136 réponses à ce sujet

[Pstemarie]

NWN will be officially "dead" when not one person posts anything, buys a new copy of the game, creates anything, etc. - get the gist yet?

As long as one person cares, NWN will not be "dead". Furthermore, it has spawned an entire genre of similar offspring, that, although not offering the same level of customization, embody the same general spirit of NWN. For that NWN will live forever.

To further punctuate the point - Panzer General 2 has a pretty active modding community and that game was released in 1997 - making it let's see 16 years old 

Modifié par Pstemarie, 21 mars 2013 - 01:57 .

[MagicalMaster]

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Magical, you state 1), and 2) as proof?

First of all, *you* are the one making a positive claim - that Bioware is TRYING to kill NWN.  Ergo, the burden of proof is on you to demonstate HOW they are doing so.  You answered my question with a question, and I played along and answered, but you still have not provided your current reasons for thinking Bioware is TRYING to kill NWN.

Them not trying to keep it alive is very, very different from trying to kill it.

Lazarus Magni wrote...

I don't see it that way. Why wouldn't they want gog.com to continue to make money for them?

...wow.  You honestly think Bioware cares about the miniscule amount of money they get from that?

Lazarus Magni wrote...

And as far as 2), I hardly think they are keeping these forums alive. We have seen what? All of 2 moderator posts in the last 3 years, and both made claims they never followed up on, or even came out and explained later why they couldn't. We haven't seen anything even so much as get a stickey in how long? I think the last one was Lightfoot8's community server status stickey in the PW boards, about a year ago. I hardly would call that keeping these forums alive.

These forums exist.  Official forums no longer exist for many old games.  You have really high and unreasonable expectations for developers (ideal ones, but not realistic).

[Urk]

  Lazarus is clearly bringing this up... again... only because he's very very concerned. 

Modifié par Urk, 21 mars 2013 - 05:38 .

[Dark star 1]

Yeah, who does this guy think he is? It's stupid to be passionate about, or to care about something.

[Knight_Shield]

Ok I try not to get into these but here goes my explaination.

Once upon a time there was an Smithy, who crafted this really cool armor.When the villager's went to battle ,everyone one said, this armor is so cool, I dont want to take it off.So everyone wore this armor for years.The villagers were so happy.The Smithy would modify the armor sometimes for the villagers and shine,remove the dents.But one day the Smithy stopped crafting this armor.He also stopped shining and removing dents for the villager's.It was very sad.Although the Smithy didn't give a reason the villager's could only guess .The Smithy sold his shop and went on to make different armor.Some villager's tried the other armor but always returned to their old armor.To this day many villager's wear this old armor that just works and feels right even though there are some from other village's wearing newer armor .

Smithy ?
1) Wasnt making enought money?
2)His salesmen was selling his cool armor to someone he didn't like?


So to sum it up the Smithy said we can wear his old armor if we want but he isnt going to be around to remove the dents.

[Lazarus Magni]

You know? That is a beautiful and apt metaphor Knight. The thing I would add to that however is, I don't hate the Smithy for moving on. What bothers me is that he/she doesn't even seem to care about the villagers enough to permanently post a sign telling folks how to fix the most recent dent. That bothers me.

It's really pretty simple. It would not take much to show the community they still care. And the lack of such minimal effort to show that... well that speaks volumes. Come on Bioware step up to the plate. It would take less time than it took me to type this to do so.

[painofdungeoneternal]

That makes a few assumptions.

If i make you something, that does not mean i am perpetually required to provide good customer service, especially if i decide you are not a real customer ( unless i specifically say that ). And nor should i have to train customers how to fix armor which is actually lasting "forever" with minor issues called wear and tear. Nor should i need to provide perpetual support for my armor, which i happened to make so well it's affecting my lively hood, since it's so good my customers are perfectly happy with what i sold them a long time ago. If they want to have armor that looks new, i really would prefer to actually sell armor, since that is my trade.

