Obsidian, why isn't there any hotfix yet?

[Jazou]

Dear Obsidian,

 

first at all I want to clarify that I respect your hard work and you guys did really create a great game.

This thread is not determined to be a troll or whining thread - instead I want to ask a genuine question:

 

Why isn't there any hotfix yet?

 

I did already ask this question inside the stat stacking bug thread but as I think that my posts probably

weren't read by devs, I wanted to separate this question in an own thread. 

 

Please Obsidian, don't do the mistake to wait for delivering one big update that fixed as many bugs as

possible. Instead please deliver a hotfix as soon as possible so that at least some bugs (or even only one)

get fixed in short time. We don't demand an all-in-one fix for "everything" - just sharing what is already done

would be amazing. Every day there are more players getting into troubles and I'm sure some of the reasons

are already eliminiated and are just waiting for other fixes to provide all of them together within the announced

patch. I have the feeling that the patch got already a bit delayed because you want to fix as many bugs as

possible within this week. But in some situations it's better to satisfy the crowd step by step instead of waiting

to make everyone happy at once. 

 

 

Please note: This is not a rhetorical question - I really would appreciate an honest answer. What are the reasons

to put many fixes within one update instead of providing small hotfixes to the community when there are that kind

of critical/game breaking bugs? Or didn't you fix at least one of them yet? (I wouldn't blame you for that either!)

I just would love to hear an official statement - please give us more info about the actual state.

 

 

Best,

A fan of your work

Edited April 2, 2015 by Jazou

[WintermuteX]

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

 

Thank you very much, much appreciated. Well, I guess I'm a bit out of luck as GOG user, because it is unlikely they will upload the patch on a holiday (which I can understand, I'm also happy to have some days off and I guess you guys would also be happy if you could release the patch today to have some/more time off). Well, maybe I get surprised, but most likely I can' relax with PoE on the holidays. But at least the steam users will be happy.

[pepe]

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

 

 

But the most important question, will the patch fix stats bugs in our saved games or only in New Game ?

Edited April 2, 2015 by pepe

[trashmyego]

Can we stop freaking out again people???

 

No. It's been a week. We don't have an idea about what will and will not be fixed, nor if they'll be retroactive fixes or not. And their QA doesn't breed confidence. I have a feeling people will be freaking out for quite some time. 

[wotdlois]

 

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

 

Thank you very much, much appreciated. Well, I guess I'm a bit out of luck as GOG user, because it is unlikely they will upload the patch on a holiday (which I can understand, I'm also happy to have some days off and I guess you guys would also be happy if you could release the patch today to have some/more time off). Well, maybe I get surprised, but most likely I can' relax with PoE on the holidays. But at least the steam users will be happy.

 

By the game on steam so you can play immediately - that would be the responsible thing to do!

[Dragoon-]

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

Premilary patch notes please. You know like Paradox to do it for their titles.

[OfDnDFame]

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

I'm sorry I have to say this, being a guy, who owns all of your games except DS3, but:

 

You completely mismanaged this situation. You take a look at how many people play the game concurrently on steam, and you realise it has dropped a lot. It is obvious why.

 

Every moment you delay putting out a fix for the very serious bugs, is time you lose more and more people, and thus money. You are known to be a developer, who puts out buggy and sometimes unfinished games. Do you really think you can pull this behaviour again at such a fragile point in your history? Do you think your reputation can survive this? Who can take your games seriously on launch day anymore? I know this was the last time I bought a game from you upfront.

 

Or is it that you got the high reviews, so you can chillax now?

 

It has been a week now, and loads of players will simply give up on your game, and never finish it. Frankly, as much as I love it, I only have time to finish it now, and most probably I won't get back to it later. Tick-tock. Because you are making it impossible for us to get back at it. Hotfixes should have been out 24 hours after release. You now say maybe tomorrow evening. At this point, this is a joke, and you are a joke, mate.

[Fealty]

Of all the major bugs I've run into, I have found at least one dev post acknowledging it or it is in a sticky. I'd rather have the devs do a quick acknowledgment and get back to coding fixes/QA then taking time to reposed to every post to keep people happy. Also, some code changes seem like they need to be made at a core mechanic level, which is always more impactful, positive or negative. Again, I'd rather them take the time to fix it right in leu of a hot fix.

 

On a different note, I do like to see the passion and fury, it lets me know there are people out there like me who want a hardcore PC game.

[Jazou]

[...] I paid 173$ 2 years ago, and I'm not here running around naked [...] 

 

Oh, what a pitty. I would pay $173 to see your sweet bootie.

 

But seriously: I didn't want to start a whining thread. I just wanted to get an answer from the developers why they are pressing as many fixes as possible

into a single patch instead of releasing some (or one) pre-patches with stuff that is already done. It's sincerely interest, not a troll question.

