H3ANW is 2 years old today! (Full Version)

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ruixilyy -> H3ANW is 2 years old today! (6/14/2008 2:24:34 PM)

Just notice that today is the 2nd "birthday" of H3ANW.[sm=happy0029.gif] Two years ago, on June 14, 2006, this terrific game was released to the public. Now this game have four official patches (3.8, 3.9, 3.92, 3.93) and improved pretty a lot since its release. It's also certain that H3ANW will become more and more playable and prefect. [sm=party-smiley-012.gif]



hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/14/2008 9:20:02 PM)

Summary:
After 3.7.0 release: 80 Issues reported
After 3.8.0 Patch: (80 Issues - 34 Fixed + 88 New) = 134 Issues
After 3.9.0 Patch: (134 Issues - 31 fixed + 68 New) = 171 Issues
After 3.9.2 Patch: (171 Issues - 15 fixed + 35 New) = 191 Issues
After 3.9.3 Patch: (191 Issues - 17 fixed + 10 New) = 184 Issues

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1829149



Shemar -> RE: Harpoon (6/16/2008 7:30:53 PM)

Happy birthday to ANW. Thanks for many many hours of entertainment and many more to come.



JRyan -> RE: Harpoon (6/19/2008 3:46:04 PM)

Well since it shows more Issues after release, that would mean that more are playing and such and noticing the bugs so that they can get fixed. I look back to the original windows conversion times and realize just how far we have come. Amazing isn't it? For those of you who remember just how difficult it was to run H2AE under windows and the problems that presented with CTD's all the time. Remember the  "Save your game and save it often"? Well now these types of crashes are not occurring at near the frequency of those days. Now, it getting down to modifying the "guts". We have come far indeed. Thanks to all those that made it possible.

Happy Birthday Harpoon![:D]



hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/22/2008 2:05:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: koelbach

And it is simply not ok to tell the database developers that they should implement a workaround for the bugs (so that unarmed hostile units are treated as hostile) - AGSI has to patch it in the code. We have paid for it !


And most especially when the half-baked abortion that is proposed as a 'work-around solution' doesn't even work. [:@]

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1829838



FreekS -> RE: Harpoon (6/22/2008 4:22:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: koelbach


Addendum:
An explanation for newbies about typical differences between H3 3.6.X and H3 ANW 3.9.X - what are we "old" veterans are talking about:

1. Choose the original scenario "Attack on Kamchatka", Battleset "Global Conflicts 2"

2. Choose the Russian side

3. Make your recce birds (the Foxbats and the Bears) airborne.

4. Search and find the US CVBG.

5. Place your recce birds right on top of the carrier group.

6. Vector your bombers and subs in.

7. Finish the carrier group of with a coordinated missile strike.

8. Congratulations on your victory!


...but this is simply "wrong!"

..reboot...

..and now...play the same scenario under harpoon 3.6.X (if you have it or are lucky to find it a ebay):

0. Few minutes after the scen has started dozens of vampires appear right out from the fog of war - Tomahawks !

1. three of your four bases are hit; half of your aircraft are burning wrecks...

2. You make your remaining recce birds airborne.

3. You find the CVBG - great !

4. Instead of placing your birds over it, vectoring your assets in...your recce birds are blown out of the sky.

5. Your are on the egde of a humiliating defeat.

..and this is how this scenario was meant to work, guys. ..and how your optimism would have been punished in "real life". Yes, that Tomahawk strikes come and they come out of a clear blue sky. And yes, your enemy will not like your recce birds radioing his position to your forces.

Translated into the "weird behaviour discussion", we have found two major issues:

1. While in H3 3.6.X the carrier group on its transit mission fires its Tomahawks at the detected red bases, it does not fire a single one in ANW. That illogical behaviour alone shifts the odds and breaks the scenario.

2. While in H3 3.6.X a hostile unit is a hostile unit, ANW says: "Ok, there is a hostile Foxbat. But great - it only has cameras and no missiles! Thus I´ll not waste a single missile - please come over and take some nice photographs!"



