Can you please revert back to 1.3 versions of the game and make it compatible with SoD?
Sophiel777
Member Posts: 54
It's been many months since the official release and numerous voices have been raised against 2.0.
Not every one of us likes the new UI and we would like to play the game which we bought, but then were forced to accept changes which nobody wants.
Can one of the beamdog employees please take the official stance on this matter?
Are we going to get a simple yes or no, or is adressing complaints not an option for beamdog?
Not every one of us likes the new UI and we would like to play the game which we bought, but then were forced to accept changes which nobody wants.
Can one of the beamdog employees please take the official stance on this matter?
Are we going to get a simple yes or no, or is adressing complaints not an option for beamdog?
0
Comments
This really saddens me. I am left feeling a bit frustrated at how all these new changes were added, out of the blue, in conjunction with the release of SoD.
The only official response that I have seen to the frustration that some players have expressed about this has been that the new UI is moddable. I should not have to learn to mod the new UI in order to try and fix it.
I am also left wondering who requested such changes. The changes were not a small thing here and there. I must have missed the thread requesting such a major overhaul.
To be fair, there are some players that like the new UI, however, the majority of feedback that I have read have not been happy with all or most of it.
They might to respond to specific issues you have with the current UI, but "Put it back the old way!" is 100% hopeless.
And there is almost no way SoD with pre-2.0 is happening.
I vastly prefer Pecca's widescreen mod.
Pecca’s mod is excellent. A very big improvement over what was introduced with patch 2.0. But it is, as most mods are, tailored to the modders preferences. This is absolutely as it should be.
The 2.0 patch made such drastic changes to the UI that I am mystified as to how the developers could fail to consider the possibility that not everyone would like the changes. This is not a new game, but one that has been loved and played by a strong following for over ten years.
Everyone has little things that they would like to change about the game, the NPCs, the UI, all of it. That is what mods can help with. Making the UI moddable was a neat thing to do, but as the new UI is not optional, I don’t believe that players who do not mod were given enough consideration.
Why not give the players who were happy with a more traditional UI the option to have it? If the UI is so easily modded now, then why would they not provide this option? I just don’t understand this.
Players shouldn't have to hope that a modder will make a mod that makes their game more closely resemble the game as they have known it. Not every player is a modder, or even uses mods.
This subject repeatedly comes up and many here tend to disregard the posters concerns. I would just like you to consider the fact that they are not alone. Do a search for discussions that people have had about this on places other than this forum.
One of the reasons that I feel so strongly about this is because I truly believe that this can have a negative effect on the longevity of the BGEE games. It breaks my heart every time I read a post about someone asking about these “new enhanced editions” and see people telling them not to bother.
Over and over the 2.0 UI is mentioned. Every time an old BG player loads up one of the new EEs and cringes over the new UI, it weakens the longevity of the game.
Of the people who like the changes, I would like to know how many like them just as they are, without using a mod to change them? There is a reason why something like Pecca’s mod is so popular. There are a lot of people who played the games in the old days, but not all of them are modders.
Almost unanimously though the feeling I recall was that the flavor with the parchment style and all was too modern and wasn't right, and Beamdog responded by working with 00zim00 and the release 2.0 UI was a lot closer to what 1.3 was. Not exact, and still needing work imho especially with the armor class and thaco placement, but better. Here is 00zim00's thread with some screenshots. of new and old.
After that, most of the threads and posts requesting a rollback to 1.3 seem to have died down, to me at least. As people, even older players like me
2.x dramatically increased the longevity to me of a game that was becoming somewhat stale. If it weren't for customizable character sheets and indeed the whole UI, I might have played SoD once or twice to get the new NPC's but it was becoming gradually easier for various things to grab my attention away from my latest playthrough of BG so that might have been it for some time. Now I am not just excited about playing SoD, but BG1 and BG2 as well.
Maybe you should make a poll to see what the prevailing feeling is here? I don't believe Beamdog is going to roll back the 2.0 changes or make a GUI alternative at this point but you might be able to get a modder to produce the BGEE 1.3 UI mod using the original character and inventory sheets if enough people indicate they want it as an option.
