Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[sapi]

Ca Is Lazyyy

That's simply not a useful post.

If you dont' have anything constructive to post, please refrain from doing so

[SadCat]

Think of it this way, as a runner comes up with exciting news.

Enemy Army Routs!!
Prince Arthur; I am pleased to report!

The last battle left so few….

SadCat

[Quickening]

I don't think anyone should be expecting this patch anytime soon. Certainly not within the next few weeks. I think that would be impossible given that they are taking feedback from the leaked 1.2 for the official release.

[pike master]

the patch will be out in september

[RickooClan]

the patch will be out in september

The leaked 1.3 patch will be out in september.

[Babblearossa]

I, for one, welcome and applaud the leaked patch + delay scheme. Had some graphics corruption problems and waited for 1.2 to see if they'd get fixed or a re-install would fix them. Installing the leaked 1.2 led me to finally discover my card was hosed, now with the delay for the fixed 1.2 patch I don't have to feel like I'm missing out while my card is in the RMA cycle.

Huzzah CA for ingeniously forseeing my particular set of circumastances.

[FactionHeir]

Think of it this way, as a runner comes up with exciting news.

Enemy Army Routs!!
Prince Arthur; I am pleased to report!

The last battle left so few….

SadCat

Its not that it wouldn't work that way, but I'm going according to convention, since the other screens (Shamed by Blasphemer, Blasphemer executed, Failed to Denounce Blasphemer, Fallen to Heresy) contradict the enemy army routs model.

[fenir]

fenir, you really are tempting me here, and if you weren't australian I'd be doing nasty things to you about now

Oh? Aus...Austr.....Australiand....Aus ..tra..li.... oh bugger...........GO THE ALLBLACKS! (got to love me?)

oooohh ...do the nasty ...do the nasty


fenir............

[fenir]

Woot 300 posts........

Oh, only took me almost 6 years.

[Colossus]

Does anyone know if the expansion includes 1.2?

@Alex the great, I agree with our friendly mod team, dont be mean to CA, say how RUBBISH gamespy are instead!!!!

[Lusted]

As posted by Caliban at TWC:

We are working to get the patch ready as soon as we can. We are focusing on AI and the top community bugs. We have already made some good progress and are looking into some issues further.
I'm sorry that some of you have a tainted view of CA (although you seem to like our games enough to still be here? , the reality is that we don't see the community as one entity nor do we pigeon hole them. There are trolls here just like every other net community, but there are also professionals as well. The constructive criticism we recieve far makes up for the abuse.

Please have patience, we aren’t sitting around playing grab ass or down the beach surfing. The Totalwar Engine is a massive behemoth of code, art and resources. One of our engine coders just gave me the source-code stats which is: 64mb of source-code in 4189 files that equals 1,655,906 lines of code.
It can take a long time to track some of these elusive bugs down; as you could imagine, the code-base is not a simple descr we can search through quickly.
There are lots of simple bugs that havn't been fixed because of the prioriety we work in. I can say that we will have a fix for the ballista-cannon tower problem in the coming update as well as the other major community bugs TWC and the ORG have been organising for us.

It will be out well before the expansion . As for an official date, It will be ready when it's ready.

[Puzz3D]

As posted by Caliban at TWC:

"It can take a long time to track some of these elusive bugs down; as you could imagine, the code-base is not a simple descr we can search through quickly."

That's what I was warning about. Bugs can also interact which complicates debugging. It gets to a point where taking more time in the beginning so that there are fewer bugs in v1.0 is more efficient.

[Quickening]

"we aren’t sitting around playing grab ass"

Someone must teach me this game.

[Jambo]

Now that I have the leaked 1.2 patch, CA can take as long as they like to release the official version! The leaked patch does wonders for the game's playability overall, and given the how long it will take for 1.3, I'd really like to see them take into account "leaked 1.2" feedback and remaining high priority bugs before properly releasing 1.2.

[pike master]

caliban said-

[I'm sorry that some of you have a tainted view of CA (although you seem to like our games enough to still be here? , the reality is that we don't see the community as one entity nor do we pigeon hole them. There are trolls here just like every other net community, but there are also professionals as well. The constructive criticism we recieve far makes up for the abuse]

the reason we are still out here is because we want to get our dollars worth since we cant get a refund for our game. just because someone makes a critical comment about how CA and sega have handled this situation does not make them a troll.

abuse can go both ways.

[Quickening]

caliban said-

[I'm sorry that some of you have a tainted view of CA (although you seem to like our games enough to still be here? , the reality is that we don't see the community as one entity nor do we pigeon hole them. There are trolls here just like every other net community, but there are also professionals as well. The constructive criticism we recieve far makes up for the abuse]

the reason we are still out here is because we want to get our dollars worth since we cant get a refund for our game. just because someone makes a critical comment about how CA and sega have handled this situation does not make them a troll.

Quoted for truth. The "troll" bit annoyed me to.

[Lusted]

Calibans comment was made after comments like this:

Different people can also be assigned to different tasks. (e.g. programming/testing/No CA bashing please/everything else that CA deems necessary)

Edited by moderator to remove bashing

still waiting for this, pathetic CA, pathetic...sugar coat it all you like but you are pathetic.

