Releasing the game before it's finished is a terrible idea. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Reviewers won't care about the word beta. They'll just review the shipping product as is and write a one line blurb lost in the noise about future patches. They need a well polished launch to gain good reviews and positive momentum. I wish that was happening in a few days, but for the better good they decided to postpone.
I still maintain that announcing a date was a bad idea. But I do recognize that hindsight is always twenty twenty. I'm sure they thought they could make the date. Stuff happens.
If they gave a 4 day notice or a 3 week notice, people would still be just as disappointed. It is just a convenient platform to complain from.
I would rather have a finished and polished game. How often do games fail when they release buggy and then get bad press? If it isn't ready, then its not ready. I am very confident they have been working hard long hours on this. It is a terrible idea to knowingly release a buggy game and to rely on patches later. (I know all games have some quirks, but game breaking ones shouldnt be in the release)
The response should be a disappointed understanding, but hopeful that the team is dedicated enough to release a finish product they are proud of.
You guys act like this doesn't happen ALL THE TIME in the gaming industry.
I have to say, beamdog has a very prompt customer service, at least.
I got a refund very quickly and was able to go right over to GOG.com and purchase BG and other games in their sale, download a couple mods get back to faerun long before November 30th (if then..).
I'll buy the EE still, thats for sure, but now I want to see a finished product before Beamdog sees any money. A three month delay a couple days before release is not only bad communication but very unprofessional, so my trust in them to deliver a product is shaken, I feel like they took advantage of people with the big September push to get more money before they dropped this on us. The least they could have done was offer a open beta.
Does that mean you will leave the forums and take your trollish posts with you?
What would it mattered if they initially said Sept or Nov as the date? People wouldnt have pre-ordered if it was November? You are looking for conspiracies where there are none.
They had a target date, there were complications and the game wasnt up to their standards, so they delayed it. Simple as that...
You know what a good beta is for this game? The original...
They, the devs, had to know a while back this was coming and still took the pre-order money. That really pissses me off. Honesty, up front, is what builds support. Not stringing the fan base along like a yo-yo. Respect meter for Beamdog just plummeted... Very disconcerting Trent.
Just "because it happens all the time"? are you really gonna go with that argument? you cannot see any possible flaws with that attitude or why that would be a completely weak line of reasoning?
Also, don't call someone a troll when they have legitimate arguments, you're being an arse by attacking people like that and it certainly aint making you seem more reasonable. You're ok with the delay? fine, you've made that clear. No one is saying that you can't be ok with the delay, so why do you think you can tell people who aren't ok that they're wrong, trolls, etc?
Sure, if someone is spamming death threats or being totally unreasonable, then fine, call em out. Someone gets a refund and says they'll buy the game after its released? nothing wrong with that.
Just "because it happens all the time"? are you really gonna go with that argument? you cannot see any possible flaws with that attitude or why that would be a completely weak line of reasoning?
Also, don't call someone a troll when they have legitimate arguments, you're being an arse by attacking people like that and it certainly aint making you seem more reasonable. You're ok with the delay? fine, you've made that clear. No one is saying that you can't be ok with the delay, so why do you think you can tell people who aren't ok that they're wrong, trolls, etc?
Sure, if someone is spamming death threats or being totally unreasonable, then fine, call em out. Someone gets a refund and says they'll buy the game after its released? nothing wrong with that.
Because people are overreacting that there is a delay, when it is a common occurrence in the industry. I am disappointed of course, but I can't believe people don't want a more polished product, or want something to be released that isn't ready.
The whole I am going to take my refund and buy somewhere else blah blah... Like the game hasn't been out for over a decade... Then the conspiracy stuff that the devs were trying to swindle money, that isnt trollish? It also seems unreasonable to get a refund if you are just going to buy it again anyway.
And then you post towards me what you are trying to accuse me of doing.
For the last month, give or take, if anyone looked at my facebook page the first thing they would have seen was that my all time favorite game was being re-released. I have corrected that. Sorta felt like advising people to invest with Bernie Madoff.
OK Trent, buddy, when is the new release date? And tell me why I should believe the new one. Seriously. I wanna know.
I haven't asked for a refund. Yet. If something more concrete isn't put out, soon, I will. And you can forget the preorder shit for any future games from these guys. That includes BG2EE. *$^& me once shame on you.....
If anyone considers this trollish, so be it. I freaking paid for the right to troll. Get over it.
I find it amazing people can make stupid fanboy comments like this when they dont even know how the game will turn out. Bioware made BG not overhaul, your fanaticism is misplaced. Customers have a obligation to criticize delays when money is involved.
