Bioware Writing Contest - The Spotlight Interview

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Swift · #1 Post by **Swift** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:28 pm

I made a module for the Bioware writing contest (http://www.bioware.com/biozone/articles ... index.html) during the weekend. You can download it at http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Mo ... il&id=4627. Could you please vote as well? Five modules will be shortlisted through votes and three from a select group of people. I think you'll have to register with the website if you want to vote. Thanks.

hakujinmusume · #2 Post by **hakujinmusume** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:00 am

Heh, cool. Bioware is right in my city where I'm living now. I actually applied for this writing job a few days ago. I didn't have access to the NWN editor, though, so I had to send in a script - probably get slushpiled just for that. I'm sure they get loads of submissions. Anyway, I'm not part of the contest thing, but good luck! It's unlikely, but if luck shines upon us we'll be working together, eh?! haha.

Swift · #3 Post by **Swift** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:46 am

Thanks and good luck for your job application. I'm not actually gunning for the main prize, so it's unlikely that we'll get to work together in the same company even if we both get selected. I'm trying out this contest to see where my level of standing in this contest is. Prior to this contest I hadn't touched the toolset at all, and I really wasn't sure if I could pull it off when I found out about the contest about a month and a half after it was announced (contest started in Dec, found out in mid-Jan, and could only get started on it about three days before the deadline because of uni stuff). If I can even make it to the top 8, that'll be one heck of an achievement, since there are about three hundred modules also submitted for the contest.

What I'm interested in is what people think of it, so if people can play it and good a review (along with a vote), then that'll be great. If people can't play it for whatever reason, there'll be a text version available soon for you to look through and review. Since it's a writing contest and not a scripting one, you don't have to play it to get a feel for the game. Reading would be just as good (or perhaps even better, since there won't be other factors to influence the review).

Swift · #4 Post by **Swift** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:45 pm

Alright, apparently the attachment couldn't be viewed properly for some reason, so please download from here.

I'd like to hear how I fared and how I can improve. If you want to vote, then that'll be nice.

Swift · #5 Post by **Swift** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:07 pm

Doubt anyone's interested, but I added a mod for the vanilla NWN version.

KKuhlman · #6 Post by **KKuhlman** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:08 pm

Now that it works without the expansions I can give it a go... When I free enough space on my HD and find those bloody CD's again.

I'll be back.

Swift · #7 Post by **Swift** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 2:28 am

Thanks Soul. Looking forward to your review.

Swift · #8 Post by **Swift** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:16 am

The voting contest will end near the end of March. Quite a lot has happened since then. If you'd been following the voting patterns, we have some people who voted for the person rather than the quality of the mod. eg. "I've didn't play your mod, but you're a famous person so I'm giving you a ten to support you!". Yeah, pretty annoying.

I took part in this contest to see whether I'm capable of producing a game under heavy time constraints (started on it only days before the deadline) and how far I'd go compared to the other mods, especially by those that are experienced with the toolset and knew about this contest from day one. The first objective was achieved, but the second one was disappointing, mainly because too few are voting in general and some who do are voting based on anything else but the mod's quality itself.

If you're able to play any of the mods (including mine), it would be helpful if you could vote what you liked about it and what can be improved on. If you aren't able to play it for whatever reason, you can view the script I posted for my mod and vote based on that (since it's a writing contest after all). For the other mods, you can try to use a text editor to view those.

I'm not making this post to garner a bunch of tens to win, because I'm not interested in that. I knew from the very beginning that I'm not going to win, and I accept that. All I want is to receive feedback and to see where my mod stands in terms of the voting.

If you do not wish to create a new account to vote, or feel that you're not able to review it objectively, then you can just post your thoughts here.

KKuhlman · #9 Post by **KKuhlman** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:10 pm

Whoa, darn it, I knew I forgot something. Sorry about that. I'll have a look at it this weekend.
Really.

Swift · #10 Post by **Swift** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:27 pm

Thanks, Soul.

KKuhlman · #11 Post by **KKuhlman** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:17 pm

"I like to think of it as the hottest place to hang around.."
Golden..

