BioWare World Design Contest

[Trippy]

Think you have the skills to be an MMORPG level designer and want a job doing just that? Then break out that NWN 1 disc and prove it by entering BioWare's Word Design contest:

http://www.bioware.com/biozone/articles/2007_world_design_contest/index.html

[schild]

Too bad it's not Win a Job at Bioware, but rather Get a Chance to Have Your Resume Looked At. Or even Win a 1st Interview with Bioware. I'd say you have better chances if you made a module and submitted it with your resume as  a regular job app. I've never liked concepts like this as Bioware will probably get 10-20 ideas out of it, for free.

[Lantyssa]

Think you have the skills to be an MMORPG level designer and want a job doing just that? Then break out that NWN 1 disc and prove it by entering BioWare's Word Design contest:

Are they looking to break into the MUD scene?

[Nicodemus]

"Strongly recommended suggestions:

    * Show off your technical prowess by including cutscenes, intricate puzzles, combat encounters, interesting NPC behavior, etc.
    * Start your module with a bang. Get the audience's attention right away with a cool cutscene.
    * End the module on a high note. Either with a cool cutscene or some other visual reward for the player."


World Design contest? It seems like they really want to see some pretty cutscenes.

[Trippy]

"Strongly recommended suggestions:

    * Show off your technical prowess by including cutscenes, intricate puzzles, combat encounters, interesting NPC behavior, etc.
    * Start your module with a bang. Get the audience's attention right away with a cool cutscene.
    * End the module on a high note. Either with a cool cutscene or some other visual reward for the player."


World Design contest? It seems like they really want to see some pretty cutscenes.

No, what it means is they plan on having cutscenes in their quests a la FF XI and WoW and if you are going to be a quest designer you'll need to demonstrate some understanding of cinematics (camera positioning and movement, etc.).

[Ironwood]

DO NOT USE NEVERWINTER 2 TOOLSET.  For It Is Subtle And Quick To Anger.

Strange contest.

I look forward to the competition to make a game using only BASIC...With Cutscenes.

[eldaec]

Bioware will probably get 10-20 ideas out of it, for free.

It's not free, it's 10-20 ideas for the cost of having to look through 15 million submissions written in crayon by mouth breathing fucktards who think they're the next Tolkein and at the same time better at game design than the bastard love child of Richard Garfield and the guy who invented Go.



Yes I tried to think of two game designers who have been an obvious success and what I came up with was pretty uninspiring; you do not have to remind me.



Anyway, my point is I'm not convinced this is automatically a good deal for Bioware either.

[Tmon]

DO NOT USE NEVERWINTER 2 TOOLSET.  For It Is Subtle And Quick To Anger.

Strange contest.

I look forward to the competition to make a game using only BASIC...With Cutscenes.

it may just be that they have a really nifty module analyzer thingy that lets them weed out the broken ones from the submission pool, but it only works with the original NWN toolset.  Which would make sense since I think someone other than bioware did NWN2 if I remember right.

[palmer_eldritch]

NWN2 is not Bioware's baby, so they would be unlikely to run a competition using it. Obsidian did Bioware 2, although it may have been a case of building on Bioware's work.

As well as the prospect of possibly finding a good employee, this is a smart bit of community building by Bioware. They are good at finding ways to interact with their players, and keeping the community they built with NWN 1 is important to them (they want to sell those people Dragon Age for a start).

In the past they have worked with people who designed amateur NWN 1 mods, comissioning them to create commercial mods which Bioware sold as downloads. Presumably it worked for everyone concerned.