Getting sick of the Beamdog bashing in the wake of PST:EE
Pekingduckman
Member Posts: 151
in Off-Topic
I made the mistake of visiting Youtube and the Steam forums after the announcement of PST:EE, and like always, the amount of bile and idiocy astounds me. Besides the usual suspects accusing Beamdog of adding "SJW" content, there are also the people who still have the impression that the EE simply consists of the base game + HD mod + fixpack. One guy on the Steam forums even threw a tantrum because Black Isle, a long dead studio, wasn't apparently credited, despite being proven wrong several times, and went on a rampage across several websites, calling Beamdog "the parasite of the industry".
It seems that in recent years, the gaming community has became so polarized that constructive criticism don't exist anymore. Even the slightest apparent wrong need to be responded with personal attacks, and worse, harassment against developers. In the past decades, I've played my fair share of disappointing or downright horrible games, and I generally move on, or in special cases where I think they can be improved, offer suggestions. Sadly in this day and age, there needs to be instant gratification, and a long list of constructive critiques mean little when someone can just tell the devs to "go fuck themselves" on Twitter.
In this mess, people don't seem to get that there are multiple audiences and markets besides their own. If they don't think that PST:EE is worth the money and they're happy with the mods, more power to them. The release of the EE isn't going to magically erase the original PST from their hard drives. In contrast, as a veteran of the game, I'm happy that this game is being rereleased for a new generation, and that I don't need to install numerous mods over and over again to get the game working.
It seems that in recent years, the gaming community has became so polarized that constructive criticism don't exist anymore. Even the slightest apparent wrong need to be responded with personal attacks, and worse, harassment against developers. In the past decades, I've played my fair share of disappointing or downright horrible games, and I generally move on, or in special cases where I think they can be improved, offer suggestions. Sadly in this day and age, there needs to be instant gratification, and a long list of constructive critiques mean little when someone can just tell the devs to "go fuck themselves" on Twitter.
In this mess, people don't seem to get that there are multiple audiences and markets besides their own. If they don't think that PST:EE is worth the money and they're happy with the mods, more power to them. The release of the EE isn't going to magically erase the original PST from their hard drives. In contrast, as a veteran of the game, I'm happy that this game is being rereleased for a new generation, and that I don't need to install numerous mods over and over again to get the game working.
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Comments
Now, maybe you were lucky and got into the EEs at a later point, when the major issues were more or less resolved. More power to you, but that doesn't change the facts (which you can look up for yourself right here on this forum).
With that track record, it'd be extremely naive to think that Beamdog would get a positive reception without doing much to earn it.
I acknowledge too that they seem to release updates at a slow pace. Probably due to the fact that they're a small team working on many things at the same time. It's not an excuse, however.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PSTEE launch would not be as bad, though, because Beamdog has more experience now and they seem to have introduced much less new content. It's a more low key release, I have the feeling, which is actually a good thing for PST. Anyway, we'll see.
Once PST:EE is in the can, they can focus on delivering an original D&D 5e experience and continuing to polish the old IE gems.
That said, hopefully they update all their games with the latest engine after PST:EE is out and they need to be quicker with their patches in the future.
I must be really lucky then, because I got BG:EE at launch and had less issues than when I played the original.
I was referring to the state in which the game dropped. They'll get around to further enhancing it, I have little doubt.
If PST:EE shares a similar trouble-free release, I hope the trollier amongst us will cut Beamdog some slack.
What exactly can Beamdog do, exactly, that you won't find fault with?
Also: For some reason I got spam-blocked for posting 3 times within 60 seconds. I am pretty sure my previous post was more than 60 seconds prior to this one, and I have definitely not posted three times in 60 seconds.
Will be interesting to see how well PST:EE sells.
And you're right, I was being facetious.
And you're not the problem, I just got a bit hung up on you complaining about Beamdog both doing and not doing a thing.
Another place I saw some anti-Beamdog sentiment was over on Obsidian's forum. Not that anyone should rush over there to defend Beamdog because that'd be kinda silly, but I mean that was the first thread I saw after I logged in.
Aside from that, it's a good forum. Been lurking for awhile.
I don't think Beamdog made that decision, though. As I understand it, WotC/Hasbro might have.
Also, part of the benefit of buying the EEs is the additional content - more party NPCs, for example. Unfortunately, a lot of people really hate them, and consider the additions to be completely inferior to the original NPCs.
Personally, I find having BG running the same engine with the same classes and kits as BG2 without having to mod to be a good reason to get the games, but people who are okay with using BGTutu don't see that as a desirable feature.
Finally, BGEE gives access to SOD (although SOD costs another $20), but a lot of people already hate Beamdog's work just as a point of ideology, so that's not going to be a deciding factor.
Overall, I think it comes down to haters gonna hate, and they don't really reflect how well each game is doing.
But there is also another angle to the hate which transcends Beamdog. This is the "I don't want it (for whatever reason) so no one else should have it either" attitude. This is an outright attack on my fundamental right to have what I want, and I tend to go nuclear on people who step on my (or other people's) rights. This is the whole reason I went ahead and pre-ordered PsTEE, even though I've never really cared for PsT as a game, so that I can get in the face of these haters and taunt/troll them by saying I gave Beamdog $20 just for the heck of it and there's nothing they can do to stop me.