Request: Open Up the Premium Modules
Dark_Ansem
Member Posts: 992
Thank you to those who actually supported this.
So apparently this IS happening now. Yay!
Post edited by Dark_Ansem on
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Comments
Also, the fact they didn't put Trip's voice in the main game was always a sin to me. "My teeth will snap at your ankles and make you dance!" will always be the best battlecry, IMO.
@TrentOster you were executive director of NWN back then. Don't you feel that the small risk of content older than a decade being pirated does not justify the decision to lock it from those Who, like me, paid for it back then and now? I mean, I happily paid twice for it and 3 times for the main game, and I feel quite incensed at this.
And that's a good thing, by the way, because DRM like the one that was in place in BioWare days is extremely invasive and caused legitimate owners of the modules to be unable to play them without cracking them.
But my point is, you can already pirate them easily, so the inability to edit them achieves literally nothing.
If I might soapbox a little, DRM is an inherently flawed approach to dealing with piracy. "Let's encrypt this thing but also hand over the encryption key and hope no one finds it."
It actually makes pirate copies more attractive than the real thing because of the lack of DRM - who remembers unskippable DVD adverts and "Piracy funds Terrorism" scare warnings? Or the Sony Rootkit they put on their CDs? It's seriously bad news when you can trust random pirates on the internet more than the official channels for a product. I still haven't forgiven Sony for that stunt - I got screwed over by it with a Faithless CD as a teenager.
Steam, GOG, Netflix and the countless other online services have done far more to stop piracy than any DRM. Piracy was rife because it was easier than paying for it and you got a better product when you pirated it. Piracy is dropping massively and even the MPAA/RIAA's own studies show it.
People who pirate now aren't going to be your customers - they're either penniless (like I was) or just plain won't pay. No amount of DRM is going to force the latter group to give you money - they'll just go without. Even they have their value though; word of mouth is an under appreciated form of marketing.
The penniless, however, won't always be so. They can be very lucarative customers in future. They also have memories - I avoid giving Sony money if I possibly can. I went through a period in my early 20s (when I was rich in both time and money) where I was regularly buying 4-5 games, half a dozen albums and 2-3 DVDs every month. I was a filthy pirate as a teenager who hardly ever paid for games, music or films - I had lots of time but no money (the exact opposite of now).
Having said all that... I know publishers hold the purse strings and game devs and sellers gotta do what they gotta do. It's just that DRM is so very, very dumb. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So apparently the answer provided by "@beamdoguser" (no idea who that is) was, and I quote:
"We cannot do this due to legalities."
Enlighten me, @beamdoguser.
I trust that the future premium modules you'll release won't have such pathetic and asinine DRM on it, will they? Or am I supposed to really consider this EE business as nothing more a cash grab?
I'm sad to read your last part of the message.
Seriously, I was wondering whether you'd pick that reference up. I didn't quote you, however, because I was hoping to get the person who actually wrote the comment.
I'm part of the legal trade, so I'd like to know the "fine print", so to speak.
I'm sad too, but what can I say. I'm not happy about this.
EDIT: all right @JuliusBorisov . Thank you for having investigated. I will drop the matter altogether.
Out of curiosity, do the legal limitations apply to the source scripts too? Or there is a limited chance of the source scripts being released?
Well, I'm sure that the adventures released by BD will be just as revolutionary, if not more, than the previous modules.
Again, thank you for having investigated.
Would it have made any difference had I asked Bioware back then, all these years ago? I'm sure someone did...
But you're probably right @Sylvus_Moonbow . No need to get so annoyed by that. So I apologise, @JuliusBorisov ,
But as I said, I will never buy these modules again. Only the Beamdog-made ones from now on.
After further investigation we are able to make this content available to the public.
Even More Infinite Dungeons
https://trello.com/c/e0rnoNa0/87-open-up-the-premium-modules-for-module-editing-building
@raz651
Thanks
@JuliusBorisov I made this point several times. However, @Teraunce , this is actually almost ready. I waited a decade, I can wait a bit more - I just wish Beamdog was capable of Multi-tasking!
With the new dev build, "Opening up the premium modules for module editing-building" is now available.
All the premium modules should now have script sources. They still wont show up in the toolset but you can now open the haks (no longer encrypted) and open/recompile the .nwm, since all the scripts are included.