Nope, I am not Wraith_Sarevok, and I've been subscribed to this forum from almost the day it started. I just never felt the need to post until now, and I seldom even read it.
I had a hard drive crash, and had to reinstall everything. When I reinstalled BGEE, I noticed it was no longer receiving patches, and that BG2EE was canceled or on hold.
Wraith_Sarevok posted right after you. His post is just hidden because it's bad.
The crux of the issue is this: For BG:EE to be competetive with BGT it must at the very least offer the same. And it doesn't. There are still many outstanding bugs and glitches in EE, many mods or parts of them don't work with EE. Basically only two things are in EE's favor at this point: - it has blue interface(I would say "it uses classic BG Interface" but that's simply not true) - It's easier to install(how big of a deal is this really - spend 20 minutes installing mods to play 100+ hour game(s)?)
Everything else BGT already does, better, and at no cost(I am assuming people who want EE already own BG games).
The legal issue could not have come at a worse time, because Beamdog not only has to polish BG:EE ASAP, they also have to release BG2:EE ASAP to be truly comparable with the BGT alternative.
I just hope that they keep working as the legal issues are being resolved, so when the restrictions are finally lifted they can roll out with a large patch, finish BG:EE and start working on BG2:EE immediately.
Well, at least Beamdog is still in control of this forum it seems, and the domain baldursgate.com. That atleast is abit uplifting
I guess hosting a forum and a website etc. is not free. With vanilla forum license, disc space etc. So atari / beamdog or whoever is in the mix of this is still someway or another working together.
Everything else BGT already does, better, and at no cost(I am assuming people who want EE already own BG games).
Oh? Is that so? I really doubt that BGT fixed near as many bugs as BG:EE did. Sure, BG:EE introduced some bugs, but I somehow get the feeling that BGT did too.
I think these kind of threads are silly. We have very little information, but (as has been said repeatedly, even in this thread) that is because you can't really talk about legal matters while they are going on.
Furthermore, every time we hear from someone at Overhaul, they seem optimistic, so it's silly to be doom and gloom!
From what i could understand in this mess, Beamdog is an emplyee of ATARI, so this issue isn't something they're guilt for.
What i can't understand however, is why Beamdog keep this kind of information from the customers, no one would focus the heat in Beamdog if this kind of issue where clarified at first. I can be wrong, as this is a juridical question in USA, but, by rule, no contract can be based in something ilicit, and hide participation in the develop of a product is ilicit (it is where i live and i hope it is too in USA, otherwise evade juridical sues would become a question of hide information).
@kamuizin There are NDAs involved in this case AFAIK. Also as a lawyer I can say that most of the time it's better for all companies involved in a problem like this not to make the full problem public.
Also, they said in the beginning that it's bad form to talk about other litigants in legal cases publicly. It's also generally not a good idea to discuss details of a case.
@mlnevese I think that half of the so-called 'points' about how we should be told this or that isn't really a point so much as a (albeit very) thinly-veiled complaint about not being told this or that. Fewer and fewer seem to be discussion points than an innovative way to whine without being called a hater/troll/whatever.
I just wish it would be over, one way or another. Even if the news is bad, I'm ok with having closure.
@reedmilfam People do not realize how serious an NDA is. Really even the beta testers here think twice before posting something about the betas to make sure we are allowed to talk about it.
It's easy to get frustrated with legal proceedings especially when you're in the dark. I think it's been around 6 weeks since it was taken down and that's nothing in terms of legal matters.
From the looks of things it'll be back, when is more of the issue.
Generally speaking you're not going to hear much from any party involved in a legal dispute, NDA or not. Of course there are exceptions like divorces where people get bitter and run their mouths but that's a different story.
I think some of the criticism brought to Beamdog is well deserved. Even the fact that fan created BGT is so often compared with BG:EE means there is something deeply wrong with the latter, which can lead to thinking of "cash-grab". The issues of BG:EE from launch and lingering to this moment doesn't make Beamdog look a very professional team or at least one that can handle a serious project like BG3 (unlike Obsidian). From a typo in the main GUI tooltips which could have been noticed 5 minutes into the game to serious hardware issues for some chipsets that can make the game unplayable. Original BG1 looks way more stable, as it works flawless on Windows 7 without any need of hacks or tweaks. And some advantages of BG:EE some keep mentioning are laughable, like saving times (unless you have a 10 years old rig and save every 10 seconds, this can't be an impediment). And where it would have been truly worth to be improved, like in improved pathfinding, nothing has been done.
