Neverwinter Nights Forum News (Nov. 11, 04)

chevalier · Jan 3, 2018

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Derek French, Live Team Producer

Solution? - Live Connection Doesn't Work for Me
Sorry, at this time, online authentication is the only solution we have. If the store is a success, I would be more than happy to look into an offline solution so that more can enjoy the new adventures.

No .zip files avalaible ?
As per the Unofficial but accurate FAQ: Click Here

Will Mac users be supported?
The 1.65 patch, released soon after the launch of the BioWare Online Store and Premium Neverwinter Nights Modules, will allow Mac and Linux gamers to enjoy the same great gameplay as their Windows counterparts. We're dedicated to supporting the Mac and Linux Neverwinter Nights communities, and we're working diligently to address their needs as soon as possible.
We have the Mac version up and running on an internal build with the Premium Modules and we are entering final testing throughout this week and next. We really wanted the full functionality for all platforms for 1.64, but it just didn't work out that way. It won't be too long.

More:
I'm not sure I understand well. It's easier to produce a zip than an exe, so why is it longer?
I can give you the zip files for Mac and Linux, they just won't work on those platforms under 1.64. So there is no reason to give you the zip file at this time. As soon as 1.65 is resolved, we will have zip files available.

More:
I think what they're trying to say is that these aren't 'modules' as we've been used to. This premium content needs to authenticate itself to bioware, and it's my guess that this authernication process is what isn't functioning with the Mac & Linux 1.64 patch.
Nope, that part is working just fine. Its after the module starts that things went south. It will be all fixed in the 1.65 Update.

More: Not sure what to say. It was in the FAQ at the top of the forum for at least a week now. The issue presented itself after the 1.64 update was released, and at that time, the modules seemed to be working for Mac and Linux. Further testing proved that to be false, so we updated the FAQ and all parts of the store mention the requirement for Windows, which will be changed once a public version is available. If people bought something that "they could not use at all" then they ignored the clearly mentioned Windows requirement. Not sure what we can do about that. The modules currently work on internal builds of Mac and Linux and we are in final testing of 1.65 to verify this.

Mac / Linux?
And just as a point of further information, we are currently testing the modules under and internal build of Mac NWN and think we have the problem resolved. We will still need a few more days of testing, and then we should be able to get a 1.65 Beta out to you "soon". Whatever that means.

Solution? - Live Connection Doesn't Work for Me

I'll buy these the first week you put them on CD or DVD.
The question is not one of delivery, as anyone can download the file for you and burn it to a CD. The question is one of off-line authentication.

Premium module in other language?
From the unofficial yet accurate FAQ Click Here

Quote: Will the modules only be in English?
Yes, the modules will be in English-only, for the time being as the costs and logistics of translation appear to be prohibitive. If the modules are successful in English, we may consider localizing these or other BioWare Premium Modules in the future.

Solution? - Live Connection Doesn't Work for Me

I'd buy them, IF I had a way to do it! PayPal would solve the problem for me. No, I am not running out and getting a Visa or MC just to get these games.
Fair enough, and we are looking into other payment options. As this whole thing is quite the experiment, the more successful it is, the more we can explore other options of payment and authentication.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Open for Business!
As of 1:27am, Nov 10th the BioWare Online Store has opened its doors! Woooot!

More: I believe the first person who made a transaction lives in Scotland...

External Created Premium Modules Questions
Interesting idea and one we have certainly dicussed as their is a lot of interest in PnP module conversions. Right now any projects in development are all original content but we are looking at a variety of options for the future.

Rob Bartel, Senior Designer Live Team

Minor Quibbles with Shadowguard QA
We definitely look forward to any feedback you may have and hope you're enjoying the modules. Once you're ready to post further details of your play experience, we'll look into them and see if there are any additional fixes that should be made. Note that some of the things you may be experiencing may be stylistic decisions that Altaris made during the development of the module (much like the 'no combat XP' decision that I made when developing the original Witch's Wake - not necessarily a bug but a design element that may prove controversial enough to warrant reconsidering). Glad to hear that you're in and playing,

More: The nwbugs email address doesn't generally go to me as it's reserved more for issues found in the core game or its expansions.

There's a Premium Modules Technical Support forum listed right below this one (if it isn't there yet, it will be showing up in a little while - as an Admin, I may be getting an advance peek at it). That's probably the best place to report any issues you find. Be sure to report the name of the module you were playing (including whether it was Kingmaker or Kingmaker Lite) and the version number found in the module description. For now, they all say 1.0 but, if we release patches, that will increase. Beyond that, the more information you can give us the better, though a clear, concise statement of the problem at the top of your post is always helpful.

Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker

Well, I just barrelled through Kingmaker, and got 5 hours out of it. [I will play it again though, as the nature of the module means I only did a fraction of the total.] To the designers, [and stealing a quote from space ghost] I say: You are now king. Good work!
Glad enjoyed it and glad to hear that you're going back for more. Dan and Cori did a great job on the module and we're really proud to have it as our flagship title.

Reviews
I believe RPG Vault and NWVault are both planning on running reviews in the near future. LdyShayna, one of the community members involved in the beta testing, is intending to post reviews of all three modules to the 'Ladies of Neverwinter' site. Not sure if the Reviews Guild has any specific plans in place. Give it a little time and I'm sure there'll be a ton of reviews out there for people to choose from.

Stores Open ! Woohoo

Too bad I dont have my NWN CD key with me in the office here. Else I would have bought all available stuff right now
If don't have your CDkey handy but still want to take the store for a spin, you can always buy yourself a Gift Code. You can then redeem it with your CDkey when you get home. Glad to see everyone's enjoying the store. The Web Team did an excellent job on it. Creating the modules is only half the puzzle.

Tell me why I should even consider buying one
If you have any particular questions about how we did certain things, rhfield, start another thread to discuss them and we'll try to answer them there, provide examples where we can, and so forth. Our security features unfortunately require us to restrict toolset access to these modules but that doesn't mean all us tech-heads can't still gather together and geek out on the details. Let us know what caught your eye (with proper spoiler warnings as necessary), and we'll gladly explain what we're doing behind the scenes to accomplish it.

Bioware: Why not charge for all of the user-created mods?
The original poster presents a valid economic model. As some of these posts have shown, it's also a very dangerous one when it comes to building and maintaining a positive relationship with the community. When developing the online store you see here today, we've been very deliberate about treating it as more than just a numbers game. It's been about developing a product and a service and a relationship that keeps the needs and interests of the community at heart. The Live Team lives and dies by the support of the community it serves and the revenue stream provided by this online store only strengthens that relationship. While I don't foresee the Neverwinter community going down the cottage industry road as proposed by the original poster, I'm not going to rule it out, either (you know me - I'm a 'never say never' kind of guy). Suffice to say that it would have to be something that the community clearly wants and desires from us, not something that we would unilaterally impose upon the community. There's my utopian world view in a nutshell,

More:
waits for the day when "basketmaker" is released
And then Basketmaker 2005, 2006, 2007...In all seriousness, Talus brings up a valid point. Selling modules to the community in an environment where plenty of free modules already exist, involves a fair amount of risk. We've had naysayers both internally as well as externally over the course of this store's development. If everything goes horribly wrong, we definitely run the risk of damaging our reputation as a developer.

That said, I think we've addressed that risk and worked very hard to consult our community, both privately and publicly, to ensure that our approach is one that offers something back to the community. We've been nurturing discussion of this concept for over a year on the old Witch's Wake boards, for instance, and have adapted our plans to reflect concerns that were expressed by the community at the time. In the end, this is just another means of delivering gameplay to our loyal customers, just like building and releasing any other game - pretty mundane despite all the personal excitement I feel on seeing this all finally come to fruition. We'll see where all of this ultimately leads but, Talus, if you do end up purchasing Kingmaker, I look forward to hearing your review of the module.

Are the mods Transferable? Refundable?
On a technical level, Rich, I believe you are correct. On a legal level, well that depends on the EULA of the game in question. As I'm not a lawyer, I won't offer an official interpretation of the NWN or Premium Module EULA here and I doubt anyone else will either. My guess, however, is that this sort of behavior is not supported by the EULA you agree to when installing the software. I recommend we move on to other matters before the thread devolves into something lockable.

think i broke a kingmaker quest..SPOILERS
Thanks for the bug report (and the spoiler notice). To ensure that your issue can be addressed, please repost your problem to our Premium Module Tech Support Forum.

Ugh! My Debit Card Was Declined!!
Thanks for the bug report and I'm sorry to hear that you're having troubles with your debit purchase. The temporary ban is fairly short and primarily intended to foil automated fraud attempts so it's not the end of the world if you trigger it. But let's see if someone can figure this out for you. To ensure that your issue can be addressed, please repost your problem to our Premium Module Tech Support Forum.

More: In theory, we should be able to accept most Visa- or MasterCard-sponsored debit cards. We've now had three reports of declined debit cards as follows:

First Merit (Visa)
Bank of America (Visa)
Bank One (Visa)

No MasterCard debit troubles as of yet but please report any if you're experiencing them. We're continuing to look into this. Thanks for your helpo and patience.

