Your CD key is already in use on that server.

[nagaguard]

That is exactly what I'm asking, Bargeld.

To illustrate, let's assume a hypothetical, yet incorrect, scenario:
1) Before the death of nwmaster.bioware.com, NS4 accepted logins from people using public keys that correctly passed authentication with nwmaster.bioware.com. Anything else = rejected.
2) With nwmaster.bioware.com dead, NS4 must accept logins that have not been authenticated with nwmaster.bioware.com.
*start of incorrect assumptions*
3) NS4 has a populated white list of all public keys authenticated prior to nwmaster.bioware.com going down.
4) I am a player who has AT LEAST ONCE logged in to NS4 prior to nwmaster.bioware.com going down, thereby adding my public key to the NS4 white list of public keys. I can log in without problems. However, I have recently gone out to buy another NWN game set to multilog or play with family. This new legit public key would be rejected, as it is not in the NS4 white list, and there would be no workaround because nwmaster.bioware.com is forever gone.

Can someone enlighten me on how steps 3 and 4 would actually play out? If NS4 will truly allow me to login with a never-before-used legit cdkey, it can only mean one of two things: either NS4 has the same comprehensive list of legit public keys that bioware had, or it is not checking for public key legitimacy at all and anyone with a cdkey generator is allowed to play on NS4 without buying NWN like I did.

[cely]

There's no white list of public keys. There are algorithms programmed into the NWN client that determine whether or not a cdkey is legitimate. With the BioWare master server gone, the only cdkey checking vanilla NWN servers do is whether or not the key is already in use on the same server. Therefore, you could conceivably connect to two different NWN servers with the same cdkey.

That's the way I understand it anyway, Lokey might have more details and of course some amount of experimentation would reveal the answers you seek. I know this is just hypothetical conjecture, but I feel it needs to be said anyway: The Neversummer Staff are not encouraging any form of software piracy.

[mining]

That is exactly what I'm asking, Bargeld.

To illustrate, let's assume a hypothetical, yet incorrect, scenario:
1) Before the death of nwmaster.bioware.com, NS4 accepted logins from people using public keys that correctly passed authentication with nwmaster.bioware.com. Anything else = rejected.
2) With nwmaster.bioware.com dead, NS4 must accept logins that have not been authenticated with nwmaster.bioware.com.
*start of incorrect assumptions*
3) NS4 has a populated white list of all public keys authenticated prior to nwmaster.bioware.com going down.
4) I am a player who has AT LEAST ONCE logged in to NS4 prior to nwmaster.bioware.com going down, thereby adding my public key to the NS4 white list of public keys. I can log in without problems. However, I have recently gone out to buy another NWN game set to multilog or play with family. This new legit public key would be rejected, as it is not in the NS4 white list, and there would be no workaround because nwmaster.bioware.com is forever gone.

Can someone enlighten me on how steps 3 and 4 would actually play out? If NS4 will truly allow me to login with a never-before-used legit cdkey, it can only mean one of two things: either NS4 has the same comprehensive list of legit public keys that bioware had, or it is not checking for public key legitimacy at all and anyone with a cdkey generator is allowed to play on NS4 without buying NWN like I did.

If you can run NWN from a CDkey, you can use it to play NS4. The only checking of CDkeys we do is to make sure people aren't getting at other people's accounts.

Software piracy is bad and you should feel bad, etc. etc. Also, it's probably a bad idea to download things off the internet in general .

[nagaguard]

Thanks. I completely agree with you there. I was hesitant to bring up the issue because it might undermine security efforts or just invite the immoral to exploit the system. In any case, it puts to rest my concern that a real purchased game will do all the checks on the client side and the server will honor it. I bought a 2nd copy specifically for item transfer. NS4 does not have a good item transfer system and I got tired of getting on /s to ask for help holding down the avendell map. I might buy a 3rd if my younglings get curious about what dad is doing on such an old computer game