NWN2 - Mysteries of Westgate Official Release Date!

kalniel said:

These license conditions are actually an increase in our rights - before we were only licensed on a single computer, now it's three.

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I'm glad you see it this way. I don't. To me, it is akin to leasing a car vs. buying and I don't lease cars. For example, I have a copy of Shadows Over Riva, that I purchased when the game came out (12 years ago?) that I recently popped in my CD-ROM and reinstalled, because I felt like replaying it. I also have hard copy versions of Planescape Torment, BG1 and 2, Deus Ex, Thief 1,2, and 3, Arx Fatalis, Gothic, and the list goes on and on. When I hit a slow period in new games, I pull one of these down off the shelf and reinstall. I'll play it for a while until the next game du jour comes out that interests me.

With the scenario Atari is offering, this "ownership" concept (even, if it is just a concept and not legal actuality) will be gone. I will now be leasing my games, instead of buying.

How is this a good thing?

I don't think this business model will last. Just because Atari puts something forth doesn't mean it will succeed. After the various catastrophes from the Troika days, you'd think Atari would have given up on trying to micromanage their developers into an early grave be completely unsurprised this kind of thing still goes on.

kalniel said:

I guess if I'm still playing a game over many years then I'll consider it a bargain even if I have to buy additional copies. But remember, this is only an adventure pack - 15 hours is the estimated play time, not 15 years.

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Perhaps. But this isn't just about one game. I'm opposed to what is being done here. If all games were to suddenly go this route, it would be a tragedy to me.

I'm a consumer. I only have one power. Complaining on forums is ultimately meaningless. The one power I have is my dollar vote. The only way I can tell publishers that I oppose their tactics is by not buying the product. There are games over the years that I wanted very much and didn't buy for this reason. There are even a few games I bought but didn't play because I wanted to support the developers but was not particularly interested in the game.

I'm not asking for that much. I'm willing to meet halfway. I simply want a deactivation tool and a promise to patch out the activation requirement after X years.

Guhndahb said:

I'm a consumer. I only have one power. Complaining on forums is ultimately meaningless. The one power I have is my dollar vote.

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And the problem there is the vague meaning - are you voting against the publisher (DreamCatcher), against the genre, against the game, against the DRM, against the platform (console vs. PC), against something else ...

I wonder if polish box version has that DRM crap.

BTW there is funny thing about the price. Storm of Zehir will be released in Poland in the same day as Mysteries of Westgate (yes, late :\ ) and the prices are:
- Storm of Zehir - 69,90 zł
- Mysteries of Westgate - 49,90 zł
- Storm of Zehir + Mysteries of Westgate - 84,90 zł

So... when you are buying SoZ you have MoW for 15 zł which is around 4.5$ or 3.5 Euros.

1 Polish złoty = 0.233679281 Euros = 0.304414 U.S. dollars.

Guhndahb said:

I'm a consumer. I only have one power. Complaining on forums is ultimately meaningless. The one power I have is my dollar vote. The only way I can tell publishers that I oppose their tactics is by not buying the product.

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One problem with this line of thought is that when people stop buying, the publishers say it's the pirates' fault and move to consoles instead of focusing on making better games.

I'm a consumer. I only have one power. Complaining on forums is ultimately meaningless. The one power I have is my dollar vote.

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Never underestimate words - spoken or written.

People do that, because they don't see any immediate effect. But you'd be surprised how efficient speaking your mind can be - especially if it's well thought out and supported by reason. It might take years or even decades - but even these tiny and subtle hints can result - or at least have an effect - in an overall perspective change. Both in general and for the industry.

Key players of our beloved hobby are reading this - and they're paying attention. They might deny ever being influenced, but that's irrelevant. If you have anything approaching truth to speak - believe me - it will be heard and it WILL have an effect.

It's vital to speak your mind.

Guhndahb said:

I'm a consumer. I only have one power. Complaining on forums is ultimately meaningless. The one power I have is my dollar vote. The only way I can tell publishers that I oppose their tactics is by not buying the product.

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Call me a cynic, but I suspect that Atari's reaction to lost sales will not be "OMG, people really didn't like the DRM, let's not do that again" but "OMG, people just aren't interested in premium modules, let's not bother in future", so really withholding your dollar vote does fuck all for your stated aim and screws over a hard working developer by all accounts releasing quality work.

