VADM Halsey Taken Out by the Remove Halsey Code

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

Saturday night at work doing inventory, I can do a post or two from here tonight.

dereck, I think the actual response from Mike was that the mouse roll over showed both friendly and enemy port and airfield sizes so they made it so there was notification for all upgrades. Probably made it easier for them to implement. Just sloppy programming.One thing that does upset me is all the [&o] smileys when Mike Wood posts something he 'fixed' Most of the time he is fixxing things he broke or didn't program right from the begining.

Anyone really read the "many, many" user requested features? A good number of them are to fix things they messed up in the "design" of the game to start with. I really doubt that there was much real design work done for this. It tends to look like they just had a few 100,000 lines of code from old games and they through it together with a very slightly better looking interface. The acutal user interface is about as clunky as they could have made it. There are many times I wonder if they didn't say "if we make the user interface so complex and full of bugs maybe no one will be able to play and then they will not find out how many bugs and bad design decisions there really are in the entire game"

As far as getting rid of the rest of the bugs, I doubt it will actually happen. I mean really, how hard is it to implement a List structure and make it work? That is all a list of pilots is, just a set of List structures. Even if they are still using C( which I think they are ), there are any number of List management programs available. Some are published in open source format. The same with Leaders, a set of List structures. This would be covered in Programming 101( I guess 2x3 games missed that class ) And another bug is the bad replay bug, lets face it, the idea that game settings will affect the replay of a PBEM turn is ridiculous.

As a finaly note, while I am very unhappy with the state of War in the Pacific, it is still probably worth the money I spent on it ( $100.00USD + ), but at times the agravation it casuses is a very high price to pay.

Back to counting pipe fittings. [:@][:D]

Nomad, I said NOTHING about mouse roll over. I said it was in the intel report I got at the end of each turn. At 1.3 and prior I only got notification of my own ports and airfields ... after I got both mine AND Japanese. And I was told by Mike Woods that it ALWAYS worked that way when in fact I know it didn't.

[bradfordkay]

Dereck, I believe that the point is, since the mouse rollover shows the airfield and port size of any developed base (allied or japanese), why not just add the information for both sides to the operations report? That is what Mike decided to do.

You call it free intel, I feel that it makes up slightly for the fact that I can only issue orders for one photo recon target per squadron (I've got twelve planes in that squadron, why can't they target 3, 4, or 12 different locations?).

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Dereck, I believe that the point is, since the mouse rollover shows the airfield and port size of any developed base (allied or japanese), why not just add the information for both sides to the operations report? That is what Mike decided to do.

You call it free intel, I feel that it makes up slightly for the fact that I can only issue orders for one photo recon target per squadron (I've got twelve planes in that squadron, why can't they target 3, 4, or 12 different locations?).

No Bradford, the point is I was LIED to when Mike Woods said it ALWAYS worked that way when I know it didn't. I stated specifically that prior to my upgrading to 1.6 I never saw that info yet he posted that it was always like that when, in fact, it wasn't. As such he and Matrix lost all credibility with me.

Don't try to direct attention AWAY from the point I was trying to make in hopes that this item will go away. The point I was making isn't being paid attention to in favor of something that I NEVER mentioned in the first place. This is one reason why I am so disgusted with this game right now (and from personal communications with other people playing WITP I am just one of a growing number).

It makes me wonder if you can't get a TRUTHFUL answer about something what else AREN'T they telling us? If Mike Woods would have simply said it was changed between 1.3 and 1.6 I would have accepted it but now my only other thing to believe is that it was changed due to an unintended code change which means there's yet another bug lurking somewhere in the code to surprise us.

[bradfordkay]

Dereck, I am not trying to stifle your righteous anger. I felt that you didn't quite understand the point of Nomad's post, and was just trying to redefine it. Maybe I misunderstood the whole point myself, but I was not trying to direct any attention away from your complaint.

[Cpt Sherwood]

From the 1.40 Whatsnew.rtf, item #2 in the player requested features.

2) When a base completes airfield or port construction in a PBEM game, notification is now displayed and recorded in the operations report. Until now, this only happened when one of the players was the computer opponent. Fortification increases are still not shown in PBEM games, as this information is not available in the mouse over display.

I am sure that this is where things changed.

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

From the 1.40 Whatsnew.rtf, item #2 in the player requested features.

