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I got multiple job offers after writing Dreamcatcher, including Bioware. Valve also encourages people to develop mods, and have hired many of the more successful people.

That being said, being published in other areas can help as well, though I still feel that writing for games is a very different skill set than typical writing.

It's been my experience that the key to breaking into the gaming industry is to break into the gaming industry. That sounds silly, but more and more we have folks like the Counterstrike and Portal developers making games and subsequently getting hired by a development studio. Writers likely have a similar route, building up a portfolio and demonstrating the ability to write dialog, item descriptions, and other game-specific text.

I made a number of modules for Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2, and I had several job offers from Bioware and others along the way. Recently, the folks at Obsidian asked for a high quality version of the video for Lute Hero, which they plan on showing in Paris as part of a discussion on user generated content.

Nothing says "hire me" like passion and experience. In the gaming industry, that typically means creating mods and your own games at the beginning.

In the end, I opted for my stable and well-paying job in the healthcare industry. Making games is a great hobby, but the reality of the gaming industry is that it's still fairly immature and not as well paying as others. I also enjoy the fact that I can make games the way I want, even if they may be non-traditional of vaguely "inappropriate".

It's been my experience that the key to breaking into the gaming industry is to break into the gaming industry. That sounds silly, but more and more we have folks like the Counterstrike and Portal developers making games and subsequently getting hired by a development studio. Writers likely have a similar route, building up a portfolio and demonstrating the ability to write dialog, item descriptions, and other game-specific text.

I made a number of modules for Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2, and I had several job offers from Bioware and others along the way. Recently, the folks at Obsidian asked for a high quality version of the video for Lute Hero, which they plan on showing in Paris as part of a discussion on user generated content.

Nothing says "hire me" like passion and experience. In the gaming industry, that typically means creating mods and your own games at the beginning.

In the end, I opted for my stable and well-paying job in the healthcare industry. Making games is a great hobby, but the reality of the gaming industry is that it's still fairly immature and not as well paying as others. I also enjoy the fact that I can make games the way I want, even if they may be non-traditional of vaguely "inappropriate".

http://adamandjamie.com/nwn/

While I wasn't a big D&D fan, I loved the idea and always enjoyed tinkering and making up stories. When Bioware put out Neverwinter Nights, I started my own campaign, which was received quite well. When Neverwinter Nights 2 came along, I started yet another and don't plan on stopping.

At one level, it's simply a hobby that combines a lot of skills I enjoy practicing. The scripting language is C-like, which probably helped me get over a long habit of programming in Basic-like languages. Modding is also something I can share with my kids, as my son enjoys tinkering around with the toolset and putting together simple modules.

On another level, I'm in awe of the people who have played my modules and how I've touched their lives. I remember getting an e-mail from a woman who was dying of cancer and how a particular moment in my game made her husband laugh for the first time in a long while. I got another letter from a young man in the Israeli army, talking about how my games were a bright moment in an otherwise terrifying life.

I think Dungeons and Dragons has ended up being something larger than it was originally envisioned. My kids make up these elaborate "playing pretend" stories. D&D has turned this instinct for adventure into something adults can do without too many funny looks. We all need to play the hero and live a life bigger than ourselves. Gary helped give that to us, and for that I am most grateful.

While I wasn't a big D&D fan, I loved the idea and always enjoyed tinkering and making up stories. When Bioware put out Neverwinter Nights, I started my own campaign, which was received quite well. When Neverwinter Nights 2 came along, I started yet another and don't plan on stopping.

At one level, it's simply a hobby that combines a lot of skills I enjoy practicing. The scripting language is C-like, which probably helped me get over a long habit of programming in Basic-like languages. Modding is also something I can share with my kids, as my son enjoys tinkering around with the toolset and putting together simple modules.

On another level, I'm in awe of the people who have played my modules and how I've touched their lives. I remember getting an e-mail from a woman who was dying of cancer and how a particular moment in my game made her husband laugh for the first time in a long while. I got another letter from a young man in the Israeli army, talking about how my games were a bright moment in an otherwise terrifying life.

