Why Are There So Many Updates And When Are They Going To Stop?
UnderstandMouseMagic
Member Posts: 2,147
So a bit of background first off. I didn't have a working PC when Beamdog released the EE and finally bought the 1.3 versions and still play them.
So it's a simple question, why when those versions were stable (as far as I can tell, they work well and I have managed to install mods), are there so many updates.
What's the point?
There have been so many threads/questions about bugs and always the answer is "write a bug report and post it here". But it's like they are neverending, more and more issues being raised everytime there's an update.
Also, why so many changes?
Who asked for the games to be made uniform with exploits and quirkyness eliminated.
If it doesn't crash, is it so important that everything works exactly the way it's described. So you end up with people trying to answer a question posted here and the constant refrain is "what version are you using" and "oh that was changed in version 3.14159" and "will this or that mod work with this or that version".
Seriously what's the point?
Wouldn't it be better if everybody was on the same page and enjoying the games rather than wondering if the next version was going to be bigger and better or smaller and worse?
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What are these bugs that are causing so many problems?
I don't disbelieve you, but where are they?
The only issue I have had is with Rasaad, Hexaat and Neera quests, which is new content. Which begs the question as to why old content is being parcelled as being problamatic and in need of fixing when it was new content that was bad.
As I said in the OP, my 1.3 versions don't seem to give me any problems.
My BG game is the one I downloaded from GOG years ago.
My BG2 1.3 was messed up with mods, but I don't think it was the game. And now I've rebought and downloaded the 1.3 from Steam and it's working fine, (Beamdog have had double money from me for them as well).
And I will admit, part of my irritation with the updates is not being able to reobtain a copy of the game I bought from GOG.
That's not right is it?
You buy something and are not allowed to have it replaced as you bought it.
It's literally been two years between this patch and the last. There's no way you're being as inconvenienced as all that.
When I played v1.3, I thought it was in a near-perfect state too. I was hesitant to even try v2.3. Then I played v2.3 and I realized that v2.3 is actually so much better that I'll never even think about going back to v1.3. Now I'm confident that v2.5 will be in an even better state.
The only downside is for the modders, as mentioned. It makes the modders' life harder. And I appreciate all their effort to keep the mods up to date too. It's a big effort from the community
Overall I think it is right to have a continuing process whereby users can flag up issues and have a chance for those to be amended, but I can understand why some people would prefer stability.
If you look at the V2.0 release notes, you'll see a lot of crash fixes. Here are a few examples:
* Dual-Classing a Berserker into a Mage no longer crashes the game or produces a blank spellbook
* Logging out at Character Arbitration will no longer crash the game
* The game will no longer crash when creating a full party in ToB
* BG:EE Tutorial will no longer crash just before Belt Teleports you to your final test/battle
* The game will no longer crash when traveling to Adoy’s enclave
* Game will no longer crash when loading a save where an injured enemy is leaving the area
You bought BG:EE not BG:EE 1.3. It's normal that if you download the game today, you get the latest version. Most (all?) the games I have on GoG or Steam only let you download the current version and not any version you want.
I think that the updates are an issue only for UI modding, but with the long patch cycles that shouldn't really be a problem.
Beamdog drops the ball every now and then, but the patches bring more joy than hate IMHO.
On top of that, it sounds like you use GOGGalaxy, the autoupdate-allInOneStoreApp GOG offers. It got an easy way to disable the autoupdates at all in general. On top of that, GOGGalaxy got rollback to earlier patch states. But as BGEE 1.3 is older then Galaxy, the oldest one you can rollback to is Patch 2.1.63.2, which is already years old.
Concerning your general question, well, they receive patches because there was and is still much work to do. Crashes and making modding easier was already mentioned. But it looks like 2.5 will be one of that last patches that focuses on such stuff. Personally I do think the interface is one of the biggest problems right now and the thing that should be addressed in upcoming patches- You can read the stuff I´ve written on that topic over here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/71864/roadmap-for-userinterface-enhancements-for-bg-and-iwd
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