You have seen Kerozevok's BG2EE UI to BGEE mod right?
Thanks to the EEs, we have THAC0 and weapon damage information on the inventory screen, in addition to AC and HP (vanilla BG2 vs. BG2EEv2.x).
The main screen is zoomable - and has a quick loot bar to save you from endlessly clicking on the bodies of a dozen fallen foes (otherwise, it looks very similar, other than not using a floppy disk icon for saves).
The character record screen doesn't just dump 90% of the character info in one disorganized text blob.
Also, the developers *have* listened to the fans. They brought back the THAC0/Damage/AC/HP "breakdowns" on the inventory screen. They adopted a revised character record screen that was better than their own. Most important of all, they made the UI moddable to an extent it never was before. The explosion of UI mods is due in large part to this.
Is the 2.x UI perfect? No. Neither was the 1.x UI, or the BG2 UI, or the BG1 UI. But it is moving forward.
I appreciate your thoughtful response.
mf2112 said:
After that, most of the threads and posts requesting a rollback to 1.3 seem to have died down
As have the posts of people who were excited about the game.
On this forum alone, a quick search for, patch 2.0 or revert back to 1.3, will produce many threads started by people frustrated with the changes.
Many have solved the problem for themselves by reverting to a beta version of 1.3 from somewhere like Steam. Others, like myself, bought the CD version 1.3 of the game as a temporary fix.
Still others just got tired of waiting and went away. It is this last group that concerns me the most. The ones who love the game, but aren’t obsessive about it like many of us who continue to frequent this forum. I don’t believe it is realistic to think that we represent the majority of Baldur’s Gate players.
I feel that the fact that people like the OP here are continuing to bother to start these threads some three months after the release of 2.0 should say something to the developers.
Yes - there are things that could work better, and there are bugs. I think Beamdog have tried to make a workable and more modern solution whilst opening up the UI for users to further change it themselves (something which the community are known for - In fact, I assume they expected the UI to be modded and concentrated on facilitating that).
In that respect I think Beamdog have done an admirable job of trying to retain the classic feel, whilst updating the look and function of the UI to modernise it.
I think it's also worthwhile saying that people that like the new UI aren't as likely to post about it. You are entitled to decide what you like or what you don't like and it is a fully valid response either way. But if you don't like the UI then it is an emotional response you are having - you are UNHAPPY about it.
However, if you don't mind it, or it has grown on you, then you haven't had that emotional response. In fact, you barely gave it a thought and you've already moved on because it's not an issue for you. It's only when things are a problem that they stay with you or you think about them.
For example, many psychological studies have shown that negative things impact you more than the equivalent positive thing because they are emotional responses, eg losing 50 dollars makes you feel worse than the happiness you would feel from finding 50 dollars.
I think that Beamdog would be crazy to revert the UI now - they've spent however many manhours working on it and to revert now would mean that time, effort and money were lost - unless it had seriously impacted sales (which I am not aware of any evidence suggesting) that option wouldn't even be on the table.
I feel sorry that the change has upset users that still yearn for the old UI, but I would also say that if the demand for a reverted UI is as high as suggested that somebody and some point will make it happen.
But if you don't like the UI then it is an emotional response you are having - you are UNHAPPY about it.
Just to be clear here. Are you suggesting that having an emotional response is out of place when judging whether or not you like something about a game? If so, I could not disagree more. Popularity of games is very closely tied to how the game makes people feel. If it doesn’t make you feel, happy, sad, excited, powerful, or whatever, people don’t play it.
Mr2150 said:
However, if you don't mind it, or it has grown on you, then you haven't had that emotional response. In fact, you barely gave it a thought and you've already moved on because it's not an issue for you. It's only when things are a problem that they stay with you or you think about them.
Exactly!
My point is that many people have had a negative response to it. I realize that if you have had no such negative response, it may be harder to understand why others do. But suggesting that their “emotional response” is not valid because you yourself have had no such response is not fair.
