Patch 2 Status

[smoret]

I've been holding off posting about this for a while now, but seeing as Atari doesn't want to respond to my questions as to what’s going on from their end I'm going to let you guys know what has happened on my end.

On the morning of April 12th, 2004 I e-mailed the ToEE producer at Atari what we hoped to be the final beta of patch 2. Verifying that he did receive it, that producer wrote back indicating he was going to try and get it into testing as soon as he could.

That was the last I've heard from Atari.

In these subsequent weeks, I've been e-mailing that producer, another producer, and the PR manager for ToEE to try and find out what the status of the patch is. To date, I have received no e-mails back.

I have also (unofficially) begun work on what I hope to be patch 3, which hopefully will include some new content (so far new long item descriptions courtesy of Mike Mercurio) as well as fix up any issues people are still seeing after patch 2 gets released.

I am assuming patch 2 is still in testing, but since nobody at Atari has written me back in 2 weeks I cannot say for certain. I also cannot release what exactly is in patch 2. As soon as I have more information I'll let you know, even if it is as vague as "Atari has contacted me and we will have more information at a later date."

[chumpchange]

whoa cool, thanks for posting man
















patch 3?

[cstokely]

Let me be the first, as I was the most vocal, to resopnd to Steve. First, while I attacked Atari viciously and condemd Troika for a lack of response, NOT ONCE did I persoanlly attack Moret. I did in fact doubt he was working on it, but as we all learn now, he apparently is just as in the dark as the rest of us. I wish you would have posted sooner, Steve-o. Gork left this forum a mess by his unresponsiveness. It seems we were not alone in the cold shoulder effect. Now that I know the facts, as they are, from at least SOMEONE in the know, I will be the first to stand up and say I was, well kinda, wrong. It seems my beef with Atari remains. I still do not understand and remain unhappy about the state of the game upon release, but as of your post, that is now irrelevent.
Also, based on your post, I now gather that, in fact, you did give the 2.0 to Atari (of which we had conflicting reports FROM Atari, mind you). As sad as this situation has become, I personally apologize if any remarks I made to you were hurtful to you personally, in any way. I am positive I have been careful to not include your efforts as negligent, but I may have. If I did, I'm sure somone will quote me, if any exist, and I will respond accordingly.
To everyone else claiming to know things they clearly did not, as always, I give you a heartfelt....stfu.

Thank-you.

Does anyone left here NOW not find fault with Atari?

[smoret]

Originally posted by cstokely
Does anyone left here NOW not find fault with Atari?

Whoah, whoah, whoah... I'm not asking people to go lynching anybody anytime soon. There are always perfectly logical explinations for things. The unfortunate thing is that you the consumer is often left in the dark with regards to these explinations.

There are often valid reasons why you are left in the dark. I'm not saying Atari has done anything wrong, I'm not saying anybody should be mad at anybody. I'm just keeping the community aware of what I am doing in my spare time. I'm sure you will all get your patch 2 in due time and your patch 3 whenever anybody is done with that, and so on.

[Lord_Spike]

Thank you for letting us know, but even more...thank you for putting your personal time into this endeavor. It seems obvious that you care a great deal about the product of your labor, a trait that is all too often lacking in our world today. We players ought to remember that what we enjoy, you love, or you wouldn't do as you have been doing with ToEE - making it better (as best you can) for us all.

[Eclipse2097]

Wanders in......

Thank you smoret for the information and all your hard work during your spare time . At least now we know that there is in fact a patch 2.0 and yes a patch 3.0 in the works. Your work during your spare time is greeted here with the sound of trumpts! However perfectly logical explinations and Atari can not exist in the same space at the same time. For the last two weeks, hell even before that, We the consumers of Atari have been poorly treated Mushrooms. Kept in the dark and feed nothing not even feed S****. Our sources of information have, as of the last few weeks, been all off these boards. Excerpts from an interview and now your post is the extent of the information that we have been granted by the Powers That Be. No one from Mods to customer service/ support have responded to any emails or private messages. Certain steeps have been taken by certain Mods to be unreachable you know who you are. I still wounder what is holding up patch 2.0? Or for that matter any information about patch 2.0. Atari's consumer relations are questionable at best. At worst they cause consumers to think very bad things about Atari and then post them on these boards. Again my personal thanks to you for posting! I still hate Atari the S*** heads!

