Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

ORIGINAL: 2gaulle

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins


3. We're working on a lot of other things at the same time, so we can't exclusively focus on this, but it is an important issue

perhaps you will not be in that kind of trouble if you didn't release the game before it was finished [:-]

bla bla bla, sorry.

not surprise by this reaction, exactly how you consider your customer [:(]

Erik, I am not upset that you wont test with me or another just upset I bought a game I cant play the way I would like(A way advertised that I could). I am just saying if you arent getting this error then perhaps if you reallly care you can get to see it with someone who is getting it. The only way to fix it so you say is to see it. Well that is the best way to see it. It would really take about 10 minutes of your time as it always happens on first or second battle. So I think in some eyes it seems you are unwilling to even see the error since you say it works just fine on your end. You cant run the debugger on your end while playing with someone outside of your network? If that is the case then we may as well consider the topic closed because if you havent experienced the error by now I doubt you ever will.

I have DSL with 4MB download and 2.5 upload. 2GB ram, ATI 256MB, and pentium 4 3.00 GHZ processer. Call me Earl has even a better connection and computer I cant see it being a computer problem. Both of us run XP. Direct X 9.0c.

Game settings are advanced options with advanced supply off, attrition off, more generals on, always detailed option. I doubt many people play this game multiplayer outside PBEM. Even if they do play tcp/ip perhaps they use instant battles like Crown of Glory.

Like ericbabe said perhaps it isnt worthwhile to even offer it from your standpoint. This game requires lots of time to play multiplayer and there are very few gluttons that are willing to devote that much time to tcp/IP. They would rather take their turns at their leisure playing PBEM. Especially without a service with which to match up with other people who care to play. I happened to buy this game and talk a friend into buying it as well to play. However if it was working I think more would play it some tcp/ip to get games moving and perhaps later when the game becomes more involved load it up as PBEM. I bought it for the fact you can play campaign style and still controil the battles via the detailed option. Which I thought was real cool most games offer the campaign single player only like the total war series. Even in games like Civ III and IV most play on smaller maps with faster moving games. However that is fine advertise it so and let me save my 49.99 seeing I only bought it to play multiplayer.

I mean to play test tcp/ip a game only on a lan when most people who would play over the internet wont be on a lan all together isn't a real good indicator anyhow. We arent all in South Korea playing in cafes.

ORIGINAL: Marc Schwanebeck

bla bla bla, sorry.

ROFL...

2gaulle,

Please reconsider the tone of your posts. Excuse me for saying so, but to this outsider you sound a bit juvenile. You have made your point several times that there is indeed a problem. The developers have acknowledged the problem and that they plan to fix it, yet have their hands full with other issues in addition to the tcp/ip problem(no less important to many other I might add)

When Mr.Schwanebeck said; 'bla bla bla, sorry', it seemed that he did so not so much to mock you but to point out that no matter what the developers have said, you are not satisfied with the responses. It was an apology. One without repeating the pledges already stated by them. WCS have given their position of determination to fixing the problem so the continued harassment is not needed IMHO. Your posts are beginning to sound like a letter from the Redundant Department of Redundancy. Here in America we have a saying of "You're beating a dead horse". You, Sir, have gone past beating the poor beast and have practically resorted to dismemberment. Give them a chance to fix it and then see where it stands.

I understand your frustration, Sir, but there is a better way of handling the situation.

Just my


Mo Reb

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel

2gaulle,

Please reconsider the tone of your posts. Excuse me for saying so, but to this outsider you sound a bit juvenile. You have made your point several times that there is indeed a problem. The developers have acknowledged the problem and that they plan to fix it, yet have their hands full with other issues in addition to the tcp/ip problem(no less important to many other I might add)

When Mr.Schwanebeck said; 'bla bla bla, sorry', it seemed that he did so not so much to mock you but to point out that no matter what the developers have said, you are not satisfied with the responses. It was an apology. One without repeating the pledges already stated by them. WCS have given their position of determination to fixing the problem so the continued harassment is not needed IMHO. Your posts are beginning to sound like a letter from the Redundant Department of Redundancy. Here in America we have a saying of "You're beating a dead horse". You, Sir, have gone past beating the poor beast and have practically resorted to dismemberment. Give them a chance to fix it and then see where it stands.

I understand your frustration, Sir, but there is a better way of handling the situation.

Just my


Mo Reb

I never accepted to pay full for a game not finished and I'm always surprise that so many accept this situation. Do you accept the same for a car? so who his juvenile?

Hopefully most of the developer do a lot on the subject, like AGEOD and SSG so release a game free of bug is not impossible.

What I'm waiting for is public excuses to release a unfinished game

I never accepted to pay full for a game not finished and I'm always surprise that so many accept this situation. Do you accept the same for a car? so who his juvenile?

Hopefully most of the developer do a lot on the subject, like AGEOD and SSG so release a game free of bug is not impossible.

What I'm waiting for is public excuses to release a unfinished game

The only thing here is that instead of gauging interest in an online component for FoF after the game is released, Matrix should've done it before. Once TCP/IP is included, Matrix should make sure that it works, and not wait until after release to consider the time and money involved when considering the feasibility of fixing something already included in the game.

Alanb

<sigh>

The only thing that Eric was saying was that as far as the priority of fixing TCP/IP over some other requests on our list, getting an idea of how many players it affects would be useful. On the flipside, for example, providing an improved victory screen affects all players.