I personally am not suggesting that they revert. I am suggesting that they give players the option to use a different UI. If modders are capable of making such a mod, then certainly the developers are capable of adding this option, if they chose to.
And whether or not they ever get it, customers like the OP, certainly have the right to ask for it.
Edit - for example, I can remember playing other games and not liking them solely because I found the UI confusing or frustrating, or whatever - but I cannot remember ever playing a game and liking it solely because the UI was good. You forget the positives and only remember the negatives.
The 2.x character UI feels more like a CRPG sheet which is fine, too. Like many of Beamdog's changes, I can see the rationale to appeal to a WoW audience. It would be great if the character record was toggleable (is that a word?) for the old-timers.
So it's not true that there are not many posts in favour of the update.
As for me, I think the new interface is a vast improvement over the old one.
No - I didn't mean to imply that. I meant that the emotional response is perfectly valid and fair, but you only have that emotional response when you don't like something.
I also have an emotional response when I do like something. Like when I first heard about Beamdog’s plans to make an enhanced edition of the Baldur’s Gate games. Me and so many other people, that when this site first went live, it crashed from the overwhelming number of people who immediately flocked here.
There are many, many people who feel very passionately about these games.
Both responses are perfectly valid. It's like I said, losing 50 dollars makes you feel worse than the happiness you would feel from finding 50 dollars.
Why not go ahead and make a poll thread then? If you feel that a majority of people do not like the 2.0 changes, then if a lot of people answer that way something will be done, either by Beamdog or modders will step up and produce different UI skins for each version of the game.
This misses my point.
What I have tried to express in my earlier posts here is that the people who frequent this forum are only a portion of BG players. The modders and the ones most satisfied with what Beamdog has done.
How would any such poll taken here, represent the people that I have been talking about? The ones that only stop in from time to time. Possibly making a post as this OP has done, then moving on. A high percentage of them would never even see such a post. Unless of course such a post were to be stickied, highly unlikely.
The responses of the frequent forum posters who have posted in this thread, and others like it, already show what response such a poll would have here. Meanwhile, the popularity of the EE editions is also being decided outside of this forum.
I have been pulling for Beamdog ever since they first began to make these games. I am not a trouble maker with nothing better to do. I very much want Beamdog to succeed and to continue to make this type of game.
I honestly think that it is in their best interest to at least consider how some choices might have had a negative impact, not only on the Baldur’s Gate games, but their reputation going forward.
For me there would have been much better continuity if they had 'completed' the saga first in 1.3 and then released the 2.0 patch - thus giving us the option to choose which version we want to use.
As it is, I won't be able to play the complete saga until I can afford to buy a new computer - simply because (despite what Beamdog said 'on the box') 2.0 has different system requirements to 1.3.
Also, there was already a poll from OP...20% were in favor of simply having the possibility to play 1.3, not even considering if SoD could be played on 1.3 though.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/58555/would-you-like-to-have-the-option-to-play-1-3-20-or-any-older-version-of-the-game
The way I see it, OP simply wants an official answer.
And to be honest, what Beamdog did with the UI is atrocious. Even you guys here mention, that the vanilla 2.0 UI is actually already modders work, because the UI in 2.0beta was even worse.
2.0 UI has no flavor at all, it's pure function over design.
To make matters worse, if you look in the moddingsection at Soulmarine GUI mods (which unfortunately will probably never be completed), even a lot of devs said how well that was done and that UI feels like an enhancement. Why noone at Beamdog took inspiration from that?
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36151/soulmarines-bg-ee-wood-gui#latest
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36154/soulmarines-iwd-ee-frostwood-gui
Also, the UI modding doesn't seem to be that simple at all, from what I gathered at some quick glances the forum.
And to be even more frank, since they don't even bother to make the 15year old BG2 soundsets/text for german, polish, spanish (and i guess french and italian) players available, I doubt that they will ever do something about the UI, no matter how many potential customers are dissatisfied with that.
Ravenslight is exactly on spot, that a lot of people simply don't even bother anymore to try to voice their opinion, since it's absolutely pointless.
