But I feel that my indignation is ultimately wasted on these forums. After five years, I should know better than to think any hard criticism of the EEs would fly around here.
Your indignation is not wasted here. I actually think it's one of your post that pointed me toward their change of position about the bundle. And I thank you for that. As far as I'm concerned, your indignation is backed up by facts, which makes it much more legitimate than the volley of trolls that attacked SoD for ideological reasons. Obviously, the reaction to criticism is not gonna be as harsh as in other places, but this is understandable : it's the company's own forum, where people who like their work gathers. Even though, as SemiticGod said, plenty of regular and well liked people around here are very vocal about their displeasure.
My own comment about the possible explanation of the situation is not about protecting Beamdog. It's about understanding the situation. And, as Deltago showed, the rationale behind it all seems to make sense. Even though the whole situation at best shows a problem of communication.
It's easy to say that people deeply critical of Beamdog are a minority of hardcore isometric RPG players... but hardcore isometric RPG players are Beamdog's target audience.
Pretty much this. If you add the SoD controversy to the bundling of the games, you potentially turn off a lot of people. I don't know how savvy the bundling was commercially wise.
Beamdog will have my eternal gratitude for what they did with the Baldur's Gate saga. They truly will. However, I think much of the future of the company will ride on the success of their next game. And, because of all these controversies, it looks like an uphill battle.
All this just makes me really glad I bought my original versions of the game from GoG years ago. I can download clean installs at will, without having to find and input any codes anywhere.
From what I'm hearing here, it's still possible for new buyers to get the originals, but they have to buy the EE's with it and then figure out some tech problems. It sounds very inconvenient, so I feel bad for anyone who wants to play the originals and didn't buy clean copies before this brouhaha.
Thing I find annoying with beamdog is they don't accept responsibility for anything. Begging for positive reviews and blaming everyone but themselves for the all the issues SoD had at release.
I'm glad they can't find the source code for IWD 2 as then they can't mess that one up. But I'm sure the beamdog defence force can't see the harm they've done through those rose tinted glasses.
The forums are so biased towards the pro beamdog members too so it's even harder to get your point across.
@ThacoBell how is pointing out the huge amount of technical issues in all there games. The post made asking for positive reviews. The blame game on wotsc/gog. The lack of communication and when they do communicate it's the equivalent of the usual "turn it off and on again"
Claiming not to know about bugs yet they are mentioned years prior in the trouble shooting. Shall I continue?
@ThacoBell how is pointing out the huge amount of technical issues in all there games. The post made asking for positive reviews. The blame game on wotsc/gog. The lack of communication and when they do communicate it's the equivalent of the usual "turn it off and on again"
Claiming not to know about bugs yet they are mentioned years prior in the trouble shooting. Shall I continue?
1. They NEVER begged for positive reviews. They simply asked that people PLAY THE GAME before flaming it. Did you somehow miss the hundreds of flame filled reviews by people who never even looked at the game simply because they were told that a minor npc is trans? 2. Beamdog don't actually own the rights to the IP. WotC HAD to decide whether to allow the games to be bundled or not, Beamdog could not make that decision alone, AND GoG had to approve it as well. So no, all parties are responsible for that. 3. Do you have ANY proof that Beamdog is "not communicating" with the player base or that they are intentionally ignoring bugs?
I mean, you LITERALLY ranted in multiple forums that patches were never going to happen THE DAY PATCHES CAME OUT for IOS. On top of that Beamdog has specifically stated that the next round of patches are to bring the games to parity at 2.5 for EVERY PLATFORM. I mean, really? Do I need to go on?
Beamdog did not beg people for positive reviews. When large numbers of people decided--and this decision was made in public--to post negative reviews of the game on GoG despite never having played the game themselves, for the explicitly stated reason that they objected to the presence of a transgender character in SoD, Beamdog asked people who actually had played the game to post a review.
This has never been a secret. And this is why the SoD reviews on GoG are so much more negative than those on Steam: because people on Steam, unlike GoG, cannot post a review of a game unless they own the game.
