After reading through this thread, I'm coming to the point that I see that while the game has many enjoyable aspects, the culmulative weight of all the issues (of varying degrees of subjective importance) renders the product to be much less than what it should have been. There are the game "pounders" who don't care. They will pound away at it despite it's flaws and still have a wonderful time, saving every two minutes to ensure progress versus the game stopping crash or bug. For those of us that only want a game stable enough to play for an hour or two, saving when we sign off... BD ain't it.
It still has too many problems to be politely considered stable. I pity the poor Joes that even played this before the 1.45 patch. It must have been a true horror. I only had this game for about a week and installed the 1.45 patch with the new game. Though the money isn't important, if only I would have waited, I could have gotten a much better game experience at an even better price. Next time I see a Larian product, I'm waiting until I see it in the bargain bin first, and checking to see if the patches cover all the issues before I buy.
This problem is not new. Many publishers push products out the door to make the holiday season. Notice I didn't say developer. The bean counters are the ones at fault. That's why some gamers refuse to buy around Chistmas knowing full well that many hot products will be in fact, incomplete. I honestly wish that someone like the Attorney General would examine this practice as this has been a well known fact. If something is supposed to work in a certain way, and doesn't, and the publisher knew beforehand, and sold it anyway... well, in most countries that constitutes fraud.
I, for one would like to see someone, anyone... really clean up the software business. Maybe then I could get a game that gives me more enjoyment than headache. It's not even the money issue.
Ralph
