Telika: Oh no !
I haven't bought the game yet (I had some spectacular expenses lately, so, I slow down a bit on videogames buying), but I intended to. And I liked very much what I gathered of that intro through this thread. Not because it can be overcome (this is the icing on the cake), but because I find it a fun and clever way to set your char in a low state. It reminds me of the introduction of "Beyond Thunderdome". I'm very in favor of that idea, and I'm sorry if it gets removed - especially if it's just because the game dares to rob gamers of their power fantasy during 30 seconds.
No way to salvage it ?
rjbuffchix: The way to salvage it is imperfect and only available for sure to first-time buyers who got in before the update. This is one of the many benefits of DRM-free offline installers, in that you can get around the pervasive "update culture" by buying initially and simply not updating, if you so choose. The trick is that you have to get the game right away, or else it may be too late (game will be updated to newer version and you won't be able to download the old one).
What would really be a gamechanger for power users, like the ones on this site, albeit not the ones that GOG seems to want to attract with the new layout/profiles/achievements, would be to have an archive of patches so that users could choose which version they want to play. I am very glad I got ATOM right away and it is awesome!! But personally I am dismayed at the general trend of developers patching games because users don't like certain parts, find things too difficult, et cetera. Being a person with many minority opinions, on a minority gaming site, I would rather choose for myself :)
Yeah, I do think that patches and updates shouldn't touch plot points. All I know of ME3 is that its ending is supposedly terrible, but I'd like to play it instead of the version changed after the outrage. I also dislike the fact that Portal's ending has been changed to introduce the sequel. I dislike such changes as much as I'd dislike them in movies or books.
And I know that ideally I should spend the money right now in order to secure an original copy (as I did for Chuchel), but I'm pretty sure the patch would bring legitimate fixes, as is often the case for complex RPGs (whereas I don't think that further patches would really have had much to "repair" in Chuchel). So, I would probably have to sacrifice useful tweaks. I'm not sure it'd be worth it.
Really, I'm a bit pissed at the complaining players now. Not to mention that I suspect a portion of them would be already screaming about "artistic integrity" if the change pertained to minorities representation or stuff like that (and noisily "boycot" the devs who "caved in" and yadda yadda) - but that's another story.
I'm just happy the old Sierra-on-line adventures have been made long ago. Imagine the sea of pitchforks at every little vexation...