Magister Lajciak

Without a doubt, a proper, single-player KOTOR 3 would be the Star Wars game I would wish for. A distant second would be another game in the Jedi Academy series (like somebody already mentioned, a proper Jedi Academy 3). I am not really interested in seeing any other game in the Star Wars setting, though I could be persuaded by other single-player RPGs, single-player shooters and possibly even by strategy games if they promised high quality storylines and gameplay. I am not interested in playing any online games, regardless of whether they are Star Wars or something else.

Thanks for the insights Nat - that was an interesting read!

Yeah, I almost certainly would pass on a 4E CRPG. Since, WotC is unlikely to allow any more 3.5E games to be made, I have to hope that Obsidian will use some other license (KOTOR 3 would be best, but unlikely...).

You tease! Some of us still have to wait to get the game.

Despite my sig, I don't actually dislike SecuROM. What I dislike is online activation in all its forms (and some new games using SecuROM use online activation, Mass Effect included), as it essentially means you are renting a game (until the EA (in case of Mass Effect, which unfortunately has this anti-feature) takes its servers down or they stop supporting activation) rather than buying it. As such, you are correct that I would not buy anything through Steam. I have no problem with disk checks, be they based on SecuROM or other DRM.

It's news to me, but despite my sig and avatar icon, I don't actually dislike SecuROM as such, so long as it sticks to disk checks and such. I dislike the implementation of SecuROM (or any other DRM) that requires you to activate games online and limits the number of installs. NWN2 never had that implementation of SecuROM, so I never had a problem with it.

I would definitely purchase a Pathfinder CRPG if it were done by Obsidian (barring some red flags, of course, such as it being a MMO and so on). Heck, I advocated a Pathfinder CRPG already during the playtest process before the Pathfinder RPG was even released. As the licenses make clear, legal issues would not be a problem. I think a bigger issue is whether some CRPG developer (such as Obsidian ) would want to license the CRPG from Paizo. Paizo is not a huge company, albeit growing pretty fast, and Pathfinder is probably not as popular as some other franchises and certainly not as popular as D&D or 4E. That said, Pathfinder is rapidly gaining in popularity and seeing unexpected sales - the core book that just came out had the biggest print-run Paizo has ever made and it sold out before it hit the street. Currently, they are in the process of doing a second print run. Hence, the game is clearly succeeding beyond expectations and selling very well. That does give some hope for the possibility of a future Pathfinder CRPG game.

Yes, Pathfinder RPG is even more open in terms of its SRD than 3.5E was. Pretty much everything is in the Pathfinder SRD, apart from names of Golarion gods.

Well, highest and lowest values are the only places where a dice pool is more realistic. Even there, simple rules can get rid of automatic success or automatic failure - for example, I have implemented exploding dice upwards and imploding dice downwards. The d20 die has the advantage of the right level of granularity and easy decimal calculation (each point on a die is equivalent to 5%). These are important features.

It's not an online check - there's simply no LAN capability. If you want MP play, you need to go through B.net. That's what they said originally and I too thought it hadn't changed, but apparently it might have. Read the article linked above.

Where have you read this? Last time I checked Blizzard said multiplayer can only be played on Battle.net. Then again, I haven't been following the issue for about two months now, so it could have changed, but can you link me to the source? Thanks! That's not a done deal. ...And since it was short and only to correct me, Purkake's response to my post doesn't count. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/60156 There's the link above. I don't know if we can count that as LAN. I'm thinking a game where can play independent of an internet connection. *shrug* Actually my point was only that it wouldn't matter. Even if we all share a T1 connection, we'll be just fine. The big thing is being able to have a private room for five or six people. That's pretty much what I was talking about. It's LAN with DRM. OK, well, it is an improvement over the no-LAN-at-all possibility, but it still sucks in a major fashion. Better than the previous policy I guess.

The software restrictions in the FAQ only apply to the d20 License. The rules of the game are published as Open Game Content (the one exception I recall, being the XP chart, so you have to use a different chart with different amounts of XP for each level in OGL games, which is really not a problem). In fact, 3.5E is almost entirely Open Game Content (at least the core books are, some of the later books less so), the only exceptions being a handful of names, which are product identity. These names include D&D, the Drow, the Illithid/Mind Flayers, Displacer Beasts, Beholders, Aasimar, Genasi, the names of the Greyhawk gods and a couple of others. You cannot use these names in open gaming products, but you can use everything else and even use the rules to create the statistics behind the creatures protected by product identity. This is, in fact, done pretty frequently and for example the Drow are simply called Dark Elves in many products that use the Open Gaming License (OGL). The d20 License is different from the OGL, the d20 License being vastly more restrictive than the OGL. For example, the d20 License (but not the OGL) prevents you from including any character-creation or character-advancement rules in your products (this is so as to encourage the buyers of the product to also purchase the D&D core rulebooks to get this information). So what was the advantage of using the d20 License instead of the OGL? It was that you could use the d20 Logo on your product to indicate its compatibility with D&D, whereas you couldn't do so on OGL products. Initially, this was viewed as a big advantage, so you saw many more products using the d20 License than the OGL License. As time went on, more and more companies transitioned to using the much more flexible Open Gaming License, no longer so worried about not being able to indicate compatibility with D&D using the d20 logo. A few more things worth mentioning: 1) The d20 License does not exist any more. It has been rescinded by the Wizards of the Coast. 2) The Open Gaming License is in perpetuity and cannot be rescinded by the Wizards of the Coast or anyone else. 3) I suspect one of the reasons for the huge changes introduced by 4E was to make a game sufficiently different, so that it cannot be reverse-engineered from 3.5E's Open Gaming License, so that WotC can regain complete control of D&D in that edition and (probably) future editions. 4E does not have an Open Gaming License - it has an STL license, which is similar to the d20 License (is limited in what it includes, can be pulled by WotC at will and so on and so on). Sorry about the long posts, but I have been following the licenses and their development for a long time, so I sometimes post excessively about these issues.

Where have you read this? Last time I checked Blizzard said multiplayer can only be played on Battle.net. Then again, I haven't been following the issue for about two months now, so it could have changed, but can you link me to the source? Thanks!

I am glad I could help!

It has been released already, but the problem is that the first print run already sold out, because the scale of the demand was unanticipated (even though according to the Paizo CEO, this has been the largest print run of any Paizo product [possibly apart from the Dragon and Dungeon magazines - I no longer remember precisely how the CEO phrased it]). They are in the process of doing the second printing now.

I am in Slovakia at the moment and will be until late September, so I will have to wait until then to get a copy.

Here is the full text of the Open Gaming License: http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/OGLv1.0a.rtf I see nothing against computer games in the text.

how do you figure that?? Pathfinder is d20 System using the 3.5e Open Gaming License which states that no company can create an independent interactive gaming environment using the d20 System rules. They can make d20 System reference software, but not games. If it is d20 or DnD related it has to go through Wizards and Hasbro in a separate licensing agreement. This is incorrect. Pathfinder does not use the d20 license. It does use the Open Gaming License (the two are not the same, but many gamers confuse them, because they seemed so similar during the supported lifetime of 3.5E). The OGL license is vastly less restrictive than the d20 license. Now on the note of the petition: I would love to see a Pathfinder RPG CRPG and especially from Obsidian Entertainment!

That sounds pretty awesome!

In other interesting Pathfinder RPG news, the popularity of the RPG is exceeding Paizo's expectations. The first print has already been sold out* and the book is not even out for a few more days yet (and according to Paizo, it was their biggest print ever)! The second print has already been ordered. *I am sure it will still be available in stores (though perhaps not for long) - I suspect the stores did much of the pre-ordering, but I am back in Slovakia at the moment, so I will probably have to wait for the second print to get it. I might just get the $10 PDF of the book, not to have to wait.

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Never heard of that before, sounds crazy. My ISP has those rules too - there are many like that around here. Computing is not my field, so I don't know: they might or might not be able to stop you in practice. Than again, what can Blizzard or another game company do to stop you from simply downloading its game and using a LAN hack to play it locally? I am sure you see my point - regardless of whether they can stop you in practice, it is illegal to do so. Well, we like to play and socialize at the same time in the same room and that's pretty much the only way we play multiplayer. We have little interest in gaming long-distance without face to face contact. Besides, I also like to play games with the rest of my family, including those members who live in the same house as me.

I have read neither and thus have no feelings on either. On this topic, I agree on both counts. Another expansion for NWN 2 would be great, but I probaly wouldn't be intereted in a new D&D CRPG, because it would likely be 4E, so I would prefer a unique setting or some other license instead.

Are they still connectionless? It's part of my memories too, but that was 10 years ago. Broadband penetration is a bit better now, even in the U.S. EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that South Korea has incredible broadband penetration. Broadband penetration is rising, but in many countries it is still not near-universal. In Slovakia, for example, almost everybody has a computer, but only about 11% percent of households have broadband internet (the figures are from 2006, so it is surely more people than that by now, but penetration is still nowhere near universal). Besides that, connections are often restricted in such a way that you are not legally allowed to invite your friends over to connect their computers at your place using your connection. In parctice, I am not sure the ISP could control it much, but going against that contract is not really different from pirating games. To top things off, even if all my friends and family had broadband, I wouldn't game online with them. We prefer to game and socialize at the same time, in the same room. LAN is essential functionality for that. Finally, the issue with internet-only multiplayer is similar to online authentication in the regard that if those servers are ever taken offline, the gamers are stranded, just as users of DRMed Walmart music, Yahoo music and Microsoft music got stranded once these companies (I believe it was these three, but I have read the relevant stories some time back) have decided to take down their servers. I never purchase games or music where this can happen (My wider family had some attrocious experience with Sony's music DRM) - so any game with online-only multiplayer is a game I will treat as a single-player game only when making my purchasing decision. Any game that requires online connection/authentication/whatever even for single-player, I automatically won't purchase.

Well, they did explicitly cite fighting piracy as a reason behind the move, along with the 'providing a better experience' cover. That said, there could be auxiliary reasons for their decision. Battlenet 2 is being created and even though it will remain free to play, there are rumors that it could contain some services for a charge - one example given by Bashiok (one of Blizzard's community managers) as a possibility was resurrecting hardcore characters in Diablo 3 for a fee. So yes, an auxiliary reason could be to gain extra revenues from Battlenet 2 by forcing everybody to use it. I notice the article you linked to didn't mention piracy at all. Deraldin already pointed out that the article does indeed mention it. It has also been mentioned several other times by Blizzard staff posting on the Battlenet boards.