Matrix Games Forums

Brent has been notified of this thread and I think that he will respond to it.

Other than that, I really don't think any more apologies are needed. Everyone has been gentlemanly toward the end.

This is a forum. A person has the right to express his views. That has been done. The voice has been heard. Now we await the answer. I'm sure it will come.

Wild Bill

I have Lost Victories, but have never got the time yet to play it all the way thru, what is the problem that requires a patch??
Just wondering?

Alby wrote:I have Lost Victories, but have never got the time yet to play it all the way thru, what is the problem that requires a patch??
Just wondering?

Brent explained this about a year ago. There are no bugs that require a patch. However, there is a bunch of historical/story stuff he left out. That's why we're waiting for an "update" and not a patch. Hope this info helps.

Thank you....I was wondering about the patch myself....my MC played fine....and I was wondering what the patch was about.
Take care all,
Huffy

Huffy wrote:Thank you....I was wondering about the patch myself....my MC played fine....and I was wondering what the patch was about.
Take care all,
Huffy

Wasnt there some kind of patch for LV that was put out at some point??
I may get around to playing it some day! hehehhehe

Alby....there might have been...but I am not sure...I played fine through it...
Sorry I could not help..
Huffy

Huffy wrote:Alby....there might have been...but I am not sure...I played fine through it...
Sorry I could not help..
Huffy

Thanks for replies
I did find 2 patches for LV, what they do I dont know but Ill get them

Speaking as one who was planning to finally buy MCLV next payday, what is wrong with it?

Akmatov wrote:Speaking as one who was planning to finally buy MCLV next payday, what is wrong with it?

Nothing


All the MC's have some weird bugs

But that comes from SpWaW never being designed for this sort of thing

Most serious bug ive ran into is getting new leaders...with no names....no rank...or worse yet...very poor stats in rally and infantry command...but with an editor you can fix all that


Brent (to the my knowledge) promised to add some extra documents and pictures and sounds to MCLV a while ago and hasnt got around to it yet


As far as MCLV being somehow unfinished....I dont see how...
I played it twice now and all of the scenarios are there and fully fixed and their is plenty of documentation and what not

Like I said earlier...I think Brent promised some add ones and hasnt given them out yet
But the MC is in no way "un-finished"

Yet according to Brent there is another update coming. When the designer says there is another update then that tells me the MC isn't finished.

But here's what I really don't like. This is my third or fourth time starting a year ago posting on this forum asking for the status of the update. Brent NEVER posts any kind of status unless prodded to do so. I wrote to him personally at WB's suggestion and never heard back. So far it's been three days. WB advised him of this thread a couple of days ago. He hasn't responded. MCLV is not a free game. We all paid money for it. Brent says it isn't finished yet his attitude seems to be "screw those who bought it I'll get to it when I feel like it and I don't have to post a status even after a year." I find that kind of attitude unworthy of the entire SPWAW effort which I feel is excellent. In fact excellent is an understatement. It's just a real shame.

rich12545 wrote:I wrote to him personally at WB's suggestion and never heard back. So far it's been three days. WB advised him of this thread a couple of days ago. He hasn't responded.

I can't/want to reply in his place, but as for him not replying to you recently, I think he's not around in this moment.
He's not sent any mail nor replied nor posted anywhere, either to us of the Arsenal and/or CL Team for days now.
I know his work brings him to travel away for days, from time to time, so this MAY be the reason.

Vielen Danke, Fallschirmjager. If those are the worst of the buglettes, is not a problem. As you say, that is what an editor is for fixing.

I was concerned that the thing was broken in some way as opposed to not fully embellished with goodies.

I got back from Iowa where I was since last Wednesday. I am not ignoring you. First off, thank you for taking the time to write to me.

As I have written previously, my plan is to make a final update to the results files only and to be very honest it is not a high priority. Lost Victories is a finished product. It is playable to the end and it gives a final score. Like any artist who is never satisfied with his work, there are a few places I would like to improve such as making more of the battles playable but the mechanics of the mega campaign make that dificult to do. Bill has come up with a solution by having separate branches by player choice instead of results for Screaming Eagles.

The storyline also was suffering form a problem many have pointed out, that the characters at the point of the end battles no longer matched the characters in the core force due to losses, etc. This is considered a far bigger issue as many have written to say that the results talk of Vebber and Wirth and Averitz but I have lost them in the battles at Sevastopol and the Donetz River. I have received many e-mails about the other problem along with the fact that if the A0(Vebber) is lost, he is replaced by an inexperienced leiutenant

From the MC design, the core force tends to suffer many more leader losses once it goes into defensive battles or the grueling battles around Sevastopol and the player loses most of the original platoon leaders. This throws a serious distortion into the acuracy of a storyline that has Vebber, Wirth, Baumann, Gallear, Averitz, etc as the principal characters when all of them are dead or disabled. I am unable to do anything to change this so what do I do now, write a story with characters that has no relationship to the Core force or use the generic results that the MC generates?

I started writing a book when I attempted to bring the leaders of the core force to life and a mega campaign is not a book, but a game. I made a mistake by making the characters come alive. I have received letters telling me that Wirth or Baumann or Kukko are their favorite characters and that it was actually painful to lose them, then even more so when the characters continued to exist in the storyline but not in the game and some even likened it to a cruel joke.

As I have explained before, none of these issues affect gameplay. The campaign plays through to the end and all of the battle descriptions, sound files, photos and documents appear as programmed to do. Only the last few battles at the Donetz River and the Crimea are missing result texts.

I will again restate that these missing text files DO NOT AFFECT GAMEPLAY, only the storyline.

Lost Victories does not need fixing, it is playing as designed. The end of the battles gives a result of a decisive, marginal victory or defeat or a draw and the goes to the next battle. This is how the product was designed. All of the historical documents are there as I originally planned for inclusion.

You bring up the question of my Cross of Iron work taking priority. All of the scenarios I have released subsequent to MCLV are ones I did in ver 4 and 5 and were completed before starting MCLV. I have not done any new SPWaW work since starting on Combat Leader-Cross of Iron. All of this work was done before MCLV and all I have been doing was to update the scenarios to 7.1. The articles I am doing for the Arsenal and Wargamer are part of the marketing campaign for CL_COI to increase exposure of the name Cross of Iron.

I have about half of the results files done and I should finish the rest by the the first part of next year. They will probably be put out in a small update at that time for those who want to know the ultimate fate of Vebber and his men.

I personally have come to the conclusion that the fate of the kampfgruppe is best left to the players imagination but I will finish the story as much for my own desires as yours.

I am not very good at keeping people up to date on anything and I rarely have time to go on the Forums anymore. I will make it a point to give a report on my progress in my writing

I hope this answers your questions and concerns

Sincerely
Bent Richards

Brent: Thank you for clearing up quite a few minor points. Appreciated.

Alby wrote:Thanks for replies
I did find 2 patches for LV, what they do I dont know but Ill get them

Still like to know what these patches do or fix?

I want to thank Brent publicly as I did privately for this information.

It looks like the final update will arrive sometime early next year. If there is a snag and it runs late hopefully Brent will post something so we know it's still there. Starting one of these threads every few months is a pain in the butt for everyone.

I've marked my calendar for March.