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[Kellen]

Continuing our 12 Days of Christmas, and our interviews, today we have an interview with the bigg, a hard-working coder and modder on such projects as Refinements, Widescreen mod and now maintainer of WeiDU. See next post for the interview.

~ Kellen

[Kellen]

When did you first join the modding community?
I started downloading mods, tools etc. around 2003. My first community was the would-be-SHS, which I joined in Jan 2004. Around May 2004 I released my first mod (Mazzy the Paladin) and joined the Refinements team.

So Mazzy the Paladin was your first mod. What inspired you to do it?
I can't recall any real reason, but I suppose it was the curiosity to see if I was up to the task. With MtP the answer was no (since the end result had really weak dialogues and plot) but I suppose in general the answer is yes, I'm up to the task.

Indeed. You've worked on quite a few things. Which mod are you most proud of?
I'm currently pretty proud of the success of WeiDU, Widescreen and Refinements - however I'm not 100% personally satisfied with any of them, since most of them are based on somebody's else work rather than being my idea, and I can list the weaknesses of each of them.

I see. Speaking of your work with WeiDU, why did you first pick up WeiDU, and what has been your experience maintaining it? What are perhaps some of the weaknesses you've noticed, if you don't mind my asking?
I first decided to dabble with it in late 2005, which was when Weimer started teaching and working for Planewalker Games, thus leaving WeiDU behind. As with modding in general, I decided to take up the challenge of learning OCaml and working on WeiDU.
As for my experience, it has taught a lot of things to me about software development (most of them learned via trial-and-error). In general, WeiDU was not written to be read and edited by somebody not familiar with its internal structure, making it hard to successfully write correct patches that don't alter behavior in seemingly unrelated portions of code, and, unfortunately, this code complexity has leaked into the functionality, making it often confusing and breaking self-consistency in various places. Also, WeiDU was not coded to be fully programmable (with loops, conditionals and whatnot), and all of these features were added without a precise plan, leaving the ending tp2 language pretty difficult to understand for somebody experienced in 'true' programming.

Also on the topic of WeiDU, you've mentioned in the past you wanted to work on a "WeiGUI". Do you still plan to do so, and, if so, could you explain what that is?
Yes, I still plan to work on it. In fact, I made my graduation thesis on WeiGUI/WeiDB, but only designed it, rather than actually implementing it, due to time constraints (AKA too much TF2). WeiGUI is a graphical program that will download an index of available mods, components etc. with their compatibility constraints, and, given a selection of mods made by the user, will compute which additional components will be required, and which is the optimal order of installation, and finally instruct WeiDU to install the components. WeiDB will be a web site where mod authors will be able to add and update their mods, compatibility, etc. and compile this info in the index that will be used by WeiGUI.

Sounds like quite a lot of work. You recently got a First-level Degree, and are working on a Second. That must keep a busy schedule. How do you organize modding and WeiDU time around that?
I am lucky in that I learn very quickly, so I don't have to spend too much time studying, and the same goes for programming, both on WeiDU/IE stuff and study stuff. Besides, an Italian degree is ideally geared towards 1500 hours of work per year, which equates to a part-time job... so it leaves enough free time even to more 'normal' people. As such, I might have a study burst for the exam month, and have lots of free time for the following 2/3 months.

What's the biggest mod you've ever worked on?
Depends on the definition of work; I guess it's either Return to Windspear (permissive definition) or Refinements (restrictive definition). For RTWP, I only coded a tp2 snippet and made a couple of suggestions, whereas for Refinements I (re)coded ample portions of the mod.

More recent mod work includes Stivan. Can you tell us how you first got the idea, and where the mod has come since then?
The idea was "let's add a non-evil Fighter/Thief NPC." I fired up NI and searched for all Fighter/Thieves in the game, and Stivan was the one with the most interesting personality. I coded two banters and got bored with it, but decided to release it anyway (this was in September 2004). After "only" four years of gathering dust, Giuseppe offered to act as a writer for it. So far, he's written about 50% of the SoA content, but unfortunately I haven't done anything of relevance due to the impending graduation (I have read his stuff and offered feedback, but not coded or translated it). However, I plan to start working on it this Christmas break. The first version will be full SoA+ToB and will be both in Italian and English (Giuseppe writes in Italian, and I translate in English).

Not to sound like a rabid fanboy, but any idea on a release date for it?
I've given up on them after discovering the extent of my laziness. However, I think that it should be possible to hope for a mid 2009 release.

Fingers crossed. Do you have any favorite mods, other than you own?
Lots of them. Between the mods that aren't A-level, I usually install Freedom's Reign/Reign of Virtue and Ashes of Embers. Of course, I'm a big fan of SCSII due to its extreme compatibility features

What are mods that you consider A-level?
I mean mods like Fixpack or Tweakpack, that everybody uses. Of course, SCSII, Banterpack, Ascension, Item Upgrade or D0Questpack also fall in the category.

Finally, what advice would you give to anyone just starting to mod?
The first thing I'd say is "prepare to do all of the mod by yourself," because most mods (especially NPCs) are made by a single author, that out-sources testing, portrait and soundset, and takes care of all writing and coding (AKA the bulk of the active work). Also, another thing that anybody should be aware of is that getting the first public release (including the 'open beta') right is of paramount importance, since the quality of the first release seen by the mass is what will be remembered by the mass. And, as such, a buggy/poor first public version spells doom for the mod's success in the future (even if V2 comes out after a week and is perfect). Finally, I'd also suggest the would-be modder consider modding a different, more recent game (Oblivion, NWNII, or any UT3 or Source game), because, with those, you actually have a chance of ending up with a job if your mod is of high quality. Whereas, with BG2 modding, you might learn coding, writing, project managing etc., but those skills are applied to an outdated engine

Short-answer questions:
Favourite canon BG/BGII Character? - For NPC, I always take Imoen. For non-NPC, I'd say Irenicus
Favourite Mod Character? - Kelsey
Irenicus or Bodhi? - Irenicus
Vanilla or Modded BGII? - Modded
Favourite Class? - Single class = Sorceror. Multiclass = Fighter/Thief. Dual class = Swashbuckler -> Mage.