Yeah, and yours got a ton of Agrees, so I can see why @belgarathmth felt ganged up on. I agree with the rest of your current post, but maybe you should've taken your own advice and "not danced" instead of personally attacking him up there. Notice how he never badmouthed the devs even though he was angry about the product.
@belgarathmth I can understand your frustration, but don't leave yet! It's only day 1. This the worst time ever for their servers, and the devs are working overtime to fix problems. I know I'm just one person, but I'm downloading the release version from scratch right now, just using the installer link I got from the e-mail with no fancy tricks. I'm getting decent speeds and should be done in a few hours. I'll tell you how it goes. And if it doesn't work, I'll tell the devs.
@Jalily, thank you for your kind words. I actually did get the game to work about an hour ago, although I haven't played it much yet, since (LOL) I also decided to start whining about the fact that the zoom feature is inaccessible to anyone with a non-standard, customizable mouse, in another thread.
I am not even close to leaving or stopping my support of BG:EE. Also, as for the "mean people" that I'm sure we will attract for a time, all that negativity will doubtless die down in a few weeks, including my own.
I've seen this same thing happen over at the Runic forums when Torchlight 2 was released a couple of weeks ago. There was a well-established community who were all friends, and very comfortable talking to each other, and then, when the game first got released, there was major chaos and disruption, with even old friends getting cross with each other, and then it all settled back down into the status quo.
Yup. I guess I was under a Chaos spell when I started this thread, and the other one too. (Although, I did want some reassurance that my zoom peeve was at least being looked at.)
So, please forgive the venting, (hullo - I failed my save vs. Chaos! I cannot be held responsible for my actions!), and, I'm sure this thread will die a quick death to the dreaded "Push to Page Two" spell.
I don't know what kind of fanboys here are defending a simple consumer situation. Adults understand that if company takes your money and gives you a date and time when you will get your prementioned goods, it is not ok by any means that you won't get it when you were promised.
And it is different thing then ordering a car for example, this is digital product, ease of transfer is ridiculous, i have absolutely no idea why they would do this kind of a decision, a relatively big download to open a product that you have already paid for and expecting to work at certain time.
I am not that addicted to games, so i just went to sleep as i saw clearly what is happening, reminded me about my days in WoW, lot of promises about release dates and when it happens the company is "soooo amazed" about the traffic, like they didn't know from the amount of pre-orders how big the traffic is going to be.
It is not frigging rocket surgery. Count the amount of orders and multiply by amount you planned of people downloading upon release. That's the amount your servers are going to push out of their respective arses.
Then just consider what kind of bandwidth you have, limit the user bandwidth accordingly, but get at least the hardware to do so.
This is not just a BGEE issue, this thing happens all the time when something relatively popular is beeing released this kind of way.
Why don't companies learn from their mistakes, it is not like they are secrets, ask any true online pc gamer and they will tell you "this one time at band camp..."
@Gaius, I kind of agree with most if not all of your points. However, I have calmed down quite a bit at this point. (That is, the Chaos spell that took me has worn off.)
To address your points, I think that the gaming companies do this sort of thing, because they know from experience that no matter how they try to prepare their servers, various crashes are going to happen on release day.
There will be a blizzard (no pun) of complaints in their forums.
But, after the storm passes, they get their product settled down into at least a first phase of stability, and their forums quiet down, and, in the aftermath of the storm, they have still made a tidy profit.
So, they go into the whole enterprise expecting this phenomenon, and they have toughened their egos and emotions to withstand it.
I anticipate that I will have many more whines in the days to come, but that I will also be seen in the forums defending this great game, and the devs who have tried to resurrect it.
(wink): I still think they should have bound that zoom in/zoom out to something on the keyboard, though...
Yup. I guess I was under a Chaos spell when I started this thread, and the other one too. (Although, I did want some reassurance that my zoom peeve was at least being looked at.)
So, please forgive the venting, (hullo - I failed my save vs. Chaos! I cannot be held responsible for my actions!), and, I'm sure this thread will die a quick death to the dreaded "Push to Page Two" spell.
Don't worry, anyone can fail a saving throw. Heck, someone obviously cast Insect Plague on Overhaul, and just look at the state of things...
