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General discussionNeverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition(243 posts)(243 posts)
(243 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 28, 2018
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Crosmando: So this just released on Steam, when does it come here?
Give them a chance, beamdog need to draw the vans up so you can throw your hard earned cash straight in there. That way they can get straight out on holiday for a couple of years before looking at milking number 2.
Posted March 28, 2018
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nightcraw1er.488: Give them a chance, beamdog need to draw the vans up so you can throw your hard earned cash straight in there. That way they can get straight out on holiday for a couple of years before looking at milking number 2.
I've heard they can't touch 2. Or KoTOR. Crossing fingers that it is true.
Posted March 28, 2018
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GreasyDogMeat: I've heard they can't touch 2. Or KoTOR. Crossing fingers that it is true.
2 is obvious: it's wasn't BioWare's. Same with kotor 2. Why not kotor? I always figured it'd be their next target. It it because it's Star Wars, and they only have a license for D&D?
Posted March 28, 2018
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GreasyDogMeat: I've heard they can't touch 2. Or KoTOR. Crossing fingers that it is true.
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darktjm: 2 is obvious: it's wasn't BioWare's. [...]
Neither were Torment or Icewind Dale.
Posted March 29, 2018
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GreasyDogMeat: I've heard they can't touch 2. Or KoTOR. Crossing fingers that it is true.
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darktjm: 2 is obvious: it's wasn't BioWare's. Same with kotor 2. Why not kotor? I always figured it'd be their next target. It it because it's Star Wars, and they only have a license for D&D?
Bioware has nothing to do with it. Publishers or IP owners get rights to games, not developers. In this case, the rights to all D&D RPGs are owned by Wizards of the Coast, since they own the D&D license. They're the only ones who can decide what D&D games Beamdog can remake, including NWN 2.

As for KotOR or its sequel, Beamdog would have to get Disney, who own the rights to everything Star Wars related, to agree, which seems pretty unlikely considering they apparently want to concentrate on their new canon.
Post edited March 29, 2018 by mystral
Posted March 29, 2018
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mystral: Bioware has nothing to do with it.
I was under the impression that Beamdog wanted to own/"enhance" old BioWare games. In that context, BioWare has everything to do with it. Once they decide what they want, they can negotiate with the associated parties for the rights, regardless of who those parties are these days.

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mystral: Publishers or IP owners get rights to games, not developers. In this case, the rights to all D&D RPGs are owned by Wizards of the Coast, since they own the D&D license. They're the only ones who can decide what D&D games Beamdog can remake, including NWN 2.
If you say so. IP ownership is complex, and I doubt WoTC has all the rights to those games that you seem to claim. In fact, I doubt they have any more than veto rights. Atari (or whoever bought the rights from Atari) and BioWare have much more right to the code. Did CDPR pay WoTC for using a modified Aurora engine in the Witcher? If they did, WoTC has far better lawyers than I ever imagined.
Posted March 29, 2018
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mystral: Bioware has nothing to do with it.
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darktjm: I was under the impression that Beamdog wanted to own/"enhance" old BioWare games. In that context, BioWare has everything to do with it. Once they decide what they want, they can negotiate with the associated parties for the rights, regardless of who those parties are these days.

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mystral: Publishers or IP owners get rights to games, not developers. In this case, the rights to all D&D RPGs are owned by Wizards of the Coast, since they own the D&D license. They're the only ones who can decide what D&D games Beamdog can remake, including NWN 2.
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darktjm: If you say so. IP ownership is complex, and I doubt WoTC has all the rights to those games that you seem to claim. In fact, I doubt they have any more than veto rights. Atari (or whoever bought the rights from Atari) and BioWare have much more right to the code. Did CDPR pay WoTC for using a modified Aurora engine in the Witcher? If they did, WoTC has far better lawyers than I ever imagined.
WoTC have lawyers like you would't believe. It was only recently they started tracking down any literary, film, music reference to space marine (oh shit now I have had it!) reference and suing them for every penny. They own forgotten realms and the various other elements, and only by their godly proclamation can anyone even so much as utter something even remotely similar. This does not however apply to the underlying architecture such as infinity or aurora engines, which are open to separate licence. As for Disney versus WoTC well, that would be a lawyers wet dream.
Posted March 29, 2018
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darktjm: 2 is obvious: it's wasn't BioWare's. Same with kotor 2. Why not kotor? I always figured it'd be their next target. It it because it's Star Wars, and they only have a license for D&D?
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mystral: Bioware has nothing to do with it. Publishers or IP owners get rights to games, not developers.
IP owners sure, but there are plenty of cases where the developer is the IP holder. Obsidian owns PoE rather than Paradox (v/v for Tyranny tho) as a current example. There are also plenty of examples, as below, where the IP situation is not at all simple.

WoTC was also ridiculously cavalier with wording their legal agreements in the past, hence the PoR(2) fiasco and both Interplay and Atari having 'exclusive' licenses at the same time.

In this case, the rights to all D&D RPGs are owned by Wizards of the Coast, since they own the D&D license. They're the only ones who can decide what D&D games Beamdog can remake, including NWN 2.
They can certainly block, or permit them to do remakes, but for the latter it isn't necessarily their call alone. If Obsidian owns the rights to any of the changes- and I checked my MotB box since it's handy and it has "Game Technology and Toolset (c) Obsidian 2007" which suggests they do- made to Electron and Beamdog wants to change them then they'd need their permission as well, for example. Or they could try reverting to Aurora, though from what I understand that would be problematic as there are some significant changes.

