Enhanced Edition Crashes

[strong yeet]

Don't criticise EE, or Trent Oster will cry and take his 395 pound ball home.

[Rwby]

My car had perfectly good tires on it, however.
I didn't have to buy new news.
Ultimately, if I'd never brought the first set of tires, and I'd of brought this set of tires instead, I'd of not known any better. As tires, they function perfectly well.
They certainly could be better tires, but screaming at the dealer about it isn't going to change that particularly. Putting them out of business certainly won't

[Nitro]

Ultimately, if I'd never brought the first set of tires, and I'd of brought this set of tires instead, I'd of not known any better. As tires, they function perfectly well.

If by working perfectly well you mean that they don't work at all with certain cars unless you retrofit the chassis, and makes the car swerve a little to the left on some other cars, sure. (If we're keeping on with the analogy).

I like Enhanced Edition because it lets me run NWN without having to jump through hoops to get it to work, but it's also a buggy mess that really shouldn't be this bad for a game released last year.

[Phaesporia]

No one’s trying to put beamdog out of business. As a customer, we have the right to complain about a product we think was half assed, unfinished, and littered with unfixed bugs. EE isn’t special. There are servers that have has good if not better haks than what beamdog currently put out. Note: currently. Which isn’t much. I think it’s completely fair to want what was promised to us. And you’re right, no one had to buy it. Unless you wanted to play Arelith, then yes, you most certainly did because it would not work otherwise after the switch. If you think ee is wonderful, then that’s great! I’m happy you love it, but several people disagree and I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion and explanation as to why they feel how they feel without the thread descending into senseless arguments and mockingly quoting one another, so let’s respect each other’s opinion, hmm? Especially since this thread topic is asking for when the issue will be fixed and not asking for a debate between the cons and pros of EE.

[Hannibal]

but you still bought it knowing you'd get an unfinished product !

[JediMindTrix]

I'm complaining

and it's gettin' old

Don't criticise EE, or Trent Oster will cry and take his 395 pound ball home.

lmao

[Nitro]

but you still bought it knowing you'd get an unfinished product !

What? This wasn't an early access product. It was a full-fledged release. Promises of future added content does not mean the release is an incomplete product, and if it does, the release is clearly bogus.

[Invader_Nym]

The Intel thing is sucky and it's not a valid excuse IMO to blame it on Intel, Beamdog of course pushed an update which doesn't work, one which wasn't in any way critical (since 1.69 is fine). Unfortunately this seems to be a trend, each patch breaking something that didn't need playing about with.

I'm dubious about this claim. Intel's drivers were more than adequate for the original game. Anyway, I took the issue to Beamdog directly. I'm kind of miss-directing my rage by bitching about it here, so apologies for that.

[Dirac]

I don't understand how I can lose functionality buying an update that's supposed to be optimized for modern hardware.

Haha, it depends on what you actually think "Modern" hardware is... What are your laptop specifications?

The game loads lightening fast for me. I go from desktop to game in just under 3 seconds. There is an issue I have though when transitioning to new servers where it says something like "Your character is not allowed" or something like that, but I don't even notice because I log right back in in like 1 second.

[Cortex]

I don't understand how I can lose functionality buying an update that's supposed to be optimized for modern hardware.

Haha, it depends on what you actually think "Modern" hardware is... What are your laptop specifications?

The game loads lightening fast for me. I go from desktop to game in just under 3 seconds. There is an issue I have though when transitioning to new servers where it says something like "Your character is not allowed" or something like that, but I don't even notice because I log right back in in like 1 second.

So does mine, it doesn't stop it from crashing under certain circumstances, whereas far more demanding games of 2018 run fine in max settings.

[Scurvy Cur]

My car had perfectly good tires on it, however.
I didn't have to buy new news.
Ultimately, if I'd never brought the first set of tires, and I'd of brought this set of tires instead, I'd of not known any better. As tires, they function perfectly well.
They certainly could be better tires, but screaming at the dealer about it isn't going to change that particularly. Putting them out of business certainly won't

First, this is word salad.

Second, please stop misusing the word "of". The spirits of many great dead anglophones cry out in anguish. The proper formation of a conditional phrase is "I would have" not "I would of".

