And that. my friend, is called "fraud" and can get your ass thrown in jail.
:S oh well chaotic good characters cant seem to be able to restrain them selves when it comes to the greater good
And the lawyers won't be able to restrain themselves when the smell blood/money in the water. What you're suggesting would make the Atari debacle a month or two ago look like child's play, and is the sort of thing that can destroy a company.
Okay, so I just spent a kajillion hours in MSPaint recoloring the "player ready" checkmark in multiplayer to use to say "you don't have this spell; you should scribe it." Just keep in mind that I'm not a sprite artist.
On bottom is a checkmark, justified left or right. On top is a slightly smaller version of it in the same positions.
Not sure this is the right place, but after trying the beta for a bit I have a request/suggestion. I like the new UI windows, but closing them could be a bit easier. Would be nice to have a button on the window it self to close it.
The keyboard numbers are still disabled so I can't select characters. I just fired up the game and it said no updates to install, so maybe the Mac version hasn't been patched yet.
All write spell boxes are greyed out, but they still work if you click them. Love the idea of the coloring the known spells, but the rather virulent green might be toned down some. Startled the hell out of me when I first fired up the game and took me a minute to figure out what was going on.
When playing in windowed mode, the bottom line of the text box doesn't display properly and is unreadable.
I had one crash when I dual-classed Imoen to mage; restarting the game from the last save worked fine, although the graphics on the map looked at little off. I can't remember the exact details, but the colors of the area icons seemed off.
I was able to repeat a game client crash in AR4600 -- Bear River area. I entered the zone from the south which placed my party on the West side of the River -- just a little West of the Mountain Bear that Jared asks you to slay.
My party killed the bear before crossing the river to get to Jared.
The client crashed with a springy or 'boinging' noise after talking to Jared twice.
A little pop up dialogue box appeared in Windows: Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition - There was a problem with Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. [Find out more] [close]
What seemed to be important to triggering the crash is position and order of party members on the bridge and working with all party members selected. The party members were strung out in a line from west to east facing Jared with the party leader bringing up the rear due (initially) to his pathing/routing -- the initial contact was with the 2nd person in line for the party because Jared ran up and initiated contact before the party leader could get anywhere near the front of the line.
The second interaction is triggered when the party leader makes it over to Jared (full party was selected so party to npc initiated conversation leads with the party leader).
Right when Jared's closing comments finish is when the game client crashed. I was able to repeat this multiple times -- again this only seems to happen when initial contact from Jared with the party is not with the party leader.
The greying out idea does not gel with me. When browsing spells in a store, I'd like some distinction between scrolls I can't afford and scrolls I already know. Those are two separate scenarios, and it would be confusing for the game to use the same kind of indication for both.
The greying out idea does not gel with me. When browsing spells in a store, I'd like some distinction between scrolls I can't afford and scrolls I already know. Those are two separate scenarios, and it would be confusing for the game to use the same kind of indication for both.
I get your point but honestly, scrolls don't cost that much. Each scroll can cost up to, what, 5000 gold at the most? At that point in your game, you should have more than 5000 gold in your bag. So the greying out would really just provide indication that you can't memorize it
So out of curiosity, did I miss @Dee or someone else explaining why Phase IV is seemingly not on the agenda anymore? I mean, the poll options here seem to be them deciding between maintaining the limited beta (with some more people) and just closing the beta entirely to release the patch. Is there some reason that the public beta idea was scrapped? I know that they're supposedly approving everyone that asks for beta access now, but it's not exactly the same thing.
It's just that it seems to so clearly be the best possible step right now: to bring as many testers as possible into the patch beta to make it as great as possible, to allow those with hardware issues, etc. to finally play the game, and to allow those with unbroken games to choose to not update until the patch is complete.
I'm just worried for the way that broken elements reflect on the company. The Tethtoril bug not being officially patched for so long means that almost everyone that has bought this game with this bug present encounters a bug within five minutes or so of playing, which leads them to think that the entire game is buggy.
