The game is unplayable on my 1 week old Ipad - Possibility of a refund?

oddbjorn

Hi,

Being a long time fan I have quite a lot of emotion attached to this but I'll try to remain neutral. I just bought the game and all the DLC. Every single spell animation causes severe lag on my brand new Ipad. From MM to fear and Entangle. Anything with visuals. Some are worse than others but you cannot encounter mages or clerics, even less play as one, without the FPS being 5 fps tops.

This, dear Trent & co, makes the game _completely_ unplayable. Did you test the game as a spellcaster on the Ipad at all? I find it hard to believe since its not possible without rage-quitting.

Are you claiming that this will be fixed completely in the next patch? If not I'd like a refund since I cannot play the game that I paid you for. I also wuod like you to stop working on bg2ee until you can fulfill your obligation to current paying cutomers. The fact that you are actually working on Bg2 when these issues remain makes me worried. Buying a game so long after the release you would expect a working game.

[Deleted User]

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oddbjorn

Will do. Actually heard that they are quite nice about it. What I want to know though is if it is realistic that the lag will be resolved? Because I will end up re-purchasing the game if they do!

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Iecerint

I think the dev team has said that they are aware of the lag issue and are working with it, but I'm not sure whether that translates into a fix being on the near horizon.

I find the lag pretty workable provided that you don't use AoE stuff much, but it definitely keeps you from using all your tactical opportunities.

TJ_Hooker

They've definately stated that a renderer rewrite is in the works, which I believe is supposed take care of issues such as these. But as far as I know there's been no word on when we can expect it.

Bercon

"The current plan, barring disaster is to roll the new renderer before the end of May. We may roll out a partial version earlier" - Trent 16 Apr 13

kamuizin

Why don't you state your Ipad generation here and the general applications you have on it, i don't use Ipads, neither i have any deep knowledge on how they work, but a compatibility problem normally requires the description of the items that can be causing the distress.

For someone that stated that would even re-purchase the game, you're too eager to be refunded, if that's what you want, ok, if not try what i said, explain with more accuration what is happening and join an screenshot or 2 of the problem if the problem can be catch by ss.

After that, @Name someone of the BG:EE staff to manifest here.

Iecerint

@kamuizin, the lag issue he is describing is not idiosyncratic to his personal iPad; it affects all iPad users to my knowledge.

If you use Web or Entangle or anything like that, the game takes a huge FPS hit.

TJ_Hooker

Nevermind

lunar

Lag issue is definitely a problem with stationary effects like entangle, stinking cloud, etc. If you explode a few fireballs at the same time it lags a bit too. However I do not think it makes the game unplayable.

Azo

oddbjorn said:

Hi,

Being a long time fan I have quite a lot of emotion attached to this but I'll try to remain neutral. I just bought the game and all the DLC. Every single spell animation causes severe lag on my brand new Ipad. From MM to fear and Entangle. Anything with visuals. Some are worse than others but you cannot encounter mages or clerics, even less play as one, without the FPS being 5 fps tops.

This, dear Trent & co, makes the game _completely_ unplayable. Did you test the game as a spellcaster on the Ipad at all? I find it hard to believe since its not possible without rage-quitting.

Are you claiming that this will be fixed completely in the next patch? If not I'd like a refund since I cannot play the game that I paid you for. I also wuod like you to stop working on bg2ee until you can fulfill your obligation to current paying cutomers. The fact that you are actually working on Bg2 when these issues remain makes me worried. Buying a game so long after the release you would expect a working game.

Yep I have had the exact same problem myself. I have chosen not to play the game at all until a fix is coming since the stutter ruins the most epic part of this game which is the cool spells, chants and animations (combat). I haven't tried to get a refund though because I wish the money will help the company to grow and keep improving the game.

But it is starting to become a bit dull waiting this long. But it's priorities I guess!

mlnevese

Fixing this bug required a complete rewrite of the graphics engine of the game. It's coming really soon.

Also the file handling rewrite that was required for the Android version should speed things up on the IPad as well.

iKrivetko

Looks like Android isn't utterly useless after all.

oddbjorn

Hi guys, I just wanted to say that They denied my request for a refund. I can't play this game as I intended with a magic focused playing style. I used to play this game on a 1ghz celeron with TnT graphics Trent! What in gods name have you done to this game?

oddbjorn

And for anyone wondering, my iO is 6.1.3, 64 gig, iPad bough in the Apple store a few days before I made the post so it is the very latest version. No jailbreak and other than a few standard apps such as Facebook I had no other installed applications what so ever. I strongly advice against buying it on the iPad at this stage.

mlnevese

@oddbjorn any refund request to any app bought in the Appstore must be directed to Apple. Overhaul has no control over that.

As i said on my previous comment this particular bug required a complete rewrite of the entire graphics engine. It's should be available soon.

oddbjorn

They should never have released it like this. The patch is incredibly late. No refund and no patch because they feel like working on something else while keeping my money. What a scam.

mlnevese

@oddbjorn As I said any App bought through the App store must have the refund requested directly to Apple. Anyway I'll summon @Aosaw to see if Overhaul can do anything about a refund.

Dee

Unfortunately we don't have any control over purchases made through the AppStore, but we have been working actively on the memory issues associated with spell animations.

oddbjorn

I found out that Apple doesn't provide refunds unless I bought the game by accident.

On a commercial level it doesn't make sense to not test the game more and then release the game on a non-refundable store and platform. It will lead to too many disatisfied customers. I wanted this game to be a great success because I have always been a massive fan since the release of BG2. Truth is that 80% of my decision to purchase my iPad was because of Baldur's gate.

