I'm trying to cover most of the issues mentioned in this thread, so this reply might get a little longer...
There's no special treatment for anyone here, believe me. As has been mentioned here, my statements in the German forum unfortunately do not provide much more information than what is already known - which is that we are still working on 1.4 and will release it, once we are done which will hopefully not take too long.
It's not always easy to synchronize all the forums on every post made by a developer - especially if one has got a lot of work to do, so please forgive us if we concentrate on that for official announcements.
(a while back we had a huge complaint-thread in the German forum because something was posted on the English forum first and there was no immediate translation for it, the feeling that there's a special treatment for "the others" seems to be mutual)
Ok thx, I was just feeling a bit unloved with no info on this forum but I accept its prolly as hard to balance the posts as it is to balance the ecomony.
We are still fighting a remaining CTD issue which has to be fixed before the patch can be made public - I am sure you will agree, that releasing a patch that is meant to resolve the majority of technical problems but still has a known crash issue is simply not acceptable.
I agree but the info about it is welcome. Thankyou
(it's been brought up in the German forum already so I'll mention it right away: yes, the game itself was released with known problems, but the "good" thing about patches is that this time we are actually able to take the time we need to make this one right instead of having to stick to a fixed schedule)
It is true that I made an earlier statement which indicated the patch would be finished almost two weeks ago - obviously I was wrong (I did mention that possibility in that statement though)
I see as your estimate altho wrong of a release date for the patch as an honest forcast as it stood then. The fact it did not happen due to a then unknown problem and was delayed further is cudos to you and Ego and I would hope that the majority would have understood and accepted it.
I would also encourage you to not shy away from this sort of info as long as you make sure you say its an estimate I see it as better than no info at all. I for one would have thanked you for the info.
That's the reason we are so damn careful about releasing any dates - we are trying to fix things and somehow, something new comes up each time we thought we were done. That simply cannot be forseen and we are only left with two choices: ignore it (not exactly the best choice for critical issues like crashes) or delay the release and keep working (which is what we are doing).
A few lines like that would really help quell the feeling that no info gives people on this forum and in my opinion would have limited many of the rant posts the mods have to deal with.
Regarding savegame compatibility:
yes, so far all (non-corrupt) savegames from any official version as well as the two public BETA versions 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 are in fact compatible with what is to become patch 1.4. There is currently no reason to believe that this will change until the official release of said patch. If I'd have to give a number I'd say there's an 98% chance of your saves being compatible. I'm sorry that I have to leave these two percent open but I certainly do not want to be the one who gets shot for stating otherwise in case the unthinkable happens
Now those of us that have been unsure wether to install the Beta patch can make a judgement of the risk we face if we go ahead and for this piece of info thank you very very much.
I hope that clears up some questions
Yes thank you again. I will ask one further thing of you. Now you have started to give a little info maybe you could visit us say once a week with a little update even if its just 'Hello I'm here again the patch isnt'