@Jalily well, you can't blame me for that. I just posted a small rant out of disappointment in response to a bigger one. Just a displeased neighbour ! But you're right, I should not have participated to begin with. I apologize for my irrational behaviour.
@Belgarathmth Regardless of your frustrations, you also have been a member of this community for awhile. I mean you're over 600 posts. If you aren't a n00b, like I am, I would suspect that your complaints have a bit more merit.
I see the point in people creating an account to complain, but at the same time, I also don't. If your posting count is 1...and your first post is a complaint and a lecture about how a company needs to do its business, and various other things...I'm sort of uncertain about the purpose of the post. I've seen it before in the Telltale forums when people were creating posts just to complain about how they missed their estimate of one episode a month. The people that defended TellTale for a quality product were attacked for being fanboys. Whereas the people that were legitimately upset about the product not arriving to either their expectations or the ones originally established by TellTale were attacked for being unreasonable.
No one was really happy. But I agree...it seems like every significant release of a game ends up having issues on day one because of popularity. That is the price of success. I remember purchasing Diablo 2 when it was first released and I couldn't get into multiplayer because of how many people clogged the servers. So I just played the single player game and was quite happy with that until things calmed down.
From a community perspective...I wonder how many people create accounts just to further complain because they're so upset by the system. But I also realize that people do have genuine reasons to complain if they can't download a game they bought. They're excited and they want to play. And they should play.
But in this era of Steam, Impulse, Origin, Beamdog, etc I don't think a 1.8gb game download is large by any means. Steam deals with new releases all the time. They know how to deal with a massive game release. They also have the means to conquer it as well. Then again they had issues when HL2 was released. They too had their moment when things went bad. Beamdog is kind of in the beginning stages too isn't it? I don't even think Beamdog has a bunch of AAA games for sale, but I never really paid much attention to it until BG: EE.
So you just have to understand that when you have a much smaller company of people, you kinda have to be a bit more patient. The difference is that they actually listen to the community. They care because they have to. Blizzard is going to make a bagillion dollars on a game because it has WARCRAFT/STARCRAFT/DIABLO on its cover and those mere words on a box are going to sell their game. Bioware goes and releases a game and everyone is like, "ZOMG!!!! IT WILL HOPEFULLY NOT BE AS BAD AS DA:2 OR MASS EFFECT 3'S ENDING (TROLL ALERT! BEEP BEEP) BUT I WILL STILL BUY IT ANYWAY!"
Then you get Overhaul Games. Oh sweet Jesus! You gotta buy that right? Nah cause you don't know who they are. And as hurtful to some of us as it may be, a lot of people probably have no idea what Baldur's Gate is. So they need this to succeed. And that's important to us. Because you better believe that they're gonna work their butts off to fix any discrepancies and issues. When it's a company that throws everything on the table...the consumer benefits.
I just think people need to learn how to keep there computer in good condition. I had no issue with downloading the game, and no issues with game crashes, or errors. Its easy to blame the developer for peoples crappy computers.
I wince everyime I see the world descending further and further into the realm of impatience and self-entitlement.
Back in 1998 when I originally purchased BG, the game didn't run out of the box. It took more tweaking than it did today to get it somewhat running on my machine back then (Pentium 166). It wasn't until my P2 266 arrived that I was really able to enjoy it... forums? technical support? Non-existent
Yes, in some cases things have gotten worse. Trying to play any Steam game at release hour (almost always midnight) is an exercise in futility and a good way to lose a night's sleep. Trying to play an MMO on expansion pack day is similarly just not doable. So much for technology making life easier, eh? But in this case the devs DO seem to be taking it seriously and are working hard to resolve the issues.
As an engineer by day and a game developer at night, I have to say game developers get the short end of the stick. I much prefer game development as a hobby... because while the things I design during the day can kill large quantities of people if I screw up, more vitrolic hate is spewed at night over the harmless gamesstuff we develop.
Funny how that works. As long the problems get resolved quickly and BG2 stands some chance of being updated as well, I'll be a happy camper.
The moment you used the word entitlement you lost my support for any argument you were making.
Im sympathetic to game developers and all, no job worth doing is easy, but shit, if you pay for something, you deserve to get what it says on the tin. Complaining when you dont get it doesn't make you spoiled, it makes you a normal consumer, just like every other industry.
