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  • PATCH Information from BHG

    Hi Guys,

    Thanks for all your compliments about the game and your patience with the patching process. The earlier-than-expected release of the game caught us all (both at BHG and MS) a bit by surprise on a couple fronts, but we hope to have things back under control shortly. I just wanted to catch everyone up on where we stand and where we go from here.

    When we sent RON to manufacturing we did so because as far as we knew all major problems had been addressed; so the various issues that have appeared are all things we weren't aware of in spite of a very thorough testing process. We could have all kinds of debate on why this sort of thing can happen, but ultimately the onus is on us to correct the issues as quickly as possible.

    So here is the latest information on various known issues and what (and when) we plan to address them.


    ITEM #1 -> "THE PATCH DOESN'T WORK"

    Here are several reasons that could cause the patch to fail for you:

    (1) You have a foreign version (including a British version). We've discovered as I said above that the manufacturing process introduced some unexpected EXE differences (all versions in theory run the same EXE). We had tested the game and the patcher of course, but had not been able to test them -alongside- a full manufacturing run. Again, our apologies, and we hope to have the problem fixed within the next day or so. Our understanding was that we weren't shipping in Europe until the 23rd, so this particular issue caught us a little by surprise. WE EXPECT TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM CORRECTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO.

    (2) You have "modded" some of the game files (for example rules.xml). If your patch is stopping somewhere OTHER than 37% complete this is to be strongly suspected. The solution is to fully reinstall the game (including recopying files) and then patch. We'll work on something to make the patching process more friendly to modders.

    (3) You have a warez version.

    (4) We haven't identified any definite cases of US versions with differing EXE's, so we suspect most US cases are (2) above. If there ARE instances of this they should also be CORRECTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO when we put up a new copy of the patch that doesn't have issues with this. In the meantime if you know you have a US version and you know you don't have problem 2 or 3, it's possible that a completely clean uninstall and reinstall would overcome this).

    If you HAVE the patch, your version number will be 01.14.05.0902.


    ITEM #2 -> PREVENTING FUTURE PATCHING PROBLEMS

    As soon as issue #1 is squared away, we're going to update our patching system so that we can check out these issue for future patches to avoid further patching problems. This will take a few days.


    ITEM #3 -> PEOPLE WHO CAN'T RUN CONQUER-THE-WORLD

    A few people seem to have a crash involving Conquer the World. Correcting this is one of our highest priority items once the patching system is back under control. We hope for a solution within the next week or two.


    ITEM #4 -> PEOPLE WHO HAVE UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH LAG IN MULTIPLAYER FOR THEIR CONFIGURATIONS

    Also a problem we hope to address within the next week or two. We're working on obtaining a machine that reproduces this problem (we never saw this in the config labs either at MS or BHG so there is probably a rare configuration combination that produces this); we're probably going to pay a generous volunteer to ship us their system that exhibits this problem.


    ITEM #5 -> HOSTING PROBLEMS BEHIND ROUTERS AND NATS

    We are looking into the problem hope to be able to address this on the "in a week or two" list, but I can't say 100% yet because we need to set up some test cases and see to what extent a fix requires changes on the RoN side or the Gamespy side. Thanks to those who've sent in helpful router technical information.


    Those are the known "top priority" items right now. It's possible issues might get added to that list we find one of the "stopping people from using the game" variety and reproduce it. I know a few people have reported problems not listed above, and we're sorting through them to determine if there are some that aren't "don't-have-the-latest-driver" kinds of issues.


    Then, for a patch in a few weeks, we will work on improvements/enhancements/fixes to the Gamespy environment. Some items currently on this list include:
    * Rated games issues
    * Stopping the scrollbars in the chat lobby and player list from "popping back down"
    * Making sure everyone in the room has same patch
    * Further anti-cheat/hack stuff
    * Various other improvements

    There will also be some improvements/additions to the rest of the game either for the in-a-few-weeks patch or afterwards. Among the things on the list--
    * Multiplayer Save/Load
    * Making the game (even) more friendly to "modders"
    * Game Balance patches as needed
    * Additional anti-cheat/hack patching as needed to keep up with the usual "arms race" with hackers.
    * "Quick match" aka "blind" matchmaking


    I'll try to keep everyone posted as I know more. Again, thanks to everyone for your support--they keep on rising!

    Brian

  • #2
    Good to see you here, Brian! Superb work with RoN!
    I've been on these boards for a long time and I still don't know what to think when it comes to you -- FrantzX, December 21, 2001

    "Yin": Your friendly, neighborhood negative cosmic force.