I think Dungeons and Dragons has ended up being something larger than it was originally envisioned. My kids make up these elaborate "playing pretend" stories. D&D has turned this instinct for adventure into something adults can do without too many funny looks. We all need to play the hero and live a life bigger than ourselves. Gary helped give that to us, and for that I am most grateful.

I tinkered with D&D back in the day, but never really managed to find the time or people to play with. When the first Neverwinter Nights came out, I had a great time making modules. It was a treat to use all my programming skills, entertain others, and generally have a good time playing with the setting and the technology.

These days I'm working on a new campaign for NWN2. The new engine is more challenging to work with, but it's quite pretty. I'm able to give my new computer quite a workout with all the new graphics features.

Ironically I'm 38 too, occasionally feeling old as well.

A year or two ago I participated in Bioware's writing contest, winning the community voting. I actually did it for the swag they were giving away - I use their coffee mug every day and that Bioware wool cap kept me warm all winter. They'd already offered me a job some time ago, mostly after my NWN modules came out. It was extremely flattering, though the move, disruption to my family, and pay cut made the decision pretty easy. I have a great job in healthcare and a somehow find the time to continue to work on my module building even still. Working for a gaming company can be difficult, though Bioware is one of the best in the industry. I think my decision was to stick with a quality, stable job and having game making be a hobby. For the most part, it's lower stress and I can take the story whatever direction I want.

In terms of the winning module from last year, I actually did two versions. The first was way too linear. The second had lots of choice, from evil to crazy to several flavors of good. There was drama and humor, quality scripting, and polished writing. For folks trying for this contest, I'd keep the cutscenes short, give the player as many choices as you can manage, and make your NPCs memorable. Less is more for these sorts of things. Don't plan an epic module spanning dozens of areas. Just make a couple, with a simple storyline. Play to your strengths - writers should write and scripters should script. You'll have to do both, but emphasize what you're best at.

A year or two ago I participated in Bioware's writing contest, winning the community voting. I actually did it for the swag they were giving away - I use their coffee mug every day and that Bioware wool cap kept me warm all winter. They'd already offered me a job some time ago, mostly after my NWN modules came out. It was extremely flattering, though the move, disruption to my family, and pay cut made the decision pretty easy. I have a great job in healthcare and a somehow find the time to continue to work on my module building even still. Working for a gaming company can be difficult, though Bioware is one of the best in the industry. I think my decision was to stick with a quality, stable job and having game making be a hobby. For the most part, it's lower stress and I can take the story whatever direction I want.

In terms of the winning module from last year, I actually did two versions. The first was way too linear. The second had lots of choice, from evil to crazy to several flavors of good. There was drama and humor, quality scripting, and polished writing. For folks trying for this contest, I'd keep the cutscenes short, give the player as many choices as you can manage, and make your NPCs memorable. Less is more for these sorts of things. Don't plan an epic module spanning dozens of areas. Just make a couple, with a simple storyline. Play to your strengths - writers should write and scripters should script. You'll have to do both, but emphasize what you're best at.

Fallout and Civ (I haven't played STALKER) had some great cinematics, but they were used very sparingly. For example, seeing the faux-news intro to Fallout was amazing, setting the feel for the entire game. With Civ, you saw your Wonders built and in the end the rocket launch, which was a tasty reward for your efforts.

What should be avoided is lots of cutscenes that take control away from the player. And yes, I learned that the hard way after being a bit too cutscene-happy with my own game development.

Admittedly this is a bit of self-promotion, but the first module of the Dark Waters campaign should be posted on the Vault tomorrow. It has lots of custom content, voice acting, scripting system, and hopefully a fun little storyline. For people impatient for the expansion, this might tide them over.