Yes, but games, especially PC games aren't exactly a brand new toaster that you are buying that you can just plug something in and insert toast and get the result you expect. Computers are drastically different in terms of operating system, hardware, software, and compatibility.
There are a lot of factors. You will never have the perfect game. I'm not saying you don't have the right to expect the product to work perfectly. However I think that if you buy any PC game, you should buy it knowing that there is the possibility that you might have problems from the get go.
Now there are some games that launch that are a POS right out the door. They just don't work. Period. I get that...those are bad. This isn't exactly one of those games. And the company will fix the problems. I know no one that is frustrated wants to hear the p word...but it's the company that isn't willing to deal with the issue that is a failure. The game has been out for a day. I'm sure they'll get that fixed soon.
Or...you know...it could be like Skyrim DLC for the PS3. But I doubt it.
We're not asking for a perfect game, we're asking for a working game. Plenty of working games, the fact that people have screwed up in the past doesn't mean we should accept it now.
Video games aren't a special case, they should be treated like all other industries, fanboyism might make them (game developers) feel better, but it'll hurt us all in the long run because it sets a lower standard
Comments
@belgarathmth I can understand your frustration, but don't leave yet! It's only day 1. This the worst time ever for their servers, and the devs are working overtime to fix problems. I know I'm just one person, but I'm downloading the release version from scratch right now, just using the installer link I got from the e-mail with no fancy tricks. I'm getting decent speeds and should be done in a few hours. I'll tell you how it goes. And if it doesn't work, I'll tell the devs.
I am not even close to leaving or stopping my support of BG:EE. Also, as for the "mean people" that I'm sure we will attract for a time, all that negativity will doubtless die down in a few weeks, including my own.
I've seen this same thing happen over at the Runic forums when Torchlight 2 was released a couple of weeks ago. There was a well-established community who were all friends, and very comfortable talking to each other, and then, when the game first got released, there was major chaos and disruption, with even old friends getting cross with each other, and then it all settled back down into the status quo.
So, please forgive the venting, (hullo - I failed my save vs. Chaos! I cannot be held responsible for my actions!), and, I'm sure this thread will die a quick death to the dreaded "Push to Page Two" spell.
And it is different thing then ordering a car for example, this is digital product, ease of transfer is ridiculous, i have absolutely no idea why they would do this kind of a decision, a relatively big download to open a product that you have already paid for and expecting to work at certain time.
I am not that addicted to games, so i just went to sleep as i saw clearly what is happening, reminded me about my days in WoW, lot of promises about release dates and when it happens the company is "soooo amazed" about the traffic, like they didn't know from the amount of pre-orders how big the traffic is going to be.
It is not frigging rocket surgery. Count the amount of orders and multiply by amount you planned of people downloading upon release. That's the amount your servers are going to push out of their respective arses.
Then just consider what kind of bandwidth you have, limit the user bandwidth accordingly, but get at least the hardware to do so.
This is not just a BGEE issue, this thing happens all the time when something relatively popular is beeing released this kind of way.
Why don't companies learn from their mistakes, it is not like they are secrets, ask any true online pc gamer and they will tell you "this one time at band camp..."
To address your points, I think that the gaming companies do this sort of thing, because they know from experience that no matter how they try to prepare their servers, various crashes are going to happen on release day.
There will be a blizzard (no pun) of complaints in their forums.
But, after the storm passes, they get their product settled down into at least a first phase of stability, and their forums quiet down, and, in the aftermath of the storm, they have still made a tidy profit.
So, they go into the whole enterprise expecting this phenomenon, and they have toughened their egos and emotions to withstand it.
I anticipate that I will have many more whines in the days to come, but that I will also be seen in the forums defending this great game, and the devs who have tried to resurrect it.
(wink): I still think they should have bound that zoom in/zoom out to something on the keyboard, though...
But you're right, I should not have participated to begin with. I apologize for my irrational behaviour.
I see the point in people creating an account to complain, but at the same time, I also don't. If your posting count is 1...and your first post is a complaint and a lecture about how a company needs to do its business, and various other things...I'm sort of uncertain about the purpose of the post. I've seen it before in the Telltale forums when people were creating posts just to complain about how they missed their estimate of one episode a month. The people that defended TellTale for a quality product were attacked for being fanboys. Whereas the people that were legitimately upset about the product not arriving to either their expectations or the ones originally established by TellTale were attacked for being unreasonable.
