And was very specifically told that ...
in your quote there was NO talk of a lobby or anything regarding that direction even. they just said that if you have two people (one with gog and one with steam) that you can not use steam (what a surprise) to play together but use directipconnect. btw that is not even valid without you having access to your router. which is not a given.
how you could even find a hint about or think that customers should know there would be no lobby system or at least a substitute in gog versions with that statement is a puzzle to me... and obviously countless other people on various sites.
It tells me Larian was unclear on the situation. In part that was because for some time they had not determined exactly how they would be handling multiplayer for the DRM free versions.
first of all if you know that you only provide a lobby to steam users and you dont produce your own system you dont exactly just know it after launch (when at least the forum announcement was changed). a lobby system and to integrate steamworks isnt done in the last hour before release. a steam exclusive deal was struck or at some point they said that they couldnt finish their own lobby system in time. at this point (we are talking about months) it is obvious to every guy involved in the production cycle of multiplayer and all the higher ups that you are not having a internet lobby and what impact this has.
i even go so far (and am not the only one) to conclude that there were a couple of people that were deliberately vague in their wording every time there was talk about the topic in official channels. and even worded advertisements the way you would think theres a lobby even if there is none. exhibit A: customers that thought so after reading up on dragon commander.
and furthermore they even said in plain text without any room to interpret that there wouldnt be any differences between the versions!
you could also argue that one knows now why there was no beta version made available outside of steam. there is no technical reason against this. only reason could may have been that it would be too much work to upload some files and keep them updated. but then again of course it wouldnt be much use to upload a multiplayer demo to anywhere else but steam if it requires steam to work as multiplayer.
it is nice and all to say that you reassure that you never wanted to lie or fool anyone but in retrospect EVERYTHING says that you did.
and the fact that you dont even do a measily 1 hour work to help the people (example forum set up or publicate fan base workaround like ircchannel) you allegedly didnt want to fool but instead just come up with statements that say "we did never promise anything" while you most certainly did and still do in advertisements tells me what you really think about your customers. which in turn strengthens my above conclusion.
and sorry to say that yet again. we are not just talking about a little fraction of the customers here where big (and unliked) firms like EA can allow themselves to do the exact same thing your doing.
on the contrary we (the countlessly fooled customers) posted numerous times statements by and from Larian that practically and theoretically said that there are no differences between the versions. for example: "GOG, Steam, Vault etc... No differences". This header right here is in your own forum just a few topics above.
and everytime someone posts in a forum be it here or on gog that they feel cheated and expected a lobby because of your statements you pull out a sentence that says NOTHING about lobbys/serverbrowsers/etc and/or complete it by saying that all the fooled customers interpreted the wording on the advertisements wrong (THAT SAID THERE ARE NO DIFFERENCES!) and that we had to KNOW BY THAT THERE ARE IN FACT HUGE DIFFERENCES which make MP practically unplayable.
if you cant find a behaviour that is typical for marketing/lawyers/etc of firms in that i dont know how i can explain it better to you. also you obviously being involved with larian doesnt really help your point.
you brought NO statement where they said there wont be a lobby/browser/etc or any substitute pre launch. instead for every guy that comes in here or gog,etc and tries to get an explanation/excuse/substitute/help you just say the same thing over and over and say we got its wording wrong. you dont back it up or even have facts for your statement because there are none. its just your own (and pretty much singular) opinion over and over again. you back your own opinion up by how your own opinion and how you interpret wording which countless others dont agree with while none except for other larian workers do.
on the contrary even everything the fooled customers and everyone that posts in here or gog points to that you are dead wrong.
and to be honest its plain insulting for paying customers to be handled this way. this in turn should explain to you why people get angry here and on gog. maybe you can do something with that extensive information and explanation which is proven by the sheer number of posts from fooled customers or it has brought you to consider the way you work with paying customers, not against but with them. because plainly said im tired of argueing with your opinion and have just taken this long because i felt like i could at least achieve that you get up and help us instead of just kicking us customers again and again that already felt into your trap. on the other hand im fairly sure you just plain move straight ahead and larian has already concentrated on their next upcoming release while making a checkmark behind dragon commanders revenue. i just hope you can keep up with that behaviour as long as EA because in the essence you would have produced good games. will be interesting when your trying to crowdfund the next title.
