angrycustomer

No, you shouldn't. On the other hand, a certain level of technical competence has always been required to play PC games - I remember the constant nightmare of figuring out what my soundblaster card settings were in the pre-Plug&Play era. I think it must always be the gamer's responsibility to keep his/her computer in a reasonable condition, with drivers updated and the memory largely free of glitch-causing applications. When was the last time you did a fresh wipe/reinstall of your hard drive? About a week ago, though not by choice. Look, I'm just saying that all these problems are because I didn't patch the NeverWinter Nights 2 before installing the Expansion (or so it seems). And there is no easy way to contact anyone about anything. My issue is that somehow this poor service is seen as both okay and normal. And mostly, I needed to vent.

Been there, done that, not looking for help. I want to open a discussion about how we can even accept this as normal. Atari says 7 to 10 business days to reply to an email...an email, form the love of God. And...no phone number? I purchased the game to support all involved, but they are not supporting me. Also, I should not have to be technically competent to play a game. That is why I buy it, not make it. Like buying a car and dealer assistance ending the moment it is off the lot. Or the dealer, at the very most, saying "I'll help when I get around to it. Leave a note telling me whats wrong. And don't call me."

Possibly. But since I am doing nothing more than: downloading and running a program, it is not my incompetence that is in question here. Good show though.

I'm sure this thread will be shut down quickly and I shall be banned. However, as long as it is here, I hope someone will read this and think on what it says. I do not know who is responsible for the problems that I am having, Obsidian or Atari. Atari has made themselves slightly more impossible to contact than Obsidian, so this post appears here. Those of you who are PC gamers, who enjoy the freedom a PC gives, and who enjoy using a keyboard and being able mod or mess with settings might have noticed that developers hate us. I mean really hate us. One, they blame us for piracy. This is a fair assumption, I suppose. Pirating is quite easy on a PC. However, it is either a punishment for having such a capability, or simply because they don't care, that no game seems to work right on the first try. Ever. As a friend pointed out, game breaking bugs are incredibly rare on consoles. Now, I'm not talking just bugs from hardware incompatibilities or various software incompatibilities. I'm talking things like an automatic updater that does not work, or a game destroying omission of a text line that prevents a story from moving forward from the very beginning. Patching manually would be okay, but they decide not to have any patches for download off their site. Still, at least someone cobbled together a list of the patches you need, in the order they need to be downloaded and installed. Mind you, they are not exe files, but some good soul made an unofficial patching program that would patch them for you. Because who actually knows how to apply a patch in RTP format? The final insult is when one of those patches does not even work. Obviously because this is all being done away from any official "support" there are no answers as to what to do. Thank God for tech support...except that it is mostly done through "self help" on forums moderated by people who are so busy trying to make sure the forum doesn't get out of hand with the absurd number of people that need help that they end up being unhelpful and further obfuscate the matter. Then you actually try to find a phone number, hope you happen to have a chance during the week when you and everyone else is at work. And, the best part is, all you can end up doing is getting some poor innocent who tries to help you solve the problem. Meanwhile, the company that made the game cannot be reached, contacted, and generally doesn't feel your displeasure. They take your money and give you the run around. So now we are back to piracy. Some of you probably have figured out what game I am having issues with. I waited for over a year until I had some free cash to buy the game, and now I am stuck trying to manually patch it with the most unhelpful system imaginable, and then debug my own game. These game companies invest huge amounts of money trying to insure our loyalty, but do nothing to actually deserve or retain it. Don't PC gamers get tired of doing this game after game? Doesn't anyone feel like they deserve something more? I want to support the industry and developers, but I also want to be supported. And I am not getting that. Sincerely, Tristram a.k.a Angrycustomer p.s. I'm not asking anyone to fix my problem. I'm asking people to think about what is going on here.