As much as I feel that the patch needs more time, and I really do, if the public beta option is out the window then perhaps releasing this patch sooner rather than later is preferable. Then again, you can't release a patch that introduces other bugs because this will reflect even more poorly on the company, especially if the patch breaks things for people that could play fine before.
The last thing that this patch needs, I think, are feature implementations that take up time and potentially cause additional issues (I'm looking at you, green spells). Please leave this sort of stuff for the next patch, it's important that this one be released ASAP and anything that detracts from that goal is problematic. Now people are all up in arms about what color the spells should be, checkmarks or backgrounds, etc., well I say leave it green for now because the main (and ideally only) focus of this patch should be fixing the bugs as completely as possible, not adding features which could potentially further complicate the bug fixing process.
I love BG:EE and love Beamdog for creating it for us, but the reputation of the company depends on decisions such as these, and I sometimes cringe when I see the thoughts that other gaming communities/forums have of BG:EE. So, I guess I'm just wondering whether or not we could get an explanation as to why the beta of the patch isn't going public anymore, if that is the case...
Most of all, keep up the great work guys, we appreciate your hard work and continued support of what will eventually be everyone's definitive version of Baldur's Gate.
Edit: TLDR; Is the patch beta officially no longer going to go public at any point? If not, why?
@jaysl659 - it's just my guess but I think that they're using this beta testing as a way to evaluate additions to BG2:EE without actually handing access to a BG2:EE beta. That's why we're getting all of these new features. BG:EE has been out already for nearly a year to mixed reception (as you know) and the best way for it to make more money now is if BG2:EE comes out with a good reception; they could e.g. offer a deal for buying both games together at a reduced price and make more cash that way. All of these small features will add up to a more 'enhanced' experience, something which felt lacking on BG:EEs initial release. It's less inconvenient I think for them to release several patch updates per week (as have been happening) to a smaller team more focused on bugfinding than to the larger community looking to come back to BG:EE who maybe don't want their playing experience compromised that way (if they're using mods e.g.).
This is just my very subjective, assumption-filled opinion though, I could easily be totally off. From my POV having played the beta, they should release it. You only need to look at the Top Ten Issues topic to see that.
I'm just worried for the way that broken elements reflect on the company. The Tethtoril bug not being officially patched for so long means that almost everyone that has bought this game with this bug present encounters a bug within five minutes or so of playing, which leads them to think that the entire game is buggy.
I think @jaysl659 raises an astute point. Those of us who have access to the beta are speaking from a different position to that of those who are still on the old patch. If I put myself in the shoes of the latter I would not be impressed with discussion over the color of spell indicators, nor opacity of text boxes. They're relatively small issues that can be targeted after or even during the open beta going live. For those of us in the current beta it is a non-issue because we're already there, so to speak, thus such feature requests hinder us not.
I realize this is being lauded as the ultimate patch, and so far it is living up to the claim, which is fantastic. Nevertheless, anything that is not a gameplay issue, or a compatibility issue, should not hinder full public access to the beta at this stage. It may be limited to Beamdog customers only, but if beta access was to show up in everyones client in the next day or so (without individual requests to be responded to) it would be another positive step forward.
An official patch release may or may not be viable just yet, but the beta is in great shape and a lot of folks are missing out on what is a very stable improvement on the previous version. Their missing out also increases the chance of a potentially obscure game breaker being missed.
In the current Beta incarnation for my hardware I have not run into any engine issues yet (caveat: I have not had the time to complete a full game in the current Beta as yet) that cannot be worked around as long as the player has been saving the game periodically (and if you have been playing the Baldur's Gate series for any length of time you probably already do this as routine).
The problem with UI matters is that in the short term (which is the scope that we are working with here) it is personal taste and preferences that dominate perceptions and you are not going to please everyone at any single moment in time because of this. People change their minds about UI matters as they transition their own pov/mindsets/impressions/usage of the game over time.
