Thanks to berelinde for taking the time to write a draft review. It certainly helped me to work out my position in the usefulness of mod reviews. And so, here are my comments -- detailed to general, to summary.
Detailed*General Information: Neutral Good cleric of Lathander, found outside in the Beregost Temple area.
Str: 16 Dex: 12 Con: 16 Int: 12 Wis: 17 Cha: 12
Stat total: 85
*Bio: Gavin was born in Ulgoth's Beard, one of the younger children of a sailmaker and a midwife. He had an unremarkable childhood, until, at the age of 12, he discovered he had a talent for healing. His father was a follower of Tyr, but his mother worshipped Lathander. They were quite surprised to find that their rambunctious son had a calling to the priesthood, but they enthusiastically supported his decision, nevertheless, accompanying him to Beregost to begin his novitiate. His service to his god and his temple was devout, but otherwise unimpressive, and he was ordained a Dawnbringer at the age of 19. Since then, he has spent most of his time performing varied services for the temple, but Gavin's advancement within the ranks has been slow. Gavin is 28 when you meet.
*Starting Equipment: splint mail, large shield, helmet, war hammer, sling, bullets, potions of healing, antidote
This kind of stuff would appear in the readme, but readmes can be lacking sometimes, particularly in old
NPC mods (such as Mulgore and Xavia
NPC). It is useful to have this information here, but often contributes nothing new to a cursory read of the readme.
General Personality: (7.5/10) Gavin is talkative and friendly, but he is sometimes hesitant or awkward. He is afraid of spiders, and suffers from slight tendencies toward overindulgence. He always tries to do the right thing. He embraces racial tolerance, but he is less easy-going with regards to class and alignment. He will join any party, but his friendship and romance tracks are available to a more closely restricted pool of Bhaalspawn.
I someone protest against the idea of 'rating the personality'. Would a totally wacko
NPC (ahem, Tiax?) get a 0? I would understand if for some reason the personality became inconsistent over the course of banters such that the writing style showed an abrupt change. But still, what if someone took a knock to the head? Again, this would be something people would normally pick up from the readme.
Quest? (3.5/5) Participation in two existing quests and one original one. While the existing quests can still be completed without Gavin in the party, the PC must have him in the party to complete the third quest. Completion of any of the quests are optional, but if Gavin is summoned to the temple to hear them, he will insist on going to hear what his superior wants.
One could argue that this can also be in the readme. Quests would certainly be a boast to a play an
NPC mod. It might be worth going into a little more detail about what the quests involve. Do you have to kill something? Do Fed-Ex? Is the quest original? Twists and surprises? You don't necessarily have to rate this on how non-mainstream the quests are - that would be subjective - but if it was a constant 'go here, talk to him, go there, get that', then I'm sure would influence the rating here more than 'are there or are there not quests?' Quest difficulty I guess would be hard to be objective about.
Friendship? (3/5) Gavin has a friendship track with a neutral or good PC who is not an assassin.
Another readme thing? I don't understand how would you rate this either. If the friendship is brief and stuttered because the
NPC is introverted, does the rating automatically go down?
Romance? (3.5/5) Gavin will romance a good PC who is not an assassin, bounty hunter, or necromancer if her wisdom is 10 or better and her charisma is 12 or better. A reputation of 11 or better is required to begin the romance. This requirement increases to 15 after a certain point late in the romance. The romance contains an optional flirt pack. Both the romance and the flirt pack contain mature content.
Yet another readme thing? Would you rate a romance based on its depth - so more time higher rating? Superficial vs. involving and boring vs. exciting would certainly rate better, but that would be a subjective thing.
*ToB (BG2 only)? not applicable
Compatibility Considerations: (2/5) Gavin is not compatible with BGT at this time. Gavin is not known to be incompatible with any mod that may be applied to a Tutu installation. Gavin should not be installed on a BG2 installation prior to the Tutu conversion.
These definitely should go much closer to the top. I certainly wouldn't rate compatibility, as that is matter of modder choice rather than an expected norm. Giving compatibility a mark might have to do with whether it is buggy or perhaps how it is implemented to allow compatibility (Technical Execution), but requirements for compatibility is definite no-no.
Technical Execution: (4/10) While Gavin is compatible with BG1 NPC Project, there is a bug in the romance track that fails to disable Gavin's romance once the PC commits to one of the romanceable males introduced by the BG1 NPC Project. Version 1.2 beta contains infrequent spelling and punctuation errors. Gavin's friendship and romance may be managed using Player-Initiated Dialogue.
This can be useful when relating to compatibility, but I hope that people who write this do not constantly delve into code woes. That certainly would not be very accessible to players who just want to play mods. I'm not sure whether bugs should make a show here, since modders are often constantly refining their mods, quickly making bug reports in a review outdated.
Ease of Recruitment: (4/5) Easily recruited outside the Song of the Morning Temple outside Beregost. He will join any party.
Another readme thing. So a hard to recruit
NPC gets 0? Perhaps you can describe where you find him, but a rating seems ludicrous. Besides, for an
NPC mod, it would be commonsense to make the
NPC (the whole content of the mod) as easily available as possible - people I'm sure innately recognises this.
Interaction with PC: (4/5) Depends on the alignment, class, gender and attributes of the PC. Gavin has friendship path with approximately 15 talks and a romance with 30 talks. Gavin has no PC-specific content for an evil PC or an assassin.
Does this not mingle with the Friendship and Romance sections? But again, readme material.
Interaction with BioWare NPCs: (4/5) Gavin has 1 to 6 banters with every BioWare NPC.
Readme material.
Interaction with Game World: (3/5) Frequent casual interaction with non-joinable NPCs in Beregost, moderate interaction with regards to game quests and plotline. His interjections are generally consistent with his class and alignment.
Do you think the introverted
NPC will also suffer in this rating?
Integration with Game: (2/5) As the unmodified Baldur's Gate has little NPC interaction, Gavin clearly stands out as a mod NPC.
While not only being subjective, it is so obvious -- people are installing the
NPC mod! To me, an integration with the game is the whole mod itself, so I don't agree with this category.
So many interaction/integration categories seem to make the review nitpicky -- why not lump them into one?
Crossmod Content: (4/5) Gavin has cross-mod content with the BG1 NPC Project, including romance conflicts with the three romanceable males in that mod. He has no cross-mod content with Finch, Indira, Mur'Neth, Xavia, Mulgore, or Jonathan.
Just like the compatibility rating, cross-mod content is a modder choice thing and shouldn't be an expectation -- hence, I don't believe this should be rated. Also readme material.
Gameplay: (7/10) As a good-aligned cleric, Gavin is moderately powerful. He has good combat bonuses overall, though he does suffer a penalty to hit spiders. His high wisdom score gives him a significant spell bonus. Besides supportive, healing spellcasting, he has access to Boon of Lathander and Draw Upon Holy Might, both of which can enhance his combat abilities.
Subjective Pros: (3.5/5) Talkative NPC with a well-defined personality, provides a good-aligned divine spell-caster, and offers friendship as an alternative to a full romance. Gavin behaves consistently with his alignment and religion. He is very demonstrative about his romantic interest.
Subjective Cons: (-2.5/-5) Interjection frequency is significant, and might be considered a bit too high by some, and his stat total is higher than Viconia or Branwen. The friendship path is not as developed as the romance. Gavin's romance can be graphic at times, and offers disturbing consequences to some PC role-playing decisions. Not all the consequences of Gavin's past are pleasant for the romanced PC.
I think the subjective portion of the review is the major thing that benefits the readers of reviews in this case. You just have to make sure you are fairly specific (give examples, at risk of SPOILERS though) so that you don't give 'relative' impressions of what is too hard/boring/superficial/confusing. So, instead of "The fights in the mod were way too hard. You constantly have to re-load and re-strategise before you can take any steps further in the mod.", aim for "The fights in the mod were too difficult as the party was often surrounded by archers and ambushed by high-level orcs that appear to hit all the time. Constant re-loading and adjustment of tactics was required, but really proved tedious, as the outcome of combat was often based on how lucky you were with dice rolls than what equipment and spells you brought." So, if someone read those sentences in the review, the one that reads the latter would at least be able to judge for themselves whether constantly re-loading and hoping for the luck of the dice is worth installing and playing the mod. Yet, it doesn't give any spoilers away. OK, there are ambushes and orcs, but there is no hint of story; since there is nothing concrete to relate to, people who decide to play the mod will probably forget that there is a situation like that in the mod until they actually encounter it. Make sense?
