Bioware Goes To Hell.

[Roland]

If I am not mistaken this was happinging with a PATCH. It was not the original game that had adds that people complained about. They complain that when their games had errors and the maker fixed it they also changed (and in this case added) adds.

Yes. This issue arose with the latest NWN patch, patch 1.28. What it essentially did was alter the splash screen upon the startup of NWN. You know, the one where it has the buttons for "Play", "Toolset", "Update", etc. AFAIK, there are no ads in-game, but I can't speak from experience. I HAVE updated to 1.28, and I have seen the new ad. And, not surprisingly, Luminaire is right: it's a non-issue.

My concern is not the ads, but rather the way certain people on the development team have responded to criticism about the ads. Let's face it: Bioware has been under severe scrutiny (to the same level of Blizzard, if you can believe it) ever since NWN's release; it's no surprise that tempers may be running short in general, let alone when a new complaint arises. However, that is NO excuse for the comments of one Derek French, NWN Developer. Regardless of anything else, his actions, despite how they may not speak for the whole development team in reality, DO speak for the team, and the entirety of Bioware in the eyes of the public. He shows HORRIBLE form and personal skills with his response, and indeed it paints a very large black mark on Bioware.

I'm going to continue to follow this issue to see what develops. I'm interested to see how Bioware handles this, if they handle it at all. Chances are, if they do in fact take a stab at it, it'll be minor. Somehow I doubt they'll bother. But, we shall see. For a company who has been so into their community ever since day one, this is a SERIOUS turnaround compared to their usual attitude. It could mark a very significant, and dour, change for Bioware. Then again, it could be nothing. Here's hoping for the latter.