franknbeans - 28 November 2012 01:57 PM

Im pretty sure you guys would be as angry as us if you couldn’t get any answers out of a a team who’s sole job it is to give answers.

I’m highlighting this part because I feel this is the part you’re misunderstanding most.

Support is one of the many aspects of making games. We try to answer as many questions as fast as we can because we like interacting with the community and ya’ll are good people, but we are human. Our time and resources are finite so we have to prioritize, and that can mean delays in response.

We have a TON of stuff going on right now. We just started Amnesia Fortnight and Cave is almost out the door. Some of the programmers were here for upwards of 14 hour shifts trying to get the Cave cleaned up. If we had removed just one of them from the project to work on the patch, it’s highly likely we could have missed a milestone. That could potentially have crippled us as a studio. We want to take care of everything we can as fast as we can, but prioritizing is a necessity. We just don’t have the bandwidth to sit down and discuss whether we want to fix it internally, get another contractor, or other options. It will be fixed eventually because we want everyone to be able to play our games in the way that they want, but I can’t give anything concrete.

We’re going to make the Mac and Linux port a priority as soon as we have the available bandwidth, which we’re projecting will be in January/Early 2013. Once we have a clear and solid plan we’ll post about it and let everyone know how it will be fixed.

wow, thanks for giving all of us the big middle finger. You guys are awesome for continuing to sell a broken game. I bought this full price when it was first ported to the mac, and you guys killed it!

DF Justin - 28 November 2012 04:05 PM

franknbeans - 28 November 2012 01:57 PM

Im pretty sure you guys would be as angry as us if you couldn’t get any answers out of a a team who’s sole job it is to give answers.

I’m highlighting this part because I feel this is the part you’re misunderstanding most.

Support is one of the many aspects of making games. We try to answer as many questions as fast as we can because we like interacting with the community and ya’ll are good people, but we are human. Our time and resources are finite so we have to prioritize, and that can mean delays in response.

We have a TON of stuff going on right now. We just started Amnesia Fortnight and Cave is almost out the door. Some of the programmers were here for upwards of 14 hour shifts trying to get the Cave cleaned up. If we had removed just one of them from the project to work on the patch, it’s highly likely we could have missed a milestone. That could potentially have crippled us as a studio. We want to take care of everything we can as fast as we can, but prioritizing is a necessity. We just don’t have the bandwidth to sit down and discuss whether we want to fix it internally, get another contractor, or other options. It will be fixed eventually because we want everyone to be able to play our games in the way that they want, but I can’t give anything concrete.

We’re going to make the Mac and Linux port a priority as soon as we have the available bandwidth, which we’re projecting will be in January/Early 2013. Once we have a clear and solid plan we’ll post about it and let everyone know how it will be fixed.

I understand that you guys are busy with other projects. The frustration for us was that we were sold a product that should never have been put on the market. We aren’t complaining about minor problems. We’re complaining about show-stopping bugs. Double Fine screwed us over, and we aren’t happy about it. Whatever else you (the plural form, not you specifically) have on your plate is a separate issue, and is irrelevant to this discussion. We should either get a fix or a refund. In the mean time, you should stop selling the game until it is fixed.

I’m not trying to specifically call you out, but someone at Double Fine seriously botched this entire thing, and we aren’t even offered an acknowledgement of the issue and an apology.

ZacB - 30 November 2012 02:03 PM

I understand that you guys are busy with other projects. The frustration for us was that we were sold a product that should never have been put on the market. We aren’t complaining about minor problems. We’re complaining about show-stopping bugs. Double Fine screwed us over, and we aren’t happy about it. Whatever else you (the plural form, not you specifically) have on your plate is a separate issue, and is irrelevant to this discussion. We should either get a fix or a refund. In the mean time, you should stop selling the game until it is fixed.

I’m not trying to specifically call you out, but someone at Double Fine seriously botched this entire thing, and we aren’t even offered an acknowledgement of the issue and an apology.

Helo, ZacB, franknbeans, and other frustrated owners of Mac Pnauts. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Nathan, the studio technical director here at DF. Ultimately, the technical quality of all our games is my responsibility (regardless of mitigating circumstances). I want to be clear with everyone that I totally hear your frustration with the quality of Steam Pnauts on Mac. Your frustrations are *totally* valid. I’m frustrated, too, and definitely not happy with the quality of Pnauts on Mac. I definitely apologize for your frustration and for how long it’s taken us to resolve these outstanding issues.

As Justin said earlier, we don’t have the internal bandwidth to directly address these issues right now. We’ve been working on getting Pnauts Mac ship shape using an external person, but so far that has been, as you can see directly, slow and not very fruitful. I’m hoping some new options for solving these Pnauts Mac problems will become available in January, but I know that from your perspective, that’s just another date that may or may not happen.

