So-called "Pre-download" was totally worthless
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Well, I have very mixed feelings about this. I was so in support of this project.
As of 10:00 p.m. MST, I am nowhere near even getting to start the game. I FINALLY got the authentication to start, after restarting my computer. (Nobody said, anywhere, anytime, that I would need to do that.)
So, the final authentication has started, and after about 10 minutes, the Beamdog client says that it is about 3 percent finished. As in, I need to go to bed, and hold onto a slim HOPE that it might be done by tomorrow morning.
I'm pretty mad at this point. And I was one of the project's biggest supporters. I shudder to think what other buyers-in who were less unconditionally supportive might be thinking.
I'm afraid that I am seeing a Diablo 3 level fail at this point. My current opinion is borne out by the dozens of topics appearing like wildfire complaining about the game stability, from the few people who can actually play on the "release date". Uh-huh.
What would placate me now? An explanation and an apology from the devs, for starters. And, hopefully, this explanation and apology would go along the lines of "Dear supporters, we never in our wildest dreams anticipated the amount of traffic we would have on our servers when we first attempted to release this game..." That would be a good start.
Diablo 3 fans never got that much from Blizzard. Right now, it really pains me to say that the BG:EE devs are looking an awful lot like the Blizzard people.
I hope that, if there are replies to this thread and this post, and that it is not pushed to page 15 or so of the forums by tomorrow morning, as I anticipate, that I will be able to come back to this thread and say "okay, I regret posting this, because the game did come out as promised within a day or two, and it was awesome." But, I have a sinking feeling that I am not going to be able to say this.
As of 10:00 p.m. MST, I am nowhere near even getting to start the game. I FINALLY got the authentication to start, after restarting my computer. (Nobody said, anywhere, anytime, that I would need to do that.)
So, the final authentication has started, and after about 10 minutes, the Beamdog client says that it is about 3 percent finished. As in, I need to go to bed, and hold onto a slim HOPE that it might be done by tomorrow morning.
I'm pretty mad at this point. And I was one of the project's biggest supporters. I shudder to think what other buyers-in who were less unconditionally supportive might be thinking.
I'm afraid that I am seeing a Diablo 3 level fail at this point. My current opinion is borne out by the dozens of topics appearing like wildfire complaining about the game stability, from the few people who can actually play on the "release date". Uh-huh.
What would placate me now? An explanation and an apology from the devs, for starters. And, hopefully, this explanation and apology would go along the lines of "Dear supporters, we never in our wildest dreams anticipated the amount of traffic we would have on our servers when we first attempted to release this game..." That would be a good start.
Diablo 3 fans never got that much from Blizzard. Right now, it really pains me to say that the BG:EE devs are looking an awful lot like the Blizzard people.
I hope that, if there are replies to this thread and this post, and that it is not pushed to page 15 or so of the forums by tomorrow morning, as I anticipate, that I will be able to come back to this thread and say "okay, I regret posting this, because the game did come out as promised within a day or two, and it was awesome." But, I have a sinking feeling that I am not going to be able to say this.
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Comments
I know I'm not an official member of the development team, but I do apologize for what you (and many others) have gone through so far. All I can say is that the developers are working hard to figure out where the current problems are coming from (all bets are currently on "exploding servers" as the culprit), and I hope that it gets resolved soon.
Technically speaking, pre-orders weren't more expensive. In fact, most pre-ordered games don't actually give you anything for being there early.
I like to believe that many BG fans are now at the stage of adulthood, and that adults can wait.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/7579/regarding-slow-downloads-stuck-in-pre-loading-etc#latest
I'm sorry ti isn't working. It is for me.
Good luck in the future where everything you want happens the way you want it to always.
Also, the only bug that I've ran into so far is Khalid trying to Hide in Shadow. I honestly started laughing at that.
login Beamdog website and use the above link to download it
much faster than use launcher..
You are right to expect to be able to play on the release date. But it's also true that they are a small company with lotsa customers. Patience is the key here. Not because it's not OK to complain. It is.