The thing is that new customers might not be as vocal about the problems because of less emotional attachment or lack of knowledge in regards to how the game is supposed to function. Many gamers might be turned off the whole game and never try it again because of this. When the patch comes out they might have stopped caring about the game. Maybe overhaul knows this and thats why the resources are geared toward the next product. Gamers seem to have a short memory after all so maybe this strategy could make short term financial sense -_-

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud

@oddbjorn: Or maybe you should've informed yourself better, as Trent has always claimed the iPad version was still kind of an experiment. Also, there are two teams. One is working on BG:EE2, while the other's still looking into the current game. Just have a tiny bit of patience till the end of May for the update to be released.

Wikkid_Suhn

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud said:

@oddbjorn: Or maybe you should've informed yourself better, as Trent has always claimed the iPad version was still kind of an experiment. Also, there are two teams. One is working on BG:EE2, while the other's still looking into the current game. Just have a tiny bit of patience till the end of May for the update to be released.

Um, a tiny bit of patience?

The game was released in November. He bought a new iPad primarily for the supposedly amazing experience that platform is supposed to render, which Trent has also claimed. 6 months later and the game doesn't work on a new system? I think his complaint is perfectly legitimate and he has been extremely patient.

Getting a little tired of the constant back-patting of the BG Overhaul team. They are all grown up, I'm sure they can take a bit of criticism!

Eket

The game does not work great on any iPad. I tried to get a refund from Apple but that didn't work. The pc version of the game works a lot better, but i am not paying twice for the game.

They did a nice job on updating this game, but the horrible slowdowns (even on my iPad 3) and now the first quest of the game being broken. I can't help but be disappointed. I have not bothered with the game since the last patch was released, and may not even when the next patch is released - unless it's damn near perfect.

It makes no sense to me that all the effort is going into an Android version when you have game breaking performance issues, broken quests, and awkard touch controls ( see iPad bug report thread ).

Like oddbjorn I feel, in a way, scammed.

Troodon80

Eket said:

It makes no sense to me that all the effort is going into an Android version when you have game breaking performance issues [...]

The reason is the hardware. In part: the iPad, and most Android devices, run on dual-core ARM processors. ARM processors are basically miniaturised versions of their full-fledged parents, typically running on less than 2GHz (usually around 1.2 to 1.6GHz, whereas a desktop or laptop can be anything well over 2, 3, or, if you want to overclock, even 4 or 5GHz). The next part of the issue then comes along with the integrated graphics. Most of the integrated graphics in these are quad-core chips. Now, these are fine for mobile devices, but most ARM processors and the mobile integrated graphics were never designed with gaming - specifically - in mind, which is why the game runs fine on my Core 2 Quad Q6600 - with Intel integrated graphics - which is over five years old, but not on the ARM dual-core chips and quad-code integrated graphics that were released less than a year ago.

The short version is this: if they can optimise it for the hardware for one mobile device, when they port over the code it should play reasonably well on the other. In this particular case, they could end up solving the problem you're having and have a working Android release. So, in a way, it makes perfect sense. Two birds with one stone. Just an outsider's perspective .

mlnevese

@Eket Also the change in the graphics engine benefits all platforms not only mobile ones. Even Windows/OSX should see a boost in performance when it's done. I'm sorry I can't give any further details.

iKrivetko

The reason is the hardware

This is ridiculous. The iPad, or any other modern mobile device, for that matter, is capable of much more sophisticated tasks, than rendering a 15 year old 2d game. The reason is poor coding, which is being fixed.

Eket

It would make more sense to me to first fix the iPad version, before porting it to android. I don't really understand the decision behind it.

I do believe that the problems aren't caused by poor coding by overhaul. I really do have the utmost respect for the current development team. They communicate well, and they actually have the balls to take apart the original game engine and fix it up proper. I do web development and the scope is just much smaller and even then it's sometimes a struggle to get it right.

I just believe we have been patient long enough. I bought the game on release day and played for hours, until i started using spells like fireball, entangle, cloudkilll and it just didn't work right ... And the game crashed twice as well.

You guys are fixing it, thank you, awesome. Again respect to the team for following through.

I just hope i can get the excitement back, that i had on release day.

mlnevese

@Eket Actually the fixes needed for Android are mostly the same needed to fix the performance and memory problems in IPad so there is no loss in working in the Android version at the same time.

Dee

To add to that, the Android work has helped to reveal some areas for potential improvement across all platforms, just as the iPad 1's limitations forced us to come up with some better solutions for the PC and Mac platforms. You'll see some of these improvements in the next patch, to be sure.

oddbjorn

Trodoon80 you are completely wrong about it being a hardware issue and here's why:

I had excellent performance playing this game on a rig in 1999/2000 that had a bit less than half of the performance compared to my iPad. Even when giving my old rig leeway for being a tower and having fair sized components the iPad still wins by a long shot.

Old rig:
650 mhz celeron 512 ram, tnt 2 32 mb graphics card.

iPad:
Dual core 1.4ghz, 1gig ram, PowerVR SGX 554MP4

Compare my graphics cards:

TNT 2
http://www.gpureview.com/riva-tnt2-32mb-card-208.html

iPad 4:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-analyzed-powervr-sgx-554mp4-under-the-hood

The only answeris that they messed up the game coding. That's why even recently released inegrated intel graphics cards perform so Poorly. I wonder how it runs on gembr? I bet a lot bloody better!