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RE: MWif and Where I'm at...

 
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RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 1:51:51 AM   
LiquidSky


Posts: 2811
Joined: 6/24/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

Can we get back on topic PLEASE. Were there any other morons who mistook a squirrel for some kind of big game animal?




I don't think that the squirrel is the topic we should be getting back to.



Some things that you should note about small print, terms etc. They cannot exceed the law. You may expect a game to come out needing a patch (or a bunch), but I actually expect a released game to work. Most computer games I buy do work. Strangely, it seems almost every Matrix game I have ever bought does not work the day I buy it.
I can even recall a time in the eighties and nineties when I would finish the games I was playing without ever patching it once.

The Ultima games. The Civilization games I-III. The original Carriers at War. Played them, enjoyed them, then shelved them.


Never Patched Them.

< Message edited by LiquidSky -- 12/15/2013 2:59:28 AM >

_____________________________

“My logisticians are a humorless lot … they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” – Alexander the Great

(in reply to CrusssDaddy)
Post #: 61
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 2:13:22 AM   
Ubercat

 

Posts: 100
Joined: 12/19/2007
From: Near Allentown, PA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey
Until then, "The Game" is SC!


Obscure acronyms can be confusing. What the heck is SC?


_____________________________

"I’m not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I’ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers." -William H. Gascoyne

(in reply to SeaMonkey)
Post #: 62
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 2:16:22 AM   
Neilster


Posts: 2890
Joined: 10/27/2003
From: Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Ubercat


quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey
Until then, "The Game" is SC!


Obscure acronyms can be confusing. What the heck is SC?


Strategic Command, I think.

Cheers, Neilster

(in reply to Ubercat)
Post #: 63
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 2:32:51 AM   
brian brian

 

Posts: 3191
Joined: 11/16/2005
Status: offline 		in the old days, wargames had errata you discovered 6 months or more later.

now, there's bugs.

(in reply to Neilster)
Post #: 64
RE: Patience is a Virtue - 12/15/2013 3:02:05 AM   
sunlit uplands


Posts: 11
Joined: 11/10/2013
Status: offline
quote:


PS: I detest the picture of two cowards with a high-powered rifle killing poor defenseless animals. I assume you're the coward with the gun.


I am honestly having a hard time understanding what you mean. Are you sarcastically portraying someone who thinks that plastic toys have "high-powered rifles"? Or someone who thinks that such a rifle is required to kill a squirrel? Or are you just a run-of-the-mill troll? Hard to say. I have to grant it to you: well played.

(in reply to Missouri_Rebel)
Post #: 65
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 3:40:41 AM   
SeaMonkey

 

Posts: 804
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline 		You think right Neilster. For all you frustrated MWiFers, a word of advice, to satisfy your itch for a truly well done strategic wargame, visit Battlefront and get a copy of SC Assault on Democracy. Over a decade in the making, taste the delectable of a very good UI. A game not overly complicated, but with a great deal of strategic depth, everything you wish MWiF was and SC almost never crashes. I've been playing since conception, through multi editions, patches and expansions, everyday for more than 11 years and I can count the CtDs on my left hand.

Look guys, I sincerely hope that MWiF gets its act together, but if your getting a headache, perhaps a fever, with congestion, relief is only an SC away. PBEM, TCEP, hotseat, solitaire, and did I mention an AI that will kick your scrawny little WiF butts.

(in reply to Neilster)
Post #: 66
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 4:01:59 AM   
Numdydar

 

Posts: 3211
Joined: 2/13/2004
Status: offline 		And now SC 3 will be produced by Matrix so do you think it will be 'perfect' on release? While I love SC 2 and have played it a lot, I still found game stopping bugs in AoD which I reported on and they got fixed, just like WiF is. So I am sorry that even AoD had to be patched and is still being patched so it is no where near as perfect as you seem to think. But I do agree the AI is pretty good.

Also the reason that the games you mentioned were not patched is, not because they did not need patches because they did, it is because there was no way to easily distribute a patch like there is today. So the past is no where near as rosy as you might think.

(in reply to SeaMonkey)
Post #: 67
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 4:16:02 AM   
SeaMonkey

 

Posts: 804
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline 		Perfect! Perfect? Surely you gest Numdydar for SC is far from it, but just as MWiF will need its dedicated fans to get it to a point where SC1 was 10 years ago, there exists that group for SC. Trial and error, patch after patch, modifications and adjustments, all in the quest for the unattainable.....perfection.

