So yet another obstacle for the Mac customers still waiting for the first patch from last November. Apparently it is less work to develop and release the iPad version (different patch level), update BG to 1.3 (6 months on the road), and now develop and release an entirely new product (IWDEE) and then (hopefully) complete the BG2EE 1.3 patch, than to simply submit the existing patch (BGEE 1.2.2030) to the Mac App store. I understand that the 1.3 patch will be better. I truly hope we are closer to the 1.3 release than the original game launch, so that it feels more efficient this way, but I have had a game with unplayable-level game breaking bugs for almost a year now. (Game-breaking like corrupting your saves and throwing away all progress, for those who missed why the patch was released within a week on all other platforms.)
I'm sorry, but this level of customer support is exactly why I will *not* be purchasing IWDEE if it ships before a basic patch for Mac - trust in your ability to back up your best intentions (which I do believe) has been totally broken.
I ask again, is it is at all possible to submit that original patch for the Mac App Store? I know you think BG2EE will ship by the end of the year, but Trent was posting on Twitter in June that he thought the release was only 2 months away (4 months ago). It is acknowledged to be a much bigger patch than the BG 1.3 patch that spent 6 months on the road, during which time Mac App store customers don't even get to play with the beta either.
I hate to keep posting this same message, but BeamDog seem keep to keep posting the same provocation of yet another project taking priority over our basic patch.
My only consolation here is that Trent Oster has been wrong about literally every single release estimate he's ever Tweeted, so who even knows anymore.
My only consolation here is that Trent Oster has been wrong about literally every single release estimate he's ever Tweeted, so who even knows anymore.
@Dee: I will admit, I am frustrated and do not understand why this is not possible. I do understand it is work that you would prefer not to do, and that the Mac App store is not a large customer base, but we definitely do not feel supported. Even the forum where Mac users could at least see the history of our lack of support is now hidden unless you know how to find the magic archive.
How much work are we talking about, that it is so expensive that it is easier for BeamDog to implement an entire new game, in addition to running a 6 month Road event on an entirely different product, before requiring we integrate into a gut-busting patch of immense proportion. It was a patch that took around a week to implement and deliver from the first bug reports to shipping to BeamDog and Steam customers - yes, even the Mac customers - the work for the patch was done.
The patch was (up to) an extra week of work on an app that has already passed the App Store acceptance process, so it is difficult to imagine that adds such a burden to add significantly to the work before delivering.
So basically you are saying that we, as paid up customers, do not merit even the slightest attention after waiting 11 months for an already-shipping patch.
Alternatively, I must consider the possibility that you have lost that original work, so it really is no longer possible to ship. At that point, you are saying that it genuinely is not worth time recreating that small fix just for us - we are not worth even a minimal level of support.
However, you do have a patch, behind closed doors, that does fix the game breaking issue (solved on other platforms) that corrupts saves. This is the issue that most makes the current game unplayable - we risk losing all of our progress at any time without warning. You are not prepared to give us the currently in-progress patch after simply verifying that there are no new even-more game breaking bugs than that immediate fix - presumably as you do not want to field support from all your other customers that the Mac has access to patches that they cannot see yet.
So after 11 months with an "unplayable" game (I use the term advisedly, as I simply cannot commit to playing a game that will vanish on me, taking its history with it) all you can tell me is to wait while you deliver yet another game, before trying to finally start validating that the current monster patch, larger than the last 6-month Road, starts validation.
I may be overly pessimistic, but I doubt you will give me any assurances that I am likely to see this patch before Christmas.
If it is going to see another Road event, I have serious doubts I will be seeing it before June next year.
And it is most frustrating knowing that the simple patch I actually want was release to the 'right' Mac customers 11 months ago, just not to me.
If the original patch had taken more than a week to deliver I might understand, but at this point I cannot understand being asked to wait months for a patch that took a week to deliver.
Please, do NOT release IWDEE through the Mac App store. You have clearly signaled this is not a supported venue and support only comes through the BeamDog client.
I am sorry that I am venting and ranting at such length, but I after 11 months of waiting for something that is *already* *available*, but for the paperwork, I am past frustrated. I believe I am not alone. I am afraid I believe that there are too few of us for you to really care though, other than (maybe) offering platitudes.
maybe it's easier to grant – free – access to the already patched beamdog-mac-version to those who bought the appstore-mac-version and are stuck with an unplayable state?
