final patch for MCLV"S (Full Version)

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chillydigits63 -> final patch for MCLV"S (9/30/2002 8:59:21 PM)

I am sure I will hear a lot of people saying how Matrix supports their games better then the other gaming companies..However I have paid my money for the 3 mega campaigns so I feel like I am entitled to complain about how long the last patch for lost victories is taking and how vague the answers seem to be getting since the patch waiting started in early july.. It seems that Matrix is busy working on new better games and doesn't have time to finish up loose ends on one they started, which makes me hesitant to buy any of these new games since they will the old games by the time they need patched and matrix will have moved on forgetting about the unfinished business, please put the mega campaign series to rest with the final patch



rich12545 -> (10/1/2002 3:56:49 AM)

I agree. I've also bought all three megas. I've been asking about the LV patch for months and the last word is "when it's ready." Very vague and I get unhappier with each week that goes by.



Sgt Popov -> (10/1/2002 10:12:21 PM)

I would LOVE to see a final patch for LV. I quit playing it altogether, because of its many problems (crashing, etc.)
I sent Matrix an e-mail with all the problems I was having ages ago, and NEVER got any sort of a response (other than GMEN fan helping on the forums). The LV was released unplayable! I was not happy with that at all. The patches already released fixed some, but not all the bugs, but it is STILL unplayable. Any game you have to quit (to auto-save, the ONLY way to save :( ) 9-10 times per battle, so that when/if it crashes, you dont have to replay the battle for the 100th time, is not playable to me. If I didnt appreciate the SPWaW game itself, and what Matrix did for it, I would have sent the CD back, and asked for a refund. What really sux is that the mega-campaign is such a cool thing, but I cant play it! I must say I have not been impressed with Matrix in a while, and VERY dissapointed by their lack of response.



Supervisor -> (10/2/2002 6:33:58 AM)

I've been out of the loop for a while on it. I have put forth the question again, I feel I'm not going to like the answer I receive and give you all. I am sorry, but please don't give up on SPWAW, Matrix or it's furture games, they're are many other games no matter how many times you patch it are bad. Matrix is learning from it's mistake in the hopes to not repeat. Thanks for the support.



rich12545 -> (10/2/2002 8:42:30 AM)

Thank you for writing but that's not an answer. Whoever the developer of LV was, I think maybe Brent Richards, he should have had the final patch out long before now. Not to do so is really inexcusable. IMO, it sets a precedent for Matrix service.

This isn't SPWAW. We're not talking about a free game. This is something we all paid money for and it should be made right.



chillydigits63 -> (10/2/2002 6:46:12 PM)

GMENFAN...I appreciate your response and honesty, However your comment about some games being bad and not being repairable by patch makes me upset...Are you saying that David Heath and Matrix knew MCLV"S was messed up and still released it and continued to sell it a flawed product claiming dissappointing sales until it sold out? also your suggestion that Matrix is learning from their mistakes ... Well I doubt that I can afford to spend much more money to survive their learning curve. I mean Fortress Europe untested unworking...and now your saying prettyy much the same about MCLV"S? All the while matrix is supposed to be a small company caring about their customers and fellow gamers? Kinda sounds like K-Mart... sell them anything and complain they aren't buying enough...and when they(the customer) complain about problems or patches just brag about how it will all be forgotten after they(the customer) spends 50 dollars plus on combat leader...



Jim1954 -> (10/2/2002 7:39:12 PM)

C'mon people give the guys at Matrix a little bit of a break. Do you not use Microsoft products because they have difficulty getting it all right the 1st time? I think they have a little bit more resources than Matrix does and they still have problems. Do you not buy automobiles because they get recalled? What about beef? Better not eat a hamburger, might get mad cow or better not shoot a deer, might have wasting disease.

Life is not perfect people, and to expect that what you get from it is not supposed to have problems or occasional glitches is not realistic.

IMHO anyway.



Voriax -> (10/2/2002 8:26:43 PM)

One problem in making patches is that the coder(s) must be able to duplicate the bug/crash in their machines.