The idea you have, that it's easy to be honest, just does not understand the rock and a hard place that "what is left of bioware" is in. First they have to vett everything with both EA and Hasbro, and this entire product has Atari lawyers dealing with it. Second, when have they been able to explain anything about this without it becoming a PR disaster. And those people who worked on it, are actually moved on to other projects and companies. ( not even getting into how outraged people in forums get, your asking them to be honest is similar to when my wife asks me honestly if i think she looks... hmm time to change the subject and go sleep in the garage )

A bunch of words does no good, does not help us in anyway, and while it might make you feel better, it would make many feel abandoned, and distract from the good things the community is doing. The things they have done, like the swan song patch that is 1.69 ( wherein the developers put a lot of their own time into making NWN1 perfect ), keeping forums up speaks far better than any forum post by their poor intern sent in to appease the mob. Frankly when EA, bioware, cryptic, reviewers, anyone says what a product is going to do, i wait until it's released and in the hands of fans - i still don't know why anyone even reads the exaggerated hype they seem to speak in.

As to if they are going to do anything, i rather doubt it at this point. If it's done, it will be done by a new developer hired to both upgrade and re-release the game, most likely as both a ipad and pc version ( like baldurs gate ), which i am pretty sure is very much a viable reality from what i've heard on the news sites, assuming that project goes well.

The gamespy issue, that is not going to get fixed, it's called extortion. If they fix it, it would be to recreate or use something like what skywing created. If they pay them, it just sends a bad signal, i hope players boycott them entirely.

The authentication issue, it's just been too long. Even if they restored it, the period it's been down has been so long, that any accounts used legitimately by people making accounts up in the last year will be lost - just as many people would be hurt by it coming back up as would be hurt by it just staying off. Not to mention the issue was un-salted passwords, or the issues with bioware moving over hasbro/atari customers into actual EA accounts ( think legal mess there ). It's a complete mess no matter how you approach it, it would be better to just start over, or have each PW authenticate the players. ( i actually have a idea/plan to resolve the issues, but it is going to take me a while to even approach it )

Even better would be releasing the source code, ( hint, hint ) which i have heard has some issues with third party code, which could be stripped out, or even better as a limited release to volunteer contractors who can just fix issues and add features, even port to new platforms, and somehow get it re-released, or a way to sell what is created for a modest fee. ( perhaps a new gog.com purchase which gives you the latest version ) ( and this is not nutty, Grinning fool of NWN2 actually did large portions of the new features in 1.23, and it's a lot easier fixing the poor PW support when a PW admin is doing it who has an actual PW, similar talent exists in the NWN1 community which can put the original developers to shame )

But then they don't even have to release the source code. You do realize that with NWNCX, we can actually write our own C code, take a given feature or function, and swap out the code it's actually running. There is already a ton of NWNx plugins, which now actually work in single player, and if you see what skywing has done in NWN2 - replacing the scripting engine, replacing the networking, replacing the resource loader, replacing the pathfinding in the game, the question becomes what happens when he's replaced absolutely everything. With NWN1 it actually has more options since NWNx plugins now can work in single player unlike NWN2, that is just jaw dropping amazing - you basically have the same limits as the original developers, and plugins allow us to pick and choose what features to use.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 23 mars 2013 - 09:40 .

[Lazarus Magni]

Perhaps my point was lost in the metaphor. You’re getting into all this stuff, Pain, that goes way beyond my current point. Which is that they should make a stickey stating the loss of gamespy service, just like they did here for the loss of the master server:
http://social.biowar...9/index/8398695  

And make a sticky informing the community about the community alternatives that exist to work around this issue, just like they did with Funkyswerve's "Securing your server WITHOUT master server authentication" here:
http://social.biowar...9/index/7846801  

In fact, the thread already exists here:
http://social.biowar.../index/15517034  

And here for the PW boards:
http://social.biowar.../index/15517037

They don't have to use my threads if they don't want to (although it would be as simple as just clicking the sticky button), but if not something similar. They don't have to run it by hasbro, or EA, or anyone, just click the button. Keep the community informed. I really don't think that is asking too much.