Like most of you folks, I started a little blog to document my family and my life. It makes for a pretty darn good memory jogger. I sheepishly used it to remember my daughter's birthday, my wife's cell phone number, and all manner of timeline issues.

For the most part, I don't care about remembering everything. I want to remember the good stuff, the funny stuff, and the important stuff. The key to memory is having a good editor.

I've won several awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules. These were all coded and written almost completely by myself. In all honesty, both the writing and the coding are equally challenging for me, in different ways. I'm a long-time programmer, so I can whip up some code pretty easily, though debugging and understanding the inner mysteries of the game engine is often challenging. Being able to consistently write good dialog and maintain focus on key plot themes can also be quite difficult.

For me, it's great fun, as different parts of my brain get a good workout when making a module. For writing, I like to hang out in a coffee shop with a tattered notebook. When coding, it's tea in front of the computer. I guess the moral of the story is that everything is easy with enough caffeine.

I've actually been doing just that, working on a module for Neverwinter Nights 2. It's tremendous fun, frustration, and can easily suck up huge volumes of time. On the plus side, you can add quirky humor, characters that interact the way you want, and plot twists that would be avoided in a mass-market game.

There's other game creation resources out there, in addition to modding the big name games (e.g. Unreal Tournament, HalfLife, etc.). Give it a try!

There are certainly elements in the above review that are valid. A high-end system is required to get good framerates with all the graphics turned on at high resolutions. It's a very modern graphics engine that's designed to last for years to come.

I found that after patch 3 (which just came out last week), many of the technical issues have been taken care of. In terms of the story, the first act is a bit slow, but things pick up considerably in the second act. Obsidian's support post-release has been quite good and there is dedicated staff to support the game after launch, much like Bioware's Live team.

Also don't forget that when you talk about Neverwinter Nights, you're talking about the official campaign. There were literally thousands of modules created for the first campaign and I suspect the second will enjoy a similar popularity. Already I'm finishing up work on the first module of the Dark Waters campaign, a piratey high-seas adventure. I know of many people planning persistent worlds, mini-games, and more. Give us builders a couple more months to get organized with the new tools and expect some fun stuff to appear.

I worked for several years on mods for Neverwinter Nights, getting my games on some magazine DVDs, winning awards, and so on. The graphics were not the best aspect, even when released, but it was fun to play and it made for an interesting hobby.

For the last couple years, I've been planning a campaign for the sequel. Neverwinter Nights 2 has far better graphics and tremendous flexibility when it comes to designing areas. Such advances have a cost, however. File sizes are much larger, area creation can take ten times as long, and creating custom models is much more complicated.

Don't get me wrong - I love the new features and style. Improved graphics can make for a better gaming experience and a greater emotional impact for players. As with all things, though, there are trade-offs. I suspect we'll see more divisions between the "fun, simple, and cheap" games like Bejeweled versus the big budget games like Gears of War. There will be audiences for both.

I worked for several years on mods for Neverwinter Nights, getting my games on some magazine DVDs, winning awards, and so on. The graphics were not the best aspect, even when released, but it was fun to play and it made for an interesting hobby.

For the last couple years, I've been planning a campaign for the sequel. Neverwinter Nights 2 has far better graphics and tremendous flexibility when it comes to designing areas. Such advances have a cost, however. File sizes are much larger, area creation can take ten times as long, and creating custom models is much more complicated.

Don't get me wrong - I love the new features and style. Improved graphics can make for a better gaming experience and a greater emotional impact for players. As with all things, though, there are trade-offs. I suspect we'll see more divisions between the "fun, simple, and cheap" games like Bejeweled versus the big budget games like Gears of War. There will be audiences for both.

Back before I had a couple little kids, I pulled in my dad and his milling machine to make the Fossil computer. It's brass and wood, with a neat fossil as a badge.

It's now my daughter's computer, so it plays more Dora the Explorer than the latest high-end games. When I replace my main computer, I'll gut it and put in fancy new components. The main draw is that it's silent, with the main issue being heat (I have some big, slow fans to help with that).