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    • #3
      cool beans Brian

      i get paid tomorrow and i'll definately be picking up the retail version
      Last edited by Inverse Icarus; May 21, 2003, 17:28.
      "I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it. We have to leave this place, I am almost happy here."
      - Ender, from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

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      • #4
        Hello Brian,

        Not addressed as yet is having the retail program hang as soon as it tries to play the intro video. Am I the only one who has experienced this? I posted a full description of the problem and my hardware in the bugs category in this forum on a thread named Black Screen of Death Retail Version. I had been running the demo quite successfully, so having the retail program hang was quite a surprise. I used the toggle in the rise2.ini file to turn off the intro video and now the game comes up and runs just fine, of course without the intro video and maybe without the ingame videos if there are any.

        Other than the intro video hanging my system, no problems with this game other than it keeping me up until 2:00 in the morning last night! Horribly enough, I suspect it will do the same thing tonight as well!

        Congratulations to everyone at BHG. Tour de Force!
        i · b · a = 3 · i · e ^ μ

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        • #5
          *clap* *clap* *clap*

          Comment


          • #6


            Thank you for keeping us updated on these issues, Brian. Oh, and thank you for this damned addictive game... I only managed to play the demo so far (no signs of a retail version around here yet), but I can safely say that this is the first RTS game that didn't bore me after the first minutes...
            I watched you fall. I think I pushed.

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            • #7
              UPDATE ON THE UPDATE (PATCH)

              We've submitted a patch to MS that appears to fix the non-US patching problems. MS is waking folks in Europe so they can get things tested and turned around quickly. It's not so early in East Asia so we'll hopefully have word from there relatively soon. With luck, it'll be up late tonight. If not, baring additional issues, it should certainly be up by around 1pm PST, tomorrow (Thursday). We'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, here are some notes to add to Brian's:

              * If the patch fails, you shouldn't need to uninstall, reinstall, or anything like that. Failure means no changes have been made.

              * For the upcoming patch, any failure should create an error report in your game directory called patch.err. If you've modified a pertinent file, this should explain the problem to you. If you haven't modified any of the patchable files, the error report should help us quickly resolve the issue.

              * For those that patched successfully, we do not believe you need to do anything further. However, it's not an awful idea to uninstall, reinstall, and udpate with the new patch once it's available.

              * About 24 hours after the patch is available from GameSpy, a standalone patch should be available. In the future, the standalone and the auto-update should be released simultaneously. GameSpy Arcade will then be able to update you when appropriate.

              Thanks to all for bearing with us,
              J
              Jason Coleman
              Lead Programmer
              Big Huge Games

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              • #8
                Thanks for the update J

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                • #9
                  Mr.Coleman needs a custom underlined title, he looks too much like a DL at present.
                  If I'm posting here then Counterglow must be down.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    For the BHG guys:

                    In the topic
                    http://ron.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...t&f=1,895,0,10 users drop their issues with RoN. Some of the issues mentioned occur with multiple users, for example the error message: "Unable to Establish Network Connection. make sure you are connected to internet and try again.".
                    Beep...beep...beep.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
                      Mr.Coleman needs a custom underlined title, he looks too much like a DL at present.
                      Yep. I almost started a DL dance...
                      I watched you fall. I think I pushed.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        PATCH UPDATE

                        Unfortunately, there was a snag with one of the languages. The current patch is still in the middle of testing. More to follow.

                        J
                        Jason Coleman
                        Lead Programmer
                        Big Huge Games

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                        • #13
                          hey jason, great to see you here!
                          Co-Founder, Apolyton Civilization Site
                          Co-Owner/Webmaster, Top40-Charts.com | CTO, Apogee Information Systems
                          giannopoulos.info: my non-mobile non-photo news & articles blog

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                          • #14
                            I have downloaded the patch sucessfully and it installed, but i still have the problem with conquer the world. When i try to attack a country it loads half way and then crashes with the runtime error. Everything else works, is this going to be fixed, and how do i know if i have a US version or not???

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Eggfu
                              I have downloaded the patch sucessfully and it installed, but i still have the problem with conquer the world. When i try to attack a country it loads half way and then crashes with the runtime error. Everything else works, is this going to be fixed, and how do i know if i have a US version or not???
                              This seems to be a very common bug, one that must be fixed soon. I have the same runtime error and I am almost certain it happens as the "Game Build" phase ends.

                              I bought RON for CTW, I wanted to conquer the world with every civ.
                              "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."--Victor Hugo

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