Blaugust #7: Be The Best that Ever Was

I’m still catching up on the Blaugust “Promptapalooza” prompts that I missed during the clean up after Tropical Storm Isaias. Today’s prompt comes from Stingite over at The Friendly Necromancer, who asks:

What skill do you want to improve the most?

This is kind of an aspirational question, I guess. Truth is, if you want to build a skill, there’s no better time to start. Just recently on this blog, I was whining about how terrible I was at painting miniatures and dragging my feet on painting the Gloomhaven ones. Commenter Jeromai gave me some good starting tips, and I just went out and painted some minis. They didn’t turn out great, but every time, I learn a little more.

I’m trying to become a better writer. This is an ongoing, never-ending process. I’d thought I was decent at getting my point across using written words when I started blogging way back in forever ago (maybe fifteen years now?). I look back at those early posts and just realize how wrong I was. I’m still not great, but I can see that I’ve become better.

I want to be a better musician. I’ve learned piano, violin, flute, recorder, pennywhistle and now have taken up the kalimba. Problem is, I don’t stick around long enough to get really good at them — I reach a wall, and get discouraged. I need the motivation of playing alongside other people. The last time I was in a band was … twenty years ago? Where I played flute, recorders and pennywhistle in an Irish dance band. I loved that so much. We were a huge group, though, and I was one of the people let go as they restructured into an old timey music band and needed was less Irish stuff. Since I moved away from California, I’ve really lost touch with the music community. I would love to get back into it, though that would mean I’d once again have to practice two hours a day, which sucks.

For game related skills, the last time I really learned a new skill in gaming was in Neverwinter Online, where they allowed regular players to construct their own quests and adventures with their Foundry system. I was astonished at just how good some of these adventures were, and at how bad some others were.

I’d never done level design before. As a programmer, I have the bias that you’re only really working on a game if you’re coding in it. The writers, designers, artists and all have their place, but without code, nothing happens. Game Dev = Coder, right?

I never actually thought that was the case. I never did not know that without the full range of skills, there is no game. But like Snowball in Animal Farm, I considered all development roles to be equal — but some were more equal than others. (Damnit… I should have used that quote in the quotes post…)

The Foundry showed me just how wrong I was. There, there was no coding. All I had to do was write a script, a story structure, decision points for the player, all the characters and their looks and personalities, balance the encounters, guide the player through the adventure, add hooks into the existing Neverwinter lore to place the quest within the milieu… And, also, build all the scenes, triggers and their events, move things around when the player wasn’t looking, wrestle with the tool box to create my vision even when the tools just weren’t there…

I had to build my second Befallen adventure in one cavernous room with every floor panel placed individually because I needed it to look a certain way. It took weeks. And weeks more to get rid of all the places the player could squeeze through and drop into the infinite void.

I have never felt more connected to a game and to a community than the time I, and other builders, were creating new adventures and races and encounters and stories in Neverwinter Online. All those adventures are lost, now. I wrote about them on Google Plus, and that’s gone forever. Neverwinter Online stopped supporting their Foundry and eventually closed it entirely.

I haven’t looked at level design since. I know there’s a huge mod community that supports level designers in lots of games. It’s on me to connect with the community and get building again. I really want to.

There’s a new Little Big Planet coming out for the PS5. I’m thinking that would be a good time to get back into it. Lots of people, a lot of creators from which to draw inspiration, and a lot of players to try and please 🙂