Let's face it, if there really was a patch in the App Store approval process it would have been either accepted or rejected by now. I don't think there is one waiting for approval. I think that message is just to appease the crowd.
And what is acceptable to some people as playable is not to others.
The developers haven't been silent on Twitter - and you can find all their handles at the bottom of the main BG site. I understand that we all want bug fixes and patches here, but let's be realistic and reasonable. If you consider that the last two weeks have been essentially holiday weeks for just about everyone in North America, AND the fact that the iOS app store submission process shuts down during part of that holiday, half of that month is used up by either the developers being on vacation, or Apple being closed.
The last thing @TrentOster said on Twitter was that their next build submission wouldn't be able to go in to Apple until after the shutdown deadline, but they had a ton of fixes and were getting the PC, iOS, and upcoming Mac builds all synchronized so multiplayer would work together.
IDK if announcing that sort of thing only on Twitter really works, especially when you run a site like this with announcement threads too. Twitter becomes a jumble very quickly.
Cam is supposed to be uploading the update right now. It will likely be six days to clear Apple approval. 10:08pm - 13 Dec 12
At this point We don't expect #OSX #BGEE or the #iPad update to beat the freeze 6:20pm - 19 Dec 12
So Apple has had 15 days since the update was supposedly submitted if you back out the week of the freeze....a process that usually takes 6 or 7 days....
Well, this is what I get for being the fool and buying an app on Day One that had trouble passing early Apple inspections. I'm double the fool for also buying the two character add-ons which merely provide further buggy dialogue which renders the experience complete sh*t. Oh yeah, and forget about casting spells. Those will render the game unplayable.
Not to be the negative Nancy, but for $10+ I expected more. I'm quickly losing faith in this dev team. They can't even push a bloody patch out. Uninstall incoming. Guess it's back to Bastion.
I'm with you, I didn't pay to be a beta tester. I haven't really touched the game since downloading on day one., I'm waiting for the big patch. I have sympathy of the limited funds and resources of the dev team, but the amount of bugs in the 1.0 release is inexcusable, regardless of apples App Store approval process.
When BG2 ee is released i will be sure to ignore it until it is patched up.
For comparison, I'm a big Pinball Arcade fan, they made their Christmas release of the Star Trek TNG and twilight zone tables ( I didn't partake in the kick starter though), and they are very receptive to their audience. I've spent over $30 buying up all their tables in DLC. I'm sure many lessons have been learned by beamdog for the next round.
Yeah, dude. Was pretty pissed when I posted that initially because once again I was unable to open a potion pouch where I literally had most of my stuff. The game was just buggy to the point where I got tired making excuses for it. I realize the dev team is small and the project is big, but yeah...it was a disappointment. I eventually decided to uninstall the app. There's too many quality games out there for cheap that aren't plagued by these same issues. Hopefully over time improvements can be made, but it isn't worth the asking price right now because of all the little problems.
Oh yeah, I like Pinball Arcade too. Great example of a recreation that got it right.
Lack of communication has always been, and always will be, the worst thing you can do as any company or developer who is offering a product/service to the public.
We are seeing a prime example of this right now.
There are who knows how many people troling this forum, this thread, and the dev twitter accounts daily looking for information and have been getting stone walled for a few solid weeks at this point. Its bad business and they should feel bad. I can't say how much business they will LOSE from this with any certainty, but they sure as hell aren't going to gain any.
Sick of checking five different sites looking for info on how I can GIVE THEM MONEY.
@scanline That doesn't necessarily mean it's under review with Apple. It could also mean that it's under review with Beamdog/Overhaul. Essentially, this might mean: 'We're looking into it'. I interpreted it your way the first time I read that description, but now I realise I could have been wrong, as we've clearly not had a patch since that line went up prior to the App Store approval holiday freeze.
I'd like to add my 5 cents to the discussion. There are many voices of dissapointed people here and a few voices of people, who try to justify the situation pointing out the holiday break or the greatness of BG being released on iPad at all. I'm myself an iOS developer, maintaining one-person dev business. And I'm a die-hard BG fan too, so I might have quite a good perspective. I've bought BGEE for iPad the first day it was available and I've spent some quality time with it since. There were issues of course, which I won't list here as forums are full of reports, but I was able to play through my beloved game.
