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 .