No one was really happy. But I agree...it seems like every significant release of a game ends up having issues on day one because of popularity. That is the price of success. I remember purchasing Diablo 2 when it was first released and I couldn't get into multiplayer because of how many people clogged the servers. So I just played the single player game and was quite happy with that until things calmed down.
From a community perspective...I wonder how many people create accounts just to further complain because they're so upset by the system. But I also realize that people do have genuine reasons to complain if they can't download a game they bought. They're excited and they want to play. And they should play.
But in this era of Steam, Impulse, Origin, Beamdog, etc I don't think a 1.8gb game download is large by any means. Steam deals with new releases all the time. They know how to deal with a massive game release. They also have the means to conquer it as well. Then again they had issues when HL2 was released. They too had their moment when things went bad. Beamdog is kind of in the beginning stages too isn't it? I don't even think Beamdog has a bunch of AAA games for sale, but I never really paid much attention to it until BG: EE.
So you just have to understand that when you have a much smaller company of people, you kinda have to be a bit more patient. The difference is that they actually listen to the community. They care because they have to. Blizzard is going to make a bagillion dollars on a game because it has WARCRAFT/STARCRAFT/DIABLO on its cover and those mere words on a box are going to sell their game. Bioware goes and releases a game and everyone is like, "ZOMG!!!! IT WILL HOPEFULLY NOT BE AS BAD AS DA:2 OR MASS EFFECT 3'S ENDING (TROLL ALERT! BEEP BEEP) BUT I WILL STILL BUY IT ANYWAY!"
Then you get Overhaul Games. Oh sweet Jesus! You gotta buy that right? Nah cause you don't know who they are. And as hurtful to some of us as it may be, a lot of people probably have no idea what Baldur's Gate is. So they need this to succeed. And that's important to us. Because you better believe that they're gonna work their butts off to fix any discrepancies and issues. When it's a company that throws everything on the table...the consumer benefits.
I'm currently unable to play because if I click on anything in my inventory I lose my mouse. Fun.
Time for more...experiments.
:P
Back in 1998 when I originally purchased BG, the game didn't run out of the box. It took more tweaking than it did today to get it somewhat running on my machine back then (Pentium 166). It wasn't until my P2 266 arrived that I was really able to enjoy it... forums? technical support? Non-existent
Yes, in some cases things have gotten worse. Trying to play any Steam game at release hour (almost always midnight) is an exercise in futility and a good way to lose a night's sleep. Trying to play an MMO on expansion pack day is similarly just not doable. So much for technology making life easier, eh? But in this case the devs DO seem to be taking it seriously and are working hard to resolve the issues.
As an engineer by day and a game developer at night, I have to say game developers get the short end of the stick. I much prefer game development as a hobby... because while the things I design during the day can kill large quantities of people if I screw up, more vitrolic hate is spewed at night over the harmless gamesstuff we develop.
Funny how that works. As long the problems get resolved quickly and BG2 stands some chance of being updated as well, I'll be a happy camper.
Im sympathetic to game developers and all, no job worth doing is easy, but shit, if you pay for something, you deserve to get what it says on the tin. Complaining when you dont get it doesn't make you spoiled, it makes you a normal consumer, just like every other industry.
There are a lot of factors. You will never have the perfect game. I'm not saying you don't have the right to expect the product to work perfectly. However I think that if you buy any PC game, you should buy it knowing that there is the possibility that you might have problems from the get go.
Now there are some games that launch that are a POS right out the door. They just don't work. Period. I get that...those are bad. This isn't exactly one of those games. And the company will fix the problems. I know no one that is frustrated wants to hear the p word...but it's the company that isn't willing to deal with the issue that is a failure. The game has been out for a day. I'm sure they'll get that fixed soon.
Or...you know...it could be like Skyrim DLC for the PS3. But I doubt it.
Plenty of working games, the fact that people have screwed up in the past doesn't mean we should accept it now.
Video games aren't a special case, they should be treated like all other industries, fanboyism might make them (game developers) feel better, but it'll hurt us all in the long run because it sets a lower standard