In last weeks, like many of you here, I've been recently tracking AppStore update badge on my iPad and hoping for BGEE update every time it blinked. After all, we've all heard about the update submission about two weeks before Chrismas. For me, as a BG fan, as Overhaul customer and as iOS developer, it's simply unacceptable for Overhaul to stay quiet for so long. Is there someone here who can justify that?
I don't accept arguments about the holiday break and AppStore freeze as I was able to push two updates and one new app in last December alone. It's a simple math - review takes about 8 days and freeze lasted for 7 days. Small team can't find time to communicate with fans? I've never left a single customer who filed the support form ignored and my "team" is one person. Communication is a basic principle of this business. The heck, I've somehow managed to find time to write this rather long post here but the developer and owner of this forums can't spare a few words about the progress of iOS update?
And the arguments about the awesomeness of BG being on iPad at all? Please... It was on iPad for quite some time thanks to GemRB. Legally & for free. But of course it was not "enhanced". Now, why among "over 400 improvements" they've found no room for even the most basic touchscreen support? Will someone try to convince me they *forgot* about tooltips or the basic fact that entering doors completely relied on mouse cursor changing? Where are any touch gestures? It's unacceptable for a released product to completely forget on which platform it was released. Are we beta testers? I've never paid $10 for privilige of beta testing.
Also, I'm from Poland and I'm hoping to get our awesome PL version which, according to this forum, is ready for over a month. Heck, it was ready ahead of iPad release. That's because the fans were responsible for making it and not Overhaul. People are playing BGEE on PC in PL because they have filesystem access and can manually copy the translation. On iPad we can't so we have to wait. And I'm guessing it won't make it into the next update. Or will it? Who knows if devs are so busy tweeting they can't spare any precise info.
Don't get me wrong, I've played through the game and was more or less satisfied, but please don't try to justify the developers as there's no justification. They should've apologized to iPad fans long ago and should've been doing what they could to notify about the progress of fixes. I'm planning on posting BGEE review on my website but I've decided to wait and see how the whole situation will play out. I'm not even hoping to get any response from Overhaul.
So, I'm not going to respond to accusations and other flamebait, but those concerned about when a patch is coming is something I can help with.
The answer is "soon". What's happened is a few planned patches have gotten rolled into one big one. We hope to have a new patch pushed soon - we're back in this week from our short Christmas break (it was needed for the sake of sanity/burnout prevention).
Apologies for the inconvenience and the waiting. The next big patch will fix a lot of things and we hope you'll agree that it's worth the wait.
I'm sorry, but did you just refer to the legitimate concerns of your customers as "accusations and other flamebait?"
No doubt developer feelings get hurt when stuff like this goes down and customers rant about s***. I can understand that. But you know what? The customer got hurt first - for assuming the product being sold actually worked properly.
Now I will be the first to say I have stated critical points of the iPad version; however, I am willing to give them some leeway. First of all, I have purchased many apps that were monumental rip-offs. This is not. It is a port of a fan favorite PCRPG that is a large game. They have stated that they are putting out a patch. I would imagine that with a small team this is a fairly large endeavor, and I think we are lucky to have it. Problems aside (and there are several), it is still the best RPG on the iPad. I, for one, hope they get it right, learn from the process, and make enough money for BGII and Planescape.
Certainly, a polite "we are still working on a patch that will be out soon' post would be nice, they have mentioned it in several places, and larger businesses tend to be more closed off with things like release dates and patches. Right now I am confident that they are working to correct the issues. I will say if they are planning to completely rework the lack of mouseover icons with the UI, that will take some time.
"We found a few more issues we wanted to fix in the iOS 5.1 version, so yes, it is not currently in review. We're hoping to resubmit soon."
I'm not upset about it or anything... I just want to be able to easily customize my character and smooth out the kinks. Be glad if the update happens in a month or so.
for all the people complaining.... take a minute to remember these people have families and children and lives and this is the holidays they have been working long hours for the last few months keeping all you informed as best they can so excuse the heck out of them if they want to take a break for 2 weeks your world isnt going to end over a video game. be happy you have the time to play one. I dont think you would enjoy it if you had to cancel your vacation to go back into work and fix something. your immidiate response would be "it can wait till after my vacation" why are they being held to a different standard... it will be patched when its patched.