As far as the petition? It's basically at this point just a protest petition. A way for people to voice their dissatisfaction with the loss of these features of the game (the master server, and gamespy.) I have no expectations that these services will be restored, nor do I believe any of the petitioners do either. It's an exercise in grass roots activism, and a cathartic release that 230+ other people have also signed on to. IF I would have made it back when the master server first went down, you could probably multiply that number by 10 or more.

Luckily the community has come up with solutions to the loss of both those features. And Bioware endorsed Funkyswerve's master server authentication work around. Although it's not perfect, I, and I am sure many other people (players and PW owners alike), to whom account security is important to them, appreciate that immensely.

All I am saying is Bioware should give the same endorsement to the alternatives that exist to the loss of gamespy service. Let new, and old customers of the game alike, know yes gamespy stopped supporting NWN1, but there are alternatives.

If it's the fact that, I started a petition against them, and am the one asking for this, I would have no qualms with declaring victory or defeat (it matters not to me which as long as a positive result came out of it) of the petition, sending a message to the petitioners that, restoring the original services is not going to happen due to many reasons, but Bioware has endorsed these alternatives, and given us a show of good faith by posting permanent signs (stickies) informing the customers what alternatives exist. And that in doing so, I believe they have demonstrated good will and good faith to the community.

I would even change the name of this thread to “NWN1 IS NOT DEAD” to appease those who think my blunt manner of trying to affect change actually does more harm than good.

Lazarus Magni

P.S. Just read some of the comments people post on the petition (I know it takes a while to load):
http://www.change.or...gamespy-service

If that doesn't make you, Bioware, proud of the game you made, and how much it has meant to so many people, I don't know what will.

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 24 mars 2013 - 05:43 .

[Squatting Monk]

Why do you so badly need BioWare's endorsement for Gamespy alternatives? What difference does it make? People will use what works, regardless of whether BioWare gives it kudos.

Also, it doesn't really matter whether the threads addressing the Gamespy workarounds are stickied or not. There's three separate threads addressing it on the first page of these forums alone. If new players aren't going to notice those, why would stickying it help?

[Lazarus Magni]

Do you really expect people to wade through pages and pages of stuff to find the information they are looking for? Stickeys serve a purpose. They are always at the top of the thread, and tell the user, "Hey! This is important!"

The unified list threads consolidate all the currently available alternatives and information about them into one place, that people can reference easily and quickly.

http://social.biowar.../index/15517034  

http://social.biowar.../index/15517037  

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 24 mars 2013 - 08:28 .

[Squatting Monk]

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Do you really expect people to wade through pages and pages of stuff to find the information they are looking for?

Dude, I just said there are three threads dealing with this on the front page. No one has to wade through pages and pages. 

[Lazarus Magni]

On this thread alone:
http://social.biowar.../index/15195370

There are nine pages "dude".

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 24 mars 2013 - 09:01 .

[Squatting Monk]

Then maybe try one of the other two threads which also appear on the front page and have handy descriptive titles?

Alternative server list available through Xfire
Discontinued Gamespy support information

Modifié par Squatting Monk, 24 mars 2013 - 09:14 .

[Lazarus Magni]

Umm... The Xfire one is 2 pages long, and only contains info about Xfire.

The other one IS the one I would like to see stickied both here, and in the PW boards (both places people might be looking for that information.)

http://social.biowar.../index/15517034

http://social.biowar.../index/15517037

Are you being intentionally dense?

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 24 mars 2013 - 09:20 .

[Squatting Monk]

I'm saying the information is there on the front page for anyone who's looking for it, sticky or no.

[Lazarus Magni]

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Do you really expect people to wade through pages and pages of stuff to find the information they are looking for? Stickeys serve a purpose. They are always at the top of the thread, and tell the user, "Hey! This is important!"