SPOILERS bug in kingmaker
We've been getting a trickle of reports about this and it appears there may be a particular logic error that slipped through our testing procedures. As a temporary workaround, try... **REMOVED TO AVOID SPOILER** View thread. - Maximus

Are the mods Transferable? Refundable?

So, if the DD is attached to the license code, I can play this both at work and at home? I have it set up on my work computer so I can play during my lunch hour (I have nothing better to do here) where I play SoU. And at home I have it set up so I can play when I get a free moment. If it works this way, I'll be very happy.
Provided you have the same CDkey in use both at work and at home and you have internet access from both computers to allow for authorization, yes, you'll be fine.

And what about Mac? :-?
We're fast-tracking the 1.65 patch but it all depends on what gets found in testing. If you're comfortable with beta patches, that should allow you to shortcut the process somewhat. So specific dates to give out at this point, though.

Which are the CCV numbers on MasterCards?

I really don't like these credit cards ... so insecure and stuff anyone who owns my credit card can order stuff with it. I really don't understand why you don't need to enter a secret PIN-code or something like that.
I always chuckle at these sentiments (I'm a Luddite at heart and it took me quite a while to get used to online purchases as well). We quite happily hand our credit slips over to the guy with three teeth and a greasy ballcap at the gas station, complete with our credit card number, expiry date, and signature. Yet handing something over a secure transmission to a trusted website seems somehow anathema. The long and the short of it is that credit cards rely on a culture of trust and they have strict measures in place to address cases where that trust is broken. Whether it's online or offline, credit card issuers tend to offer excellent customer support to cardholders who consider themselves to be victims of fraud. Ponder that the next time you meet the pizza dude at the door and pay by credit card.
PS - And yes, my understanding is that the CCV refers to the last three digits on the back of your card, regardless of how many digits they display in total.

CD Key Kingmaker
Also, Kingmaker requires a valid HotU CDkey (not for authentication but as part of the standard "this module uses content from the HotU expansion" message). Check your cdkey.ini to ensure that you have the proper CDkey for HotU. If all else fails, consider re-installing the HotU expansion.

Good news - Bad news...
And to clarify Stan's post, Gift Codes behave in the same way (once they've been redeemed). Once a purchase has been associated with a particular CDkey, you can redownload the module as many times as you want. Sorry you can't play it while on the road but enjoy your time at home.

Romances: men or women?
Okay, tone down the rhetoric, everyone. BioWare does its best to maintain a gay-positive working environment and we would appreciate it if the same tolerance and respect can be extended to our message boards and the community at large. At BioWare, we don't consider sexual orientation in our games to be a maturity-related issue. Sex and sexuality as a whole, is a maturity-related issue and we attempt to handle it in keeping with the Teen rating assigned to us by the ESRB. When it comes to romances within our games, we've had a tendency to focus on heterosexual relationships and I believe this is true of Kingmaker as well. Aside from the technical and story-based implications of implementing gay or bisexual relationships in our games, we simply don't see it as a solely player-based decision. It's our responsibility to remain true to our non-player characters. If we have gay and bisexual characters in the future, we will take the necessary care and attention to write and script them as such. But if we have a heterosexual character, we're not going to provide for gay or bisexual romances solely on the basis of player choice.

Ultimately, the larger question comes down to whether or not there is a market for games with gay or bisexual NPCs (or NPCs from visible minorities, or with mental or physical disabilities, or with strong religious attachments, or with left- or right-leaning political tendencies, or vegetarians, or... you get the picture). Personally, I believe there is and that there is merit in representing diversity. But that's an issue for another module. For now, enjoy Kingmaker and these other modules for what they are. And please keep this thread civil or it will be locked (not for the subject matter but for any name-calling and personal attacks that may result). EDIT: (Spoiler) I just received an update from Dan Whiteside, the writer for Kingmaker. As it turns out, **REMOVED TO AVOID SPOILER** View thread. - Maximus My apologies for misreporting that above.

EXE file download issues
For the record, you can acquire the *.exe files from anywhere. If you want to download them at work/school and burn them onto a CD for yourself, go ahead. If you have a friend who purchased them, they can zip up the *.exe's and send them your way. You will need to purchase a module (or redeem a Gift Code) in our online store before you can play it but we don't mind if people want to spread the installers around as they see fit.

Crash on Create/Select Character screen
Hi Flint, The 'hang' that you're getting is the decryption process, I think (the load bar just kind of sits there at the very beginning, not moving?). If that's the case, then that means the crash is due to the decryption process aborted at the very end (possibly due to a corrupt download). Are you getting any particular error messages? If redownloading the module is a viable option, I recommend trying that just in case it got garbled on the way down the pipe.

