BWL welcomes its first Distinguished Developer! Options

[Baronius]

The title Distinguished Developer is awarded to the best mod developers of the Black Wyrm's Lair. The nominated member must meet very strict criteria. The most important ones are as follows:

• Active membership at any of the departments of the Black Wyrm's Lair at the time of nomination
• At least 1 year of active membership at the Department of Mod Development of BWL
• Comprehensive and thorough knowledge of at least one Infinity Engine game as a player
• At least 3 years of experience in a theoretical or practical field of Infinity Engine game mod development
• At least 1 big and/or complex, stable and practically bug-free released mod for an Infinity Engine game
• At least one other released Infinity Engine game mod, stable and practically bug-free

These are necessary, but not sufficient criteria. Other factors (such as the presence of creativity in mods) can be taken into account as well. The title Distinguished Developer is permanent and may not be rescinded from its holder by the Council of the Black Wyrm's Lair or by any other person, department or organization.

On the ocassion of announcing the new title, Distinguished Developer, the Council of the Black Wyrm's Lair would also like to award it to its first holder, our dear member and powerful developer, Sikret!

Sikret's masterpiece, Improved Anvil has become the metaphor of ultimate tactical challenges in the Infinity Engine mod developer community. Tactical challenges, which tax the patience of even the most experienced players, yet also offer a possibility for less skilled tacticians to learn hard while improving their tactical skills in a stupendous degree. It also opens brand-new dimensions of gaming experience, improving and extending the original Baldur's Gate II content in very many aspects. Improved Anvil alloys seamless technical implementation with the excellence of improved content and brand-new playing possibilities.

Sikret has also contributed to several projects by creating ready-to-use content or by offering useful, modern advice.

Please accept my congratulations, Sikret!

[DavidW]

Let me bring an olive branch to the discussion. IA isn't my kind of mod (the style differences between it and SCS make that obvious), but its quality assurance cycle is to die for. And I think it's probably right that a lot of the reason for that is straight time: modding for me is certainly a hobby and while obviously I test mods I write and code them in a bug-resistant way, I simply don't have the time (more importantly: don't have the flexibility of time) to do anything as thorough.