It turns out now there're 3, not 1, flaming fist mercenaries on the road toward Nashkel.
Three sets of plate mail for free!
That was an interesting change to be certain. I had to actually stop and think If I really wanted to give the snarky answer. I still did of course, taking my chances. Good snark should be treasured.
The loss of life was tragic and unecessary, but not the first Flaming Fist to die being stupid in that playthrough. Since I got Viconia beforehand. That one is still travelling solo.
I only played the Beta for about 1 hour, because it was downloading since today morning, but I have to say, that the engine looks very, very sexy now. Thank you devs. (I have found a few small glitches/inconsistencies, but I will report on them a bit later, once I put at least couple more hours into the game)
(P.S. I know it's another post... but this one is for my review up to now, not any reply!). So this is my review up to now, for what I tested (and I'll continue to test when time permits it!).
1- The game works very well and I can even say faster (even on my old sata1 drive) then non beta... The loading and saving seems faster, by a bit, and the UI is good!
2- Except for the journal bug I reported ealier, the menu glitch (also reported), I have not yet received any other annoyance what so ever... I've started a new game, going to FAI and Beregost, doing all quests and stealing all I could (without being caught) and everything works fine! Neera's meeting tweak (compared to non beta) is ok too...
3- I've even tried to put some mods in, you know, for the sake of testing... Baldur's Gate Mini Quests and Encounter, map names, Neera's expansion and some of BG2 tweaks... Everything works fine!
For now, I don't really have any complaints or anything against the "hardware" part (and so few against software part)... Was and still is fully compatible! (And V-Sync and Triple Buffering are back on!)
The performance is much better than ever before and there's no glitches in the UI, but the low re-images (inventory, records, journal etc..) slashed my eye, though it's not a big deal :P
Sometimes the mouse animation stops (when you click on something) and mouse scrolling isn't working (I have to use the keyboard in order to move the map). There may be some minor bugs here and there but overall I'm really satisfied. The new font looks stunning! I wish the whole game would be this high-res*hish*.
On Windows 8 I had to start the game in compatibility mode (and without the launcher) to avoid almost 100% white screen. Not necessary with the new patch!
@Dee I realise I didn't mention this in the Phase II-email, but I'm guessing you were aware of this issue or issues like this already.
Well, I had a glitch (unable to repeat however). In Beregost, when accepting to follow Garrick to Silke, one time he didn't stop in front of her and continued walking... As such (since it was an ingame cutscene) I was unable to continue my play... Reloaded and it worked... Did this happen to anyone else, ever?
Yikes. I got me a CTD @Dee I've emailed the log to you directly.
Bug? Started a new Sorc and the training combat with Jondalar never ends. No hits are triggering the completion of the training. I went away to make a coffee and it was still going, so that was easily 15 minutes all up before it eventually ended with the "good job kid..." dialogue
Bug. Edge scrolling is bugged too. Sometimes when I mouse to the very left of the screen it wont scroll the screen, but if I move it back one pixel it will trigger. Irritating.
Also another useful feature would be a "Load last Save" on the title screen its a minor complaint but there is are too many screens to click through just to resume your game when you start the game for a new session.
I didn't have any major issue before the beta. Just some graphical glitches in menus. With beta those are gone and everything seems to be working as intended.
Also didn't have problems with old saves and new UI improvements are great. I would still like the UI to be higher resolution with scaling because scaling simply make everything too small. Is it possible to apply same sharpening filter you are using for the game graphics also with the menus?
One thing with the new UI improvements is that I find myself seeking for X button at the upper right corner of menus, since you can see the game area behind them and it makes them feel like windows.
Tiny observation: Gold picked up off the ground via the inventory screen rather than the search box makes a small 'clink' when clicked instead of being silent like it's always been.