The Ask PlanKton Thread II
And, for the record, PlanKtonBoy and Cuber are both members of our beta testing group. They know the modules backwards and forwards and they should be a lot of help. Thanks, guys!

On-line requirement will hurt Bioware
For the record, a CD check simply checks to see if you have the CD. As these premium modules don't come on a CD, it doesn't really make sense to rely on CD checks as a security measure. Is it like NWN or the expansions? No. Online, non-physical purchases require online, non-physical security measures. I really don't understand why people find this so confusing.

KingMaker Dedicated server CD Key problem
It may be possible to 'brute-force' your way through Kingmaker and ShadowGuard in multiplayer but neither of them have been designed or tested with this in mind so consider yourself forewarned. We are hoping to make more of our premium modules multiplayer-capable in the future. As for you and your brother, you can still attempt multiplayer if one of you hosts and the other joins. The CDkey issue is with the dedicated server only, and does not affect your ability to host a multiplayer game via the NWMain executable.

Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake

I just tried making a sub class in WW and while the name was scribed on to my characters race when i went on to abilities the adjustments were not reflected- do they only get added/subtracted after starting the game? Am I missing something here?
The subraces are based on a creature-hide based system and some multiplayer servers consider this exploitable. As a result, there are some settings in the nwnplayer.ini file that set "Enforce Legal Characters" and "Item Level Restrictions" to 1. Set these to 0, and the subrace hides should apply to your character correctly. We'll work at documenting this more clearly on the subrace page in the future.

Solution? - Live Connection Doesn't Work for Me
It depends. If it follows the pattern of traditional retail titles, there'll be a sharp spike followed by a rapid downturn as you hit market saturation. If that's the case, then we'll have a fairly good idea as soon as that downturn becomes clear. If it follows the pattern of a cult hit TV show, however, it will build by word of mouth and experience a slow but steady growth over time. The clincher is that you never know which mode you're in until the water's all under the bridge. Neverwinter itself has shown elements of both types of sales curves.

Robin Mayne, Webmaster

*taps foot and points at the date, scowling* (Serious question inside)
As Georg mentions, the store will ask you for the original NWN CD Key you want to make the purchase for... if you happen to have a key registered with your account already and had selected it to be retrievable, the store will pre-populate the form with the key, at which point you can change it if you want.

Open for Business!

Some of us may have been refreshing store.bioware.com every few minutes for the last two hours or so.

That would explain why our weblogs are showing a spike in traffic

Stores Open ! Woohoo
Glad your transaction went smoothly, we all hope you enjoy the modules!

And what about Mac? :-?
Once the Mac and Linux support is added, there will simply be additional files, no need to repurchase.

Tom Ohle, Public Relations

Game owner and module owner
It's in the works (so Robin assures me)! I had the same thought this morning. heh

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Non-module Premium Content?

That same $8 can be used to purchase a PnP D&D module and with that you can play Dungeons and Dragons the way it is intended with all your house rules and such.
Are you sure it's still 8$ ... All modules that come with good material I checked lately were around 16-35$US. As said, if you think it's expensive is a matter of personal preference - for me 4-8$ for these modules is a bargain, just 1-2 speciality coffee's less a month...

On-line requirement will hurt Bioware

Ok you want realistic?...>I for one do not support illegally distributed software, well at least when the source is not the Author. But the REAL thing is, is that weather their is people illegally distributing others work, it does not have anything to do with me or (everyone else that pay for their software). SO... should I accept being forced in a procedure that either is a pain in the back end or may invade my privacy?... absolutely not! The so called Piracy problem is the Authors problem... not ours. If they wish to take measures of protection which I agree that they should, must not affect the customers in anyway!... end of STORY! No arguments can convince me otherwise, it's just plain unacceptable. I do not or will not pay for the BAD of others and no one should accept that.
If you stay on the ground with both feet, you will probably realize that pay quite a bit for the bad of others, be it through taxes that keep law enforcement in your country afloat or the part of the price of nearly every good you can buy that is used to pay for store detectives, security cameras or just to compensate for theft.

However - speaking of costs - the live internet connection requirement is a relatively cheap protection (as it is using already existing and tested technology) which allows us to sell the modules at current, very competitive pricepoint - if we had gone to license or develop other, more complicated technology to achieve the copy protection aspect, the cost would probably be higher.

Bioware: Why not charge for all of the user-created mods?

They only care about getting paid.
Congratulations for understanding the basic premise under which everything that is called a "business" is working. I am glad that basic economic knowledge is such widespread these days.