I do hope the bug fixing on BG:EE is resumed in order to have a better product in the end (as a quick glance at the bugs section of the forum shows there a LOT of bugs still infesting BG:EE), but I hope they won't try to make BG3 or something, because it would be a shame for this epic title.
Big problem with BG:EE is that it's not the game that either the fans, nor Beamdog wanted to make. With the loss of all the original art assets we were never going to get a High def version of the game, and the restrictions placed on them regarding new content mean't that we were never going to have the original NPCs fleshed out as we wanted.
Add to the fact that they ended up having to scrap huge amounts of the code base and re-write it from scratch due to how sloppily/haphazardly it was originally written in an attempt to get the game working with modern operating systems (and ones that it was never designed to work with) I'm surprised that we ended up with as "few" bugs as we did.
BG:EE isn't perfect, but IMO Beamdog/Overhaul have done a decent job improving the game and adding what content they can. It's just a shame that they've had the rug pulled from underneath them by the Atari situation.
Hopefully, once that's resolved, the next patch will be released, BG2:EE released and some of the bigger mods ported over (come on BG1NPC) both we, and the devs will be in a better position to judge if BG3 is the best way to go.
I see @mlnevese, but Non-disclosure agreement can't have as objective something forbidden by law. An issue contained into a NDA can maybe lead to something ilicit, and then in reason of the agreement an obligation of confidentiality could be born.
That's why i raised the question, the information and classification about the persons involved in the sale of a product shoud be a public information, ATARI logo is exposed but not his classification in the production line of the product sold. Where i live this hide of information is ilicit, that's why i raised the questions above.
I really liked BG:EE and, for me, it worked much better than TuTu or BGT ever did. The simple fact is that, whenever you make a product, people will be unhappy with it.
@gunman - I'm not sure your criticism of Beamdog (or maybe we're talking about Overhaul) is fair. I think what really happened is that they took on a very challenging task and as @prem0nition said they were met with many unfortunate challenges (missing resources, content restrictions and now legal issues). I don't believe the team lacks in any way the talent or ability required to produce a great product, but they have certainly been obstructed in more ways than I ever would have imagined.
There is also one overlooked benefit of BGEE for mods and modders. One thing that modders have not been able to do is rewrite certain very buggy parts of the engine or add new scripting hooks to the engine. I can't say for sure, but I think we may end up with a better and more scriptable engine with BGEE and as a result some very interesting mods in the future. Of course this is speculative on my part and it all hinges on the removal of the most recent "obstruction"...
There is also one overlooked benefit of BGEE for mods and modders. One thing that modders have not been able to do is rewrite certain very buggy parts of the engine or add new scripting hooks to the engine. I can't say for sure, but I think we may end up with a better and more scriptable engine with BGEE and as a result some very interesting mods in the future. Of course this is speculative on my part and it all hinges on the removal of the most recent "obstruction"...
EE is already ahead of the ToB engine (as well as ToB+TobEx), so yes, and it will only advance further with the next patch. A lot of broken opcodes and scripting triggers are now functional, much has been softcoded, and there are new opcodes and scripting to use.
Angry answer :P not angry he had to answer, angry that he is reminded of the loss that is the source files. hehe. As for what Cam said, pretty awesome stuff if you ask me.
I think some of the criticism brought to Beamdog is well deserved. Even the fact that fan created BGT is so often compared with BG:EE means there is something deeply wrong with the latter, which can lead to thinking of "cash-grab". The issues of BG:EE from launch and lingering to this moment doesn't make Beamdog look a very professional team or at least one that can handle a serious project like BG3 (unlike Obsidian). From a typo in the main GUI tooltips which could have been noticed 5 minutes into the game to serious hardware issues for some chipsets that can make the game unplayable. Original BG1 looks way more stable, as it works flawless on Windows 7 without any need of hacks or tweaks. And some advantages of BG:EE some keep mentioning are laughable, like saving times (unless you have a 10 years old rig and save every 10 seconds, this can't be an impediment). And where it would have been truly worth to be improved, like in improved pathfinding, nothing has been done.