I don't really have anything bad to say, other than that it was really, really short and that the names lacked a certain "oomph".. I was expecting something more epic from a truck sized demon, no offense to J

So, when will we be getting the sequel, the quest just started..

moonlit · #12 Post by **moonlit** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 4:49 pm

Played the module yesterday. I added my comments to the bioware page. In short I liked it.

Regards, Ron AF Greve

Swift · #13 Post by **Swift** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:18 am

Thanks for playing guys, and thanks for the vote, moonlit. Soul, you can vote if you want to. *hint, hint*

It's pretty short because of the word limit. I had to confine my mod to 3500 words so there wasn't much I could do to increase the length of the gameplay.

I'm still thinking about the plot for the sequel, so I'm not too sure when I can get it done. The safe answer would be either this year or the next.

Again, thanks for playing and the feedback.

Swift · #14 Post by **Swift** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 7:25 pm

Thanks for the vote, Soul.

As the contest draws to a close, a lot of participants became the victims of cheating. Be it vote spamming, or giving 1s under false charges, or writing incredibly dubious comments and voting way below standard deviation in order to pull the votes down. Two nights ago I was among the top 5, and now I've fallen after receiving a handful of dubious votes myself. I was able to get the admin to remove a couple of sabo votes for an obvious cheating case for someone else's mod, but not for a number of other mods, including my own. It's hard to say at this point what the outcome will be. All I can say is that if you haven't voted, then please vote, and not just for my mod, but for others as well. Please don't let the cheaters get away with pulling down votes. I think today's the last day to vote.

Quest For Glory Fan · #15 Post by **Quest For Glory Fan** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:28 am

that sucks, hope it goes well. Rooting for ya.

Swift · #16 Post by **Swift** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:50 am

Thanks. One way you can root for me is to play/read through my mod/script and vote based on that.

Quest For Glory Fan · #17 Post by **Quest For Glory Fan** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:33 am

I don't have NWN installed on here anymore let alone know where I pu t the game. I never really liked it. Now if you made an Icewind dale mod I'd definetly play it.

Swift · #18 Post by **Swift** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:50 am

Perhaps I'll make an Icewind Dale mod someday.

You can read the script here and vote based on your impressions on the script.

Quest For Glory Fan · #19 Post by **Quest For Glory Fan** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 3:41 am

read and voted. It really is fantastic.

Swift · #20 Post by **Swift** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 4:33 am

Thank you for taking the time to read and vote, QFG Fan.

Swift · #21 Post by **Swift** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:01 pm

When the voting deadline closed, I was in the top 6. Then the author whose mod was in the top 5 asked for the latest three votes to be removed even though they were high votes because she felt that they were suspicious votes, so her selfless act pulled her down, allowing me to enter the top 5. As much as I wanted to tell everyone that I made it to the top 5, I wasn't sure whether the results announced would reflect that. In fact, a part of me feared that the worst was yet to come.

The results were announced a few hours ago, and they baffle me.

http://www.bioware.com/biozone/articles ... t_winners/

The top five modules as selected by our panel of judges. These modules were hand selected after every single module submitted to the contest was reviewed from the 313 submissions.

1. Myranni's Magic by Mat Jobe
2. The Realm Below by Chris Amos
3. Aspects by Neilan 'Darric' Naicker
4. A Moonless Night by Kevin Chan
5. Ghosts of the Past by Illemira/Aedalena

The top five as voted on by the community (excluding any modules already selected for the top five by our judges). These rankings are based solely on module final rankings according to NWVault at the time the contest closed:

1. Firestarter by Adam Miller
2. Walking with the Ghost (Contest Version) by Chris Tihor
3. A Hero's Death by Thad Boyd
4. The Badger, the Cat and the Book by Chris R. Deatherage
5. Find the Fish! by nereng

Let me draw your attention to two mods in particular - "Walking with the Ghost (Contest Version)" and "Find the Fish". "Walking with the Ghost" was submitted late as the author himself wrote. Quite a number of community members commented that it's a disqualified entry because of the fact that it was submitted late, and yet it's in the top 5 for the voting category. Why? My mod, "The STAR Quest" and "Grains of Truth" received higher ratings each compared to "Find the Fish" (8.7+ vs 8.59), and yet not one of those three entries are listed in the top 5, while "Find the Fish" is. In fact, looking at the search results, quite a number of other mods had received higher ratings than "Find the Fish", but weren't in the top 5 for the voting category.