I feel like we are not getting a lot of benefit of the doubt here. I understand TCP/IP over the internet is not working at all for some players. We're not happy to hear that. We did test it, both over LAN as well as over Internet, though more over LAN. This was a pre-existing TCP/IP system built on Microsoft libraries that worked in CoG for games with far more than 2 players.

Why it is not working for some players in the release version is still unknown. But, to quote Rumsfeld, "there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns". In other words, this is not something that we decided to release knowing it was not working. Our testing indicated that it was working. At what point it broke and how that was missed, I don't know, but it is on our list to fix and we are working on that.

Fixes for problems like this can be much more elusive than with something like "Hood's brigade is showing up as cavalry". This will likely take some time and will likely be in the patch after the current one, since it's still being investigated. However, it is being worked on and it's not our intention at all to release a game with TCP/IP support and then decide that we won't fix it. That was never said and any other understanding is a misunderstanding.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik,
&nbsp;
I fully understand.&nbsp; First things first-- I have no problem with that.&nbsp; Since there is recognition that something is not right with TCP/IP, I'm content to wait, give other things their due consideration based on user priority, and help out if I can.
&nbsp;
Go Bucks!
&nbsp;
Alanb

I'm certainly not trying to "gauge interest" in TCP/IP in my call for more reports.&nbsp; Debugging can be a lot like detective work and getting more reports is akin to getting more witnesses or more clues.&nbsp; We are trying to prioritize work on the upgrades according to the popularity of the requests -- and things like improved feedback on battles, a PBEM replay, victory statistics, tweaks to the disease rules, and some changes for more historical play options currently seem to be the most frequently requested changes to the game.&nbsp; However, we are still devoting time each day to TCP/IP testing, presently adding some diagnostic-type code to run on top of the diagnostic code present in the Microsoft libraries already.

Hello,

this afternoon my friend and me have played one turn and appears 2 things:

1-in the load of the second battle the game crash <--- the famous error.

2-when we finalished the first turn before beginning the battle and movements appears to me (host) this log:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/ ... es/fof.jpg

Is the first time that appears me this error.

ORIGINAL: Maulet
2-when we finalished the first turn before beginning the battle and movements appears to me (host) this log:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/ ... es/fof.jpg

This is an out-of-memory type error. A few days ago I fixed one memory leak in the game that may have been causing this -- there was a way of exiting and reentering the game that didn't deallocate the main map, a very large chunk of memory. Hopefully this will fix that problem.

Good news regarding the "famous" 2nd battle bug... we have been finally able to duplicate it on our LAN.&nbsp; I'm not sure exactly what things we've changed to be able to duplicate it (I fiddled with a bunch of different settings), but we are now able to reproduce it.&nbsp; Hopefully it won't be too long before we're able to find the offending code under the debugger.

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Good news regarding the "famous" 2nd battle bug... we have been finally able to duplicate it on our LAN. I'm not sure exactly what things we've changed to be able to duplicate it (I fiddled with a bunch of different settings), but we are now able to reproduce it. Hopefully it won't be too long before we're able to find the offending code under the debugger.

great news eric !! [&o][&o]

Then the "famous" error will be fixed in the next patch (end of january)???

The first problem I understand that is fixed for the next patch sure!

Thanks!

I can't be sure that the first problem is the same as the one I fixed, but it is consistent with that one.&nbsp;

As for the second one, there was a memory location that needed to be set to zero that was not being properly set.... often, however, memory locations will already have a zero in them, whether they do or not depends on how memory is organized on a particular system, so even if the code doesn't properly zero out the memory locations, on some systems this code will still run properly -- this is what seems to have been happening with the second error.

Ericbabe,
From my perspective it was difficult to believe that the detailed battle error did not show up in your testing... I stand corrected. Past bad experiences with other games led me to believe I was in for more of the same here (Matrix).

I extend my apology for having called you guys out in another post. I hope now that you have seen the problem it can be resolved in the next patch.

Thank you for your time invested in this matter. Call Me Earl

No problem.&nbsp; I know it's frustrating to have software that has bugs...

Eric the same errors mentioned above also occur in all our LAN games. Using 4 different machines............No detailed battles the Nov 1861 scenario.
I'm curious has anyone in the beta team playing a LAN game Or TCP/IP games successfully with the box or most recent version?
If so I would love to try one with you? [&:]

Over the weekend Erik played on his LAN for four hours or so without any of the assert problems, and I ran tests on our LAN for about eight hours (finally being able to duplicate the crash on 2nd battle bug) without experiencing any of the assert problems (or any other problems, for that matter).&nbsp; We've got more TCP/IP testing planned this week, both LAN and Internet.

(It is possible for packets to be dropped on a LAN... it's not as likely as over the internet, but I have seen it happen under the debugger.&nbsp; The libraries we are using, DirectPlay 4.0, do have some known issues with its packet dropping detection/correction routines; in our personal experience, the libraries have worked fine 99% of the time, and we've been able to play long games with them just fine; however, from what I've read about them it does seem that they don't deal with dropped packets very well.&nbsp; I'll look further into trying to find a fix for this, but migrating to a newer library would be quite a bit of work as DP4.0 has a very different implementation than even other versions of DP.)

I just wanted to log in on this subject. I'm playing solataire with Lieutenant difficulty. I have also experienced the "assertio failed" error message on my second combat. I continue to experience this error on all subsequent detailed combats. I am not playing until this issue is cleared up.
&nbsp;
So fix it!
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Whit,

I'm not clear on something - you said you are playing solitaire but getting an assertion failed message? To confirm, you are getting this message even when not playing a TCP/IP game?

Regards,

- Erik