While I can’t directly fix these Pnauts Mac issues until early next year, I have discussed this issue with the other support staff and Chris Remo, and we’ve decided to escalate up to DF’s most senior management. We’re now discussing what options we have to do right by you, our very loyal and patient Mac fans, in the short term. I’ll respond with more info from that conversation as we have it, probably Monday or Tuesday next week.

DF Nathan - 30 November 2012 03:09 PM

ZacB - 30 November 2012 02:03 PM

I understand that you guys are busy with other projects. The frustration for us was that we were sold a product that should never have been put on the market. We aren’t complaining about minor problems. We’re complaining about show-stopping bugs. Double Fine screwed us over, and we aren’t happy about it. Whatever else you (the plural form, not you specifically) have on your plate is a separate issue, and is irrelevant to this discussion. We should either get a fix or a refund. In the mean time, you should stop selling the game until it is fixed.

I’m not trying to specifically call you out, but someone at Double Fine seriously botched this entire thing, and we aren’t even offered an acknowledgement of the issue and an apology.

Helo, ZacB, franknbeans, and other frustrated owners of Mac Pnauts. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Nathan, the studio technical director here at DF. Ultimately, the technical quality of all our games is my responsibility (regardless of mitigating circumstances). I want to be clear with everyone that I totally hear your frustration with the quality of Steam Pnauts on Mac. Your frustrations are *totally* valid. I’m frustrated, too, and definitely not happy with the quality of Pnauts on Mac. I definitely apologize for your frustration and for how long it’s taken us to resolve these outstanding issues.

As Justin said earlier, we don’t have the internal bandwidth to directly address these issues right now. We’ve been working on getting Pnauts Mac ship shape using an external person, but so far that has been, as you can see directly, slow and not very fruitful. I’m hoping some new options for solving these Pnauts Mac problems will become available in January, but I know that from your perspective, that’s just another date that may or may not happen.

While I can’t directly fix these Pnauts Mac issues until early next year, I have discussed this issue with the other support staff and Chris Remo, and we’ve decided to escalate up to DF’s most senior management. We’re now discussing what options we have to do right by you, our very loyal and patient Mac fans, in the short term. I’ll respond with more info from that conversation as we have it, probably Monday or Tuesday next week.

This recent post just proves to me you guys really need to get your act together, first of all, frustration doesn’t even begin to describe how pissed everybody is to know they been duped into buying a broken game, and you guys wont even take it up with, Steam, Mac Game Store, Gamersgate, (any company that has been selling your broken game for the past half year) to warn them of taking it down, your team just had a sale a week ago in which a bunch of mac gamers bought your broken game, is that even legal? I completely understand the meaning of support, but apparently your team has a vague interpretation of what that means because, as you state, its our fault that you guys have to jumble different projects at once, its called procrastination and its all because of your teams lack of organization and communication. We don’t need more discussions, what we need is action on your part, i’m sure you have time to chat everyday, but we all know the steps your team has to go through, you guys still don’t have any word about the contractor, you don’t know how far in progress you team is, it takes lightyears to get back to forum posts, and now you have some other projects to work on, its just excuse after excuse with no concrete details and no progress whatsoever. Tell ya what, don’t even post back on this forum until you guys have heard from your contractor, bc any answers out of your team will just be irrelevant, considering you guys aren’t equipped to fix these problems. It all comes down to that contractor and if he didn’t update anything this whole year, than we’ll have to wait another whole year.

I’m not pissed or annoyed at all with the situation really. It’s still playable,it just breaks every once in a while. DF are a small company so things take time sometimes and I have the upmost confidence it will be start to be resolved in January. Just honestly happy DF decided to support the mac. A trend I hope they continue. I paid for the amnesia fortnight without realising it wasn’t supporting mac. whoops!

Then again it takes a lot to even mildly annoy me.

idonthaveorgans - 05 December 2012 11:57 AM

I’m not pissed or annoyed at all with the situation really. It’s still playable,it just breaks every once in a while. DF are a small company so things take time sometimes and I have the upmost confidence it will be start to be resolved in January. Just honestly happy DF decided to support the mac. A trend I hope they continue. I paid for the amnesia fortnight without realising it wasn’t supporting mac. whoops!

Then again it takes a lot to even mildly annoy me.

Thanks for the kind words and understanding. Mac is definitely a bigger and bigger focus going forward, which is part of the reason we also are working to get Pnauts Mac sorted out as soon as we can make it happen. Expect to hear more Mac good news from us in the new year!