The unified list threads consolidate all the currently available alternatives and information about them into one place, that people can reference easily and quickly.

http://social.biowar.../index/15517034  

http://social.biowar.../index/15517037  

[Shadooow]

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Do you really expect people to wade through pages and pages of stuff to find the information they are looking for? Stickeys serve a purpose. They are always at the top of the thread, and tell the user, "Hey! This is important!"

The unified list threads consolidate all the currently available alternatives and information about them into one place, that people can reference easily and quickly.

http://social.biowar.../index/15517034  

http://social.biowar.../index/15517037  

youre quite right, this wont happen, not until many comunity members here start thinking for more than just their own PW

Continuing that metaphore about blacksmith, what this community is now situated is that the blacksmith is gone and peoples dont know what to do with his armors, some peoples (like you Laz) trying to find the blacksmith and get him to repair it others get used to it or doesnt care. Nobody however realize that if they all cooperated they could make an armor repair device and repair all armors still around on theor own.

[Urk]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Lazarus Magni wrote...

Do you really expect people to wade through pages and pages of stuff to find the information they are looking for? Stickeys serve a purpose. They are always at the top of the thread, and tell the user, "Hey! This is important!"

The unified list threads consolidate all the currently available alternatives and information about them into one place, that people can reference easily and quickly.

http://social.biowar.../index/15517034  

http://social.biowar.../index/15517037  

youre quite right, this wont happen, not until many comunity members here start thinking for more than just their own PW

Continuing that metaphore about blacksmith, what this community is now situated is that the blacksmith is gone and peoples dont know what to do with his armors, some peoples (like you Laz) trying to find the blacksmith and get him to repair it others get used to it or doesnt care. Nobody however realize that if they all cooperated they could make an armor repair device and repair all armors still around on theor own.

From where I sit it's simple... we KNOW how to fix the dents. We don't need anyone's help banging them out. All the whining for official support is a waste of breath. Time better spent modding and leveling up.

Modifié par Urk, 24 mars 2013 - 10:15 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Well i am a bit confused.

topic is "is NWN dead?" type of thing.

Your point is you want a few threads stickied. I agree they should be stickied.

I think what the disconnect here is, is that you think bioware has to sticky threads. While Bioware / EA might be able to sticky threads, they should NOT have any input into which threads get the sticky unless it relates to them directly, they just don't know which projects and sites are worthwhile, nor would they spend the time ensuring such threads stay current. Remember the people that work on NWN are all basically doing other jobs, or have left bioware entirely, the ones who still show up are more likely to be ex-employees who are now now more capable of input than any other fan. What gets stickiness should be up to the community. Now the one thing they did sticky, is a security issue which they kind of had to inform PW admins about once they heard about, mainly because it involved accounts and passwords.

Have you tried sending a PM to Selene Moonsong, and asking her to sticky a thread or two which you've prepared, then commit to maintaining such thread ( which you obviously are already doing ). She is not a bioware employee, but is among those who can sticky and unsticky threads. Perhaps we need some new moderators.

We also need to figure out how to support ourselves, and not expect anything from bioware, beyond allowing us to stay here. ( and we need to be prepared to survive as a community even if we no longer have a forum, or a vault, both of which are generously maintained with very little in return for the real costs involved. )

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 24 mars 2013 - 10:54 .

[Baaleos]

This thread has had several incarnations already.
The name may change, but the message is always the same - NWN player base is dying, Bioware help me please!!

If the player base is dying, or reducing in number, its because people are getting what they want from other games.
Which shifts the focus to the content creators: if you cant compete with other more modern games, then im sorry, but thats just the way it goes. Thats why I dont play my Sega Genesis as much as I do my PS3 and PC.
No one can expect players to play a game that is over a decade old, when there are games out there with photo-realistic graphics and alot more mod-ability than NWN.
Yes - I enjoy maintaining a PW Server, but to be honest, I am not an avid player of NWN.
When faced with a choice of playing NWN or playing Skyrim, or Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm - its a hands down choice to go with Skyrim or StarCraft 2: because thats what takes my fanci.