I develop Neverwinter Nights modules for fun and have done so for the last few years. My modules have been included in gaming magazines and I've won several awards. For awhile, I was getting quite a few job offers.

Now, don't take me wrong. I love games and I love making games. The main problem is that I seem to love them when I can develop games on my own terms, something of a rarity in the gaming industry. The pressure in the game industry is intense, with crunch time and publisher demands and an uncertain career path. Plus, if you falter, there's a dozen other people ready to take your place.

I opted for a much more stable and lucrative position in the healthcare industry. The work is interesting (web application development) and I like the people I work with. In what seems like a rarity these days, I can easily see myself spending the bulk of my career where I am. Already I've been here for 10 years and another thirty sounds just fine with me.

Making games as a hobby seemed to be the best choice for me. I enjoy the creative aspect of the work and the freedom to make the story I want to tell. It's fun to be able to give my work away for essentially free and bring a bit of joy to the world. There are occasional frustrations, such as debugging and post-release tension, but for the most part it's an enjoyable pastime that I hope to continue well into the future.

I think most innovation in the gaming world is a gradual evolution. For starters, you have to rate the amount of change the gaming audience is willing to take. Creating something wildly different may be difficult for mass audiences to pick up and understand. One of the reasons World of Warcraft is so successful is that it didn't dramatically innovate, but rather took all the gameplay elements that worked well in the MMORPG realm and polished them all to a beautiful shine.

If you wish to innovate, try to do so one element at a time. Introducing a morality system in Ultima IV was it's big new thing. Some innovations are stylistic, such as the post-apocalyptic worlds of Wasteland and Fallout.

Probably the hardest thing to judge is whether or not a new gameplay element is fun, innovation or otherwise. I'm working on a complicated system for Neverwinter Nights 2 that involves ship-to-ship combat, trading, and more. I'm so close to development that it's hard to say if it's fun or not. I'll probably have to wait for my QA folks to hopefully give me the honest truth.

So, best of luck to you. Hopefully you can keep your soul intact and your bills paid.

Neverwinter Nights was very much geared towards player-created content and has done quite well over the last few years. Thousands of player created modules have been made and there's a number of persistent worlds still running years after the game came out.

These last few years I worked on a few campaigns that were well-received, and am working on a new a new campaign for Neverwinter Nights 2.

I think player created content works well for certain genres, and requires an almost mystical process to attract the right community. I got tons of value out of UT2004 and the original Half-Life. Other games like Doom 3 and Morrowind didn't quite pan out as much as I would have liked. I think it requires the game developer to actively encourage the community, as well as having a solid core game, wide install base, and easy-to-use tools. Tricky business.

Neverwinter Nights was very much geared towards player-created content and has done quite well over the last few years. Thousands of player created modules have been made and there's a number of persistent worlds still running years after the game came out.

These last few years I worked on a few campaigns that were well-received, and am working on a new a new campaign for Neverwinter Nights 2.

I think player created content works well for certain genres, and requires an almost mystical process to attract the right community. I got tons of value out of UT2004 and the original Half-Life. Other games like Doom 3 and Morrowind didn't quite pan out as much as I would have liked. I think it requires the game developer to actively encourage the community, as well as having a solid core game, wide install base, and easy-to-use tools. Tricky business.

I'm the author of the Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, and Demon campaigns. They're all in the Hall of Fame over on Neverwinter Vault. These days I'm working on a pirate adventure, mostly likely for Neverwinter Nights 2.

I'm the author of the Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, and Demon campaigns. They're all in the Hall of Fame over on Neverwinter Vault. These days I'm working on a pirate adventure, mostly likely for Neverwinter Nights 2.

I highly recommend the Shadowlords series, followed by it's sequel Dreamcatcher.

Penultima is also quite fun.

And when you're done with them, Neverwinter Vault is the place to look for more modules.

Was of course supposed to be: This.

What, you mean like this?