Magister Lajciak

Just out of interest - are there any engine optimization tweaks in SoZ? NWN2/MotB runs fine on my computer, but the ability to crank up the settings and still run it well wouldn't hurt either.

Yep, but that decision is up to Atari to decide. So after SoZ comes out, be sure to write Atari and tell them WE WANT NX3!!!11!. I know I will. Good idea! I think contacting Atari thanking them for publishing SoZ and asking for more might help us get another expansion.

Excellent - I do hope SoZ does well!

It would be an expansion to an existing game, so I think it would be permitted to remain 3.5E.

Hmm, Matthew, should Storm of Zehir sell well, would Obsidian even possibly consider making yet another expansion? I guess some of us are just itching to give you our money for the quality D&D 3.5E FR experience you provide and I am hungry for Storm of Zehir, but I know I will be hungry for even more after finishing its campaign! Note: Not sure whether you can answer this question...

Thanks for the answer. I knew the Yuan-Ti will be the main enemies and I love the Yuan-Ti - great choice for enemies I think, but undead are always good too to spice things up.

I basically said the same thing on Bioware's forum only to be mobbed by rabid fanboys who think that KOTOR 1 is the next best thing after pre-sliced bread... Well, I do think that KOTOR 1 is an absolutely excellent game.

I have not played Mass Effect, partially because of the limited installs and online activations issue, but BioWare did well even post-Baldur's Gate II, at least with KOTOR. I have high confidence they will do very well again with Dragon Age (unless they ruin it with DDRM). I would not discount BioWare yet. They have lately concentrated on games that are somewhat less appealing to me than their pinnacles (BG II & KOTOR), but this is about to change again with Dragon Age. BioWare ain't dead yet!

So... will wights (or undead in general) play an important role in the Storm of Zehir?

On paper, every word you say is right. But unfortunately, most methods the industry have chosen to increase that 'complexity' has simply spawned more complex and annoying problems for legit users as well as pirates. And while pirates know what they are getting into, legit users may not. I'm pretty sure at least one game tried this in the last 3-4 years. Can't have worked too well, I guess. The thing is that I am one of those people that really, really despise DDRM that requires online activations and forces install limits, but I am also very concerned about piracy, so I keep of thinking about methods to combat piracy yet not require DDRM (which fails spectacularly at combatting piracy anyway). I know there is no magic bullet here, but am still hopeful that piracy can be attacked on the margin at least, without attacking the legitimate users, which DDRM does today.

Well, you are probably correct, but you can still make it harder on the users of the pirated versions by increasing the complexity of what they need to do to get it to work. Also, you can increase the time it takes pirates to crack the game - every day of sales unburdened by piracy is important, because most games sell the best at release and immediately thereafter. On top of that, you can perhaps target the groups themselves, by inserting unique identifiers into each game disc (and keeping a database) that will enable you to track any early leaks of the game. Basically, you cannot stop piracy, but you can perhaps have some moderate effect on it without overly inconveniencing the legitimate user. I do wonder, too. It would probably actually take a while, because the culture won't be able to keep up. Well, as I said, I am very much uncertain about what motivates these groups... the challenge, the infamy, or simply sticking it to the corporate world? Unravelling their motivations could be useful, as policies could then be designed to target them more efficiently.

Still nearly two months to go before release and I am eager already!

I think you are underestimating the people who upload warez; the video and audio would, most likely, simply be compressed to be more efficient. You are probably right - they might get around it by compressing it and providing a decompression tool to decompress it to the right format again... I have to wonder, though, what is it that motivates all these obviously talented people to devote their time and creative energy to cracking/circumventing copy protection? They are obviously expending a lot of effort on this despite the moral and legal implications of their actions, yet they see no personal benefit from it and even risk arrest/fines/lawsuits. What is it that motivates them - just simple infamy or the challenge of cracking the software? I must admit that I am mystified.

Good point about load times... Alright then - let's say the files are all installed and only a normal CD-check is required. But that still does not invalidate the idea of making the game bigger in terms of space it takes up - perhaps by using higher fidelity, but less efficient compression on video and audio files as I already mentioned.

Here is an interesting thought on combatting piracy: Switch to larger media (Blu-Ray) and make larger games in terms of memory they take up, which would make downloading the game significantly more tedious and lengthy - the pirates craving it might just crack and go out and buy it instead. This could be accomplished by perhaps using less compression on sound and video files of the game, which would provide better media quality to boot. These files could even stay on the Blu-Ray disc and not be installed to the hard drive, but played directly from there (sort of a built-in CD-check that saves HDD space to boot). Of course, too few computers have Blu-Ray drives to make it work yet, so I guess the strategy would also require producing versions with multiple DVDs and that is much less convenient for the user, as it can lead to DVD swapping if the media stay on discs (unless of course, there was an install DVD(s) and only one media DVD required to play the game after the install is done).

Of course not, nocd-exes solve everything. Okay, without being silly - I'd point out how that's not relevant at all (unless someone is arguing that everyone in the whole world is being attacked by angry cd-checks with tazers, in which case we would replace this post with a visual representation of epiphany), but I'm so afraid of starting another logical merry-go-round. Still, I can sort of understand the urge to point out that some people do get along fine with DRM. It just doesn't change the issue. Well, I guess I just made my statement to provide another 'statistical datapoint' (yes, I know, it hardly can be called that, but you know what I mean) in the anecdotal evidence we are providing each other with. I am not implying that CD-checks can never conflict with any software/hardware on anybody's computer. It would be interesting to know whether there was some software or hardware commonality that caused the issue with the CD-check in the cases you speak of. Perhaps virtual drive emulation software was running on both? Or maybe it was something different. It would be interesting to find out.

I have never encountered a problem with CD-checks that would prevent me from running a game.

It appears that the Storm of Zehir will not have DDRM and will rather stick with a simple CD-check just like NWN2 and MotB: http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...7&forum=128 If it is true, this is excellent news! Well done Obsidian and Atari!

To add to the list, I am happy to say that it appears as if the Storm of Zehir will not have DDRM and will rather stick with a simple CD-check just like NWN2 and MotB: http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...7&forum=128

For those who are not familiar with our new terminology - it comes from this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showt...50761&st=30 Basically, I felt there is a need to distinguish between the types of DRM like CD checks and those that limit installs, require online activations and impose similar highly restrictive conditions on the user. Technically, they are all DRM, but the impact on the end user is very different, so I think it would be better to have short quick terms to distinguish between them in discussion, rather than to have to explain what kind of DRM we have in mind in detail each time we post to avoid confusion. Hence: FDRM = Friendly DRM DDRM = Draconian DRM Of course, what kind of DRM falls into which category is somewhat subjective, but I would say that FDRM should fulfill several conditions: 1) Not negatively impact game longevity 2) Not make the user dependent on online or other services of the company for playing the game unless it is inherent to the kind of gameplay the game offers (this ties in with point 1 too) 3) Not excessively inconvenience the legitimate user And there ends my rambling for now!

I now looked into the License issue too. Atari has exclusive rights to publish all interactive (including wireless) D&D products until 2017. Here are the sources: http://razorwire.warcry.com/news/view/7505...ense-unitl-2017 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/info...dragons-license

I looked into the ownership issue. Atari is a division of Infrogames (a French publishing company): http://corporate.infogrames.com/infogrames...07/04/atari.php The confusion probably stems from the fact, that Atari Interactive, in fact, used to be a division of Hasbro, but was later sold off. Infrogames has recently increased its stake to 100% ownership of Atari. For more details see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

Well, I know that Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, but I don't know whether they have any ownership stake in Atari too.

Hasbro is the parent company of the Wizards of the Coast.