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Beamdog's Tech support sucks worse than any game I have ever played.

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  • GeneralhavokGeneralhavok Member Posts: 11
    While I just created this post to vent my frustration, and still am. I must say this was a utter failure of a launch that can only be explained by either they were out of money and needed to launch now or go under, or they rushed it out to take advantage of Christmas. They my only be a team of 13 "Scrambling to fix issues" on a game that was not ready for customer purchase, but one of the 13 should have stood up and said, "Wait wait wait, we are not ready to put this out there." That being said I do give them credit for pushing it back to november the way they did. Hind Sight says it should have been pushed back to January or February.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    We have to take into account that every decision to push the release date has to be approved by both Atari and WoTC.
    They're not autonomous, it's a very difficult decision they're in, also they're between a rock and a hard place, if they decide to postpone, a shitload of fans of BG goes apeshit and accused them of everything from incompetent to lazy, and if they release with bugs, the same happens from another, (or maybe the same), set of fans.
    They just can't win.
  • WulfyWulfy Member Posts: 32
    While I hear your frustrations, Beamdog's support has actually been way more on top of this than most if not all the other new releases I've played. It also bears saying that the game's minimum requirements already rule out most of the systems experiencing issues.

    And now we have a new post announcing that some progress has been made on improving performance on the most problematic of chipsets and systems (including those already ruled out by min specs, as mentioned).

    That's pretty chuffing impressive, in my book, though as ever, your mileage may vary.

    Just my two cents.
  • praguepridepraguepride Member Posts: 7
    /nod. For an Indy company they seem to be working 24/7 to fix which is commendable.

    This community needs to take a giant step back and think before they continue posting.


    Seriously I want to track some of you down and print off your posts and show it to your friends & family so you realize just how stupid you sound. Feeling butt hurt? Go install the old version and quit whining.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    marfig said:

    Ignoring, being dismissed and bantering people that are showing their frustration isn't going to help anyone either.

    I'm still running the game on version 1.0.2005. I can't simply update. I'm justifiably upset and frustrated. Even more so at the lack of answers from support. But what motivation do I have to voice that frustration when all I see is a bunch of folks jumping at anyone doing so?

    There's an unbalance here. Don't think there isn't. I've seen someone accusing others of ruining these forums. I suggest you reevaluate your position too. A little more respect for those having SERIOUS problems with the game and who are upset, and like any normal human being, voice their frustration in an angry tone, is well due on these forums.

    I was all with you up to your last sentence where you lost me and many of the people on the forums.

    The fact is, you DO NOT have the right to voice your frustration "in an angry tone". Ever heard of the golden rule? Beamdog is not "due" your "angry tone" just because there are problems with your game.

    They ARE required to assist you with your issue or to refund your money. They ARE required to put forth their best efforts to assist you and others with their problems. They ARE NOT required to take crap from people who are upset.

    Abuse is NEVER something anyone is "required" to take. Your post here is a great post...you identify the problem, you identify you are upset, and yet you do so without some of the obnoxiousness and venom others have put forth.

    You are to be commended, and you have my sympathies for your lack of being able to play. Is there something going wrong that the community might be able to help you with while you're waiting on tech support?
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641

    While I just created this post to vent my frustration, and still am. I must say this was a utter failure of a launch that can only be explained by either they were out of money and needed to launch now or go under, or they rushed it out to take advantage of Christmas. They my only be a team of 13 "Scrambling to fix issues" on a game that was not ready for customer purchase, but one of the 13 should have stood up and said, "Wait wait wait, we are not ready to put this out there." That being said I do give them credit for pushing it back to november the way they did. Hind Sight says it should have been pushed back to January or February.

    You make the assumption that they KNEW about these issues.

    I know, I know, how the hell could they NOT know about issues like this if they tested the game, right?

    The number of people posting problem reports on this forum are relatively small compared to the number of people actually downloading and playing the game without problems. That's always how it works...the release looks like a complete fiasco because the only people ON the forums are those who are having problems...the rest are playing the game.

