NOTICE: NWN Authentication Server Down

[Legacy_Tremayne7]

               Lots of PW's are still going strong and have found ways to work around the Master Server. Check your local PW forums for more information.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kittycatArcane]

               Okay.  I've held my tongue for a while now but I gotta say something.

Do you think they'll want to fix it any more if they come here and see the bickering? It's come to personal attacks even.  And before somebody says something about that, there's debating and disagreeing, and then there's flamewars.  This pretty much turned into the latter.  Point being though... if someone from EA or Bioware or what have you were to come to this thread, and see all the flaming, both amongst each other and towards the company... do you think they would want to try to fix it for a community that seems to fight, and shows no gratitude?

The other thing... be vocal.  Polite, but vocal.  I don't care if you're mad or not, politeness will go a ways further than sending angry messages.  It may be gradual or slow-going, but if we put enough pressure on them, reinforced with a positive tone, we could at the very least get an update. 

Finally... this is assuming that they weren't working on it.  If they are, indeed, working on it (hard to tell with the lack of communication), then we need to keep piping up and showing that people DO still play this game and enjoy it.  At the very least, we could at least be told if it's just taking longer than planned, or isn't #1 priority (I doubt it would be anyway), or if we've been cut loose entirely.  If it's the latter, there can be ways to work around it, we just need to be relatively sure of what's going on.

This is coming from someone that knows nothing of technical issues or business issues, but I know that if I were to run a business, something old broke, and the people that still used it seemed ungrateful or angry, it would make me want to get it fixed less than polite and good-intentioned pressure.

In the meantime, KEEP PLAYING! If they see the community is still alive, well, and thriving, that will help!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Seems to me that someone missed the boat (and the point here) - I will point to the NWN2 "Puhleasse give us da last patch!  Purdy puhleeeese!!!"

Guess what?

Yup, you got it.  Despite all the nice words, patience, etc - they still do not have a last patch.

Something that we, NWNers, did get.  And yeah, it was a rocky way back then as well, to get the last patch.

So why did we get it?  Because Bioware said they would deliver it, and when they said they would do something, they followed through and did it.

NWN2 was done by Obsidian (a different company) and Atari was in a shambles (still is).  And there was that nasty dispute in court between Atari and Hasbro ala D&D.

Which has now been resolved (Hasbro has retained the digital rights to the D&D IP).

Which basically means that patch for NWN2 is probably out of the realm of possibility now.

Back to this subject, however.  For the most part, the community WAS calm (perhaps a bit upset at the manner in which this all started, very untypical for Bioware, who had always informed us of such things in advance).  A bit of bickering, but that is rather the norm for us here (and let us be honest - much less than what one sees in other forums).  

But after months of silence, one cannot expect that a community that had been treated much differently, with respect and consideration, that they will not begin to become voiciferous!

This is obviously not due to Bioware itself - Bioware has never treated it's communities like this!

This has only happened since Bioware became an EA asset.

1+1=2.

Now, to the "but I know that if I were to run a business, something old broke, and the people that still used it seemed ungrateful or angry, it would make me want to get it fixed less" bit - you need to re-formulate that.

Consider "but I know that if I were to run a business, something old broke, and the potential future customers who are buying my products that are also still using it seemed ungrateful or angry" - now try to finish your thought.

Many of us here have also bought Bioware products as they became an EA asset - ala Mass Effect, Dragon's Age, etc.  Treating us like this makes us wary of how we will be treated as continuing customers in the days to come as these "new" games grow old.

Perhaps EA is trying to kill off the toolset and CC creators and the community that supports them, so that they can make more money off of DLC.  After all, who needs DLC when the community is creating better stuff?

I believe we are still waiting for a Toolset for DA2...correct me if I am wrong.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               But there is no point to whining and complaining. Yeah; squeaky wheels sometimes get greae, but they are often just simply replaced.

*bides time looking at the Premium mods*
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               This isn't to support or dispute anything anyone's said in this thread recently, but Aaryn Flynn said (in the first post in this thread) said:

"Due to the recent hacking of our legacy NWN servers we have disabled the NWN master server which manages game authentication. We are currently retooling our NWN authentication process and will have a new server up as soon as possible.

I didn't realize it until a few days ago, but Aaryn Flynn is a VP of Electronic Arts and the General Manager of BioWare Edmonton.  Which is to say, a person who can make the changes he said would happen, happen. 

So the lack of any updates, even little ones, is just puzzling.  It's two months later, now.  Is three months an appropriate time?  Six months?  A year?  I understand that other BioWare communities are hoping for updates of some sort but I don't recall an EA Vice President stopping by their forums to let them know that those things were going to be delivered. 