Third, and actually relevant: We had a perfectly good set of version 1.69 tires. We paid 20 bucks to enhance the tires, and lost functionality in a massive way. I don't know what bizarre dystopia you live in where the proper response to being sold a defective product is not to issue a complaint to the vendor, but instead to grovel for the vendor's benevolence that eventually they might fix the defect. That is not how things work in the civilized world the rest of us occupy. A vendor who delivers a faulty product deserves to receive at least some form of pushback from the customer, otherwise things will never improve. Maybe the developer in this case listens (I've my doubts, because Beamdog is a shameless cashgrab studio, and their next quality release will be their first). Maybe they collapse because they lack support and we're forced to pick a more functional alternative (spoiler, there is one). Either would be a sign of a healthily functioning market.

Following your logic to its conclusion, if Beandoggo went bankrupt this evening, and we were faced with the choice between reverting the server to 1.69 or keeping it as it is, we'd at least have a reasonable prospect of reverting. That reversion would probably represent the single biggest technical upgrade Arelith has seen in my 13 years here.

In the spirit of proper conditional tense: I wish they would have gone belly up before getting around to enhancing our server.

[Queen Titania]

There's nothing wrong with criticizing NWN EE while being respectful, or any other product. Or Arelith for that matter.

Personally, single player and module building wise, EE it is better, especially with my graphics card. 1.69 still had crashes and annoying graphic issues that happened on newer graphic cards, and the toolset crashed for no reason on 1.69 sometimes. NWN EE is definitely built well for the developer, and as criticized, less so for the player. I can see them improving on that later, but first impression is important, which is why the Intel Crashes suck for all involved. Beamdog will have to hear about it days and days until it is fixed, even if it isn't their fault, and it costs them a lot, and not just that, but other bugs, and the lack of content, or other criticisms. It's just part of business.

They'll still churn out content, and try to please the consunmenrs as best as they can, because that's what they want to do, because they want to be succesful.

[The Kriv]

For the record, regarding the OP, my intel based laptop since the last update hasn't crashed but for a very few times, although now what I am apparently dealing with are auto-minimizing of the game window at random times.

So far I've not been able to pin down a cause.

Another strange issue, is that I have a button on my laptop to activate an internal fan to blow out air if I think the machine is running too hot (which is a nice feature for a laptop with 2 full size graphics cards IMO) buuuut... when I mash the button to start the internal fans... my main-hand weapon auto-unequips! It's very strange.

[thingsicantdo]

my intel based laptop since the last update hasn't crashed but for a very few times, ... laptop with 2 full size graphics cards

emphasis mine. the way i understand it is it's only affecting people using integrated Intel HD graphics.

make no mistake, this is an intel issue, not a beamdog issue. although as unpopular as this opinion will be here, i'm of the mind that "if you're using integrated graphics and a video game doesn't work, tough luck." intel has made an amazing integrated graphics option, to be sure, but i would call it a bonus if it ran anything. discrete graphics cards are always the way to go for gaming.

that said, i hope they fix it soon for you guys.

[BegoneThoth]

Just activate it on Steam, then write a long and detailed negative review.

That's a good way for Beamdog to realize how many people they're affecting with their 'enhanced' stability.

[DreamOfCream]

I do not agree with using Intel as a scapegoat here. I don't know anything about graphic cards or tech.. But I do know that on my integrated intel card I could run NWN 1.69 just fine. It does not run on EE.

This was a game that was marketed to the existing community as an upgrade without any forewarning that integrated intel chips were not compatible. Had we of known that so many of us were going to have issues, do you think we would have bought the EE hype? So in sense, I do think it is Beamdog's fault. The game was not adequately tested before hand and the NWN community was not warned about potential compatibility issues.

[Woper_The_Black]

I know nothing of the technical side but can only express what I have experienced from the start. Played NWN on Arelith. Was told by the Arelith team that I couldn't continue to play on Arelith unless I purchased Beamdog's EE version and was also told by the Arelith team how much better it would be moving forwards. I have a main PC and a Surface Pro3. I use the surface pro any time I go away on trips etc. I originally was able to play on either device with no issues. After buying and installing EE. I still have no issues playing on my main PC but EE won't work on my surface pro with it crashing on specific areas, cordor and northern districts (possibly others). Going from playing both seamlessly to one being unplayable is disappointing, this situation would be untangible for a player that only has a device that used to work and now doesn't, OP ? I work for a motor dealer and if we sell a new car and organise other accessories telling our customer they will be great and there are problems with those items, the customer still complains and comes back to us to fix the problem. It is our responsibility to get it fixed on the customers behalf even though it's not directly our product. Saying, hey wait a minute, don't complain to us it's not our problem is a tad ignorant. For whatever the problem is whether it be intel, beamdog or Arelith the fact remains this issue was created from going from the old NWN to EE and it would be nice to have it resolved, it's not just been a few weeks, it's been many months now. For me personally not a terrible situation as I can still play on a main PC, but for others......

