Here's my experience.... Yours?

[tran505]

Not being one to want to suffer alone, I thought I'd post my expereinces to date with WWI, and see if this is what most people are seeing.

I have made four attempts at playing so far.

Attempt 1 -- v 1.03 --- A disaster. The Serebian mini-scenario CTD on turn 3. After reading the postings, I saw I needed to wait until the first pacth.

Attempt 2 -- v 1.04 -- I tried jumping into a campaign as the Western Allies. Soldiers did not make it home by Christmas; CTD happened in the fall.

Attempt 3 -- v 1.0.4a -- Same scenario. CTD in December of '14. Almost made it to the next year!

Attempt 4 -- c. 1.0.4c -- Almost made it out of '14 without mishap. Got some kind of "heap corruption" error in Nov/Dec of '14. It gave me the option of "ignoring" the error. For the first time in my life, the program actually continued to operate when I hit "ignore". Made it to June of '15 before CTD.

Since I am getting a little farther into the game, I actually have a gameplay question. Am I missing something, or is it impossible to swap a new army into a front-line region without first taking a turn to move the vacating army out? Is there really no other option than to leave a front-line region vacant for a turn, so that a different army (hopefully) can move in the next turn?


- P

[Erik Rutins]

Have you tried v1.04e yet?

http://www.ageod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11859

[Titanwarrior89]

I am running 104e(beta) and so far not bad. The game is working pretty good.  Ive got all sound off and close my anti-virus before starting the game.  Good luck.  Its worth the work[:)]

[06 Maestro]

I have lost count of my CTD's, but I had 2 three day weekends to toy with this game since the 11th. I'm afraid my count would be about 3 times Tran 505's. Game play and stability have improved for me with each patch. Due to my changing settings in my PC, I cannot say that one patch caused more difficulties than another. However, I can say that each one improved the smoothness of the game.

I have played to May of '15 twice, and voluntarily quit those games (no triumph in sight).
I have play to Jan/Feb about six times now-once or twice those games ended in CTD.

My worst month or phase is the end of September '14 combat. I must have had at least a 25% CTD at that stage. I am using the 104e patch now, and it is working very nicely. I have had one CTD using the E patch, but have generally been trouble free since installing that one. Dragging and dropping is working much better now too.

I am at the point to where I can actually focus on a strategy, rather than to try to figure out how to play the game, and /or to keep it running. It will take some time to master- for sure.

Last night I noticed an interesting thread at Ageod. One individual who has had major difficulties with the game was advised (by Calvinus) to change the AI log value from 1 to 0. his change has apparently fixed a very serious problem some player are experiencing. This can be found in the WW1 settings section of the game files-not the configuration tool. Calvinus said he will make it a default off (or zero?) option in the configuration toll in the next patch. It is not an important part of the game for most of us-it keeps track of what the AI is thinking throughout the game.

I can say I am glad I resisted the temptation to ask for a purchase refund during the first week-it did cross my mind.

[JudgeDredd]

I don't know how any of you can play any of this...the manual is bordering on ridiulous. It's thin, seems very, very incomplete and isn't in a very intuitive order....but then that follows the game which isn't that intuitive either. That's not a bad thing, but it is without a proper manual!

I've fired it up several time and quit each time. I've decided to wait for the manual.

Well, I suppose I could make my eyes bleed more and go through the tutorials!

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

I don't know how any of you can play any of this...the manual is bordering on ridiulous. Well, I suppose I could make my eyes bleed more and go through the tutorials!

I agree with your take on the manual. Fortunately, there are game hints while playing-I read them all a couple of times over. The game hints, and the tutorials made it possible to play. It was not the easiest game to figure out[8|].

The new manual has some sections available at Ageod. For the first time, I am getting a decent understanding of the diplomatic features.

The original manual for this game is one for the history books.

[Titanwarrior89]

My manual has been Calvinus and the other helpful guys on the forum there.[:)]

[tran505]

Good to know I am not the only one suffering, and patch by patch, I am seeing improvement. Yes, I intend to hang in there, too, as I do see a game worth playing here. I really want to get to the good stuff -- game play and better yet, game mastery sorts of issues.

Erik --- I have not tried the 'e' patch yet. So far I have been patching as they become official on the Matrix site. I'll give 'e' a try and hopefully, our friends have moved the ball farther down the field for us. Thanks for the link.

While Ageod may have used up some of the "good will" earned in prior releases, I still appreciate their willingness to invest in what most would consider an obscure topic, as well as their willingness to work until it is fixed. That counts, too.

- P

[JudgeDredd]

Well I've started it up once and started the first tutorial, only to stop within a couple of pages, go to the firdge and rub my eyes with horseradish sauce as that is a more pleasurable pastime than reading that horrible text (and it's "not so great" English translation) on that semi transparent background!

I then read the manual, well about half as that is incomplete and doesn't make sense in a lot of places.

I've since fired it up and exited right away 4 times.