(to those stuck, maybe for future purchases in very general: relying on apple as total control freak distributor is almost never a good idea – from own experience, your developer can't help you even if he really really wants, if apple just has a bad day ... it may be the patch does something apple "does not accept" and beamdog can't invest the time to go around this just because apple feels to say "no" ...)
@BelegCuthalion: This is not an Apple problem. It took 4 months for BeamDog to finally admit on the OSX forum that they *simply* *forgot* to submit the patch to Apple in the first place (now archived and hidden unless you know how to search). It took a while longer to confirm that there were no plans going forward to submit the patch either, as it would be more efficient to deliver the 1.3 patch than submit at that point. Then it was announced that we must wait for BGEE 1.3 to ship, which I am guessing took 4 months longer than planned. Now we have been told we must wait for IWDEE to ship too, which was not even a factor when delaying the Mac patch for 1.3 was announced. Back in June Trent Oster was predicting the 1.3 patch would ship within 2 months (via Twitter) and we are now another 2 months past that original estimate, and look even more than 2 months away.
The problem is not Apple. The problem is that BeamDog are making lots of small, locally sensible decisions without regard to the knock-on repercussions to existing customers. No-one would have believed me 12 months ago if I had predicted that the Mac App Store customers would be waiting a year for a patch to resolve game-breaking issues, released to other customers within a week of the launch. I would not have believed it. There were doom-mongers complaining even then about a lack of support from BeamDog but I refused to listen as, despite the inconsistent delivery, the best of intent is genuinely there, and usually comes good in time (BGEE 1.2 and 1.3, for example). I naively assumed that simply because good people are trying hard, this kind of fall-through-the-cracks issue could not just go on this long. In fact, it is going to continue, and may yet get worse (we were not expecting the IWDEE delay, what next?) All it takes is another Atari going off the rails and we may never see that patch.
I will add a post-script to my rant. Dee is an absolute superstar. He has the worst of all jobs stuck in the middle of this, representing BeamDog on the forum and echoing our concerns internally, with no control over the ability to actually fix anything. He has been calm and helpful throughout, even granting space for our right to rant. The worst part of posting this rant is knowing that Dee again will once again be the meat in the sandwich. He deserves so much better after what we put him through - so a very sincere thank you to Dee for staying the course through this (hopefully) to the end. I am very sorry to be dropping this mess on your doorstep again.
@GreenWarlock i completely understand the situation, and it sucks definitely – therefor the part of my post that is not within ( ) and the main part of it, even shorter in word: maybe the best / fastest / least work consuming is to grant those stuck access to a better(!) working version that is not distributed through apples app-store.
what i tried to say in the ( ) part was that publishing and especially do active supporting trough apples store and apples evaluation processes (that are nice in theory and completely control freakish in praxis) is a complete PITA from own experience. in that (and only that) context i can understand that beamdog - by then - decided to skip and go for 1.3 after they had forgotten to submit ... no one wants to do that twice if he can avoid it somehow. it's still a drag it took much much longer than hoped for.
I just want to say, that I think you are taking the deplorable treatment of Mac-costumers exemplary. You are levelheaded and reasonable, even when I think it would be perfectly within your rights to demand a refund.
As much as I like Beamdog and the EE games, the treatment you are describing is in no way acceptable.
Not to sound like a total whiner (I probably am), but I think being a good customer entails being smart about what products you buy and what companies you support and letting the company in question know if one of their products isn't functioning as expected/intended.
BGII:EE is definitely in need of a patch, there's no doubt about that. It's playable, but after seeing all the work we've done... I can only speak for myself here, but suffice to say I'm very eager to get the patch out there so people can see it.
Guys I was just joking, seeing another @Erg's post, discouraging people to buy Beamdog's games. I think there is plenty of information on these forums for people to make their own opinion. For the record, I would feel the same, seeing someone blindly praising EE stuff wherever there is an audience:) I, for one, am very dissapointed that BGEE does not have Polish VO till now, but I'm not trying to persaude others with this argument to avoid purchasing Beamdog Games. And trust me, I cannot understand it as much as @GreenWarlock cannot understand why patch for Mac users was not released.
I think being a good customer entails being smart about what products you buy and what companies you support and letting the company in question know if one of their products isn't functioning as expected/intended.
Yes. For example, I don't buy McAfee products anymore because few years ago I had a very bad experience with one of my purchases. In short the product (an antivirus program) had been advertised with some features (e.g. support for my OS) that it didn't actually have (it didn't work at all on that particular OS) and to top that it was bundled with a free USB drive containing a computer virus (I'm not joking, I wish I were).