For example, in my LV campaign (40+ battles so far) I've encountered two minor bugs. One is related to audio, many times I do not hear the music clip or news broadcast related to the current mission description. Sometimes when I switch between orders and selection screen it suddendly starts to play.
Second bug appeared about 10 battles ago when one of my StuG's lost all its kills. However exp and morale levels stayed as they were.
I've never experienced a crash in LV and I can't remember when SPWaW crashed last time...I think it was back when fast arty sounds caused troubles...I think it was version 3.x then :)

So, many of the probles are caused by the hardware combination, or different windows versions or different driver sets...in tech support forum there are many posts where people tell that SPWaW does not start...now where is the error in such case? I dunno.

So...most people are happy with the game, then there are few that have an unplayable pile of bugs in their hands, right? I assume you have updated your system's drivers and did a fresh SPWaW install from the CD and then added patches? If you have and nothing works, then I hope you'll get your patch.

While waiting for the patch you might try sacrificing few old wargames or toy soldiers and hope it helps. ;)


Voriax



rbrunsman -> (10/2/2002 10:41:03 PM)

Thanks for your explaination Voriax. I was wondering what the issue was that is being complained about here. Brent told me I'm about half way through MCLV and other than a few random crashes and the missing radio broadcasts, I haven't noticed anything that would make me consider the game "unplayable."

I think you are right that it is just a combination of the old Steel Panthers code not mixing with some people's hardware configuration. Unfortunate for the person troubled with it, but not really something that can be fixed. A refund seems to be in order for those people or they can sell their copy here on the Forum. There are many people that want to buy the MCs.



rich12545 -> (10/3/2002 1:56:20 AM)

My complaint isn't with hardware/software incompatibility. My complaint is that a final patch was promised months ago and we still don't have any idea if or when it will be completed. And there's been no input from the developer on this whatsoever.



rbrunsman -> (10/3/2002 3:07:01 AM)

That sort of annoys me too, but I haven't run across anything that makes me stop in my progression through the game. I'm almost half way through, so is there a point that I will reach where I won't be able to go any further? I thought there were a few guys here who have already completed MCLV.



rich12545 -> (10/3/2002 3:24:02 AM)

You know what, I don't really know. I typically don't play campaigns but maybe someday I will. I bought the megas as my way of paying for SPWAW and to support the effort Matrix put into this. I don't really know what is needed in a final patch but I'd like to have it for whenever I get around to playing LV. If there aren't any bugs to correct, then the developer should come to this forum and say so and that there won't be a patch. But they keep saying there will be and they're working on it. Fine, then finish the **** thing and put it out. It's been months. And I don't think we're asking too much to have LV completed.



ivantheterrible -> (10/3/2002 3:52:59 AM)

Hello friends. I too have purchased all 3 MCs and so far have completed one, the MCLV. From what I heard a while back, the final patch is only gonna contain some missing end-of-battle-wrapup text files (for the Don battles, for example) and maybe a couple of scenario rebalancing, nothing major. I don't believe it'll contain coding fix for the system crashes, etc. Therefore, I don't think anyone should hold their breath for it, although I could be wrong :) .

Regarding the crashes or other unplayable problems for some users, it seems to really depend on one's hardware and OS environment and some element of luck. I'm fortunate enough to not have experienced frequent crashes though there were a few battles I did end up replaying due to it and that's quite annoying. The only thing I can say is, if you really want to play the MC you'll probably have to work with what you already have, instead of waiting for that magical final patch. Things such as uninstalling all SPWAW stuff and reinstalling the MCs and patches from scratch, or installing it on a different (hopefully better) machine if you have one, etc. I know doing these repeatedly can be very frustration as I've had my own share of computer problems with different software, but that's life I guess.

