i apologize if i offended you and that my post came out harsh. let me explain my point: there's no doubt that toee was riddled with bugs when it came out. people in the toee forums of atari clamored for a patch. the first patch came, after a long, long time. and it didn't fix much. a recent patch 2.0 was released and i hope it will sort things out the game. because i really, really would love to play toee. it's graphics are beautiful and i can't wait to play 3.5 ed. of d&d. the music everytime i set foot in hommlet is just outstanding. reminds me of the haunting melody in diablo i, which btw i liked better than d2. and also i think toee's turn-based combat, though at first seems complicated , is a joy to play once you get the hang of it.
And I suppose I should explain my harsh reaction. There is no doubt ToEE is buggy.
The problem is: ToEE was published by Atari. You might know that only Atari has the D&D license. They rushed the game. The release date was a month away and the game wasn't tweaked but Atari didn't seem to care. There were 3 patches ready a long time ago. As you just said, they came out. Troika people sent those patches to several people at Atari. They didn't get a reply.
but now, the question is, will people buy another game made by the co. which made toee after their experience w/ toee? maybe they will, but imo most will opt to wait it out until they can say w/ a certain degree of certainty that gameplay will not be hampered, riddled by bugs. again, i'm expressing my opinion.
Troika was founded by the 3 key members who created Fallout 1. They left when F2 was in production and were later joined by several others.
Together they created Arcanum. Arcanum was buggy, but for an RPG of those massive proportions, it wasn't as notices as ToEE. Also I consider Arcanum the best PC game ever created. But I think I am the only on that one.
and by the way, fyi, vivendi does indeed own blizzard. blizzard is a division of vivendi universal, and a highly-profitable one at that. however, vivendi got mired in a quagmire of gargantuan debts (to the tune of several billion euros) when it embarked on an aggressive acquisition binge in the tech-led boom in the early 2000's. bulk of these acquisitions were financed by debts, i.e., bank loans and bonds, and i think there came a point when vivendi's bonds were considered junk status already. its cashflow was not enough to sufficiently service its debts.
I see. But I suppose Blizzard has a very good control over the company: after all all titles are published under the Blizzard name, except for the console games which are published under the Vivendi name.
again, i'm sorry and next time i'll try to be more circumspect in my posts.
Likewise, I should've explained. I admit I rushed to the conclusious too quickly.