I don't care if his feelings are hurt. Pulling the version out of App Store approval to "harmonize the versions" screws over those of us who have been patiently waiting for the next iOS version. They should have let the next iOS version come straight out. They ****ed us over for the sake of the PC players.
I'm pleased to know what the situation is thanks to Oster's tweet and what @Nathan had to say. Do those of you who are just full of vitriol really have nothing better to live for than a BGEE update? Oh, and @Darksheer66, spot on - great post.
@Nathan I'm really sorry if I hurt you with my post, that was not my intention. I don't consider it flaming and I didn't put any accusations in it - I've simply stated some facts confirmed by all above posts. If I accused Overhaul of anything, it was about the company's complete lack of communication skills and your aggresive reply only confirmed it. Still, I apologize. It's a nice PR strategy you have when client has to apologize for simply trying to contact you. And thanks for the "soon" clarification, you helped indeed.
@Darksheer66 You're right and I didn't expect anyone to skip holiday to fix a game for me. I expected a little respect for the client. Say, one sentence a month like "not yet ready" or "we're unifying with PC" or "it's a matter of weeks/months/years" which would save me and everyone else here some AppStore visits or even "don't expect any further info from us" which would save me some visits on this forum.
The issue is we've all invested at least 10 bucks on this game, most of this 20. Heck, I bought the portrait pack and haven't used them, but wanted to support the developers. I think the problem is OVerhaul does not have a PR department, and you know what? They don't need one. They just need to make great games.
For the developers:
You can count on one hand those on this forum that would be classified as trolls, and you know that is amazing. Most gaming forums are filled with the "I want my money back" posts, and "you just lost my business" comments. But take heart, you've decided to work on a great game... and the majority of us, are with you for the long game. We know the work you do, will be not just an improvment on this game but BG2:EE and maybe icewind dale, or planscape... or even better.... BG3 by Overhaul games.
so when it's 7 pm at the office and your kids would really like it if you put them to bed, then go home and put them to bed. Spend time at home, recharge. We're with you.
The devs are open for communication both via twitter and the forum. They have no obligations whatsoever to comment 24/7 on every bug fixed and every issue found. Even thus, Trent hardly has a day when he doesn't post a tweet or two with an update on the progress. If one really is interested in what is going on, one will find that information.
On a sidenote, I would like to quote this passage for being very true.
Now, why among "over 400 improvements" they've found no room for even the most basic touchscreen support? Will someone try to convince me they *forgot* about tooltips or the basic fact that entering doors completely relied on mouse cursor changing? Where are any touch gestures? It's unacceptable for a released product to completely forget on which platform it was released.
Yeah I agree with a lot of you. I'm OK (more or less) with the game as-is, but with Trent (and the other guys) being somewhat open social about the process I find the fact I truly have no idea what's happening kind of strange. If this was EA or something, where our posts seem totally ignored, sure I get it. It doesn't seem to hard to say "hey we're hoping to submit next week" or "we submitted over the holiday, now we're on the App Submission roller coaster". Not that I feel entitled to know, but you gotta be curious since the Devs talk to us.
I'm gonna play the game through again after this run through (I'm near the end, IIRC) just because I was planning on dual classing and it never seemed to work despite what I read. (Beastmaster -> Cleric). Just as an archer I'm kicking some ass, but I don't want to take a leather-clad dink with pet rats into BG2, I want him to be better. Maybe I'll just beat it and start over post-patch since I want to anyways. And because I truly enjoyed playing it again on iPad (despite my intended-to-be-mild complaints).
You may not have been around for the launch of this game, or active or whatever.
At launch, Trent and others from the dev team were very open about their process, what was happening, what was going on, and what they were doing. In Trent's words "probably too open", because they were catching A LOT of shit over late releases and failed App Store pushes. Trent would tweet that they'd pushed a build to the App Store process, it would get people excited, and then it would be rejected (due to the iPad 1 crash bugs talked about in other places) and he'd get a new round of shit storm thrown at him on twitter and here on the forums about how horrible and aweful Beamdog was as a development company because they couldn't get it right the first time.
At one point in the process Trent posted a comment that amounted to (paraphrased) "The one thing we've learned here is we're being too open about our processes" and it was right about that time that the front web pages denoting "Coming In " were all changed to "Coming Soon" and the vast majority of the daily / even hourly updates that were being posted clammed up and stopped.