Ralf,

What an excellent description of how a fantastic scen has changed form 3.6 to ANW.

I agree with you that the AI logic to not fire on unarmed Recce units is one of the worst behaviours of ANW. Their suggestion to DB-authors (which I am not) to put phantom weapons on each platform is not thought through or tested - its not even implemented in the ANW DB that comes with the game.

I have numerous similar stories, but another good comparison is trying 'Hemphills Ordeal' in 3.6 and ANW. Herman has rebuilt it for PDB; and while Hemphills Ordeal certainly works in 3.9.3; and is a challenging scen, when at the invitation of Herman I retried it in 3.6.3 I was amazed at the sheer agressiveness of the Russian submarines in 3.6 compared to 3.9.

At the root of that appear to be mainly changed mission behaviours;
- SSKs in 3.9 in any mission never move faster than 'creep'; so little or no chance of an intercept
- Submarines on some missions will not attack unarmed merchant ships (what were subs built for?)
- Submarines on some missions will avade (go to flank speed and change course) torpedoes they fire themselves (not wire-guided)

Also surface vessels under AI control suffer from broken mission behaviour: for example
- Ships on delayed ASuW-missions will not fire on enemy and armed ships unill the delay time expires (I've seen DDs killed by ships aremed only with MGs). In 3.6.x they would fire their missiles and guns.
- Ships on Transit missions will not fire at hostile and armed ground targets (guns protecting a coastline). In 3.6.X they would carry out shore bombardments (probably same cause as the Tomahawks not firing).
And there are numerous other mission behaviour changes I'm investigating.

Like you I love Harpoon, I do continue to develop scenario's (its taking MUCH longer that before becasue of all the extra testing required to spot the new behaviours). ANW has some nice new features such as Multi-player, realistic visual sighting distances and the Earth rotating the right way round, but at great cost especially to established scenario's.

Regards

Freek


1.




hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/22/2008 6:47:53 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: FreekS

At the root of that appear to be mainly changed mission behaviours;

- SSKs in 3.9 in any mission never move faster than 'creep'; so little or no chance of an intercept

- Submarines on some missions will not attack unarmed merchant ships (what were subs built for?)

- Submarines on some missions will avade (go to flank speed and change course) torpedoes they fire themselves (not wire-guided)


Since you are on the subject of about brain-dead submarine behaviours, here's a couple more worthy of consideration:




JRyan -> RE: Harpoon (6/23/2008 7:33:22 PM)

Hmm.

Well I guess I play a bit different than some. That Recon plane would have been wiped out as I would have vectored an intercept manually. When I play I micromanage, which agreed I should not have to, but it is the way I play the game so I don't notice some things others do.

Sure things are not as they should be and I will not argue that. I do however remember the challenges on the windows conversion. It was the most 'friendly' of times for pooners. Now so many are pissed at others that it just saddens me, but so is life. These behaviors are indeed a bit freaky, I have not noticed here lately as I have not played in a couple of months. I will soon be back playing again, bugs and all. I have been busy "moving".

Thing is, the MP is the best part, we can finally match a human, pooner vs pooner.....ah that is progress.

So the code is hosed, how can it be fixed? This game is not supported with Electronic Arts type money. Heck I would like to even know how many copies have sold? It is a specialty market with limited testers and coders.

I go back to HC in 1995, then H2ME, then in 1997 to my surprise I found a copy of H2AE. Yeah I played on a P133 also. It was slooooooooow going. Program my moves in and go to bed type slow. Oh but the crashes, save, play, save, play, restart, save, play... No matter what workarounds it did not work to good with winders. But alas, it was converted and was stable.

I still own my 3.6x, I have the disc and all, and yet I probably will never play it again. I want to see 3.7+ move on to the Next Harpoon. I am not saying it is all roses, but considering the size of the budget and the amount of folks involved, I will tend to fall on the side of "benefit of doubt".