The idea was to cancel out the reviews made by people who had never actually played the game, and who posted negative reviews simply for ideological reasons.
@Wesboi Beamdog has problems.. but what exactly is your point? You're on their forum.. We are fans of their games.. Are you trying to convince people to not like them and boycott the EEs? I don't like how their communication sucks. I thought it was weird and kind of desperate when Trent asked for positive reviews.. but the game itself is good. It got me to fall in love with the games so they are doing something right. I never would have played BG series if they hadn't made the EE versions. People aren't going to blindly agree with your criticism because you can just play the original and act like Beamdog doesn't exist if it matters that much. Instead some people like to complain about things that won't change.
And I don't find it surprising that people who post on the Beamdog forums tend to like Beamdog. People who don't like Beamdog, after all, would usually prefer to post elsewhere.
PST had a game breaking bug I posted about what made you absolutely invincible to everything. Got called out for bs. Did a forum search and someone else posted about the same bug happening. Great support there.
SOD had a lot of technical issues and the general writing and railroading is boring as hell even one of the writers admitted they write the way they want to and doesn't matter what people think. (Great way to capture the audience). That's even before that minor one npc controversial nonsense.
You can also forgot about the cross platform multiplayer they are ALL on different versions for all platforms and require sacrificing your first born. So that's false marketing.
IWD on android has huge graphical errors since the last update forum searches if u know how to do them will show they know about it just they dont give a toss.
PST had a game breaking bug I posted about what made you absolutely invincible to everything. Got called out for bs. Did a forum search and someone else posted about the same bug happening. Great support there.
I remember that post. The reaction you got was less about the bug report itself, but more because the first thing you said after reporting it was to blame the beta testing team for not doing much.
Also, failing to see that people actually like SoD and points its "flaws" as something objective and not something thay is merely about taste is along those lines. Not liking SoD is entirely legitimate, but moaning about it like it has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever is just a negative bias.
I think the reception you got has a lot more to do with attitude. Yes, a lot of your points are valid; the bugs you reported do exist. But, being strictly negative about everything a company does on their own forum is probably not best way to get the valid part of your concerns be eared.
PST had a game breaking bug I posted about what made you absolutely invincible to everything. Got called out for bs. Did a forum search and someone else posted about the same bug happening. Great support there.
SOD had a lot of technical issues and the general writing and railroading is boring as hell even one of the writers admitted they write the way they want to and doesn't matter what people think. (Great way to capture the audience). That's even before that minor one npc controversial nonsense.
You can also forgot about the cross platform multiplayer they are ALL on different versions for all platforms and require sacrificing your first born. So that's false marketing.
IWD on android has huge graphical errors since the last update forum searches if u know how to do them will show they know about it just they dont give a toss.
And Beamdog are working on more updates with *gasp* bugfixes! There is even a PUBLIC website to post bugs and see bug fix tickets. There is even already a bug fixing patch in the works for IWD. And again, ALL DEVICES are being brought to parity with version 2.5 for this patch cycle. Whoops, guess you forgot all that.
"The decision to take Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II, Icewind Dale, and most recently, Planescape: Torment from sale on GOG and bundle them with the Beamdog Enhanced Edition titles was a joint decision between the Beamdog and GOG leadership teams, just as it was when the GOG Definitive Edition Bundles were first announced."
And their justification was:
"We believe that bundling the old titles alongside their newer Enhanced Editions creates a value unique to GOG and allows for owners to enjoy the option of choosing to play the game as it was on release or the versions we have made available."
...which doesn't make any sense. GoG made money from selling the originals, so the whole "value unique to GoG" argument is questionable. Second, "the option of choosing to play the game as it was on release" was also there.
The only thing this bundle changes is that now you must pay Beamdog for the privilege of playing the originals.
So considering that and the fact the originals are no longer easy to find and buy but hidden behind a convoluted process which most players won't even find out about, I think it's safe to say that Beamdog has effectively replaced the original games with their versions.
