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A while back, I sent an e-mail to Beenox asking for an update to PoG. I got no response. So I decided to mail David Dunham. These are my e-mails and their responses:
(Me) There are many, many bugs in PoG 1.0.2, which came out a year ago. I would like to know when there will be a bug fix. In the FAQ, it says that the developer (Beenox) knows about the problems. I e-mailed them, asking when they would provide a fix, but got no response. So do you know about when there will be a fix? Is Ambrosia and Beenox currently creating one?
(David) The only bug I am aware of in PoG is the inability to save games under OS X or later. What other bugs are you referring to?
(Me) Some bugs in PoG are many mispellings (ex. strength is spelled strenght in both the tome of elixars quest description and the Spirit of Nature's dialog after you've freed it). There is a rare bug that crashes the game when you switch maps (happens most often in the Plains of Endless Wind and Reef's Island, but it is hard to reproduce). If you select a plugin, save your character, then deselect the plugin and load the character, there will be the outlines of dialog boxes (which you can press return to pass). Sometimes when this happens, PoG will crash (perhaps when the character is on a map specific to the plugin? I haven't tried it, but some people get the crash). The Elven Full Plate in the chest sometimes doesn't load (or so others say). You are able to drop the evil crown and cyklops eye, which can make you unable to complete the quest. You are able to get into the Guardian's lair without the Milkara's Shield (thus when you beat him, you cannot awaken the giant and are stuck in the room). And more that I can't think of right now.
Bugs pertaining to Trinity: The usual slew of mispellings, When more than one spell which uses a timer is casted, they will stay activated. If a ranger uses a creature potion and saves in that state, they'll stay that way. And more that I can't think of right now.
And bugs that could cause problems for developers (bugs in Coldstone?): If an enemy has a healing potion and uses it, it will not attack and the monster will be using the potion over and over again (as seen in the plugin Sapphire). There are troubles with the Guardian's lair and plugins (contact Rubber Ducky for all of the info). And more that I can't think of right now.
(David) Thanks for the heads up. The developers of PoG are working on an update to Coldstone, the game engine creator used to create PoG. As soon as Coldstone is updated, they'll be able to update PoG.
Again, thanks for the comprehensive list!
(Me) I thought of a few more bugs: After you kill the Cyklopses, one of the guards says that you still need to kill them, and then says that you did a good job. When you say that you want to learn about beasts to the people in the learning tree, they give you a list of beasts they know about. However, some of he beasts that they claim to know about, they really don't. When you search for a thing in the books in the Learning Tree, sometimes it says that it can be found on another level, and then says that it isn't on that level and you should check on another level. And after the druid tells you that the learning tree won't let you get to the third level without getting the ring, and you go to the entrance to the third level, the message says that the learning tree won't let you pass, and then another message comes up that says an invisible force won't let you pass.
Pertaining to Trinity: The tent and the lady with the elven bed do not restore magic points.
------------------------- I just sent the last message today (and so have no response yet), but from David's last response, it looks like we are getting an update to PoG!
------------------ Clones are people two. If UPS and Fed-Ex merged, would they be Fed-Up? A man who's out to save Gidolan Keep, flies an Auroran ship, and hacks into computers to keep the bricks from falling past the line of destiny? Yep, that's me!
(This message has been edited by Thunderforge (edited 09-04-2003).)
w00t. Maybe I'll start playing it again after the update
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Quote
Originally written by David Dunham on November 26, 2002: **Hello- Just a quick note to say that Dee is working very hard on an update right now.
He and the others in the development team have been going in to the office on weekends to address the issues you mention.
I don't have any timetable on an update, but can assure you it is being worked on.**
Pardon me if I remain skeptical.
------------------ 'You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?' -- T. Pratchett
Well, I decided to e-mail David asking what status Coldstone was in (I didn't want to be like some of the people wanting EVN for Windows). This is my e-mail and response:
(Me): Earlier, I e-mailed you reporting numerous bugs in Pillars of Garendall. (You can find the lists at (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001379.html#")http://www.ambrosias....L/001379.html#(/url), and I hope that it wasn't a problem that I posted the e-mails). In the last e-mail you sent me, you said that an update to Coldstone (which was being worked on) was needed before Pillars of Garendall could be recompiled and fixed. The webboard user Glenn reported that Dee was working on an update to Coldstone since at least November 2002. I'm curious as to what status Coldstone 1.0.2 is in (beta, final candidate, etc.). I would also like to know if any of the bugs that I noted for PoG have been addressed (the ability to drop the Evil Crown, which keeps you from completing the mission, for example)
(David): I am waiting to hear from Dee in regards to the update to Coldstone. We are not currently testing an update here.