Dig into the forums for posts dated around the 28th of November and read how the folks here treated their release.
You'll quickly realize that the lack of information we're getting in the community at this point is the result of the way this community treated the information we were getting back at release. Instead of "Thanks for keeping us updated! Good luck to you in getting the next attempt at the patch through!" it was "You stupid @(&^)(&)*(( couldn't code your way out of a barn! Look at all the failures you keep posting about...you're all @(()&$(*tards!"
WE, the community, asked for this, WE took a company that was interested and willing to communicate and turned them into another EA hybrid.
Please don't blame Beamdog. You can only smack someone across the face so many times for opening their mouth before they realize they should just keep quiet.
Let's face it, if there really was a patch in the App Store approval process it would have been either accepted or rejected by now. I don't think there is one waiting for approval. I think that message is just to appease the crowd.
And what is acceptable to some people as playable is not to others.
Oh, I HIGHLY Disagree. There's every likelyhood that the patch submitted in December failed to pass Apple Approval and they're back at the drawing board to get the patch through. If so, I pretty much guarantee you wouldn't hear about it.
See my last post above this one, they've been bitten WAY too often to keep us apprised of a status like that.
Quit figuring that they're hiding something. I'm sure information is being withheld, but only because the community has already PROVEN it can't handle getting that kind of information.
@oddulation nope, that wasn't my intent - a legitimate concern is something that I'm happy to try and address (from recent history, i.e. when a patch is coming, what we're aiming to fix going forward, etc). But when we've done our best to communicate on the subject and get "I don't accept", "I don't believe" etc etc. that's mostly the stuff I'm talking about not responding to.
So: again, we're committed to fixing the game and improving everything going forward for as long as we can. We're doing our best to be transparent with the status of things and, from what I can tell, have communicated more than most other developers ever have with regards to patch status and other game concerns. We've pushed a heck of a lot of patches for the first month of the game being out on the PC side to try and quickly address major issues people were having and try and solve hardware compatibility problems, which all will benefit the iPad version as you'll see when this next patch rolls out. We're doing our best to keep everyone informed as to when stuff is coming down the pipe.
We take all of the feedback we get - good and bad - into account, and try and sift through what people are saying when it's something where we've genuinely goofed up so we can do our best to fix it, versus one person being upset and sending us death threats (seriously!) via anonymous e-mail service because we didn't include the option to change the game's internal FPS at launch.
Regardless, it's coming! This isn't to be dismissive or to trivialize legitimate concerns, it's just a simple statement: we're working on it, and we want to have it ready and pushed for you all as soon as possible.
@kaehl you didn't hurt my feelings, and my reply wasn't meant to be aggressive - just informative. If you were looking for more information about improved touchscreen support going forward, we're working on addressing some of the concerns with that going forward as well such as better touch recognition for door entry and the like. What we have now is functional, and we're aware it's not perfect. The fact you took my reply as aggressive is concerning and probably my mistake (sorry about that, it was a general statement and not directed at you, still, I can see how you'd take it that way), but, from what you've written it seems like you're unhappy and nothing I can say to you will make that better other than getting the patch out the door as soon as possible. All I can do is reiterate my apologies to you and everyone for the delay. The "soon" could be clarified to a ballpark as in "this week or next", if that helps you - but I can't commit to a precise date.
I thought I was clear in my previous post, but realized I wasn't - the "rolled into one big patch" is meant to be a patch that does unify the version with the PC one, so the cross-platform multiplayer will work properly and a vast number of needed fixes will make it to all versions, iPad included. That's been said by Trent via Twitter and the like, but I'll re-state it here for clarity's sake.
I'm sorry, but did you just refer to the legitimate concerns of your customers as "accusations and other flamebait?"
No doubt developer feelings get hurt when stuff like this goes down and customers rant about s***. I can understand that. But you know what? The customer got hurt first - for assuming the product being sold actually worked properly.
The customer got hurt first? Is that really your justification for those treating these folks poorly? Look at the first post after Nathan's information...was that "Thanks for the response?" Look at the rest of the responses to Nathan, how many of those are "Thanks for the response!"
Communication is a two way street. If you want proper communication with anyone, be it business or personal, you need to make yourself open to that communication. Addressing "Here's what's going on" with a big ol' "SCREW YOU!" back doesn't lend you to being communicated with again. I've been posting this SAME message since the day this software was released, needling everyone with "Coming Soon" everywhere I can, and STILL almost the only thing I see in response to an ASKED FOR UPDATE on the forums is complaints.
