I'm afraid if you're expecting an objectively bug-free experience you'll be waiting for a very, very long time indeed - not only are there new bugs being discovered but the game is also not static - patches happen which have a near certain likelihood of introducing new bugs.
For that matter, I don't see the point in looking at the bugs of the game as a statistic given that most are bugs you will literally never notice unless you actually knew they existed - and for that matter, look at the contents of the bug list - "The Adventurer's Guide should not contain errors or omissions"? Is that even something relevant to the expansion? I certainly you don't consider it that, because about a dozen of the reports are on that topic alone. Some are bugs that are exclusive to the person who submitted them (possibly due to their hardware or whatever) and probably won't affect you in the least.
Oh, and btw, speaking as someone who's seen a lot regarding Infinity Engine modding and the games in general, even looking at it as a statistic, 114 is not a huge number by any means.
@Alonso: Well yeah, with that attitude, it's probably best not to even try.
BG2EE still contains a godawful and irritating bug that irks the heck out of me. If you meet but don't destroy the adamantine golem behind the secret door in Firkraag's lair (the one with two smaller companions guarding a beljuril, among other things), said golem will appear in Firkraag's lair when you enter it. This will, in turn, immediately turn Firkraag hostile. Supposing that this happens on your first playthrough and you don't know what should happen, a significant quest is ruined.
(The golem cannot follow you there, as the doorways are too small. Only the bug will transport it there.)
I tend to agree with the last few posters. If bug reports which are mostly minor worry you this much, then don't bother. You will probably just end up looking for criticism without really appreciating the accomplishment that SoD is, and you will probably feel that you wasted your $20 and no one wants that.
Keep in mind that the original BG1 and BG2 were so buggy that they could only be played in certain ways or the game would crash. Most of the bugs were never even acknowledged by Bioware, let alone patched. In order to make those games playable, you had to either know about the bugs and avoid them to keep your games from becoming corrupted, or install mods developed by hobbyist modders who love the game. It was like this for over a decade until Beamdog got their hands on the infinity engine rights. Interestingly enough, as the Baldur's Gate games are historically hailed by a majority of gamers as the greatest western RPGs of all time, this doesn't seem to have prevented most fans of the genre from enjoying them.
Beamdog now employs several of the more "legendary" modders (I haven't heard of a company doing this before) and have used them to reduce the game engine's bugs to be playable right out of the box by the uninitiated mod-installer. Considering that SoD is a new game developed using the same old engine as the other games, I think that is a pretty incredible feat that most companies today couldn't pull off.
I would rather buy this than IAP-mongering, freemium games, even though I haven't played it yet (curse you crashed computer!) and am totally bummed out by that.
Keep in mind that the original BG1 and BG2 were so buggy that they could only be played in certain ways or the game would crash. Most of the bugs were never even acknowledged by Bioware, let alone patched.
Fun fact: I never actually was able to get BG2 working until it was released on GoG.com (I played the heck out of BG1 though). Even though my computer at the time met the recommended requirements for the game the game would always freeze during the Irenicus cutscene (and the patches didn't fix the problem).
Still, I'm not sure if comparing the number of bugs in SoD and BG1/2 is fair. First, each BG game has about 200 hours of content, while SoD has only 25, meaning that most bugs in the BG games are scattered across those 200 hours, while the bugs in SoD are concentrated in just 25 hours. That's what makes those dreadful numbers most dreadful.
Not necessarily. If my understanding is correct, a lot of bugs stem from the Infinity Engine itself (which is in a much more stable place than it was during the release of the original games). If the bugs stem from the engine itself, then it wouldn't matter if you had 200 hours vs 25 hours. The Infinity Engine is the backbone of the game and if there is something wrong with it then it will persist whether you play BG1 or SoD or BG2 etc. I'm not saying all of the bugs are like this, but I would imagine a majority.
Second, the BGs have been around for 16 years, three of them in the EE form, with a huge player base. That's a lot of time and people to catch and report bugs. SoD has been around for months and I guess its player base must be quite smaller. A rough estimation for the BGs would be that for each bug reported there must be about another unreported bug. For SoD I'd easily estimate 10 unreported bugs per reported bug. That makes the numbers even more dreadful.
Third, years of finding and fixing bugs don't necessarily reduce the number of known bugs, because new ones are found all the time. What it does change is the importance of the extant bugs, because the most important ones tend to be found and fixed first, so the remaining ones tend to be less and less important. Of course, the opposite applies to a game which has only been around for a few months.
No doubt there are some unreported bugs, but I find this to be an arbitrary stretch. There is no logic behind the way you came up with 1140 bugs in a game that only has 114 "reported" bugs. Like @Artemius_I said, many bugs reported are not related to the gameplay, or they are related to specific hardware. How many of those 114 bugs are actually game-breaking? I mean, on the first page of bug reports alone the "Adventurer's Guide" comes up 5 times. There are also bugs like "Intro movie needs to display subtitles" and other such things that seem so very minor.
The fact that Beamdog has stabilized such an old engine and continues to support it is a testament to their dedication to these games imo. If you are really that concerned wait for a Steam holiday sale. I'm sure you can get it at a good price and then you can see for yourself.
I just throw my money at the glowing screen that says Beamdog on it.
Haven't played SoD yet, so I can't give you any reviews. But I want to support this company because so many gaming companies nowadays are going in a direction that I strongly disagree with, and Beamdog is one of those that is going in a direction that I agree with.
Pretty much my view as well eventhough I am not entirely satisfied with SOD.
But there was a proviso for me. I didn't want my existing games updated and luckily have GOG versions. So currently I have old and new versions happily sitting side by side on the PC.
I don't mind the inconsitancies, I'm not very good at putting downloads in the correct places and moving stuff around. If it had been a choice of changing everything to get SOD unless I was a lot cleverer than I am, I would have hesitated before buying a lot more.
you will probably feel that you wasted your $20 and no one wants that.
Any good game is a bargain for 20 bucks. Still, if you can get the same game for 10 bucks (or the collector's edition for, say, 40 bucks), even better. That (money) was the topic of the first five or six posts. But I feel we moved to the "good game" topic after that.
There is no logic behind the way you came up with 1140 bugs in a game that only has 114 "reported" bugs.
I believe that a degree in engineering and a few years of experience as software tester and developer allow me to understand software quality with some logic. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.
Comments
For that matter, I don't see the point in looking at the bugs of the game as a statistic given that most are bugs you will literally never notice unless you actually knew they existed - and for that matter, look at the contents of the bug list - "The Adventurer's Guide should not contain errors or omissions"? Is that even something relevant to the expansion? I certainly you don't consider it that, because about a dozen of the reports are on that topic alone. Some are bugs that are exclusive to the person who submitted them (possibly due to their hardware or whatever) and probably won't affect you in the least.
Oh, and btw, speaking as someone who's seen a lot regarding Infinity Engine modding and the games in general, even looking at it as a statistic, 114 is not a huge number by any means.
BG2EE still contains a godawful and irritating bug that irks the heck out of me. If you meet but don't destroy the adamantine golem behind the secret door in Firkraag's lair (the one with two smaller companions guarding a beljuril, among other things), said golem will appear in Firkraag's lair when you enter it. This will, in turn, immediately turn Firkraag hostile. Supposing that this happens on your first playthrough and you don't know what should happen, a significant quest is ruined.
(The golem cannot follow you there, as the doorways are too small. Only the bug will transport it there.)
SoD contains nothing as serious as this.
Keep in mind that the original BG1 and BG2 were so buggy that they could only be played in certain ways or the game would crash. Most of the bugs were never even acknowledged by Bioware, let alone patched. In order to make those games playable, you had to either know about the bugs and avoid them to keep your games from becoming corrupted, or install mods developed by hobbyist modders who love the game. It was like this for over a decade until Beamdog got their hands on the infinity engine rights. Interestingly enough, as the Baldur's Gate games are historically hailed by a majority of gamers as the greatest western RPGs of all time, this doesn't seem to have prevented most fans of the genre from enjoying them.
Beamdog now employs several of the more "legendary" modders (I haven't heard of a company doing this before) and have used them to reduce the game engine's bugs to be playable right out of the box by the uninitiated mod-installer. Considering that SoD is a new game developed using the same old engine as the other games, I think that is a pretty incredible feat that most companies today couldn't pull off.
I would rather buy this than IAP-mongering, freemium games, even though I haven't played it yet (curse you crashed computer!) and am totally bummed out by that.
*throws more money at screen*
No doubt there are some unreported bugs, but I find this to be an arbitrary stretch. There is no logic behind the way you came up with 1140 bugs in a game that only has 114 "reported" bugs. Like @Artemius_I said, many bugs reported are not related to the gameplay, or they are related to specific hardware. How many of those 114 bugs are actually game-breaking? I mean, on the first page of bug reports alone the "Adventurer's Guide" comes up 5 times. There are also bugs like "Intro movie needs to display subtitles" and other such things that seem so very minor.
The fact that Beamdog has stabilized such an old engine and continues to support it is a testament to their dedication to these games imo. If you are really that concerned wait for a Steam holiday sale. I'm sure you can get it at a good price and then you can see for yourself.
Pretty much my view as well eventhough I am not entirely satisfied with SOD.
But there was a proviso for me.
I didn't want my existing games updated and luckily have GOG versions. So currently I have old and new versions happily sitting side by side on the PC.
I don't mind the inconsitancies, I'm not very good at putting downloads in the correct places and moving stuff around.
If it had been a choice of changing everything to get SOD unless I was a lot cleverer than I am, I would have hesitated before buying a lot more.
Alonso, this is your decision (not to buy the game now for certain reasons). If you ever decide to try SoD, we would gladly read your thoughts on it.