Think...clear your minds, fence sitting MWiFers, SC has a decade on this release. If you're young and have time, I beseech you, help Steve and company, the path to fullfilment is through perseverance, I wish you well. But I have cast my lot, I play my goal everyday, I welcome you to try, just like I did the demo of SC so long long ago, I endeavored to persevere, and SC is the result....NOW!, not in another decade......and correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't CWiF-MWiF had two already?

(in reply to Numdydar)
Post #: 68
RE: Patience is a Virtue - 12/15/2013 4:47:54 AM   
76mm


Posts: 4688
Joined: 5/2/2004
From: Washington, DC
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sunlit.uplands
I am honestly having a hard time understanding what you mean. Are you sarcastically portraying someone who thinks that plastic toys have "high-powered rifles"? Or someone who thinks that such a rifle is required to kill a squirrel? Or are you just a run-of-the-mill troll? Hard to say. I have to grant it to you: well played.

You've forgotten the obvious conclusion--that he thought it was a real picture of two men, one with a high-powered rifle, that had just killed some giant, furry, tailed beast.

< Message edited by 76mm -- 12/15/2013 5:49:48 AM >

(in reply to sunlit uplands)
Post #: 69
RE: Patience is a Virtue - 12/15/2013 6:54:05 AM   
LiquidSky


Posts: 2811
Joined: 6/24/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

quote:

ORIGINAL: sunlit.uplands
I am honestly having a hard time understanding what you mean. Are you sarcastically portraying someone who thinks that plastic toys have "high-powered rifles"? Or someone who thinks that such a rifle is required to kill a squirrel? Or are you just a run-of-the-mill troll? Hard to say. I have to grant it to you: well played.

You've forgotten the obvious conclusion--that he thought it was a real picture of two men, one with a high-powered rifle, that had just killed some giant, furry, tailed beast.



He thought he shot his mom!

_____________________________

“My logisticians are a humorless lot … they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” – Alexander the Great

(in reply to 76mm)
Post #: 70
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:32:47 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky

quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

Can we get back on topic PLEASE. Were there any other morons who mistook a squirrel for some kind of big game animal?




I don't think that the squirrel is the topic we should be getting back to.

warspite1

CrusssDaddy was being ironic and he actually made me chuckle - thanks CrusssDaddy


< Message edited by warspite1 -- 12/15/2013 1:33:30 PM >

_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to LiquidSky)
Post #: 71
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:35:18 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky

quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

Can we get back on topic PLEASE. Were there any other morons who mistook a squirrel for some kind of big game animal?



Some things that you should note about small print, terms etc. They cannot exceed the law.

warspite1

What, are you saying Matrix break the law?


_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to LiquidSky)
Post #: 72
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:38:55 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky

quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

Can we get back on topic PLEASE. Were there any other morons who mistook a squirrel for some kind of big game animal?



Most computer games I buy do work. Strangely, it seems almost every Matrix game I have ever bought does not work the day I buy it.

warspite1

So are you stating that to have a go at Matrix or agreeing that this (rightly or wrongly is part and parcel of the industry?).

If the former, why did you buy MWIF - knowing what was likely to be the result - and if the latter, well perhaps you could cut Steve some slack and use your knowledge of the game to help?



_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to LiquidSky)
Post #: 73
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:40:48 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

in the old days, wargames had errata you discovered 6 months or more later.

now, there's bugs.
warspite1

Yep - and counters wrongly printed. THAT was annoying, having to amend by hand. No matter how neat you tried to be they still looked rubbish....


_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to brian brian)
Post #: 74
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 1:38:07 PM   
Klydon


Posts: 2251
Joined: 11/28/2010
Status: offline 		A few points from my long, long tenure at computer gaming (and board gaming for that matter). I know a lot of people here also have been involved in this stuff for a long time as well, but maybe some reminders are needed.

First, board games absolutely had errata. I know because I caused some of it. Pearl Harbor was a game from GDW we played quite a bit back in the day simply because it was a good grand strategic game of the Pacific (and well, the only one). I came up with a way to invade Pearl Harbor as the Japanese with a 66% chance of success and no real downside. At a convention upon hearing this, GDW comment was "Oh, we can't have that" and they changed some rules as they had not seen how it could be done. (It needed to be done or just start every game with a die roll and only play it if the Japanese player missed on his 66% chance). With the advent of message boards, it is far easier for producers of table top games to get the latest version of their rules out that do include errata and changes from the original. (I have a game or two that was pretty bad with one having corrections to 20 different cards).