Something not being available, and stores choosing not to stock it are very different things. The Beamdog store now only stocks Beamdog products, and GoG aren't going to stock anything they don't think they can make money off.
It would be more reasonable to grumble about the monopolistic control that a small number of retailers have over the games market. But you are actually complicit, by only considering the download market.
And remember, before Beamdog ond GoG, the only way to aquire any version of Baldur's Gate was to rummage through the old stock bins of high-street games shops. It's more unusual for something obsolete to be available, not for it to be unavailable. You will be complaining about not being able to buy betamax next.
Saying they are working on something doesn't meant it's gonna happen anytime soon. Even beamdog have said the way they communicate is rubbish and they need to work it. Even claimed they had a short time to patch iOS for 64bit support but 3 years isn't a short time by any means.
Saying they are working on something doesn't meant it's gonna happen anytime soon. Even beamdog have said the way they communicate is rubbish and they need to work it. Even claimed they had a short time to patch iOS for 64bit support but 3 years isn't a short time by any means.
Honest question. What is your goal? As stated earlier, you make good points. But when I see your screen name, my general thought is 'he's going to complain about beamdog.' I mean, are you hoping to make the company better at communicating? To get other people angry at them? To get people to not buy their games?
Only read the title. I dunno why people would want the original games, as they are either glitchy on modern computers or, more likely, won't work at all + BD did not really change anything other than changing the cut scenes, adding some benign NPC:s (that you do NOT need to recruit if you don't want to) and include the HD patch (which is, like, seriously people gonna complain about that? "No I like my scenery to be grainier").
With that said, I own the original games on CD. I figured their net worth about 0 dollars, I kept them only for nostalgia. But send me a ludicrous sum of money and you will be the proud new owner.
rose tinted glasses mostly. there are still people under the impression that the games are still as buggy a they were in 2012. besides one bug in tob where the solars final speech has to be played twice due to the final interjections not firing right the games are acually much better then the originals. also modders have moved on from the originals and mostly use the ee as they are easier to mod with.
I haven't encountered any game breaking bugs on the originals in a long time and they run just fine on newer pcs and windows versions for me. Only dvd/cd swapping comes into play with them. I have each game on dvd or Cd twice. They can be found in the discount sometimes and they can even be bought online still...
Obviously The EEs are different but beyond some new content, porting to new devices and extended mod support (great if you like them) they don't really bring much over the originals.
I haven't encountered any game breaking bugs on the originals in a long time and they run just fine on newer pcs and windows versions for me. Only dvd/cd swapping comes into play with them. I have each game on dvd or Cd twice. They can be found in the discount sometimes and they can even be bought online still...
Obviously The EEs are different but beyond some new content, porting to new devices and extended mod support (great if you like them) they don't really bring much over the originals.
Sorry, I can't agree with you here. The disc swapping and load times alone make the original unplayable to me. To each their own I guess.
I am considering purchasing the old gold box games though. I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach the no-mouse interface but I think it might be cool in a nostalgic sort of way. Perhaps that's the sort of feeling you have for the old BG...
I haven't encountered any game breaking bugs on the originals in a long time and they run just fine on newer pcs and windows versions for me. Only dvd/cd swapping comes into play with them. I have each game on dvd or Cd twice. They can be found in the discount sometimes and they can even be bought online still...
Obviously The EEs are different but beyond some new content, porting to new devices and extended mod support (great if you like them) they don't really bring much over the originals.
Sorry, I can't agree with you here. The disc swapping and load times alone make the original unplayable to me. To each their own I guess.
I am considering purchasing the old gold box games though. I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach the no-mouse interface but I think it might be cool in a nostalgic sort of way. Perhaps that's the sort of feeling you have for the old BG...
The Interface of the gold box games is quite elegant. I can easily work with it. Many early mouse interfaces were quite bad.