Bioware did their job, released a game that was highly moddable at the time of realease - and I would argue that their statutory obligations end there.
They have provided forums for alot if not all of their games, and appointed moderators from the community - so they can maintain the forums and prune threads etc and make the stickys without incurring a loss of man hours ($$$$) - which again shifts the focus of management to the community.

So - in my eyes, demanding that Bioware do this and that etc, seems highly unrealistic and ungrateful.
Make a thread, word it politely without making it sound like a rant, make sure it adds value, is informative, and then do as is suggested above, and request one of the community moderators to sticky it.
If it adds value- there is no reason they would refuse to do so.

But to be clear - none of this is Biowares responsbility, its not their fault that Gamespy went down, or that players are declining, as such, they dont need to make a post to comment or sticky one to highlight the fact either.

End Response Rant

[Shadooow]

Urk wrote...

From where I sit it's simple... we KNOW how to fix the dents. We don't need anyone's help banging them out. All the whining for official support is a waste of breath. Time better spent modding and leveling up.

Yea of course, few peoples found out how to fix it and fixed it on their own, but the problem is that this community, meaning members of this forum, didnt supported them. It seems that many forum/community members do not approve their work and others trying to come up with their own solutions instead.

There is missing a "standardization" players are simply told, you can do this and that and you see it. Instead we tried to add the new replacement into everyones' clients either by GOG or CP or CEP maybe.

And Lazarus pointed one thing very precisely. These informations about the gamespy issue and the new replacement aren't even stickied!

And the threads about it are a mess. The main issue I see there is the usage of NWNCX or modified executables and thats what is dividing this community.

So why don't we figure out how to make it the way everyone will be satisfied?

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 25 mars 2013 - 02:08 .

[Baaleos]

A standardized web API that the community can contribute to, to add their own methods etc
And then - if anyone wants to make their own branded application - its basically using the same back end code

I'd be happy to work on something like this - but I would only be able to contribute if it was a C# based project.
Which I know is not generally the desired language - everyone wants to use ruby etc for max compatibility.

Im perhaps envisioning it a little too simple - but I could see it to the point where some devs volunteer to maintain the web api, and then people in the community could lodge requests with the team via a forum, to ask for function additions or report bugs etc

Entry criteria for new functions could be judged based on whether its already do-able in the api, and how many people would use such functionality.

eg: Request - Could a function be added to the API to return an array of player objects on the specified server.

Once coded, the community could then use something like

Player[] arrayOfPlayers = GameServer.GetPlayers();

And since this would be a web Api - everyones code would be updated on the fly when the developers make additions to the api - basically like an online include file/function file.

Yes - this might be a little too lower level than what we are aiming for - but a lower level approach could be a starting point for a common project.
It would also serve to get the community involved in coding, as well as being re-usable for when a community launcher app is started.

[painofdungeoneternal]

ShaDoOoW wrote...
So why don't we figure out how to make it the way everyone will be satisfied?

There is no one way everyone will be satisified.

There is no one language everyone uses, nor should there be one product everyone is required to use. We are both helped by a project like the CEP, but also limited by it, since it forces everyone to use it's choices, is either including everything, or it's including just the top of the line best. We need to not be limited to a large take it or leave it approach.

The thing that needs to be agreed on, is standards for inter-author communication, for inter-project support, so if a developer wants to build off of what someone else is doing, they can do so, but which makes everything a choice.

Baaleos wrote...
A standardized web API that the community can contribute to, to add their own methods etc
And then - if anyone wants to make their own branded application - its basically using the same back end code

An api is a language neutral method of making code available to anyone, from a given project regardless of language. You would not contribute functions to it, nor would your language matter, it's an interface into another persons code base, and allows developers to cooperate without having to actually all agree on doing things a certain way. It allows for very creative things called mashups, which are made of multiple API's all arranged and set up to work together.

