Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General Black listed..

So it's been over 4 months now since the last patch, I'm no longer expecting Larian to actually fix the bugs in this game. It's pretty clear they do not care any more. Just like DD they released a few quick patches to fix the big errors, and then left the game as is. I have added Larian to my do not buy list. Buggy games at release are sadly normal these days, but most developers/publishers at least have the courtesy to fix their product. This is just disgusting.

"Big deal" you may be thinking, one person saying they will no longer buy Larian products. It's not just one person though, I've spoken with others who feel the same. Sorry Larian, but by not supporting (or at least fixing) a product you've released, you've pretty much condemed yourselves. Beyond Divinity did not sell well, DD2 will sell even less, if you even survive as a company to release it.

I doubt many will even read this. It seems your forums were abandoned quite some time ago. Front page here in the English section is 2 months of topics... Doesn't get much more obvious then that.

So what bugs are you experiencing that triggered this boycott? They have said there will be another patch.


[color:"orange"]Just like DD they released a few quick patches to fix the big errors, and then left the game as is.[/color]

The 1.34 patch for DD was released a little over a year after the game was released, and pretty much cleared up the remaining issues. The 1.32 hotfix, which was released relatively quickly, fixed the majority of serious bugs, and there workarounds most other problems.


[color:"orange"]I doubt many will even read this. It seems your forums were abandoned quite some time ago. Front page here in the English section is 2 months of topics...[/color]

The BD suggestions forum is the only one with a couple months of topics (but then how many suggestions do you expect for a game already released?). The first page of the help forum index currently has 5 days of posts.

I'm not going to sit here and type a bug list for you. There are already several in the tech support area.

The help forum is so active because there is no ingame explanations of anything so everyone who plays has to come here for help. So you have all 30 current players trying to figure out how the game works over there. And that front page goes back 2 weeks for me.

Link to Larians statement about a new patch? I highly doubt it. It wouldn't take 4+ months to release a new critical patch, this isn't a spelling error patch, there are still major game stability issues.

The DD 1.34 patch.... I quote:
"
Bugfixes addressed in V1.34

-Solves the black map/resetted world problem
"

That's it... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> They didn't even bother using a spell checker on their patch notes. "Resetted?" *sigh*, such professionalism.

Larian Studio's is doing an excellent job of maintaining the forum . I have an older computer and play older games. Most have no forums or the game company has been closed. Thus, no help. If you read gaming magazines, you will notice how many games are released with bugs and seldom fixed. Because I am
able to play only older games; I take care in reading the reviews. [color:"blue"] [/color]

[color:"orange"]I'm not going to sit here and type a bug list for you.[/color]

Sorry, I had assumed you must have run into something serious.


[color:"orange"]Link to Larians statement about a new patch?[/color]

one mention: noooo Game crashing between act 2 & 3

Lynn has also recently stated that they are working on another patch for the Russian version, though that in itself doesn't prove another English patch is in the works. I'd take bets on it, though.


[color:"orange"]It wouldn't take 4+ months to release a new critical patch[/color]

There are not a lot of critical bugs left. I have not personally had any stability issues.


[color:"orange"]Bugfixes addressed in V1.34[/color]

There is one bug fix in 1.34 because the 1.33 patch, released shortly before, had a potential problem with saves created under previous versions.


[color:"orange"]*sigh*, such professionalism.[/color]

That had more to do with not being a native English speaker than the professionalism of whoever wrote it. I'm sure Lynn would have fixed the spelling mistake had anyone reported it, but apparently nobody noticed or was bothered enough to do so.

Isn't it reasonable to think that they wait till all releases are released before they release the final patch. That patch can be thoroughly tested for new bugs. Basically instead of giving little patch jobs that sometimes conflict with previous version. The game plays well now and there shouldn't be any serious problems only annoyances IMO. I've played the games back to back pathless and patched and the most serious problems are out of it.

Well patience is a virtue isn't it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

There are still bugs innit ? Didn't notice.

Well, there are still quirks sometimes (like the hero who died but still wanted to have the "last word" by casting an elemental attack on the enemy, or the loading screen which was full, but yet the game loaded ... no updating needed ?) but I haven't noticed anything yet.

