Not Ready For Prime Time

[tgb]

I managed to slog my way through a bit more of the tutorial, but encountered so many mis-spellings and words that don't exist ("substraction"? Really?) I got disgusted and quit. If simple errors like these made it to the final release, I have to wonder what more substantial bugs did as well.

I may have another go after reading the manual, but so far color me disappointed.

[Severian]

("substraction"? Really?)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Substraction

[Joram]

I think you'll be challenged to find anyone in the US who's ever heard that word much less use it.  If you haven't tailored it for US english, fine, but you're going to get a lot of posts like these.  Can't say I heard it used in my time in England either.

[vonRocko]

ORIGINAL: tgb

I managed to slog my way through a bit more of the tutorial, but encountered so many mis-spellings and words that don't exist ("substraction"? Really?) I got disgusted and quit. If simple errors like these made it to the final release, I have to wonder what more substantial bugs did as well.

I may have another go after reading the manual, but so far color me disappointed.

My personal favorite was "can" for coin. The tutorial had me looking for a button with "cans". Stupid me, I was actually looking for it.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: vonRocko

My personal favorite was "can" for coin. The tutorial had me looking for a button with "cans". Stupid me, I was actually looking for it.

It's an image of oil barrels, not coins. Lighten up.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Typos in the tutorial are easy to fix, sorry they made it through testing. Most of the text is originally written by Wastelands Interactive (the developer) and thus just as in WW2: Time of Wrath I'm sure there will be some areas where it could use rephrasing. If you see a typo, let us know and we'll get it fixed.

Regards,

- Erik

[Anraz]

If something like that has slipped it does mean that we were strongly focused on gameply. Unlike major mechanism words are easy to correct and we will correct them accordingly. Of course if current state doesn`t meet your expectation  I apologize for this inconvenience, hoping that the game itself will absorb you in.

[tgb]

They may be an easy fix, Erik, but the fact that they made it through in the first place indicates that the testing was lazy and/or sloppy.  If "easy to fix" typos made it into the final product, who knows what other "easy to fix" bugs made it in?

The tutorial is one of the worst I've seen. Most people play a tutorial before reading the manual, especially one that is over 100 pages. It should not only be instructing you what to do, but also how to do it. Right now I'm stuck at the command to move my fleet to the green circle. Selecting the fleet and hitting the "move fleet" order, a bunch of yellow circles appear. Wait - here's a yellow circle with a green ring in the center! Is this the spot to which I should move it? I don't know - I tried moving my fleet to every circle on the map. Sometime my fleet reappears in a new location, sometimes it doesn't. Why is that? I don't know. Either way the tutorial appears stuck at that point.

Earlier I was stuck at the command to attack with two units. It was only through trial and error that I figured out that the units were out of range and had to be moved up first.

Sorry for the rant, but so far I'm seeing more frustration than fun.

[vonRocko]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

ORIGINAL: vonRocko

My personal favorite was "can" for coin. The tutorial had me looking for a button with "cans". Stupid me, I was actually looking for it.

It's an image of oil barrels, not coins. Lighten up.

I'm not bashing the game, you lighten up. The word was used for the purchase screen, it wanted me to find the coins not oil barrels.
The button has coins, I don't see oil barrels.

[doomtrader]

This button has changed a little bit during the development process.

[MajFrankBurns]

ORIGINAL: tgb

They may be an easy fix, Erik, but the fact that they made it through in the first place indicates that the testing was lazy and/or sloppy.  If "easy to fix" typos made it into the final product, who knows what other "easy to fix" bugs made it in?

The tutorial is one of the worst I've seen. Most people play a tutorial before reading the manual, especially one that is over 100 pages. It should not only be instructing you what to do, but also how to do it. Right now I'm stuck at the command to move my fleet to the green circle. Selecting the fleet and hitting the "move fleet" order, a bunch of yellow circles appear. Wait - here's a yellow circle with a green ring in the center! Is this the spot to which I should move it? I don't know - I tried moving my fleet to every circle on the map. Sometime my fleet reappears in a new location, sometimes it doesn't. Why is that? I don't know. Either way the tutorial appears stuck at that point.

Earlier I was stuck at the command to attack with two units. It was only through trial and error that I figured out that the units were out of range and had to be moved up first.

Sorry for the rant, but so far I'm seeing more frustration than fun.

You call it lazy testing I call it lazy gamer. Read the Manual. Back in my day there weren't any tutorials or pretty pictures to rely on to learn the game. You read the manual as you played the game. When you reached a point you didn't know what to do you read the manual. Pretty soon you had the jist of the game down and you could plod away playing pretty easily. The first game is always the learning and testing game anyways. Surely you don't have to be able to win every game you play the first time? I've spent days sometimes learning a new game. So the laziness is in the gamer who doesn't want to read not the programmer.