How pragmatic. So you're saying that "fanboys" need to be critical of the delay just because they (seemingly) already paid for the game? The situation has been explained. One does not qualify as a fanboy just because they have the empathy to realize that yeah, sometimes these things happen.
The post you quoted was talking about people who bitch and complain about a process that they have but a vague notion of how it goes. Doing that is just as stupid as praising a game that you haven't even played yet.
The game is not the issue here -it's how people react to the news. What is misplaced is your sense of entitlement as a paying customer. Talking trash and dismissing supportive people as fanatics doesn't make you come off as the wiser one in this situation.
Spoken like someone who does not have any idea who the real world works. While some people are in candy land, its easy to forget this is a business they are running.
Hey, maybe you are lucky, but if most all working people ever told their boss their work was not done on time or even a product was not ready for launch, well dont count on having a job. Yeah, the world at large has real sense of entitlement issues.
Or more fanboys have no concept of the real world, because its only in gaming apologists like you toss around words like "Entitlement" and claim people have no right to complain a product they paid for is not delivered on time. This is part of why people dont take gaming seriously, the childish blind fanaticism that lets game companies get away with things regular companies never could.
Spoken like someone who does not have any idea who the real world works. While some people are in candy land, its easy to forget this is a business they are running.
Hey, maybe you are lucky, but if most all working people ever told their boss their work was not done on time or even a product was not ready for launch, well dont count on having a job. Yeah, the world at large has real sense of entitlement issues.
Or more fanboys have no concept of the real world, because its only in gaming apologists like you toss around words like "Entitlement" and claim people have no right to complain a product they paid for is not delivered on time. This is part of why people dont take gaming seriously, the childish blind fanaticism that lets game companies get away with things regular companies never could.
Yep, because crucifying a small dev team doing a niche product for a 2 month delay is real world knowledge. It is not being an apologist, it is just putting things into perspective.
Personally, I'm relieved about the release date. It coincides with my summer holidays whereas before it was right in assignment/exam time... phew. No test of my self-control necessary.
Simply, in my experience (18 years now) a game build hits an exponential fix rate for bugs near the end when it solidifies radically in a short time. My hope was we were close to that time, but it appears I was overly optimistic and as a result we have sacrificed to get more time to ensure the build we make is a quality build. We are betting the future of our company and the livelyhood of all the employees on the success of this title. I believe if we build a great game we will succeed and if we shipped a title that was buggy we would be hard pressed to ever move beyond that failure.
Simply, in my experience (18 years now) a game build hits an exponential fix rate for bugs near the end when it solidifies radically in a short time. My hope was we were close to that time, but it appears I was overly optimistic and as a result we have sacrificed to get more time to ensure the build we make is a quality build. We are betting the future of our company and the livelyhood of all the employees on the success of this title. I believe if we build a great game we will succeed and if we shipped a title that was buggy we would be hard pressed to ever move beyond that failure.
"Has anyone here ever ordered a set of floppy disks from an independent game developer... only to have to wait almost 8 weeks for them to arrive, because they didn't ship right away and the mail service was slow? Or had a disk damaged in shipping so you had to mail a letter back, asking nicely for a replacement? "
Has anyone here done business with someone who failed to deliver and then in the future took their business elsewhere? That to me seems like the more pertinent question.
I don't mean to be too hard on Trent and company. I am majorly disappointed. You just gotta live up to your commitments if you want to succeed. I hope this is constructive criticism.
Yes, I will wait until November. Mostly because I don't have a choice if I want the game.
"Has anyone here ever ordered a set of floppy disks from an independent game developer... only to have to wait almost 8 weeks for them to arrive, because they didn't ship right away and the mail service was slow? Or had a disk damaged in shipping so you had to mail a letter back, asking nicely for a replacement? "
Has anyone here done business with someone who failed to deliver and then in the future took their business elsewhere? That to me seems like the more pertinent question.
I don't mean to be too hard on Trent and company. I am majorly disappointed. You just gotta live up to your commitments if you want to succeed. I hope this is constructive criticism.
Yes, I will wait until November. Mostly because I don't have a choice if I want the game.
I am an engineer as well. And there are project delays all the time. Deadlines get pushed as unforeseen events occur. Scheduling is a crap shoot to begin with and is all best guess and difficult to set in stone.
As much as it sucks having to wait for the game, it's worth it. Far too many great games have been ruined because they were forced out the door before they were ready. I'd rather get a great game later than a mediocre one now.