    Hardware incompatibility issues are tricky to diagnose and catch...first and foremost you have to HAVE the hardware that's incompatible to be able to catch the issue...then you have to have whatever is TRIGGERING the hardware issue.

    The fact is, QA departments don't tend to have a wide variety of hardware on which to test. They don't have a win XP, win 7, and vista machine both of 64 and 32 bits each with one of each kind of NVidia, ATI and Intel Graphics card out there.

    The failure was lack of an open beta test with a wide variety of beta testers...that's the ONLY way they could have resolved what has been a pretty horrendous windows release. It probably SHOULD have occurred to someone at Beamdog that bringing a game from the 1990's up to 2012 specs was going to be a challenge in the compatibility department...and that they needed a VERY WIDE test base to catch incompatibility issues.

    The more likely explanation is NOT incompetence or greed, the more likely explanation is not enough broad based testing. I'm guessing they simply didn't KNOW they were going to run into problems like this.

    --Illydth
  • karrickkarrick Member Posts: 40
    I think that i have the right to be butt hurt - Ive been excited about this game for a while!

    I put with the delayed release as i reasoned that it would make it a better game.

    I paid for this game friday morning.

    Its now tuesday evening. SInce then i have played less than 20 minutes of game play, and wasted HOURS reading forums, updating drivers, deleting and re installing.

    Ive tried all the work arounds, and my system smashes the minimum requirements for everything new on the market.

    Why im pissed off is that the game appeared to work pre patch! I stopped playing when i finally got it working with work abouts to install the patch thinking that it'll fix everything, when clearly it doesnt.

    Whats more, there was no one on the forums, here or beamdog till late sunday.

    So get off your stupid moral high horse, and understand why people are fed up. If this was battlefield or any other major title not working for 5 days, you'd be demanding refunds, vowing never to use their games again blah blah.

    The simple truth is, whilst we respect an indy developer for doing what they are doing, they still should have taken the time to test things a little more thoroughly.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    Don't know if you're responding to my post or not but I never said you don't have the right to be Butt-hurt...that opinion (no right to be butt-hurt) is one I hold for us iPad users waiting for our copy...not ready is not ready, and after the fiasco you poor windows users are going through I would think the folks in the iPad forums would be careful what they ask for.

    Anyway, I never said you didn't have a right to be annoyed or pissed off. I Did, however, state (and I firmly believe) that your pissedoffedness (new word!) does NOT entitle you, as a forum denizen, to be an arse hole.

    I don't see as you are being an arse hole with your post, so it wasn't directed at you...but many of your colleague denizens are being COMPLETE north bound ends of south bound horses about this and, frankly, it's embarrassing. A little decorum might be in order, even IF this has been a bit (or a lot) of a fiasco of a release and even IF things aren't working as well as we'd all like right now. Most of us here are adults waiting on a game we played as younger adults and loved the first time around. I'd think most of us have experienced a disappointment or two in our lifetimes and have enough perspective to understand that really, this is a pretty minor issue.

    It never ceases to amaze me at people saying things like "I've been playing BG for 10 years now and was so excited when I heard a new version was coming out that I gave them like $200 for 10 copies just in case 9 of my copies wore out over time 3 years ago...and I'm SO PISSED OFF because I haven't been able to play for like 3 days now!"

    You'd think a black clad Beamdog employee had personally come around to everyone's house and put a bullet in the head of the family pet, made yo'mamma jokes in front of Grandma and leered lecherously at our daughters before flipping us the bird as they walked off with the way we're treating this.

    "If this was battlefield or any other major title not working for 5 days, you'd be demanding refunds, vowing never to use their games again blah blah."

    LOL, if this were battlefield or any other major title there'd be about 500x more people bitching their heads off and at the end of the day it'd amount to the same thing...

