Which keys am I using?

[tomaan]

Yeah, I know...but I bought several versions of this game over the years and lost track of which are which!

My versions are:
GOG Diamond Edition from 2012
hard disk Diamond Edition from 2005(?)


I have a file called nwnwcdkey in my main NWN directory - I always thought these were the active keys?

I also have a GOG serial change app which shows completely different keys

My GOG account has keys which are different as well

I don't recall buying a third copy and haven't tried the other two sets yet - any way to find out without replacing them?

[chirality]

Yeah, the keys shown in nwncdkey.ini are the "active" ones that you are "actually" using when you start up the client and log into a server.

/end facts and begin guessing:

If your GOG version is from 2012, I think it probably still has the original "shared" keys assigned by default. (You may recall that this was a bit of a hassle for a while for people trying to play NWN online with GOG copies, because for years they only handed out a single shared key and in order to get actual unique keys, you'd have to email and ask them to send "real" unique keys--otherwise there was basically no chance of being able to login on any mod with basic account security because someone else would already have had the cd keys associated with their own account.)

Eventually they started trying to expedite/ameliorate this customer support issue by including a unique set of keys with the purchase, which could be viewable through the GOG account. However, the installation itself still used the shared key by default, so then you'd have to "update" the nwncdkey.ini file with the unique keys (iirc, the premium biomodules given with the purchase were linked to the shared keys, so then customers had to run a re-download tool to properly fix that after swapping to unique cd keys).

The key changer app is supposed to ease the "technical difficulty" involved in manually editing the original shared cd keys by automatically inserting the unique keys into the nwncdkey file. (Or that's my understanding, anyway--I haven't used it myself). So, instead of opening the file with notepad and changing the keys by hand, it does it for you (assuming directory paths are in order and the installation is as expected).

My guess is that you using your original hardcopy cd keys for the nwncdkey.ini file; the keys shown on the GOG account is the set of original non-unique ones assigned by default when you purchased the game; and the different set shown on the serial key app are the unique keys assigned to "your" account.

As for finding out about which keys are which, that probably depends on whether or not you have used alt accounts. If you've only ever had one account on HG then you would probably remember having to add another set of keys to the account or ask on forums for a cd key swap. If you don't think you did that, then you probably just kept using your old key from the hardcopy. If you have an alt then maybe you used the unique GOG key for it? If so you could try logging in with one of the two GOG keys, and whichever one doesn't work is probably the shared ("non-unique") GOG key.

[tomaan]

turns out the ones in the online account are unique....I think the changer app has the shared ones

thanks!