What a particular person thinks of a UI or a UI feature evolves the longer that person has been with the UI. For some people their initial perceptions/biases/preferences fossilize and become set in stone or they adapt and settle for what is there. For others new ideas become apparent that (to themselves, at the least) make sense as grand design improvements after having experienced the existing design found lacking.
Also what sells (what is marketable) may not be what is really functional (unless the only function that will count is that which increases sales). A UI may look pretty to look at or to think about but may actually be horrible to experience/use compared to what could have been done. UI design is one of those things that seems no-brainer but that is because everyone is an expert on what they think they like at any given moment. I don't have feedback to add here about UI changes other than I hope you have someone experienced with human-computer interface engineering doing this analysis and take forum suggestions about UI elements with a grain (or mound, YMMV) of salt.
IMO at least for stability and some of the significant improvements that I have seen, the Beta may be ready for a larger audience but that does not suggest in any way that the current Beta is bug or issue free.
I have run into some odd circumstances that can cause the game to crash and of course there is the currently ongoing discussion on UI matters with spell scrolls. If there are quality experience issues in general for some common hardware sets (I keep seeing some references to stuttering video or animations -- I am have not run into this myself yet) I think that would be of far higher priority.
----
The only new crurent Beta experience comment/reflection I have right now is an issue that is easy to work around by turning of AI or changing scripts; I notice that with Defense scripts party NPCS will abort instructions (looting or to move to instructions for example) in order to 'return' to the party or to stop moving to stay in range of the party. This is kind of annoying but again it can be worked around.
I also notice that if the party gets to an exit on the edge of the map or a doorway (set by a mouse click with entire party selected) before the party leader gets there, the leader often has trouble getting there either due to pathing logic or something else. He keeps advancing in spurts per mouse click. Turning off AI or changing the leader to the different script appears to fix this behavior.
There are other times where with AI disabled party members get stuck on environment objects and need manual intervention to get back to moving towards a clicked destination. I remember having these issues in the original and that I solved them by increasing the pathing nodes. However I understand there is some existing issue with the node settings so they cannot be set over 32000 (? not sure on the exact number off hand).
I haven't experienced framerate drop (or any other video performance issue) anywhere in the Beta (I'm using two ATI HD 7970s in Crossfire mode along with full SSD setup and 64 GB system RAM -- yes overkill but yes if I had been experiencing issues I would be pretty concerned) however I have read posts by plenty of others who have experienced this to greater and lesser degrees.
I think @jaysl659 raises an astute point. Those of us who have access to the beta are speaking from a different position to that of those who are still on the old patch. If I put myself in the shoes of the latter I would not be impressed with discussion over the color of spell indicators, nor opacity of text boxes. They're relatively small issues that can be targeted after or even during the open beta going live. For those of us in the current beta it is a non-issue because we're already there, so to speak, thus such feature requests hinder us not.
I realize this is being lauded as the ultimate patch, and so far it is living up to the claim, which is fantastic. Nevertheless, anything that is not a gameplay issue, or a compatibility issue, should not hinder full public access to the beta at this stage. It may be limited to Beamdog customers only, but if beta access was to show up in everyones client in the next day or so (without individual requests to be responded to) it would be another positive step forward.
An official patch release may or may not be viable just yet, but the beta is in great shape and a lot of folks are missing out on what is a very stable improvement on the previous version. Their missing out also increases the chance of a potentially obscure game breaker being missed.
It would be cool and righteous if patches and hotfixes were always so fast and not only during beta sessions! The best result of this all would be this method to be adopted permanently. What's happening shows that it's possible.
That should be the way patches have to be managed, in my humble opinion. If you post a file on a forum that fixes the Tethoril bug, it means you could solve it with a hotfix downloaded by the game client.