I posted my response in http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic ... 5&forum=41. I doubt I'll get a reply from them (or one that would be satisfactory). While I knew I won't win from the very beginning, to lose in this manner, when there are mods up there that by right shouldn't be there, is downright ridiculous and insulting.

I guess I should have realised that this contest won't have a good outcome from the way they treated the contest from the start.

Nonetheless, I'd like to thank all those who took the trouble to play or read my mod and voted. I appreciate the feedback.

Quest For Glory Fan · #22 Post by **Quest For Glory Fan** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:54 pm

that's pretty *PROFANITY* but at least you still got the experience.

Angelus3K · #23 Post by **Angelus3K** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:35 pm

When will the corporation stop screwing the little guys just because they can...

Swift · #24 Post by **Swift** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:34 pm

Jay Watamaniuk (Bioware community manager) sorta answered in a very roundabout way why those two mods that weren't originally in the top 5 became winners even though it's a voting contest.

Jay Watamaniuk wrote:As far as judging goes I asked Maximus for a list of the top ranked modules. When we received that we removed those that had been picked as part of the judges top 5. After that we used a combination of the stated rank and our discretion because this contest is about quality of writing and at a certain point it is impossible to judge one type of writing ‘better' than another so we wanted to put together the best list we could with all the great submissions. We were very reluctant to outright disqualify a quality module based on factors such as word count, number of characters and we were even a tiny bit flexible on submission time because our legal stuff took more time than originally thought and we had a very short window of for those submissions. The stated parameters were followed to an exceptional degree in nearly all cases and it made Kevin's job of taking a good look at the writing that much easier which was the point. He is ecstatic on the turnout and hopes we can run this again. He is still looking at modules as we speak by the way and his interest has indeed been peaked.

Chris Priestly (QA guy) replied too.

Chris Priestly wrote:I know there are also a lot of "But how did X win and not Y?" or "A got more points than B, why does B win out?" type of questions. I think Jay is going to comment on this later but we did not simply take "the most votes" or "the highest scores" due to some issues with voting and stuff. Jay consulted with Maximus over at the Vault and, after using some "secret BioWare/Vault powers" the winners were chosen.

One day has passed and that forum topic has grown to 6 pages long. A number of people have raised their unhappiness over the way Bioware had handled the situation and even more people are demanding for an explanation on how a mod that was 7 days late (yes, 7) and a mod that had a much lower rating than four other mods including mine got into the top 5. So far, Bioware's keeping quiet.

It would be good if more people would speak up and put pressure on the PR team to give a proper explanation on how those mods were picked over others. The thought of having the contest makers announcing that the top 5 would be picked through voting only, and then go back on their word and only picked entries that they like rather than what the community liked, and pretend on the announcement page that those winning entries were picked "solely based on voting" and nothing else, is appalling and deceitful. Even moreso when one of the winning entries was late by 7 days.

Swift · #25 Post by **Swift** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:18 am

Oh goodness... I "lost" because Maximus sent in the outdated rankings list to Bioware!

Beb, a contestant who asked Max what really happened wrote:OK guys, I emailed Maximus and I think I can explain the "odd" result.

Basically, at 1am on April first, Maximus searched all mods 8.5 or higher, and got the top 25 or so. As we all know, that doesn't update in realtime. Zog did the same thing and clicked each mod to get his top 7 in the old thread.

Anyway, Maximus didn't click each one, so the results he sent were different then what Zog posted.

Score: 9.18
Title :
Firestarter by Adam Miller

Score: 9.11
Title : A
Moonless Night - 1.00 by Kevin Chan

Score: 8.95
Title :
Walking
with the Ghost (Contest Version) by Chris Tihor

Score: 8.84
Title : A
Hero's Death by Thad Boyd

Score: 8.76
Title : The
Badger, the Cat and the Book by Chris R. Deatherage

Score: 8.69
Title :
Find
the Fish! by nereng

That's how it went down.

I've been robbed basically, due to carelessness on Max's part.