Encountered a glitch (?) with assign keys that I'm not able to reproduce. Somehow all the key bindings on the right disappeared after I had assigned a key for "Hard Pause" -> Exited Options -> Tried out "hard pausing" -> Went back into the Assign Keys-meny. Doing the same procedure once more does not reproduce the issue. It's not a big problem, as I only had to quit to main menu to fix it. Should be worth looking into though, especially if this or similar bugs could cause other menus to temporarily disappear as well.
Also, what is "Hard Pause"?
In the below image you see what happens when I Alt+TAB to minimize the game, then either Alt+TAB again or click on the game on the taskbar to re-open it. Currently it seems I have to restart the game to get back to proper full screen, and trying to switch to windowed mode doesn't work at all when I've made this happen.
Note: At the top you see part of my desktop background, which you shouldn't.
Unfortunately still completely unplayable on my Asus Eeepc netbook. The starting screen is like a psychedelic pixelated nightmare, as is the nietzsche quote, and i can't even see the options its swirling so much. If it helps I've reprinted the details below
Operating System: Windows 7 Starter 32 bit (6.1, Build 7601
CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N2600 @1.60GHz (4CPUs) ~ 1.6GHz
GPU: Intel(R) GMA 3600 Series (Atom N2600)
I can play the originals heavily modded without any problems.
@James Can you send me your DxDiag file? Here's the steps to generate it (which, if you've ever emailed support before, I'm sure you've seen already):
1. Press and hold the Windows key and the letter R on your keyboard 2. You will see a Run box in the lower-left corner of your screen 3. Type dxdiag in the text field 4. Click OK 5. If your computer has a 64-bit version of Windows, click the button Run 64-bit DXDIAG 6. If your computer has a 32-bit version of Windows, that button will not be available 7. Click the Save All Information button, found on the bottom of the DXDIAG report 8. Save this text file and send to me as an attachment.
Also, if anyone else has the same hardware setup, please send me an email.
But it sounds like (from your email) the problem was fixed by installing the latest driver. That doesn't mean it's not an issue, but it does tell us why it was happening in the first place.
A quick update: We've got all the hardware setups we need to fix the outstanding hardware problems. It may be a little bit before we push an update to the beta, but so far we're very happy with how things are going.
I just notice this little mess in the journal, last entry suppose to be last no ? instead it in one before last
That problem was present in the old builds as well. It's caused by the fact that the journal entries arrange themselves alphabetically, rather than by date. I created a thread asking about this some time ago, and the solution we came up with was to start your own entries with a date (month-day-hour), and edit the game-generated entries to add the date in the first line as well. Not a perfect solution, but it works for me.
@Syntia13 Yeah I know it was a bug in the old builds as well, and I think it should be fix don't you ? tho thx for the tip really nice of you
But it sounds like (from your email) the problem was fixed by installing the latest driver. That doesn't mean it's not an issue, but it does tell us why it was happening in the first place.
A quick update: We've got all the hardware setups we need to fix the outstanding hardware problems. It may be a little bit before we push an update to the beta, but so far we're very happy with how things are going.
Yes seems to be working well on a graphics front, staying away in hotels just got more bearable
Seems like custom sounds are even more mucked up than before. Even adding my soundsets to charsnd.2da doesn't seem to work anymore...
My characters keep repeating the same selection sound over and over, and when I tried changing the soundset of one of my guys through the character screen he went completely mute.
OK found another game breaking bug, when I get to character creation screen, all goes well but after choosing a soundset for a new character it just hangs, if I alt-tab it says there is an error message but it won't show me what the error is
Comments
The loss of life was tragic and unecessary, but not the first Flaming Fist to die being stupid in that playthrough. Since I got Viconia beforehand. That one is still travelling solo.
Thank you devs.
(I have found a few small glitches/inconsistencies, but I will report on them a bit later, once I put at least couple more hours into the game)
So this is my review up to now, for what I tested (and I'll continue to test when time permits it!).
1- The game works very well and I can even say faster (even on my old sata1 drive) then non beta... The loading and saving seems faster, by a bit, and the UI is good!