You just pay 19 bucks or only 5 bucks, how fuck you would like to say？
If you are so free just make more money , and you will never care how long you should wait ,because you can have date with different women every night , relax .. Kid
That should be the way patches have to be managed, in my humble opinion. If you post a file on a forum that fixes the Tethoril bug, it means you could solve it with a hotfix downloaded by the game client.
But if you want to synchronize the game over different platforms like Mac, Windows, Steam, iOS then it becomes impossible to do fast small patches, because you no longer have control over the environment. When you submit the patch to Steam and iOS it might take a week until it is actually pushed to the end user.
Comments
On bottom is a checkmark, justified left or right. On top is a slightly smaller version of it in the same positions.
The keyboard numbers are still disabled so I can't select characters. I just fired up the game and it said no updates to install, so maybe the Mac version hasn't been patched yet.
All write spell boxes are greyed out, but they still work if you click them. Love the idea of the coloring the known spells, but the rather virulent green might be toned down some. Startled the hell out of me when I first fired up the game and took me a minute to figure out what was going on.
When playing in windowed mode, the bottom line of the text box doesn't display properly and is unreadable.
I had one crash when I dual-classed Imoen to mage; restarting the game from the last save worked fine, although the graphics on the map looked at little off. I can't remember the exact details, but the colors of the area icons seemed off.
My party killed the bear before crossing the river to get to Jared.
The client crashed with a springy or 'boinging' noise after talking to Jared twice.
A little pop up dialogue box appeared in Windows: Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition - There was a problem with Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. [Find out more] [close]
[Find out more] directed my web brower to a non-existant web page: http://www.beamdog.com/support/764?error=-805306369&lang=en
What seemed to be important to triggering the crash is position and order of party members on the bridge and working with all party members selected. The party members were strung out in a line from west to east facing Jared with the party leader bringing up the rear due (initially) to his pathing/routing -- the initial contact was with the 2nd person in line for the party because Jared ran up and initiated contact before the party leader could get anywhere near the front of the line.
The second interaction is triggered when the party leader makes it over to Jared (full party was selected so party to npc initiated conversation leads with the party leader).
Right when Jared's closing comments finish is when the game client crashed. I was able to repeat this multiple times -- again this only seems to happen when initial contact from Jared with the party is not with the party leader.
It's just that it seems to so clearly be the best possible step right now: to bring as many testers as possible into the patch beta to make it as great as possible, to allow those with hardware issues, etc. to finally play the game, and to allow those with unbroken games to choose to not update until the patch is complete.
I'm just worried for the way that broken elements reflect on the company. The Tethtoril bug not being officially patched for so long means that almost everyone that has bought this game with this bug present encounters a bug within five minutes or so of playing, which leads them to think that the entire game is buggy.
As much as I feel that the patch needs more time, and I really do, if the public beta option is out the window then perhaps releasing this patch sooner rather than later is preferable. Then again, you can't release a patch that introduces other bugs because this will reflect even more poorly on the company, especially if the patch breaks things for people that could play fine before.
The last thing that this patch needs, I think, are feature implementations that take up time and potentially cause additional issues (I'm looking at you, green spells). Please leave this sort of stuff for the next patch, it's important that this one be released ASAP and anything that detracts from that goal is problematic. Now people are all up in arms about what color the spells should be, checkmarks or backgrounds, etc., well I say leave it green for now because the main (and ideally only) focus of this patch should be fixing the bugs as completely as possible, not adding features which could potentially further complicate the bug fixing process.
I love BG:EE and love Beamdog for creating it for us, but the reputation of the company depends on decisions such as these, and I sometimes cringe when I see the thoughts that other gaming communities/forums have of BG:EE. So, I guess I'm just wondering whether or not we could get an explanation as to why the beta of the patch isn't going public anymore, if that is the case...
Most of all, keep up the great work guys, we appreciate your hard work and continued support of what will eventually be everyone's definitive version of Baldur's Gate.