I had several CTDs after 1.45, so I stopped playing and waited for a patch. That's major to me. I wont play a game where any minute I can crash. And saving every 30 seconds isn't fun either.

That post about the "next patch" was made just a couple days after 1.45 came out, 6/02. 4 months ago. Sure it's slightly possible they are working on a patch secretly and not telling anyone about it or asking us for ideas, but that would be stupid. "Let's not tell our user base anything at all for 4 months" is not a good plan. I checked the german forum as well, nothing there about a new patch either.

Secondly, do you know how long it takes to spell check a sentence? Like 30 seconds. I don't give a crap if english isn't their main language, but when you have tools like spellcheck.net available, there's no excuse for an "official" post of a game company to have such obviously misspelled words.



Did that make sense to you when you typed it?

It's truly wonderful that you guys aren't having any serious problems. I'm glad you took the time out of your busy lives to come here and tell me that. I was having serious problems, others are too. I'm not even going to try and count how many times the word "crash" is said in a topic title in the tech section's front page, more then 20 it looks like, not to mention all the "freezes" and "bugs" and "errors". If you really think this game is "ok", then I feel sorry for you because it's obvious you've never played a quality product in your life. Look at games like Diablo, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Seige, you wont see people complaining about crashes or freezes on their forums. You may argue that those are "big" companies and have resources to fix their products, but if Larian can't do something so simple as fix the major problems in their games, they shouldn't be making them. Hell, look at Sacred, that game was a steaming pile of bugs when it came out, but the no-name developers who made it, Ascaron, have spent pretty much every day since it came out working on making it better, this is another "small" company, they can do it, why can't Larian?

ladyterry, Larian isn't doing anything with the forum, as far as I can see Lynn is here moding it, but he is not Larian, most likely he isn't even being paid to do this, I'm not sure what exactly he does, but for most companies the forum mods are volunteers. And I do infact read game magazines, many of them actually, and it's quite the opposite of what you say, many buggy games are released and then fixed, games that are never fixed are rare occurrences, unless you are dealing with very low budget/home made games. Quality games are maintained for years and years, look at Diablo 2, been out for 4 years and a huge patch was added not too long ago that added new life to the game. The only good game's I've bought that are no longer supported are the Black Isle games since they closed down, everything else going back 10 years I can find the website for and get patches and tech help. Even some game's who's developers/publishers went under still have maintained sites. So I don't know what garbage you've been playing or reading. If you can play BD, then you're computer can't be that old.

@Larian, if you read this and are indeed making a new patch for this game, then I must say you have made a very bad error in judgement. It is very, very important to let your users know what is going on. 4 months of silence with a buggy product in the hands of frustrated gamers is not a smart move.

Then again, doing nothing is even worse. Either way you are in hot water with many.

Check my signature...

unfortunately i must remind you that a lot of games' bugs are caused by instabilities in the OS. Since your windows return a abnormal value to a specific call, the game malfunctions.... the GAME did not give the abnormal value, neither did it call for an abnormal value, but now the coder (larian) needs to write 100 lines of extra code, to make the game capable of coping with windows' errors....

where did the windows errors come from????? most likely, stuff that you installed that changed / added to the dll files that the game relies on. you may also NOT have installed the programs that changed those files.... but its a fact... your average computer user does not have a flying idea of what goes on in windows internals and vulnerabilities....

Windows XP SP1 comes standard with 9 vulnerabilities (that they wont fix), which spyware, addware, and just plain MALware uses to install itself onto your computer. ALL of these programs causes major stability issues with windows, changes DLL files, and just makes your computer even more vulnerable to MORE malware.

so the fact that most games released lately is "buggy" is NOTHING unexpected. 5 years ago you could code a program and it worked first time round.... now you have to release it, check what is wrong on 038498490238745749809538094385943 people's computers, and write 10 times as much code as the original program, to make it capable of handling just about anything this cyberworld can throw at it.

my computers are kept free of malware, free of vulnerabilities, and so far in all the games that i use on them (I host LAN games - so its not a small amount), i have found maybe 10 minor bugs. I have NEVER been stuck in a wall, no matter how hard i tried to get it right, my screen has never blacked out, never had a single freez, etc.... so dont ALWAYS blame the coders for releasing a bad game.... first make sure it not your computer being bad.

i may be an old dumber but i'm already tired with these false polemics...

1) i don't know a game that is absolutly bug free... and it is really funny for me to hear about NWN as a bug free program!
2) i don't know a software that is absolutly bug free... (especially a software runned with windows)
3) you are absolutly right judging professionalism about word spelling... it is such a so clearly related thing, especially in software realm.
4) many people who have asked questions in the technical probs sections have just solved their problems, others have been tech supported succesfully (that is professionalism not some unfortunate mispelling) by larian...
5)please consider that frequent crashing with last patch are really not so frequent (many people have not got once) and wonder what may be in cause before saying something like "the game is broken, i want a new patch"... as i said before larian offers a support possibility.
6) for the absence of larian on this forum you are just making no sense to many of us (who is rat except a larian programmer for instance and there are some others.. this is not because they don't answer to you than they don't read )
7) consider also that i'm not even a true larian's fan, it is just something annoying to see something that seems to be so dishonnest that your 2 posts...

I agree with Lady_Rain. The problem most likely resides in your PC (bad graphical driver, IRQ conflict, windows errors...). Check your logs, run DXdiag. I also experienced craches in a diffrent game but later I found out that actually my memory was busted and after i replaced it, it worked lik a charm.



So you would have no problem that they fixed the first version (German) to perfection and then 6 months later the US version then 6 months later French version. Agreed most patches are universal but I rather have equal opportunity then the other members complaining "Why is their patch ready first".

What's a "CTD" ?

If I'm not mistaken the Larians are working on more than one game at the moment. Their secret game and DD2 to name just two. They are a small company and I have met serveral of them on a variety of occasions. I've come to know them as a hard working group that try to deliver what is expected of them. Unfortunately they don't have the muscles that Bioware or Blizzard have when it comes to developing games, just like many other small companies. Comparing them is pointless.
They are trying very hard and in my opinion they have listened too much to the fanbase right after the release of BD and released too many patches. It is very hard to please everyone apparently.

Would it be possible for them to please you? You make a lot of noise over a spelling error. If you blow that out of proportion then how should your other statements be interpreted?

Apparently you have not spend much time here, otherwise you would know that Lynn is not a he, but a she and that she is fully employed by Larian Studios.

Besides that, they might still be busy localizing the game for different languages; remember : The Japanese version came out only a few weeks ago !

Xaishi

Instead of writing a post about your problems in the general section, you should have written it in the technical problems section.

Or better send a PM to Drealmer, he will do his best to help you.


I agree with Myrthos : they have listened too much to the fanbase.
It is impossible to please everyone in any domain.

Barta

Crash to Desktop.

I am not playing Beyond Divinity because my older computer barely handles
Divine Divinity. That it does is a tribute to Larian Studio's and the work they've put in.
I've played Fallout, Fallout 2, and tried Fallout Tactics. But now I have win
2k. That makes it impossible at this point to play win 95 and win 98 games.
I can play Arcanum which was very buggy but got a good patch.
I hope to play Beyond Divinity because of what I've heard about it in a couple of years. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

i havnt had any problems with bd at all
but i think i had a single ctd, but i was drunk most of the time... so

iv installed on win2k and xp, on 4 different systems, running ati and nvidia cards

it all worked perfectly

the one think they have in common is there clean system, there all firewalled, they have update virus scanners, and there behind a router

i keep the network clean and the OS's clean, and dont install cheap software, or anything 'free' with spyware

i think that the bloke that said that your windows install might be causing the problem is corret,

try running a virus and adware check, or better yet, just reformat and refresh your system

the old' reformating should be a last resort is [nocando], try bd after a fresh format :P

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

Crackup on DeskTop! ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

@ladyterry . What kind of PC have you got ? Lots of RAM could help, I believe ...

Personally, I've got an old Athlon 800 but with over 300 MB RAM (don't count it regularly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> ) , and it runs just fine. At least with lower resolutions (which I prefer).

@all : There are still words and acronyms I simply can't keep in my memory; "tibar" and "CTD" are some of them. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />