The AME is pleased to announce the results of our Mid-Summer 2012 Review!

Neverwinter Nights 2 Best Storytelling Module of 2009

The three finalists in this category were:

• Serene by Tsongo
• Sands of Solvheil III: Crusaders of Shalihir by Raith Veldrin
• Dark Waters III by Adam Miller

The winner of the NWN2 2009 Best Storytelling Module is Sands of Solvheil III: Crusaders of Shalihir by Raith Veldrin. Here are a few thoughts about this module from the AME’s award deliberations:

“I think in Part III the author has finally managed to find the right balance between involving the player in big events and having the story unfold… you can really see the way the themes and ideas shine through the story he’s telling and the world he constructs – and there are some big issues going on here, about religion, science, destiny and free will…

“…my main appreciation for this author’s work springs from his embrace of adventuring as “aggressive archaeology”.  I think there’s a sense often in games that “story” is the thing that happens with all the words.  But what makes SoS really stand out for me is the way story is embedded in the places you visit, often more so than in conversations you have or books you read.  This, to me, is really quality area design and genuinely original story-telling: not just creating a sense of place with the toolset but having the skills also to communicate history, to make a story not just something the player reads but something the player can walk around and look at.”

Neverwinter Nights 2 Debut Author Award of 2009

This category has just completed the nominations phase and has now entered the finals. The finalists are:

• PJ156 for Sheep and Stone
• Tsongo for Serene
• J.E. McKellar for The Last of the Danaan

Please feel free to discuss the new awards on our AME 2012 Awards Discussion Thread, and Congratulations to all of the Finalists and Winners!

And don’t miss our recent Summer 2012 AME News Update, regarding our NWN1 and NWN2 awards activities!

NWN2 Awards and Recruiting News

I’m pleased to announce that thanks to a continuing positive response from the community (as well as tireless recruiting efforts from some of our current staff), we have been able to add several new members during the course of 2012. We have about a dozen now supporting the NWN2 awards, and as I suggested in some of my previous announcements, this marks an important milestone for the AME. The reason is that we need a certain “critical mass” of members to clear nominations and awards in an effective and timely manner. A lack of that in recent years has been the cause of our current backlog of NWN2 awards, but it is a threshold that we have now finally once again begun to cross.

As a result, we expect to see a new stream of nominations and awards for those previous years (as well as for some current ones) from the AME in the coming months. That will begin with the results of the 2012 Summer Review to be announced shortly, and should continue with the 2012 Fall Review results to be announced in early October. And of course, if any of you have an interest in joining our NWN2 membership, don’t let this positive development stop you! The more members we have, the better and faster a job we will be able to do of bringing the NWN2 GDA’s up to date.

NWN1 Awards and Recruiting News

There has, conversely, been a reduction in membership and activity on our Neverwinter Nights 1 awards over the last year. I think that’s partly been due to the game’s continued aging (it’s now 10 years old), and the understandable tendency for players to gradually move on to more recent ones. From my contacts in the community, however, it is clear that there is still considerable interest in Neverwinter Nights 1, and that it is not yet time to draw a line under this remarkable game.

Much of this interest is in the custom content community, with ongoing projects like the monthly Custom Content Challenge and the new release of Project Q v1.5. But there are also a number of ongoing module development projects for it, as well as releases since last year of significant new works such as the conclusion of the Prophet series by Baldecaran. Indeed, Prophet Chapters II and III, which currently constitute 2 of the top 4 modules of all time by vote rating on the NWN Vault, may best exemplify our current conundrum. Due to a lack of participation from the NWN1 player community, we have been unable to clear nominations and awards for these and at least several other worthy candidates over the last two years.

In addition to our ongoing award categories (and as described in my last update), we also began a series of “Special Recognition” awards last year. Spanning the entire history of NWN1 rather than only recent years, each Special Recognition Award will focus on a different theme. So whether you still have an active interest in NWN1, or merely had one in the past, the AME has awards activities that you could participate in — and our “do what you can when you can” procedures make this easy to do.

In Memoriam

As many members of the NWN, NWN2 and Dragon Age communities may already know, Spidercat passed away earlier this year after a battle with cancer. In addition to her other activities, she had been an AME member for several years and was Game Leader for the our NWN2 awards. She was a wonderful person and colleague, and she will be sorely missed.