Postpone Netplay Development

[toltesi]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur


it is simple, looking at the timeline the game should have a working solitaire and netplay, by now.

going back now and fixing solitaire, would mean that the company have to admit, that they released a unfinished game. (and it is still unfinished)

really nice that people have payed big buck, years ago, at it is still unfinished

warspite1

Well what is done is done and there is no point dragging the mistakes of the past up. But what can be done is deal with the now. Matrix view is that netplay has to be adopted. Forgetting regression bugs for the moment, this has meant that many big problems that were there on day one still remain.

Someone said above that if one doesn't want to test net play then they should go to an earlier version of the game. Well that is all I ask for - provided that that earlier version gets appropriate treatment to make it workable. Netplay has taken 2-3 years and could well take another 2-3 years. Why not set aside the next 6 months (or whatever) in order to get the non-netplay version in good working order?

At least Matrix can then say they have a game that is workable for solitaire and PBEM. Instead, this insistence on netplay to the exclusion of all else (optionals, production, supply, one map games etc) means that players suffer the worst of both worlds. Solitaire/PBEM (which could be got working) doesn't and Netplay (which is more of a challenge - definitely doesn't).

I have never posted here because well, what's the point? It seemed like a waiting game.

However I was one of the initial purchasers and kept waiting and waiting for the bugs to be fixed so I could actually play the game in solitaire having never played the boardgame version.

I don't understand why Matrix never actually looked into whether the game could get done by a single programmer. It's a monumental task and one that Steve has done a huge amount on his own. But it's been on his own.

EDIT: Glad to hear that bugs are going to get fixed, thank-you.

[AllenK]

Just to acknowledge and thank Steve and Eric for their response.

The latest 2.4.3 hot-patch appears to have got manual convoy over-rides working again and also fixed the factory repair [&o].

I hope we shall be shortly resuming gaming with the patch and then future updates in order to contribute to the testing programme (but from the Solitaire perspective).

[Cataphract88]

ORIGINAL: AllenK

Just to acknowledge and thank Steve and Eric for their response.

The latest 2.4.3 hot-patch appears to have got manual convoy over-rides working again and also fixed the factory repair [&o].

I hope we shall be shortly resuming gaming with the patch and then future updates in order to contribute to the testing programme (but from the Solitaire perspective).

+1

A step in the right direction. [:)]

[joshuamnave]

There are some other new bugs that popped up but other than the gearing issue (which was quickly fixed) nothing game breaking. A weird popup message when the Axis allies Hungary that has no impact (maybe a debugging tool? Not sure) and the game keeps trying to get me to call out the non existent Vichy reserves. In another game I'm playing after establishing Vichy I get a pop up message each reinforcement phase about a non existent Marseilles militia unit. But non of this actually effects game play, so *shrug*.

[AllenK]

I've managed to complete a set-up in Solitaire using 2.4.3 without any MadEx's. It looks like the problems we are getting with the existing game files may be a legacy of bugs with the previous versions.

[Joseignacio]

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

[Cataphract88]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

At least you always get to win! [:)]

[Joseignacio]

OTOH, you always get to lose!

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

warspite1

Give it a rest [8|]

We've done all this for crying out loud. Those who want netplay resolved have had netplay progress stalled for a week or so (although not really stalled because any progress on the game helps netplay too as AllenK has just shown (thanks AllenK [&o])) in order that those who don't want to be a beta tester can have an official update having waited 14 months for it so far. What is sooooo difficult to understand here, what is sooooo unfair here????

This presumably follows on from Post 37 with:

what you are proposing is that those who don't enjoy Solitaire (¡!) or PBEM will have to wait even more time to play the game. At the moment, what we have got is nothing.

We paid our money for the game too. Just sayin'...

....and those who are using the last official and can't play an entire game have effectively got nothing too. Those people paid their money too remember. Just sayin'....... [8|]

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

I haven't been playing against myself. Four of us have been using Solitaire mode to enjoy MWiF as World in Flames was meant to be played: Multiplayer. The gaming experience, playing as teams, with such honourable and fair minded players as Warspite1, Orm and Mayhemizer has been by far my most enjoyable experience of this game.

Brian Brian's two thoughtful posts provide a very good summary of the current problems with Netplay. It's only 1 vs 1 and the non-phasing player has a lot of waiting around while having to remain logged in online. These constraints will not change anytime soon, if ever.

Playing as we do, there is no necessity for everyone to be online together. As long as one person from each team is online during the phases where interaction is needed, it isn't that much slower than Netplay. The difference is the necessity to take a screen shot, post it and wait for the response, rather than having the dialogue box appearing on the other player's computer. The difference can be as little as a couple of minutes and, playing as we do, we have AAR's that pretty much write themselves. We can also be playing several games simultaneously.