Anyway, good luck with the game and have fun :)



Sgt Popov -> (10/3/2002 5:59:07 AM)

Ok, my saga is as such.
I have played the SP series since it first came out (SP1).
When I found out that Matrix was making a windows based, updated version of SP, and in the WWII era, I was excited, to say the least. I followed the progress, and was one of the first to download, and play, join forum, etc. I have played SPWaW in all its versions for thousands of hours. I have turned many of my gaming buddies and troops in Camp Doha, Kuwait onto SPWaW.
In other words, I consider myself to be a die-hard SPWaW fan.
I purchased LV, to give the Megacampaigns a try before I bought them all.
When I first played the game, I really couldnt. It crashed repeatedly, recycled maps in an endless loop, was buggier than Starship Troopers, and to me an Alpha level product. I do, and have done beta testing for many Military games, I am familiar with the usual way of software development. After a couple of more patches, the game started doing better (less buggy) but still crashed to desktop, and looping maps. In all seriousness, I have played the first 7-10 battles in the MC probably 50-60 times each :mad:
The game (ONLY LV, NOT SPWaW) still crashes and loops.
To try to rectify the problem, I have done the following:(all of these many, many times)
* Uninstall SPWaW, and then do a fresh install.
* Delete the **** .prf file (countless times)
* Uninstall again, and go into the registry, clean it out 100%of all references to Matrix/SPWaW
* Update every driver on my pc
* try a different sound card
* Try a different video card
* Reformat my hard drive, and install SpWaWLV as my only program
* Cuss a blue streak
* Bang my head against the monitor, until I feel I have been hit by a Nebelwerfer
* I swore I would never play LV again
However, the concept of the MC, and many different neat things about the game (plus a determination to complete the **** thing) makes me wanna try once more.:eek:
I know this exact problem has occured on other people as well, and from what I have been able to determine, it is mostly prevalent in XP operationg systems. My pc stats:
Sony Vaio
P4, 1.8 ghz processor, 433 FSB
80 gig hard drive
Nvidia GeForce 4 mx420 video card
Turtle Beach sound card
XP Home, 512k Ram



Supervisor -> (10/3/2002 7:11:43 AM)

chillydigits63: No I'm not saying that they released a known flawed product, during the creation of LV, the game engine and OOB's changed 3 times which makes it very difficult to forecast all problems not seen by the creators. LV was created with known good data from ver 6.1 so every time things changed designers had to try and accomidate changes to even make it playable. Things keep changing for the better in the game engine department so fast it made impossible to test every possible outcome within LV.



rich12545 -> (10/3/2002 9:27:16 AM)

You keep coming up with all these different excuses. We have had a final 7.1 for some time now. The final LV patch should be out by this time. I'm getting a new computer in a few weeks that will include XP. When I play LV and if it crashes I will be mightily pissed.



Alexandra -> (10/3/2002 5:50:43 PM)

Rich,

What you may not know is that the majority of work on all 3 Megas, was done by volunteers from the Sp: WaW community, under the direction of Bill Wilder for MCNA and MCWT and Brent Richards for LV.

Bill and Brent both put in literally hundreds of unpaid hours to get the products created, tested, and in working order, with many many more for the addition of documents, etc.

Knowing how much time I put in as a tester, I can't even begin to imagine how much they put in.

Brent's team has dedicated a lot more time to the patching of LV.

I'd bet that the reason for the delay probably has to do with IRL issues of some sort for Brent, and if I recall right, Mosh, who I think was heavily involved with the patches, as well.

That's why Matrix can't give you a more direct answer. They don't know, or so I'd guess, as the work's not being done in house. In fact, if you look at most of the press releases for the other games in the pipeline, and the ones released, it seems to me that Matrix is more a Distribution House than a Production one.

Stay patient, cause, even with it's remaining few probs, LVs not as broken, as, say CivIII!!! Also, if you're having CTD probs, it may not be being caused by LV. Often those are caused by other things, as other people have noted in various threads, and are ascribed to whatever Application/Program a user is using at the time of the crash.

Alex



rich12545 -> (10/3/2002 9:32:27 PM)

Thank you for writing.

I guess the thing I'm most interested in is information. If Brent Richards is doing the patch in his spare time and it will be another few months, I don't think it's asking too much for him to come on this forum periodically and let everybody know how it's coming. When there are no updates it looks like nobody knows anything and nobody cares.