Add to that the changed sys requirements.
How anyone can so vehemently object the request to simply have the possibility to play 1.3 is for me just absurd and inane.
If there are specific things that need to be improved or addressed in the UI (and there are issues, which have been posted here and elsewhere), it's totally fine to point them out. Discussions about the UI are most helpful to our dev team when they go into detail about not only what you don't like but also why you don't like them; we might identify a root cause of an underlying issue that allows us to come up with a solution that's even better than what you imagined.
The UI in v2.0 definitely needed more time in the oven, so to speak; at the moment our energy is being spent fixing bugs and getting the expansion ready for iOS and Android, but we haven't ruled out the possibility of revisiting the UI design at a later point.
I would, however, like to make a point about polls on this forum. I've never seen one get more than 100 responses, and usually they get far fewer than 100 responses.
There are not enough people on these forums to get any statistically meaningful data from a forum poll. The potential sample size here is very small, and very skewed. I would be very surprised if the developers paid serious attention to polls here. They are surely looking at their bottom-line, confidential financial information. They are not going to share that confidential information, because that's how business works in concert with law, and with free-market competition.
So, we don't really know what the total market response to the new interface is. The data about "like-don't like" from individual buyers is anecdotal, and limited to people who post on forums, which is only a fragment of the total market for the product.
Although these developers love the game, and they do care about their fans' opinions, they are businesspeople. They have to think and make decisions according to standard principles of business management.
There is no artist at Beamdog responsible for the UI, if those same people are atm occupied with fixing bugs. That's exactly how the 2.0 feels, a functional, technical UI made by programmers, but no from an artist.
Edit: And ofc that there is no explanation, why customers, who bought from Beamdog directly, most likely with the intention of actually supporting the devs, are now redirected to steam, if they want to play 1.3.
What's the matter with that, why not make available in the beamdog launcher?
@joluv OK, fair enough. But then I hope you don't mind, that a lot of customers leave the station aswell, because that train slammed it's doors right before their eyes and there is no other scheduled train to wait for.
Copies were 10¢ each at the Walgreens. My dollar allowance wouldn't go far at that rate.
I had many, many spiral notebooks stuffed with characters and ideas, so the classic BG character sheet up to 1.3 was very relatable.
BG is a living thing at this point. I'm so grateful people are putting effort into keeping it alive (modders, Beamdog, etc.) and fresh. The way I look at it, you gotta swing at a lot of balls to get a few home runs. I hope Beamdog keeps swinging for the bleachers.
Anyway I too think that going back isn't probable, even as an option. The early v2.0 post from the developers were talking about "paying technological debt", that's the answer to the why it was made in the first place. They went with a vision, which is a good thing. But the vision so far isn't very cohesive, which needs to change if "revisiting the UI design at later point" should introduce some meaningful steps forward from the current point. I think a lot more people would be okay with the new GUI, not only if it had more time in the oven, but also if it had a guy with a complex vision as to how it should look and act from the beginning. And the example of changing the record screen last minute before releasing the v2.0 patch only proves there isn't such guy. Other than that BD has all talents they need.
That is a nonsense explanation. All you had to do is to make a seperate button to download a 1.3 version. Not in a downgrade/upgrade sense. Complete download. It's not rocket science.
(I also have a hardtime believing, that if you guys at beamdog are capable of using the steam version selection, you couldn't make it work on your own launcher. Since after all it's you the devs, who are responsible for how and which files have to be altered by down/upgrading.)
And I see no compelling reason, why SoD by absolutely all means would need the 2.0 gui
And as BelgarathMTH said; for the reliability of polls on this forum, have a look here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/59793/der-deutsche-dub-wie-haetten-sies-denn-gern
a grand total of 8 people took part in that poll.
Now, in each occasion about 50k people alone on youtube watched the german gamestar review and following talk about the SoD expansion. And ofc those are just a fraction of potential customers.
That should tell you smth about the potential you guys completely wasted. It is really no suprise, that the common advice for german players is to either completely ignore your products or at best get them at 50%/75% discount at a steam sale.