NWN2 - Mysteries of Westgate DRM Details

Dhruin

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Ossian's Alan Miranda has posted specific details on the official forum of the DRM system that Mysteries of Westgate will use:
Hi Everybody,

I wanted to clarify for you what Atari is intending with regard to the 3 activations for MoW. So I’ve consulted with them to get some specific details and prepared a list of clarifications.

Firstly, please note that entering your serial key when installing MoW is NOT the same thing as MoW automatically authenticating with the Atari server in order to activate.

- With 3 activations you can install MoW on 3 different PCs.
- If you reinstall MoW on the same PC with unchanged hardware (see below for details), you can do this an unlimited number of times. You can do this on 3 different PCs.
- If you uninstall MoW and reinstall it, the westgate.key file (generated from the authentication) in your NWN2 folder won't have been removed, so your new MoW installation will not count as an activation.
- If you uninstall MoW and NWN2 (on the same PC), and then reinstall them, you can either have backed up your westgate.key file (to copy back into your NWN2 folder so MoW doesn't have to authenticate again) or not backed up the key at all and let MoW authenticate again (in this case, it will detect that this machine has activated before). In either case, this will not count as an activation.
- If you change your RAM or video card (and likely sound card too) and play or install MoW, this will not count as an activation. I don’t have 100% confirmation from Atari on this next part, but I would expect that changing your CPU, motherboard, or hard drive where MoW is installed would count as an activation.
- If you reformat your hard drive and reinstall your OS, NWN2, and MoW, but without changing your hardware configuration, then this “normally” shouldn’t be another activation. I say “normally” because that is the wording that Atari told me.
- Apparently, for some retail games, a user can revoke their usage of it in order to resell it, so that the slate is wiped clean for a new user to install and activate (I think this is termed an “installation reset”). Atari has said that can’t be the case for a digitally-distributed title like MoW.
- If you surpass 3 activations, then you can contact Atari tech support in order to get another activation.

I hope this has helped answer your questions about activations.
- Alan
More information.
 
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Atari has said that can’t be the case for a digitally-distributed title like MoW.

Of course, for the Premium Mods for NWN, it has never been a problem, but then they require internet at startup ... neither is all that great.
 
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If this had come out last month and I had bought it I would already be on my last activation right now. One of my hard drives died last month which had NWN2 on it then I reinstalled it on my 200gb drive but after I upgraded my computer I didn't have enough ide connections for the drive so needed to remove it and had to put the game on a different drive along with everything else on the drive.

If this was released a few months ago I wouldn't have any activations left since about a month before I upgraded my computer my motherboard died and I got a replacement unless just having a defferent version of the same motherboard isn't enough to lose an activation.

I am glad that this didn't come out a couple of months ago since I wouldn't be able to play it now otherwise.
 
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lol, that is just dumb for this kind of content. I have re-installed windows 3 times since Christmas and swapped various hardware pieces between my 2 games playing computers (I like to tinker...). So there is no way I am buying a game with these kind of restrictions.
 
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I'm still buying this but WTF are they thinking adding this junk in on a downloaded game. It doesn't matter what they do some hacker will have this sucker cracked and ready to be downloaded in less than a day and this isn't even a full game. It's just DLC. Why not just have the usual serial code so you make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy it and play it.

The music industry learned this lesson a LOOOONNNGGG time ago and they are just now starting to flourish. They got rid of their draconian protection and made it just as simple as possible for everyone to buy music and it worked. Between paying a couple of bucks a song and downloading something that might contain viruses or what have you, the people chose to go with buying it. Makes sense, now someone please drill this into the freaks who think up this DRM crap.

Whatever, I'm not starting a new piracy debate, but I'll buy the thing then if I run out of activations I download the cracked version. Screw that "call them" to get a new activation.
 
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Sooner or later I have so many different "activation limit" systems on different games on my computer that Im afraid Im gonna loose the count and start loosing games just because I dont remember them all and do somthing I should not have done. I would need some activation wizard to blow through all this stuff.

Keeping a count of them on som notepad just isnt gonna work in the long run.
 
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Who cares, let's burn them anyway! Pass me my pitchfork!
 
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Why do they treat their paying customers as criminals? The DRM will be broken in no time by hackers.
 
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I was hoping it was just a rumour... now I won't buy it. Thought about doing the same thing as you Skavenhorde, buying, then downloading a cracked version, but I just don't want to support this kind of idiocy.
 
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Not Ossians fault that Atari has got their heads up their butt. Support those dudes, seriously I read up on some of the people that make up the dev and they sound a lot like people I used to know, hard core geeks. http://www.ossianstudios.com/pages/about.html

They're between a rock and a hardplace. They can't exactly tell Atari to go stuff themselves, so they do what they can and like I posted before there are ways around it even with supporting the devs.
 
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