Half-assed Maps

[squadleader_id]

Hmm...looks like the upcoming patch should wait until these problem maps are sorted out.
I've noticed glitches in ditches and elevated roads...but elevation coding on those maps xe5 pointed out looks really ugly!  

[RD Oddball]

Five maps with elevation issues. They'll be taken care of. If you find others please post them. Thanks.

[Andrew Williams]

Mick, Vic... all we need now is Drill and it will be just a like a retirement village.


arrrgghhh... back in my day we had to take a village.......

[xe5]

Oddball - the elevation coding Im seeing, both in-game and w/ map tool, is so borked I was positive y'all had freehanded it rather than using grayscale bump mapping. On the Grave grayscale TGA you can see two dark (low) spots to the right of the flak tower location. Understand how much effort is involved but where was the QA? Whoever coded those maps for terrain only had to click on the elevation tool to see the values 5CC assigned from the bumpmap.

[mooxe]

The coders.... were they the same ones from TLD and WAR? Maybe its worth checking them as well. I do know elevations are coded into TLD maps but theres no obvious sign of them by looking at the map. No specific examples, I just recall having to right click the map everywhere due to that.

[xe5]

Helmond - stream #1 is 1 m. lower than the surrounding terrain. Stream #2 is the same level as surrounding terrain.

[squadleader_id]

ORIGINAL: xe5

Helmond - stream #1 is 1 m. lower than the surrounding terrain. Stream #2 is the same level as surrounding terrain.

Check also stream & bank elevation coding glitch on map files: Bemmel, Bridge9, DrelNrth.
I've only checked maps A-D though...

[Dundradal]

Wow...go away for a few hours and learn quite a bit.

Seems like there are bugs in both situations here...

[xe5]

Arnhem Road Bridge map:

1. Coarse 4 meter increments rather than smooth 1/2 meters
2. 'MC Escher effect' where the bottom of the stairs are 20m. high and the top of the stairs are 4m. high. On the north end of the bridge are similar stairs that are flat.
3. Tri-level one story building where a parts of the floor are higher than parts of the roof. (tip: each building should occupy terrain sharing the same elevation)
4. Bridge wall shadow (blue circle) indicating an upward sloping elevation is coded as a flat 20m height.

[TheReal_Pak40]

xe5, good find with that building.

Check out this site for some good pics around arnhem. There's a good shot of Germans walking in a deep ditch on the side of the road. It's close to 2m deep.

[xe5]

Estimate 1.5 meters lower than the field on the left and ~3 meters lower than the assumed roadbed off to the right... a specific terrain situation where a coarse elevation increment would be entirely appropriate.

[kojusoki1]

ORIGINAL: RD_Oddball
Calling them half-assed is definitely not a fair characterization. A lot of work and effort went into them.

I dont want to be a pain, but its like I would pay you half money and said: "Come on, I spend a lot of work and effort to earn 20$ so it should be ok with You if I pay only 20 bucks for this game. Additional 13$ ill send you later guys."

Its the same here:)

[RD Oddball]

ORIGINAL: xe5

Helmond - stream #1 is 1 m. lower than the surrounding terrain. Stream #2 is the same level as surrounding terrain.

Thanks for the report Mick we'll make the adjustment.

[RD Oddball]

ORIGINAL: xe5

Arnhem Road Bridge map:

1. Coarse 4 meter increments rather than smooth 1/2 meters
2. 'MC Escher effect' where the bottom of the stairs are 20m. high and the top of the stairs are 4m. high. On the north end of the bridge are similar stairs that are flat.
3. Tri-level one story building where a parts of the floor are higher than parts of the roof. (tip: each building should occupy terrain sharing the same elevation)
4. Bridge wall shadow (blue circle) indicating an upward sloping elevation is coded as a flat 20m height.

RE: #1 - We'll add some subtlety to the elevations.
Re: #2 - Was reported right after the release and has been fixed on our end. Will go out with the first update.
RE: #3 - It's my understanding that because the buildings are sitting on uneven terrain does not make the building itself uneven in elevation. Will check to be sure. Just like real life, any building built into a hillside would have floors on one continuous level.
RE: #4 - Actually what you're seeing is the bridge shadow. The elevations there are still not correct but there is a bit of an eye trick going on that makes the terrain a bit difficult to understand. Will address it along with #1.

Thanks!

[RD Oddball]

ORIGINAL: kojusoki1

ORIGINAL: RD_Oddball
Calling them half-assed is definitely not a fair characterization. A lot of work and effort went into them.

I dont want to be a pain, but its like I would pay you half money and said: "Come on, I spend a lot of work and effort to earn 20$ so it should be ok with You if I pay only 20 bucks for this game. Additional 13$ ill send you later guys."

Its the same here:)

You're not being a pain. It's a valid point. Sorry I wasn't being clear on my point. The characterization implies that we didn't approach the map making with a sincere effort to the best of our ability when in fact we did. We certainly make every effort to make sure the builds go out with as few mistakes as possible but it's my feeling that it's unrealistic to think that our testers will catch every single mistake and the build will go out faultless. That's why updates and revisions are such an integral part of software development.

I feel the important part here is that we're going to address the reported issues and do what we can to make it right in a timely manner. That's all we can do. We appreciate everyone taking the time to identify those aspects they feel need addressed. Thank you!