You must have more forgiving customers than I do. I work mostly on large retail facilities. They have dates scheduled way in advance for products to show up and get stocked on their shelves. They have fortunes spent advertising grand opening dates. "Unforseen events" mean millions of dollars in lost revenue. I don't have the luxury of pushed deadlines. So I never miss them. And large companies keep giving me their business. Amazing how that works.
You must have more forgiving customers than I do. I work mostly on large retail facilities. They have dates scheduled way in advance for products to show up and get stocked on their shelves. They have fortunes spent advertising grand opening dates. "Unforseen events" mean millions of dollars in lost revenue. I don't have the luxury of pushed deadlines. So I never miss them. And large companies keep giving me their business. Amazing how that works.
Funny how it works that software has bugs and coding that needs fixing. Especially when trying to clean up very old and dated code.
Well, unless the bug completly prevents the game to carry on (fatal error, freeze, screen error that make the game unplayable from that point) OR if the bug totally compromise a NPC (that can be cast out of the release until fixed and launched later as DLC) delay can maybe not be necessary.
I have an exam soon, an important one, thus i'm going to bury myself under books and online classes for a month like 8 hours per day, so this delay kinda of help me.
As a BG fan (or fanboy as it's the new nicknames for reasonable peoples now) i really don't mind the delay (i'm a little suspect as for personal reasons i wouldn't be able to play now the game anyway), but a delay 3 days before the launch damage Beamdog so much or even more than some playable bugs.
Well it's done now, retreat would make Beamdog appear less proffesional from a business point of view, so let's wait for november 30 and see the result.
The people that pre-ordered the game before the delay could at least receive some kind of bonus, as the right to download $x,00 in DLCs products for BG EE (or just an extra credit to be used in any Beamdog product) for example or maybe a game download from a list of specific games, like fallout or other RPG alike games.
We did a 6 months investment and keep the client busy with a toast can calm the tempers and restore a bit the company image, no one here is too young, most are 25 years old+ and everyone know that money make money, and a 6 month pre-purchase make the pre-order value be greater than $18,00 in income terms.
Well i'm out for a month, it's online study most but no big posts from me anymore (for the rejoice of many in this forum).
Because people are overreacting that there is a delay, when it is a common occurrence in the industry. I am disappointed of course, but I can't believe people don't want a more polished product, or want something to be released that isn't ready.
So what if it happens often? you seen the stock of EA lately? thats what happens when you make promises and you dont deliver.
And you summed it up beautifully, you can't believe people dont want a more polished product, so they are therefore wrong and trolls. Whereas to them, its not just about the polish, its about the promise and the time. People care about different things surprise surprise. Yes, we want polish, but polish that is on time and towards what was committed to. In the same way, I want a well cooked meal, but I dont want to have to wait an extra few hours for it after they said 20 minutes.
The whole I am going to take my refund and buy somewhere else blah blah... Like the game hasn't been out for over a decade... Then the conspiracy stuff that the devs were trying to swindle money, that isnt trollish? It also seems unreasonable to get a refund if you are just going to buy it again anyway.
Its entirely reasonable to get a refund and then buy it again later.
Lets use my cooking analogy, If you ordered a food, it was late you expected it in five minutes but they instead said you had to wait an hour. You'd be justified in getting a refund and spend that money elsewhere, and its also entirely reasonable to, on another day, give that restaurant another go if they go "ok, we can now cook meals on time" or "ok, the meal is ready for you to eat straight away if you give us the money".
Now, lets compare that to whats going on here. There are people who go "ok, i want this meal to be awesome, i'll wait" Thats fine Then there are people who go "this wait is rude/poor service because they ony told me only moments before i was expecting it", this is also ok.
Now, what you're basically saying is that the latter people are, trolls, wrong, etc and that you can't understand how those people "dont want a better quality meal". If you were to express this sentiment in a real life restaurant to the person waiting for their meal, you'd be in for a rude awakening.
What was promised was "An upgraded meal of the meal you used to know, on sept 18" They didn't deliver. People are justified in being unhappy.
Guess I am just old school. You live up to the commitments you make. No matter what. If it means paying the difference out of your own pocket, so be it. But it has served me well.
Because people are overreacting that there is a delay, when it is a common occurrence in the industry. I am disappointed of course, but I can't believe people don't want a more polished product, or want something to be released that isn't ready.
So what if it happens often? you seen the stock of EA lately? thats what happens when you make promises and you dont deliver.
And you summed it up beautifully, you can't believe people dont want a more polished product, so they are therefore wrong and trolls. Whereas to them, its not just about the polish, its about the promise and the time. People care about different things surprise surprise. Yes, we want polish, but polish that is on time and towards what was committed to. In the same way, I want a well cooked meal, but I dont want to have to wait an extra few hours for it after they said 20 minutes.
