Adding those 2 new companions to this game takes as long as it does exactly because it's nearly impossible to integrate new characters into an already existing campaign with this editor. Aside that, what I was thinking about is the expansion that is going to come. A better stream-lined editor makes everything happen faster. And time is money in game development. When you occupy your map makers and scripters for 6 months on 1 map because the editor has flaws then they are not making new maps for other things in your project pipeline. Meaning everything takes longer.
They will use this editor for years to come
Ah ok, I see what you mean now and that makes sense. I'm beginning to wonder how well an expansion or further projects they work on will do considering the mess this has been since release. There's still time to do damage control, but they need to start showing some results like fixing the numerous serious bugs in the game and toolset.
Fixing the game issues people have should indeed be the top priority... anyhow I just mean that I am here for the editor, and the editor is not really in a state to really make mods, or for that matter, the actual game. I honestly have no idea how they made D:OS with that editor ;P But it explains why the 2nd map is nay complete empty in terms of quests and stuff to do. D:OS seems nearly like a proof of concept with story more than a game when I think about it. Oh well.
My real fear is that the expansion will try to shoehorn an "continuation" to the main OC instead of being an entirely "separate" experience. You may bash NWN1 campaigns however you wish, but to me the expansions were substantially better and more fun exactly because they were very very different from the OC. And then of course user campaigns blew everything officially made out of the water. Because they don't have to peddle to political correctness or have to skip topics that may cause shit-storms ;P And because of that, user campaigns for NWN1 can tackle serious mature topics, be horror or evil campaigns, or just be perverted. In the end choice is what makes a game a classic. NWN1 has user campaigns that fit the taste of everyone, no matter whether it's funny or dark. Perverted or family-friendly. Story driven or hack'n slash.. etc.
And when it comes down to it, that is what made NWN1 so popular. Aurora allowed to create a lot of very diverse stuff relatively easily and the low graphic fidelity made creating content very quick. And the big hubs sharing modules didn't filter or restrict content and because of that creators got creative and we ended up with some extremely big modules. I mean, how many games you know where modders literally wrote 120+ hour campaigns that were superior to professional "writing"? Thad had 5 episodes, epic conclusions, extremely long story arcs and proper connection between chapters, memorizing choices, what characters you picked etc. ? That is not even possible to do currently in D:OS editor.