Secondly, while people remember the "good old days" of computer gaming where programs are a tiny fraction of the size they are now and written specifically for 1 platform, then yeah, they are going to be relatively bug free in most cases. Games may be ported for other systems, but when a programmer sat down to do a game for a Commodore 64, all Commodore 64's were the same. Makes it far easier when it comes to bugs. These days, trying to program a game for the PC market is just an absolute nightmare when you take into consideration there are generally at least 3 operating systems you have to contend with and pretty close to an infinite amount of hardware combinations. Even console games, which are a throw back to the old days of programming for 1 specific system, are subject to needing to be patched, etc and are rarely bug free.

I have no idea of how many titles I have bought over the years, but its easily in the 100's. I have found Matrix to be above average when it comes to running their stuff and their support is good. Their staff is very interactive on the boards which, trust me, you rarely see anymore. You want an example of something else, perhaps try a Ubi-Soft product and/or go check their boards and see what their customers think of them.

For the poster that said Civ III ran great when it came out, I disagree. It wasn't as big of a mess as Civ 4 or 5 was, but it had its own issues and went through several patches. One of the reasons Civ 3 is still even a blip on the radar screen is because of the modding community prolonged the life of the product. Having been heavily involved in some of these modding efforts, I can tell you there are still unresolved bugs that will apparently never be fixed that will crash the game out if they come up. Most players know about them and avoid them so they don't come up. There is also a bug or two that the game will continue to play, but again, there is some in game issue.


(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 75
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 2:24:21 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline 		Hi jzardos, et. al.,

I'm sorry that WIF has disappointed some of you. Steve has worked his posterior off on WIF for many years now and it was not our intention to release it in a state that would disappoint anyone. However, it is a very complex board game that has been an extreme challenge to bring to the computer. In the area of general gameplay bugs, we're finding out more than we ever knew. We also had NetPlay test games that played through entire scenarios successfully.

We knew before release that there were some serious bugs in NetPlay - it was unfortunately a moving target where each build brought some new surprises and we expected it to be nailed down by release, but we were obviously wrong in our pre-release estimate of how many bugs there still were and how long it would take to fix them. I apologize for that and I take responsibility. We believed what we told you, but we underestimated the problem. NetPlay was a major priority for the last year and I personally did not realize there would be as many problems once it was available to the public as there have been. Some testers were more concerned than I was and in hindsight clearly we should have listened to them more, but there were also enough tests going well that we blinded ourselves a bit with optimism. The time after release has been unfortunately as eye opening for us regarding NetPlay as it has been for you. NetPlay continues to be our top priority, we recognize its importance and we're unhappy with the disappointment it has caused - we will get it working as soon as humanly possible.

The state of solitaire appeared very near to perfect before release. Once many more players started banging on it post-release, more bugs were discovered but it works well overall. We are working through the most serious bugs as a priority, along with NetPlay, especially focusing on those that affect all modes of play. However, I feel that in solitaire we're looking at an unsurprising level of bugs for a game this complex, even with all the pre-release testing. There are simply too many corner cases and option/play style combinations to make it possible to test everything with each release, but we'll continue to address issues with each update.

In any case, I apologize for my part that the game is not living up to your expectations. However, we did not try to push it out before it was ready. In hindsight, this is what we accomplished on the NetPlay side, and you have to be willing to accept some bugs in games of this complexity, but we only took the step of moving forward with the manuals and maps and starting to print once our best estimate from our discussions was that the game was in a good and ready state and would only improve by the time the printing and shipping of physical goods was completed. We were obviously wrong on NetPlay and we are working to fix that.

Steve continues to work on this as hard as anyone can and we are doing anything we can to support him. Fixing issues in a game of this complexity is not an easy task but Steve performs it with diligence and care. WIF could not be in better hands. We expect another update this coming week and at least one more zipped update posted directly by Steve over the holidays before Matrix returns to business on January 6th. We'll continue the best pace of updates that is healthy for Steve to do as we make progress on the reported issues.