PST and IWD are different situations, Interplay lost all rights to them to Atari in a settlement then Atari lost them to WoTC so neither has any say any more.
Post edited March 29, 2018 by Phasmid
Posted March 29, 2018
As to what else they may update, I think I remember them saying that the source code to IWD2 is lost making it impossible to update. I wonder if that could be the case for other games as well.
Posted March 29, 2018
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darktjm: 2 is obvious: it's wasn't BioWare's. Same with kotor 2. Why not kotor? I always figured it'd be their next target. It it because it's Star Wars, and they only have a license for D&D?
I've heard it's because Disney owns Star Wars now.

Take it with a grain of salt as I can't remember where I heard this. Probably just some random poster who may or may not have known what he/she was talking about... but something I certainly hope is true. The less BeamDog touches the less turns to shit.
Posted March 29, 2018
I really don't understand why people get so angry when A) the originals are included, and B) the originals were on here for years with huge sales many times. It really feels like people are diving into a mud puddle so they can complain about their clothes being dirty.
Posted March 29, 2018
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StingingVelvet: I really don't understand why people get so angry when A) the originals are included, and B) the originals were on here for years with huge sales many times. It really feels like people are diving into a mud puddle so they can complain about their clothes being dirty.
Call it principle if you like... but these games used to be the highest rated titles on this website... deservedly so. When bundles up with the terrible rereleases their status and reputation was tarnished.
Posted March 29, 2018
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StingingVelvet: A) the originals are included, and B) the originals were on here for years with huge sales many times.
Yeah, with all the years I've been on GOG now and all those sales going on here, I think by now everyone has had their fair chance to buy all the good old games in GOG's catalogue. I say it's time to switch things up a little and double their prices! ;)

I'm not angry myself, I still have a working copy of the Diamond Edition. But I think "people only interested in the originals can still get them if they shell out twice the amount as before" and "you've had your chance, buddy" are weird and weak defenses for removing customers' choices.
Post edited March 29, 2018 by Leroux
Posted March 29, 2018
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StingingVelvet: I really don't understand why people get so angry when A) the originals are included, and B) the originals were on here for years with huge sales many times. It really feels like people are diving into a mud puddle so they can complain about their clothes being dirty.
Two main reasons:-

1. Price increase that's disproportionate to added "enhancements". Eg, a $10 16 year old game will sell for -80% off in a sale or become $2 in reality. Meanwhile, "new" re-released games will be given price tags of $20 and given only -10% discount at most due to being a "brand new" '2018' game... Want the soundtrack? That's 1 of 6 day-one DLC's that can be had for an extra +$20 for the "premium" edition = $40 total. For the same soundtrack that's already included with the $2 version plus a few old DLC modules that were of far lower quality vs what's on NWVault. So now we've gone from $2 to $20-40 = a laughable +900-1900% price increase for a 16 year old game of the same age as Divine Divinity, Arx Fatalis or Gothic 2...

2. NWN doesn't need anywhere near the "enhancing" of Baldur's Gate (no Tutu or widescreen patches are needed since the game has had native 1080p widescreen support from the start). Half the bug-fixes were again already done for free (unofficial patches +1.70). Biggest added content as far as modding modules is concerned is the CEP (Community Expansion Pack) and PRC (Players Resource Consortium) - again both free. The recent nvidia compatibility problems were already fixed by nvidia in driver v390.77. If the game were a huge remaster in a different engine, there may be a point but literally the only things added are UI scaling, ugly shaders and some minor bug fixes (typically the same stuff done for free in 15-20 year old games). Steam Workshop integration? 99.999% of the modding content is on dedicated site NWVault. If some modules become Steam Workshop only, then that's basically adding DRM / platform lock-in to the game's (formerly open) modding community.

Reading through the Steam reviews, what they've "enhanced" hasn't even been done properly and just looks bad. Eg, they haven't re-rendered the UI stuff or portraits, merely zoomed it in so now looks super blurry and even uglier at 1080p than the original non zoomed. The color filters look odd rather than "better", the DoF effect makes textures look blurrier and generally worse than the original, ambient occlusion is causing lag (20fps on an i5 + GTX 1060), and the music and textures are a copy-paste.

Also, the replies to the negative reviews consist of the same three spammed "responses by the dev" which basically admit the "EE" game is unfinished. One person correctly observed "so it's an early access game without the Early Access tag" whilst there are rumors that some of the "enhanced content" could end up on Steam Workshop and not included with the game. If that's true then expect NWN:EE to end up in the "Games that treat GOG customers like second class citizens" list since the GOG version almost certainly won't have Steam Workshop integration.

In short, NWN:EE is a cheap & nasty unfinished cash grab that has so few useful new changes (realistically some minor bug fixes and badly done UI scaling), it honestly should have been released as patch v1.80 (same way Blizzard issued patch v1.14a-d for Diablo 2 that's exactly the same 16 years old as NWN1).
Post edited March 29, 2018 by AB2012
Posted March 29, 2018
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Leroux: But I think "people only interested in the originals can still get them if they shell out twice the amount as before" and "you've had your chance, buddy" are weird and weak defenses for removing customers' choices.
You forgot "I spend more than the difference in price on my weekly overpriced coffee." and "the changes are worth it to me, so who cares if it isn't worth it to other people".

On the other hand, I guess I see the point: I got mine, and I don't know why I bother complaining, since it won't affect me directly. Other than the fact that mods are no longer compatible with the old version, so I won't be able to get new mods any more (not that I have in years, anyway). Servers are also incompatible, but I never cared for multiplayer, (especially pvp) anyway Shutting down the BioWare file servers (EA's fault, not Beamdog's) hurt me a lot more., but again, I downloaded what I needed before that happened, so I got mine.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionNeverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition(243 posts)(243 posts)
(243 posts)