    2 weeks from now everyone would be playing battlefield (as they will BG:EE), the complaints will be non-existent, most of those who threw up their hands and stormed off after stomping their feet and having a public hissy fit will turn around and buy the game back again so they can play, and the next time you'd hear about how horrible the battlefield release was would be when battlefield 2 came out and everyone started pre-release complaining about how horrible it's gonna be.

    The only difference is that in the case of Beamdog I suspect with BG2:EE we won't see this horrible a release whereas with the major gaming company you can almost GUARANTEE their next release will be JUST as bad as the first.

    And people will STILL buy the next release, and the next one after that, and the one after that.

    Because we're Americans...and no amount of being bent over and screwed up the butt ever stops us from taking it and obviously enjoying taking it...if it did we'd have fixed our political system decades ago. :)

    Gamers have such short term memories. If you've already put in for your refund and are bound and determined never to purchase BG:EE for any platform due to this problem, you, sir, have my backing. Be free and congratulate yourself on not being a sheep.

    But you haven't. Nor has anyone else on here bitching and complaining about how stupid and incompetent Beamdog is. As i've said before, at the end of the day the following IS going to happen:

    * The software WILL get fixed to work for a majority or more of players.
    * All the trolls on the forums with their "OMG This company SUCKS! I want my money back!" posts are going to roll over and pay their money (again) for a copy of the game.
    * The entire incident will be forgotten within a month, only to resurface when BG2:EE's release dates are announced and some smart ass posts the first "oh sure, remember BG:EE?" comment.

    All of this will come to pass. It always does. It never fails.

    --Illydth
  • elfuegoelfuego Member Posts: 28
    ...and yet again I will spam the forum and state that - if you absolutely cannot wait for a fix, do yourself a favour, install linux + wine and play the game. It works 100%, even on "unsupported" intel video cards :)
  • GeneralhavokGeneralhavok Member Posts: 11
    @Illydth

    I can accept your position that this issue was due to a lack of Beta. And they prob should have done a beta with anyone who pre-ordered. And that can go back to why didn't they, as someone else mentioned, Atari is involved and may have had a direct impacted with the decision.

    Truthfully I'm more upset with the support response on their support website. One response a day is no way to solve technical difficulties. I was shocked to see a second response yesterday until I read it. All it said was some day this week a patch will be coming out that MIGHT fix my issue, and to let them know if it didn't. So basically they are saying we are not doing any more troubleshooting until sometime later this week, but no actual date/time.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641

    @Illydth

    I can accept your position that this issue was due to a lack of Beta. And they prob should have done a beta with anyone who pre-ordered. And that can go back to why didn't they, as someone else mentioned, Atari is involved and may have had a direct impacted with the decision.

    Truthfully I'm more upset with the support response on their support website. One response a day is no way to solve technical difficulties. I was shocked to see a second response yesterday until I read it. All it said was some day this week a patch will be coming out that MIGHT fix my issue, and to let them know if it didn't. So basically they are saying we are not doing any more troubleshooting until sometime later this week, but no actual date/time.

    THAT, I have to agree with you Havok, is crap. And, unfortunately, not surprising.

    This isn't intended to be an excuse or defense on Beamdog's part, because it's not. That said, before you get too upset about the tech support you're receiving look at what you're asking to be supported by.

    It's no secret that this project was started by a few guys out of the original Black Isles development team for BG and others. It's no secret that they had a shoestring budget, shoestring staff, and are doing this mostly as an independent development effort with about the same staff and backing as what most mid sized open source projects get.

    We've known this for a long time. They've not been secretive about Beamdog being a small company and it's been well commented on over the months/years that this has been in development.

    As an open source software administrator (not sure what to call myself, I have my own open source effort), I can tell you that all works perfectly for a small number of developers to develop software...up to the point where you then have to SUPPORT that software.

    While it's been nice and great to have this game developed by these guys, they didn't plan for this. No surprise, game developers aren't logistics people...when they were working for Black Isle studios and/or Bioware and in whatever they've been doing since they took up this project, issues like QA and Support were likely always handled outside their department...the logistics of SUPPORTING a released piece of software is vastly different than developing it to begin with.

