PTW 1.04f Bug & Crash Reports

[Dominae]

isak, I think we're in complete agreement here. The difference between us is that my MP doesn't work and yours does. So I'm the one that is supposed to get angry. And I do.


Dominae

[notyoueither]

Dominae, have you found a couple of people with very low ping times and tried with them?

[Chuckles]

Are any of you guys having firewall programs using ZoneAlarm? I have that but I haven't tried MP yet.

[Mellian]

I was surprise to see PtW at the compucentre few days ahead then what i expected, and if i had money, i would of bought it right there and then, lol ...yet, for some reason, it is like 50 dollars canadian (tax included) when i expect like 30... sudden price change? bit to expensive for an add-on that doesn't work on all computers and not working properlly. i thought there was a beta test with this game?

anyway, not going to buy it until Firaxis smarts up for once and make the game playable in one patch.

one far fetch theory is that the people making the many copies of the game didn't get the newest version it as happened before....

-Mellian

[Dominae]

nye, I don't think I've tried to host or join a game when everyone involved was less than 100 ping. If that's the solution, I'll gladly wait for such people to show up, but I have a bad feeling it's not the answer to all my problems. I know some of you have had successes with MP games over the internet, and I'd really like to know your secret, because I've tried everything I know how to try (honestly).


Dominae

[notyoueither]

Dominae, I found someone in the same city as me. It was very smooth. Others further away can be good too, it is hit and miss. More miss apparently. Unfortunate.

We really need some matching services to help us find good candidates for good games.

Mark?

[Zamphyr]

4. In my experience, if the host leaves a game, a crash usually occurs for the other players, although I have heard otherwise.

It is my understanding(and experience) that if the host leaves the game, hosting duties pass to Player2. Your Player2 being unable to host may be the cause of the crashes.

Hope you get a good MP game going soon

[isak]

Originally posted by Dominae
isak, I think we're in complete agreement here. The difference between us is that my MP doesn't work and yours does. So I'm the one that is supposed to get angry. And I do.

No, you're the one that's supposed to get smart

If PtW MP works for some people, but never for you, something on your end is causing the problem - end of story!

It may be something that can be fixed, and if you want us to help you find out how, start going through your system, changing stuff around, reinstalling stuff, disabling stuff - and post descriptions of the bugs, crashes, errors whatever occur as a result...

If you don't want it fixed - well, rant on dude

[Dominae]

First, thank you all for being so supportive and hoping my MP gets to work; I hope it does too (eventually)!

My points are these:

1. Getting MP to work is a chore, and when it does finally work I've got bad lag issues.

2. I don't think I should have to shop around for opponents; everyone in North America (at least) should be able to play MP with minimal lag, since it's possible in so many other games.

3. An intermediate to advanced knowledge of computers should not be a requirement for any piece of gaming software to be worth the buy. I almost have a degree in Computer Science myself, so I know what I'm doing when I "tweak", but too much tweaking just to have fun just isn't fun.


As I hope you can see, this is far from a rant, but a clam noting of facts, facts which makes my MP experience suck. Something needs to be done, and I don't think it's my responsibility to do it (or at least all of it).


Dominae

[Edgar Newt]

Stuck in "pick a civ" screen

I am no longer crashing, but get stuck in the "pick a civ" screen. Last night I couldn't join a game during over two hours of trying despite (a) downloading the patch, (b) disabling my firewall, (c) being well above the system requirements, and (d) a lot of praying and cursing.

Everybody I tried with -- even on 2 person games -- was under 200 in ping. Got stuck in the "pick a civ" screen if I was lucky. Sometimes just got kicked back the PTW main menu (the one with start, quick start, load, preferences, etc.).

What is the problem here?

I'd appreciate ANY response from Firaxis that at least acknowledges that they understand there is a problem that needs to be rectified. My family has orders for four copies of PTW. I've had to call my brothers to tell them to cancel their orders until this is resolved.

Sad. Very sad.

Firaxis, YOU STRUGGLE!

[Dominae]

Some may be interested to know that I've finally played my first successful MP game. Thanks to MightyQuinn for the game and the patience to get it started. It was fun.

What still isn't fun is the time I had to spend just to get 1 game going. If Firaxis can resolve that, we got a hit here.


Dominae

[isak]

Congratulations?

@Dominae

Glad you're now an initiate

So maybe we could get some info on what you did to make it work?

@Edgar Newt

Try disabling your antivirus and any other internet-active program.
Also, how did you get from crashing to 'just' getting stuck in the Pick A civ screen - did you change any settings, reinstall or something?

[Edgar Newt]

isak: I disabled my firewall. After that, it just alternated between kicking me to the start screen and limbo in the "pick civ" screen.

I am not positive that turning of the firewall made any difference as I tried it later with the firewall on, and I didn't crash, but was left in limbo.

[Jerk]

I have yet to get past TURN 3 when I do manage to successfully start a game. Here are a list of my problems:
1) Game freezes when selecting some drop down options in the game setup screen.
2) Random game crashes when just idling during the first screen when people join my game or I join theirs.
3) After 2 turns I get a window that says the game has become desynched and that I need to restart (This happens when I hosted and when my friend hosted
4) During a LAN game my roomate and I got to about turn 3 when my game froze after recieving a tech from a goodie hut.

I have:
PIII 500
192 megs of ram
Windows 98 SE (With all critical updates done)
DirectX 8.1
GeForce 3 Ti200 (Updated to latest drivers)
Soundblaster Live Value (Updated to latest drivers)
Logitech USB mouseman (Updated to latest drivers)
All programs were disabled. I was running only Civ3PTW.
I access the internet via a network card that is hooked into a switch that has the cable modem hooked into the uplink port. I have my own IP (no firewall, no router, no ICS)
The friend I played on the internet was only 2 hops away. He lives about 5 blocks away from me and uses the same isp as I do (RoadRunner) and we were getting under 50 for a ping time.
I use no download accelerator program or anything like that.
We tried playing Simultanious Moves and Turn Based with the same results.

[Wise Ass]

My new Best Friend: