Not so open, a Bioware take on open source

This article represents some thoughts on how copy-left and permissive licences create value. It uses the story of Bioware and it’s use of the D&D™ and Forgotten Realms™ games & mythos as an example. There are two recent news items that make this current: that the community repository for Neverwinter Nights has just shut, and that Wizards of the Coast have just released Dungeons & Dragons V5 rules as a free to use .pdf, a small but significant step to a freemium business model. The story shows how an initially traditional author-publisher business model, leveraged a pre-made community, grew it and latterly enabled it. The point of this story is the way in which community and value grew, becoming significant author contributors and the way in which Bioware responded and learnt although some might say not as quickly or as generously as they might.  …

Beneath the Cobbles, an NWN adventure

Last weekend, I finally finished the NWN User Authored Module, “Agrenost, Beneath the Cobbles”. I have been playing it, as I do very sporadically, for a couple of months. A very atmospheric and as far as fantasy fiction goes, believable module that had me returning week after week.

Talya and Mallet

I took a Rogue/Thief through; as pretty much recommended, but I think they come into their own with the later rule sets and NWN usually rewards the flexibility of a rogue, however in this game, unusually you have up to five companions, as you can see, and they pretty much fit into the ideal party, although I was not provided with a healer and didn’t multi-class to take any levels of cleric. The companions below seem to be a fighter, paladin, monk, mage and fighter/thief. The adventure takes you through and below the slums, merchant’s quarter and docks of Agrenost, a city at the edge of an empire and suffering from invasion by an undead horde.

The Party

I thoroughly recommend this module and it just shows there’s still life in this venerable game.

Now, shall I start NWN2, or look for a new NWN module …

Adventures in Faerun with an Apple Mac

Neverwinter NightsAppleI finally got Neverwinternights running on my Mac using WINE. It is clear from the old Bioware forums that to get it working on recent i.e. Intel based Macs needs virtualisation technology. There are choices here, but I chose WINE since it seems to leave the game’s code ‘closer to the metal’ than alternatives. I also wanted it to be legally free.

There have been some rat holes in this project, but I started at http://winehq.org. This has lots of great resources including some “How To…” pages and a forum. The best advice at  the time I started was to install from source, so I got introduced to git. I came to the conclusion, after being advised, that macports was a better way of installing and maintaining WINE on the MAC. (I also downloaded Porticus which is a GUI front end for macport and I had to upgrade my version of the Xcode developer package.) This conclusion was aided by the fact the game now works.

An article at arstecnica, called “Neverwinter Nights WINE Tutorial” states that the installer won’t work under WINE and my early experiments had found this to be true. The article suggests copying a good windows installation which I did via a DVD. The compressed folders are between 3.4 & 3.7 Gb, depending on how many saved games and add-on modules are in the folders.  The ars article also recommends copying some of the Microsoft DLLs, but they used a W98 build as their source, I am using XP. I have not copied any of the DLLs onto my Mac.

It seems to be working OK.

In summary its a three step process,

  1. Install macports and porticus
  2. Install WINE
  3. Copy the NWN folder from a Windows Machine

The first comment is by me, and discusses how I got doh123’s Wineskin to work. DFL 22 April 2011. …

Spellcasting in Neverwinternights

I have over the last two days advanced my Mage into and up the Luskan Host Tower_in Neverwinter Nights. This is the first time I have played a Mage, as those of you who follow this thread know, and there are some interesting differences in playing one as opposed to a fighter type, in particular, Rimardo Domine is, much easier to defeat and the brazier entrapping Nymphithys much harder, For more, see Playing a Wizard. …

An afternoon in Faerun

Another afternoon in Faerun, this time wth my Druid who’s reached the ancient city of Undrentide. I really am unsure about Druids. They ought to be really buff, but I am having some difficulty with this one. He certainly is no match for the Golems in the City so I was going to have to get the Butler’s ring. Even this wasn’t that easy. However once I set Dorna up to help me open doors when I can’t, we got into the Butler’s chambers having run past the two Golems with enough time to talk to the Butler and retreive the ring  before the Golems turned up to spoil the party. They were easy enough to deal with then. …

Nicopolis II

I have now finished the demo, and it remains good looking and still seems to be a story rich, puzzle, travel and discovery game. The puzzles can be quite simple and at times quite linear; you can only do the right thing. I was also frustrated that objects only become usable as the story unfolds to require them, you can’t clear a room. I am not sure if we’ll buy it. See also the previous blog post Nicopolis, and Other Games at this site, which have links to the demo and author sites. …

Nicopolis

I was looking for a game for Xmas by browsing the Amazon catalog, this pointed me at Ligthhouse Interactive, who seem to be publishing some interesting and different games. As you may know I am having problems getting URU to run on my Dell and so want something to replace it while I fix the software build. One of Lighthouse’s games is called ‘Nikopolis’ which has a demo version …