We recieved a "temporary" update created just to address one specific problem. That update did address that problem, but was not robust or complete enough to justify releasing it to the testers.
As soon as I have any news from Dee, I will forward it to you.
I'm guessing that the one specific problem is the Jaguar save game bug.
Forget an update, lets see PoG 2!
------------------ Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordian. "You're dumb." -Rawzer to whitedevil, whitedevil2, and Ory' hara.
Originally posted by SlaVitiCkus: **Forget an update, lets see PoG 2! **
I'd like this too, but I think that an update to Coldstone would help so that we don't have the same number of bugs that Pillars of Garendall has right now. Also, I think that it's important to patch existing games. Do you think that it would have been any good if EVN stopped at version 1.0.0 and ATMOS worked on EV4? Some people my say yes, but then those people that played EVN wouldn't be happy with the game and Ambrosia might lose money because few people would buy a game riddled with bugs.
So, I believe that if you make a game, patch the bugs. If you make a sequel, make sure that you still update the first game so that it is free of bugs. If you don't want to do this, don't make the game at all.
Just so as to not make everyone think I am a total pessimist:
The last I heard from Ambrosia was that Beenox is indeed still trying to do an update, but the current problem is that the Coldstone editor (not the game engine; just the editor used to make game data), which is built with RealBASIC, apparently fails to compile under the newer versions of RealBASIC (which would otherwise fix many of the bugs in the current version of the editor).
In short, Ambrosia can't release an update to PoG since Beenox can't build an update to Coldstone since RealBASIC has bugs. Therefore, once RealBASIC's bugs are fixed, Beenox can fix the bugs in Coldstone and use Coldstone to fix the bugs in PoG.
Got it?
Originally posted by Glenn: In short, Ambrosia can't release an update to PoG since Beenox can't build an update to Coldstone since RealBASIC has bugs. Therefore, once RealBASIC's bugs are fixed, Beenox can fix the bugs in Coldstone and use Coldstone to fix the bugs in PoG.
Ugh, that sentence made my head hurt.
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Originally posted by EVula: **Ugh, that sentence made my head hurt.:p
**
You aren't alone on that one..
A curiosity question, Glenn. How do you know about Beenox's problem if David Dunham doesn't?
Originally posted by Thunderforge: A curiosity question, Glenn. How do you know about Beenox's problem if David Dunham doesn't?
I e-mailed Andrew Welch, and that's what he told me. shrug I don't think that Mr. Dunham doesn't necessarily know that such a problem exists; looking at the correspondence you've posted, it seems to me that he's just being unspecific. I doubt that it's considered good form for a software tech support person to blame another company for the bugs in their software.
Originally posted by Glenn: I e-mailed Andrew Welch, and that's what he told me. shrug
Dee Brown, President of Beenox and main author of Coldstone, also confirmed this at some point long ago. I don't recall if it was via IRC, a post on the Coldstone board, or an e-mail correspondance I had with him.
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Thunderforge, if they did all the spelling changes you mentioned in post one, they are not changing program data (which is in the 2MB application), but game data (which is in the 150+ MB Data001.dat file). For this reason, they probably don't want to make those little changes because nobody with anything slower than a 1 MB/sec cable or DSL line would download it.
------------------ Boo! Did I scare you? No? BOO! How about now? Good!
Originally posted by LifeKnight: For this reason, they probably don't want to make those little changes because nobody with anything slower than a 1 MB/sec cable or DSL line would download it.
In my opinion this is fairly irrelevant. They ought to fix the typos because it makes the game appear more professional. And, as a company, this ought to be important.
My opinion, naturally.
by the way im postin here because nobody the other topic i posted butthis one is so cool i know how to be immortal (no thats NOT a typo i know how to be IMMORTAL) but first i need to know how to put links in your posts. Thanks!
------------------ joe shmoe
Originally posted by poger825: **by the way im postin here because nobody the other topic i posted butthis one is so cool i know how to be immortal (no thats NOT a typo i know how to be IMMORTAL) but first i need to know how to put links in your posts. Thanks! **
I can't read this to make much sense of what you are trying to say. The links part is fairly clear. Look to the left of where you type and you will see, "UBB Code in ON". Click on that and you can learn how to do links.
------------------ My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad. The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages. (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG.
Originally posted by poger825: by the way im postin here because nobody the other topic i posted
Poger,
Please don't hijack threads simply because people aren't posting in one that you created.
Posting to get attention is called "spam" here, and is a perfect way to lower your karma.