It's usually done by websites, or sometimes by servers without a website ( called a REST or SOAP api ), but the idea is anything which can make a network socket, can use and manipulate the data in a API of that sort. Then people can make their own apps in ruby, in php, in C# or as NWNx plugins which can be used on servers or by end users using NWNCX. These people can use the given API alone, or even better, correlate the data with other information and make entirely new things ( a mashup ), ie combining google maps api ( probably the best known) with the gamespy API to make a map of the world which shows the servers in your country or region, thus you can find all the PW's in europe which likely have good ping. Just about every major website ( drop box, facebook, google, twitter, shutterfly, amazon ) has an API like this.

Uses involve social networking, file sharing, payment gateways, amazon lets you turn on and off virtual servers, dreamhost lets you manage your virtual host, mapping, data sharing, and the list goes on and on.

Another way it's done is a dll or dylib, which can be loaded by other projects, Tani's erf utility did this, it included an offical game DLL as a resource and ran the official code written in C via C# ( i think, been a while since i looked at the source ). Most languages have ways of using such files, since this is how they have to use the system resources of the OS.

What you are describing is a good idea, but it should be multiple simple API's in a mashup, not a single monster one. I don't want to write an API in C# like skywing did, and he does not want to change his API since it's got multiple people ( at least 6 projects ) depending on it working exactly as it does now or their projects will break. And if it starts doing too many projects, it would start getting slower and slower, all it does is list servers and meta information about them.  I am setting up my API in php, and it will support xml, json,  and php serialized arrays, and be usable directly via java script bypassing cross domain restrictions. It will have vault data and nexus data in it.

If i happen to have another idea, i would actually create an entirely new api. If someone comes up with a good idea for an API, i could probably provide enough code so they could set up their own API which would work similar to mine, but it would have to be in php. I just don't see this as realistic, since everyone good enough to do this, probably does not need code examples, and prefers their own language of choice.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 mars 2013 - 03:44 .

[Shadooow]

I still doesnt understand what is web API for this issue with gamespy replacement.

We certainly don't need more web-based server lists, there are three already each contains different datas which really doesnt help.

This community should decide and promote one of the offered solutions as official. Yes bioware is gone so by the definition it wont be official, but it is community now who continue to develop and support this game so whatever we all mark as official simply become official. If it will be oficial in the meaning of recommended by the community it will be easier to find and more used.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 25 mars 2013 - 03:42 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

I still doesnt understand what is web API for this issue with gamespy replacement.

We certainly don't need more web-based server lists, there are three already each contains different datas which really doesnt help.

This community should decide and promote one of the offered solutions as official. Yes bioware is gone so by the definition it wont be official, but it is community now who continue to develop and support this game so whatever we all mark as official simply become official. If it will be oficial in the meaning of recommended by the community it will be easier to find and more used.

Is NWNCX web based? No
Is Never launcher web based? No
Is there an actual website? No, the websites are third parties.

The original system which skywing wrote, was for usage in the NWN2 client extender, and integrated with xp_bugfix for NWN2, the support for NWN1 is mainly due to it being set up the exact same way, and his asking others to do the work of implementing it for NWN1 ( which Virusman is doing by adding it to NWNCX, and the many sites which are using it ). There was no original intention on it being just for websites, rather the intention was for people to surprise him in how it's used.

There are many websites hosting the data, but it's just data over a network socket from his source, and it means one server to point your servers hosts file at. It is impossible to replace a gamespy server without an actual central server. How this data is used, is up to whoever wants to make a new solution for the community.

The reason there are so many is that it's very easy to use a API to get and show data. I also don't know of many which are not supporting it in some manner, most are using it entirely, others are just referencing it to some degree, but all agree to work with his system - the only one which seems dead set against it is neverwinterconnections which is not yet offering anything, and I get the impression it's still more plans than a real implementation.

Perhaps being so many choices is confusing to end users, but the underlying data is not really different, it's more like being able to choose which skin you want to use, or which method. An end user should not feel forced to patch their exe file, or use NWNCX to modify their game process without any patching, or to install a complete application like mine, and should be able to just use a website if they so choose. But likewise they should not be limited to one solution either, and should be free to choose any of the above methods.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 mars 2013 - 04:56 .