Still Patient, Just Curious

Just curious if we will see a PoG update this year. I've seen lots of new software from Ambrosia these past few months but nothing for us patient PoG'ers. May I stress the word patient a bit more. After all, it is a virtue.

I am not at liberty to give any details, but I believe patience is about to pay off.

I've bought PoG two years ago, and couldn't play it since then. And always there has been talk that patience would pay off and Ambrosia has hired someone to fix it etc...

Well, I've got two things:

1. Since it has been stated that Ambrosia has hired someone to get it to run, I'm sure Ambrosia can show some evidence for this?

2. Has Ambrosia ever thought about the legal consequences of advertising this game to run under any Mac OS, 8.1, and older, while it is known that it does not?

Right now it seems this "patience" delaying is just a trick to let all legal timeframes for complaints pass. You've had success with me - I waited more than 2 years, so I don't have the right to ask for my money back.

I don't have that virtue "patience" any more. I have no legal handhold (new buyers have!), but I surely won't ever recommend Ambrosia games again (haven't done so for the past two years).

If you can't fix it (and hey - any developer hired could have rewritten the game from scratch in the two years he had!), at least be so honest as to say so, maybe offer a refund or alternative game or whatever to those who've paid for NOTHING.

The problem, PepiMK, is that AmbrosiaSW is (or was) merely a distributor for a game made by Beenox. Beenox has been bought out by another company which, in turn, refuses to update the software. Ambrosia is saddled with trying to fix someone else's product because Apple put forth new operating systems under which the game does not function. This is not a simple job to do and is further complicated by the fact that Coldstone (which was used to build the game) relied on RealBasic for its engine, and RealBasic wasn't functioning in the OS X environment either.

ASW hired an intern to work on Coldstone/PoG and after six months or so she either gave up or was let go. A new "code monkey" is now on the Ambrosia staff who's first task was to get Wire Tap Pro released and then updated. When that was finished (just recently) his next task was to tackle Coldstone/PoG, which, I understand he is in the process of doing now. If he is successful, Coldstone will go out for beta testing and, when the bugs are squashed, PoG can be rebuilt with the new version of Coldstone.

Instead of venting your ire on AmbrosiaSW, some of the blame falls on Beenox, Apple, and RealBasic for the delay in getting a fix.

Listen, I don't really care about the legal 'get your money back' issue. I enjoy the game and want to see it last with a strong following of developement and support. Hey, it's a $25 game, not a $25,000 car. I would be more worried about that. I can wait.

Thanx for the reasurence(sp?) Rd I too will wait and check this forum dayly lol

I still do not understand exactly WHY it is that we don't even get our license codes when we pay the money.

I do understand and appreciate all the difficulties there are in fixing this game. But I simply do not understand why the heck we can't even get our license codes if we pay up. Why not give the people who registered the license codes while still working on fixing the bugs?

Once again, it's not the fact it's taking so long to fix it that I'm mad about. It's why the heck we can't even buy the game while they're fixing the bugs. If someone tries to buy the game, it probably means the game still works on their system...someone probably isn't going to pay money to buy a game that doesn't work! So why not let people buy the game while it's being fixed? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Even if it is annoying, I've got another question: does it make sense to continue the effort to have a "code monkey" on this now that the new Intel machines are out?

Without wanting to insult your code monkey(s) - if it takes years to get an update for an OS version switch, the switch to a new platform may take decades?

(and btw, as a developer who writes a lot of (Windows) code on system or near-system level, I know that it's not easy to fix OS incompabilities - but I also know my share of debugging those and - except for the compiler incompability thing - really find it difficult to believe that it takes so long, unlees Beenox did such a bad job that the whole thing will be a total rewrite )

Imho it would be better to just say "we give up" than getting this fixed some time this year only to hear all the complains from people with Intel machines that it won't work
Or make it - maybe only the Coldstone engine - open source. You can still sell your game based on that with the right open source license, but you will get the help of code monkeys that are high enough on bananas to bring this game back.

I for one still play this game in OS9 since I can't play it in 10.3 but I still eagerly await for an update. If one is released I definately will buy coldstone license if/when they release an update.

All I can do is wait patiently and hope for the best.

I have been able to buy it after a lot of struggle (over their existing non-existing PayPal account) only to be stopped from playing it through an OS update only weeks later.

Anyway, you won't be able to play it on OS9 any more when you get an Intel Mac.
And I don't want to install some old OS9 on my PPC Mac for this.

Personally I would say that it would be a matter of honor that Ambrosia would finally admit that we won't see any more of this. I can understand a failure (especially if it has to be blamed on a third party), but I can't stand this repeated promises that patience should pay off.

So are we able to get the codes by registering it yet?

This post has been edited by Lord Seth : 27 February 2006 - 01:46 PM

When the time comes, I'm sure the news will be here for all to see.

I still run this on an old iMac with this game on it and I still find it very interesting. I hope they do update it.

I don't believe it. He's still daring to say "when the time comes". How many broken "in the next months" did we already have? Be a man and admit that it's dead, so we can finally rest.

PepiMK, on Feb 28 2006, 10:02 AM, said:

I don't believe it.
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The moderators have been informed that Coldstone has been and is being worked on. This was a recent post, not ancient history. Since PoG is dependant on an updated Coldstone, it follows that and updated PoG will indeed happen. Believe what you will, but, unfortunately, that's all I can say on the subject.