Sgt Popov -> (10/4/2002 5:36:43 AM)

My pc NEVER crashes! It is as stable as lead shoes:rolleyes:
It only screws up when I am playing LV. GMEN fan I understand your position, but at the same time, I feel it would ONLY be appropriate for Matrix games to contact me. A reply from whomever I paid money to for a product should at least respond, I dont care if the only time they work on the product is whenever they take a dump and bring a laptop, the excuses are honestly irrelevant to the basic problem: I paid somebody $ for something, that something dosen't work, and they will not respond, despite the fact I sent an e-mail almost a year ago to Matrix, and have NEVER gotten any form or type of a response from them. To me, a concerned customer service oriented company may even have seen my numerousand frustruated posts on the forum. and contacted me, or at the very least post a reply. I guess that is what bothers me most.:eek:



Grenadier -> Your concerns about Lost Victories (10/4/2002 11:37:14 PM)

Hello all
First of all I want to thank each and every one of you who have purchased lost Victories, Watchtower and Desert Fox. Your support has helped tremendously in keeping Matrix a viable entitty so the company can focus on the future of wargaming.

The issues of crashing addressed here appears to affect only a very small number of the nearly 2,000 purchasers of Lost Victories and I am not qualified to answer the questions on these issues. All I can say is that it does not have to do witrh anything in Lost Victories itself. The only possible exception is that because Lost Victories is so large, it may have outstretched the ability of some systems to coordinate memory issues. many people have resolved this type of crash by saving each battle and closing down and restarting SPWaW to clear the memory. I personally have nort experienced any crashes of Lost Victorries except when I played out 15-20 battles at a time using the quickplay test scenarios for checking documents, etc. The campaign scoring is an issue that affects all of the mega campaigns.

Ivan the Terrible is correct in his description of the final patch for Lost Victories. Several of the results files were accidently omitted and then deleted once the project was completed. AS the author of many of these has been unresponsive for some time I have been left with the task of redoing them. These results files DO NOT affect gameplay. They are for the storyline. The storyline also was suffering form a problem many have pointed out, that the characters at the point of the end battles no longer matched the characters in the core force due to losses, etc.

There are several battles in the Crimea that I was not pleased with the outcomes of and the scenarios were changed similarly to the way the opening battles were changed. Both Marauder, Mosh and I were doing these but Mosh has disappearred for some time and it now s apparent that Bryan and I will have to copmplete the changes he was doing. I was allso adding a few final documents such as a complete list of sources for the historical part of LV and a complete list of the scenarios and their authors andf d testers to complete the credits.

None of these issues affect gameplay. The campaign plays through to the end and all of the battle descriptions, sound files, photos and documents appear as programmed to do. Only the last few battles at the Donetz River and the Crimea are missing result texts.

I have been distrated the last few months by personal issues(my mother having a stroke, my son starting high school, my company sales being off by 60%) to spend as much time on this final patch as I should have and I apologize for this It is difficult to justify to my wife why I need to work on this with so many other pressing issues.

In all honesty I feel my team reacted very quickly to address the major issues that came up with the first release of Lost Victories and we isseued 2 patches in quick sucession as well as a complete redoing of the sound files. This is evidenced by the almost compleyte absecnce of mail or posts about unplayable battles and loops and the infamous T-26/ T-34 problems caused by incompatible OOB's. The final patch which will be completed in the next 2 months, will finish the result texts and revise the Crimea battles around the Isthmus and Ft Stalin and unless something else shows up unexpectedly, this will complete LV.

Again, I thank you for your patience and understanding and for supporting Matrix Games.



rich12545 -> (10/5/2002 2:45:59 AM)

Brent, thank you very much for posting this information. I hope things turn around and all goes well for you in the future.



Supervisor -> (10/5/2002 8:07:19 AM)

Good luck in turning things around Brent I wish you and your family all the best. Thank you for the update, I thought for sure the final patch was going to be a dead issue and couldn't bear to break the news to those patiently waiting gamers.



rbrunsman -> (10/8/2002 1:32:51 AM)

Brent, I thank you for all your work. Next to SPWAW (a free game), MCLV has given me more hours of enjoyment per $ spent than any other computer game I've purchased. I think CivII is a distant second.

Thanks again. We all appreciate your dedication. (And this from someone who suffers random crashes.:mad: )



AbsntMndedProf -> (10/15/2002 11:59:38 PM)

Brent, I hope that things turn around for you soon. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your's!