So in closing, Happy Birthday Harpoon, flaws and all.

PS, I also own HCCE and will try out the updates as soon as I can manage.



ruixilyy -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 4:44:49 AM)

It seems that HCE has fewer bugs than H3ANW, and it makes more progress than its former version--HC97, HC2002,etc. What's more important, I think HCE is much friendly to the player--the UI, the classic windows layout (not like H3, H3 is much like a out-of-date dos game). H3 is unquestionably a dos -based game, but by now, the designed had done their best to make it suitable to play in the year 2008...So how can they improve more? Maybe I should buy a second or third copy and introduce it to my classmates? But I am sure that they will soon be flinched by the old fashion interface and ugly color of the game...What a pity! If only H3 were "prettier"!



FransKoenz -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 4:59:07 AM)

Perhaps you should change the interface of Harpoon 3.6 or ANW into the Aegis-screen with NTDS to experience the real digital battle-field on your screen.
I prefere the "Old fashion" DOS interface of H3 when talking about the [in my eyes] ugly Windows interface of HC Classic/HCE. [;)]

But, that's of course my personal view. I like both games, but H3 at most!!!![:D]





hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 5:08:53 AM)

IMO, one of the best ways to 'sell' your classmates on ANW is to have them come and play a multi-player game online. If they enjoy themselves, they will want to get the game. Since you already have a copy of ANW, they can just use your copy for a quick 40 min session.

Lots of old Harpoon players (and new) have had one session and been totally amazed at the challenge, realism, and fun of ANW MP. Some hate it, too. [:)]

At least it will give your friends an honest try at it. What have you got to lose but 40 mins of your time?



FransKoenz -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 5:21:52 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: hermanhum

IMO, one of the best ways to 'sell' your classmates on ANW is to have them come and play a multi-player game online. If they enjoy themselves, they will want to get the game. Since you already have a copy of ANW, they can just use your copy for a quick 40 min session.

Lots of old Harpoon players (and new) have had one session and been totally amazed at the challenge, realism, and fun of ANW MP. Some hate it, too. [:)]

At least it will give your friends an honest try at it. What have you got to lose but 40 mins of your time?




[;)]



FransKoenz -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 5:36:12 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Taitennek


quote:

ORIGINAL: hermanhum

IMO, one of the best ways to 'sell' your classmates on ANW is to have them come and play a multi-player game online. If they enjoy themselves, they will want to get the game. Since you already have a copy of ANW, they can just use your copy for a quick 40 min session.

Lots of old Harpoon players (and new) have had one session and been totally amazed at the challenge, realism, and fun of ANW MP. Some hate it, too. [:)]

At least it will give your friends an honest try at it. What have you got to lose but 40 mins of your time?




[;)]


It seems that Freek and I are the only two persons in NL who play the game.
I once invited some friends to show them the dynamics of H3. They walked away..... H3/HCE is more challenging than "Cartheft"with X-box [boaring game], but people are not patience to "see" the units moving on your screen and the "feeling" that Alamo's have been pointed at your aircraft.

For me, Harpoon is the ultimate simulation of modern [naval] warfare, but the game itself needs a bit more attention. Don't you think?



ruixilyy -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 7:07:06 AM)

Actually I have been experiencing the Aegis display and NTDS since April. And I only made a little adjustment: change the background color to 220 (much like azure, but darker than the default aegis color. IMO this color is much more realistic than the default one). The reason why I  like to use the NTDS display is that in the manual, it says this NTDS display cost millions of $ of those tax-payers.  I am not a US resident (I am a Chinese, live in Shanghai) , and I'm very new to harpoon (I bought h3 in this Feb and HCE in March). But now i like these two game much more than any other games (I like them even more than Commander: Europe at war and War in the Pacific). So I really think this game will be immortal forever.



Shemar -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 4:35:26 PM)

Harpoon is definitely not a game for everyone. It gets pretty involved and there are no attractive graphics so it is difficult to find people who will like it in today's flashy instant gratification world.

