Can I make something abundantly clear
Quartz
Member Posts: 3,853
OK, so I hear a lot of people fearing that Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition will be bug-ridden upon release. This fear is understandable, as many folks struggled with the bugs in Enhanced Baldur's Gate I and II when they were initially released.
Now, I can't truly speak for Overhaul Games. And I know, a lot of people don't like to hear, "It'll be different this time!" once a track record has been established. Everyone would rather see action than words. Unfortunately, for the time being, all we truly have is words.
These words, however, have made it quite clear that IWD:EE will not suffer from massive amounts of bugs upon releasing. Overhaul Games has much more freedom over this project; there is no time table. There is no publisher insisting they release on time. They have a time estimate, so that they can work towards a goal and thus work faster (thus not falling into the Valve Time trap), but they can easily decide to wait until the game is more stable before releasing it.
I have been very realistic and blunt in my opinions of Overhaul Games' work on our beloved Infinity Engine games in the past. So you know that I am not biased, and I am saying this out of fact, not opinion. I see no reason to fear that Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition will launch with game-breaking bugs.
Thank you for reading.
Now, I can't truly speak for Overhaul Games. And I know, a lot of people don't like to hear, "It'll be different this time!" once a track record has been established. Everyone would rather see action than words. Unfortunately, for the time being, all we truly have is words.
These words, however, have made it quite clear that IWD:EE will not suffer from massive amounts of bugs upon releasing. Overhaul Games has much more freedom over this project; there is no time table. There is no publisher insisting they release on time. They have a time estimate, so that they can work towards a goal and thus work faster (thus not falling into the Valve Time trap), but they can easily decide to wait until the game is more stable before releasing it.
I have been very realistic and blunt in my opinions of Overhaul Games' work on our beloved Infinity Engine games in the past. So you know that I am not biased, and I am saying this out of fact, not opinion. I see no reason to fear that Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition will launch with game-breaking bugs.
Thank you for reading.
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Comments
Is any game ever perfect? No, of course not, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable.
Personally I think it may have been best to announce IWDEE after they patch BG2EE, I think making the announcement when many people are still frustrated with that game probably didn't help.
Overhaul does very good work when they put their minds to it. I don't regret buying the BGs. It seems likely ID will turn out fine if it's in a state similar to BG:EE 1.3 upon release, which they're kinda saying it will be if I understand things right. I have something to look forward to in the distant future.
We are incredibly proud of IWD:EE, and we're fans as much as anyone else (if not more so, since, well, we work on them). There's a reason we work on these games, and we can't wait for you guys to see it.
Get ready for some flame for having faith in the company Quartz.
I feel bad though as obviously you haven't yet managed to play the game through due to whatever issues you are hitting. Hopefully 1.3 will sort it out for you.
Right now, developing a bug-free product is as important as offering convincing reasons to buy said product under the current circumstances.
... am I doing it right?
As long as IWD:EE can just simply work, without slowdown causing unplayability, on intel chip set machines, I will be a happy mummified gnome.
Trying to get to the grips with the slowdown was a chore. After upgrading my drives, reading all the pages and various support proffered from @Aosaw and @bigdogchris , my game was going nowhere. Not only had the game come out late, but the stuff I really wanted to see, like the new video clips, let alone the added content, was unviewable. The game that had been prophesied to be the ultimate BG worse than vanilla.
Talk about heartbroken. And I was not the only one. The forums had never seen so much whining, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But determination always wins out.
I had to abandon windows 7 and started using *shivers* Ubuntu as my operating system, to get BG:EE to work. And it worked. Got my first insightfuls here...
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12905/a-workable-solution-to-intel-graphic-chipset-problems
Yet it was not the fault of Beamdog. The chipsets were supposed to be able to handle it (well duh, they could handle it under Ubuntu)
But Beamdog were even more determined. Soon after the problem was sorted with a patch.
It got better, BG2:EE was a lot less stressful. Bugs are present still, but the major, OMG! IT WONT WORK! Bugs had been removed.
More patches have come out.
Patches ain't gonna stop!
If IWD:EE has a major bug in its release. SO WHAT! It will have originally been released with more. And you know it will be fixed given time.
Onwards and upwards!
*Anduin gets down from the lectern*
Are we going to have a bug free release? *shrug* As a beta tester for BG1 and 2, forum mod, lurker and manager in the BG1 and BG2 help forums, and all around helper for all of these games, I'm going to have to put my hat into the "I doubt it" ring a second.
WHAT? Did I just say that this release was going to be buggy and a piece of crap?!?!?!?!?
I did NOT.
Look at it realistically for a few moments folks. All of the infinity engine games are coming from the same engine. We've had two releases of this thing and several patches (BG1 and BG2) to update and refine the engine to work and be better. All of the bugs fixed in BG1 and BG2 have at least had their day in the limelite and have or are being looked at with regards to IWD. Is an engine bug that was discovered in BG1 and fixed in 1.3 likely to show it's head in IWD at release? No, not really.
To be bluntly honest, what the vast majority of you all are running into are NOT engine bugs but game bugs for what was pretty much a quality light piece of released software by Bioware 15 years ago.