Applying that to what you have written, the subjective comments you give here are probably a bit too general -- 'well-defined', 'consistently', 'significant'. They are all relative terms that don't work off an absolute. I prefer an example, e.g. "Gavin interjects approximately twice every 10 different NPCs you talk to. That could be a bit much for some, but it highlighted the depth of his involvement in the plot.", or whatever.
Overall: 49.5/80
Perhaps a much tighter rating system (lower highest score) is better, else we would end up with nitpicking that
NPC mod A got 0.5 better than, and thus is a better mod, than
NPC mod B. I've found rating much more useful when the items being reviewed were categorised into 'achievement groups': Crap, Just In, Some Sexiness, Feisty, and Classic. Obviously, we'd come up with better groupings than those.
GeneralOverall, I am finding here that the objective portion of the review does nothing useful to the reader who readily reads readmes (excuse the assonance) except to redress the mods written by modders that haven't taken enough care in writing a proper readme. I cannot say how prevalent this problem is, but it should be considered in the worthiness of an objective review. I personally like to see some detail of what the mod is about because that sets the scene for criticism/comment. And so, while the objective portion tells the reader what they are in for, it does not add anything beyond describing the features of the mod.
The subjective portion of the review seems to be what interests me -- that might not be the case for everybody. This is not only because it is freer writing that is more interesting in general, but its the personal quirks and aches that I attempt to relate to and ask myself whether I would care about them as much as the reviewer. While every car has almost the same features (objective), that almost always isn't going to help you choose what car to buy. It is more about "Is it comfortable?", "Do you like it?", "How does that car make you feel?". Thus, while "I hate this mod" and "I like this mod" would most certainly have a powerful effect on attracting/repelling players of the mod, I foresee that some rare occasions of "I hate you for hating my mod" is going to happen, or more often the mod author more subtly expresses their contempt at the review. Further caveats are the risk of being too general, e.g. "Dialogues were good. Quests were easy." making the review superficial and not give anything to that the reader can relate to. Examples and a few specifics would be good to illustrate the point of what is 'good' or 'easy', but comes with the risk of including SPOILERS. I think a balance between the two would give the most useful information to the reader, so that they take in the reviewers judgements, but also have the ability to judge for themselves the situations that are presented.
Summary - I've considered the posts after the Gavin draft review in this tooThe objective portion of the review:
- Describes the content and sets the scene for the subjective portion of the review. People who prefer to choose mods based on characteristic features of the mod will be happy.
- On its own, only re-creates the readme or re-dresses the lack of a readme a parts of the readme. Subjective portion is required.
- Can sometimes give details that the readme doesn't provide, such as compatibility.
- Is fine in categorised format, and can have a rigid structure. Can be more flexible, and based on a checklist.
The subjective portion of the review:
- Is the meat of the whole review because it is the feeling that counts most of the time, not necessarily the features.
- Would be much freer in writing and would provide interest in the reading, i.e. not blurting out facts.
- Must avoid being too general, but also should avoid giving spoilers. It should give specifics that allow the reader to relate to the situation and judge for themselves.
- Might occasionally cause the mod authors harm in the case of bad reviews, but can provide some useful feedback.
The scoring in the review:
- Generates an 'expectation' on the mod and should not be placed on modder choice categories, such as Compatibility and Cross-mod Content.
- Probably shouldn't rate quantity of content but more quality of content -- ending up more subjective than objective
- Could have a limited range, e.g. 1 to 5, to allow more accurate grouping of mods into 'achievement levels'.
I will just re-iterate that this is my opinion. You may or may not agree with my thoughts, and whether you do or do not, please post something.
Congratulations to berelinde for a stimulating review.
Edited by Ascension64, 19 June 2007 - 04:15 AM.