Last night I dawned my NBC suit and respirator and started the turoeial again...this time having the determination and stamina to go through the 1st tutorial to the end...but it really did sap all of my will and I ended up finishing and closing the game down after the first tutorial. I wish I could've went on, but I was drained.

Truly, all I could think as I clicked each "OK" button (of which there are none!) is "I wish they had a "Page x of y" counter at the bottom of the tutorial windows so I knew how far to the finish line. It was kind of like running a marathon except not knowing that it was 26 miles....just that there was a finish line somewhere out ahead!

They used to use that tactic in the army...beast you without giving any indication of when it will end. Shows character, courage and drags the very last remnants of determination out of you. Sorts the men from the boys.

So I've finished my first beasting session. I shall try another tonight [:(]

I know all you've heard from me is whinging, and I know you've got more important things to do than the manual, but it's like putting a brick wall between me and the game and saying "Right...get through the wall and play the game" and I constantly keep banging against it trying to get to the game.

I need the manual. At the very least, get those tutorials on PDF so I can print them and play them.

After saying all that, the game phases and turns sound intriguing and I'm looking forward to getting into it.

[GShock]

Well Dredd...i know where you're coming from. You'll have to get used to AGEod's policy with poor manuals...there's no manual to successfully conduct a war campaign, however at least in other games, they have done such an excellent job with the interface and with the tooltips that everything was so precise and making sense that there was very little need for info to gain from forums and the games could be played with relative ease of understanding the concepts around warfare (both in AACW and in WiA).

Perhaps many who posted in this last period (and i thought you were one of them) were right in saying the game wasn't ready for market yet...i thought you had said you would buy it one year after the release...that would have been a safe proposition as it surely will be a great game by then.

Unfortunately since the Calvinus guy is a third party developer, and that the game is not based on AGE engine, past experiences with other games of the series would not come handy. You may still count yourself lucky thoug...imagine playing EiANW with a much worse interface, very poor graphics, lots of bugs and a manual that is rather useless without examples, without tutorials, without pictures, strategies, concepts...just the rules of the game. I abandoned any hope to ever play it but you should still have hope with WW1...sooner or later they'll come up with the solution everyone needs. It's a matter of patience on behalf of the users but try to also look at the half-full part of the glass. [;)]

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: GShock
Perhaps many who posted in this last period (and i thought you were one of them) were right in saying the game wasn't ready for market yet...i thought you had said you would buy it one year after the release...that would have been a safe proposition as it surely will be a great game by then.

well I didn't say I'd wait a year, but I think I did say I would wait for it to be working and I might even have said I's wait on a manual.

But knowing AGEod, I knew they would want to keep their reputation intact and would do their utmost to get it together, so when I saw it in Game, I had to pick it up.

I'm not posting in here to flame, only to air my frustrations, although I did walk into it with my eyes open.

There are several positives which I haven't been arsed to mention (very nice of me, I know!). It hasn't crashed once on me, but then I haven't got into a game anywhere near the level of others. I did play one of the short scenarios, about 5 or 6 turns or something.

Tooltips are great and it's one thing that I think sets apart AGEod's games from others. ALL games should have tooltips. The player should NEVER be expected to remember the manual or Alt-Tab (especially in an Alt-Tab unfriendly game, of which I've owned a few). Tooltips are great and an excellent way to inform the player immediately of important things.

The map? I did find myself looking at the "mini"map last night and wondering where the hell Turkey was, before my brain adjusted and I was able to mentally rotate it 45 degrees. I'm not sure it will be an issue for me.

The Tutorial did hurt my head. But I need to go through them to get a basic understanding of the game.

On top of all this, I am looking forward to getting into it. It sounds intriguing.

[Haplo_Patryn]

Well, thursday or Friday AGEOD will upload a new patch for WWI, a good one. A lot of bug fixes, more lag issues resolved, a solution about the log file that WWI generates when playing and causes some problems with the antivirus programs, etc.

I think WWI is a great game that needs time to demonstrate it. It deserves our patience and i hope this game will be one of the best wargames of 2008. It's a great game but now needs time to be polished, it's hard to find good games about WWI.

Another issue, however, if it was a good decision for AGEOD to release the game in its inicial buggy status. But i have confidence that AGEOD will work hard fixing the bugs. Maybe it would have been better if WWI had been tested more before its release, but...

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: Haplo_Patryn

But i have confidence that AGEOD will work hard fixing the bugs. Maybe it would have been better if WWI had been tested more before its release, but...

But what-they needed the money?[:D]

I'm confident that the game will be brought up to speed evenyually too. Still, it has been a long and irritating journey trying to get this game to work and to understand it.

[tran505]

I think I was doing some venting as well. I started this thread right after the 4th attempt crashed out on me. Just when I start getting into the game -- BAM!

At this point, I am starting to trip over the "Am I having fun yet?" problem. Playing feels more like testing an alpha build rather than a fun gaming experience.

So, until I feel the need to act like Neo returning to "The Architect" for the 8th time, I think I will fire up Medeval II or Silent Hunters and have some simple, uncomplicated, fully documented and stable, fun.


- P