Neverwinter Nights 2: Neverwinter Citadel Interview

There are many "modding" groups for Neverwinter Nights. What sets Neverwinter Citadel apart?

The big difference in Citadel is it's not a modding group, per se. It's a structure for modding groups to use. It's a tool. This isn't CODI, but this is a structure CODI could have used. That being said, there ARE modding groups that have arisen from Citadel, including one official project.

Citadel isn't set up to make custom content. Citadel isn't just about custom content. Citadel is a hub for NWN focused on building - whether that be custom tiles, prestige classes, persistent worlds or just great modules.

The site has not officialy launched (though the forums are up and very active), but we've already birthed a few new projects.

What is the purpose of Neverwinter Citadel, its mission statement, if you will?

My initial idea regarding this community was a one stop shop for custom content. I wanted to have a place for CC people to talk, share and coordinate their activities.

But that's not really all there is to it, nor, I think, should there be. The idea has grown as more voices beyond my own have joined the chorus.

What I imagine now is a home on the web for NWN2 content. THE place where we share info. The place where we work out any technical difficulties that get in our way. The place where we can get feedback. criticism and help on our projects. The place where we can meet likeminded individuals and work together.

But, it's obvious that the community needs more than that for just CC. We need a place where many things can be worked out and decided, with more flexibility than the NWN boards have traditionally allowed.

The NWCitadel staff and I have set this site up, and continue to, with those goals in mind. To provide you with the most options in the way of sharing your work and your ideas. We've picked forums that allow you to add attachments, we're setting up development blogs for those who want them, online galleries, and perhaps even CVS/Project management for small teams and groups who need to share files and coordinate work.

We'll be providing resources and links to everything that touches the creative parts of this community - from writing to texturing.

But there are things this site is not as well. A news site, for instance. And while we will no doubt cover anything important to the custom content community, it is not meant to be the place where you get your daily dose of NWN2 news - other sites do that too well and we've no interest in stepping on their toes.

It's also not a final file repository. Other places do a great job of administering to our needs in that regard, and we certainly don't have the bandwidth to host your final creations. But we are happy to help as you work.

This site is a great enabling project - we want to provide you with the tools to do your work the best you can.

What are some of the short- and long-term goals for Neverwinter Citadel?

Well, right now I'm just building infrastructure. I've spent two weeks pretty much constantly building and working. I'm not a programmer, web or otherwise, so I've also been learning a great deal as I go. I never thought I'd know so much about MySql databases, or that I'd be editing them regularly. My FTP client has just been sitting on my desktop pretty much constantly. So, getting all the different parts of the site - portal, gallery, blogs, and forums working together has been something I've spent the most time on. A little of that doing some graphics work for logos and such. A little creating the request tickets for people to ask for what they need. And a lot researching and trying out various software to see what works best for us. I think that all more or less was settled yesterday, at long last. Everything is interoperable aside from the blogs. Personally, I can't believe I did it. :)

Next on the plate is building up the content - gathering up all the existing resources and making sure we can easily add more as they become available. Also important is figuring out a sort of universal look for all the websites. I'm not thrilled with the appearance now, but at least it's largely coherent.

Long-term... well, more or less what I've said already. We're acquiring some great staff, and that's instrumental to a successful project, and I hope to add more functionality as time goes on. We very much look at ourselves as "service" entity without any particular interest or agenda aside from helping the NWN2 community grow.

Looking over the forums, there seems to be a vast array of "known" talent. Who are some of your site's contributors and what types of things are they involved with?

There's some old CODI guys, which pleased me immensely to see. Tranquil1, who did the Maugs (which were some of my favorite monster models for NWN), and a number of placeables with the tilesets, and tons of work you've not seen. MacIntyre is being slowly seduced by the dark side. Most people didn't know of him, I imagine, but Mac was the glue that kept CODI going. He's was the 'organization czar' and did an amazing job keeping us all knowing what we were doing. Adam Miller has been very into the site - setting up the forums for his new project and his team are going to be using our blog services.

We've had a few DLA members pop up over there, and a number of other people from prominent websites and organizations as well as solo heavyguns. I've been really thrilled at the support and involvement. In about a week we saw more than a 1000 posts and around 100 new users. The boards have been pretty active ever sense, despite having to put up with the "building" going on around them as I ready the site.

What can you tell us about the projects that have already started their work?