The results of that experience are twofold:
1) I don't buy McAfee products anymore 2) if asked on advice on antivirus programs, I always make sure to tell how bad I think McAfee is
My experience with Beamdog hasn't been near as bad, but it is still bad enough for me to avoid buying their products in the foreseeable future. For example the way in which they are handling the BG2:EE patch (e.g. prioritising everything else) is IMO appalling. Also the situation described few posts above by @GreenWarlock is in no way acceptable.
My experience with Beamdog hasn't been near as bad, but it is still bad enough for me to avoid buying their products in the foreseeable future.
And also apparently bad enough for you to repeatedly encourage other people on Beamdog's own forums not to buy them either, even when they didn't ask for advice on the subject.
I'd hate to see what you post on the McAfee forums.
Now, I'm not saying that people don't have legitimate reasons to be upset (and thank you @GreenWarlock for being level-headed about it)--but there's being upset about an apparent lack of support, and then there's holding an active vendetta against something that you were determined not to like in the first place and using an apparent lack of support as justification for that vendetta.
there's being upset about an apparent lack of support, and then there's holding an active vendetta against something that you were determined not to like in the first place and using an apparent lack of support as justification for that vendetta.
That's not true. You just have to read my old posts (for example from 2012, first months of 2013) to see how I really wanted to like the Enhanced Edition. It did help that at the time the patching cycle was much faster. Also I don't like most of the changes introduced with the more recent patches, but at the time they hadn't been introduced yet. Basically my dislike of the Enhanced Editions is increasing with time.
I think Beamdog is in a special situation because you guys are developing new content for the IE games, which are already loved by a ton of people. I really appreciate the work you guys are doing, by the way, these games were painfully neglected before you stepped up to the task, and let's be honest, there wasn't a line of competent developers waiting to get access to the development rights of the old BG games.
I think that also places you in a special position. Beamdog can get away with more "shenanigans" than the average developer might be able to, simply because you have in your hands an IP the fans of which are very much starved for content, and chances are nobody else is going to make that content. On the other hand, that also places your work under a lot more scrutiny, because said fans won't just simply leave when they find your practices to be inadequate. They stick around, because they want things to work out for their favorite games. And yes, sometimes they become disgruntled, but the fact that they stick around is proof that they still care.
(I used the third person there instead of the first because I don't count myself in the disgruntled group. I can still take a bit of abuse before getting there. Don't take that as encouragement though, heh heh.)
@Adul: I think you may be taking that a bit far. The fact that Beamdog is working with a property that has a lot of nostalgia attached to it does not, in any way, entitle them to take liberties with their customers that wouldn't be acceptable for other companies. Let's not forget that the new IE content you mentioned costs more than twice the price of the originals; that, along with the poor decision-making that's been in evidence so far, really doesn't leave room for the kind of leeway you're talking about.
I've (mostly) had my say, and don't want to harp on. It is important to recognize, however frustrating this feels, that companies are made up of people who are generally trying to do a good job - the long delay of the Mac patch is not a deliberate attempt to annoy the Apple community, just an accident of several individually reasonable business decisions having an disproportionate impact on a small community. My goal is to highlight that, and see if we can find a way to fix it, rather than cast blame! (Although blame storming is remarkably cathartic when ranting - sorry!)
I am not interested in a refund - I am lucky that I can write off a bad investment of $25. I am interested in getting a working game, as it is much harder to write off the time and dreams invested in the game to date - especially all the little-bhaals who have murdered their brother and are queuing up to sample the fine life in Athkatla. I believe other customers have indeed arranged a refund through the app store already.
What I fear most is getting stuck behind another 6 month road event (or longer). I fully believe Trent is serious when offering shorter timelines for patches, and entirely believes them. It is his part of his responsibility as the visionary leading the company to be optimistic and push forward. I am just hoping that there is enough history here that BeamDog can recognize they might at least need a back-up plan for the App Store customers (just in case it does turn into an unexpected marathon) and release one of the early Road betas to the App store, much like one of the BGEE 1.3 betas accidentally escaped. This risks drawing flak from other customers that we get early access to the 1.3 goodies, but in fact it seems the only likely way we will access the existing patch this side of Christmas, so it is just a bonus for playing catchup. I am presuming a road event though, with easy access to the beta for direct customers.
And now I shall try to bite my tongue until the road starts, or the patch ships (whichever is sooner).