[matthewfarmery]

would like to see some patch notes too, but good to hear that the patch is coming, I hold off from playing the game until the game is updated

[DocDoomII]

4. "This is the gaming industry" is not an argument, this is pathetic BS. The gaming industry is working on a profit base as every other business also, if it gets away with more money for less efford, then this is the way it TRIES to take. The customers could try to change the rules by complaining, by not buying anymore and in the end there is a chance, if the critical mass is reached, to get a fair bargain on both sides. This is if we don't have to deal with people like you.

 

It is an argument. Everyone should start getting used to it.

Since internet became a mass thing games started being shipped with more and more bugs, because **** it, we can fix it later.

 

I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's reality.

Get used to it.

[Poprit]

 

The question is, why so many bugs went into final version?

Define "many".  A PC game is bound to have bugs upon release, much of it due to the fact that you have to account for different hardware and OS configurations. Are the current bugs "game-breaking" in the true sense of the word, as is the case with a lot of games nowadays? Not by a long shot.

 

 

A PC game IS CERTAINLY NOT bound to have a large number of major bugs on release. If it does, the developer has failed. PoE has multiple. The devs failed.

 

It's almost as annoying to have people defend this nonsense as it is to have to deal with it. It is astonishing and disappointing to me that it seems like more and more people, and especially young people from lets call it the digital only generation, have been conditioned to expect and accept a broken product that may or may not eventually be fixed properly. This really just is not acceptable.

[WintermuteX]

I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's reality.

Get used to it.

 

 

Never, as this would mean I accept it, which I don't. ;P

[DocDoomII]

 

I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's reality.

Get used to it.

 

 

Never, as this would mean I accept it, which I don't. ;P

 

Well there's only one way to speak to developers/publishers. Stop buying on day one.

Good luck convincing the rest of the world.

Edited April 2, 2015 by DocDoomII

[Merina]

Can we stop freaking out again people???

Don't fight.

 

I had bought the game before visiting the forums. When I visited the forum while waiting for the download to complete, the forum was full of complaints about the game being too easy, colors being too dark, game being imbalanced, NPC companions being poor builds, combat system sucking, and so on ... do you want to know what I thought about that? ... Yes? I still wanted to have fun with the game, because I purchased it!

 

Anyway, it's more easy to ignore such complainers than trying to fight them. I'm one of those who's been affected by two crashes. One I could work around with low resolution for just the animation sequence.   The one in Raedric's Hold is inacceptable ... and a complete game-breaker.

 

 

And with that I hope for a first patch that will work like a healing spell for my frustration.

[DocDoomII]

 

[...] I paid 173$ 2 years ago, and I'm not here running around naked [...] 

 

Oh, what a pitty. I would pay $173 to see your sweet bootie.

 

But seriously: I didn't want to start a whining thread. I just wanted to get an answer from the developers why they are pressing as many fixes as possible

into a single patch instead of releasing some (or one) pre-patches with stuff that is already done. It's sincerely interest, not a troll question.

 

Some people can be annoyed if there are too many patches to download.

 

Especially with the GOG version. From what I can see they often repack the whole game without giving you the patch as a standalone installer.

Having to download the whole game again and again can be a pain.

[Arkh`Cthuul]

As much as I am "pissed" at not being able to actually play the game far enough to experience Slotvanishing or Statdoubling (as I am stuck to  atch the Game crash in 2+ out of 3 tries to travel) I would like to say:

Take a deep breath, ladies and Gentlemen!

its not really helping if you rip out your hair and run around screaming (and no, of course I also do not want to accept not being able to play a Game that I expected THIS much, and have been waiting for 2 years). It`ll just cause you to loo a lot like Pattrick Stewart afterwards. ^^

 

 

We have the almost fixed date for the Patch, now  I am sure we`ll see some prelim. Patch notes soonish, and al(most al)l will be well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until it isn`t .

Edited April 2, 2015 by Arkh`Cthuul

[WintermuteX]

 

A PC game IS CERTAINLY NOT bound to have a large number of major bugs on release. If it does, the developer has failed. PoE has multiple. The devs failed.

It's almost as annoying to have people defend this nonsense as it is to have to deal with it. It is astonishing and disappointing to me that it seems like more and more people, and especially young people from lets call it the digital only generation, have been conditioned to expect and accept a broken product that may or may not eventually be fixed properly. This really just is not acceptable.

 

 

Yes, the devs failed somehow because of reasons unknown to us people outside. They for sure didn't plan to fail and I'm sure they are also very unhappy as the situation is. At least they are going to fix it, some devs are dropping dead after a cluster**** (well, I wouldn't call PoE a cluster**** btw.). So the whole problem is communication, which would help a lot for most peeps, and the timeline. I'm also frustrated, but I'm positive this will get fixed somehow, so there is no reason to punsih Obsidian with to overly harsh critics or even insults.

Things didn't work out as they should, but give them at least a chance to patch the game. I'm in your camp about the question if it should be possible to release a game free of major bugs, but it doesn't help anyone to vent the frustration more then once.

[Lediath]

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the update Roby.

A couple of my buddies have been waiting on the sidelines and are planning on jumping in after 1.0.3

I'm glad they won't have much longer to wait.

 

Keep up the great work.

[Wild Card]

What seriously if i have a GoG version and the update is tomorrow i wont be able to dl it till monday? damm that sucks

[Abtacha]

 

The patch is currently being crunched on by QA. If everything checks out, then you'll probably get an update by end of day tomorrow.

I'm sorry I have to say this, being a guy, who owns all of your games except DS3, but:

 

You completely mismanaged this situation. You take a look at how many people play the game concurrently on steam, and you realise it has dropped a lot. It is obvious why.

 

Every moment you delay putting out a fix for the very serious bugs, is time you lose more and more people, and thus money. You are known to be a developer, who puts out buggy and sometimes unfinished games. Do you really think you can pull this behaviour again at such a fragile point in your history? Do you think your reputation can survive this? Who can take your games seriously on launch day anymore? I know this was the last time I bought a game from you upfront.

 

Or is it that you got the high reviews, so you can chillax now?

 

It has been a week now, and loads of players will simply give up on your game, and never finish it. Frankly, as much as I love it, I only have time to finish it now, and most probably I won't get back to it later. Tick-tock. Because you are making it impossible for us to get back at it. Hotfixes should have been out 24 hours after release. You now say maybe tomorrow evening. At this point, this is a joke, and you are a joke, mate.

 

 

So they should just release something without testing it?

[DocDoomII]

Some people have their brain in constant chillax mode.

[Thrum]

A PC game IS CERTAINLY NOT bound to have a large number of major bugs on release. If it does, the developer has failed. PoE has multiple. The devs failed.

It's almost as annoying to have people defend this nonsense as it is to have to deal with it. It is astonishing and disappointing to me that it seems like more and more people, and especially young people from lets call it the digital only generation, have been conditioned to expect and accept a broken product that may or may not eventually be fixed properly. This really just is not acceptable.

 

 

I do find it strange that many people are readily using the excuse that the gaming industry standard is for any large game to have a huge number of bugs in the initial months/weeks before a patch.  Not only is this rationale sort of silly to think about from a QA standpoint on a product years in the making for any industry, but it is absolutely not true; I've played maybe 10 or so games in the last year and one other than PoE has had more than a handful of bugs or performance issues.  Incidentally, I've only been hearing this excuse commonly applied to new games relatively recently.

 

More lines of code means more bugs, sure.  Smaller developers also can't pay for enormous internal testing sweeps.  But I'm assuming a large reason many AAA mega games (Skyrim, I'm looking at you) have so many technical issues has some part to do with developers forced to meet unrealistic deadlines by producers who care more about the bottom line than a quality game.  As this isn't the case for PoE, by releasing a product (a great one, by the way, that I am very excited about playing) with hundreds of major and minor bugs/issues, many present in 100% of playthroughs (some not readily apparent to the average gamer), Obsidian is sending a strong message.

 

Despite the frustrations a lot of us are feeling about not being able to legitimately pIay the game right now, I'm sure a patch will arrive soon and that Obsidian is not only trying their best to fix the situation, but also feels compelled to do so from more than a business standpoint.  From start to finish, the developers really seemed to care about producing a quality game for gamers.  The unfortunate thing this whole situation just goes to show is that caring about a product can't replace good QA/QC.

[Bubbles]

So they should just release something without testing it?

 

 

That's what they did last Thursday, worked out pretty well for them sales wise.

[DocDoomII]

Day one patches are, supposedly, developed and tested before the day 1 release date of the game.

[EricKei]

Devs - Thanks for the update on the update!

 

As for games releasing with tons of bugs --- They shouldn't have more than a handful of significant bugs (this one has a lot of bugs, if only a few truly major ones (save bloating and the associated load time and crash issues, stats disappearing or getting multiplied, etc)) -- but they're obviously working hard to get them squished. I've seen many a game that was in FAR worse condition at launch, and I've seen many that were in better shape. A buggy release is a risk I've come to accept, after having been a gamer for nigh upon forty years. I'm not saying that this is the way things *should be*, it's just the way things *are*. At some point, you need to finish the current build and push that baby out the door. Just be glad we're not still in the cartridge era, when there WERE no patches, period. Once a game went Gold, that was all she wrote.

 

On the other hand, I'll be the first to admit that, had I not backed the KS, I would have waited a few weeks for them to smooth out the bumps before buying this game.

 

As it stands, I'm just running through to play around and experiment, and I'll just start over once the patch drops, as I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing, and will know what I should and should not prioritize in terms of skill/talent/spell selections.

 

Even games that have been out for some time can still have long lists of bugs -- Heck, look at the modern, EE versions of BG1/2/IWD -- still plenty of bugs to squish. Still great games despite their flaws, like this one is. For another, much higher-budget example or two, look at the modern XCOM and Deus Ex: Human Revolution as examples of this same thing -- great games with major bugs. The latter case is especially problematic, as their Director's Cut edition re-introduced a number of bugs that had already been fixed in the base game, due to the DC being based on an older build. In both cases, there are no plans (of which I am aware) to do anything about them.

Edited April 2, 2015 by EricKei