Is there a post Beam-dog plan?

[BegoneThoth]

Seeing as, even to direct connect to a server, you need to go through Beamdog, there's a real possibility that if BD goes under, NWN:EE will go with it.

With Bioware, they gave us months warning, and were at the time still making new games, BD however mostly exists by making compatibility patches to existing Bioware games, which isn't something that can last forever. I do worry about BD being far less solvent then EA/Bioware, and thus the thought of waking up tomorrow with the BD server being down forever is a real concern.

Do we have a plan should BD go under? Is there a way to force the client to ignore the authentication server and connect manually?

[BegoneThoth]

*This topic is not to rag on Beamdog, but rather I saw this video in my feed and watched it, and now feel we may need to address the situation in the future/near future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS9vvF1V1Dc

[Wytchee]

I don't need this level of anxiety thrust suddenly upon me.

[strong yeet]

I don't need this level of anxiety thrust suddenly upon me.

god same what the heck man

[El-Ravioli]

I'm by no means an expert on this, and I don't know what changes Beamdog implemented. However, I do know that for years after the Bioware servers shut down, we still had ways to log-in and connect to the game (Direct Connect / custom made login shortcuts / etc.) ... and they would connect to the server, wherever it was hosted, completely independent from any carrier platform such as Steam or Beamdog.

The Core Engine of how that connecting to the servers worked ~should~ still be in place, so IF Beamdog goes under, I wouldn't understand why we couldn't just return to the way it was connection wise, before Beamdog and after Bioware shutdown?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much. Arelith (and NWN) has a community like no other I have ever encountered. If such a thing should happen, they will pull together and a solution will be created...

And yes, I realise, my response has been written through sheer blind faith into the NWN Community and NWN Voluntary Coding Squad

[Tourmaline]

Hopefully if Beamdog were to go down they'd open the tracker or make it unnecessary, as before. Say what you will about EE's flaws but I do think they actually like the game and wouldn't want to shut down the community.

I'd be more worried about the game itself being taken off the market. I suppose returning to non-EE NWN could be an option as long as gog.com still sells it. Hopefully the server owners would be willing to do that.

But as soon as the game is no longer available for sale in any way, that will be the beginning of the end. We could limp along for a while, even years, but no new players will ever arrive again and the community will only shrink.

Not that I think this is likely any time soon. Beamdog's been around for years and I suspect the Baldur's Gate games still sell quite well. We may see updates slow down to a frustrating crawl if NWN sales aren't great though.

Anyway no sense being gloom and doom about it now, if it happens it happens. You never know, our own world may end before Arelith's.

[BegoneThoth]

I'm by no means an expert on this, and I don't know what changes Beamdog implemented. However, I do know that for years after the Bioware servers shut down, we still had ways to log-in and connect to the game (Direct Connect / custom made login shortcuts / etc.) ... and they would connect to the server, wherever it was hosted, completely independent from any carrier platform such as Steam or Beamdog.

The Core Engine of how that connecting to the servers worked ~should~ still be in place, so IF Beamdog goes under, I wouldn't understand why we couldn't just return to the way it was connection wise, before Beamdog and after Bioware shutdown?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much. Arelith (and NWN) has a community like no other I have ever encountered. If such a thing should happen, they will pull together and a solution will be created...

And yes, I realise, my response has been written through sheer blind faith into the NWN Community and NWN Voluntary Coding Squad

At the moment BD servers have to be up or I don't believe even direct connect works.

[Liareth]

The new master server was developed by niv (who also hosts nwvault). I have access to its source code as do some other community members. Beamdog have stated several times that they would hand the master server off to the community if they had to cease support for the game. If we woke up one day and BD had shut down and were refusing to help the NWN community and niv, other community members and I all failed to keep the master server online through our own means, somebody would just write a NWNX plugin to bypass the master server authentication. It would probably take somebody who knows what they are doing fifteen minutes - and the community is home to many talented developers who could do this.

This is a bit of an unrealistic doom and gloom scenario though. Somebody should make a thread called "Is there a post super-nova plan?" too so we can plan how best to survive a world where our universe is dead. If we house the server in the strongest metal known to man ... maybe ... just maybe ...

[BegoneThoth]

That's good to know! Thanks.