Please Be Honest About FoF

[Call Me Earl]

Might I suggest, that in your online store where you sell FoF, under game Data, please change the "TCP/IP: Yes" to no. The game does not work TCP/IP. You never tested the TCP/IP functionality of the game outside of your LAN and just assumed it would work.

For those of us who play strictly multiplayer, it would save us the cost of the game plus the added frustration of having a good game that does not work as advertised. It would be the honest thing to do. Thks, Call Me Earl

[Erik Rutins]

Earl,

See my reply to you in the Support forum, we're working on figuring out those issues. TCP/IP over LAN or Internet is still TCP/IP and this was tested on both, but obviously these problems did not show up. I don't know why they were not caught, but we'll get them fixed as soon as they can be duplicated on a development machine.

Regards,

- Erik

[Alan_Bernardo]

Erik,
 
I think that in order for you to have these TCP/IP problems "duplicated on a developemnt machine", you'd go a long way in making every attempt to connect outside of your own developement team.  Earl has volunteered and I'll do the same, if you want to connect with one of us, to try and nail down this problem.  Isolating the problem is the biggest deal.  I'll bet that everyone who has tried TCP/IP has run into problems, either through this assertion error or through a freeze during detailed battles.  If your own in-house testing has not revealed these problems but customers are claiming they do exist, then it only makes sense to move outside of the in-house testing and try connecting with the people who are experiencing these problems. 
 
To say that the problem does not exist simply because your own in-house testing has not revealed it, even though many users have experienced it, is not to me the proper way of handling this.  The only reason you are not seeing an overwhelming response to this problem happening is because there are not an overwhelming number of people who currently play FoF via TCP/IP.  But I'll bet that of those who have played FoF using TCP/IP, many if not all have expereince the same errors, though maybe not at the same times.
 
When FoF first came out, I had my daughter's laptop available and I recall trying this game through a LAN.  I remember getting the assertion error but I attributed it to low memory on my daughter's computer.  As soon as my other daughter's laptop gets a new battery, I will probably be able to test this again. 
 
Hopefully you are sincere in saying that the team is committed to fixing these issues.  But because your own in-house development team has not been able to duplicate these errors, it in no way means that these errors aren't happening. 
 
I will again say that if anyone wants to connect with me and try to "isolate" these errors, please feel free to contact me.
 
I only wish I had two fast machines to try and test this myself, rather than just one. 
 
 
Alanb
 

[Marc von Martial]

Hopefully you are sincere in saying that the team is committed to fixing these issues.  But because your own in-house development team has not been able to duplicate these errors, it in no way means that these errors aren't happening.

To be fair, Erik did never say these "errors are not happening". He simply states that were not happening during our testing, which is true. LAN and TCP/IP testing did not happen in a "local" setup, is was done via normal Internet connections.

You can be sure the current problem will be nailed down and fixed.

[Alan_Bernardo]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

Hopefully you are sincere in saying that the team is committed to fixing these issues.  But because your own in-house development team has not been able to duplicate these errors, it in no way means that these errors aren't happening.

To be fair, Erik did never say these "errors are not happening". He simply states that were not happening during our testing, which is true. LAN and TCP/IP testing did not happen in a "local" setup, is was done via normal Internet connections.

You can be sure the current problem will be nailed down and fixed.

I don't think any of us would actually bother with this problem if we didn't think something would be done about it. Why these errors have't been discovered through Matrix' own in-house testing is a mystery. Upon connecting with another player through TCP/IP it took but a few turns for the errors to appear.

I know that you guys don't have all the time in the world to devote to this game only, but testing outside of your own lab might at least reveal the problem, though it might not provide the solution.

I do have confidence that Matrix will get this thing resolved. You guys have done it in the past and there's no reason to think that you won't be able to do it with FoF. But the problem I'm seeing is that if you guys don't see the problem through your own testing, then it's going to be difficult to fix it, obviously.

Please let us know how things are going and don't hesitate to ask for a layman's help.

Thanks for your work,

Alanb

[ericbabe]

We had beta testers test TCP/IP games on their own systems without problems.  It would be beneficial to get more feedback on these issues -- as it is now, there are just a few people reporting TCP/IP problems and it makes it more difficult to ascertain the nature of the problems that we have not been able to duplicate.

Thank you for the offer of working with us to try to duplicate the errors you are experiencing.  I'm not sure it would add new information, however; it doesn't help me much more beyond what you've already reported to get an error on a machine on which the game is not running under our debugger.

[Call Me Earl]

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

[ LAN and TCP/IP testing did not happen in a "local" setup, is was done via normal Internet connections. Marc Schwanebeck

We had beta testers test TCP/IP games on their own systems without problems. ericbabe

Come on, who are you guys going trying to kid. Your saying this game was tested by beta testers via normal Internet connections using their own systems without encountering detailed battle problems. They played online and did not attempt a detailed battle ? I have to call "#$%^*&#@" on that one !

The game never makes it past the second detailed battle. This problem happened to several different players who posted about it in the support forum.

I'm sorry, you knew there was a problem. You released the game with the problem and you advertised that the game was playable TCP\IP. Worst of all, now your trying to say you didn't know ?

Its time to quit putting on a happy face for your community and stand up and be men.

Call Me Earl

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Call Me Earl

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

[ LAN and TCP/IP testing did not happen in a "local" setup, is was done via normal Internet connections. Marc Schwanebeck

We had beta testers test TCP/IP games on their own systems without problems. ericbabe

Come on, who are you guys going trying to kid. Your saying this game was tested by beta testers via normal Internet connections using their own systems without encountering detailed battle problems. They played online and did not attempt a detailed battle ? I have to call "#$%^*&#@" on that one !

