Restaring LV - Scenario turn length

BIG_AL_UK · Post by **BIG_AL_UK** » Sun May 19, 2002 2:14 pm

OK, I've bitten the bullet and undone 3 months playing to go back and restart with 7.1 patch.
The 1st scenario now tells me it is 151 turns long (?!) - ok bags of time to get a DV no problem.
Some of the ones I had been playing prior to that were quite short (12-15 turns) and it was a real pain at times to see your attack about to come to fruition only to end a turn or two before you needed it to.
During my replays will I notice extended scenario lengths?

Al

Henri · Post by **Henri** » Sun May 19, 2002 2:42 pm

Originally posted by BIG_AL_UK
OK, I've bitten the bullet and undone 3 months playing to go back and restart with 7.1 patch.
The 1st scenario now tells me it is 151 turns long (?!) - ok bags of time to get a DV no problem.
Some of the ones I had been playing prior to that were quite short (12-15 turns) and it was a real pain at times to see your attack about to come to fruition only to end a turn or two before you needed it to.
During my replays will I notice extended scenario lengths?
Al

I played the first LV scenario last week, and got a decisive victory after 17 moves.Seems to me this is the length indicated after yuo start the scenario.

Henri

BIG_AL_UK · Post by **BIG_AL_UK** » Sun May 19, 2002 3:25 pm

Hi Henri,
I've just double checked - in the top right corner of the game I left the mouse hovering and it told me I was on turn 6 of 151!
I got a DV the 1st time round, this one is fairly easy provided you keep using smoke.
Theres a lot worse to come!

Al

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Sun May 19, 2002 8:18 pm

Yes the no option battle 1 will claim 151 turns, this will be corrected in the last patch of LV already in the works, but it won't last that long. There was a typo in the *.dat file. If you don't want to chance it though choose one of the optioned battles.

Sgt Popov · Post by **Sgt Popov** » Sun May 19, 2002 9:03 pm

I am curious to what extent had LV been play tested before its release? As received it is unplayable, and after several patches
there are STILL more bugs? I would be happy to be a beta tester, and make sure you can at least play the game from beginning to end. Did anyone try that before it was released? Has anyone to date been able to get to the end? I love the concept of the mega campaigns, and when it does work right it is a real joy to play. I wont play it again until ALL the bugs are worked out, and it is actually playable from beginning to end.:p

BIG_AL_UK · Post by **BIG_AL_UK** » Mon May 20, 2002 1:23 am

gmenfan,
thanks for checking and verifying that there is an error
with scenario 1 and 'no option'.
Could you explain what the error in the .DAT file could mean for future scenarios? I imagine the odd turn lengths shouldn't matter too much?
I'd rather not replay it again if I can avoid it - 16 turns took me most of today (Sunday) and I can ill afford the free time, good as the game is.

regards.

Al

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Mon May 20, 2002 3:35 am

The wrong turn length in Battle 1 "no option" has no effect on future battles

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Mon May 20, 2002 3:46 am

Sgt Popov, with LV patch 1 is completely playable to the end. It was tested before it's release but time constraints pushed it out the door a little too early. The problem is that is has 300 individual battles that can played within it. With that many battles it becomes very difficult to ensure every last one plays and flows correctly within the designers wishes. Also the Mega was designed based on the SPWAW 6.1 game engine and OOB's and with 7.0 & 7.1 coming out after LV was finalized these changes in the mechanics of the game threw monkey wrenches into the system that caused things to have to be rewritten to ensure proper gameplay. Cut these guys some slack, with a team of less then 10 they are busting their butts to make sure things are righted and to fix everything within their means to make the game as most enjoyable as possible. What other game company do you know that would go to these great lengths to right the wrongs.

Grenadier · Post by **Grenadier** » Mon May 20, 2002 8:10 pm

With the many possibilities to play it was impossible to test the game for all the variables. The team concentrated on what was considered the most probable choice of options. Lost Victories is about 3 times bigger than either Watchtower or Desert Fox.

It will pay to the end now. There is a few more fixes being done in the Crimea section and a few documents are missing and these will be put into a final patch being readied now.

Big Al. Once you capture all the VO's the battle will end no mater the number of turns so consider it a gift of extra time to deal with those bunkers

Sgt Popov · Post by **Sgt Popov** » Tue May 21, 2002 12:21 am

Ok, now that I have confirmation on playability, I will resume my assault! Please understand gmenfan, I really do appreciate the dedication the Matrix guys have shown to the wargaming community, and they took my favorite game, Steel Panthers, and turned it into what it should have been originally. I was just more than a little frustruated at replaying battles 20-40 times to only have the game crash once again. After all the patches to date, I still had the game crash on me 3-4 times before I "bookshelved "it. I will try again, however.

