Chloe

Ah, well. Up until about mid 2008, I had been waiting patiently for them to release their restoration project. After that, it became pretty clear that they'd either been... too optimistic, let's say or they didn't want to release. By that time, it had been a WIP for something like four years, and all they ever showed for it were some videos, so I really wasn't holding my breath.

Well, I didn't think it was that obscure, this being an Obsidian board and KotOR 2 being an Obsidian game and all. Also, if I'm not totally mistaken (which is a possibility. Started early today...) it was the time frame given by either Obsidian or Bioware for a patch that would then take another three months to show up. I'll be damned if I recall which game that patch was for, thogh. I do recall that I was part of the howling pack.

Two weeks. ? Maybe a reference to the last days of Team Gizka. Indeed, sir. Well played.

Heya, thanks for the link. I'll go check it out tomorrow, as I won't have to teach students and I might miss the pain...

Two weeks.

Because it stubbornly refuses to run on some peoples's rigs. I'd love to be able to praise/complain about actual gameplay. Trouble is, the game doesn't let me play it. SEGA and Obsidian don't do anything about that problem and as far as I know haven't even acknowledged that there is a problem. Ergo, I don't even have a way of knowing if I like the game. Judging from the one time I was actually able to start the game, though, I was underwhelmed.

How so?

No, it doesn't change anything. I don't lay the blame squarely at Obsidians feet either. It's not only programmers, it is also publishers that are basically ruining the industry by short-term profit thinking. It's not only SEGA, it's also UBI and their disastrous DRM policy, it's EA with their non-existing customer service. It is everywhere, and they are the ones paying developer studios too little money to work on games long enough to iron out the major kinks or to make patches. I'd love to climb on my soap box and sermonize about customers who want everything as cheap as possible, but at least in this case that wouldn't be applicable. Computer games are between 45 and 64 Euros around here, and there's no option of getting them much more or much less cheap. Actually, I'd even pay more. All I'd ask in return is clear communication by the companies to their customers, high-quality games that show the love and dedication that developers invested in their games (cf Mass Effect series, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, GTA IV et al). Also, I realize that debugging software can closely resemble a trip through hell. When it was clear that our business would go belly up mid-term, the GF went back to university for a PhD in Computer Science. I've done some programming and administration as well, and I have a vague idea of how hellish it must be to debug a whole frackin' computer game on several standard configurations, not to mention the millions of possible hardware and software combinations out there in the real world. All that doesn't change that customers demand software that runs on their systems. All that doesn't change that a couple of games with severe problems like, oh, say... Alpha Protocol will suffice to ruin the goodwill of the public. All that doesn't change that said public will at some point start ignoring products by a company that is known for buggy games. And no, I'm for once not looking at you exclusively, Obsidian. All that doesn't change that a company whose reputation is ruined in this fashion won't get many contracts from publishers anymore, even if they are the same publishers who share the responsibility for the buggy games that ruined the developer's reputation in the first place. Peace C C

I don't hate Obsidian. I just think if they keep working like this, they'll go out of business.

My pets destroy computers. They don't own them. My computer owning relatives live like 1200km to the south of me, and I wouldn't inflict the irritation of trying to run this... this *thing* on my friends.

Well, why don't we? Because in my case there are several obstacles to be overcome for the game burning: I'm in Europe. Obsidian HQ is somewhere in the US (Orange County, CA?). I'm not paying the air fare. No way. This incarnation of the game was a present by my girlfriend. Doing anything to GF presents that involve returning, burning, stomping, fileting or target practice will result in most... interesting and unpleasant repercussions unless said gift was specifically given for any of the purposes mentioned above. I'm still not paying the ticket. My work schedule is a little too tight for trips to the US. So, as interesting as your idea might be, I can't. Also, I don't think Obsidian would care. They have our money. The series won't be continued. The bugs may or may not be fixed. They don't need our goodwill. By the time they release the next game, it will have blown over and all this will start anew. At some point, if they keep this kind of work up, they will go out of business. I won't care. C Edited to clean up the formatting

Yeah, thought about that. Trouble is, my other computers are: a laptop that's been specced for work (and only work) and hence sucks. a seven year old machine that was decent when I bought it, halfway decent when I last upgraded it but is hopelessly obsolete in this fine August of 2010. a Linux server that I've started to set up but pretty much abandoned later on. None of these have even the minimum specs for the game. My gaming machine won't run it (*sniffle*). Ah, well. I've replayed Mass Effect 1 and am currently running through Mass Effect 2. I like 'em, so let Obsidian go the way of Troika. I'm pretty much beyond caring at this point. As for the universe, let it. It's ultimately against all of us. None of us will make it out alive, after all. C

If you were talking to me: Yes, I returned it. Only to get it as a present from my girlfriend two weeks or so after. I will not risk returning a gift from her. It would be... most unpleasant. C

Yes, I purchased it through a private vendor on Amazon.com , as Amazon was out of stock. He responded to my initial inquiry and then disappeared. For the last two weeks, I've been trying to reach him by email, but he has disappeared into the mist. There seems to be a lot of that going on when it comes to this game. Or you could inflict it on some unsuspecting friend. You know, as a birthday gift or something, so someone else has all the delight of a non-running game. Who knows, maybe it'll even run for them. Bonus! C

Drat! Now you tell me. After I've wasted countless hours of sleep, not to mention huge quantities of hard liquor trying to get it to run - without any success, I might add... I keep asking myself why the fracking frack I'm bothering with this game anyway. Gah! Back to lurking...