Edit: TLDR; Is the patch beta officially no longer going to go public at any point? If not, why?
This is just my very subjective, assumption-filled opinion though, I could easily be totally off. From my POV having played the beta, they should release it. You only need to look at the Top Ten Issues topic to see that.
I realize this is being lauded as the ultimate patch, and so far it is living up to the claim, which is fantastic. Nevertheless, anything that is not a gameplay issue, or a compatibility issue, should not hinder full public access to the beta at this stage. It may be limited to Beamdog customers only, but if beta access was to show up in everyones client in the next day or so (without individual requests to be responded to) it would be another positive step forward.
An official patch release may or may not be viable just yet, but the beta is in great shape and a lot of folks are missing out on what is a very stable improvement on the previous version. Their missing out also increases the chance of a potentially obscure game breaker being missed.
The problem with UI matters is that in the short term (which is the scope that we are working with here) it is personal taste and preferences that dominate perceptions and you are not going to please everyone at any single moment in time because of this. People change their minds about UI matters as they transition their own pov/mindsets/impressions/usage of the game over time.
What a particular person thinks of a UI or a UI feature evolves the longer that person has been with the UI. For some people their initial perceptions/biases/preferences fossilize and become set in stone or they adapt and settle for what is there. For others new ideas become apparent that (to themselves, at the least) make sense as grand design improvements after having experienced the existing design found lacking.
Also what sells (what is marketable) may not be what is really functional (unless the only function that will count is that which increases sales). A UI may look pretty to look at or to think about but may actually be horrible to experience/use compared to what could have been done. UI design is one of those things that seems no-brainer but that is because everyone is an expert on what they think they like at any given moment. I don't have feedback to add here about UI changes other than I hope you have someone experienced with human-computer interface engineering doing this analysis and take forum suggestions about UI elements with a grain (or mound, YMMV) of salt.
IMO at least for stability and some of the significant improvements that I have seen, the Beta may be ready for a larger audience but that does not suggest in any way that the current Beta is bug or issue free.
I have run into some odd circumstances that can cause the game to crash and of course there is the currently ongoing discussion on UI matters with spell scrolls. If there are quality experience issues in general for some common hardware sets (I keep seeing some references to stuttering video or animations -- I am have not run into this myself yet) I think that would be of far higher priority.
----
The only new crurent Beta experience comment/reflection I have right now is an issue that is easy to work around by turning of AI or changing scripts; I notice that with Defense scripts party NPCS will abort instructions (looting or to move to instructions for example) in order to 'return' to the party or to stop moving to stay in range of the party. This is kind of annoying but again it can be worked around.
I also notice that if the party gets to an exit on the edge of the map or a doorway (set by a mouse click with entire party selected) before the party leader gets there, the leader often has trouble getting there either due to pathing logic or something else. He keeps advancing in spurts per mouse click. Turning off AI or changing the leader to the different script appears to fix this behavior.
There are other times where with AI disabled party members get stuck on environment objects and need manual intervention to get back to moving towards a clicked destination. I remember having these issues in the original and that I solved them by increasing the pathing nodes. However I understand there is some existing issue with the node settings so they cannot be set over 32000 (? not sure on the exact number off hand).
I haven't experienced framerate drop (or any other video performance issue) anywhere in the Beta (I'm using two ATI HD 7970s in Crossfire mode along with full SSD setup and 64 GB system RAM -- yes overkill but yes if I had been experiencing issues I would be pretty concerned) however I have read posts by plenty of others who have experienced this to greater and lesser degrees.
If you post a file on a forum that fixes the Tethoril bug, it means you could solve it with a hotfix downloaded by the game client.
http://i.imgur.com/QhHEbsX.png
If you are so free just make more money , and you will never care how long you should wait ,because you can have date with different women every night , relax .. Kid
You made my day.
A bit of namedropping...
Pretty please, sugar on top and all that, can you please show Sulfur84 the door