Atari ends support for NWN

bolo · Post by **bolo** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:57 pm

Story here

http://nwvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=17826

Before people go all doom and gloom and " the sky is falling!", I doubt this will impact Avlis much. this really hurts some of the folks in the mod community like DLA that were working on Premium Module projects that will now not be sold.
Actually in a way, it will help the folks making content for Avlis.No more having to go back and fix stuff for Avlis that a new patch seems to bring.
DLA says they will just release their mod for free, I imagine others will do the same.
So this latest patch is the last one.
Probably not real surprising given Atari's financial position.
Just remember, how many other games have gotten this level of support for 4 years?
With NWN2 coming, I guess it would happen eventually, but it sounds like Atari handled things in a pretty crappy way.

Nob · Post by **Nob** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:59 pm

The interesting thing about this is that Atari's the one pulling the plug on Bioware's plans to continue with the premium mod program, which is kind of odd, given that Atari hadn't actually spent a cent on NWN support for oh like the last two years.

Of course the fact that a NWN premium module (Wyvern Crown) was gonna have a feature that they just nixed from NWN2 might have something to do with that...

IceThorn · Post by **IceThorn** » Sun May 28, 2006 1:37 am

Maybe the stars will align. Avlis could come out stronger.

downsystem · Post by **downsystem** » Sun May 28, 2006 4:32 am

Not it says this ....

There hasn't been any official word on all this yet but some of the most credible factors, that have been thrown around, include; the financial stability of Atari.

Not that it is wrong but it says their hasnt been any official word on this.

bolo · Post by **bolo** » Sun May 28, 2006 9:42 am

Well, I'd count what Steel_Wind, one of the guys at DLA as credible.

"...on Friday May 5 in the afternoon - that's the Friday immediately before E3 was to begin and senior Biz people were out of the office at Bio Ware, Atari called to tell Bio Ware they were stopping the premium mod program and not authorizing any further patches for NWN1. The live team was disbanded and our mod will not be sold."

I don't see it as that big of a deal really, as this is a 4 year old game we're talking about.Had to happen some time. Doesn't mean the mod community is going to just dry up overnight, or that the PWs will shut down.

DanishPastry · Post by **DanishPastry** » Sun May 28, 2006 10:46 am

Atari sux

Fifty · Post by **Fifty** » Sun May 28, 2006 3:00 pm

Credit to everyone involved for the support thus far, I say. I assume at least some of that support has originated at Atari.

DanishPastry · Post by **DanishPastry** » Sun May 28, 2006 3:46 pm

Fifty wrote:I assume at least some of that support has originated at Atari.

That's not the impression you get from reading what Steel_Wind has written on the DLA site. But anyway, all good things come to an end. And supporting a game four years after release is pretty unique, I'd say. I'll tip my hat to BioWare.

bolo · Post by **bolo** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:51 am

A little update that I got off a chat posted on Sorceror's Place.

"UPDATE:

Derek French, BioWare's Technical Producer has clarified BioWare's position on the disbandment of the Live Team in all this a bit more:

Some clarification. It never was the NWN Live Team. It has always been the BioWare Live Team. We have worked on NWN, both expansions, all the updates, helped with the BioWare Community Site, external license parties, KotOR PC and now Jade PC, and Dragon Age in the future. Our size and staffing has always fluctuated with the work load. Me and my programmers have about 3 years of work lined up in front of us.

Also, Atari has not been involved in any of the patches for NWN in the last year or so, except for approving new content additions.

There will be a 1.68 update for NWN as there is a significant bug in 1.67 that exists, but thankfully has a workaround. 1.68 will be the last update for NWN and we have been saying that for a while now.

In short - one more patch, and it's all over for NWN.

To read the whole log, go here
http://www.exit.szm.com/chatlog.txt

pstanton · Post by **pstanton** » Mon May 29, 2006 10:08 pm

All I read was the title of the topic. I don't think its a particularly funny joke....

(please say its a prank!)

neurotap · Post by **neurotap** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:31 am

pstanton wrote:All I read was the title of the topic. I don't think its a particularly funny joke....

(please say its a prank!)

nwn is an old game dude. bioware has a lot of other much newer games under their slate and so does atari as a whole.

would you still want support on daggerfall when morrowind 4 is out? nwn 2 is coming out this summer iirc, and other games like jade and kotor and other stuffs, plus atari has put a lot of $ into ddo and turbine as well as other games slated for this year.

they are putting their money where their mouth is and its not nwn.

sorry

Cassandros · Post by **Cassandros** » Tue May 30, 2006 10:31 am

The big issue at hand is that Atari fucked a lot of people over who where working on professional content for the premium modules and did it in a sly, un-called for manner with as far as anyone can tell, is to generate more revenue for a game that they are proberly going to release early and full of bugs.

DanishPastry · Post by **DanishPastry** » Tue May 30, 2006 1:03 pm

Cassandros wrote:The big issue at hand is that Atari fucked a lot of people over who where working on professional content for the premium modules and did it in a sly, un-called for manner with as far as anyone can tell, is to generate more revenue for a game that they are proberly going to release early and full of bugs.

QFT

dougnoel · Post by **dougnoel** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:38 pm

neurotap wrote:plus atari has put a lot of $ into ddo and turbine as well as other games slated for this year.

they are putting their money where their mouth is and its not nwn.