I do hope the bug fixing on BG:EE is resumed in order to have a better product in the end (as a quick glance at the bugs section of the forum shows there a LOT of bugs still infesting BG:EE), but I hope they won't try to make BG3 or something, because it would be a shame for this epic title.
I'm sure, particularly recently, I'm someone who has come to be known as a BeamDog/OverHaul Fanboi, so I guess you can take my response here with the grain of salt that it deserves.
Let me start by saying that even with as much of a backer as I am of OverHaul and their efforts, you have something absolutely right here:
Some of the criticism brought to Beamdog is well deserved.
No one who was on these boards at BG:EE Launch could be said to be AT ALL objective about their opinions were they not to agree with you at least somewhat in your statement. From an obvious lack of testing on some of the broadest and most basic hardware to the multiple failures getting the app past Apple App Store testing and the iPad release issues, not to mention the significant numbers of bugs found in all of the various released versions, it's absolutely true that BeamDog/OverHaul is not blameless nor perfect, and thus some of the criticism IS definitely well deserved.
Of course, you can find NO BETTER example of the acceptance of this than in the letter from OverHaul/BeamDog management to the User community within the first couple days after release apologizing for the poor launch situation that occurred.
What company who's produced a computer game in the last year or two has NOT had these kinds of problems in their release, patching or distribution systems? Look at Skyrim, still to this day considered one of the best computer games EVER MADE had a Day 1 patch that took hours to download for most people...not to mention releasing the game over steam and doing a network install even if you purchased the DVD and had it IN THE DRIVE.
And what game in the last 10 years has been released by Blizzard Entertainment that hasn't flopped and floundered for the first few days to weeks?
Christ, in the largest fiasco in the gaming industry TO DATE, Mass Effect 3's ending pissed off hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS of players world wide...
And yet, while I don't see public apologies by Blizzard's, Origin's, or Bethesda's CEO's...I do see one by the folks at OverHaul...yet OverHaul is the one being raked over the coals by it's customers (the same ones who'll defend Blizzard Entertainment to it's death) claiming no one at OverHaul/BeamDog cares about it's customers.
You're absolutely right that SOME of the criticism toward the release of BG:EE is well deserved. Unfortunately, however, because Beamdog isn't BioWare, Blizzard or Bethesda Softworks, that share of criticism isn't being tempered with the same eye toward "stuff happens" as with other titles.
Maybe that's because Blizzard, BioWare and Bethesda have some proven track records (albeit from many many many years ago) with releasing good software while BeamDog/OverHaul is a new studio. Whatever it is this project was neither small, nor simple. The coding on BG:TuTu or BGT was neither small, nor simple either.
Lets compare apples to apples for a moment shall we? On the BGT page I'm showing 13 previous downloads / updates to BGT...and that ONLY goes back to 1.08...and several of those downloads are releases of the same version multiple times (to fix additional bugs). EVEN ASSUMING 1 release / version and starting at 1.0 (unlikely), that's still ***18 different patches *** to BGT.
Conversely we have a GRAND TOTAL of 3 patches released for BG:EE...but here again, BeamDog must be horrible because it couldn't release in a matter of a few months, what the BGT Team took years to develop and has been working on FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS.
It would seem to me a testiment to development prowace and code knowledge that in 6 months and 3 patches BG:EE could come ANYWHERE CLOSE to where BGT has in what? 5 years? 10? of development effort and a MINIMUMM of 18 patches.
No, BeamDog/OverHaul is not blameless here, but if you're going to start throwing out comparisons, you could AT LEAST get in the same ballpark with regard to time and effort before you start throwing BG:EE under the bus.
@Illydth: True enough, though you must also take into account that neither Skyrim nor ME3 were direct remakes of existing games - and that BG:EE was inherently limited as to how much Beamdog could actually add/change (owing to both the loss of art assets and the contractual obligations preventing changes to existing content).