I will be buying it, if it's good and if the drm in some way bites and can't be overcome then in future I'll buy it again.

Maybe Ossian should set up an anonymous donation function so that people who have pirated DRM free copies can give them the money anyway, although (call me a cynic again) I suspect that it won't get a whole lot of use in spite of the noise over drm.

Not going to buy this if there's not even a chance of having the activations reset.

Hmm, I never buy a game unless I think I'll get my full money's worth in my first playthrough. If the game interests me enough for a 2nd playthrough, that's just icing on the cake. DRM means almost nothing to me, personally. I certainly don't have energy enough to waste getting my hackles raised over this. I never played any of the premium mods in NWN1, so this will probably be my first. I would have no problems with re-purchasing any of the games that I enjoy replaying. They're generally much cheaper the 2nd time around, but they can be hard to find. I also would have no qualms about "pirating" a game that I had paid for if my activations ran out. I see no moral issues with this.

Cabel Blacke said:

I'm glad you see it this way. I don't. To me, it is akin to leasing a car vs. buying and I don't lease cars. For example, I have a copy of Shadows Over Riva, that I purchased when the game came out (12 years ago?) that I recently popped in my CD-ROM and reinstalled, because I felt like replaying it. I also have hard copy versions of Planescape Torment, BG1 and 2, Deus Ex, Thief 1,2, and 3, Arx Fatalis, Gothic, and the list goes on and on. When I hit a slow period in new games, I pull one of these down off the shelf and reinstall. I'll play it for a while until the next game du jour comes out that interests me.

With the scenario Atari is offering, this "ownership" concept (even, if it is just a concept and not legal actuality) will be gone. I will now be leasing my games, instead of buying.

How is this a good thing?

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Are you just moaning because you can't breach your license conditions as easily with this game as you can with your older games?

I believe most, if not all, of those games you list are only licensed for use on a single computer, but you seem to be fine with ignoring your agreement and installing them on another.

Or are you installing them on the same computer? If so then it's no different - there are unlimited installs on the same computer.

kalniel said:

Are you just moaning because you can't breach your license conditions as easily with this game as you can with your older games?

I believe most, if not all, of those games you list are only licensed for use on a single computer, but you seem to be fine with ignoring your agreement and installing them on another.

Or are you installing them on the same computer? If so then it's no different - there are unlimited installs on the same computer.

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No, those old licenses said something like:

Only on one computer at the same time. The idea (which was even stated explicitly in some of the licenses) was to make it comparable to a book, which you can read, give it somebody else for reading, even sell, but are not allowed to copy. So there was no breach of licence conditions in the situation you refer to. Modern DRM systems should try to reach the same goal, then most people will gladly accept them.

kalniel said:

Are you just moaning because you can't breach your license conditions as easily with this game as you can with your older games?

I believe most, if not all, of those games you list are only licensed for use on a single computer, but you seem to be fine with ignoring your agreement and installing them on another.

Or are you installing them on the same computer? If so then it's no different - there are unlimited installs on the same computer.

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Those licenses said one computer at a time. Similar to how the licensing for the retail editions of most windows operating systems are written.

Also same computer is down to interpretation. According the drm scheme formatting and reinstalling windows means its not the same system while to any normal person it would still be the same system.

txa1265 said:

And the problem there is the vague meaning - are you voting against the publisher (DreamCatcher), against the genre, against the game, against the DRM, against the platform (console vs. PC), against something else ...

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I never said it was a good power. As I said in my previous post to that one, I regret that my actions will harm a studio for which I care due to the decision of the publisher. And yet, I have to stand my ground somewhere. Don't think for a second I don't hold regrets. It hurts me, it hurts the developer, and it hurts the publisher when I make the decision to skip a game. But the same could be said of the decision to include such malefic DRM.

Elwro said:

One problem with this line of thought is that when people stop buying, the publishers say it's the pirates' fault and move to consoles instead of focusing on making better games.

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I know.

DArtagnan said:

Never underestimate words - spoken or written....It's vital to speak your mind.