However, "getting paid" also means to retain your satisfied customers, so it is usually a good idea not to rip them off or give them bad service. For us, our community and it's well being is important because we believe that satisfied customers will come back for more later (resulting in continual cashflow for us, allowing us to make more games in the future, etc).

I would also like to point out that one of the ideas behind premium modules is to find revenue for the Live Team on NWN so we don't have to reassign them to other, more profitable projects but can keep them working on Neverwinter, providing more free patches and possible new custom content for the community.

More:
One clarification: My idea was not that you could make a mod and sell it. My idea was that you could make a mod and submit it to Bioware to sell it. If your mod used material from the CEP or whatever, it would be up to Bioware whether to decline to sell it, alter the mod, or address the creators of CEP in some equitable fashion. Bioware is the owner.
At this time we are not looking for finished modules or aspiring module makers. The Live Team only has a certain capacity to monitor and ensure the quality we expect from a premium module and they are quite busy at the moment. If the Live Team is interested in a certain author, they will contact him/her directly, so please don't swamp them with "I'd like to make a module for you" mails. Your best guess to get notices would be to release or have released a critically acclaimed module to the community so your name gets out there and starts to pop up on their radar.

More:
EA said the same thing when they raised the monthly charge or UO, OSI's creation, by only 3 dollars. Most people fail to realize how much income 3 dollars can produce on a massive scale and I think NWN is, or could be, quite a bit more popular then NWN. You're not talking about 3 bucks though. You're talking about 5 - 8 dollars for a mod barely scraping over 10 hours that people could make on their own spare time. this isnt a flame I like bioware just productive critisism so dont go punching me in the face or anything like that.
Well, there is no monthly fee on NWN, and you are not forced to buy these modules, so I fail to see a hidden cost increase here and how that applies to EA's business model.

As for the decision whether or not 5-8 $ is enough for the module you get, you can wait for reviews and see if you are ok with what you read. From my point of view they are more than worth their small price, especially kingmaker - but I'm obviously biased

As for the comment on people that could have made the module in their spare time, I think you are dearly underestimating the amount of work that went into these - I can tell you that BioWare designers (such as Cori and Dan) have worked on them during their workhours here at BioWare and that I consider the modules we have available for sale now to be better than 99% of all the modules on the Vault. And people doing VO in their spare time in the basement ... I prefer the professional VO from real actors we got for these modules... (You can preview Click Here )

More:
Ouch! Nothing like dissing 99% of the community. With 4100+ modules available that's 41 modules that are better? I think there are quite a few more than 41 authors and players of those other modules that will completely disagree with your statement.
Ouch, nothing like a misinterpreted quote to create emotions...

Going a bit more subtle with the negativity now, eh? Still pretty thinly veiled however.

Saying that one thing is very good or better than most of it's kind doesn't constitute dissing. As a community member, I wouldn't take it as dissing if someone told me "hey look, the guys at Bioware, who do that stuff for a living and worked on i.e. Kingmaker full time in the office, are probably able to make modules with a higher overall quality than yours" (and I don't think many community members will).

I wouldn't be worried if someone told me that there is a good chance the guys as Mercedes build better cars than what I build in my garage...

There are a lot of really good community modules out there, but modules that have a BioWare quality story in terms of writing and scripting, professional VO, music and support are not too numerous out there, just because of the required time, dedication and manpower.

Everyone is free to disagree with me, that's the beauty of it. Obviously I haven't played all 5k modules out there, so I have to rely on the impression I get from playing modules (as a community member and later after joining BioWare) and from talking to community members.

However, knowing just how much time it takes to make a module of the quality of Kingmaker, chances are good that you either need to be someone being incredibly multi talented and working on it for several month like PipBoy/Adam or a huge team like DLA/Codi to get something done en par with these modules in quality - which naturally limits the possible number that rival the premium modules in quality a lot.

So, before going loud about how disrespectful to the community I am with these statements, you should perhaps go ahead, make a module that is so impressing to us that we hire you for a premium module ... because after doing that, I can guarantee you will have a different view on what it takes to create something like Kingmaker.

Witches Wake

So what happens to those of us who already have the original modules released by Bioware (including Witch's Wake)? Do we have to delete the original in order to install the new one or will the updated one override the necessary files in the original? Also, will Bioware be re-releasing updated versions of the other free modules that they previously released? I'd like to see them expanded in an updated version.
We handed over the old free version to Maximus at NWvault, you can download it there. The new module has a different name (Neverwinter Nights - Witch's Wake), so you can have both at the same time on your machine.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News (Nov. 11, 04)

chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran