Hoodwinked

[MasterHett]

 

I bought KOTOR2 just 2 days ago, June 29. The installation was borked. Several tries later (and after reading the forums), the game was installed. But then it crashes during character creation.

 

So I autopatch the game. The patcher downloads, but hangs after it finishes. I try twice, before manually downloading the EXE update. The manual update gets 96% complete and then fails to find a critical file.

 

I paid $45 for the most under-developed game ever produced. I will never again purchase a game developed by Obsidian. This type of product is expected for MMORPGs, but for a retail off-line game, this is truly pathetic.

 

I applaud your efforts to patch the game, it shows you care about your company's reputation. But for me, your reputation is ruined. I'll try just a tad longer, but after 2 days effort, I'll probably break the CD and move on.

 

I appreciate the effort of the forum members. You've helped me this far along. Obsidian should be paying you, IMO. You've done more than can be expected of any "customer". A few bugs "here and there" have come to be expected. But I won't tolerate this level of crapiness.

 

/rant off

[Mark Havel]

If you wanted help, it would have been good to give us more information about your config and such kind of things.

 

Anyway, always take care of updating your Windows, your graphic card driver, your chipset drivers, your soundcard drivers and your DirectX to their lastest official versions.

 

Aoh, and any developpers wants to make totally and entirely finished games, but some times, the editor wants the game to be done in a unrealistic delay. This was the case with KotOR II. So blame LA (who made the technical support and QA by the way), not only Obsidian.

 

Hum what does "Hoodwinked" mean ?

[Belhawk]

I think the people who bought dungeon lords with u would disagree abt who had the most underdeveloped game, plus almost all of the critics have panned the game because it is underdeveloped and buggy. Much worse than KotOR 2. I enjoyed both games and DL was more incomplete by far. As was said, make sure all your drivers and dx are up to date, plus defrag your HD.

[Nartwak]

Hoodwinked means tricked; fooled.

[MasterHett]

If you wanted help, it would have been good to give us more information about your config and such kind of things.

 

Alright, I'll bite. Right now my problem appears to be 2 files on CD4:

 

swpc_tex_tpa.erf

swpc_tex_tpb.erf

 

I've copied this cd to my hard drive, and when the installer asks for CD4, I still get CRC errors for both files. I chose "ignore" and the installer completes.

 

The game hangs during character creation, so I'm patching. But the patcher can't find the above files, so it cancels.

 

Here's where I'm at: I'm trying to install with HD access on PIO mode only. All non critical processes are slain. We'll see what happens.

 

Directx is 9.0c

Athlon2100+

GeForce 4 TI 4200 (128MB), updated Nvidia drivers

1GB ram

WinXP Home.

 

I keep my drivers fairly upto date, but being on dialup (no choice here), I don't use windows update unless I have troubles. Antivirus isn't running.

[MasterHett]

that didn't work. I still get CRC errors on those 2 files during install.

[MasterHett]

I think the people who bought dungeon lords with u would disagree abt who had the most underdeveloped game

 

It's hard to compete with a game that won't install.

[GhostofAnakin]

Have you tried returning your copy for a new one to see if you just got a bad copy?

[Evenstar]

I paid $45 for the most under-developed game ever produced.  I will never again purchase a game developed by Obsidian.  This type of product is expected for MMORPGs, but for a retail off-line game, this is truly pathetic. 

Sounds like the game needs to be pulled from the shelves (at least until it is adequately patched.) Maybe that would get their (LA's) attention.

 

I have been waiting (as many if not all of us have) for the 2nd (or 1.5th) patch to be released before I even consider buying the game. At this point, I'm just saying "forget it." I've already wasted waaaay too much time day-after-day checking to see if it has been released.

 

This fiasco is not OE's fault, IMHO. Reason being: why include all the additional "cut" content for those determined individuals to find? They wanted us to know that parts of the game were not included. That's the only possible reason. They knew that someone would eventually find it and tell everyone else. It's basically their passive way of stating, "hey, we planned to do some really cool stuff, but LA wouldn't let us."

 

And the "bugginess" issue is simply lack of a proper time frame in which to get the software finished. Being a new company, OE didn't have the luxury of saying, "we need more time." And seeing other games that LA has published lately (past 3-4 years), I don't think they would have cared even if OE had that luxury. LA is banking on the name "Star Wars" to sell their software for them, and it did. And it will continue to do so as long as the consumer allows it to (which will probably be for a long time.) This consumer, however, is paying attention to the customer reviews. And with that... thanks to all who have posted here regarding bugs, low quality music (totally uncalled for,) and other issues that have ultimately saved me some money.

 

Well, needless to say, I'm glad that I haven't spent ~$50 on software that doesn't "cut the mustard." (What does that mean, anyway?) I made the mistake of buying a Windows ME upgrade, so I've been burned before, too. It doesn't feel good at all. The pain will eventually subside. It's just a shame that coasters are getting sooo expensive these days!