Comments
My own comment about the possible explanation of the situation is not about protecting Beamdog. It's about understanding the situation. And, as Deltago showed, the rationale behind it all seems to make sense. Even though the whole situation at best shows a problem of communication. Pretty much this. If you add the SoD controversy to the bundling of the games, you potentially turn off a lot of people. I don't know how savvy the bundling was commercially wise.
Beamdog will have my eternal gratitude for what they did with the Baldur's Gate saga. They truly will. However, I think much of the future of the company will ride on the success of their next game. And, because of all these controversies, it looks like an uphill battle.
From what I'm hearing here, it's still possible for new buyers to get the originals, but they have to buy the EE's with it and then figure out some tech problems. It sounds very inconvenient, so I feel bad for anyone who wants to play the originals and didn't buy clean copies before this brouhaha.
As i said in https://www.gog.com/forum/baldurs_gate_series/regarding_the_removal_of_the_original_ie_games_from_sale_on_gog/post23, I had been wrong about the subject and I apologize.
I'm glad they can't find the source code for IWD 2 as then they can't mess that one up. But I'm sure the beamdog defence force can't see the harm they've done through those rose tinted glasses.
The forums are so biased towards the pro beamdog members too so it's even harder to get your point across.
Claiming not to know about bugs yet they are mentioned years prior in the trouble shooting. Shall I continue?
2. Beamdog don't actually own the rights to the IP. WotC HAD to decide whether to allow the games to be bundled or not, Beamdog could not make that decision alone, AND GoG had to approve it as well. So no, all parties are responsible for that.
3. Do you have ANY proof that Beamdog is "not communicating" with the player base or that they are intentionally ignoring bugs?
I mean, you LITERALLY ranted in multiple forums that patches were never going to happen THE DAY PATCHES CAME OUT for IOS. On top of that Beamdog has specifically stated that the next round of patches are to bring the games to parity at 2.5 for EVERY PLATFORM. I mean, really? Do I need to go on?
This has never been a secret. And this is why the SoD reviews on GoG are so much more negative than those on Steam: because people on Steam, unlike GoG, cannot post a review of a game unless they own the game.
The idea was to cancel out the reviews made by people who had never actually played the game, and who posted negative reviews simply for ideological reasons.
SOD had a lot of technical issues and the general writing and railroading is boring as hell even one of the writers admitted they write the way they want to and doesn't matter what people think. (Great way to capture the audience). That's even before that minor one npc controversial nonsense.
You can also forgot about the cross platform multiplayer they are ALL on different versions for all platforms and require sacrificing your first born. So that's false marketing.
IWD on android has huge graphical errors since the last update forum searches if u know how to do them will show they know about it just they dont give a toss.
Also, failing to see that people actually like SoD and points its "flaws" as something objective and not something thay is merely about taste is along those lines. Not liking SoD is entirely legitimate, but moaning about it like it has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever is just a negative bias.
I think the reception you got has a lot more to do with attitude. Yes, a lot of your points are valid; the bugs you reported do exist. But, being strictly negative about everything a company does on their own forum is probably not best way to get the valid part of your concerns be eared.
It would be more reasonable to grumble about the monopolistic control that a small number of retailers have over the games market. But you are actually complicit, by only considering the download market.
And remember, before Beamdog ond GoG, the only way to aquire any version of Baldur's Gate was to rummage through the old stock bins of high-street games shops. It's more unusual for something obsolete to be available, not for it to be unavailable. You will be complaining about not being able to buy betamax next.
With that said, I own the original games on CD. I figured their net worth about 0 dollars, I kept them only for nostalgia. But send me a ludicrous sum of money and you will be the proud new owner.
Obviously The EEs are different but beyond some new content, porting to new devices and extended mod support (great if you like them) they don't really bring much over the originals.
I am considering purchasing the old gold box games though. I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach the no-mouse interface but I think it might be cool in a nostalgic sort of way. Perhaps that's the sort of feeling you have for the old BG...
These are the same kids who thought an lp record must be able to hold terabytes if songs, given the size