[xe5]

_Oddball:
RE: #3 - It's my understanding that because the buildings are sitting on uneven terrain does not make the building itself uneven in elevation. Will check to be sure. Just like real life, any building built into a hillside would have floors on one continuous level.
RE: #4 - Actually what you're seeing is the bridge shadow. The elevations there are still not correct but there is a bit of an eye trick going on that makes the terrain a bit difficult to understand. Will address it along with #1.

When CC bldgs sit on uneven terrain they reflect that underlying variation...unlike real life where a foundation or excavation is used to level a building. Right click on the bldg in question and see that its cross-section varies from 4 to 8 to 12 meters in height.

Bridge shadow shows it rising from the approach, not flat (20m) all the way across. Shadow also indicates the terrain in, and to the right, of the shadow should be at a lower elevation than the bridge.

[VicKevlar]

ORIGINAL: xe5

_Oddball:
RE: #3 - It's my understanding that because the buildings are sitting on uneven terrain does not make the building itself uneven in elevation. Will check to be sure. Just like real life, any building built into a hillside would have floors on one continuous level.
RE: #4 - Actually what you're seeing is the bridge shadow. The elevations there are still not correct but there is a bit of an eye trick going on that makes the terrain a bit difficult to understand. Will address it along with #1.

When CC bldgs sit on uneven terrain they reflect that underlying variation...unlike real life where a foundation or excavation is used to level a building. Right click on the bldg in question and see that its cross-section varies from 4 to 8 to 12 meters in height.

Bridge shadow shows it rising from the approach, not flat (20m) all the way across. Shadow also indicates the terrain in, and to the right, of the shadow should be at a lower elevation than the bridge.

Yeppers.......The Thumb has got me all worked up......not really playing.....just right clicking all over the place on the maps. [X(]

[RD Oddball]

ORIGINAL: xe5
When CC bldgs sit on uneven terrain they reflect that underlying variation...unlike real life where a foundation or excavation is used to level a building. Right click on the bldg in question and see that its cross-section varies from 4 to 8 to 12 meters in height.

Bridge shadow shows it rising from the approach, not flat (20m) all the way across. Shadow also indicates the terrain in, and to the right, of the shadow should be at a lower elevation than the bridge.

Okay will address both. Thanks again.

[Dundradal]

ORIGINAL: RD_Oddball
You're not being a pain. It's a valid point. Sorry I wasn't being clear on my point. The characterization implies that we didn't approach the map making with a sincere effort to the best of our ability when in fact we did. We certainly make every effort to make sure the builds go out with as few mistakes as possible but it's my feeling that it's unrealistic to think that our testers will catch every single mistake and the build will go out faultless. That's why updates and revisions are such an integral part of software development.

I feel the important part here is that we're going to address the reported issues and do what we can to make it right in a timely manner. That's all we can do. We appreciate everyone taking the time to identify those aspects they feel need addressed. Thank you!

I find it funny that people here are so willing to just bash for mistakes getting through. I mean come on guys, I bet most of you are running some form of Windows...you want to tell me MS got every bug when they released it?

I worked on a mod where I was one of the main testers. I played for hours and hours trying to do everything that a gamer might do and I thought we'd gotten almost all of the bugs...then we released to mod and immediately I started a bug thread thinking we might of missed a spelling mistake or something....and then they started rolling in. The whole team had missed some things because sometimes you overlook them because of how you test the program. We'd missed a HUGE continuity mistake. The game was not giving players the proper mission path after completing a previous episode. It instead always sent the player to the "you did terrible last time" branch which made the next group of missions extremely difficult...why did we miss this? We were so concerned with Ep5, we forgot to test a complete playthrough, the other 4 eps worked fine, why would we need to test again?

I felt horrible for letting that and some other good sized bugs get through. I'd spent hours testing wanting to deliver the perfect game for our little community, but again things got through.

It wasn't a conscious effort by me just to half ass through things. It was a mistake. For those of you who have never tested a game, it's not as easy as just playing the game. You have to create a checklist of things you want to try for each level of the game and try to break it. You want to make it crash so you can prevent it from happening again. Sometimes you get wrapped up in things (say one bug that just drives the whole team insane...we had one...for some reason after one update to our test build the game just started randomly crashing...it took us over a month to figure it out...) and things slip past. Sometimes the tools you are using have bugs in them.

Now I'm not making excuses for bugs getting through, I'm just saying think about it before you open your anonymous internet mouths. These guys put a lot of hard work into this and while I agree there are a lot of things about this game that drive me up the wall, it was still a lot of people's effort to get it done.

On a side note, CC really needs a new engine that incorporates all the great features from the 10+ CC titles out. That's what will really save/reinvigorate this series.

[kojusoki1]

Dundradal - I dont complain that there are bugs, as in each software always were, are and will be. Im also in IT business and I moreor less knowhow things work. Also, RD_Oddball is doing great job and seems dev are taking care what I really appriate.

I only complained that "a lot of work was put into this..." - but it also was withthis magic emoticon:    ";)"

ANyway - I find this rerelease as the best game from the whole CC, I do like Devs approach and I hope they will keep doing good job.
And I will complain on bugs as finally I am on the customers side;)

PS
Dundradal: there is a HUGE dofference between a mod (user made) and a commercial product. Remember. CUstomers not "can" but MUST complain in such cases. I am always saying to my customers: if you find something wrong, I do want to know about this first and ASAP.