Stop B****ing about PTW

[Strakorfsky]

waseass....

please, what is the "jewel case" issue?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Strakorfsky
waseass....

please, what is the "jewel case" issue?

PTW apparently only comes in a paper sleeve, instead of a jewel case.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=66135

ACK!

[Strakorfsky]

tuberski...

lol...

whata riot, what difference does it make, practicality, cheaper.


just make your own sotrage case

[Strakorfsky]

uberkrux got banned for insulting people on firaxis

what a flamer, he really deserved it

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Strakorfsky
tuberski...

lol...

whata riot, what difference does it make, practicality, cheaper.


just make your own sotrage case

I'd be happy if ALL my cases were the paper ones.

ACK!

[werdhertz]

Ok... It seems the peopel that worked on this beta testing or whatever, are ready to stick up for it, say it works, etc. So let me ask you all a few questions, i hope youre willing to answer, since i payed MY money, for YOURE product.

My system.

2.5ghz P4
512DDR
GeForce 4 Ti4200
Soundblaster mp3+
Windows XP

All latest vid card drivers, soundcard drivers, and windows critical updates

1)Since i have installed the game this morning i have gotten 8 fatal errors. EIGHT. I have not encountered this many ever before in a single game, let alone in less than a day. These have all been either a)trying to join a game b)trying to click multiplayer on the main menu c)trying to quit a multiplayer game after joining (prior to him launching).

2)my game has frozen a total of 10 (TEN!!!) times after my install this morning. These have all been usually when the game launches, it drops to the main menu to load, than just freezes. I have waited upwards of 7 minutes (used my clock tom actually time) and had to ctrl+alt+del to escape the prog.

3)The lag is incredibly inmcredibly bad. Now, i wouldnt mind a little lag, as i am on a 56k modem connection. Some lag is nothing to me, that is why i tryed mostly 1 vs 1 player games. they all lagged so bad it took voer a second for a command to get through. This is with BOTH of our pings in the low 200s.... I am able to play Rainbow Six, as well as counterstrike, as well as half life multiplayer easily, with upwards of 5+ players, with very little lag... I tryed every single game mode (si moves, turnless, turn-based) none improved upon the other.


The crashing bugs were all at random times (although spawning from the same things, such as clickign to joina game, etc)

How is it POSSIBLE for you not to notice this? I would not really be so angered if it was only my machine, and a few others. but you CANNOT be messing all these threads and the people in the game lobby. IT WILL NOT WORK. some people might have old machines, whatever, but us with new machines, patched versions (i have patch 1.04f), STILL cannot get it to work.

Please, this is not a thread to 'flame' Firaxis. So Strakorfsky, please dont even comment on this because you seem to be a rageing fanboy, no offense. I am posting this as a consumer, using my money, that i worked for, to buy an item, that has on the very front of the box "Multiplayer" Right under the title. Am i lead to believe that i should "give them a break", because they got PBEM and LAN to work?

I am not trying to insult you, or anyone else, but please, give me an answer. If you think this is rough, wait until you see reviews come in. Will this be patched shortly? If not, should i return my game and purchase something else that works as it says on the box?

EDITED: To add that i have NO programs running in the background, as i ctrl+alt+del them beforehand, and also have startup cop to disable them at startup.

[Obese Monkfish]

I agree. This is an industry. This is SUPPOSED to be a multiplayer game. I have a very, very hard time believing that Civ 3 is laggy out of necessity, when such games like AoK, all the Quakes, UT, etc, ANY number of other multi games that have to be far more realtime, are so smooth!

This is ridiculous. I am very, very pissed.

[Hurin]

it doesnt work on MP smart one, not like the game crashes on single game or on lan. gosh, you must be one of those " know it alls"who think they are somehow smarter then everyone.

Do I think I'm smarter than *everyone*? No. . . some, yes. What this has to do with the issue? nothing.

