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Neverwinter Nights 2: Shane DeFreest Responds to Atari's Press Release
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A whole storm of protest has arisen on the official forums surrounding the official Atari press release regarding the cancellation of the premium modules and patching support for Neverwinter Nights 1. To that end, Shane DeFreest, community relations manager for NWN 2, has posted the following response:
[blockquote]Ok, I'm going to take a stab at trying to address some community concerns to give people an idea as to what's going on. First off Atari has not said you can't make custom content for NWN1. The community can keep making custom content, new modules, persistent worlds or whatnot for NWN1 for as long as it likes. However, there comes a time with any product that you stop selling it or "take it off the shelves" so to speak before a new edition ships. Just about every game company I have worked with that has gone through multiple "editions" hits a point where they stop producing and selling old editions of a game when there is a new edition in the near future. Traditionally there is a "transition window" where nothing is produced for a few months in between editions.
NWN1 has had an extremely long lifespan. But at some point when you know there is something new on the horizon you have to stop producing official content. Typically these "down time" windows are about 5-6 months if not longer. To stop producing old "official" content with only 3.5 months before a new edition ships is really very reasonable. It's what happens in publishing of all sorts, not just video games. For example when a new edition of your favorite RPG is slated to come out, typically the publisher will tell the fans that a new edition is forthcoming and they won't be printing anymore of the old ones. The publisher isn't saying you can't keep using the old edition, or having fun with it, just that the time has come where production on official content supporting it has come to an end.
The bottom line is that at some point "official" content for every edition of a game has to come to a close. Like first or second edition D&D, they had great runs but eventually they had a curtain call. NWN1 had a great run! It was revolutionary, inspiring, and an amazing game all around. In it's own way it's been just as revolutionaly as D&D itself was in the 1970's when it came out. But like first edition D&D it has to have its curtain call at some point, and that time has finally come.
-Shane[/blockquote]
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