Their motto : Let the "scum" (cummunity) do the beta testing.

Rather I'm fed up that the patch has reportedly been 'just a few weeks away' for the last two months, whilst Sega and CA have seemingly been doing everything possible to sideline, delay and screw it up without actually telling us that things aren't going well until it's too darn late

This is the most ineptly handled patch development and release that I have had the misfortune of being strung along waiting for since Diablo II v1.10

Just to give you guys some context, might explain to you why Caliban made that comment.

[Quickening]

I think only the first of those comments is a bit harsh. The second last one is true and I agree with the final ones sentiment.

[diotavelli]

Quickening, has it occured to you that no one at Sega or CA is likely to happy at the time the patch is taking?

They don't want to spend time making patches. It takes up programming resource to produce something they will have to release for free. The only reason they do it is to retain customer goodwill and thus protect revenue from future releases. Ever unnecessary minute spent on the patches is effectively money burnt.

Of course, it's possible that they're not dedicating that much resource to the patch. But, by this stage, that would be self-defeating: if the only reason you build patches is to retain customer goodwill, deliberately and unnecessarily delaying the release of those patch negate any benefit you might accrue because you won't retain customer goodwill due to the delay.

Surely that's obvious? It couldn't be any simpler. There is no reason imaginable why CA or Sega would delay the patch unless they had to. Yes, some of their customers are frustrated by that but comments slating CA as a result are childish and unnecessarily abusive. If you knew and could prove that CA were delaying the patch deliberately, that wouldn't be the case - but I've seen nothing to suggest they are.

[Daveybaby]

diotavelli, you dont understand. If something isnt going exactly how we want it, the people resposible simply must be lazy, evil and incompetent. This has been proven to be true, just ask any teenager.

Quoted for truth. The "troll" bit annoyed me to.

I think only the first of those comments is a bit harsh. The second last one is true and I agree with the final ones sentiment.

yeah, how could anyone ever mistake you for a troll?

[Quickening]

Quickening, has it occured to you that no one at Sega or CA is likely to happy at the time the patch is taking?

I know that. But I don't think people should be accused of being trolls for not being happy about the situation. That is lame. Not one of those quotes is "trollish". A troll is someone who posts something that has no value to anything. Those people were expressing their dissatisfation and as paying customers that is their right surely.

[Quickening]

yeah, how could anyone ever mistake you for a troll?

You lot don't know what a troll is then.

[Lusted]

Quickening, i've been a moderator at TWC since Jan 05, i'd rate all of those comments, apart from the 2nd to last one as trolling. All of them though are likely to not make any CA guy who reads them happy.

[Quickening]

The definition of trolling seems to be expressing disapproval of anything CA does then. Fine, Ive been on forums with similar ideas so I know the deal.
Im going to go and be a good paying customer, shut up, play the game and be happy no matter what CA does or doesn't do.

[Lusted]

Well calling anyone pathetic, inept, trat the community like 'scum' is trolling, it doesn't matter it's aimed at CA.

[diotavelli]

The definition of trolling seems to be expressing disapproval of anything CA does then. Fine, Ive been on forums with similar ideas so I know the deal.
Im going to go and be a good paying customer, shut up, play the game and be happy no matter what CA does or doesn't do.

There's quite a substantial difference between being unhappy with the state of M2TW as it was launched and making unsubstantiated claims about "ineptly handled patch development". It is regretable that CA announced the date for the patch and then had to pull it but, since we don't know the full circumstances, claims of ineptitude are unsubstantiated.

I've been involved in a fair few product launches where we've given a planned launch date and then had to pull the product at the last minute. It doesn't mean there anyone's done anything wrong, simply that IT products are not simple affairs.

It's not like a physical product, where the production process is lineal, and where you can ensure deadlines are met simply by dedicating more resource. IT products nowadays are far more complex than that (think Hofstadter's "strange loops and tangled hierarchies") and throwing more people at the process doesn't necessarily speed things up.

Comments such as "Sega and CA have seemingly been doing everything possible to sideline, delay and screw it up" are just plain stupid. How does anyone know what Sega and CA have done? And why does anyone think either company would have any interest in delaying the patch. If comments like this aren't ill-founded and unnecessarily abusive, I don't know what is.

I doubt anyone is suggesting that you should be a passive, uncomplaining fool who buys stuff from Sega and CA with no regard for the quality of service you're receiving in return - simply that if you're going to make a complaint in a public forum it should be proportionate, justifiable and not ad hominem.

[pike master]

if you paid for the game you have a right to complain until the game is officially fixed.

if i tell a person that i can fix their car if they bring it in on a certian date and they set aside the time to bring it out and then i say i cant get to it because i put them off to do work i could make more money at is irresponsible and dishonest workmanship.

if i sell a car to someone that has something wrong with it and me and the person agrees to a set time for them to bring it in so i can fix it and they bring it in and i make some excuse for not being able to get to it that day. i would think that is being a real jerk.

when customer comes first in business, you drop what you are doing to complete unfinished business with an unsatisfied customer before you move on to making more money. this is common business practice among most companies i know of.

if i buy a riflescope and it is a bad one and i call a large corporation that sells many scopes in one year they still have the time to talk to me one on one over a 1 800 number and help me resolve the problem and will send me pretty much whatever we agree on without any cost in shipping.

how is a gaming software company immune from common business etiquette?