Maybe the way things are now, with multiplayer auth turned off and the Premium Modules authentication turned on to freeplay, as is the situation now, is the retooling they were talking about.  That setup certainly doesn't happen by accident.  It would just be nice to know that this is what they had in mind when they said "retooling" if that is the case.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_UrkOfGreyhawk]

               

kittycatArcane wrote...

The other thing... be vocal.  Polite, but vocal.  I don't care if you're mad or not, politeness will go a ways further than sending angry messages.  It may be gradual or slow-going, but if we put enough pressure on them, reinforced with a positive tone, we could at the very least get an update.  ...


In the meantime, KEEP PLAYING! If they see the community is still alive, well, and thriving, that will help!

A nice thought, but entirely untrue. From a business perspective it's angry costumers that drive change. And just one or two angry customers won't cut it. It takes LOTS of ANGRY customers to prod a huge company like EA off-course.

Companies won't as a rule, take you seriously unless they're afraid it will cost them money. A polite "if you please, but in the meantime I'll keep buying stuff" won't cut it, especially companies like EA that don't have the kind of personal relationships with the community that Bioware once had.

To put it in simpler terms, you won't get a deal on a new car until you convince the dealer that you're not interested and walk away from the table.

Agreed on the keep playing point though. See you in-game.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Eternal Armageddon]

               we can talk about it forever, it will not change the fact that the server i am a dm on, and has been on line for 7 years has shut down due to hackers waiting to steal items from others as they leave the server... the admin has decided not do continue due to little if any answers about the future... so i guess thst is one AWESOME server down, and your guess as to how many more to go... very sad indeed.... just one little statement in a month period would have saved a server.......
guess they do not care, too bad, cause i sure cared......................
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               Not really, Eternal Armageddon.

A server admin should do whatever it takes to secure their own world, in which case, Funky posted a fantastic script to use when players log-in, which is just another layer of security outside of the Authentication Server that Bioware has had up and running all these years and this script gives control to those who run the server. Anyone who runs a server should always have extra layers of security but then there are those who like to put the blame elsewhere.

It's an easy fix to copy & paste and just one little script could have been applied and saved the server.

Guess the admin do not care, too bad, cause it sounds like a DM did.

FP!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Fester Pot, 29 août 2011 - 02:39 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Get yer Admin back to the board, and shove that authentication script down their throats, Eternal Armageddon (you do realize that your initials are...EA, right? o_0 )!

There is no reason to shut down the server, when Funky & Co. have created an easy fix!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tremayne7]

               Again I appeal to EA to give us some kind of notice on the Master Server. You think we're going away? Afraid not. But we are asking politely.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Oclair Monanari]

               1 Angry Customer
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__Guile]

               You will NOT get any straight answers on this one, the announcement was made when?
(2 months ago) Still the Authentication Server is down.  So, it's probably safe to assume we may never see it again, till then you will have to wait that long pause while the server fails to connect.

In the interim who knows who could be using your info...

It became a federal mandate that ANY business which held customer data store it encrypted so that it could not be stolen & used for malicious purposes, I'm think they probably didn't have the data encrypted as federal regulations mandate.

Furthermore, they aren't talking, so as to avoid any legal issues they may sustain by "slipping" and saying something they aren't suppose to.

Me, I'm just annoyed, Bioware, well, let's just see what they gotta say 2 months later..

Any news Bioware or are you just gonna keep us in the dark here?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_taltamir]

               

It is a 10 year old game

While NWN first came out 10 years ago, the premium module program is relatively new.
Sales of premium modules were discontinued on August 30, 2009
The last premium module was released in 15th sep 2006.

Is 2 years close enough to be legitimately upset? Did people who buy modules just before the discontinuation, sometime on aug 2009, deserve to feel slighted about their 2 year old purchase being denied to them by EA?

Does someone have the exact date of the first post in this thread for record keeping? "About 2 months ago" is rather vague and I wish to document exact dates.
Does someone have the exact date of the server going down? The announcement says "recently" and from what I have read it has been down an estimated 2 weeks before the announcement was made.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par taltamir, 03 septembre 2011 - 10:31 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Funkyn]

               There was another thread before this I think, saying Bioware got hacked.  That post was made on June 16th, the same day the emails were sent out.  This thread was a few days after that I think, not positive though.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Leito89]

               Sega Pass was also hacked on June, and they still have it disabled with a message (like the one in this thread) without further information, and unlike in this case, they have new games partially affected (Shogun 2 for example)