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Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director's Cut

Neerasrc

Learned
Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
187
Location
Türkiye
If we write a negative review, will we have blocked Bard's Tale 5? If Microsoft sees it as a failed game series, "Continue" approval? There is no longer a high budget company that makes this type of game. I don't want these games lost like Might and Magic.

I didn't know what to do. Damn it, fargo!
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,495
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
If we write a negative review, will we have blocked Bard's Tale 5? If Microsoft sees it as a failed game series, "Continue" approval? There is no longer a high budget company that makes this type of game. I don't want these games lost like Might and Magic.

I didn't know what to do. Damn it, fargo!

Don't worry about it, it's already seen as failed. It's crazy that we even got this Director's Cut.
 

Neerasrc

Learned
Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
187
Location
Türkiye
If we write a negative review, will we have blocked Bard's Tale 5? If Microsoft sees it as a failed game series, "Continue" approval? There is no longer a high budget company that makes this type of game. I don't want these games lost like Might and Magic.

I didn't know what to do. Damn it, fargo!

Don't worry about it, it's already seen as failed. It's crazy that we even got this Director's Cut.

Director cut was for "Xbox One S". (Worst console. "as power") I hope they like the game. I think the fate of the series depends on it.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,552
Location
Kelethin
It is always going to seem like a failure until some indie does a good job and makes a fortune. Your best hope is with the Legend of Grimrock guys, Paper Scorcerer, or Xulima, or whatever. One of those hits it big, one of the bigger developers will give it a shot.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Don't worry about it, it's already seen as failed. It's crazy that we even got this Director's Cut.
Well, it's a rather low-effort port from their console version. Considering the amount of bugs present in the launch version, they can't have put too much work in it.
It's a bit of a shame, too. The game has potential, they just never gave it the proper ressources to fully realize it.

It is always going to seem like a failure until some indie does a good job and makes a fortune. Your best hope is with the Legend of Grimrock guys, Paper Scorcerer, or Xulima, or whatever. One of those hits it big, one of the bigger developers will give it a shot.

Neither of those were really successful on a large scale, though, as good as they might be. LoG 1 might have done relatively good, but LoG 2 already turned out to be a dead end for them. Blobbers are too niche nowadays.
 

Curratum

Guest
Heaven forbid I should suffer through another Bard's Tale. This one is a year old and the DC is riddled with a ton of bugs. You randomly lose the ability to select characters, your front and back row ability buttons get swapped, your inventory sorting / filter shows incorrect items in the filtered views.

Very little in the game works completely fine.
 

Bohr

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
1,878
Heaven forbid I should suffer through another Bard's Tale. This one is a year old and the DC is riddled with a ton of bugs. You randomly lose the ability to select characters, your front and back row ability buttons get swapped, your inventory sorting / filter shows incorrect items in the filtered views.

Very little in the game works completely fine.

Not quite 'try turning it off and on again', but a sad state of affairs for a Director's Cut.

vCUUowWe_o.png
 

Barbalos

Savant
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
200
Some pretty brutal stuff really. I was looking forward to some performance improvements mostly and I haven't seen it in the testing I did last night. It's still incredibly GPU heavy even with the downgraded or "different style" graphics and fiddling with the settings still does little to nothing to improve it. Pretty disappointed and I'm not likely to play much at this time unless the performance is improved a bit and they fix some of these apparently new bugs...

edit:
Also the blur on NPC models is actually ridiculous and constantly immersion breaking. And if I turn off Temporal AA I get a horrible shimmer effect on lots of textures such as hair. Brutal.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,552
Location
Kelethin
Don't worry about it, it's already seen as failed. It's crazy that we even got this Director's Cut.
Well, it's a rather low-effort port from their console version. Considering the amount of bugs present in the launch version, they can't have put too much work in it.
It's a bit of a shame, too. The game has potential, they just never gave it the proper ressources to fully realize it.

It is always going to seem like a failure until some indie does a good job and makes a fortune. Your best hope is with the Legend of Grimrock guys, Paper Scorcerer, or Xulima, or whatever. One of those hits it big, one of the bigger developers will give it a shot.