[Lusted]

Because software is a completely different kind of product to a car or rifle scope. It would be insane to think that a software company would drop everything to provide fixes for everyone who complains about their products, there would never be an end to it, and where are they going to work on their next product if they're endlessly fixing things.

if i sell a car to someone that has something wrong with it and me and the person agrees to a set time for them to bring it in so i can fix it and they bring it in and i make some excuse for not being able to get to it that day. i would think that is being a real jerk.

Do you have any idea about how difficult it is to set a realistic time scale for anything in sfotware, i've done programming and i would most of the time refuse to give an estimate for whn i might have something done for the course apart from a very vague timescale because i just don't know how long something will take sometimes.

Now of course setting a date and then not meeting it is bad, but when they pull something because they aren't happy with some of the things still giving problems shows they are now fixing to the best of their abilities and they want to produce a quality patch.

[Lord Ovaat]

Mad Cat said:

the reason we are still out here is because we want to get our dollars worth since we cant get a refund for our game.

I couldn't agree less, Pard. I reckon the vast majority of us are still here because there is nothing that compares to CA's work, like it or not. I know what's involved in business and programming. I have the utmost respect for their products and work. Money's worth, lol? Come on, guys, we've been playing this measly $50 game since NOVEMBER! There is no doubt that the game can use some improvements, but it is most certainly playable. $50 bucks might seem a lot if you're 16, but when compared to a 3 hour night out to a movie and dinner at McDonalds with your spouse or squeeze, it's a reallllllllllly good deal. And that includes the additional five minutes you guys would spend afterward if you get lucky, lol. I've seen this poor game compared to bad brakes on a $30,000 vehicle, which is a bit of a stretch. Aside from the cost differences, brakes or such would be a physical hazard. I've also seen it compared to the quality of a movie. ?? Again, movies are multi-million dollar productions that we spend close to $50 bucks on for about 120 minutes of entertainment. Well, if we don't like the movie, then we've only invested a couple of hours of our time. Dah? Come on, folks. If that's the case, then I got my money's worth the day I installed any TW game. (I stayed up half the night playing M2TW. Wow, that's pretty sad, isn't it?)

I have no intention of belittling anyone's opinion or comments, and I'm not trying to single anyone out. I guess the point of this is simply that I have gotten far more than my money's worth with all of CA's games; and patch or no patch, I'll still buy the next one. Let's face it, except for cosmetics and certain minor variances, all FPS's and RTS's are identical. We simply can't compare any other titles to TW for playability. I doubt I'd still be gaming if the only choices I had were more of the click-fests or run & guns. I mean, I can still go out to a movie. Right?

I believe the biggest cause of grips in our forums isn't the unplayability of the games, rather our desperation to satisfy and enhance our addictions to them. I still need my next fix from TW.

[Patricius]

Mad Cat said:



I couldn't agree less, Pard. I reckon the vast majority of us are still here because there is nothing that compares to CA's work, like it or not. I know what's involved in business and programming. I have the utmost respect for their products and work. Money's worth, lol? Come on, guys, we've been playing this measly $50 game since NOVEMBER! There is no doubt that the game can use some improvements, but it is most certainly playable. $50 bucks might seem a lot if you're 16, but when compared to a 3 hour night out to a movie and dinner at McDonalds with your spouse or squeeze, it's a reallllllllllly good deal. And that includes the additional five minutes you guys would spend afterward if you get lucky, lol. I've seen this poor game compared to bad brakes on a $30,000 vehicle, which is a bit of a stretch. Aside from the cost differences, brakes or such would be a physical hazard. I've also seen it compared to the quality of a movie. ?? Again, movies are multi-million dollar productions that we spend close to $50 bucks on for about 120 minutes of entertainment. Well, if we don't like the movie, then we've only invested a couple of hours of our time. Dah? Come on, folks. If that's the case, then I got my money's worth the day I installed any TW game. (I stayed up half the night playing M2TW. Wow, that's pretty sad, isn't it?)

I have no intention of belittling anyone's opinion or comments, and I'm not trying to single anyone out. I guess the point of this is simply that I have gotten far more than my money's worth with all of CA's games; and patch or no patch, I'll still buy the next one. Let's face it, except for cosmetics and certain minor variances, all FPS's and RTS's are identical. We simply can't compare any other titles to TW for playability. I doubt I'd still be gaming if the only choices I had were more of the click-fests or run & guns. I mean, I can still go out to a movie. Right?

I believe the biggest cause of grips in our forums isn't the unplayability of the games, rather our desperation to satisfy and enhance our addictions to them. I still need my next fix from TW.

I agree with that. There are problems, and I hope they are resolved soon, but it has given six months worth of enjoyment for a relatively small amount of money.