IMHO, Matrix is to PC wargames what Avalon Hill used to be for strategy board games. :D

Eric Maietta



ndkid -> Update? (4/3/2003 5:30:05 AM)

So, I haven't seen any sort of official information on the final LV patch since October. Then, Grenadier said 2 months. We're about 3 months beyond that... is there any new information? Has any other quasi-solid date for finishing the patch been done? Or is LV 1.3 really dead this time?
Or did I just not see official information? In that case, can someone point me in the right direction?



Sgt Popov -> What DID happen to da patch? (4/3/2003 8:53:23 AM)

Ok , have finally been able to get the game to work without crashing. I would still like to hear whatever happened to the supposed last patch that has never been released. Matrix guys, is there going to be another patch???:confused: I am really enjoying the MC-LV now that it dosent crash repeatdly!:cool:



Grenadier -> (4/3/2003 11:28:22 PM)

I appreciate your interest in what is being called "The final patch", but I have to correct any implication that Lost Victories is unplayable becuse the final patch is not finished.

AS I have stated in another thread, Lost Victories is playable to the end and many have done so. As with any project, there are always little improvements that can be made and I have every intention 0f making those improvements to finish a, to use a Hollywod term, directors cut of the mega campaign.

I wrote in another thread that

Several of the results files were accidently omitted and then deleted once the project was completed. AS the author of many of these has been unresponsive for some time I have been left with the task of redoing them. These results files DO NOT affect gameplay. They are for the storyline. The storyline also was suffering form a problem many have pointed out, that the characters at the point of the end battles no longer matched the characters in the core force due to losses, etc.

There are several battles in the Crimea that I was not pleased with the outcomes of and the scenarios were changed similarly to the way the opening battles were changed. Both Marauder, Mosh and I were doing these but Mosh has disappearred for some time and it now s apparent that Bryan and I will have to copmplete the changes he was doing. I was allso adding a few final documents such as a complete list of sources for the historical part of LV and a complete list of the scenarios and their authors andf d testers to complete the credits.

None of these issues affect gameplay. The campaign plays through to the end and all of the battle descriptions, sound files, photos and documents appear as programmed to do. Only the last few battles at the Donetz River and the Crimea are missing result texts.

I will again restate that these missing text files DO NOT AFFECT GAMEPLAY, only the storyline.

I made an unfortunate choice in using the word patch to describe my desires to rework parts of Lost Victories and finish the storyline. Patch denotes that something needs fixing. Lost Victories does not need fixing, it is playing as designed. Some may dispute that the missing text files mean the MC is broken and I disagree. The end of the battles gives a result of a decisive, marginal victory or defeat or a draw and theb goes to the next battle.

I have been working on the result files and about 50% done with them. I have to admit that the work has been very slow because of my mother in and out of the hospital, a project with my day job that is consuming much of my sppare time but now with the war on orders from Rocketdyne, Teledyne and and Northrop and Boeing are starting to come in and a lot of this is for aluminum and titanium castings and forgings to replace hardware being consumed at a much higher rate than anticipated, according to the admiral in charge of the Seal Beach naval weapons Station. I am also under deadlines for Combat leader and doing work on Squad Assault.

I have to admit the writing of the results files for the last few battles are very depressing, especially the defeats. Writing of whole squads disappearring in the winter wastes and of men freezing in threadbare uniforms is not pleasant. The subject matter alone has slowed me down quite a bit. I have been balancing it by switching back and forth between the Cross of Iron scenario text files and articles to keep from stopping altogether. Than you for your patience in all of this.



AbsntMndedProf -> (4/4/2003 1:09:47 AM)

Thanks for the update, Brent. Prayers and best wishes continue to go out for your Mother!

Eric Maietta



Sgt Popov -> Thanks! (4/4/2003 2:39:55 AM)

Thanks, Brent for your reply.Up until this last attempt (20-25 times into the 6th -8th battles on MC LV), my game had crashed to da desktop. I honestly do not know what I did to fix it, as I have made a myriad of changes in my pc. I have as always tremendously enjoyed SPWaW, but now that I have gotten past the weird CTD point in the MC, I am quite happy, and having much fun. I own darn near every war game worth anything out there, and no matter what, I still come back and play SPWaW, and now MC/LV!:cool: I am quite happy with the current way the LV is playing, and I really do not see the need for another patch.



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