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How to avoid the bug, from the Gearbox forums:

We also advise that before ceasing play, users always select "Save and Quit" from within the pause menu while their character is alive. If after the death of their character players find themselves at the main menu of Borderlands 2 instead of respawning in-game, be sure to immediately select "Continue" to resume playing as that character.

The bug only affects the Xbox version, not PS3 or PC.

From the Gearbox forums: "It's not a joke. This is not something we would joke about. We have a commitment to our fans to get the game out as early as possible and every day counts. New games are available on Tuesday in North America so we’re getting the game out as early as possible in this territory. The international markets do not adhere to this release timing, and it just happens that they will be able to release the game a few days before North America. We don't want to hold it back, we want to get it into the hands of consumers as soon as possible." http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=119037

3d Realms is taking it badly -- they forcibly closed all forums related to Duke Nukem, even the older ones. It looks like Take 2 stole their IP.

You should probably actually visit their forum before posting misinformation. What has actually happened is that the main forum moderator, Joe Siegler, has been hired by Gearbox to handle their Duke Nukem community. As such they have moved Duke Nukem related forums over to the new Gearbox forum.

See his posts here and here for confirmation.

Whether they now own the Duke Nukem IP is unknown as no announcements have been made one way or the other.

Yes, it was a major issue when the game released, ie. essentially every 5xxx series card getting hardlocks; the recent drivers appear to have more or less fixed it after gearbox just ignored the issue for a couple months. Was also a huge issue with catalyst AI and breaking textures, but that was also a fix from the last catalyst update. I guess it's less of an ATi driver issue and more developers botching it these days, ATi is definitely doing better lately. see: http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=78815&highlight=radeon

The game was pirated far more than any other game before its time, there were torrents *everywhere*, and *everyone* had a copy. Anticipation was high, and when a warez group let slip the ISO *days* before the retail date, sales were instantly decimated.

I'm curious where your information comes from. Doom 3 lost 10% of its sales because of the early illegal release? How can you know what the number would have been without that release? It was pirated more than any other game previously? I wasn't aware that NPD was tracking those numbers. "Everyone" had a copy? Hyperbole just makes you look like you lack real evidence.

Ultimately you're guessing. You have no more evidence that piracy caused fewer sales than expected than the grandparent post claiming that the game just sucked.

Here are some actual numbers. You've suggested that "Piracy ruined Doom 3...." Doom 3 sold 3.5 million copies. Most publishers would love to sell 3.5 million copies of a game. Games generally considered to be highly successful, like Warcraft III , Baldur's Gate , and Unreal Tournament didn't sell 3.5 million copies. There are only perhaps a dozen or two PC games that can claim to have topped that. id claimed Doom 3 was "...id's most successful game to date." If that's ruination, I'm afraid of success. Assuming you claim of decimation is correct, we're talking about id losing about 350,000 sales. That is a huge number of sales; many PC games never sell that many. But really is the different between 3.5 and 3.85 million copies really ruination?

From the Gearbox Website:

Gearbox Games:

• Halo: Combat Evolved
• James Bond 007: NightFire
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
• Half-Life for Playstation 2
• Half-Life: Blue Shift
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Platinum Pack
• Half-Life: Counterstrike

In a previous posting about my Beta Testing comments of The Sims Online, I had noted that one of the problems with this game was 100% right on the money after reading this new story about the Sims.

EA is soooo losing touch with their customers.

First, it was EA completely and utterly screwing up their '007: Nightfire' release on all gaming platforms. This resulted in the release of a PC platform that was so buggy, poorly written, and barely playable. Not only that, EA had a HUGE chance to cash in on getting Half-Life fans transfer over to this game for Multi-Player and Modding. There was a huge interest in re-creating maps from every single Bond Move, but thanks to EA, that never happened.

Think I'm wrong? Check this out!

Damn, I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket now after this prediction coming true!

Dolemite
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Dsanfte is Right on about game companies not wanting to assist gamers about various issues.

I'll provide two examples as well, Two good and one bad.

I've never played Everquest so I can't comment on what this person is going through but I can comment on the following games:

No One Lives Forever 2

007: Nightfire

Day of Defeat - a Killer World War II Half-Life Mod

Both of these games have a predecessor that have had sucess in it's previous incarnations.

The 007 Games have had a standard to live up to ever since the console game 'Goldeneye' was released. This game gained it's popularity with the awesome multiplayer aspects on the console. IMO this was the predecessor to all the on-line console games that are out now.

No One Lives Forever 1 (NOLF1) was an amazing game with a multiplayer aspect that immensely enhanced the single player game and was the major reason that this game won all the awards that it did. (Running over people with Snowmobiles is sooo fun)

When NOLF2 was released the reviews on the single player was favorable but nothing was said about the multiplayer aspect. I began researching this game for a possible purchase and began vewing the Sierra Forums and noted Two problems:

1) All MP aspects that made NOLF1 a great game, was removed for a 'co-op' multiplayer version. The 'Co-Op' version was essentially teams of online players playing against an AI Opponent.

2) The MP code was buggy. People were complaining of too many dropped packets.

Sierra'sattitude for #1 was initally "If you don't like it go buy another game that has on-line player vs online player this is not what this game is about". (These threads have since mysteriously disappeared)

After player after player were complaining about the lack of the cool MP aspects that made NOLF1 famous and the fact that people were mad that couldn't return the game (they were all expecting the same MP aspects of NOLF1 in NOLF2), news came out that a new patch would be coming out to add DM maps and better MP code.

Needles to say this alienated players and left sour tastes in peoples stomach. This reason alone and Sierra's initial atitude/response to this issue are the reason why I didn't buy this game and I laugh when it received Game of the Year Award by Adspy..er GameSpy.

007: Nightfire is EA/Gearbox's entry into the James Bond Game arena. This game is based on the Half-Life engine and has an original storyline. The Single player is amazing and has all the cool elements of a Bond Flick. The Multiplayer blew me away by the maps and mods it released. (Imagine a CTF/DM map that is a near perfect recreation of the Fort Knox Scene in 'Goldfinger'.)

Granted, when this product was initially released, there were issues with the game (MP Exploit, No Server manual, No MP manual for N00bs who don't understand the concept of Team-Killing). EA/Gearbox provided two methods to give feedback about this game (EA - E-mail and Gearbox Via their forums) and they (after about amonth of the PC version being released) are releasing a SP 'after the new year'.

In addition, with immense interest in Modding for this game (our clan is looking into creating MP maps that are recreations scenes in Bond Movies. We're looking to create maps for all the Bond Movies.), There will be a SDK released after the New Year as well.

Day of Defeat is probably the best Mod I've ever played in MP (not a big counter-strike fan). In short, this is a World War II mod with the Axis versus the Allies in various map situations. The weapon Recreation, maps and the general popularity is slowly growing every day. I beleive one of the main reasons why this is is that The Day of Defeat MOD team has a direct link to the public through their forums and are looking for contunuous feedback on how this game can be improved.

I will always be a fan of this MOD because of the direct link to the developers.

My advice to anyone who have problems with various games is to browse/Post to the game designers forums or e-mail the company with your concerns, more often than not the various companies will listen to the customers for they are the people who will come back tothe various companies for their next release of a given game.

Granted, you may not always find forums with direct link to the developersfor Games (ID Software is a good example of this) but if you do, utilize these resources.

My advice to Game companies is to listen to your customer base and give them a foum to give feedback for they pay your salaries and they dictate wether or not your game will continue to sell.

Issues with games are easy to fix, runied reputataions over a given game are next to impossible to fix.

Dolemite