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Different parts of me feel differently about this. I agree that in can be effective, on occasion. And I strongly agree that one must never give up. (I'd not be bothering posting here on this subject if I'd given up.) But I do feel that in most cases it's futile. Obviously I was feeling the futility when I wrote that because I'm fairly discouraged by this situation. I certainly didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't be bothering with this discussion, if anyone took it that way.

Benedict said:

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that Atari's reaction to lost sales will not be "OMG, people really didn't like the DRM, let's not do that again" but "OMG, people just aren't interested in premium modules, let's not bother in future", so really withholding your dollar vote does fuck all for your stated aim and screws over a hard working developer by all accounts releasing quality work.

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You, too, are likely quite right.

Maybe I'm being a stubborn ass. But, again, I feel like I've met the publishers halfway. I tolerate, although I certainly do not embrace, many of the DRM measures. I can put up with activation. I just insist on the two things I mentioned earlier, the most critical being the ability to deactivate and at least some promise of patching out the activation after several years or if the activation servers are going to go down.

If there is actually a CD release anywhere, then it will be on bittorrent and it will be cracked. I'll buy the download, but I'll immediately be finding a cracked copy online.

I have a desktop and a laptop that I game on. I routinely install on both and then keep my save games on a flash drive so I can jump from one to another. My desktop is about 1 year old, which means I'll probably do another upgrade in a year. That would be my three installs right there. Ohh and I'm building an HTPC that I might want to play it on just it on to see what it looks like on a 42inch Plasma with surround sound. Oh wait, that's too many installs. Piracy here I come.

Benedict said:

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that Atari's reaction to lost sales will not be "OMG, people really didn't like the DRM, let's not do that again" but "OMG, people just aren't interested in premium modules, let's not bother in future", so really withholding your dollar vote does fuck all for your stated aim and screws over a hard working developer by all accounts releasing quality work.

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The only way around this is to stop bitching on forums (or at least not just bitch here) and write letters, emails, etc. to Atari, so they KNOW that people are interested in premium modules, but that the DRM is keeping them away. Heck, it's not that hard to find the mailing address or email address of the CEO of a company.

Since Atari is a wholly owned subsidiary of infogrames, I'd go to their CEO:

David P Gardner
Phone: +33-4-37-64-30-00
Fax: +33-4-37-64-30-01
1 Place Verrazzano
France

Outrageous!There's no way I'm buying this.
I'd sooner pirate it than having to go through that DRM crap.
I've made this mistake with Spore I'm not doing it again.

bkrueger said:

No, those old licenses said something like:

Only on one computer at the same time. The idea (which was even stated explicitly in some of the licenses) was to make it comparable to a book, which you can read, give it somebody else for reading, even sell, but are not allowed to copy. So there was no breach of licence conditions in the situation you refer to. Modern DRM systems should try to reach the same goal, then most people will gladly accept them.

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Exactly. So, long as I don't copy the game and redistribute or install on multiple different computers at once (which would also involve copying), I don't see how I'm in breach of anything.

kalniel said:

Are you just moaning because you can't breach your license conditions as easily with this game as you can with your older games?

I believe most, if not all, of those games you list are only licensed for use on a single computer, but you seem to be fine with ignoring your agreement and installing them on another.

Or are you installing them on the same computer? If so then it's no different - there are unlimited installs on the same computer.

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WTF are you talking about? He only talked about installing them on A computer, just in different time periods. For example I still play Star Trail every now and then, but do I have the same computer as I did 10 years ago, fuck no. Does that mean I shouldn't play Star Trail? Once again NO. I bought it. I'm playing it. Hell, I don't even lend it to anyone.

So what you are saying is that the licensing agreement of today state that you can only install the software on ONE computer EVER? So if you buy a new computer and format the other one, you still couln't install the software you paid for on the new computer? Monkey's will fly out of my butt if that ever held up in court.

That's sorta like saying the DVD movie you bought can only be played on your current DVD player. If you ever buy a new DVD player you will have to buy the movie again.

crpgnut said:

I also would have no qualms about "pirating" a game that I had paid for if my activations ran out. I see no moral issues with this.

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Likewise, that would seem to me to be a better solution than just denying hard working developers their day one profits (especially when their day one profits come quite so long after they'd completely finished everything)