Issue with a game

[Taem]

A few years back, I bought Neverwinter Nights Gold and the Hordes of the Underdark expansion. I never did play the game much so it sat on my shelves collecting dust until my neighbor asked me to borrow it. I did so but the game would not run on his computer (his video card wasn't any good) so he returned the game to me (or so he says). That was about a year ago, but recently my wife got a new computer for herself and expressed interest in playing this series. We tried installing it only to find the Hordes of the Underdark expansion CD missing! I told my neighbor of this fact who rebutted with his insistence he gave it all back to me, but I definitely do not have it. I have the book with the valid CD-Key in it, the package, everything but the darn CD. I went to Biowares website expecting a downloadable version requiring a CD-Key for activation, but nope, none exists there. I even went so far as to download an ISO of the CD from bittorrent only to find it was trojaned. I'm so frustrated because I don't want to purchase something I already bought, not to mention I can't even find that game in stores - only on eBay and similar websites.

Any suggestions? Perhaps Bioware will honor my purchase if I send them those bar codes on the box? I mean, I don't want a "crack" or anything like that. I legitimately purchased this CD and have the CD-Key, I just need the darn CD:(. Grrr...

EDIT: Alright, thinking aloud here; assuming I use the ISO I downloaded and mounted it, immediately Norton would kick in telling me there was a trojan and would remove it, then prompt me to reboot, but if I don't reboot and instead install the game, and then reboot, would that be bad? Would I end up infecting my computer? Would the game even work or would the data be corrupt? Doesn't really seem worth the risk. I think I'll try contacting Bioware first before I do anything and see what they say.

[DeeBye]

I know you said you didn't want to buy it online, but it's like $5.

http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Nights-H...n/dp/B00009MGVH

I personally wouldn't touch that ISO you downloaded with a 10 foot pole.

[Nystul]

I don't know if they would honor a replacement CD for this game without at least a damaged CD in exchange, because the CD key offers little copy protection. What's to stop multiple people from playing NWN at the same time with the same CD key, other than their good word? It wouldn't hurt to toss out an email and see.

If you are only missing the HotU disk but can play NWN gold, that should good for a hundred hours or so (or a few thousand with all the user created modules). If your wife likes it enough to play that long, NWN Diamond edition sells for like $20 or less. AV software occasionally gives false positives, but I don't think a cheap expansion pack from a dubious source is worth the risk of screwing up a new computer.

[Taem]

I don't know if they would honor a replacement CD for this game without at least a damaged CD in exchange, because the CD key offers little copy protection. What's to stop multiple people from playing NWN at the same time with the same CD key, other than their good word? It wouldn't hurt to toss out an email and see.

If you are only missing the HotU disk but can play NWN gold, that should good for a hundred hours or so (or a few thousand with all the user created modules). If your wife likes it enough to play that long, NWN Diamond edition sells for like $20 or less. AV software occasionally gives false positives, but I don't think a cheap expansion pack from a dubious source is worth the risk of screwing up a new computer.

Well the x-pak offers 20-new feats, new playable spells, etc. But ultimately I think it's too dangerous to use the ISO I downloaded so now that I'm at home, I'll try emailing Bioware. There's a good chance I'll just go DeeBye's route and end up purchasing it..... again. I hate it when I can get the Diamond pack for like $20 at Fry's but total I'll be spending for this game series will be $20.00 (Gold pack), $24.99 (Hordes), $5.00+$3.00 Shipping (Hordes... again) = $53.00 for a game series I never got into. Oh well, thats the way the cookie crumbles.

[kandrathe]

There is always Ebay... NWN Neverwinter Nights GOLD WITH Hordes of the Underdark PC

$9.95 + $5.00 S/H 3d 21h 15m remaining.

[Bob the Beholder]

You own the game, you have your CD keys, there is nothing wrong with using an ISO with them. I've had to do this out of necessity with various new games due to ridiculous copy protection.

If there's a trojan in the ISO you have, then you probably shouldn't use it, though. But I've had these sorts of virus scanners report trojans in places that obviously contain no trojans in the past, though, so you never know. Many torrent sites have comments sections, and if there's something off about a file, especially something that's likely been around for a while like the first NWN, then people will generally say something about it. Finding a more reliable ISO would do you good.

[[vL]Kp]

You are lucky the infection was so obvious. An advanced attacker could have modified the game executable to contain an embedded payload that is decrypted and executed during gameplay. I find the idea of relying on a downloaded ISO a bit dubious, but if you persist in that route, I suggest finding someone you trust and getting them to give you the digest (md5, sha1, etc.) of their game disc so you can verify that the ISO you pick has not been modified.

[Tris]

Thoughts ...

#1 You don't own the CD, you own a license to use the materials on the CD:)

#2 There's another option that I think is still available ... NWN Diamond, more expensive than what you can get from Ebay though. It's NWN, SoU, HoU, and some Bioware made addons.

I will say that I wasn't a big fan of NWN. Found the main game rather... depressing. SoU seemed repetitive. HoU peeled and ate my comp (AMD 4200+ dual core, 2GB RAM, 7600GT)

[Taem]

#1 You don't own the CD, you own a license to use the materials on the CD:)

That's what got me the angriest about this entire situation; with digital rights, I pay for the right to use the game. While I may own the physical CD, I don't own the rights to the CD, thus I should be able to download the content legally so long as I purchased the game through a retail outlet, such as I did. I should not have to purchase a 'new' cd for the digital rights of something I already purchased!

#2 There's another option that I think is still available ... NWN Diamond, more expensive than what you can get from Ebay though. It's NWN, SoU, HoU, and some Bioware made addons.

Grrr... Already have all but BotU (and of that, already have box, manual, cd-key, map, but no CD). Kingmaker and Witches is not my cup of tea and they don't enhance the game whatsoever. No matter, I found a used copy on Amazon.com (+shipping) for under $6.00 (like $5.49-US) so I'm going with that option.

SoU seemed repetitive. HoU peeled and ate my comp (AMD 4200+ dual core, 2GB RAM, 7600GT)

Never played SoU. My wifes computer rivals mine, so I'm really not worried about the strain on my computer, but thanks for the concern.

[Taem]

Kp' date='Jun 8 2008, 09:40 AM' post='148919']
You are lucky the infection was so obvious. An advanced attacker could have modified the game executable to contain an embedded payload that is decrypted and executed during gameplay. I find the idea of relying on a downloaded ISO a bit dubious, but if you persist in that route, I suggest finding someone you trust and getting them to give you the digest (md5, sha1, etc.) of their game disc so you can verify that the ISO you pick has not been modified.

Well, the second I mounted the image, the game auto-played and Norton popped up saying bin4 had a trojan in it. I figured if I disabled auto-play, mounted the image and copied the contents, had Norton remove the trojan, then burned the disc or re-imaged it, then it would be safe, but this seems too complicated for me, and also too risky which is why I've decided to go the Amazon.com route.