 

I honestly think that OE is desperately hoping this situation will just go away. For those of you who actually purchased the game, don't let that happen! Continue to hound OE and LA until the game is fixed!!! They owe you that much (either that or a complete refund!) If they never do, never buy another piece of software from them again. It's a pretty simple philosophy. You (the collective "you") need to use your power as a consumer to fight that stance. I am! Thankfully, all I lost was time, not money.

 

And finally... the lack of developer support in the past 2.5 months is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Not one word has been uttered in response to the patch that would be out in "a couple of days". They gave a reason as to "why" the additional content wasn't in the first patch, but since then the silence has been deafening.

 

OE. If you're possibly worried about losing further contracts from LA by speaking out on this, I think you should be more worried about losing all respect and future customers on future games by NOT speaking out on this.

 

end of rant... you can kill my account now, I won't be needing it anymore.

[Mark Havel]

that didn't work.  I still get CRC errors on those 2 files during install.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You should look at the CD surface to see if there's any glitch. And you should try to return it to you reseller to get another copy, it seems your own is not working well.

[MasterHett]

Yeah, I'm fixing to dig through the garbage....

[MasterHett]

Alas, the receipt wasn't there. Hrmmm, do I spend another $5 ordering a CD from LA? Or do I cut my losses and run?

[GhostofAnakin]

Alas, the receipt wasn't there.  Hrmmm, do I spend another $5 ordering a CD from LA?  Or do I cut my losses and run?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Did you buy it with a credit card or some way to track your purchase? Because most stores will trade it in for another copy if you can prove you bought it there.

[MasterHett]

Cash at Wal-Mart. I'll do the $5 mail-in. I guess...

[Laozi]

This fiasco is not OE's fault, IMHO.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Uh-huh, so Feargus where have you been lately?

[MasterHett]

You should look at the CD surface to see if there's any glitch. And you should try to return it to you reseller to get another copy, it seems your own is not working well.

 

You were right of course. CDCheck has found 10 bad sectors. Now that I've looked again, I can see 2 faint pits in the CD surface. I may try to buff, if CDCheck can't recover the lost data.

[MasterHett]

Update: CHCheck was able to recover the CD. That's my first hurdle. Now to try to patch... again.

[MasterHett]

Final update.... After recovering the bad CD, I was able to patch the game, and begin playing. Thus ends my 3 day installation nightmare. Time for bed.

 

I take back what I said about Obsidian. I'll hold further judgement until I actually play the game. Thanks for the help guys.

[MasterHett]

Been playing the game. It's much better than people would have you believe. There aren't many upgrades from the original KOTOR engine, but the gameplay is fun.

 

Sorry Obsidian. I shouldn't have bashed you guys. A bad CD had me fairly well pissed, though.

[GhostofAnakin]

Been playing the game.  It's much better than people would have you believe.  There aren't many upgrades from the original KOTOR engine, but the gameplay is fun. 

 

Sorry Obsidian.  I shouldn't have bashed you guys.  A bad CD had me fairly well pissed, though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Too bad more people didn't have your attitude. Kudos to you for working around your initial problem and having the balls to admit you may have been too quick to judge. Most of the people who complained on here instead went on tirade after tirade about how crappy Obsidian and TSL is without actually trying to do anything about fixing their situation.

 

"Did you return the disk for a different one?"

 

"Well no, but Obsidian sucks!"

 

"Did you try updating your drivers? Or try installing it again?"

 

"No man, it's Obsidian's fault! I shouldn't have to do all that stuff. The game should work right out of the box!"

 

I snickered at the amount of people that came on here and bitched immediately after release before they actually exercised all available options to them first to see if that would rectify the situation.

[swaaye]

I haven't really had many stability problems or graphical bugs between my Radeon 9600 and GF 6800 Go. My biggest complaints are the tons of little bugs throughout the game with stuff like the dialog skipping, odd NPC comments, loopy conversations, and the general finickyness of the influence system. One moment my companions love me, next I can do no right. Lol.

 

Onderon looks horribly rushed IMO. The texturing is terribly repetitive and boring, lighting bad. It looks like a DX5 game to be honest. Some places are very nice, but then something sticks out like that.

 

And a big thing for me is the horrible music quality. Mono, 11KHz audio isn't acceptable. Sorry.

 

The cutscene quality is VERY similar to KOTOR1 and is acceptable for me. It's not better or worse than a lot of other game vids.

[metadigital]

... And a big thing for me is the horrible music quality. Mono, 11KHz audio isn't acceptable. Sorry.

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But, they're releasing a patch to fix that soon! "

[MasterHett]

Only bugs so far are the skipped NPC converstations, on Telos. Haven't noticed the sound quality, but then I play with almost zero sound to keep from waking the wife and kids.

 

Have they made this game MUCH harder than the original? I find myself working harder...

[Marka Ragnos]

meh, it's extremely easy, even on difficult.

[EnderAndrew]

There were a few incidents I felt the game was tough.

 

For instance, G0T0's yacht without a Force User. Atton and Mira were getting knocked around.

 

When Atton had to single-handedly fight the Twin Suns, that was tough, etc.