Arelith

Maladus wrote:

BegoneThoth wrote:on sale as in available to buy.

i'd rather buy from steam to support valve.

Out of curiosity, what makes you want to support Valve vs. Beamdog? The way I see the situation, is that Beamdog is doing the work to update the game and are simply using Steam as a platform to reach their audience. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this explained. That said, the game will be out on Steam on the 27th so if you want to wait for it to be on Steam then you won't have to wait long.

I got some Pm's about this and I guess I'll just post it here.

BegoneThoth wrote:https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-hoo ... mes-again/

Newell gave some background on Valve's projects from the last few years, like SteamVR and the Vive headset, explaining that the company was worried about the PC heading in the direction of an iPhone-esque closed ecosystem. "You can see that Microsoft was like, wow, how can we make Windows more like that? Or Zuckerberg is saying, 'well I tried to compete in the phones, I got my Snuggybear kicked, so I'm going to create this new thing, VR, which will allow me to recreate the kind of closed, high margin ecosystem that Apple's done.' And that really started to worry us, because we thought that the strength of the PC is about its openness … So we started to make some investments to offset that."

In short, PC gaming was headed in a direction similar to the app store. Frankly, if it wasn't for Valve, things like this;

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ars-of-war

Would have become the new way.

So yeah, I'm going to support them.

They actually full on stopped their company from making games to save pc gaming from becoming some app store mess where MS gets to decide who uses directX and everything has to shift to their closed app and store standard because if it. Thank goodness they saw the way the wind was blowing years before it did and stopped what would have been the end of pc gaming as we know it.

Their Linux OS and hardware initiatives didn't need to be successful, just be developed by an industry giant to show other companies what they will fight against if they close things off.

And they were wholly successful, thank God.

Interesting point and one that I was not aware of. Ultimately I see it as a win regardless because we are getting support for our hobby that was slowly dieing off with each new piece of hardware.

Interesting news about MS, hadn't heard about the forced update feature. Makes me rather glad that I stuck with Win 7 for now!

Yeah its been going on for a bit.

Imagine if Valve didn't throw in for the HTC vr headset. We'd all be stuck with VR run and controlled by Facebook.

One reason to go steam rather than Beamdog might be return policy (though Im not sure if it's basically the same either way). Another might be support. I intend to buy from steam because I undersand thier support system and have used successfully.

flower wrote:It is 20 dollars? That is kinda lot for remake of an old game. But it is not optional so.

Think of it as an Arelith subscription fee. $20 every fifteen or so years is fairly good going

Maladus wrote:

Sab1 wrote:Ok ummm so once more does EE mean you can't use the PGCC anymore once you have EE loaded?

Unless the person running the PGCC decides to update it to EE, you will not be able to log on to it.

Ahhh so RIP PGCC.

If you buy EE, you can play any server, since you'll have both 1.69 and 1.74 available to you. They can run next to each other. So regardless what happens with PGCC (or any other server out there) you'll be able to play it.

PinataPlethora wrote:Beamdog 'bout to be riiiiiiiiiich...

It seems like this was the only point of the thing. I mean, I can see the board meeting leading up to it...

"Guys, we have this IP, maybe we should make a sequel and fix everything?"
"Nah that takes effort and costs money, let's pull some stuff off the vault, force them to use our servers and buy it and call it a day."
"So, an extortion tactic?"
"Pretty much."



Honestly, not sure if I'll bother. I've played almost every server out at this point including Arelith. Not sure if paying for the privilege of being able to login to a game I've already been around the block and back again for is a worthwhile use of my money given how many other, new games are out there and how little this "upgrade" will do for my experience (almost nothing).

I mean, if they were going to fix a ton of nagging bugs, add a gob of new races, classes, feats and spells as well as the nicer features of nwn2 (like the modes)? Yes, I'd plunk down 60 dollars in a heartbeat.

This? Just feels like a cash-grabby scheme to me. One we'll see again in 5 more years... and 5 more after that... and 5 more after that...