The whole I am going to take my refund and buy somewhere else blah blah... Like the game hasn't been out for over a decade... Then the conspiracy stuff that the devs were trying to swindle money, that isnt trollish? It also seems unreasonable to get a refund if you are just going to buy it again anyway.
Its entirely reasonable to get a refund and then buy it again later.
Lets use my cooking analogy, If you ordered a food, it was late you expected it in five minutes but they instead said you had to wait an hour. You'd be justified in getting a refund and spend that money elsewhere, and its also entirely reasonable to, on another day, give that restaurant another go if they go "ok, we can now cook meals on time" or "ok, the meal is ready for you to eat straight away if you give us the money".
Now, lets compare that to whats going on here. There are people who go "ok, i want this meal to be awesome, i'll wait" Thats fine Then there are people who go "this wait is rude/poor service because they ony told me only moments before i was expecting it", this is also ok.
Now, what you're basically saying is that the latter people are, trolls, wrong, etc and that you can't understand how those people "dont want a better quality meal". If you were to express this sentiment in a real life restaurant to the person waiting for their meal, you'd be in for a rude awakening.
What was promised was "An upgraded meal of the meal you used to know, on sept 18" They didn't deliver. People are justified in being unhappy.
And then you post towards me what you are trying to accuse me of doing.
Can't quite exactly catch your meaning here, can you paraphrase this?
I am unhappy as well, but I try to keep it in perspective.
The trollish comments are those who are citing conspiracy theories and getting seemingly enraged over this. It is a disappointment and mild annoyance at best.
Your cooking analogy doesn't really relate to this though.
It is one thing if they are trying to screw us over or weren't putting forth effort. But I when I see tweets by Trent working into the morning on this, and the fact that they are making a niche fan service game that not many companies are willing to do, I am willing to cut them a little slack over the mild inconvenience of a pushed back date.
Comments
I still maintain that announcing a date was a bad idea. But I do recognize that hindsight is always twenty twenty. I'm sure they thought they could make the date. Stuff happens.
I would rather have a finished and polished game. How often do games fail when they release buggy and then get bad press? If it isn't ready, then its not ready. I am very confident they have been working hard long hours on this. It is a terrible idea to knowingly release a buggy game and to rely on patches later. (I know all games have some quirks, but game breaking ones shouldnt be in the release)
The response should be a disappointed understanding, but hopeful that the team is dedicated enough to release a finish product they are proud of.
You guys act like this doesn't happen ALL THE TIME in the gaming industry.
What would it mattered if they initially said Sept or Nov as the date? People wouldnt have pre-ordered if it was November? You are looking for conspiracies where there are none.
They had a target date, there were complications and the game wasnt up to their standards, so they delayed it. Simple as that...
You know what a good beta is for this game? The original...
Just "because it happens all the time"? are you really gonna go with that argument?
you cannot see any possible flaws with that attitude or why that would be a completely weak line of reasoning?
Also, don't call someone a troll when they have legitimate arguments, you're being an arse by attacking people like that and it certainly aint making you seem more reasonable.
You're ok with the delay? fine, you've made that clear. No one is saying that you can't be ok with the delay, so why do you think you can tell people who aren't ok that they're wrong, trolls, etc?
Sure, if someone is spamming death threats or being totally unreasonable, then fine, call em out.
Someone gets a refund and says they'll buy the game after its released? nothing wrong with that.
The whole I am going to take my refund and buy somewhere else blah blah... Like the game hasn't been out for over a decade... Then the conspiracy stuff that the devs were trying to swindle money, that isnt trollish? It also seems unreasonable to get a refund if you are just going to buy it again anyway.
And then you post towards me what you are trying to accuse me of doing.
For the last month, give or take, if anyone looked at my facebook page the first thing they would have seen was that my all time favorite game was being re-released. I have corrected that. Sorta felt like advising people to invest with Bernie Madoff.
OK Trent, buddy, when is the new release date? And tell me why I should believe the new one. Seriously. I wanna know.
I haven't asked for a refund. Yet. If something more concrete isn't put out, soon, I will. And you can forget the preorder shit for any future games from these guys. That includes BG2EE. *$^& me once shame on you.....
If anyone considers this trollish, so be it. I freaking paid for the right to troll. Get over it.
Hey, maybe you are lucky, but if most all working people ever told their boss their work was not done on time or even a product was not ready for launch, well dont count on having a job. Yeah, the world at large has real sense of entitlement issues.
Or more fanboys have no concept of the real world, because its only in gaming apologists like you toss around words like "Entitlement" and claim people have no right to complain a product they paid for is not delivered on time. This is part of why people dont take gaming seriously, the childish blind fanaticism that lets game companies get away with things regular companies never could.
-Trent
So when is the new date?
Like my dear old Dad used to tell me, if you are looking for sympathy try Websters. You will find it somewhere between sweat and toil.
You just can't make promises you can't deliver. In any business.
"Has anyone here ever ordered a set of floppy disks from an independent game developer... only to have to wait almost 8 weeks for them to arrive, because they didn't ship right away and the mail service was slow? Or had a disk damaged in shipping so you had to mail a letter back, asking nicely for a replacement? "
Has anyone here done business with someone who failed to deliver and then in the future took their business elsewhere? That to me seems like the more pertinent question.
I don't mean to be too hard on Trent and company. I am majorly disappointed. You just gotta live up to your commitments if you want to succeed. I hope this is constructive criticism.
Yes, I will wait until November. Mostly because I don't have a choice if I want the game.
You must have more forgiving customers than I do. I work mostly on large retail facilities. They have dates scheduled way in advance for products to show up and get stocked on their shelves. They have fortunes spent advertising grand opening dates. "Unforseen events" mean millions of dollars in lost revenue. I don't have the luxury of pushed deadlines. So I never miss them. And large companies keep giving me their business. Amazing how that works.
I have an exam soon, an important one, thus i'm going to bury myself under books and online classes for a month like 8 hours per day, so this delay kinda of help me.
As a BG fan (or fanboy as it's the new nicknames for reasonable peoples now) i really don't mind the delay (i'm a little suspect as for personal reasons i wouldn't be able to play now the game anyway), but a delay 3 days before the launch damage Beamdog so much or even more than some playable bugs.
Well it's done now, retreat would make Beamdog appear less proffesional from a business point of view, so let's wait for november 30 and see the result.
The people that pre-ordered the game before the delay could at least receive some kind of bonus, as the right to download $x,00 in DLCs products for BG EE (or just an extra credit to be used in any Beamdog product) for example or maybe a game download from a list of specific games, like fallout or other RPG alike games.
We did a 6 months investment and keep the client busy with a toast can calm the tempers and restore a bit the company image, no one here is too young, most are 25 years old+ and everyone know that money make money, and a 6 month pre-purchase make the pre-order value be greater than $18,00 in income terms.
Well i'm out for a month, it's online study most but no big posts from me anymore (for the rejoice of many in this forum).
And you summed it up beautifully, you can't believe people dont want a more polished product, so they are therefore wrong and trolls.
Whereas to them, its not just about the polish, its about the promise and the time. People care about different things surprise surprise.
Yes, we want polish, but polish that is on time and towards what was committed to.
In the same way, I want a well cooked meal, but I dont want to have to wait an extra few hours for it after they said 20 minutes. Its entirely reasonable to get a refund and then buy it again later.
Lets use my cooking analogy, If you ordered a food, it was late you expected it in five minutes but they instead said you had to wait an hour. You'd be justified in getting a refund and spend that money elsewhere, and its also entirely reasonable to, on another day, give that restaurant another go if they go "ok, we can now cook meals on time" or "ok, the meal is ready for you to eat straight away if you give us the money".
Now, lets compare that to whats going on here.
There are people who go "ok, i want this meal to be awesome, i'll wait"
Thats fine
Then there are people who go "this wait is rude/poor service because they ony told me only moments before i was expecting it", this is also ok.
Now, what you're basically saying is that the latter people are, trolls, wrong, etc and that you can't understand how those people "dont want a better quality meal". If you were to express this sentiment in a real life restaurant to the person waiting for their meal, you'd be in for a rude awakening.
What was promised was "An upgraded meal of the meal you used to know, on sept 18" They didn't deliver. People are justified in being unhappy. Can't quite exactly catch your meaning here, can you paraphrase this?
You are right of course. I want BGEE and there is no where else to get it. If there was I would drop these guys in a heartbeat.
@jmustang1968
Guess I am just old school. You live up to the commitments you make. No matter what. If it means paying the difference out of your own pocket, so be it. But it has served me well.
I am unhappy as well, but I try to keep it in perspective.
The trollish comments are those who are citing conspiracy theories and getting seemingly enraged over this. It is a disappointment and mild annoyance at best.
Your cooking analogy doesn't really relate to this though.
It is one thing if they are trying to screw us over or weren't putting forth effort. But I when I see tweets by Trent working into the morning on this, and the fact that they are making a niche fan service game that not many companies are willing to do, I am willing to cut them a little slack over the mild inconvenience of a pushed back date.