It's all a compromise. For us, the primary importance is the team play, which we can only do in Solitaire. Others may well differ in their priorities (which is fine) but the basic game mechanics have to work or there is no game at all.

I posted the positive report about set-up without MadEx's, using 2.4.3, because other players, as well as ourselves, had reported or confirmed the MadEx's in setup with previous versions. If you can't get past setup without a MadEx, you haven't got a game for anyone to play, Solitaire or Netplay. The post both acknowledges the ongoing work and commitment Steve gives to the development of the game and lets him know changes appear to be successful.

If you know of a better way for progress to be made then perhaps you should enlighten us instead of resorting to the type of post quoted above.

[Centuur]

I side with Joseignacio on this one. The cumbersome process of sending mails to one another is something which seems to be slowing the game quite a lot, if I compare this with netplay in a two player game. It's faster and if you don't run into nasty bugs, one can easily have three to four impulses in an evening.

But I side with you when you are saying that multiplayer is the way to play this game and that it would be nice if one could have a system where not all players on a side needs to be logged in when that part gets developed.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: AllenK

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

I haven't been playing against myself. Four of us have been using Solitaire mode to enjoy MWiF as World in Flames was meant to be played: Multiplayer. The gaming experience, playing as teams, with such honourable and fair minded players as Warspite1, Orm and Mayhemizer has been by far my most enjoyable experience of this game.

Brian Brian's two thoughtful posts provide a very good summary of the current problems with Netplay. It's only 1 vs 1 and the non-phasing player has a lot of waiting around while having to remain logged in online. These constraints will not change anytime soon, if ever.

Playing as we do, there is no necessity for everyone to be online together. As long as one person from each team is online during the phases where interaction is needed, it isn't that much slower than Netplay. The difference is the necessity to take a screen shot, post it and wait for the response, rather than having the dialogue box appearing on the other player's computer. The difference can be as little as a couple of minutes and, playing as we do, we have AAR's that pretty much write themselves. We can also be playing several games simultaneously.

It's all a compromise. For us, the primary importance is the team play, which we can only do in Solitaire. Others may well differ in their priorities (which is fine) but the basic game mechanics have to work or there is no game at all.

I posted the positive report about set-up without MadEx's, using 2.4.3, because other players, as well as ourselves, had reported or confirmed the MadEx's in setup with previous versions. If you can't get past setup without a MadEx, you haven't got a game for anyone to play, Solitaire or Netplay. The post both acknowledges the ongoing work and commitment Steve gives to the development of the game and lets him know changes appear to be successful.

If you know of a better way for progress to be made then perhaps you should enlighten us instead of resorting to the type of post quoted above.

All of us are still here because we understood that before there was a multiplayer there should be a solitaire. This sounded reasonable and the experts said so as well.

What IMO is not so reasonable is that, because of a few glitches of the (supposedly) depurated solitaire, the agonizingly slow process of making a multiplayer (after everything else except AI is made) is stopped almost as soon as it was started.

If you are starting to test a multiplayer, basing yourself on a solitaire that is supposed to be working fine (almost perfect), to step back and repair a couple of issues cuts the testing process in two. Or more than two, because I fear that every time a patch creates a new problem, the same people (the solitaire - 5%- gamers) will cry "bloody murder" if Steve doesn't stop everything and solve those problems. I doubt it is possible to program efficiently like this, I know you cannot test a game like this.

But also saying that people claim that they need to be helped earlier because they paid for it years ago sounds like a bad joke, especially for those like me who bought the game right when it was created and have not had even one hour of fun, unlike the former.

Anyway I don't blame Steve so much about this one, he has to try to please everybody and I guess Matrix too, and he is just trying to do his best. He also believes that this will take 2 weeks (we'll see, bugs are tricky).

But I would suggest him to make a stable version and then not recommend any more newer versions for solitaire, to develop directly for MP or he will have the same problem all the time. Had he done this now people who like solitaire couldn't complain, because their version would be still there for them, while he develops ours. In fact, that's what he should have done here, IMO, it's not the latest solitaire version the one not working, it was the first multiplayer version which was giving you problems with the solitaire.

Regardless that he may later make a new solitaire version upgrading the features that need to.

[Klydon]

I believe the mark given (only 5% are solitaire) is way below the mark. It seems to me that there are far more players using the solitaire version than doing the net play. One of the big reasons why is the solitaire version is the one being used for multiplayer and also by people that believe it is further along than the net play version. They simply use the solitaire version with other devices/work arounds instead of the net version.

I also believe that Joseignacio may misunderstand the issues from the solitaire point of view.

Working towards net play has broken the solitaire version of the game to the point it isn't really playable (until some of these recent fixes went in). To go back to the previous stand alone solitaire version would be going back well over a year and have that version be missing a lot of things that were taken care of in subsequent versions of the game.

