Neverwinter Nights Tidbits

WWWWolf writes "The fine folks at Bioware have opened a new For Developers section, aimed for people who make external tools for the game. At the moment they have a forum and description of one of the crucial file formats, used for packaging data in the game, with more coming." This looks pretty cool. It's been several months since I loaded up the Aurora Toolset. I might have to get back into it again. In related news, Apostata writes "It seems there's even more steam under the lid of the NWN Linux community now: the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink. Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game." Apostata also notes that the Aurora toolset also won't be ported.

Comments

Bink

[andrew_dupont]

From what I can piece together, "licensing/porting problems" means
(a) There is no Bink codec for Linux, and
(b) Bink's license w/ NWN forbids BioWare from converting the cinematics to any other format.

While this sucks, it should be said in BioWare's defense that a Linux port was not originally planned. Bink was a fine choice at the time--it's not BioWare's fault that they're pioneers in the Linux retail gaming market. Instead, fault Bink for not having their shit together.

Re:Bink

[MrResistor]

As has already been pointed out in other responses, the Linux port was planned and promised long ago. It is quite justifiable to fault BioWare for:

(a) Using a proprietary codec which doesn't support Linux, and
(b) Signing such a dumb-assed contract that allows a third party to prevent them from fulfilling their promise to their customers.

Bink may not have their shit together, but it was BioWare who allowed Bink to be a show-stopper. As Obi Wan said, "who is more foolish; the fool, or the fool who follows him?"

Closed vs Open

[jsse]

the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink

So much for adopting proprietary movie format while they had choices. 'Vendor-locked' is a curse for many existing legacy system nowaday and whenever we design a system we put openness in high priority(next to budget :), that rules out a lot of proprietary, vendor-locked solutions.

Just as I speak we ruled out acrobat for our electronic form submission project and seek some pure Java solutions.

One thing to remember is to...

[VisorGuy]

Keep cool.

If we blow our collective tops about this, what do you think that will accomplish?
I seriously doubt it'll encourage them to develop for Linux when they are planning the next game.

I hope they have learned a lot from this and will realise that the proper way to go about multi-platform support is to do so from the beginning.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

[eviltypeguy]

"You don't get to demand shit. They owe you nothing. You should be grateful they put any effort at all into porting to Linux-- it's not like they're going to make any money doing it."

Many of us bought the game because they promised that a Linux client would be released. So they do "owe me shit" as you put it. I might have never purchased the game if they hadn't said they were going to release a Linux client. I followed this game for a long time because of it. It would be one thing if they hadn't been saying for a year or so before the game came out that they were going to have a Linux port, but they did. It's their responsibility to live up to their words.