Neither of those were really successful on a large scale, though, as good as they might be. LoG 1 might have done relatively good, but LoG 2 already turned out to be a dead end for them. Blobbers are too niche nowadays.
I don't mean those games, I mean devs like those. If a dev like that make a blobber which sells really well, it will bring the bigger devs to the table. The same is true of any game though, it just has to 'go viral' then every dev wants to make their own version.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
I was gonna wait for the DC to come out to buy it and play the game. But now it seems the DC brought irreversible downgrades, and the original version is no longer being sold, I guess I'll say goodbye to this game. I'll listen to the soundtrack on Youtube, since everyone says it's really good, and then move on.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,575
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I was gonna wait for the DC to come out to buy it and play the game. But now it seems the DC brought irreversible downgrades, and the original version is no longer being sold, I guess I'll say goodbye to this game. I'll listen to the soundtrack on Youtube, since everyone says it's really good, and then move on.
Seems like an extreme reaction. Visuals are worse now, performance is better, more gameplay options have been added, and there are still some bugs. tldr: game is better now except for visuals. Seems like a weird reason to dealbreak.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
I guess it's just the thought of paying for, and playing, a forever inferior version when I expected it to have improved instead. Just leaves a sour taste in my mouth, even if the downgrade is visual. Maybe I'll buy it on sale next year.
 

Curratum

Guest
Never give money to people who downgrade their games for consoles, then sell you this crap.

The fact that the actual DC is incredibly buggy and has half a dozen gamebreaking issues even now doesn't help much either.
 
Self-Ejected

theSavant

Self-Ejected
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
2,009
Out of curiosity I installed it on my potato. I can confirm that the performance is indeed a bit better than in the original version.
My impression also stays the same: the game looks and feels better than the original version. It's more consistent in style. I would never go back to the original version.

The "strugglers lament" song made me smile. It really makes the flow of the game faster.
I only tested it on the door gear puzzles (at the beginning of the game), but I hope it works for the column puzzles too :)

Minor issue: several times I encountered the bug where the menu breaks, so this needs at least one more patch.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,495
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Incoming patch: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=20432&start=20#p207686
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1091980/discussions/0/1639794651181919536/?tscn=1567197657

Thanks everyone for your continued feedback. Before the weekend we wanted to provide an update of where we’re at, and what kinds of changes we’re currently working on.

We’re working on our first patch, which we’re targeting to release next week or shortly thereafter. This is a larger patch intended to address a number of the most commonly reported issues (including some stability fixes), and that includes our first fixes and changes related to graphics options. First and foremost this update will include the fix for dynamic character shadows, allowing both High and Ultra to function properly. If you haven’t seen it already, we recommend setting your shadows to Medium as a temporary fix. In addition, the patch is going to include visual adjustments to the areas of the game we’ve received feedback on, namely Skara Brae Above and Below. We’re happy overall with how our changes to these areas have created a more stylistically consistent look to the game, but we hear you, and agree that we can bring things back a bit and still meet our objectives. The changes are directed at adjusting those areas without reverting what we feel are still the correct artistic changes driven by feedback received from the original launch of Barrows Deep.

These shots are in-editor, but are close to what we're working toward for the next update.

vAHV2Zv.png


qWVA2Vp.png


Beyond that we’ll be continuing to look into reported issues, and what else may be possible to continue to improve and enhance the game. Again, thank you for continuing to engage and discuss.
 

ProphetSword

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,755
Location
Monkey Island
"Hey, guys. We 'fixed' a bunch of stuff. But, now, we're going to reverse all the stuff we fixed; because you guys are bitching at us about how you didn't like what we fixed, so stand by for The Bard's Tale IV: The Director's Cut - Undirected and Redacted. It's basically the same game we originally released a year ago, except we can charge full price again. Enjoy."
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Some guy on the Steam forums made an interesting discovery - simply switching the graphics setting to low and then back to a higher setting seems to improve contrast and shadows (NPCs still only have a shadow on medium shadow settings).
Has to be done everytime you start the game, however.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
20,062
I already own the game but I never installed it due to many complaints here about it.
I decided to wait for the DC version.. now I see I need to wait for the Enhanced Edition DC version instead :)
 

Curratum

Guest
I thrive on games that work, 11 months post launch, Brian...

I swear to god, the original game has less bugs than the DC at the moment.
 

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