True as this is, the comparison I'm trying to make isn't really between Skyrim, ME3 or Diablo 3 and BG:EE...I realize I used those as examples and set the stage for that argument, so I accept your correction there.
If you start trying to compare apples to apples (and you can't at this point) however, you CAN look at the efforts that went into BGT and compare them with the efforts that went into BG:EE...after all, how fond are we forum denizens of compairing BG:EE to BGT? How many times have we heard "They're pretty much the same game."
The point is, BG:EE is still new...we're only 3 patch cycles into the release at this point while the direct comparisons like BGT have had YEARS and YEARS to refine and flush out bugs.
"When 18 patches old I reach, look as good, BGT will not."
Comments
I had a hard drive crash, and had to reinstall everything. When I reinstalled BGEE, I noticed it was no longer receiving patches, and that BG2EE was canceled or on hold.
The crux of the issue is this: For BG:EE to be competetive with BGT it must at the very least offer the same. And it doesn't. There are still many outstanding bugs and glitches in EE, many mods or parts of them don't work with EE. Basically only two things are in EE's favor at this point:
- it has blue interface(I would say "it uses classic BG Interface" but that's simply not true)
- It's easier to install(how big of a deal is this really - spend 20 minutes installing mods to play 100+ hour game(s)?)
Everything else BGT already does, better, and at no cost(I am assuming people who want EE already own BG games).
The legal issue could not have come at a worse time, because Beamdog not only has to polish BG:EE ASAP, they also have to release BG2:EE ASAP to be truly comparable with the BGT alternative.
I just hope that they keep working as the legal issues are being resolved, so when the restrictions are finally lifted they can roll out with a large patch, finish BG:EE and start working on BG2:EE immediately.
I guess hosting a forum and a website etc. is not free. With vanilla forum license, disc space etc. So atari / beamdog or whoever is in the mix of this is still someway or another working together.
Furthermore, every time we hear from someone at Overhaul, they seem optimistic, so it's silly to be doom and gloom!
What i can't understand however, is why Beamdog keep this kind of information from the customers, no one would focus the heat in Beamdog if this kind of issue where clarified at first. I can be wrong, as this is a juridical question in USA, but, by rule, no contract can be based in something ilicit, and hide participation in the develop of a product is ilicit (it is where i live and i hope it is too in USA, otherwise evade juridical sues would become a question of hide information).
Also, they said in the beginning that it's bad form to talk about other litigants in legal cases publicly. It's also generally not a good idea to discuss details of a case.
EDIT: Ninja'd
I just wish it would be over, one way or another. Even if the news is bad, I'm ok with having closure.
From the looks of things it'll be back, when is more of the issue.
Generally speaking you're not going to hear much from any party involved in a legal dispute, NDA or not. Of course there are exceptions like divorces where people get bitter and run their mouths but that's a different story.
I do hope the bug fixing on BG:EE is resumed in order to have a better product in the end (as a quick glance at the bugs section of the forum shows there a LOT of bugs still infesting BG:EE), but I hope they won't try to make BG3 or something, because it would be a shame for this epic title.
Add to the fact that they ended up having to scrap huge amounts of the code base and re-write it from scratch due to how sloppily/haphazardly it was originally written in an attempt to get the game working with modern operating systems (and ones that it was never designed to work with) I'm surprised that we ended up with as "few" bugs as we did.
BG:EE isn't perfect, but IMO Beamdog/Overhaul have done a decent job improving the game and adding what content they can. It's just a shame that they've had the rug pulled from underneath them by the Atari situation.
Hopefully, once that's resolved, the next patch will be released, BG2:EE released and some of the bigger mods ported over (come on BG1NPC) both we, and the devs will be in a better position to judge if BG3 is the best way to go.
That's why i raised the question, the information and classification about the persons involved in the sale of a product shoud be a public information, ATARI logo is exposed but not his classification in the production line of the product sold. Where i live this hide of information is ilicit, that's why i raised the questions above.
There is also one overlooked benefit of BGEE for mods and modders. One thing that modders have not been able to do is rewrite certain very buggy parts of the engine or add new scripting hooks to the engine. I can't say for sure, but I think we may end up with a better and more scriptable engine with BGEE and as a result some very interesting mods in the future. Of course this is speculative on my part and it all hinges on the removal of the most recent "obstruction"...