Have you played DDO? They're spewing money like feces and lighting it on fire. Oooh...look at the pretty colors! It's a single-player game with all the frustrations of online play. The idea was an interesting one, but the implementation was flawed.

PlasmaJohn · Post by **PlasmaJohn** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:55 pm

dougnoel wrote:Have you played DDO? They're spewing money like feces and lighting it on fire. Oooh...look at the pretty colors! It's a single-player game with all the frustrations of online play. The idea was an interesting one, but the implementation was flawed.

OMG... if I didn't despise large quote blocks, that would soooo be there

Heed · Post by **Heed** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:44 pm

Looks like Elevation are sniffing around Atari (first saw this posted on the Vault):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12744766/

That would be a hail mary save for sure. Bioware gaining control over NWN2 via Elevation. C'mon Bono, crack open the chequebook.

dougnoel · Post by **dougnoel** » Wed May 31, 2006 1:44 pm

Heed wrote:Looks like Elevation are sniffing around Atari (first saw this posted on the Vault):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12744766/

That would be a hail mary save for sure. Bioware gaining control over NWN2 via Elevation. C'mon Bono, crack open the chequebook.

I don't know that this would have much effect unless they bought out Atari completely. And even then, Atari is only Bioware's distributor - they don't own them. What worries me is that if Atari shuts NWN down, no one else may be interested in starting it back up later.

Heed · Post by **Heed** » Wed May 31, 2006 4:26 pm

dougnoel wrote:
Heed wrote:Looks like Elevation are sniffing around Atari (first saw this posted on the Vault):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12744766/

That would be a hail mary save for sure. Bioware gaining control over NWN2 via Elevation. C'mon Bono, crack open the chequebook.
I don't know that this would have much effect unless they bought out Atari completely. And even then, Atari is only Bioware's distributor - they don't own them. What worries me is that if Atari shuts NWN down, no one else may be interested in starting it back up later.

I did say it would be a hail mary.

But things in the best of all possible worlds might go like this:

*Elevation is bankrolling Bioware/Pandemic to the tune of 2 or 3 hundred million bucks. (this is done) This seems to be, in part, an attempt by Bioware to get out from under the thumb of publishers in general. They might still need to facilitate distribution chains for products (see the Bio store as a first dip into this territory), but I think they can handle (some/most) of the other publishing duties themselves if they so wish.

*Elevation aquires the rights to NWN2 from Atari/Infogrames. Big "if" here because of the Hasbro relationship and the ownership of the rights to digital D&D based products by Infogrames. But it might be possible to wrangle a deal over a single product. In fact, where the article mentions Elevation's goals are incompatible with Infogrames/Atari it could be an indication that Elevation was looking for the D&D digital license in full (going after the whole ball of wax on a first attempt).

*Elevation then charges Bioware/Pandemic with the administration of NWN2 (i.e. placing them in a pseudo-publisher role) as it makes sense to have Bio making some of the big decisions over NWN2, it's support, direction, etc. This puts Bio in a direct relationship with Obsidian and both parties are presumably happy with the setup. Or, elevation setup a new company to deal with publishing duties in close consultation with Bioware.

That's the dream scenario or the "hail mary". NWN2 ends up under the stewardship of Bioware (or a close ally) and Obsidian continue production knowing they will be well supported after the game ships. And there was much rejoicing.

Unlikely? Oh yeah. No question.
Pure fantasy land speculation? Yep.
Would it be the height of good fortune if it played out this way? Most definitely.

EDIT: Oh, about Atari shutting down NWN, I don't see any threat there. There's really nothing to shutdown. Bio has funded the patches themselves for quite a while now and has confirmed 1.68 will be done and the last patch (planned to be the last patch long before the recent happenings). Bio run the master server. I guess Atari might be able to kill Gamespy (not sure), but that really has minimal impact as direct connect is always there. It might mean worlds would have to do a bit more advertising or have a main web page listing somewhere with connection info.

PlasmaJohn · Post by **PlasmaJohn** » Wed May 31, 2006 6:28 pm

... 200-300 million...

I'll hazard that's what it'll take to get their new MMO off the ground.

Maybe they want the DnD license, but I dunno. I think Bioware and the ex-Interplay guys *coughs*SJG*coughs*Fallout*coughs* at Obsidian have really had their fill of licensed content. Any D&D license would still need TSR/Hasbro oversight. OTOH, if they could maybe wriggle rights to produce D20 content... *shrugs*

Heed · Post by **Heed** » Wed May 31, 2006 7:17 pm

Oh, most likely. But with Elevation sniffing around Atari it's hard to say if they are looking to spend more of their cash in that direction or if they are sniffing around on Bioware's/Pandemic's behalf. One of Elevation's partners is an ex high up in EA, so who's to say what plans they may or may not have for licensed digital material or otherwise.

I wouldn't say Bio are looking for more licensed content either, but I doubt they wouldn't be looking to at least get NWN2 under their wing in some fashion if it was feasible. Also, if you hold the license (or someone you trust does), then it might change that sentiment. It is, after all, a big money maker. Even with all the screw ups over the years with various titles I think it still can spin a good buck.

Hehe, it's all speculation anyway. It would just be nice to see NWN2 get a stable foundation in some way.