The devs and whatever is passing for PR staff at Beamdog/Overhaul have been roundly abused by the general populous since they released this software (and even before that with the push of the release date). Yet in the same breath these same people will post "Why aren't you communicating with us!"
These people are human too, and the vast majority of what I've been reading and responding to DAILY on these boards have boiled down to little more than unhappy people thinking they're entitled to perfection simply because they've spent $10. *I* have a very very poor opinion of a large segment of the population on these boards and *I* only deal with those of you on the iPad forums. I can't imagine how depressing and down right annoying and obnoxious it would be to have to look through and read all the pissing and moaning on ALL of the forums.
It has NEVER ceased to amaze me that people seem to think once you've pulled loose change from your pocket and paid for something with it that they now OWN YOU.
Your patch will be done when it's done. @Nathan was nice enough to come here and give you an update like you asked him to. Everything you needed to know in life you learned in kindergarten...thank the man for his time and allow him to get back to the work you WANT him doing...making your patch for you.
You want better communication, start by BEING NICE and NOT yelling at the devs every time they show their faces on public communication.
More flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
Were I in charge of Beamdog at this point, a development company that explicitly started this endeavor because they loved the BG game and wanted to bring it back...I'd be SERIOUSLY considering whether this little venture is even WORTH CONTINUING. Not because its not making money...but because NO amount of money is worth having to deal with this kind of crap.
Comments
And what is acceptable to some people as playable is not to others.
The last thing @TrentOster said on Twitter was that their next build submission wouldn't be able to go in to Apple until after the shutdown deadline, but they had a ton of fixes and were getting the PC, iOS, and upcoming Mac builds all synchronized so multiplayer would work together.
10:08pm - 13 Dec 12
At this point We don't expect #OSX #BGEE or the #iPad update to beat the freeze
6:20pm - 19 Dec 12
So Apple has had 15 days since the update was supposedly submitted if you back out the week of the freeze....a process that usually takes 6 or 7 days....
Oh yeah, I like Pinball Arcade too. Great example of a recreation that got it right.
Needless to say I awoke disappointed.
We are seeing a prime example of this right now.
There are who knows how many people troling this forum, this thread, and the dev twitter accounts daily looking for information and have been getting stone walled for a few solid weeks at this point. Its bad business and they should feel bad. I can't say how much business they will LOSE from this with any certainty, but they sure as hell aren't going to gain any.
Sick of checking five different sites looking for info on how I can GIVE THEM MONEY.
Made an account just to say this.
*puts away his $10 and walks away*
"A new update is in review which fixes many of the concerns people brought forward in their reviews. Thanks for the feedback"
So if it's in review... then it can't take that much longer right?
I've bought BGEE for iPad the first day it was available and I've spent some quality time with it since. There were issues of course, which I won't list here as forums are full of reports, but I was able to play through my beloved game.
In last weeks, like many of you here, I've been recently tracking AppStore update badge on my iPad and hoping for BGEE update every time it blinked. After all, we've all heard about the update submission about two weeks before Chrismas. For me, as a BG fan, as Overhaul customer and as iOS developer, it's simply unacceptable for Overhaul to stay quiet for so long. Is there someone here who can justify that?
I don't accept arguments about the holiday break and AppStore freeze as I was able to push two updates and one new app in last December alone. It's a simple math - review takes about 8 days and freeze lasted for 7 days. Small team can't find time to communicate with fans? I've never left a single customer who filed the support form ignored and my "team" is one person. Communication is a basic principle of this business. The heck, I've somehow managed to find time to write this rather long post here but the developer and owner of this forums can't spare a few words about the progress of iOS update?
And the arguments about the awesomeness of BG being on iPad at all? Please... It was on iPad for quite some time thanks to GemRB. Legally & for free. But of course it was not "enhanced". Now, why among "over 400 improvements" they've found no room for even the most basic touchscreen support? Will someone try to convince me they *forgot* about tooltips or the basic fact that entering doors completely relied on mouse cursor changing? Where are any touch gestures? It's unacceptable for a released product to completely forget on which platform it was released. Are we beta testers? I've never paid $10 for privilige of beta testing.