Unless, perhaps, there are people out there who did not pre-order, and who now hopelessly face an impossible situation with downloading the 1.8 gigs for the next several days. In which case, if one of those people would care to chime in, I may retract my statement and give the apology I promised.
Not to mention that the reason the boards seem rife with people having computer issues is because those are the ones who will take the time to post. People whose games are running well are going to be too busy playing.
And as far as the servers struggling to keep up, what would you expect? It just really doesn't make sense for Beamdog to spend oodles of money beefing up their infrastructure just to handle a demand that will only last for a couple of days I think you're over-reacting here. I mean so far all that has happened to you is that you have been delayed by playing for one day. It's not the end of the world. Also, if you're leaving, can I have your time machine? Because as of the time I'm writing this, it's just after 7:00 PM MST.
And yes, friend, you may have my time machine. A word of caution though - it does the opposite of what you tell it. If you try to go back in time, you will wind up in the future. Caveat emptor.
Anyway, I said in another thread I'm a little disappointed I had to download anything at all, and this slowly, given that I preordered and preloaded, but I just did something else while I waited. Preloading DID help you because you did not have to download 1.8 GB today.
its alrite to be disappointed, but it's their first game launching really. It will have troubles.
Even Blizzard had error 37 with D3 at the start, I was !^(*$&@#.
it's not the old "insert CD/DVD then install" anymore for games.
"cloud systems"/file downloading/user verification, these things adds more problems to the games.
its convenience that we can download game, but there are more problems to deal with.
just give them time :P
It was pretty painless. I started playing the game with a fighter and bought some armor, a helmet, a long sword, the biggest shield I could find...and then went off to kill someone.
Which...maybe I was just stupid in 1998...but was the Candlekeep Inn always that well stocked? I don't remember wandering the town armed to the teeth before. But maybe I just wasn't playing a fighter. Oh well!
Please stop comparing these guys to Blizzard. I mean I'm sure they would love to have the bagillions of dollars the Blizzard has. However so far I do not see delays as crazy as Blizzard, and technically isn't this their first game? This game's only failure seems to be in taking us back to the 1998 where gamers still had patience and weren't always so upset all the time.
Excitement is good. But keep playing, bro. And keep loving games that deserve treatment such as this. Don't be disappointed by a few hiccups. Think of it this way...NO ONE has gone out of their way to try to modernize a classic game like this since the game was released. Oh sure you had some mods and stuff. But I'm talking about the entire game revamped and ready to go without needless installations and files being tossed all over the place in your original game installation from back in the day (OH NO THIS MOD ISN'T COMPATIBILE WITH ANOTHER? AIM FOR THE EYES!)
So if you can't play it yet, I'm sorry. But it'll be there and it'll be awesome at some point. And then you'll be able to buttkick for goodness.
I once asked a game dev why his company didn't have a stronger presence online, to listen to what forumers say. His answer was "if we did, we would've killed ourselves."
Passion is understandable, but all this lynching and complaining and waiting and yelling is just an annoying dance. It doesn't have anything to do with Battle.net - internet forums, YouTube comments, reddit posts are just a testament of human nature.
I just believe it is better to not dance at all. (And I say this with no hostility whatsoever)
I fixed my issue in 15 minutes... and I was pretty slow about it (interwebs distractions).
I was surprised that this community shared their helpful insights to working around OpenGL's asshattery... I think when Overhaul sought support from Intel or whatever, their heartfelt response was "Play a DirectX game."
Thanks, Intel.
Meanwhile, the devs are working like crazy to resolve this, and everyone - devs and users - shared their fixes. Pretty fast response imho.
This really is a great community, and ranks among one of the FRIENDLIEST that I've visited throughout my life.
Compared to arrogant ass tards like Blizzard, Trent and his Beamdog development team are simply angels. They only have 12 ppl (it appears as in the game credits) and they are trying to resolve the download issues anyway they can for $20 per person