NWN2 - Mysteries of Westgate - Release Date Comments
 

Thanks to dte for pointing out some comments on Mysteries of Westgate by Atari rep "Herk" on their forums. Apparently "early to mid September" is the current guess:
2010?
More information.

Morons?

just guessing

?

They've always (or for a while at least) said MoW was awaiting 1.14 and that it was related to the auth system - nice of them to actually explain things if you ask me. It's not like they *owe* us a product which we have to buy.

That comment wasn't about honesty, it is about prioritising.

Atari has effectively killed all chances of MoW selling well by delaying it in order to get their new anti-piracy system up. Since anti-piracy is meant to combat a leakage of sales, that's incredible ass-backwards logic, and really tough on Ossian as the expansion is an almost-guaranteed bust through no fault of theirs.

It's like with Arcanum, which was delayed 6 months after review copies had already gone out, just because the publisher wanted to get localisations done. One of the dumbest decisions ever.

Sometimes you gotta wonder if these guys really do this for a living.

Yeah I see what you're saying - it might be better to release it with no protection and just pick up the few sales it can from the loyal fans who won't pirate it. Though I've got a feeling those loyal fans will still pick it up even after the delay so I'm not sure how much of a difference in total sales it would make.

As far as Ossian are concerned I don't think it'll be too hard on them.

Loyal fans aren't even the problem. A buck can only be turned about once, it's now hitting in the middle of Christmas to compete with every other major title out there.

Piracy sure is a major issue, but it's about a simple zero-sum issue. What will make you lose the most copies, piracy or overcrowding? I'd say overcrowding is definitely more dangerous, despite how major an issue piracy can be.

This kind of nonsense can have major impacts on developing houses, especially start-up ones. I don't know if Ossian has big overhead, but if they do, they're in trouble. Troika was supposed to float on Arcanum as a flagship, but they never could, and the publisher's incompetence contributed to that.

So, if Ossian goes down, then Atari has had its hand in it ?

Are you privy to the financial details of the contract then? Or in fact Ossian's mode of operation? I can only make comparisons to how things were with DLA for the NWN premium modules and I think technically NDAs are still in effect so I'll leave it to Steel_Wind to explain if he wishes. As far as mode of operation is concerned from what they have said publicly it seems very similar to DLA before Roxidy - it's not a start up in the traditional sense.

You're right - Ossian isn't a traditional developer with big overheads and they also said quite some time ago they had been paid for the development, so not a big deal from that perspective.

I still agree with BN that they will lose sales from the delay. It also doesn't seem a big call to me to question the competence of people who announce an impending game in October 2007 and then almost 10 months later, still can't organise a release date because of the security system. Seriously, 10 months for a security system?

I think I've read somewhere that Atari are foing to have their own download store - just like EA. And it is for this they're are working out the DRM thing. I hope my info is correct…

I don't get why Atari etc. just doesn't use Steam to get this content out to people.
I also agree that Ossian Studios will lose money from the delay…

This is correct - they actually already have the store itself.

But they knew all of that when they announced MoW last October! Or did they forget?

It really is sad … I'm just itching to play this. I'm glad I don't have all of the reviewing responsibilities to crowd my fall this year so I can play what I want ;)