[ArcanaFTW]

I think you guys are kinda forgetting that Beamdog isn't some triple-A company run by cybernetic overlords. I'm assuming they have a relatively small team, and it seems like they tried to establish an update with a fair amount of content behind it that ended up not being compatible with certain Intel drivers, and as such have two choices.

The first is to rewind all the hard work they've done, take on huge complaints as to why they've rolled back so much progress and essentially either put everything on the back-burner until Intel sort out the issue on their side, or entirely rebuild all the hard work they've done so far working around the current bug and lose out on time and progress, then taking on complaints that they aren't improving the game fast enough.

The second is what they're doing now, and continuing to improve the game and pressing on Intel to get their side fixed. They can't help how fast or slow Intel performs, but they can continue to offer updates despite the bug and maximise performance by letting Intel do their job while they do theirs.

Can you guys see why they might be in a bit of a hard place? I'm not saying that we should be lying down and just taking anything they throw their way, but this is hardly their fault entirely, and we should probably cut them a bit more slack than some of us are. NWN:EE gave us an opportunity to reinvigorate our community and extend its life far beyond what we would have expected before its release, and they really are doing their best to work with us. It honestly does seem like they care.

[Cortex]

The problem is that most of this could've been avoided with more testing. They're fiddling with things we never asked for (like doors, transitions and chat bars...), while more critical issues remained untouched.

[BegoneThoth]

Yep, Beamdog is dependent on Intel to fix their drivers, though maaaaybe they look at a work-around on their side.

Why does intel have to fix its drivers for Beamdog

why doesn't beamdog make their game work with the drivers that exist

this isn't 'intels' problem.

[flower]

[removed by Dunshine]

[Shadowy Reality]

I am on the boat of negativity here.

I am all for NWN to be updated and all that. But as EE currently is it was a downgrade in performance for me.

When direct connecting half the time the address cannot be translated, the other half works fine.
When alt tabbing I get some really weird flickers and the game sort of freezes for some seconds.
The doors and chat bar are just infuriating.
The gamma slider was a lifesaver in the UD for me, I don't know how it is now as I haven't been there since.

[ActionReplay]

What can I say. EE leaves a lot to be desired atm.

[Liareth]

Yep, Beamdog is dependent on Intel to fix their drivers, though maaaaybe they look at a work-around on their side.

Why does intel have to fix its drivers for Beamdog

why doesn't beamdog make their game work with the drivers that exist

this isn't 'intels' problem.

I think the deal with Intel is this: NWN's rendering code is doing the right thing (works on both NVIDIA and AMD drivers) but the Intel drivers have a bug in them or otherwise don't do what they should be doing at the right time which causes a crash in the game. It's possible for BD to fix this themselves (most games have hacks in their code to work around Intel drivers, they are atrocious) but BD lacks the resources and expertise to locate the source of the crashes and patch it for Intel. They seem to be waiting for Intel to patch their drivers or lend a hand to track down the crash. Personally I think that fixing the crash, even if it is caused by bad Intel drivers, should be top priority, above any new features. But I don't think that's how BD view it because it's a bit of a black box - they could put in 30 days and be no better off.

I have pretty similar experiences to most of you regarding the client - poor performance, much more crashy, etc. In my view, the sum of positives (way more players, new scripting commands which allow for cool new features written by module devs) outweigh the negatives (weird bugs, crashes, perf issues, bizarre feature direction at times, regressions), but I wish there weren't so many negatives and there were more positives.

[Ramza]

Well, crashes aside. I think the worst thing they've somehow screwed up is the netcode. I've never had so much trouble just staying connected to servers without randomly getting desynchronized and dropping, just to have to try and log back in over 5-6 attempts of failed connections. Then again all of this was predicted about.. 2-3 months before EE was released. So I don't know why anyone is acting surprised.