@AncientGrendel I'm afraid the Steam version will be the same as the one from the Client.
A potential solution for you may be the following. If you download it on the Mint 18 machine, you can copy it over to your Mint 17 machine, since it is indeed DRM free. It's not ideal since you won't be able to get updates without going back on the Mint 18 machine, but that's kind of the answer to your question.
Thank you, @JuliusBorisov I had wondered if that might be the case, but I have been so busy lately that i just haven't had the time to even look at what the structure of the game itself looks like. As far as how things are set up to work, that is.
So the game will run independent of the Beamdog Client but the Beamdog Client is required to obtain updates. You seem to be implying that the game (but, obviously, not the Beamdog Client) will run on Mint 17/Ubuntu 12. Is this a reasonable assumption? Also, will it be playable online if I just copy it to the Mint 17 machine? Or does that require validation through the Beamdog Client? The only use I have for it is playing on PWs. What about the Steam... Version? I know nothing at all about Steam so I have no idea what would be going on with that. Is that also going to require the Beamdog Client for updates?
If everything will work fine simply by copying from an updated version (there are four people here who play on PWs and two more fast approaching it) to the individual installs (without overwriting the CD keys and other individually unique files) then this is an excellent solution. In fact, I would likely just link to a single directory with the common files/directories (Yes, I'm old. I hate the whole, "folder," thing... I did tech support for GE on Windows 3.11 machines. They're directories, damn it.) in it and replace that when necessary. Probably with a script. Five gigs per client seems a bit wasteful, even these days.
You don't need the Client to run the .exe and thus do everything in-game, including Multiplayer (you can check https://www.beamdog.com/nwn_faq about how keys work).
Steam needs only Steam to get updates.
As for the question about running NWN:EE on Mint 17/Ubuntu 12, I'll need more time to find the 100% answer, but my previous comment was based on the programmer's reply related to your situation.
@AncientGrendel Yes, it should work on Mint 17/Ubuntu 12 if you install the prequisite libs. Genereally NWN is light on libs/dependencies, so getting it to run shouldn't be insurmountable.
I wanted to re-install the Beamdog games I own. Unfortunately I am unable to download most of the games. So far I got NWNEE but BGEEs and IWNEE are out of reach.
I logged a ticket with the redmine/Jira tooling (with no answer so far, it's recent though).
I tried to investigate the issue myself. Apparently the "new" beamdog client relies on (bit)torrent to perform the download. That does not seem a good idea as a general case but let's move on. I live in a filtered environment and despite the fact I was able to get NWN, I checked the log to see the client behaviour.
Apparently it relies on a heartbeat (which I got enabled on firewall - port 5672 for the record)
I also noticed that port 6969 had to be enabled for reaching the tracker.
Beyond that, pure TCP fails to get the full content of the code. I see attempts to check µTP availability which is not functional in my case.
Nevertheless...
I feel that this particular client behaviour is sub-optimal (in the most consensual way to express it) and as I am a bit pessimist about the ability to use that client.
I wonder if it would be possible to transfer the licenses to another distribution platform (GoG or Steam).
If so, who (email ?) should I contact ?
And incidentally are those platforms known to prevent from modding the games ?
Hey thanks for the reply.
I already opened a ticket on that platform and as they say they are experiencing high traffic at the moment, I'll postponed the creation of a second ticket. I was expecting a mail address but this is okay.
I have 10K unread messages in the "maybe this time" thread to keep me busy anyway.
Comments
A potential solution for you may be the following. If you download it on the Mint 18 machine, you can copy it over to your Mint 17 machine, since it is indeed DRM free. It's not ideal since you won't be able to get updates without going back on the Mint 18 machine, but that's kind of the answer to your question.
So the game will run independent of the Beamdog Client but the Beamdog Client is required to obtain updates.
You seem to be implying that the game (but, obviously, not the Beamdog Client) will run on Mint 17/Ubuntu 12. Is this a reasonable assumption? Also, will it be playable online if I just copy it to the Mint 17 machine? Or does that require validation through the Beamdog Client? The only use I have for it is playing on PWs.
What about the Steam... Version? I know nothing at all about Steam so I have no idea what would be going on with that. Is that also going to require the Beamdog Client for updates?
If everything will work fine simply by copying from an updated version (there are four people here who play on PWs and two more fast approaching it) to the individual installs (without overwriting the CD keys and other individually unique files) then this is an excellent solution. In fact, I would likely just link to a single directory with the common files/directories (Yes, I'm old. I hate the whole, "folder," thing... I did tech support for GE on Windows 3.11 machines. They're directories, damn it.) in it and replace that when necessary. Probably with a script. Five gigs per client seems a bit wasteful, even these days.
Steam needs only Steam to get updates.
As for the question about running NWN:EE on Mint 17/Ubuntu 12, I'll need more time to find the 100% answer, but my previous comment was based on the programmer's reply related to your situation.
Genereally NWN is light on libs/dependencies, so getting it to run shouldn't be insurmountable.
I wanted to re-install the Beamdog games I own. Unfortunately I am unable to download most of the games. So far I got NWNEE but BGEEs and IWNEE are out of reach.
I logged a ticket with the redmine/Jira tooling (with no answer so far, it's recent though).
I tried to investigate the issue myself. Apparently the "new" beamdog client relies on (bit)torrent to perform the download. That does not seem a good idea as a general case but let's move on. I live in a filtered environment and despite the fact I was able to get NWN, I checked the log to see the client behaviour.
Apparently it relies on a heartbeat (which I got enabled on firewall - port 5672 for the record)
I also noticed that port 6969 had to be enabled for reaching the tracker.
Beyond that, pure TCP fails to get the full content of the code. I see attempts to check µTP availability which is not functional in my case.
Nevertheless...
I feel that this particular client behaviour is sub-optimal (in the most consensual way to express it) and as I am a bit pessimist about the ability to use that client.
I wonder if it would be possible to transfer the licenses to another distribution platform (GoG or Steam).
If so, who (email ?) should I contact ?
And incidentally are those platforms known to prevent from modding the games ?
Thanks !
And good to see you back to the world of IE games!
We have a lot of feature requests regarding the Beamdog Client and agree it needs updates.
I already opened a ticket on that platform and as they say they are experiencing high traffic at the moment, I'll postponed the creation of a second ticket. I was expecting a mail address but this is okay.
I have 10K unread messages in the "maybe this time" thread to keep me busy anyway.
No, this is just general maintenance today. Actual improvements to the Client are still to come.