So, you're saying it's totally fine to release a *primarily* Multiplayer expansion pack as long as the added civs work in single player. Oh, and lest we forget. . . radar towers!

Buddy, if the MP doesn't work, it's broken. You can dress it up and spin it as much as you want. But there's no way of getting around it.

NOT THE GAME, BUT THE MULTIPLAYER NETWORK. sheesh, the multpilayer network isn't even runned by firaxis, b**** to gamespy, they are currently directing games on it.

Okay, two reasons this doesn't cut it.

#1. I play plenty of other games on Gamespy. They work and aren't lagged. Gamespy is primarily a *matchmaking* network. They don't actually transfer the data between the clients once the game gets going. I hope and pray that Civ3 is the same way, if it isn't, that brings us to #2

#2. If, for some un-fathomable reason, Gamespy transfers all game data through its servers, that was an incredibly assinine decision for Firaxis to make! That is an *inherently* crappy way of getting each client's data to the host.

However, I seriously doubt that's the case. . . if it is, God help us because no amount of netcode optimization is going to help. But, I just can't believe Firaxis would code the game that way.

and as for your "bearing the problems", you don't seem to take in account th massive complexities of playing a high-end game like ptw on the internet, its not like war III and the diablo games, there are so many avriables that must be calculated that it will take long for it to work out.

LOL. I made this same argument in OSI's defense quite a lot. The only difference: Back then it was warranted. Exactly how is Civ3 more complex than. . . oh, let's say. . . age of empires?!?

This is a essentially still a turned based game. This engine has to keep track of a *lot* less than most RTS games and FPS games and has a lot more "time" to do so. Think about it: In PTW, units are single icons that are moved on a grid. Granted, units have values, and such. . . and cities do as well. But those values shouldn't take up much data. When a player changes something in PTW, he's moving a unit on a grid, one square at a time. When he changes city production, he's essentially changing a numeric value that then needs to be set to the server. Etc. That's not terribly tough!

Now, in contrast, you've got Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. Where you've got rapidly moving units doing combat in real time. . . pathfinding. . . healing. . . and their commands are constantly being changed on-the-fly by each player. Meanwhile you've got other units gathering resources and the map is constantly being manipulated by up to eight players.

Are you seriously making the argument that Civ3 is a state-of-the-art and is more complex (and therefore more difficult to make multiplayer) than FPS and RTS games? That's just plain nonsense.

Would it be easy? No, I wouldn't say so. . . and no program will ever be bug-free. But is that an excuse for releasing software in this state?

Basically, you can sum up your argument thusly:

"But, making multiplayer games is hard!"

Yeah, it is. . . but it is done all the time, and done well, with more complex systems and under more difficult conditions.

All that being said. I finally did get a successful game going. My brother and I both had to use the in-game browser because the transition between the Gamespy client and PTW itself was causing my brother's computer to crash and was making it so others couldn't connect to my server once I launched. So, there's a problem with Gamespy's implementation of PTW. But, then you get a whole mess of other problems. My brother and I had to try launching about twenty times before we could find a third person who didn't crash us (due to whatever problems that 3rd person might have been having). Of course, each time we failed to launch, it would crash everyone's system, and we had to end task. Part of the problem with getting a game started seems to be that one person's problem appears to cause a really bad day for everyone trying to join the game. Not to mention the fact that you can't kick anyone in the intitial launch screen. Well, you could, if Gamespy worked with it as it is suppposed to. But, again, that's hard.

When it finally did work, I can't really say the experience was satisfying. We had 3 players, Tiny map, turnless. It was a lag-fest.

But apparently, I should be happy with what I got, because making these games is hard

Seriously though, this is enlightening. I used to stick up for gaming companies just like you are right now. I probably will again, when it's warranted. But now I know what I sound like.

You actually sound like a guy who's saying: "I'm not even that excited about multiplayer. I will just play against the AI. Single player is fine with me! So stop complaining!"