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Tue May 21, 2002 1:00 am

Sgt Popov, if your experiencing game crashes then there is a bigger underlying problem somewhere, it's not LV thats causing.

ivantheterrible · Post by **ivantheterrible** » Tue May 21, 2002 8:13 pm

Just my 2 cents, the game does not crash on me often but it did on occassions (I'd say may be average once every 3~5 battles or so). When it does it's frustrating especially if you're nearing the end of (and hopefully winning) a big battle. When I do, when I remember (sometimes in the heat of action I forget), is to quit every few turns (at which point the game is saved to disk) and then reload again to continue. In that case if the game crashed you only lose a few turns rather than the whole battle.

A side note, I kinda wish the regular "Save" button still works in MC games. It's disabled for some reason, forcing you to quit and get back into the game in order to save progress. Not big deal just a few mouse clicks but a little inconvenient.

Sgt Popov · Post by **Sgt Popov** » Tue May 21, 2002 8:51 pm

Gmenfan, as always, I most definately appreciate your help with SPWaW. However, by other posts I have read (see above Ivan's for example) , and by the fact I play 10-12 different games (none of which have any problem whatsoever)on a regular basis, I would have to deduce it is not an underlying problem with my pc (Sony Vaio digital desktop series 1.7Ghz PIV, XP home, all newest driver updates and all. Crashing every 3-5 battles sounds about the frequency I am experiancing. I did the "quit the game to save" thing a bunch of times (that got me through several battles), but when you forget to do that (in the ahem... heat of battle and all) and play for 3-4 hours, just to have it crash and lose all that time, its frustruating, and after a multitude of times it can actually make you see red. I also agree that the 'save' mechanism leaves a bit to be desired. I would LOVE to see a 'manual' save option, as it would preclude having to replay so much. My point is by no means to throw rocks at the Matrix guys (I am actually a long time fan, and been around since the beginning) , I just want to play the LV from beginning to end, without having to replay battles. My main area of WWII history interest is of course the East Front, so this LV is most interesting to me.

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Tue May 21, 2002 9:04 pm

I wasn't tryng to put blame on the PC, I'm just suggesting that there is a problem with your system and SPWAW, it seems to effect about 5% of gamers with no clear explination. If we haven't done so already we can try to get it to work properly for you, if you want to go through the troubleshooting steps.

Sgt Popov · Post by **Sgt Popov** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 5:23 am

NO MORE!
After playing a battle today for 4 & 1/2 hours, it crashed to the desktop I have ALL the patches, have reinstalled the game, tried playing of the mech.exe, deleted the PRF file, etc. etc. I have literally hundreds of hours of time on this LV, and have NEVER gotten past like the 6-8th battle I have replayed everyone of the first 6-8 battles, uh I dont know, maybe 50-60 times. I gave it 1 last chance, and tonight was Megacampaigns last chance, and it failed. I am uninstalling SPWaW, and will not reinstall LV when I reinstall SPWaW for the 30th or so time. I know I am not the only one to be having these problems with LV
--guys, I am very dissapointed. I sure hope the long wait for CA and CL means they will be playable. What really dissapoints me, is I have never recieved a response to a support / help e-mail I sent to Matrix MONTHS ago

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 6:16 am

I'm sorry for you displeasure, just a few quick questions. Do you play with Command & Control on or off in the preference screen and have you tried playing SPWAW in compatibilty mode in Windows XP and does it only happen in Lost Victories? Your responce would be appareciated as I would like to try and narrow it down somehow even if your giving up hope. Thanks

Sgt Popov · Post by **Sgt Popov** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 6:26 am

Gmenfan, as always I appreciate your help. I have command and control off, I am aware one of the patches made it possible to turn it on in XP, but I havent. I have never tried playing it in compatibility mode, as it has been my experiance that mode causes more problems than solutions. Never in 'regular' SPWaW
did it crash, as far as I can recall. Whatever I can do to help, let me know. I am just very dissapointed right now, and a wee bit ill.

Supervisor · Post by **Supervisor** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 6:38 am

Is the problem only with LV? If you haven't already uninstlled it can you try it in compatibilty mode so I can rule one more thing out. What sound card do you have (I hope it isn't SB live, this card has posed numerous problems that go unexplained). Do you run the game from the automenu or directly from the mech.exe file?

Restaring LV - Scenario turn length

Restaring LV - Scenario turn length

Re: Restaring LV - Scenario turn length

Not another restart?

Alright!