The bottom line is until some work is done on game stability to eliminate some of these game breaking bugs, neither version is going to be any good. It makes sense to get the simpler version (solitaire) going first, then get back to work on the net play version.

[paulderynck]

I agree with Klydon completely. Perhaps the best course of action, once these bugs in solitaire are fixed, is people who want to try the next public beta should ensure they have a path back to where they were since they are enjoying playing the game with others albeit using the Solitaire mode, either by screen-sharing or by email or both.

If you don't go back to an MWiF EXE that is before 2.3.1, then it is a simple matter to edit the version number in the game file so you can use an earlier MWiF version that you found was more stable. So my advice is: don't overwrite the last EXE, back it up instead.

I want people to test all the public betas in Solitaire and I feel grateful for them doing so because let's face it, there is one EXE here not one for each mode, and regression bugs - although extremely unfortunate and disheartening - seem to be a fact of life. If we had five or so new EXEs that we only tested for NetPlay, then it is possible, (although I think unlikely) that a bad regression bug for Solitaire would slip through. Then imagine the furor that would occur if that version is released as a public "official" release with the claim that "NetPlay is now working great - fill your boots!" and then those either happy with Solitaire or happy using Solitaire to play with others hit these Solitaire-only bugs?

So I'm spending a lot of time testing NetPlay but I'm also grateful to those who use the newest releases and play Solitaire or Head-to-Head with them. Both are necessary to get where we want to get to. But leave yourself an escape route for when times get frustrating.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

ORIGINAL: AllenK

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

Hope you enjoy playing against yourself, must be fascinating.

I haven't been playing against myself. Four of us have been using Solitaire mode to enjoy MWiF as World in Flames was meant to be played: Multiplayer. The gaming experience, playing as teams, with such honourable and fair minded players as Warspite1, Orm and Mayhemizer has been by far my most enjoyable experience of this game.

Brian Brian's two thoughtful posts provide a very good summary of the current problems with Netplay. It's only 1 vs 1 and the non-phasing player has a lot of waiting around while having to remain logged in online. These constraints will not change anytime soon, if ever.

Playing as we do, there is no necessity for everyone to be online together. As long as one person from each team is online during the phases where interaction is needed, it isn't that much slower than Netplay. The difference is the necessity to take a screen shot, post it and wait for the response, rather than having the dialogue box appearing on the other player's computer. The difference can be as little as a couple of minutes and, playing as we do, we have AAR's that pretty much write themselves. We can also be playing several games simultaneously.

It's all a compromise. For us, the primary importance is the team play, which we can only do in Solitaire. Others may well differ in their priorities (which is fine) but the basic game mechanics have to work or there is no game at all.

I posted the positive report about set-up without MadEx's, using 2.4.3, because other players, as well as ourselves, had reported or confirmed the MadEx's in setup with previous versions. If you can't get past setup without a MadEx, you haven't got a game for anyone to play, Solitaire or Netplay. The post both acknowledges the ongoing work and commitment Steve gives to the development of the game and lets him know changes appear to be successful.

If you know of a better way for progress to be made then perhaps you should enlighten us instead of resorting to the type of post quoted above.

All of us are still here because we understood that before there was a multiplayer there should be a solitaire. This sounded reasonable and the experts said so as well.

What IMO is not so reasonable is that, because of a few glitches [A few glitches? So that would be the effectively game ending ones then?] of the (supposedly) depurated [that understanding is based on what exactly??] solitaire, the agonizingly slow process of making a multiplayer (after everything else except AI is made) [Total and utter nonsense - everything is made? What except for the bugs that still exist, except for the rules that haven't been coded, except for the scenarios that haven't been coded. So everything else is made apart from those you mean?] is stopped almost as soon as it was started [so when did the focus turn mainly to netplay? And you say it has been stopped as soon as it started???? - what crazy definition is that????]

If you are starting to test a multiplayer, basing yourself on a solitaire that is supposed to be working fine (almost perfect) [I think you need to read a few more threads on this game], to step back and repair a couple of issues [same wrong analysis and conclusion as above] cuts the testing process in two. Or more than two, because I fear that every time a patch creates a new problem, the same people (the solitaire - 5%- gamers) will cry "bloody murder" if Steve doesn't stop everything and solve those problems [then you believe wrong because once again you haven't concerned yourself with the facts, or what has been written and explained by Erik and Steve i.e. the point of this is to get an official version out for those who purchased the game, do not want to be a beta tester, but do want to be able to take advantage of any progress in the last 14 MONTHS]. I doubt it is possible to program efficiently like this, I know you cannot test a game like this. [Not according to the programmer of this project - I think I'll take his word over yours thanks]

But also saying that people claim that they need to be helped earlier because they paid for it years ago sounds like a bad joke, especially for those like me who bought the game right when it was created and have not had even one hour of fun, unlike the former. [So let's be crystal here. Anyone who bought the game from the start, but have had some enjoyment playing the game solitaire (or even PBEM) (even though unable to finish a game - and with no means of hoping to play to the end) should just suck it up and not ask for anything else because they had the temerity to get some enjoyment from a game in solitaire that they bought supposedly with a working solitaire game - unlike those who bought netplay on spec. But YOU of course are more deserving yes?]

