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Is there communication regarding patching?


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Firstly, I love the game, it's superb.

 

Onto the topic; with serious bugs affecting a lot of the player base and the impact they have (often game breaking), I've been keeping a keen eye out for news of a patch. Besides 3 days ago, when we heard about 1.03 coming out 'sometime' this week, I haven't seen any communication. 
 

Where should one look for communication on patches? Is it here, Reddit, Steam, Twitter, or all of the above? I would have thought that with several major sites like RPS, Polygon, Kotaku, etc, putting out articles about the bugs and with Obsidian's reputation vis-a-vis buggy releases, that they would have been all over this, but it's been very quiet.

 

For the record; I've had the double click equipment bug and the Raedric's Hold bug. It's fairly depressing to be SO EXCITED about a game (I genuinely giggled through the first day I was playing, until I got the Raedric bug) and then have to totally shelve it because it's become utterly broken for you. I don't even know if I have the stat stacking bug, I've just heard about it now.

TL;DR:

Where are patch announcements made and can we please get some info about progress? If it's going to be in a couple of days then let us know so I can stop checking steam everytime I wake up/get home/make a sandwich.

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You shouldn't check every other hour for anything. It's not really good for your happiness.

 

I think the unofficial/tentative word was they were aiming for sometime this working week, but patch releases are always unpredictable, because when you fix one thing it can break other things and you need to test that. Hopefully soon.

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You shouldn't check every other hour for anything. It's not really good for your happiness.

 

I think the unofficial/tentative word was they were aiming for sometime this working week, but patch releases are always unpredictable, because when you fix one thing it can break other things and you need to test that. Hopefully soon.

Sure, there was some hyperbola in there when I mentioned constantly checking for a patch, I just really want to play, but it's the not knowing that's the killer. I guess I'm just used to the flurry of communication that usually accompanies a new release. Usually you have to cry out for information a few weeks down the line, not a few days. Doubly so with launch bugs, when the best impression needs to be made.

 

I take your points on board.

 

Some more communication would be nice is all I'm saying. 

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During the BB they never got a patch out before Wednesday, and it quite frequently slipped by a week or more. If we're lucky we'll get it this week, if not, it'll be next week.

I would be surprised it that was the case. Not because I know Obsidian better than you (I wasn't in the Backer Beta), but because release is a critical time for being "switched on", regarding bug squashing. If you don't get people picking the game up when it's brand new, you (anecdotally) don't pick them up until the sales start happening. I'll certainly be hoping that Obsidian can kick on from here and release more of these great cRPGs, so the bigger the success, the better.

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Some more communication would be nice is all I'm saying.

The reason they haven't communicated is almost certainly because they themselves don't know when it's ready. The dev team might think it's ready now, but it has to be accepted by QA, and if QA finds issues that need fixing, it gets sent back to the dev team. There's no way to predict exactly how long this is going to take. That makes "this week we hope" both honest and as accurate as it can be.

I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com

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Some kind of communication would be nice. It doesn't have to be a date, maybe a breakdown of the bugs they're working to have addressed in the first patch? It'd be useful for those of us sitting with a 20-30 hours into a game, wondering if our broken encounter abilities will be fixed or if we should just give up/start over.  

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If they listed the bugs they're working on, then one (or more) of them aren't addressed in the final patch that releases, why, we'd all be on our best behavior and go "oh well, maybe next patch!", right?   :teehee:

 

And at least if they do that, it'll give enough of a hint that maybe I should shelve this game for a few months and wait before investing any large amount of time into a play through.

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I haven't seen anything except a we have a fix from a thread days ago, which is also mentioned here:  http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/31/the-emperors-borked-clothes-pillars-of-eternity-uber-bug/  (and it's kind of sad that their lack of dealing with this has gone on so long that it's become a news item at gaming sites - this should have had an immediate fix, IMO, and for most devs thru steam these days it usually is)

 

I understand how patches go (I'm a developer myself) but it's a bit concerning that they weren't able to fix the more brutal issues faster.  Steam is pretty slick for patching purposes and I'd imagine most copies of this game are thru Steam.

 

I consider some of these issues to be pretty severe and the complete lack of communication and slowness of getting anything done about them is odd to sad to annoying.

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Obsidian staff is clearly underestimating the simple thing that saying "We are working on it" will calm a lot of player. Remaining silent really don't work for them.

But they did say that they are working on it. Yes it would be nice for them to come here every day and say they are working on the patch and are making progress but it really isn't necessary. They acknowledged that a patch is in the works and that it will be released soon. 

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Problem is, its a lose lose situation for a dev to open his mouth. Again and again, ad nauseum - the same old complaints.

If they say they are working on a patch, people are pissed off and want to know when. If they say end of week, people are pissed off and want it now. If they rush and give said patch now people are pissed off when it's a half assed solution. If they say they need more time, people are pissed, well you get the message... Far better all round to keep quiet and just do their jobs. The patch will be out when it's out. There will also be other problems and people will be crying for another patch, and so the circle of life continues...

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"Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others.”

 

Lord of Light

 

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Some communication from the devs regarding the current status certainly wouldn't hurt. Noone is asking for an exact release date, but some information on which of the issues have been fixed by now and which are still causing headaches would go a long way.

 

It was to be expected that a game of this size and complexity would not be bug-free at release, but the amount of severe show-stoppers like the raedic's hold crash, the cipher focus bug with +focus items, the save/load stat increase, the vanishing ranger pets and the double-click equip bug is quite troubling.

 

Even more troubling is the slow pace at which solving these problems seems to be going... one of the perks of moving away from the sluggish monolith of the classic developer/publisher model was to be increased flexibility and agility for the dev team - the ability to react quickly to arising issues and provide solutions in an unbureaucratic and timely manner (the steam framwork should also help with this..). While many other independant developers hold true to this promise, obsidian's slow pace and withdrawn demeanor is more reminiscent of the uncaring attitude of EA, Ubisoft and the likes.

 

Quite sad, really.

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I have to agree that more communication would be nice, they actually had quite a bit of communication up until a few days after release then it got real quiet afterwards. I'm guessing that either they are really hard at work or took a well deserved few days off.

 

Regardless of the reasons, I'm sure the fixes will come in time. It just doesn't look that good to have almost no news (without digging for it) when it should be easily accessible here.

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Problem is, its a lose lose situation for a dev to open his mouth. Again and again, ad nauseum - the same old complaints.

If they say they are working on a patch, people are pissed off and want to know when. If they say end of week, people are pissed off and want it now. If they rush and give said patch now people are pissed off when it's a half assed solution. If they say they need more time, people are pissed, well you get the message... Far better all round to keep quiet and just do their jobs. The patch will be out when it's out. There will also be other problems and people will be crying for another patch, and so the circle of life continues...

 

Well there's always a chance that some fraction of the community will never be appeased (I haven't seen this thus far on these forums, I'm not sure its fair to assume all gaming communities are the same!). But from that you can't just take the stance that you should never communicate ever because of a hypothetical minority, as its kind of an extreme and unhelpful reaction.

 

There are a large number of users who would be happy to hear even a small blurb about what they're up to, and who wouldn't go on an angry tirade afterwards because we're mostly reasonable people. I'm sure they're working on it too but it would still be nice for their community manager (or whatever the title is :p) to make a post here. Even one sentence, and the statement that they can't go into details, is fine with me and would make me feel a lot better.

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Problem is, its a lose lose situation for a dev to open his mouth. Again and again, ad nauseum - the same old complaints.

If they say they are working on a patch, people are pissed off and want to know when. If they say end of week, people are pissed off and want it now. If they rush and give said patch now people are pissed off when it's a half assed solution. If they say they need more time, people are pissed, well you get the message... Far better all round to keep quiet and just do their jobs. The patch will be out when it's out. There will also be other problems and people will be crying for another patch, and so the circle of life continues...

 

Well there's always a chance that some fraction of the community will never be appeased (I haven't seen this thus far on these forums, I'm not sure its fair to assume all gaming communities are the same!). But from that you can't just take the stance that you should never communicate ever because of a hypothetical minority, as its kind of an extreme and unhelpful reaction.

 

There are a large number of users who would be happy to hear even a small blurb about what they're up to, and who wouldn't go on an angry tirade afterwards because we're mostly reasonable people. I'm sure they're working on it too but it would still be nice for their community manager (or whatever the title is :p) to make a post here. Even one sentence, and the statement that they can't go into details, is fine with me and would make me feel a lot better.

I'm certainly not saying they should never communicate, by all accounts they have responded on Twitter and redit. They HAVE said they are working on a patch. But obviously that's all they can really say at this stage. Anything else would be supposition or guesswork on their part and would be counterproductive.

BTW, I'm sure there are some reasonable folk on the Internet, and the post wasn't aimed at you

Edited by rheingold

"Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others.”

 

Lord of Light

 

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