What do I expect from an IWD Release? Here are my predictions:
* I expect the game to be stable. Again, we've done the engine thing twice with several patches, the likelyhood we run into the BG1: OMG MY HARDWARE DOESN'T WORK issues is slim to nil...
* I expect the game to run through to it's conclusion. I've said this about a million times on these forums: Using the word "unplayable" for any EE release at this point is Ludicrous. I've beaten both BG and BG2 + expansions...they can't be "unplayable" on any platform, because I've played them on all platforms (other than Android I guess). I fully expect IWD to be the same way.
* I expect the forums to get a slew of posts about "broken" parts of the game. I use "broken" in quotes here because very very very few of the BG2 issues amounted to much more than annoyances or inconsistencies/incorrectness within the game play rules. Yes I expect there to be a helm that can be worn by a shadowdancer or a dagger that is wielded with full proficiency by a gnome warrior when he only has 4 pips in it. There are literally HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of these bugs in the original software, and any new content has the same potential to create these kinds of bugs as well. We do our best to beta test and track these kinds of things, but testing every item, spell, and ability in the game across all 20+ Class/Kit combos across all 6+ Races in every combat in the game is impossible. Yes, there will be bugs.
* I expect that the vast majority of the game from start to finish will work, as expected, as both BG1 and BG2 did. With all the problems both of the BG's had, I was still able to complete the game as intended...problems aside.
And Lastly...
* Whatever issues are found I FULLY EXPECT to get fixed eventually. As with BG1 and BG2, the major show stoppers (if there are any, which I actually predict there won't be) will get fixed fast and the more minor issues will linger to the next scheduled patch which will significantly update the game. Here again we have history on our side, and Liam put it best above: We've been here and done this before several times. It shouldn't be any secret to anyone now how this new game is going to be handled with regards to bugs and issues.
To all of you worried about this, let me be very up front.
The folks you've worked with over the last year or two (Myself, Troodon, Gate, Dee, Liam, etc. etc. etc. ad nausium) are all still here and we're all ready to assist all of you with whatever issues you might run into.
Yes, there will be problems...there is no software that will ever be released in the history of software development that won't have some bugs in it at release time.
If you feel that the game is going to be TRUELY unplayable (as in you can't finish the game or the game won't run) I believe you're wrong and I strongly encourage you to update your perceptions...
If you don't want to spend money to play a game where there are problems, don't hold your breath. All you're doing is denying yourselves the entertainment value of what will, ultimately be an excellent remake of an excellent game. Believe me when I say that if you choose to wait till the game is fully fixed before spending your money, you're going to be waiting a long time. I understand not spending the money if you felt you weren't going to get the entertainment out of your dollar, but I think at this point in the lifecycle of the EE games it's highly unlikely that IWD will be released in a state whereby it won't entertain you to play it.
Lastly, let me be blunt: This software has always worked best when the community of players comes together to assist in it's betterment. You can choose to sit back on the wings and let everyone else make the product better for you: but if you take a part in it, report your bugs, work with the mods and devs and community managers to get issues known we can all make a piece of software that we all love much much better much much quicker.
I look forward to working with you all on the help forums for IWD. I hope that it won't be often or regular, but I also want to thank everyone who, in the past has, or will in the future, take the time to report a bug or help us identify a root cause.
These are great games, and the EE's make great games even better, despite the problems. Personally? I know I'm not waiting.
I agree they'll do a good job on the patches that are eventually rolled out. And if ID:EE is built on the current BG:EE 1.3 patch it will indeed be a solid game on release. But I really hope patching, for all three games, will not be as "fast" as it has been thus far. Unfortunately, history is indeed on our side.
Having a simplified version of the game that I could just click to install without needing 20+ mods is worth it for me, even if there were a couple bugs
I like that these folks are making EEs. There's going to be guaranteed compatibility with today's platforms. And that's what my nostalgia wants. I didn't have any real big issues with BG's EE, I doubt I'll have any with IWD's EE.
But, for all we know, there could be people who are adept at everything and they are being moved from department to department depending on priorities.
Bottom line is I can't feel the same hype for IWD:EE as I felt for BG:EE for reasons many can probably relate. I really appreciate the fact that other people are willing to invest in the risk, because I can take the back seat and judge the game (and maaaaaaaybe buy it, but that's a stretch) after they have played it and shared their criticism.
I share the feeling they will do it right this time. They have all the keys. The fact there was no countdown and/or exact time estimation combined with the clues (from screenshots and comments) that the game is already playable makes me think this will be the most polished product (at the release stage) by Beamdog.
To me, all the fixes and enhancements during the road to the 1.3 BGEE patch have been used on making IWDEE. The engine is nearly the same and they had 6 months to test it thoroughly not only between themselves but also all those beta testers of BGEE.
I think it's just an imperative for Beamdog to show they have learned their lessons of BGEE 1&2 releases in order to give an impression they're serious and in order to get rights for the BGNext no matter what it would be.
Of course, we are not part of their team and can't know for sure, but the possibility of a smooth launch of IWDEE is very high.
Let's cross fingers and get it finally!