I think a BIG patch would be a mistake, as I believe it would never be deemed complete, and so never ship. For BG2EE, I would like to see smaller patches, delivered regularly, at least for a little while. Regular, successful, deliveries are also a great way to boost morale on the team, and raise customer confidence - and to be honest, I could really use some confidence now, waiting for even the first patch from November to ship to the Mac App store.
@GreenWarlock: How anyone can have any confidence in Beamdog at this point is beyond me - I feel like a complete idiot for ever having supported them. When you let your games stay broken for almost half a year, it's not even incompetence anymore, just straight-up dismissal of people whose money you already have.
Agreed. No other developer does 6 month beta testing for every update, and there's a good reason for that.
Maybe for commercial products, Worms Armageddon has been getting unofficial updates for years now with the updates often being at least a year since the previous update (And generally contains a ton of bug fixes and new features)
@shawne: That is why I think a regular stream of small patches would be very helpful around now. You are right, I have no confidence, since the Mac patch appears to have been held up 4 1/2 months not for technical reasons, but simply because BeamDog have little to no ability to ship the finished product. The final delivery part of the company simply does not get the practice to establish a good process. At this point I am trading on blind optimism - as a Mac user I am dependent on BeamDog as there is no other native port of the Baldur's Gate saga to my platform, where PC users have a choice.
We're making good progress on our end; I'm sorry I haven't posted an update recently, but work is being done. And a lot of it will carry over to BGII:EE when we get there as well.
@CrevsDaak: Sorry, I know you are trying to help by pointing me to a solution for waiting for the patch, but after 4 months of checking every day for an update, that feels like blaming the victim. There are many good reasons to prefer a purchase from the Mac store rather than some 3td party App store - I use exactly zero other app stores on my Mac as the modern Mac world expects that app store to be the one-stop shop. I don't use steam or other app stores, either on my Mac nor on my PC, where physical retail products were still common last time I bought a game (and I stopped PC gaming when Steam activation became common, even for retail physical purchases). I bought BG2 on launch day on Mac, as there was no indication that we were to be treated as second class customers. Steam purchasers knew that they might have problems, as a 3rd company, Atari, was responsible for getting patches to the Steam store entirely out of BeamDog's control, but the Apple store there is no-one between Apple and BeamDog, so we naively expected patches to be a few days to a week slower, certainly not months. Especially not for a patch deemed critical enough to ship within a week of the launch on all other platforms at that point, including Steam! Hindsight is a great gift, but being told at this point that this is my mistake for buying the product from the wrong store is something of a trigger!
Likewise Dee's hint above that BG2EE patch work is less than imminent does not help. We already know that getting the existing patch to the app store is more effort that we can support, compared to simply getting the next patch to the app store. So now I need to wait for "when we get there", after BGEE 1.3 ship, which seems to be after Android ships, which will be after a new beta-test environment is deployed since (beyond BeamDog's control) their test provider pulled out of the market.
Given the lack of progress on all of those topics, I think that September might be an optimistic guess for when BG2EE v1.3 ships. And then I must trust that the same problem with App store paperwork does not similarly delay deployment of said patch again - given that submitting the v1.2.2030 patch to the App store is apparently a similar effort than completing all of the above.
Sorry for ranting, but it has been building for over 4 months now and had to explode somewhere! At least I am no longer checking for the patch release every day, since it was announced that v1.3 would be our next patch - which helps with the coping and waiting, if not the positive outlook.
@Dee In BG2:EE, it's not the engine bugs that are the most distracting. The most grievous issues are almost all caused by content bugs, and fixes to those will not carry over from a BG1:EE patch.
We're making good progress on our end; I'm sorry I haven't posted an update recently, but work is being done. And a lot of it will carry over to BGII:EE when we get there as well.
I'd settle for ANY support for BG2EE, the red headed stepchild of patching... November till now without any patch with so many gameplay bugs esp. in the new content is unacceptable and no relief in sight.
I'd settle for ANY support for BG2EE, the red headed stepchild of patching... November till now without any patch with so many gameplay bugs esp. in the new content is unacceptable and no relief in sight.
I second that. I still haven't started my BG2 game because I can't dualclass my assassin for obvious reasons. It's been six months, guys...
@Castorp If you refer to the bug with the backstab multiplier there is a fix for that, posted here in the forum.
Yeah, no, no fixes for me. I'd rather do something else than waste my time installing fixes. That and the many glaring bugs of the new content should have been fixed a long time ago. I don't mind waiting, it's just a game after all, but I'm kind of disappointed by Beamdog's lack of technical support.
Believe me, I understand your frustration. That said, fixes are just that - fixes. They are rolled out individually between patch cycles to deal with specific issues, whereas patches are intended to cover a wider range of bugs, and implement new features. If you're not willing to install a fix someone has taken the time to make, that's your prerogative, but you put yourself at the mercy of the patch cycle, and there's nothing else anyone can do to help you.
I understand that, of course, and that's why I didn't say anything until now. I wanted a patch, not fixes, so I figured some waiting was in the cards. But not six months, not with bugs this big needing to be squashed. And since Beamdog has basically stopped communicating about BG2, I felt it was justified to rant a little bit.
@Castorp: I don't know about you, but if they actually make it to the six-month mark with no further support, I'm calling it quits and filing for a refund. I paid over twice GOG's asking price for a version that's more thoroughly broken than the original - there's a point where you can ask for your customer's trust, and there's a point where you're flat-out abusing said trust. Beamdog is on the verge of crossing that line.
I'm sorry, but you cannot expect people to manually install "fixes" nowadays. What's the point of Steam, Beamdog launcher etc. if they don't update the game automatically?
@Dee and whoever else cares. You are losing your customer base and disappointing a lot of people. Pretty sure the activity in the forum is going down and people can't be bothered any more and are moving on. Take it up or not, I've lost my trust completely and the stupid android version which allegedly is tying up all the resources for months isn't even out yet. Your lack of transparency abd updates makes it even worse.
I've had quite extensive posts on that in the past but just can't be bothered any more to care.
Comments
Likewise Dee's hint above that BG2EE patch work is less than imminent does not help. We already know that getting the existing patch to the app store is more effort that we can support, compared to simply getting the next patch to the app store. So now I need to wait for "when we get there", after BGEE 1.3 ship, which seems to be after Android ships, which will be after a new beta-test environment is deployed since (beyond BeamDog's control) their test provider pulled out of the market.
Given the lack of progress on all of those topics, I think that September might be an optimistic guess for when BG2EE v1.3 ships. And then I must trust that the same problem with App store paperwork does not similarly delay deployment of said patch again - given that submitting the v1.2.2030 patch to the App store is apparently a similar effort than completing all of the above.
Sorry for ranting, but it has been building for over 4 months now and had to explode somewhere! At least I am no longer checking for the patch release every day, since it was announced that v1.3 would be our next patch - which helps with the coping and waiting, if not the positive outlook.
So do I.
I still haven't started my BG2 game because I can't dualclass my assassin for obvious reasons. It's been six months, guys...
That and the many glaring bugs of the new content should have been fixed a long time ago. I don't mind waiting, it's just a game after all, but I'm kind of disappointed by Beamdog's lack of technical support.
I wanted a patch, not fixes, so I figured some waiting was in the cards. But not six months, not with bugs this big needing to be squashed. And since Beamdog has basically stopped communicating about BG2, I felt it was justified to rant a little bit.
I've had quite extensive posts on that in the past but just can't be bothered any more to care.