I prefer the NTDS icons as they give me a much better understanding of the battlefield and exact unit positioning with their center point dots than the other icons. As far as color schemes go, I prefer the total black background with all geographical information turned off. I can't stand clutter.



FransKoenz -> RE: Harpoon (6/24/2008 4:50:21 PM)

When I play Harpoon 3.6/ANW I always create several screens. When a submarine is involved, I turn on the waterdepth within the preference-screen [F8]. I do not play with NTDS. Years ago I have choose colours for the weather circumstances and never changed them. Background: black with green lines.

Harpoon is......................Harpoon[:D]



FransKoenz -> RE: H3ANW is 2 years old today! (6/24/2008 11:53:43 PM)

That work solution is at home for many years.
H2AE with w98 and pentium II [;)]



hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 12:28:46 AM)

Harpoon 2 Admirals Edition (H2AE) runs just fine under XP with the DOSBox utility.



FransKoenz -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 12:37:52 AM)

But, also on a old fashion W98 environment [;)]
Give me back the old and faith game. ANW in its current shape is only frustrating players
3.6 is not perfect either,but is better.... [:D]



hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 12:44:52 AM)

You would think that AGSI at least paid attention to their own forum.

http://www.computerharpoon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=747&sid=9b2d61bfd6481cc2e97613b20af0d5ad#747



rsharp@advancedgamin -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 12:59:46 AM)

We do pay attention to our forums Herman. Why are you posting this?

Folks, if you are truly so vexed by the game as it is then you have the option of playing the old version. Posting about your dissatisfaction for years on end is a bit odd to say the least.

We will continue to improve this product as we move forward.



ruixilyy -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 6:41:21 AM)

I quite agree with rsharp. It's pointless to continuing complain about H3ANW without offering some useful and substanstial suggestions so as to improve it. If only those "VETERANs" of the game contributed more to help improve this game, instead of being nostalgic to the 1990s! The Harpoon series have no choice but to go forward, not trace back to the last decade and "encourage" newbies to play H2 or even Harpoon 1989 !(I have a copy of "Harpoon - Signature Edition (1989) (Three-Sixty Pacific), H2Admiral Editon, Harpoon3 and H3ANW, but which interested me is only the ANW. ) I don't think with the newest version at hand, I have to play the so-called "better" game with the help of Dosbox3.60 or other utilities. It's ridiculous, for it's the year of 2008, and we do have a new version. The only thing which matters is that the game need more improvement. And the significance of this forum is just to point out the problems and make contribution to fix it and improve it comprehasively.



hermanhum -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 6:44:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ruixilyy

The only thing which matters is that the game need more improvement.


From the mouths of babes (and noobs)...

Good observation. [:)]



rsharp@advancedgamin -> RE: Harpoon (6/25/2008 8:44:16 PM)

Ralf,

I was questioning the rampant negativity that seems to take over this forum too often. Some users seem to believe we exist only to cause them pain yet still hang around to post about it. Surely our public relations has fostered this attitude. I believe we can only turn that around by being straight forward and open.

That said, there is a difference between the negativity that I read everywhere and constructive criticism. Let me state for the record that I believe your concerns with ASW fall on the side of constructive criticism.



kipallen -> RE: Harpoon (6/26/2008 1:06:41 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: koelbach

btw don´t think I´m 60+ years old. [;)


Uh, Ralf, what's wrong with being 60+?



ruixilyy -> RE: Harpoon (6/26/2008 8:27:01 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: koelbach

Hello "ruixilyy" - whoever you are,

I would like to comment on your statement, since it seems to be directed at me.



OMG, Mr. Ralf. I don't have even the little sense to "direct at YOU". (How you draw this inconceivable conclusion??) I have no intention to "attack" anyone. It's you that use such words like "attack". I totally against the opinion that "newbie have no right to say something". Without newbies, the game will at last die; without newbies, your veteran will have no more new point of view from others; without newbies, your scenarios will lose a good many players who are intersted in them.




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