2) When a base completes airfield or port construction in a PBEM game, notification is now displayed and recorded in the operations report. Until now, this only happened when one of the players was the computer opponent. Fortification increases are still not shown in PBEM games, as this information is not available in the mouse over display.

I am sure that this is where things changed.

But you see Capt Sherwood, the point I want to make is I was specifically told it was ALWAYS like that. Not that it was changed but that it worked like that from the beginning.

I would just be very happy if the basic coding bugs would be fixed. Arrays filling up and causing the game to fart because the arrays were never checked or tested and other types of bugs just get me.

So many people have had VADM Halsey and other leaders just up and disappear into the nether world. If leaders were so important why wasn't anything to do with leaders tested to make sure simple things like this wouldn't happen?

Why also can you get a list of leaders for ships and see officers you KNOW are already assigned to another ship? How hard would it have been to put a flag (say ASSIGNED) in the data structure and when people select the leader button do a query such as "SELECT leaders from table where ASSIGNED is false" and only get leaders not assigned anywhere?

[Cpt Sherwood]

I was only trying to provide information on when there was a change in the way port and airfield upgrades were reported. That is all on that.

For the other, I totaly agree. Another thing that seems fishy is the term 'bulletproofed.' I have seen Mike Wood use that term a lot. To me it seems that they can not find the root of the bug so they added some code to try and fix the data value after the fact. Kind of makes you wonder what is really happening doesn't it?

[Cpt Sherwood]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

/snip ...
The fact that the program was obviously never tested crippled them. Mr. Frag and his "there are no bugs, you just don't understand the game" bullsh[/i]it killed their credibility utterly. I'm playing the game against the AI now and I probably will for another year. But the game will leave my hard drive relatively quickly (for me). And I will never again buy a product from Matrix, 2by3 or Grisby.

(And I'm disappointed that no one seems to have gotten the cranky pants joke. [:(] )

Mogami seems to be putting out the same line as Mr.Frag elsewhere on the forum. See the pessimist thread.

I guess I did not understand yout 'cranky pants' joke( so sorry ).

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

ORIGINAL: dtravel

/snip ...
The fact that the program was obviously never tested crippled them. Mr. Frag and his "there are no bugs, you just don't understand the game" bullsh[/i]it killed their credibility utterly. I'm playing the game against the AI now and I probably will for another year. But the game will leave my hard drive relatively quickly (for me). And I will never again buy a product from Matrix, 2by3 or Grisby.

(And I'm disappointed that no one seems to have gotten the cranky pants joke. [:(] )

Mogami seems to be putting out the same line as Mr.Frag elsewhere on the forum. See the pessimist thread.

I guess I did not understand yout 'cranky pants' joke( so sorry ).

Well, I must be really bored to explain a joke but here goes.

On a day when I'm bitching and complaining more than usual about buggy software, what do I blame my foul mood on? Buggy software.

Get it now? [;)]

[moses]

ohh pooh.

WITP is the greatest wargame in history. Nothing else comes close.

Claiming that Marix should be ashamed of this product is like saying Babe Ruth should be ashamed for striking out so much.

Making a wargame that perfectly simulates real life is like hitting a home run every at bat for a 20 year career. Its flat impossible and holding people to an impossible standard of perfection is not rational.

While we complain and argue over this or that we should keep in mind the fantastic achievment that this game represents. Further the idea that the developers deliberatly made a poor game is flatly ridiculous. Anyone who makes such a claim should be laughed off the board.

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: moses

ohh pooh.

WITP is the greatest wargame in history. Nothing else comes close.

Claiming that Marix should be ashamed of this product is like saying Babe Ruth should be ashamed for striking out so much.

Making a wargame that perfectly simulates real life is like hitting a home run every at bat for a 20 year career. Its flat impossible and holding people to an impossible standard of perfection is not rational.

While we complain and argue over this or that we should keep in mind the fantastic achievment that this game represents. Further the idea that the developers deliberatly made a poor game is flatly ridiculous. Anyone who makes such a claim should be laughed off the board.

I stand by everything I've said. I've never said WITP wasn't a good game but I won't stand here and blow sunshine up my butt and forget about the BASIC programming bugs which should never have slipped through into the released product.

There's no excuses for not testing simple programming code at all and I'll never change my mind on that.

[moses]

Well so we claim that they have made simple stupid mistakes that apparently any fool should have avoided???!

So how to explain the obvious impressiveness of the actual game? The fact that there is nothing in the world to compare it too? How did these clods do it!!