Also, I'm from Poland and I'm hoping to get our awesome PL version which, according to this forum, is ready for over a month. Heck, it was ready ahead of iPad release. That's because the fans were responsible for making it and not Overhaul. People are playing BGEE on PC in PL because they have filesystem access and can manually copy the translation. On iPad we can't so we have to wait. And I'm guessing it won't make it into the next update. Or will it? Who knows if devs are so busy tweeting they can't spare any precise info.
Don't get me wrong, I've played through the game and was more or less satisfied, but please don't try to justify the developers as there's no justification. They should've apologized to iPad fans long ago and should've been doing what they could to notify about the progress of fixes. I'm planning on posting BGEE review on my website but I've decided to wait and see how the whole situation will play out. I'm not even hoping to get any response from Overhaul.
@scanline
Less than a week, according to http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com and to my own two apps which I've updated in the last days. Assuming they really have issued an update.
The answer is "soon". What's happened is a few planned patches have gotten rolled into one big one. We hope to have a new patch pushed soon - we're back in this week from our short Christmas break (it was needed for the sake of sanity/burnout prevention).
Apologies for the inconvenience and the waiting. The next big patch will fix a lot of things and we hope you'll agree that it's worth the wait.
Certainly, a polite "we are still working on a patch that will be out soon' post would be nice, they have mentioned it in several places, and larger businesses tend to be more closed off with things like release dates and patches. Right now I am confident that they are working to correct the issues. I will say if they are planning to completely rework the lack of mouseover icons with the UI, that will take some time.
"We found a few more issues we wanted to fix in the iOS 5.1 version, so yes, it is not currently in review. We're hoping to resubmit soon."
I'm not upset about it or anything... I just want to be able to easily customize my character and smooth out the kinks. Be glad if the update happens in a month or so.
I'm really sorry if I hurt you with my post, that was not my intention. I don't consider it flaming and I didn't put any accusations in it - I've simply stated some facts confirmed by all above posts. If I accused Overhaul of anything, it was about the company's complete lack of communication skills and your aggresive reply only confirmed it. Still, I apologize. It's a nice PR strategy you have when client has to apologize for simply trying to contact you. And thanks for the "soon" clarification, you helped indeed.
@Darksheer66
You're right and I didn't expect anyone to skip holiday to fix a game for me. I expected a little respect for the client. Say, one sentence a month like "not yet ready" or "we're unifying with PC" or "it's a matter of weeks/months/years" which would save me and everyone else here some AppStore visits or even "don't expect any further info from us" which would save me some visits on this forum.
For the developers:
You can count on one hand those on this forum that would be classified as trolls, and you know that is amazing. Most gaming forums are filled with the "I want my money back" posts, and "you just lost my business" comments. But take heart, you've decided to work on a great game... and the majority of us, are with you for the long game. We know the work you do, will be not just an improvment on this game but BG2:EE and maybe icewind dale, or planscape... or even better.... BG3 by Overhaul games.
so when it's 7 pm at the office and your kids would really like it if you put them to bed, then go home and put them to bed. Spend time at home, recharge. We're with you.
sl
On a sidenote, I would like to quote this passage for being very true.
You may not have been around for the launch of this game, or active or whatever.
At launch, Trent and others from the dev team were very open about their process, what was happening, what was going on, and what they were doing. In Trent's words "probably too open", because they were catching A LOT of shit over late releases and failed App Store pushes. Trent would tweet that they'd pushed a build to the App Store process, it would get people excited, and then it would be rejected (due to the iPad 1 crash bugs talked about in other places) and he'd get a new round of shit storm thrown at him on twitter and here on the forums about how horrible and aweful Beamdog was as a development company because they couldn't get it right the first time.
At one point in the process Trent posted a comment that amounted to (paraphrased) "The one thing we've learned here is we're being too open about our processes" and it was right about that time that the front web pages denoting "Coming In " were all changed to "Coming Soon" and the vast majority of the daily / even hourly updates that were being posted clammed up and stopped.
Dig into the forums for posts dated around the 28th of November and read how the folks here treated their release.
You'll quickly realize that the lack of information we're getting in the community at this point is the result of the way this community treated the information we were getting back at release. Instead of "Thanks for keeping us updated! Good luck to you in getting the next attempt at the patch through!"
it was "You stupid @(&^)(&)*(( couldn't code your way out of a barn! Look at all the failures you keep posting about...you're all @(()&$(*tards!"
