Tag Archives: Modding

Neverwinter Nights for military

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It was at I/ITSEC 2007 that I first heard about Shawn A. Weil from the folks from Aptima, Inc. (Woburn, MA). It appeared that Aptima (or should I say Weil?) also worked on Neverwinter Nights for a little bit, and had presented their papers at past I/ITSEC (2004/2005).

It looks like they have been busy:

  • Alexander, A. L.; Brun, T.; Sidman, J.; and Weil, S. A. (2006). From Gaming to Training: A Review of Studies on Fidelity, Immersion, Presence, and Buy-in and Their Effects on Transfer in PC-Based Simulations and Games. DARWARS research paper. (PDF)
  • Freeman, J., MacMillan, J., Haimson, C., Weil, S., Stacy, W., and Diedrich, F. (2006). From
    gaming to training. Society for Advanced Learning Technology (SALT Conference). Orlando, FL. 8-10 February 2006. (PDF)
  • Weil, S. A., Hussain, T. S., Brunye, T., Sidman, J., & Spahr, L. (2005). The use of massive multi-player gaming technology for military training: A preliminary evaluation. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting. Santa Monica, CA: HFES. Also found here: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Proceedings, pp. 1186-1190(5)
  • Weil, S. A., Hussain, T. S., Brunye, T. T., Diedrich, F. J., Entin, E. E., Ferguson, W., Sidman, J. G., Spahr, L. L., MacMillan, J., & Roberts, B. (2005). Assessing the potential of massive multi-player games to be tools for military training. Proceedings of the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC). Abstract (PDF)
  • Freeman, J., MacMillan, J., Haimson, C., Weil, S., and Diedrich, F. (2005). Systems, studies, and
    strategies in game-based learning. Proceedings of Training & Simulation International (TESI Conference 2005). March, 22-24, 2005. Maastricht, Netherlands. (PDF)

I/ITSEC 2007 (Orlando, FL)

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My participation in the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference (I/ITSEC) 2007 was more chance than planned. I had seen an advertisement for Serious Games Challenge on the Serious Games listserv, and decided to go for it. After two months of hardwork, we finally had a completed mod for submission… and it came in as a Finalist entry!

By all accounts, I/ITSEC was a wonderful conference. There are a lot of interesting folks (mostly military, or ex-military personnels) who peers at the world using the same sand-colored binoculars as I do. :-)

This is so liberating, I actually have one guy said it to my face, we only want empirical studies! YES!!! Looks like I will be back next years, too.

Oh, it was a surprise to meet Mike Matzko there, too. (Long time no see!)

NWN2 Custom Model Contest

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Okay, I must admit I missed this one altogether. Apparently, Obsidian had commissioned a Custom Model Contest sometime in November… (I figured it was right around the time I was preoccupied with The Witcher). Anyway, for posterity sake, you can still view (and download) the custom models submitted for the contest here.

The original announcement said:

This contest is primarily for modelers. Participants can submit a single entry into each of the following categories (total of 6 entries allowed per participant):

  • Creature/Monster (requires animations)
  • Weapons
  • Buildings (can have animations if you like, such as a swinging sign or shutters, but doesn’t have to)
  • Placeables (can have animations, but do not have to)
  • Clothing/Armor
  • Props & Miscellaneous (equipable items that don’t fit into any specific category – such as books and bouquets of flowers)

The best news from this contest is that you can already download these contents and use them in your mod! :-) My favorite submission has got to be the celestial plate (armor) by Byterunner!

Celestial Plate

Serious Games Challenge

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After two months of planning and several weeks of crazy coding/scripting, my research team has finally put together a game for the 2nd Annual Serious Games Challenge and Showcase at I/ITSEC. I must say I learned a lot. Before, I was able to put together a story, and even build the set. But when it comes to scripting, I am no help… But now, I must say I can script pretty decently.

For the last 3 days, I was basically fitting all seven areas together. Due to time constraint, instead of sending it off to the team for any inspection and correction, I decided to rewrite about 80% of the scripts (well, because I messed up). The process nearly killed me as I had to pull an all-nighter. I finally postmarked it by 10.30am my time (11.30am EST). Now, considering the deadline being 12.00 noon EST, that was cutting it really close!

Still like I said, now I feel I have finally earn the rite of passge. I can boldly call myself a developer (and I have done game design from the beginning to finish). So, I am one of them now. I believe this is what separate instructional designers who talks about game design, from instructional designers who have done game designs.

Now to put all that behind me, and wait for the outcome of the judging/selection.

Oh, the story? It’s about saving a young girl from a mysterious illness… and the name of the Mod is aptly, “Saving Adryanee.”

CGames 2007

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I will be presenting “Assessing What Players Learned in Serious Games: In Situ Data Collection, Information Trails and Quantitative Analysis”at the 10th International Conference on Computer Games: AI, Animation, Mobile, Educational & Serious Games (CGAMES 2007) on July 25th – 28th, 2007, in Louisville, KY.

This would be my first foray into the computer games conferences outside of the field of instructional technology, it would be interesting to see what others think of Information Trails, and in situ data collection methodology.

The paper can be downloaded here: cgames2007.pdf