MP Save/Load Routine Flawed

[ElectricBliss]

Greetings,

The game is practically unplayable in multiplayer mode until the save/load game routine is fixed.

A friend and I purchased the game and attempted to play it this weekend... here was our experience.

Played for about an hour as Axis (wan tcpip with latest patch) when the game just stopped on the Russian's turn (infinite AI loop?). Waited a long time for it to come back... never did.

Started a new game. Played for about two hours. Alt-tabed out to check manual alt-tabed back to a full lockup needing hard boot.

Started a new game. Played for about an hour (this time saving it at the beginning of hosts turn so that we wouldn't have to start from the beginning again incase of another crash/infinite loop/etc.) Accidentally pressed the bloody windows-key when trying to zoom in resulting in a lockup needing hard boot.

Loaded up saved game and noticed that all the German pieces in Poland were either saved or loaded as neutral/Polish pieces!

Started new game. Played for about two hours (this time activated auto save so that we might get a good save in at least one of them). The bloody "Your wireless mouse is low on batteries." Message box pops up... Needing another hard boot.

Loaded auto save game and it either saved or loaded Japan's pieces as "Frozen".

At this point we said, "screw it". There were brief moments of joy but most of the eight hours was spent replaying the beginning. It's a real shame, as this game looks like a winner.

We don't want our money back we'd rather have a game that works. If the load/save feature isn't fixed this game is practically unplayable because things happen that can interrupt a game like this. (Like needing sleep! lol)

I understand that playing the game in full screen is asking for trouble, but like I said things happen (like infinite AI loops, sleep, etc.), and even full screen wouldn't be so bad if the game would save/load correctly.

Are you aware of the save/load problems and, if so, when will they be fixed?

[WanderingHead]

Let me summarize my understanding of the situation.

Germany, human player on machine 1
Japan, human player on machine 2
Russia + China + WA, computer (AI) player on the host machine.

Is that right?

Which machine was host, the German player's or the Japanese player's? On which machine was the game file saved, host or client?

I am not familiar with the networked mode for the game. I wonder if it works correctly if the non-host computer tries to save the game, and I wonder if the AI works correctly networked (maybe it was only tested with all players human controlled, maybe the AI tries to run on all of the networked computers instead of just the host). Those are the two things that strike me as suspicious.

In the meantime, you can still play the game in nonnetworked mode, passing save files around or hotseat. It's not how you want to play it, but at least it would get you going.

There is very little I can do about networked games. I was not aware of these problems, it will be up to Joel to figure out what his regular team can do about it.

[ElectricBliss]

Germany, human player on machine 1
Japan, human player on machine 2
Russia + China + WA, computer (AI) player on the host machine.

Is that right?

Yes

Which machine was host, the German player's or the Japanese player's?

German

On which machine was the game file saved, host or client?

Host

There is very little I can do about networked games. I was not aware of these problems, it will be up to Joel to figure out what his regular team can do about it.

Okay... well, thanks. I guess passing files around will have to do for now. I'll be watching and keeping this thread alive until you get it fixed. If you need any more info lemme know.

[Joel Billings]

I want to be upfront with you and let you know that since the bug is in the internet/TCP/IP part of the game, the odds are very small that we'll get this bug fixed, and if we do, it won't be for quite awhile. The programmer that worked on the TCP/IP part of the game is not available and we don't have anyone that could fix that part of the game. The TCP/IP part of WaW/AWD was added after the initial release of WaW which meant that the game was never originally designed with TCP/IP in mind. The retrofit never worked very well (it worked, but wasn't something people played) and the reality was that the game system is not conducive to internet play. As a turn based game where turns can easily take a player 15-45 minutes to make a turn, and with up to 5 players, there's just too much waiting by the players. We listened to the few people that had requested TCP/IP play in WaW and ended up spending over 6 months of valuable programming time getting it retrofitted into WaW, which put us way behind on other projects (and less than 5 people have ever reported playing online on the forums for WaW and AWD). In hindsight we shouldn't have done it. Unfortunately AWD added some additional complications to the TCP/IP play that we tried to account for, but we found it nearly impossible to get testers to test TCP/IP as they all wanted (understandably) to play PBEM.

I'm sorry you have had this bad experience with AWD. We were unaware of these problems, but at this point are not in a position to do anything about it. I suggest you play via PBEM as this is really how the game is best played. I realize this is not what you want to hear (I don't like saying it), but that's the situation at this point.

I will say that the game needs to be played in Windowed mode as Alt-Tab is not an option for AWD. It might also alleviate some of the other problems you have had with playing the online version.

[ElectricBliss]

Thanks for your attention to this issue. I'll keep this in mind next time I'm considering purchasing software from you. Some features advertised don't work... and probably never will.

[Joel Billings]

Yes, sounds bad and is bad. Unfortunately when it comes to TCP/IP it's been a disaster. I don't expect to be making this mistake with any of our future involved turn based games. They won't have TCP/IP play. I am really very sorry you had to waste your time to find the problems that we didn't find in test. I would be all for Matrix Games not advertising TCP/IP play for AWD in the future and will contact them about that given your experience. I wish I had a better answer for you. If you don't feel you can get your money's worth without TCP/IP, then I suggest you contact Matrix and maybe they can take care of you somehow.