The game never makes it past the second detailed battle. This problem happened to several different players who posted about it in the support forum.

I'm sorry, you knew there was a problem. You released the game with the problem and you advertised that the game was playable TCP\IP. Worst of all, now your trying to say you didn't know ?

Its time to quit putting on a happy face for your community and stand up and be men.

Call Me Earl

Give them a break, if they said they tested it, then they did. It could be the problems are showing up more in the longer distance connections, which they did not foresee. I'm sure they are going to find and correct the problems. Matrix games has one of the best track records for customer support that I have found anywhere. All it takes is a little patience.

[Alan_Bernardo]

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman

ORIGINAL: Call Me Earl

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

[ LAN and TCP/IP testing did not happen in a "local" setup, is was done via normal Internet connections. Marc Schwanebeck

We had beta testers test TCP/IP games on their own systems without problems. ericbabe

Come on, who are you guys going trying to kid. Your saying this game was tested by beta testers via normal Internet connections using their own systems without encountering detailed battle problems. They played online and did not attempt a detailed battle ? I have to call "#$%^*&#@" on that one !

The game never makes it past the second detailed battle. This problem happened to several different players who posted about it in the support forum.

I'm sorry, you knew there was a problem. You released the game with the problem and you advertised that the game was playable TCP\IP. Worst of all, now your trying to say you didn't know ?

Its time to quit putting on a happy face for your community and stand up and be men.

Call Me Earl

Give them a break, if they said they tested it, then they did. It could be the problems are showing up more in the longer distance connections, which they did not foresee. I'm sure they are going to find and correct the problems. Matrix games has one of the best track records for customer support that I have found anywhere. All it takes is a little patience.

I truly do not think Matrix spent a lot of time integrating TCP/IP into their game. The routines they use, without knowing much about them myself, are old-fashioned. I say this because they way the user sets up a TCP/IP game reminds me of how things were done a long time ago, maybe ten years. I further do not think that many users care much about the TCP/IP option, being content instead with the traditional PBEM method.

But PBEM can take forever, and TCP/IP is a good way to get some turns in quickly, especially since one can return to playing via PBEM at any time.

This is why I doubt it very much that Matrix put much effort into testing TCP/IP. It's unlikely that they did extensive testing. Be that as it may, Matrix has a superb record for fixing bugs and getting out patches. WitP has been out for four or five years and Matrix is still patching it.

I do believe that Matrix can readily admit, without any adverse consequences whatever, that they probably could have tested TCP/IP a little more. If such an online option is included in the game, then I'm sure Matrix is committed to making it work the way it should work.

Alanb

[ericbabe]

The routines for TCP/IP are standard Microsoft libraries, though they are a bit old, and do have some known issues with dropped packet detection/correction.  We looked into migrating to other libraries or to newer versions of DirectPlay; I spent 4-5 weeks just learning several new libraries and studying what it would take to migrate to them, and concluded that we would be unable to do the migration -- the current routines are so different from the newer libraries that migration would mean a large rewrite of many parts of the engine, especially since the current routines do seem to be functional, at least as far as our in house testing and the experience of our beta testers.

I would like to get a sense of how many people are playing by TCP/IP vs the other game modes.  Developing for TCP/IP connection consumes quite a bit of our time and money, and as a feature I should hope it'd be worth that effort and expenditure.

[Erik Rutins]

Earl,

ORIGINAL: Call Me Earl
I'm sorry, you knew there was a problem. You released the game with the problem and you advertised that the game was playable TCP\IP. Worst of all, now your trying to say you didn't know ?

Its time to quit putting on a happy face for your community and stand up and be men.

Frankly, just because you decide that "this is how it is" doesn't make it true. FOF inherited its internet play from COG. It worked then, it works now, but it's always been a bit finicky as it uses an older version of DirectPlay. Nevertheless, many successful multi-player TCP/IP games of both COG and FOF have been completed (including during testing). Moreover, a new game like FOF with all its features creates the opportunity for many things to break. TCP/IP was tested - if this problem in fact starts showing up consistently, then I'd guess it was introduced after the last test that included detailed battles.

Either way, we're working to fix it. There are MANY reports and request from people who either want things changed or fixed or have new requests. We're reading all of these and addressing many of them. In addition, we are working over the weekend to try to get more info on this TCP/IP issue through our own testing.

If you can't understand that without calling people liars, then I really don't have to spend any more of my Sunday responding to you. The same progress will be made on a TCP/IP fix, whether or not you start throwing insults around.

Regards,

- Erik

[Alan_Bernardo]

Eric,
 
That's the whole thing.  I doubt but 10% of users of FoF would use TCP/IP.  But if the option is there and working properly, more would use that option.  The standard wargammer will play PBEM over TCP/IP, overwhelmingly, only because that is what they are used to. 
 
Considering World at War, which added an internet connection as a patch-- it works pretty well, resulting in, I believe, more people playing online.  Though I'm sure it does cost money and time to include a working TCP/IP connection into a game, I feel that, when considered as a whole, Matrix benefits.  More new people will purchase games knowing that there is an online option available, and those verterans will sooner or later see the value of online over PBEM, under certain circumstances.
 
Alanb

[Erik Rutins]

Alan,

We're working on it, we agree that it should be working, the key is to find out why it isn't working for you. Please bear with us while that process continues. I'm going to lock this thread now, please post any further info in the support forum thread devoted to this topic.

Regards,

- Erik