DF Nathan - 05 December 2012 02:40 PM

idonthaveorgans - 05 December 2012 11:57 AM

I’m not pissed or annoyed at all with the situation really. It’s still playable,it just breaks every once in a while. DF are a small company so things take time sometimes and I have the upmost confidence it will be start to be resolved in January. Just honestly happy DF decided to support the mac. A trend I hope they continue. I paid for the amnesia fortnight without realising it wasn’t supporting mac. whoops!

Then again it takes a lot to even mildly annoy me.

Thanks for the kind words and understanding. Mac is definitely a bigger and bigger focus going forward, which is part of the reason we also are working to get Pnauts Mac sorted out as soon as we can make it happen. Expect to hear more Mac good news from us in the new year!

No problem, thanks for the great games and updates! looking forward to the good news :D

DF Nathan - 05 December 2012 02:40 PM

Thanks for the kind words and understanding. Mac is definitely a bigger and bigger focus going forward, which is part of the reason we also are working to get Pnauts Mac sorted out as soon as we can make it happen. Expect to hear more Mac good news from us in the new year!

I’m seeing a lot of focus on Mac here, but I hope you’re not forgetting the Linux version which is also plagued by many bugs.

defaultusername - 09 December 2012 06:33 AM

DF Nathan - 05 December 2012 02:40 PM

Thanks for the kind words and understanding. Mac is definitely a bigger and bigger focus going forward, which is part of the reason we also are working to get Pnauts Mac sorted out as soon as we can make it happen. Expect to hear more Mac good news from us in the new year!

I’m seeing a lot of focus on Mac here, but I hope you’re not forgetting the Linux version which is also plagued by many bugs.

Definitely not. Linux is a smaller market, but it’s also a market full of very enthusiastic gamers with a lot of potential upside for companies that make games those customers want. Fortunately, the Linux and Mac versions are very similar and fixing issues for one should fix the other.

On the other hand, nine months or so is really pushing it. Since I got this game along with the rest of the Humble Bundle, it’s not exactly like I cleaned out my pockets for it, but it’s still a product I (and others) paid for quite a while ago. This is honestly ridiculous. We’ve been more than patient.

I’m a little late to the party, but I just got gifted Psychonauts on steam for Christmas and I have to say, it’s downright sloppy. The dialogue cuts out constantly and it already crashed twice for me (I haven’t even finished Oleander’s level). Even when I had the game on an xbox (original, not 360 and without updates/patches) it ran a lot better than this.

Is there a timeframe for a patch? I don’t think I’m going to attempt playing again until there is one- just to frustrating.

I’m not trying to complain for the sake of complaining but I really doubt I’m going to buy another double fine mac port if this isn’t fixed. While I’d hate to feel like I’m missing out on good games, my mac is the only thing I have to play games on now.

Y’all, the bottom line is that the people at Double Fine know about the issue, and repeated nagging won’t make it any faster.

Yes, I too am disappointed by this, as I have started playing Psychonauts twice so far—once the old port, then the HB rendition, but never could finish the game due to bugs. Talk about frustration; you get into the story and then are yanked out: not nice at all. BUT—that’s life. Do something else in the meantime instead. Take a walk with a good friend, smell the air, have a snow fight, read a book, write a book, program a bug-free game (if you think it is so easy), dance, skip, roll around. Anything.

Oh, you say you have the right to be angry? Because you paid for the game? Well, you are correct. You do have the right, absolutely. You paid for a product and it doesn’t work the way it should. But ask yourself: “Is it the sensible thing to do? Will I get the patch sooner that way? Or will I just have a rotten mood as a result?” The choice is yours. Choose wisely. It’s only your life.

Brütal Ke$ha - 29 December 2012 11:55 PM

I’m a little late to the party, but I just got gifted Psychonauts on steam for Christmas and I have to say, it’s downright sloppy. The dialogue cuts out constantly and it already crashed twice for me (I haven’t even finished Oleander’s level). Even when I had the game on an xbox (original, not 360 and without updates/patches) it ran a lot better than this.

Is there a timeframe for a patch? I don’t think I’m going to attempt playing again until there is one- just to frustrating.

I’m not trying to complain for the sake of complaining but I really doubt I’m going to buy another double fine mac port if this isn’t fixed. While I’d hate to feel like I’m missing out on good games, my mac is the only thing I have to play games on now.

The thing also probably with porting psychonauts for them doesn’t do anything for other titles because its the only game on that engine while if they port one of their other games they can probably use that also for their other titles.

nulian - 30 December 2012 01:54 PM

The thing also probably with porting psychonauts for them doesn’t do anything for other titles because its the only game on that engine while if they port one of their other games they can probably use that also for their other titles.

So does that mean that future Double Fine mac ports are going to be better or just that they’ll have different problems?