Wanders out......

[cstokely]

Originally posted by smoret
Whoah, whoah, whoah... I'm not asking people to go lynching anybody anytime soon. There are always perfectly logical explinations for things. The unfortunate thing is that you the consumer is often left in the dark with regards to these explinations.

I flunked Vulcan 101, sorry. 7 months, my man....seven months. The things I have been very aggressive about is that "darkness" in which you speak. I had been hoping that my outrageous posts would bring some kind of response from ANYONE as, I have said as much MANY times, I want to like ToEE, but it is so incomplete it's not even funny.

*Performs mind-meld with Steve-0*

cstokely-"Your thoughts to my thoughts...."
Steve-o "...I....don't....know anymore......arrrrggghhhhhh!"

[FredSRichardson]

Steve,

Thank you very much for posting an update! I think we very badly needed to be set straight on what's been going on. I, for one, very much appreciate the efforts you've made. You've contributed generously to make the patch, and whatever happens next is out of your hands.

I have to admit that I strongly suspected that things were caught up at the Atari level. But to me it's a big consolation knowing that a patch exists.

Thanks again for all your effort!

-Fred

[Judas]

At least somebody had the decency to let us know what's going on. I've been giving Atari the benefit of the doubt, and directing most of my anger/frustration at Troika for the state of ToEE. It seems my anger may have been misdirected, after all.

I'm still not impressed with ToEE, and for that I blame BOTH Troika and Atari. However, at least Troika is trying, unnofficially at least, to make up for it. Atari appears to care less.

If this is Atari's idea of good PR and product support, they can go **** themselves.

[Drewskie]

This is good news indeed. But what's puzzling to me is how the situation can be so different with Bioware, where there are well publicised beta periods(beta patches available to anyone who wants them in fact) and regular patches just after the testing. The working relationship between Bio/Atari seems to be just fine. A pity things are'nt working out so well with Troika.

[scrivener]

I'll add my gratitude to the list, Steve. So far, Troika has come through on all their stuff... even if Atari has not.

Here's something ironic I've noticed about this board: Almost a year later, and people are still stopping by this board waiting for Patch 2. Most games shipped in TOEE's condition would have died off a long time ago. But here's the clincher, everyone who still frequents this board sees the genius of the game. It's a game that, with a little more polish, could easily be the greatest computer D&D adaptation ever created. It's a shame that Atari's legendarily poor support, buisness ethics, publisher politics, and quality control managed to marr this piece of gaming artwork. Anyone can see that a little mature content and some bug fixes is all this game needs to be GREAT. Even if the game is playable and 'good' as it is, the face that some minor fixes could make it so much better is what keeps me from playing it at this point.

And Steve, are you so sure that any of those people actually work for Atari any more? They've been laying people off en masse over the last few weeks. With the crap they've been shoveling out the door I'm guessing they're reporting a less than steller quarter. But that's what happens when you make bad games based on popular licenses... and that's ALL Atari does.

Why don't you just release the patch to the big gaming sites. I highly doubt Atari will give a $#!+, and then we get our patch and everyone's happy... especially if I can finally start recommending TOEE to customers.

[Drewskie]

Why don't you just release the patch to the big gaming sites. I highly doubt Atari will give a $#!+, and then we get our patch and everyone's happy... especially if I can finally start recommending TOEE to customers.

Sounds like they expect Atari to conduct the testing. I'm also guessing they lack the time, resources, whatever to do the beta testing in-house as bioware is able to do. And, of course, you can't release an official update to a game without extensive testing on a plethora of configurations. *shrugs* Just my guess...

[Darth_Zeppelin]

Perhaps Troika is trying to continue with a positive working relationship with Atari in order to bring us future releases and get the kind of respect BioWare gets, which they deserve in my opinion. TOEE is a dream come true for an old school gamer such as myself. I just hope Troika are allowed to make it into the game it deserves to be! And then many more after.

And, if not, then maybe they (Troika) should wander over to my little site and make a game based on MY campaign world. LOL yah, right! But it's worth a try! LOL

Anyway, Smoret (Being that we're not on a first name basis), thank you very much for the words of hope. Very good news, indeed!

Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll

DZ

[qwert44643]

SMORET,
Thanks for the update.Looking forward to the 2nd patch.
Thanks also for doing this on your own time as well.
qwert

[Darthcast]

Thats great.
Why dont you work on an add-on in your spare time?

(Just kidding, believe in Jesus )

[Sagenlicht]

Thanks for the update! Great News

[ModRael1]

Originally posted by Drewskie
This is good news indeed. But what's puzzling to me is how the situation can be so different with Bioware, where there are well publicised beta periods(beta patches available to anyone who wants them in fact) and regular patches just after the testing. The working relationship between Bio/Atari seems to be just fine. A pity things are'nt working out so well with Troika.

The reason the working relationship is so good between Bioware/Atari is because Bioware is big enough to keep Atari's fingers far away from anything even remotely important to the game (NWN and expansions). The fora, the patches/updates, the fan (and developer) modules, any added downloadable content....is all handled thru Bioware.

I shudder to think what Atari's Anit-Midas touch of crap would have ended up doing to a game which, in my opinion, was well worth the money I spent on it.

And just to keep my post from being completely off-topic - Steve, it's good to get some information finally, and am very impressed to hear that you're already gathering information for a tentative 3rd patch! Keep up the good work, and don't let the bastages at Atari keep y'all down...

[Ellester]

Smoret thanks for the post. I’m glad you care about this game, as there are many, myself included, who do like this game quite a bit. And, the continued support is really, really needed and welcome by us. The bug fixes will really make this game a lot better. I’m very glad someone at Troika hasn’t given up on this game.

Btw, patch 3 with new content is more than anyone could ask for. Sweet!!!!

And, as with the others stating, your personal time on these patches is very appreciated by us.

[Ellester]

Originally posted by Drewskie
This is good news indeed. But what's puzzling to me is how the situation can be so different with Bioware, where there are well publicised beta periods(beta patches available to anyone who wants them in fact) and regular patches just after the testing. The working relationship between Bio/Atari seems to be just fine. A pity things are'nt working out so well with Troika.

Bioware's large enough to have it's own Q&A department. Trioka is dependant on Atari's Q&A department. Also, the fact NWN sold about 10 times more than ToEE probably also has something to do with it.

EDIT: didn’t read ModRael1’s post. But, he’s right, Bio Q&A’ed their own patches and release them through their own site rather than Atari’s. Troika is still to small to do this. They are in a situation where they are dependant upon the producer (Atari).

[Kastlefeer]

Originally posted by Ellester
They are in a situation where they are dependant upon the producer (Atari).

And so are we sadly, ... it is ever so apparent that customer relations and timely product mending is not Atari's priority when it comes to this particular product.

I feel bad for steve moret and moreso for me, the bled out consumer who was a fool to have expectations...

Oh yeah, thanx for the update - better late than never they say

[JamesShieldHand]

Steve thank you for giving the forum an update.

However, I feel that is very unprofessional of Atari not to respond to you in any way...

Kinda feels like shades of MOO3 to me....

Anyway I promised no more trolling so thanks again steve.

And yes good luck to all in their TOEEE gaming sessions

[karldar]

Yeah, pretty sad that atari has nothin' to say about it....

Thanks for the info, anyways.

[Avin the duck]

smoret,

is it possible to add some more (stronger) random battles in the map and some random new items for the game?

is it possible to add some new non-joiable npcs somewhere? like some thief standing at the burned farmhouse... maybe he can be a vendor...

is it possible to add more spellcasters enemies in the patch 3, pretty please?

[Euangelion]

Thanks for keeping us up to date. I'm sure this whole thing is very frustrating to you personally. There's a great, maybe even legendary, game in ToEE waiting to come out. From our end, I suppose the only thing we can do to help make that happen is to be encouraging and positive to the creators of ToEE. For someone whose been around the boards for almost a year now, I know what promise this game holds.
I would also prefer to give everyone involved, including Atari, the benefit of the doubt. The last thing we need to do is give Atari any reason to think that Troika is criticising or insulting the publisher. Let's not put Steve, et. al., in a more awkward position than they are already in.
We've been trying to place blame for the situation since the first day the game came out, and it's accomplished nothing. Let's just talk about playing the game and wait for the patch. If it never comes out, so be it. There's worse things that could happen to us. Let's keep some perspective and remember for us it's just a game, but for those in the business, it's about being able to put food on the table.

Edit: I figure I'll get flamed for this, but I don't really care.

[karldar]

FLAME ON!

hehe

[Volourn]

Why are people giving all the credit to Troika. It seems to be if I udnerstand right, Smoret has been working on the patches in his OWN spare time. You should be happy with him personally not the other dodads.

And, the fact that BIO is doing what they're doing with NWN just shows which developer is on the ball. Don't blame Atari for Troika's shortcomings (though Atari does have shortcomings of their own).

[Drewskie]

Ahh I see. Well, if I were a rich venture capitalist I'd give them the 5 to 10 million they need to set up their own QA department. Then we'd all fly down to Mexico and sip on margaritas or something. /end fantasy

[fleabitfox]

I have very little problem with Troika. They developed a new game (as in new engine and so on) with a small crew in a short period of time. Their publisher would not even give them a spare month to finish it. If you didn't notice, this game was released just prior to the end of the current fiscal year. Hmmm.. go figure.

I'd like to see a game that isn't buggy upon release. Especially a CRPG title. They are always buggy, and quite often even after the publisher has allowed them development extensions.

Partly to blame is the devs, but in this case, I think Atari can shoulder a rather lot of the blame, deservely so.

Games like Baldur's Gate II, IWD2 and so on are built on *existing* engines. Wow.. let's be impressed that an infinity engine game is done quickly (gasp). Baldurs Gate I took a long while, and was delayed a couple of times if you recall. And it was buggy.

At any rate, I just appreciate the efforts of the programmer working on this. Thank you!

It must be disheartening to work your rear off for free.. on your spare time.. and then have to come and read some of the rants on boards like this. Many gamers understand though!

fleabitfox

[Ian Demagi]

Steve,

Thanks for the post and the hard work on the patch. Guys like you working through the problems will make ToEE a great game, thank you!


That so many us on this board care enough about the game to point out the problems proves that Troika/Atari was correct in making the game. Maybe they will make another?


Ian

[Volourn]

Flea: Good post if it wans't for some of the glaring errors.

1.The TOEE engine IS based on an existing one. It's based on the Arcanum one to be exact.

2. A good portion of the work on it was done even before Troika was hired by Atari to work on the game. This is one of the mainreasons why troika agreed to such a 'short' development cycle and was their excuse rectorama prior to release on why they'd go ahead in promising so much with so little time.

3. The publisher (Atari) DID give an extra month. Actually they agve them more than one extra motnh. However, unfortunately, a game has to be released. People forget that the longer it takes a game to be developed the MORE the publisher has to foot the bill. As Troika has shown they have shown they won't work for free (and they shouldn't). Smoret has decided to give it the 'ol gung ho. Good for him.


That is all.