"Nice bit of history you have there, best give us more money to keep at it."

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd even wonder if some get kickbacks for cooperating.

Neverwinter was due for an upgrade, things that we couldn't realistically do ourselves as a roleplay community - the fact that we have scripts that would probably send actual professionals into "woah dude" trips is amazing by itself.

I trust Beamdog as a company; it did a good job of Baldur's Gate with their enhanced edition and revived a game that was practically impossible to be played in a modern computer. The situation of NWN is not much different, with Windows 10, our fancy thirty-two cores machines with six video cards stacked one on top of the other and enough fans to take flight.
The reality is that time is moving forward, and the game was only crawling forward.

New races, new classes, feats, all that stuff is not hard to program. Check around the vault - they come a dime a dozen, but they wouldn't work for Arelith.

I'd rather see less hardcoded options myself in NWNEE. Like:
Flexible menus that don't need HAKs to update to the availability of the server (IE: If there are subraces, they could appear directly as subraces)
Freedom of equipment (like being able to equip a greatsword in the left hand).
Being able to take more than 3 classes (remember, not necessarily in Arelith - just being available in the base game).

Amongst other things.


Nobody is forcing us to update to EE. It's a direction that the server devs have decided to take, and if we want to stay with the server we'll have to go that direction as well.
And if you don't update, Fixed Level is going to remain for standard NWN. That's a good server that never got enough people as it deserved.

Fangs wrote:

PinataPlethora wrote:Beamdog 'bout to be riiiiiiiiiich...

It seems like this was the only point of the thing. I mean, I can see the board meeting leading up to it...

"Guys, we have this IP, maybe we should make a sequel and fix everything?"
"Nah that takes effort and costs money, let's pull some stuff off the vault, force them to use our servers and buy it and call it a day."
"So, an extortion tactic?"
"Pretty much."



Honestly, not sure if I'll bother. I've played almost every server out at this point including Arelith. Not sure if paying for the privilege of being able to login to a game I've already been around the block and back again for is a worthwhile use of my money given how many other, new games are out there and how little this "upgrade" will do for my experience (almost nothing).

I mean, if they were going to fix a ton of nagging bugs, add a gob of new races, classes, feats and spells as well as the nicer features of nwn2 (like the modes)? Yes, I'd plunk down 60 dollars in a heartbeat.

This? Just feels like a cash-grabby scheme to me. One we'll see again in 5 more years... and 5 more after that... and 5 more after that...

"Nice bit of history you have there, best give us more money to keep at it."

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd even wonder if some get kickbacks for cooperating.

While I don't necessarily think this thread was meant to spark a debate about this topic, you might find it helpful to do a minimal amount of research.

This is a comprehensive summary of things being worked on, and features completed and shipped. Note that a large amount of this isn't being showcased by PWs currently on EE, but they totally could be!

You can click on each card for more information.

Fangs wrote:

PinataPlethora wrote:Beamdog 'bout to be riiiiiiiiiich...

It seems like this was the only point of the thing. I mean, I can see the board meeting leading up to it...

"Guys, we have this IP, maybe we should make a sequel and fix everything?"
"Nah that takes effort and costs money, let's pull some stuff off the vault, force them to use our servers and buy it and call it a day."
"So, an extortion tactic?"
"Pretty much."

They have done a lot more than just re-package the product with new shrink wrap, there are so many updates that it would be too difficult to list them all here. However if you are interested in something shiny take a look at this blog post that shows off some of the new environment and player model work they are doing:

http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/03/march-9 ... recap.html

Fangs wrote:Honestly, not sure if I'll bother. I've played almost every server out at this point including Arelith. Not sure if paying for the privilege of being able to login to a game I've already been around the block and back again for is a worthwhile use of my money given how many other, new games are out there and how little this "upgrade" will do for my experience (almost nothing).

You get the ability to keep playing this 15 year old game for the foreseeable future. How many games from 15 years ago are playable like NWN is playable? How much longer will the remain playable? NWN was becoming more and more difficult to play on. Thankfully the Arelith community has solved many of those issues, but onboarding new players is difficult. I just introduced a few friends to it, and there is a process of several steps that one must go through to be ready to play online.

Fangs wrote:I mean, if they were going to fix a ton of nagging bugs, add a gob of new races, classes, feats and spells as well as the nicer features of nwn2 (like the modes)? Yes, I'd plunk down 60 dollars in a heartbeat.

Despite all the bugs they have already fixed, development is going to continue on NWN:EE long past the initial release date. The idea initially is to get a stable version of the game released with a lot of the current updates, then continue adding to it over the years. Part of the planned updates includes making it easier for content creators to do things with the engine, including new races, classes, feats and spells. Also, EE only costs $20 US...

Fangs wrote:This? Just feels like a cash-grabby scheme to me. One we'll see again in 5 more years... and 5 more after that... and 5 more after that...

"Nice bit of history you have there, best give us more money to keep at it."

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd even wonder if some get kickbacks for cooperating.

If nothing I've said convinces you that this isn't a money grab, then it will be sad to see a player leave.

Well I agree to point, I mean if I buy a game you would like for it to be a new game or new content and not just same game but looks nicer. Sort of like the George Lucas I have just released version 10 of the original Star Wars that looks prettier. But I think NWN was getting to the point where it didn't have long left, I am not a programmer, but I assume getting NWN to keep working everytime a new OS comes out would get harder and harder. For me if it stops that annoying NWN error that crashes you, it's worth it.

I'll swap over. They can have my money, it's only 20bucks for many more years of entertainment.

See it like this, many mmo's cost 13 bucks a month not even including initial buying price. For as long as you got at least one or two months of enjoyment out of that investment it was worth the money, and would be worth to continue. Same with arelith, how many of you people spent playing here for YEARS? A small price to pay to continue fully supported bug-free fun, i'd say.

Already paid for the Deluxe version months ago. Can't wait.

Fangs wrote:If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd even wonder if some get kickbacks for cooperating.

You must be fun at parties.

Unfortunately, my husband and I won't be going to EE. He's been out of work and we simply don't have the money to buy a new game just to play. Guess our days on Arelith are numbered, but it was fun while it lasted!

Maybe next year things will look up on our financial future.

Hardware is rapidly outpacing NWN as a program -- the earliest flickers of this are having to have the game on compatibility mode just to run at all, and the NVIDIA drivers thing with the robes a while back.

Whether one likes it or not the EE is definitely necessary from a technical standpoint. One could certainly make a compelling argument as to the debatable "cleanliness" of the way EE was announced/sold, but it's inarguable that the update/re-release is an absolute necessity.

EDIT: Anira, I believe around EE's announcement there were some players offering to purchase the game for those who couldn't afford it themselves. Perhaps those people would be willing to help you?

I am already on EE here been wandering the distant shores server a few times and had fun there. But right now I am just waiting for the full migration.

Xerah wrote:Can't wait to uninstall NWN for EE.

Whats the process? We unistall nwn, install EE and then what?Do we add CEP or stuff like that to be able to join Arelith?

Arelith does not use CEP or stuff. Plug 'n Play.

This will probably never change until an auto-down-loader is available, effectively still making it plug 'n play.

thanks

CEP is haks and arelith is currently hak free.

Important places:

1) For 1.69: Your install directory
2) For EE: My Documents/Neverwinter nights

1) Install EE.
2) viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15376&p=139221#p139221
3) Install your current customization files by:
3a) Copying and pasting them from your NWN 1.69 install to your EE documents
or
3b) Changing EE nwn.ini to point to your 1.69 install.
Folders of interest (though not all applicable to arelith) are overrides, haks, tlk, modules, logs, patch (and nwnpatch.ini if using), local vault, dm vault, saves, portraits, database.
4) Keep your 1.69 install for now in case you need more files from it.

I will join, eventually, depending on money situation. Hopefully not too long the switch is made, but we shall see.

My point was that I won't be playing standard NWN anymore after EE is fully released.