2- Except for the journal bug I reported ealier, the menu glitch (also reported), I have not yet received any other annoyance what so ever... I've started a new game, going to FAI and Beregost, doing all quests and stealing all I could (without being caught) and everything works fine! Neera's meeting tweak (compared to non beta) is ok too...
3- I've even tried to put some mods in, you know, for the sake of testing... Baldur's Gate Mini Quests and Encounter, map names, Neera's expansion and some of BG2 tweaks... Everything works fine!
For now, I don't really have any complaints or anything against the "hardware" part (and so few against software part)... Was and still is fully compatible! (And V-Sync and Triple Buffering are back on!)
Sometimes the mouse animation stops (when you click on something) and mouse scrolling isn't working (I have to use the keyboard in order to move the map).
There may be some minor bugs here and there but overall I'm really satisfied. The new font looks stunning! I wish the whole game would be this high-res*hish*.
Great Job guys, keep it up!!
@Dee I realise I didn't mention this in the Phase II-email, but I'm guessing you were aware of this issue or issues like this already.
@Dee I've emailed the log to you directly.
Bug? Started a new Sorc and the training combat with Jondalar never ends. No hits are triggering the completion of the training. I went away to make a coffee and it was still going, so that was easily 15 minutes all up before it eventually ended with the "good job kid..." dialogue
Bug. Edge scrolling is bugged too. Sometimes when I mouse to the very left of the screen it wont scroll the screen, but if I move it back one pixel it will trigger. Irritating.
Also another useful feature would be a "Load last Save" on the title screen its a minor complaint but there is are too many screens to click through just to resume your game when you start the game for a new session.
Also didn't have problems with old saves and new UI improvements are great. I would still like the UI to be higher resolution with scaling because scaling simply make everything too small. Is it possible to apply same sharpening filter you are using for the game graphics also with the menus?
One thing with the new UI improvements is that I find myself seeking for X button at the upper right corner of menus, since you can see the game area behind them and it makes them feel like windows.
Also, what is "Hard Pause"?
In the below image you see what happens when I Alt+TAB to minimize the game, then either Alt+TAB again or click on the game on the taskbar to re-open it. Currently it seems I have to restart the game to get back to proper full screen, and trying to switch to windowed mode doesn't work at all when I've made this happen.
Note: At the top you see part of my desktop background, which you shouldn't.
To make this post non-100% useless, let me point out that there are already several issue report for alt-tabbing problems
Operating System: Windows 7 Starter 32 bit (6.1, Build 7601
CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N2600 @1.60GHz (4CPUs) ~ 1.6GHz
GPU: Intel(R) GMA 3600 Series (Atom N2600)
I can play the originals heavily modded without any problems.
Hope it helps
Can you send me your DxDiag file? Here's the steps to generate it (which, if you've ever emailed support before, I'm sure you've seen already):
1. Press and hold the Windows key and the letter R on your keyboard
2. You will see a Run box in the lower-left corner of your screen
3. Type dxdiag in the text field
4. Click OK
5. If your computer has a 64-bit version of Windows, click the button Run 64-bit DXDIAG
6. If your computer has a 32-bit version of Windows, that button will not be available
7. Click the Save All Information button, found on the bottom of the DXDIAG report
8. Save this text file and send to me as an attachment.
Also, if anyone else has the same hardware setup, please send me an email.
Not sure if its important but I couldn't download the beta from the main beamdog site, but the link you included in email worked fine
But it sounds like (from your email) the problem was fixed by installing the latest driver. That doesn't mean it's not an issue, but it does tell us why it was happening in the first place.
A quick update: We've got all the hardware setups we need to fix the outstanding hardware problems. It may be a little bit before we push an update to the beta, but so far we're very happy with how things are going.
Anyway, hurrays for making it work!
My characters keep repeating the same selection sound over and over, and when I tried changing the soundset of one of my guys through the character screen he went completely mute.
Driver Version: 9.17.10.2932