    So when the fit hit the shan last week and the Windows release went to the toilet (and it did), this left Beamdog in a real problem. How do the Beamdog employees manage to answer support issues, continue development on patches and bug fixes, and push down new/continued development on other platforms like iPad and Mac OS X all with the same staff and same timelines as they used to simply DEVELOP the software?

    They never accounted for this kind of release problem. They don't have the staff to handle this kind of release problem.

    The e-mails you're receiving back on your issue aren't from some "support department", they're very likely from one of the junior developers on the team who is being tasked with bug fixing on the iPad to get it submitted to Apple so the iPad folks get of the team's ass, bug fixing the fiasco of a release of the windows software to get the windows users actually able to USE the software in their hands, continued QA and BugFixing (because I'm betting they don't have a QA department either), and here's your e-mail and the emails of probably 4 - 500 other people filling up his inbox at a rate of about 100 an hour, each with their own questions and lack of information that this guy or these guys have to go through and weed out.

    The one thing that a small development company CANNOT AFFORD is a bad launch...not because they'll lose money and respect as a company but because they simply DO NOT have the staff to handle it.

    Is it any wonder, then, that their pat answer to your e-mail is "Patch this week, please wait and see..."

    --Illydth
  • NorableNorable Member Posts: 1
    Can't believe what I'm reading in this forum: "lack of Beta, Beamdog is not an AAA Company, would they have pushed back some people would have complained.
    Just wait, all will get fixed eventually... at least by some modders."
    Really? Just swallow it all, is the advice? If you order a steak (medium) in a restaurant and get an unroasted, bloody piece of meat, you have every right to tell them, that this is not what you ordered. Even if you just wait for them to fix it afterwards.
    Beamdog isn't AAA and i respect that they have private life and propaply work more then 12 hours/day, but that doesn't excuse anything! Maybe they are just a bunch of programmers and not logistics people, but this is the point in the end isn't it? The core problem is not the support, but the state of the product they've programmed.
    First of all they had a game that is over ten years old! It is not, as if they had to do everything from scretch an on their on. They even pushed it back 3 months and most people didn't complain. Why would they? They waited long and were willing to wait even longer.
    But if this isn't enough to release a product that works, than thats a big disappointment. AAA or just B Company. And there really is no excuse! And you shouldn't make any for them. But maybe they should apologize to the fanbase, who supported them.
    They take money for it. Unlike modders who make it for free. For me thats the difference. And the reason to be upset.
    To release a game (that was finished over 10 years ago!) in this state and tell customers nearly on the day of release, that "by the way Intel Graphic chips won't work, but good luck with that", is offensive to me. I bought this game so i could take with me and play it on the train, like with the old one.
    And the point is not, that "I've played the old one for ten years, but can't play the new one for 3 days." The point is, this got released as a finished product, which it is not! (At least at this moment.) And it propaply wouldn't have to be this way. The fact that they work 24/7 to fix the problems and can't help everyone at once is respectable and understandable, but does not change the fact, that their product was released in this state.

    And contrary to the upper posters, I think its natural to tell them, that I'm angry. As long as it does not get personal.
    Nor

    edit:
    PS: I know that debugging, new graphic etc. is a lot of work, and i assume Atari etc. weren't really helpfull in that regard.
    PPS:I bought this game more than once. It works at least on my desktop- PC. And like Illydth said, I am one of these, who are (hopefully not) dumb enough, not to ask for a refund. I am such a big fan of the games, that I will wait a few months and see where BD gets the project. And I will buy BG2:EE, if it comes. I just love the series. But how the rerelease started is sad.
    And i can understand everyone, who is dissapointed not to get his moneys worth on an official relase. And anyone, who wants to express his anger here. They have ervery right to do this in a civil manner.
    Besides that i wish BD the best of luck and hope that the next patch fixes everything and like Illydth said: "The entire incident will be forgotten within a month."
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