Before any more assumptions are made, yes I preordered BGEE, and sincerely hoped it would succeed.
If/when they (whoever *they* are, I don't have time to care) release BG2EE and BG3, I will probably order.
The legal delay is exceedingly frustrating.
YES
DANG!
I'm sure, particularly recently, I'm someone who has come to be known as a BeamDog/OverHaul Fanboi, so I guess you can take my response here with the grain of salt that it deserves.
Let me start by saying that even with as much of a backer as I am of OverHaul and their efforts, you have something absolutely right here:
Some of the criticism brought to Beamdog is well deserved.
No one who was on these boards at BG:EE Launch could be said to be AT ALL objective about their opinions were they not to agree with you at least somewhat in your statement. From an obvious lack of testing on some of the broadest and most basic hardware to the multiple failures getting the app past Apple App Store testing and the iPad release issues, not to mention the significant numbers of bugs found in all of the various released versions, it's absolutely true that BeamDog/OverHaul is not blameless nor perfect, and thus some of the criticism IS definitely well deserved.
Of course, you can find NO BETTER example of the acceptance of this than in the letter from OverHaul/BeamDog management to the User community within the first couple days after release apologizing for the poor launch situation that occurred.
What company who's produced a computer game in the last year or two has NOT had these kinds of problems in their release, patching or distribution systems? Look at Skyrim, still to this day considered one of the best computer games EVER MADE had a Day 1 patch that took hours to download for most people...not to mention releasing the game over steam and doing a network install even if you purchased the DVD and had it IN THE DRIVE.
And what game in the last 10 years has been released by Blizzard Entertainment that hasn't flopped and floundered for the first few days to weeks?
Christ, in the largest fiasco in the gaming industry TO DATE, Mass Effect 3's ending pissed off hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS of players world wide...
And yet, while I don't see public apologies by Blizzard's, Origin's, or Bethesda's CEO's...I do see one by the folks at OverHaul...yet OverHaul is the one being raked over the coals by it's customers (the same ones who'll defend Blizzard Entertainment to it's death) claiming no one at OverHaul/BeamDog cares about it's customers.
You're absolutely right that SOME of the criticism toward the release of BG:EE is well deserved. Unfortunately, however, because Beamdog isn't BioWare, Blizzard or Bethesda Softworks, that share of criticism isn't being tempered with the same eye toward "stuff happens" as with other titles.
Maybe that's because Blizzard, BioWare and Bethesda have some proven track records (albeit from many many many years ago) with releasing good software while BeamDog/OverHaul is a new studio. Whatever it is this project was neither small, nor simple. The coding on BG:TuTu or BGT was neither small, nor simple either.
Lets compare apples to apples for a moment shall we? On the BGT page I'm showing 13 previous downloads / updates to BGT...and that ONLY goes back to 1.08...and several of those downloads are releases of the same version multiple times (to fix additional bugs). EVEN ASSUMING 1 release / version and starting at 1.0 (unlikely), that's still ***18 different patches *** to BGT.
Conversely we have a GRAND TOTAL of 3 patches released for BG:EE...but here again, BeamDog must be horrible because it couldn't release in a matter of a few months, what the BGT Team took years to develop and has been working on FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS.
It would seem to me a testiment to development prowace and code knowledge that in 6 months and 3 patches BG:EE could come ANYWHERE CLOSE to where BGT has in what? 5 years? 10? of development effort and a MINIMUMM of 18 patches.
No, BeamDog/OverHaul is not blameless here, but if you're going to start throwing out comparisons, you could AT LEAST get in the same ballpark with regard to time and effort before you start throwing BG:EE under the bus.
If you start trying to compare apples to apples (and you can't at this point) however, you CAN look at the efforts that went into BGT and compare them with the efforts that went into BG:EE...after all, how fond are we forum denizens of compairing BG:EE to BGT? How many times have we heard "They're pretty much the same game."
The point is, BG:EE is still new...we're only 3 patch cycles into the release at this point while the direct comparisons like BGT have had YEARS and YEARS to refine and flush out bugs.
"When 18 patches old I reach, look as good, BGT will not."