now works at BioWare as part of the design team (he’ll be moving over to Neverwinter shortly).

Game design is an especially hard department to hire into, as it has no associated degree (like Comp. Sci. for programmers or Fine Arts for Artists) and it’s hard to develop a portfolio without already being in the industry. Hopefully, Neverwinter will change that and give talented amateur designers the leg up they need to enter the industry on a professional level. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on the NWN talent pool and I suspect that other companies will be as well.

Best of luck to all,
Rob Bartel