@Adul: I think you may be taking that a bit far. The fact that Beamdog is working with a property that has a lot of nostalgia attached to it does not, in any way, entitle them to take liberties with their customers that wouldn't be acceptable for other companies. Let's not forget that the new IE content you mentioned costs more than twice the price of the originals; that, along with the poor decision-making that's been in evidence so far, really doesn't leave room for the kind of leeway you're talking about.
I guess I shouldn't have spoken for other people. Let me try to improve upon my above statements by adapting them to my own position: I personally don't care for the business decisions Beamdog made in the past year. I think they held off supporting a bug-riddled BG2:EE while prioritizing every other project they had. The giant patch approach was a mistake that could have been remedied at any point but still remains a hurdle in the way of essential bugfixes. If any other developer made these mistakes, I might be out at this point. But since Beamdog made them, the developer who is working on improving the games that I consider the absolute best the gaming market has to offer, I did not leave. These perceived shortcomings on Beamdog's part frustrate me, but my unyielding enthusiasm towards the BG series (and to a lesser extent my interest in other IE games) keeps me rooting for them to be able to work out these issues and improve on the practices that caused them.
Comments
The first time I read it, I didn't find anything special. But then..."once IWDEE is done we'll final it [the patch]"
So, Trent confirms (for the first time IIRC) that IWDEE "will go first" and the patch "will be the last"
LOL -.-
No words.
I'm sorry, but this level of customer support is exactly why I will *not* be purchasing IWDEE if it ships before a basic patch for Mac - trust in your ability to back up your best intentions (which I do believe) has been totally broken.
I ask again, is it is at all possible to submit that original patch for the Mac App Store? I know you think BG2EE will ship by the end of the year, but Trent was posting on Twitter in June that he thought the release was only 2 months away (4 months ago). It is acknowledged to be a much bigger patch than the BG 1.3 patch that spent 6 months on the road, during which time Mac App store customers don't even get to play with the beta either.
I hate to keep posting this same message, but BeamDog seem keep to keep posting the same provocation of yet another project taking priority over our basic patch.
general patch progress ^
How much work are we talking about, that it is so expensive that it is easier for BeamDog to implement an entire new game, in addition to running a 6 month Road event on an entirely different product, before requiring we integrate into a gut-busting patch of immense proportion. It was a patch that took around a week to implement and deliver from the first bug reports to shipping to BeamDog and Steam customers - yes, even the Mac customers - the work for the patch was done.
The patch was (up to) an extra week of work on an app that has already passed the App Store acceptance process, so it is difficult to imagine that adds such a burden to add significantly to the work before delivering.
So basically you are saying that we, as paid up customers, do not merit even the slightest attention after waiting 11 months for an already-shipping patch.
Alternatively, I must consider the possibility that you have lost that original work, so it really is no longer possible to ship. At that point, you are saying that it genuinely is not worth time recreating that small fix just for us - we are not worth even a minimal level of support.
However, you do have a patch, behind closed doors, that does fix the game breaking issue (solved on other platforms) that corrupts saves. This is the issue that most makes the current game unplayable - we risk losing all of our progress at any time without warning. You are not prepared to give us the currently in-progress patch after simply verifying that there are no new even-more game breaking bugs than that immediate fix - presumably as you do not want to field support from all your other customers that the Mac has access to patches that they cannot see yet.
So after 11 months with an "unplayable" game (I use the term advisedly, as I simply cannot commit to playing a game that will vanish on me, taking its history with it) all you can tell me is to wait while you deliver yet another game, before trying to finally start validating that the current monster patch, larger than the last 6-month Road, starts validation.
I may be overly pessimistic, but I doubt you will give me any assurances that I am likely to see this patch before Christmas.
If it is going to see another Road event, I have serious doubts I will be seeing it before June next year.
And it is most frustrating knowing that the simple patch I actually want was release to the 'right' Mac customers 11 months ago, just not to me.
If the original patch had taken more than a week to deliver I might understand, but at this point I cannot understand being asked to wait months for a patch that took a week to deliver.
Please, do NOT release IWDEE through the Mac App store. You have clearly signaled this is not a supported venue and support only comes through the BeamDog client.
I am sorry that I am venting and ranting at such length, but I after 11 months of waiting for something that is *already* *available*, but for the paperwork, I am past frustrated. I believe I am not alone. I am afraid I believe that there are too few of us for you to really care though, other than (maybe) offering platitudes.
(to those stuck, maybe for future purchases in very general: relying on apple as total control freak distributor is almost never a good idea – from own experience, your developer can't help you even if he really really wants, if apple just has a bad day ... it may be the patch does something apple "does not accept" and beamdog can't invest the time to go around this just because apple feels to say "no" ...)
Then it was announced that we must wait for BGEE 1.3 to ship, which I am guessing took 4 months longer than planned. Now we have been told we must wait for IWDEE to ship too, which was not even a factor when delaying the Mac patch for 1.3 was announced. Back in June Trent Oster was predicting the 1.3 patch would ship within 2 months (via Twitter) and we are now another 2 months past that original estimate, and look even more than 2 months away.
The problem is not Apple. The problem is that BeamDog are making lots of small, locally sensible decisions without regard to the knock-on repercussions to existing customers. No-one would have believed me 12 months ago if I had predicted that the Mac App Store customers would be waiting a year for a patch to resolve game-breaking issues, released to other customers within a week of the launch. I would not have believed it. There were doom-mongers complaining even then about a lack of support from BeamDog but I refused to listen as, despite the inconsistent delivery, the best of intent is genuinely there, and usually comes good in time (BGEE 1.2 and 1.3, for example). I naively assumed that simply because good people are trying hard, this kind of fall-through-the-cracks issue could not just go on this long. In fact, it is going to continue, and may yet get worse (we were not expecting the IWDEE delay, what next?) All it takes is another Atari going off the rails and we may never see that patch.
what i tried to say in the ( ) part was that publishing and especially do active supporting trough apples store and apples evaluation processes (that are nice in theory and completely control freakish in praxis) is a complete PITA from own experience.
in that (and only that) context i can understand that beamdog - by then - decided to skip and go for 1.3 after they had forgotten to submit ... no one wants to do that twice if he can avoid it somehow. it's still a drag it took much much longer than hoped for.
I just want to say, that I think you are taking the deplorable treatment of Mac-costumers exemplary. You are levelheaded and reasonable, even when I think it would be perfectly within your rights to demand a refund.
As much as I like Beamdog and the EE games, the treatment you are describing is in no way acceptable.
The results of that experience are twofold:
1) I don't buy McAfee products anymore
2) if asked on advice on antivirus programs, I always make sure to tell how bad I think McAfee is
My experience with Beamdog hasn't been near as bad, but it is still bad enough for me to avoid buying their products in the foreseeable future. For example the way in which they are handling the BG2:EE patch (e.g. prioritising everything else) is IMO appalling. Also the situation described few posts above by @GreenWarlock is in no way acceptable.
I'd hate to see what you post on the McAfee forums.
Now, I'm not saying that people don't have legitimate reasons to be upset (and thank you @GreenWarlock for being level-headed about it)--but there's being upset about an apparent lack of support, and then there's holding an active vendetta against something that you were determined not to like in the first place and using an apparent lack of support as justification for that vendetta.
I think that also places you in a special position. Beamdog can get away with more "shenanigans" than the average developer might be able to, simply because you have in your hands an IP the fans of which are very much starved for content, and chances are nobody else is going to make that content. On the other hand, that also places your work under a lot more scrutiny, because said fans won't just simply leave when they find your practices to be inadequate. They stick around, because they want things to work out for their favorite games. And yes, sometimes they become disgruntled, but the fact that they stick around is proof that they still care.
(I used the third person there instead of the first because I don't count myself in the disgruntled group. I can still take a bit of abuse before getting there. Don't take that as encouragement though, heh heh.)
I am not interested in a refund - I am lucky that I can write off a bad investment of $25. I am interested in getting a working game, as it is much harder to write off the time and dreams invested in the game to date - especially all the little-bhaals who have murdered their brother and are queuing up to sample the fine life in Athkatla. I believe other customers have indeed arranged a refund through the app store already.
What I fear most is getting stuck behind another 6 month road event (or longer). I fully believe Trent is serious when offering shorter timelines for patches, and entirely believes them. It is his part of his responsibility as the visionary leading the company to be optimistic and push forward. I am just hoping that there is enough history here that BeamDog can recognize they might at least need a back-up plan for the App Store customers (just in case it does turn into an unexpected marathon) and release one of the early Road betas to the App store, much like one of the BGEE 1.3 betas accidentally escaped. This risks drawing flak from other customers that we get early access to the 1.3 goodies, but in fact it seems the only likely way we will access the existing patch this side of Christmas, so it is just a bonus for playing catchup. I am presuming a road event though, with easy access to the beta for direct customers.
And now I shall try to bite my tongue until the road starts, or the patch ships (whichever is sooner).