Regards,

- Erik


< Message edited by Erik Rutins -- 12/15/2013 3:27:31 PM >

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC



For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to Klydon)
Post #: 76
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 6:48:24 PM   
AxelNL


Posts: 2386
Joined: 9/24/2011
From: The Netherlands
Status: offline 		Thanks for your post, Erik. Your openness is an example for many other companies.

(in reply to Erik Rutins)
Post #: 77
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:20:07 PM   
Dabrion


Posts: 733
Joined: 11/5/2013
From: Northpole
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky

quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

Can we get back on topic PLEASE. Were there any other morons who mistook a squirrel for some kind of big game animal?



Some things that you should note about small print, terms etc. They cannot exceed the law.

warspite1

What, are you saying Matrix break the law?



I think its slitherine if there is any difference, but they certainly bend it. I am also in the process of getting legal advice on the small print issue. I am certain it is not the way you claim it is, but that is for others to decide.

< Message edited by Dabrion -- 12/15/2013 10:31:04 PM >

(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 78
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 9:25:41 PM   
Dabrion


Posts: 733
Joined: 11/5/2013
From: Northpole
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi jzardos, et. al.,

I'm sorry that WIF has disappointed some of you. Steve has worked his posterior off on WIF for many years now and it was not our intention to release it in a state that would disappoint anyone. However, it is a very complex board game that has been an extreme challenge to bring to the computer. In the area of general gameplay bugs, we're finding out more than we ever knew. We also had NetPlay test games that played through entire scenarios successfully.

We knew before release that there were some serious bugs in NetPlay - it was unfortunately a moving target where each build brought some new surprises and we expected it to be nailed down by release, but we were obviously wrong in our pre-release estimate of how many bugs there still were and how long it would take to fix them. I apologize for that and I take responsibility. We believed what we told you, but we underestimated the problem. NetPlay was a major priority for the last year and I personally did not realize there would be as many problems once it was available to the public as there have been. Some testers were more concerned than I was and in hindsight clearly we should have listened to them more, but there were also enough tests going well that we blinded ourselves a bit with optimism. The time after release has been unfortunately as eye opening for us regarding NetPlay as it has been for you. NetPlay continues to be our top priority, we recognize its importance and we're unhappy with the disappointment it has caused - we will get it working as soon as humanly possible.

The state of solitaire appeared very near to perfect before release. Once many more players started banging on it post-release, more bugs were discovered but it works well overall. We are working through the most serious bugs as a priority, along with NetPlay, especially focusing on those that affect all modes of play. However, I feel that in solitaire we're looking at an unsurprising level of bugs for a game this complex, even with all the pre-release testing. There are simply too many corner cases and option/play style combinations to make it possible to test everything with each release, but we'll continue to address issues with each update.

In any case, I apologize for my part that the game is not living up to your expectations. However, we did not try to push it out before it was ready. In hindsight, this is what we accomplished on the NetPlay side, and you have to be willing to accept some bugs in games of this complexity, but we only took the step of moving forward with the manuals and maps and starting to print once our best estimate from our discussions was that the game was in a good and ready state and would only improve by the time the printing and shipping of physical goods was completed. We were obviously wrong on NetPlay and we are working to fix that.

Steve continues to work on this as hard as anyone can and we are doing anything we can to support him. Fixing issues in a game of this complexity is not an easy task but Steve performs it with diligence and care. WIF could not be in better hands. We expect another update this coming week and at least one more zipped update posted directly by Steve over the holidays before Matrix returns to business on January 6th. We'll continue the best pace of updates that is healthy for Steve to do as we make progress on the reported issues.

Regards,

- Erik



That is nice writeup, unfortunately you missed the part where you explain the consequences. Will there be any? How will the next year be better than the last and why? I just don't see it..

(in reply to Erik Rutins)
Post #: 79
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/15/2013 11:25:17 PM   
pzgndr

 

Posts: 3170
Joined: 3/18/2004
From: Maryland
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Dabrion
I am also in the process of getting legal advice on the small print issue.


For a game?? For entertainment purposes only. Yeah, sure. Let us know how the courts decide this pressing legal issue. The hour is costs you to have a lawyer stop laughing at you will probably cost you more than the game did.

(in reply to Dabrion)
Post #: 80
RE: MWif and Where I'm at... - 12/16/2013 1:03:19 AM   
Dabrion


Posts: 733
Joined: 11/5/2013
From: Northpole
Status: offline 		Friend of mine ;) Else you were probably right ..

(in reply to pzgndr)
Post #: 81
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