[jjdenver]

Ah well the mis-spellings or grammatical errors don't really bother me since I understand that the developers don't speak English as their native language. I'm more focused on gameplay. Also the developers are really among the nicest guys you'll meet on any forum so go easy on them.

As for the tutorial I agree that it doesn't really do a good job of explaining fleet/ship movement. I'm still confused about what the various circles in the water mean and what the lines between sea zones mean, and why circles show up near a port or in the middle of the sea, and why I can land a unit from a circle in the middle of the sea but later am asked to move units to a circle near a port to land them. It's all quite confusing after finishing the tutorial. So it might make sense to strengthen that a little since a good tutorial really gets people playing the game. That's my 2 cents.

Of course I could read the manual and I just may do that.

[tgb]

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns

ORIGINAL: tgb

They may be an easy fix, Erik, but the fact that they made it through in the first place indicates that the testing was lazy and/or sloppy.  If "easy to fix" typos made it into the final product, who knows what other "easy to fix" bugs made it in?

The tutorial is one of the worst I've seen. Most people play a tutorial before reading the manual, especially one that is over 100 pages. It should not only be instructing you what to do, but also how to do it. Right now I'm stuck at the command to move my fleet to the green circle. Selecting the fleet and hitting the "move fleet" order, a bunch of yellow circles appear. Wait - here's a yellow circle with a green ring in the center! Is this the spot to which I should move it? I don't know - I tried moving my fleet to every circle on the map. Sometime my fleet reappears in a new location, sometimes it doesn't. Why is that? I don't know. Either way the tutorial appears stuck at that point.

Earlier I was stuck at the command to attack with two units. It was only through trial and error that I figured out that the units were out of range and had to be moved up first.

Sorry for the rant, but so far I'm seeing more frustration than fun.

You call it lazy testing I call it lazy gamer. Read the Manual. Back in my day there weren't any tutorials or pretty pictures to rely on to learn the game. You read the manual as you played the game. When you reached a point you didn't know what to do you read the manual. Pretty soon you had the jist of the game down and you could plod away playing pretty easily. The first game is always the learning and testing game anyways. Surely you don't have to be able to win every game you play the first time? I've spent days sometimes learning a new game. So the laziness is in the gamer who doesn't want to read not the programmer.

My comments regarding lazy testing pertained to the mis-spellings and apparent bugs. My comments about the tutorial were another matter. Perhaps you were confused by the fact that they appeared in the same post [;)]

I go back to gaming on the Atari 400, so I don't need a lecture on RTFM. But if you are going to include a tutorial, it shouldn't be half-baked. Most people, myself included, play a tutorial prior to reading the manual to get a general feel for the game. As I pointed out to one of the testers, when your tutorial causes players to quit in frustration, you have a problem.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi tgb,

I agree with you, the tutorial should not be frustrating.

With that said, I think taking a look at the manual and trying one of the scenarios may be the best way forward for you at this point.

Regards,

- Erik

[MajFrankBurns]

so I don't need a lecture on RTFM

I said nothing about RTFM I just said read the manual. [:D] I go back to gaming on a cardboard map so I certainly understand the need to read the manual first. Sometimes I will buy a game an especially if it has a large manual spend the entire first day just reading the manual. You'll be surprised how well you can play the game then when you do play it later that day or next day. It's not like the game is going to get up and run away immediately after you bought it. Slow down live a little you'll be less frustrated if you take things slower in life. You've been eating at fast food joints way too much if you're getting frustrated over a tutorial that doesn't do just like you think it should.[:-]

[tgb]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi tgb,

I agree with you, the tutorial should not be frustrating.

With that said, I think taking a look at the manual and trying one of the scenarios may be the best way forward for you at this point.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik

I intend to do just that. I have a $50 investment to protect [:'(]

[Knavery]

After the release of ToW, I volunteered to be a proofreader for Wastelands due to the number of errors in that game as well. I never received a response. And I did mention I'd do it for free.

[doomtrader]

Hi Knavery,

Your offer was/is indeed generous. Now you remind me about what you have posted.
It looks like the issue has skipped somewhere between other issues. If your offer is still valid I would be more than happy to send you the file.

I'm pretty sure that Somebody has reviewed and corrected ToW for one of the patches (IIRC it was 1.70)

Also all of the 60 thousand words in Storm over the Pacific was reviewed and corrected by English (US) native speakers.

[Knavery]

Hey doomtrader,
I'd be happy help out. I'll PM you my email.

[MajFrankBurns]

No wait I can spel beter than Kavery pik me pik me!!