As mentioned, we've a few projects going on.

[li]The Save Sigil project (which isn't quite official) but Adam Miller is leading an effort to move some of CODI's content (the tileset, for instance) to NWN2 since many of our structures and textures are of sufficient quality to look great in NWN2 with a bit of tweaking.

[li]The other, launched somewhat by me, is the Citadel Completion Project which has a more scripting focus - but will accommodate art resources as possible. The goal here is to create packages of new content from WotC sources that were not in the game such as spells, skills, feats, and classes. The idea here is to be constantly turning out new packages - first from the source books, then perhaps content from the "complete" titles. Ideally, this would be a community standard of content like the CEP or PRC. Me, I just want "Sense Motive" in the game. :grins:

[li]We're also hosting several other projects as well, that are still getting their feet under them or just now moving. Everyone's welcome - from people planning custom content, scripts, modules or persistent worlds.

What are the benefits for modders considering joining the Citadel projects?

I'd say infrastructure, probably. For individuals, that's not a big selling point, but for groups - infrastructure is key. Reliable forums, ways to communicate, the ability to get your work out there and known, ways to get more members or help - these are all vital. Talent attracts talent, and if you're doing good work and need help - you need to let people know you're doing good work.

The other big one, and for everyone, is the knowledge base. We plan on Citadel being a hub for everything custom content - tutorials, explanations, tools, and just general "help." I imagine the website to be a place where you can go to our Wiki and find out (and perhaps help flesh out!) information on how to do something. Go the site, grab a tutorial for more details and possibly a walk through, and come to our forums for any specific help you may need.

We're also a community - and if you want, you can just talk about the game, watch other projects, or talk about your own.

It'll also be a PR and networking base. Allowing you to get your information out there, and meet other people - perhaps starting your own projects there (as we've seen already!)

What do you offer your members in terms of support for their projects?

We also provide services, as mentioned briefly above. For individuals or teams we can set them up with their own forum space using vBulletin, the Cadillac of forums. If you prefer to use blogs to communicate, or want to do both, we can set you up with individual or communal blogs on Lifetype, a popular multi-user blogging software. If you need space to show off your work, we also have galleries. All of it's free, you just have to use our handy ticketing system to let us know and we'll promptly set you up. We've also a NWN2 Custom Content Wiki in the works, aimed primarily at this point towards custom content but we may be able to setup some functionality for group use if they need it.

We may add more features in the future - such as online project management and CVS features. We're still investigating them.

What about the user who is not a modder but wishes to use some of the created content? How will the Citadel help them?

Well, we're not the Bault or the Forge or any other downloading site. That's not our purpose. We won't be hosting any finished content aside from tutorials and articles. But, ideally, we'll have guides to help people use custom content, and there will be a community willing to help them out as well. The NWN community thrives because we help each other out - we share our work, our information, and our time and the community is enhanced by this.

What do you anticipate for the Citadel after Neverwinter Night 2's release this September?

It'll be awash with hundreds of new members, and people old and new to the Neverwinter Nights community, ready to turn this game into all the protean forms they imagine. We'll have concrete knowledge on all the new systems, and can begin experimenting with modeling and other custom content. I plan on editing my Custom Prestige Class Tutorial and I imagine many members of the Citadel will similarly be delving into NWN2, ready to share all the information they can. We want to see this community producing new content as soon as possible, and we now have a much better idea of what we need to better facilitate that.

One of the big things will be standardization. That means coordinating 2da entries, talk table (dialog.tlk) entries, setting standards for texture sizes and polycounts, perhaps some scripting standards, etc. Currently, we plan on pursuing all of that.

Please add anything else you wish to add.

We invite everyone to stop by and get involved. Obviously, NWN2 isn't out yet, but plenty can be done. Also, if you're interested in getting involved with NWCitadel as staff, please message me via our boards and let me know.

Even though we have no launched the site officially, the forums are quite solid, however, and you can use them as you wish. The rest of the site is more in what I'd call a "beta stage" - usable, but not really ready for prime time. We're still working on the interoperability between the various systems and a unified appearance. Right now it's rather dark, so we're working on a lighter, more stylized theme. Expect all that to change a lot over the next month or so.

The purpose of this site is to help this community produce great content - from placeables to prestige classes to spells to modules. If you've any suggestions on what we can do to help that, please post and let's start talking about it!

Thank you, Papermonk!