» Thu May 03, 2012 8:23 am
The problem is that if they did come out with a patch that fixed everything else, and if ATI/AMD were still broken after it, the situation would be even worse. "id released a patch that was supposed to fix everything but it fixed nothing, they've dropped the ball, sold out PC gaming, only care about consoles and I'm never buying any of their games ever again", or "f--k id, they should have waited until ATI/AMD were working before releasing this patch, what's the use in releasing a patch if it still doesn't work" - yes, that's what would happen, and unfortunately the AMD/ATI situation has put them in a position where whatever they do they can't win, and we, the customers, are the ones who suffer.
Look back over the history of people claiming that the game wasn't tested on AMD/ATI (despite ample evidence that it was) and of people trying to shift the blame onto id (despite AMD/ATI accepting responsibility) if you don't believe this.
(And even if id put in a readme that the patch isn't supposed to fix everything - well who on earth reads "readme" files anyway? There's also the prior history of id saying "X" and people reading it as them saying "Y" (or "X + 1") to consider here.)
Ultimately what they're doing is the right thing - making sure that the basic stuff is solid first before bolting on the fancy bits. And yes, there is basic stuff that's not video driver-related that also needs to be solidified, but there's not much point in doing that until people are at least able to play the game in the first place.