I remember how much fun CivNet was. . . single player isn't what we all want to play and we have every right to be disappointed and frustrated with how poorly the *core* of this expansion pack has been implemented. If it's not important to you, fine. . . but again, we have every right to post the problems we have been having, and our disappointment with Firaxis for releasing something that really appears to be in very shoddy shape. Again, if you don't wanna hear, you don't have to read. And, if you really wanna stick up for Firaxis, why don't you wait until you have at least *seen* the game (especially its shoddy in-game browser) before you comment further.

Best Regards,

H

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Obese Monkfish
I agree. This is an industry. This is SUPPOSED to be a multiplayer game. I have a very, very hard time believing that Civ 3 is laggy out of necessity, when such games like AoK, all the Quakes, UT, etc, ANY number of other multi games that have to be far more realtime, are so smooth!

This is ridiculous. I am very, very pissed.

Amen. I don't think I can add anything do this perfect post. I don't care if it works for some people (or most playtesters), it should at least work for most people, regardless of system specs (or whatever other variable you care to hide behind).


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I guess we now know why MP did not get included in original release.

[notyoueither]

werdhertz,

1. I do not get that many crashes. I get very few actually.

2. 'Freezing' for 7 minutes is unusual. I had it go for 10 once while going to the MP set up screen with 7 players spread over the Americas and Europe. It worked in the end.

3. 56K modem? Sorry. I know a fellow who gave up. He could get in, but the games were... bad. I really hope they brush up the net code so that this is not the case anymore.

I am sorry you are not having any joy. I truely am. However, I can say that all of the testers (save 1 or 2) were able to get going. None of us reported 10 crashes per day with any recent version that I know of.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
NYE:

The first time I loaded up MP, it worked. Am I just lucky? I disabled firewall and norton. Found one person, and went to work.

didn't seem very complicated to me.

I'm not the worlds greatest expert on networking, but am I the only person who is sitting here thinking you must be absolutely insane to disable the only devices protecting you from internet invasion before going online to play a game over the internet?!!? I thought the whole point of firewalls is to allow you to open specific channels but deny all the rest. Similarly if we expect software to work with all common graphics cards and sound cards we should expect them to work with common antivirus packages if they have an online element. All business software packages manage to do it successfully. Online games like PtW should be held to the same standard.

[Athitis]

I have read so many posts complaining about PTW, they make me think PTW is a mistake! Come on, soon I will have to decide whether to buy it or not.......You guys suggest I don't? I do not believe it's unplayable!
Some have no problems at all, others regret spending their money on it.

Do u use the recent patch for PTW, 1.04?

I am confused........

[Wise Ass]

Originally posted by Athitis
I have read so many posts complaining about PTW, they make me think PTW is a mistake! Come on, soon I will have to decide whether to buy it or not.......You guys suggest I don't? I do not believe it's unplayable!
Some have no problems at all, others regret spending their money on it.

Do u use the recent patch for PTW, 1.04?

I am confused........

Here I would keep an eye on that thread for what will hopfully be the more non-biased accounts of PTW games. It is hard to say what you should or shouldn't do but the game is admitedly hard to get going. If you know how to get the perfect set-up odds are you will only play 1 out of 5 tries and only 1/4 of those will be lagless. But As I have said many times before, Firaxis is not going to let the game remain in the state it is.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Grumbold


I'm not the worlds greatest expert on networking, but am I the only person who is sitting here thinking you must be absolutely insane to disable the only devices protecting you from internet invasion before going online to play a game over the internet?!!? I thought the whole point of firewalls is to allow you to open specific channels but deny all the rest. Similarly if we expect software to work with all common graphics cards and sound cards we should expect them to work with common antivirus packages if they have an online element. All business software packages manage to do it successfully. Online games like PtW should be held to the same standard.

paranoia strikes deep in the heartland.


This isn't the first game that i've disabled the firewall for.

I'm willing to risk the consequences (which are exaggerated, IMHO), i put it back up after playing. Of course, i'm fairly naive