Discussion: Life after BioWare

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:09 am

Already posted this discussion on my forums.
So, rather than waste space and time on two seperate discussions, here is the link: http://www.avlisaddicts.com/travellers/ ... .php?t=152

-Themicles

Fuzz · Post by **Fuzz** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:59 am

Official support does not a gaming community make.

It's a nice perk, but most definately not a requirement. You can still have a solid community, years aftr ongoing support is dropped, even if the game is rife with bugs, and the third-party devels don't have anything resembling sourcecode.

Ergo... don't worry about it too much. I'm fairly confident Bioware wouldn't just altogether drop it without releasing some sort of advanced toolset or maybe even a partial sourcecode dump. And that won't be for at LEAST another year, hands down.

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:29 am

Fuzz, you obviously didn't read my entire thread.
Please do, and respond there.
It was about more than JUST Official Support.

Btw, Official Support DOES make a stable game.
I'd rather not have to deal with bugs, and half built, unofficial patches.

-Themicles

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:30 am

Heres the repost, since people will most likely NOT follow the link, and discuss it there...

Some day, BioWare may stop supporting NWN.
Its going to happen... but when, is uncertain.

The fact is, BioWare can't continue to pay people to work on even just patches for NWN, let alone new content, without some sort of money being generated by NWN. Their current idea is Digital Distribution. This idea means that BioWare would continue to make patches for free. But new single player modules would be released for a rather small fee. New content would be created from time to time, and WOULD be available to everyone for free. The catch there is, the new content, if used in one of BioWare's single player modules, wouldn't be available until after the module was released. How many of you would realistically support this, to keep NWN alive? I know I would, even if I didn't play the modules I payed for. Just so we can continue to see more fixes.

Anyhow... this is all fine and good to keep money going for patches.
But what about new blood? Strangg still reviews multiple applications a day... but that is BOUND to drop off sooner or later. Why? Because there wont be any new on the shelf NWN products to get people's attention. MMORPG's bring in new blood externally all the time. They don't have a community that plays one part of the game, and not the other. They advertise, and republish copies of their game to get new blood. We can't very well publish new copies of NWN... but I assure you it isn't going to be completely sold out for some time.

The question I put to all of you is...
What can WE do to bring new blood into the NWN community?
As a world leader, I personally see parts of the community becoming stagnant already.
Up until about 6 months ago, I could post a help wanted on the NWVault, and get all kinds of responses. Now... I get none. Everyone who wants to work on something is pretty much already doing so, or doesn't read the major sites. Simply put, theres not a lot of "new" builder's blood out there.

I don't mean to sound like a doomsayer... but we, the Persistent World teams of the CoPaP, and elsewhere, have barely scratched the surface of what we are doing. I don't want to see NWN die out and the community fall off to next to nothing, before all of our PWs can really shine... Because once we do, we could draw people, even non-NWN owners (causing them to buy it) for years to come.

-Themicles

Pekarion · Post by **Pekarion** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:35 am

we have a gold package

and there probably will be more, one with both sou and hotu, so we're not dead yet

how many years have passed since nwn was released?

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:45 am

Pekarion wrote:we have a gold package and there probably will be more, one with both sou and hotu, so we're not dead yet how many years have passed since nwn was released?

Aye... but whats going to drive the sales of a new gold package?
AFAIK, the current Gold release didn't sell all that many.
Also, what about the types of players that it DOES draw?
Will they be interested in PWs?

What I am getting at here is, getting attention from OUTSIDE the NWN community.
Get some D&D fan site to give Avlis or the CoPaP a "plug."
Post more clear links on where to buy the NWN resources needed to play for people visiting the site from outside the NWN community.
Word of mouth: tell your friends about it.

I'm looking at things in the long term here. Not in terms of the next year. But in terms of 2, maybe three... possibly up to 5 or more years to come.
I'd be around that long as long as there was a sufficient community.
Hell, it may take that long for Avlis to map out its entire current continent. I'd hate for them to do the last area for the continent, but only have 20 people left to play on it.

-Themicles

Pekarion · Post by **Pekarion** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:55 am

In fact, I have just recently posted threads about nwn in the two other forums I regurarly browse and suggested avlis and/or copap

(a forum for my town and hip-hop.no

) but I've gotten some response

ashzz · Post by **ashzz** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:57 am

right now theres a lot of new PW worlds starting up. Give it some time, and some of those will die and fade away, some will stay strong.

The big solid PW's will suck up the people from those dying PW's.

community content is what'll drive NWN once Bioware stops and moves to the next generation game.

Realistically I wonder if the next NWN style game will move us all too it, or keep us playing the original.

Fuzz · Post by **Fuzz** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:31 am

Themicles wrote:Fuzz, you obviously didn't read my entire thread.
Please do, and respond there.
It was about more than JUST Official Support.

Btw, Official Support DOES make a stable game.
I'd rather not have to deal with bugs, and half built, unofficial patches.

-Themicles

Aright, I did read it, you know I read it, no need to post here with negative commentary on the fact and look all pissy and obnoxious. You wanted comments, I commented on a facet of your multi-faceted post.

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:59 pm

Let me reiterate my point here.
Some people think I'm being all "doom and gloom."

Thats not my point here. My point is bringing in more "new blood" from outside the NWN community itself. For instance, Pekarion posting about it on two other forums, completely unrelated to NWN.

And Fuzz... please don't take my post so harshly. I didn't see you on the Travellers forums before you posted. Your post could have easily been supported by the title of my post alone. Hence, I believed you hadn't read the entire thing. But, since everyone takes me too damned seriously, and takes my most minor things as if they are attrocities. I'm sorry.

-Themicles

Strangg · Post by **Strangg** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:25 pm

There are games that have been around for ages, have no official support and have a solid fanbase. Personally i liken NWN's future to that of MuD's, they will be around for a very very long time.

~S

Abdul_Caffeine · Post by **Abdul_Caffeine** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 1:46 pm

I think ashzz has a point.

Sure, NWN can and probably will stay alive for ages, barring outside influences. Sure, the supply of fresh blood might eventually dwindle. But IMHO, if NWN dies, it's more likely that it'll die because of NWN 2.0 than because of the Themicles Scenario.

Fire Monkey · Post by **Fire Monkey** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 2:29 pm

Abdul,
Surely the problem with that is that having a new version of NWN is just about as bad as having no version at all as that would still involve starting everything from scratch. This is something players and builders alike would presumably hate doing due to the amount of hours everyone has already put into this thing.

Themicles · Post by **Themicles** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 3:56 pm

Again... you guys are reading me wrong here.
I'm not saying NWN will die.
It'll be around for many years. I have seen it happen with even the worst of games.

What I am talking about is making an effort to bring in more blood.
Why should we draw only from the existing lot of NWN fans? Why not make new fans? Pekarion has the right idea.

-Themicles

Kogun · Post by **Kogun** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:00 pm

The problem in my opinion lies with the fact that (or maybe this is just me) unless it's an official release, it won't be half as good as the game. Modules released on the vault all can't all be top quality. (I still have yet to play dream catcher), so I think what the community really needs, as well as the PW's (the persistent worlds are what drive a game's long term future imho, it gives a game to play after the single player experience) is actual modules being produced in efforts akin to creating mods. I.e, we might get the new counter strike for nwn (For the love of god not literally!), but this can only be achieved through the very best of the talent available banding together to create the new modules that NWN was meant to be played with.

The World of Avlis

Discussion: Life after BioWare

Discussion: Life after BioWare

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