Now its fine to argue and debate this point or that. It can be a lot of fun and I indulge myself with some frequency.

But give credit where credit is due. This is a monumental game and the developers have tried and seem to still be trying to make it even better.

[Dereck]

Moses,

I'm not going to get into this with you. You're obviously one of the people who wave the WITP flag and would take whatever they give you.

I on the other hand expected to have software that worked instead of software that ended up with major bugs in it that could have been taken care of by simple program testing.

This isn't an "I love you Matrix" thread but one that points out some basic problems that most of the other posters seem to agree with.

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: moses

ohh pooh.

WITP is the greatest wargame in history. Nothing else comes close.

Debateable, and I am a fan of the game. The Combat Missions series for example could make a strong argument for that title, and Steel Panthers is still going strong, or so I hear.

Claiming that Marix should be ashamed of this product is like saying Babe Ruth should be ashamed for striking out so much.

Fair enough.

Making a wargame that perfectly simulates real life is like hitting a home run every at bat for a 20 year career. Its flat impossible and holding people to an impossible standard of perfection is not rational.

Nobody is holding anyone to such a standard. I think this is called a strawman.

While we complain and argue over this or that we should keep in mind the fantastic achievment that this game represents. Further the idea that the developers deliberatly made a poor game is flatly ridiculous. Anyone who makes such a claim should be laughed off the board.

Another strawman.

The point people seem to be making is that the game has some repttys erious bugs that are rather hard to understand, from a software perspective. Array overflow? Don't we quit making that mistake in Fundamentals of Software Programming 100?

[moses]

ORIGINAL: dereck

Moses,

I'm not going to get into this with you. You're obviously one of the people who wave the WITP flag and would take whatever they give you.

Yes they love me because I have never complained about anything?????[:'(]

[moses]

Original Berkut

Original:Moses
While we complain and argue over this or that we should keep in mind the fantastic achievment that this game represents. Further the idea that the developers deliberatly made a poor game is flatly ridiculous. Anyone who makes such a claim should be laughed off the board.

Another strawman.

The point people seem to be making is that the game has some repttys erious bugs that are rather hard to understand, from a software perspective. Array overflow? Don't we quit making that mistake in Fundamentals of Software Programming 100?

Strawman!!!!! but there you go again proving my point. Now they fail to approach the expertice of a programming 100 course??? Those incompetent morons!!!! You have to wonder how the game even loads. I have to envision that they are all sitting at MATRIX hitting their console with rocks trying to fix the leader bug.

If only they had a few programming 100 graduates then things would be so much better.[:D]

[Berkut]

I don't know what would make it better, I imagine them working on it would, which they appear to be doing.

You can keep creating strawmen if it makes you feel better, but at the end of the day there are some issues with this game that are simply surprisingly amenable to testing, and it is a bit disturbing that they exist, since it speaks to some rather sloppy development practices.

Go ahead and claim that I am saying theya re beating their keyboards with rocks, if that is easier than actually responding.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: Berkut

You can keep creating strawmen if it makes you feel better, but at the end of the day there are some issues with this game that are simply surprisingly amenable to testing, and it is a bit disturbing that they exist, since it speaks to some rather sloppy development practices.

So its not really a strawman since you apparently believe the programmers are incompetant. Seems then that I'm giving a pretty fair assessment of your view.

I disagree.

I think the evidence suggests that this is a very good game made by competent people who tried very hard and tested by competent people who gave it their best shot. Its not perfect but nothing ever is. They are giving an awful good impression of trying to make changes.

So again its fine to argue and debate. Lots of things I would change if I owned the code. But why imply those who brought us this game should be embarassed by it.

[Berkut]

I don't thinkthey should be embarrrassed by it, and agreed with you when you said that was ridiculous.

I do think it looks like there are some pretty sloppy examples of coding, and some rather obviously bad design decisions, from a variety of different perspectives.

Even ignoring bugs, just look at the user interface. It is terrible, overall. By any objective standard of interface design, this one is pretty bad.

It speaks to the game overall that despite all this, I am still hitting the "Check email" button every five minutes at home hoping for another turn...

[Skyros]

I hear this a lot from people and I wonder what would be a better interface. The current one reminds me of playing a board wargame, hmm whats in this hex/stack???

ORIGINAL: Berkut


Even ignoring bugs, just look at the user interface. It is terrible, overall. By any objective standard of interface design, this one is pretty bad.