Anyway I don't blame Steve so much about this one, he has to try to please everybody and I guess Matrix too, and he is just trying to do his best. He also believes that this will take 2 weeks (we'll see, bugs are tricky).[No you choose to blame the likes of AllenK and I because we asked for a fair, reasonable and very sight deviation from the plan that doesn't really affect netplay development for the worse???? Go figure]

But I would suggest him to make a stable version and then not recommend any more newer versions for solitaire [Good plan - so long as you and your needs are taken care of that is completely fair and equitable yes? So if we are here in another 12 months and netplay still isn't working properly, you want no new official version so players cannot take advantage of bug fixes in the meantime?], to develop directly for MP or he will have the same problem all the time. Had he done this now people who like solitaire couldn't complain, because their version would be still there for them, while he develops ours. In fact, that's what he should have done here, IMO, it's not the latest solitaire version the one not working, it was the first multiplayer version which was giving you problems with the solitaire. [As I said, you haven't properly understood the state of the game presently]

Regardless that he may later make a new solitaire version upgrading the features that need to.

warspite1

Comments in red

[joshuamnave]

I think a lot of the tension in this thread comes from an unfortunate title. As I understand it the bugs that prompted the OP were gamebreaking in both solitaire and netplay. Fixing them *was* working on netplay, but it also helped solitaire players. The point was that fixing issues that only affected netplay while ignoring the regression bugs that were breaking both versions of the game seemed pointless. Why does it matter if players screens are out of synch if you can't convoy resources anyway? I can't think of any bugs in solitaire that wouldn't also affect netplay, and when they are game breaking, they hurt everyone. So the decision was very properly made to address the worst of the regression bugs before tackling new stuff. Why is this even an issue?

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

I think a lot of the tension in this thread comes from an unfortunate title. As I understand it the bugs that prompted the OP were gamebreaking in both solitaire and netplay. Fixing them *was* working on netplay, but it also helped solitaire players. The point was that fixing issues that only affected netplay while ignoring the regression bugs that were breaking both versions of the game seemed pointless. Why does it matter if players screens are out of synch if you can't convoy resources anyway? I can't think of any bugs in solitaire that wouldn't also affect netplay, and when they are game breaking, they hurt everyone. So the decision was very properly made to address the worst of the regression bugs before tackling new stuff. Why is this even an issue?

Thank you, sir. Very well surmised [&o].

I thought long and hard about the title of the thread and am sorry you think it "unfortunate". I knew it may well prove provocative but I believed the points you summarise so well needed to be made and the thread doing so needed a title with impact. However, I think much of the tension has arisen because some contributors appear to interpret "postpone" as "stop". I've never advocated that approach. If this game is to survive and thrive, it needs a working online module. To get to that position, the basic game mechanics have to work and that applies to whatever mode a player chooses to use.

If this can't be accomplished within a single version, then I fully agree with Joseignacio. Once Solitaire is stable and bug free, freeze this until such time as additional options, scenarios or AI are coded and then release these as upgrades. Meanwhile, Netplay development can proceed in parallel and perhaps need a separate exe file

[Cataphract88]

Once Solitaire is stable and bug free, freeze this until such time as additional options, scenarios or AI are coded and then release these as upgrades. Meanwhile, Netplay development can proceed in parallel and perhaps need a separate exe file

+1

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

---

Sad to see a fellow member answer like this without ptovocation or even comments on my part on his posts.

I guess Valium is at the order. Orfidal may be good too.

Dissapointed.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

ORIGINAL: warspite1

---

Sad to see a fellow member answer like this without ptovocation or even comments on my part on his posts.

I guess Valium is at the order. Orfidal may be good too.

Dissapointed.

warspite1

Well I guess we are both disappointed. Aside from the fact you totally misrepresented the state of the last official release, and ignored Steve and Erik's comments on what is being done here (and how it benefits both solitaire and netplay players), for my part the disappointment comes not least because you refer to my comments as a bad joke (and then try and make out you weren't responding to something I specifically said) or your response to AllenK's helpful positive post (that was of equal help to netplay) with an unhelpful sarcastic response.

Yes, you are right, it was a shame to see a fellow member post like that.

Not sure why you think Valium is the order of the day but sure, you can try it if you think it helps.

Equally disappointed.