WE, the community, asked for this, WE took a company that was interested and willing to communicate and turned them into another EA hybrid.
Please don't blame Beamdog. You can only smack someone across the face so many times for opening their mouth before they realize they should just keep quiet.
See my last post above this one, they've been bitten WAY too often to keep us apprised of a status like that.
Quit figuring that they're hiding something. I'm sure information is being withheld, but only because the community has already PROVEN it can't handle getting that kind of information.
So: again, we're committed to fixing the game and improving everything going forward for as long as we can. We're doing our best to be transparent with the status of things and, from what I can tell, have communicated more than most other developers ever have with regards to patch status and other game concerns. We've pushed a heck of a lot of patches for the first month of the game being out on the PC side to try and quickly address major issues people were having and try and solve hardware compatibility problems, which all will benefit the iPad version as you'll see when this next patch rolls out. We're doing our best to keep everyone informed as to when stuff is coming down the pipe.
We take all of the feedback we get - good and bad - into account, and try and sift through what people are saying when it's something where we've genuinely goofed up so we can do our best to fix it, versus one person being upset and sending us death threats (seriously!) via anonymous e-mail service because we didn't include the option to change the game's internal FPS at launch.
Regardless, it's coming! This isn't to be dismissive or to trivialize legitimate concerns, it's just a simple statement: we're working on it, and we want to have it ready and pushed for you all as soon as possible.
@kaehl you didn't hurt my feelings, and my reply wasn't meant to be aggressive - just informative. If you were looking for more information about improved touchscreen support going forward, we're working on addressing some of the concerns with that going forward as well such as better touch recognition for door entry and the like. What we have now is functional, and we're aware it's not perfect. The fact you took my reply as aggressive is concerning and probably my mistake (sorry about that, it was a general statement and not directed at you, still, I can see how you'd take it that way), but, from what you've written it seems like you're unhappy and nothing I can say to you will make that better other than getting the patch out the door as soon as possible. All I can do is reiterate my apologies to you and everyone for the delay. The "soon" could be clarified to a ballpark as in "this week or next", if that helps you - but I can't commit to a precise date.
I thought I was clear in my previous post, but realized I wasn't - the "rolled into one big patch" is meant to be a patch that does unify the version with the PC one, so the cross-platform multiplayer will work properly and a vast number of needed fixes will make it to all versions, iPad included. That's been said by Trent via Twitter and the like, but I'll re-state it here for clarity's sake.
Communication is a two way street. If you want proper communication with anyone, be it business or personal, you need to make yourself open to that communication. Addressing "Here's what's going on" with a big ol' "SCREW YOU!" back doesn't lend you to being communicated with again. I've been posting this SAME message since the day this software was released, needling everyone with "Coming Soon" everywhere I can, and STILL almost the only thing I see in response to an ASKED FOR UPDATE on the forums is complaints.
The devs and whatever is passing for PR staff at Beamdog/Overhaul have been roundly abused by the general populous since they released this software (and even before that with the push of the release date). Yet in the same breath these same people will post "Why aren't you communicating with us!"
These people are human too, and the vast majority of what I've been reading and responding to DAILY on these boards have boiled down to little more than unhappy people thinking they're entitled to perfection simply because they've spent $10. *I* have a very very poor opinion of a large segment of the population on these boards and *I* only deal with those of you on the iPad forums. I can't imagine how depressing and down right annoying and obnoxious it would be to have to look through and read all the pissing and moaning on ALL of the forums.
It has NEVER ceased to amaze me that people seem to think once you've pulled loose change from your pocket and paid for something with it that they now OWN YOU.
Your patch will be done when it's done. @Nathan was nice enough to come here and give you an update like you asked him to. Everything you needed to know in life you learned in kindergarten...thank the man for his time and allow him to get back to the work you WANT him doing...making your patch for you.
You want better communication, start by BEING NICE and NOT yelling at the devs every time they show their faces on public communication.
More flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
Were I in charge of Beamdog at this point, a development company that explicitly started this endeavor because they loved the BG game and wanted to bring it back...I'd be SERIOUSLY considering whether this little venture is even WORTH CONTINUING. Not because its not making money...but because NO amount of money is worth having to deal with this kind of crap.