MOO3 finished!

Graeme Dice · #1 January 25th, 2003, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MacLeod:
[QB]NwN had a few mega issues with it's copy prot software that for a couple months could only be fixed by downloading a crack, or not updating past Version 1.18 (and thus being unable to multiplayer).
Think it was a fairly sizable group of the playerbase.

That was a hardware problem with people who have sub-standard hardware, and not really a problem with the game itself.

MacLeod · #2 January 25th, 2003, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:
Originally posted by MacLeod:
[QB]NwN had a few mega issues with it's copy prot software that for a couple months could only be fixed by downloading a crack, or not updating past Version 1.18 (and thus being unable to multiplayer).
Think it was a fairly sizable group of the playerbase.

That was a hardware problem with people who have sub-standard hardware, and not really a problem with the game itself.

Hmm, I must not know much about computers, guess my 486 here can't handle it. Thank you for assuming I'm an idiot.

I happen to have a rather well designed system that has handled EVERY other game in the universe without trouble. When I do have the slightest bit of trouble I can typically fix it rather quickly on my own.

I do however agree it wasn't a problem with the game itself (rather in the 3rd party libraries used to copy protect it) however it was a support disaster as nothing was accomplished to fix it in a reasonable time. Also NwN had a game-breaking bug in the scripting that prevented the completion of the second act through gameplay. It required intervention by switching onto gamemaster mode.

Many many games come out perfectly playable on day one, NwN wasn't one of them.

Moving on.....
I wouldn't call Microprose the MS of gaming, they just aren't big enough a company, that's why I put the bullet on EA. EA is huge, the largest of game companies and they are a disaster.

sachmo · #3 January 25th, 2003, 05:56 PM

The playability of Civ III out of the box has is a debate that will run on for ages. I thought that many of the bugs that were in the initial release really killed the game. That's just my opinion. I think the point that is being made here is that there seems to be an alarming trend over the past few years of game companies releasing...well, utter crap, to the public and then coming back and patching the game later, after the profits have been made. If the game doesn't do well, they might not patch it at all! I know the current climate has completely soured me on buying any first release game from a major publisher.

To those who are going to buy it right away, I really hope that it is a great game and that you enjoy it. I would like to see nothing more than the delay turn out to be the software companies desire to squash any and every bug they could find before release. I am a cynic, however, and believe that this might be a major turkey.

capnq · #4 January 25th, 2003, 07:23 PM

Quote:

I got free subscription to computer gaming world, and after "round filing" the renewal over a year ago, and still I get it.

Check your credit card statements carefully. I've had several "free" subscriptions that were automatically renewed for a year after the "free" sub ran out, unless you explicitly told them not to renew it.

Phoenix-D · #5 January 25th, 2003, 11:14 PM

"That was a hardware problem with people who have sub-standard hardware, and not really a problem with the game itself."

Why is it people always blame the ones having issues, and not the sub-standard program causing it?

Fact is, many copy-protection schemes are crap. Removing the copy protection from Morrowind can give up to a 20FPS improvement! And given the fact that it CAN be cracked, and was done so quickly after the game was released, it isn't stopping pirates at all.

Another time this happened was MechCommander 2. Everyone assumed since they had no problems, no one else did either. Heh. As it turned out, the game had an odd issue that resulted in two files being made. When those files were present, performance went in the toilet. My 1.5 GHz Geforce 4 system got MAYBE 5 FPS with everything turned off. Then I removed those files and got over 30 with everything on. If that isn't a game programming issue I don't know what was..

Phoenix-D

Fyron · #6 January 25th, 2003, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:
Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Civ III was most certainly not perfectly playable right out of the box, especially later on in the game.

Considering that I played an entire game before I applied any patches, I don't think that's true. Are you talking about stability or playability here?

Were you around Shrapnel when Civ III came out? If not, try searching for threads about it.

I don't even remember what was wrong in the initial release anymore, cause I stopped playing the game after a short while. Even now, with all these patches, it still has many major problems.

Egregius · #7 January 26th, 2003, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MacLeod:
Moving on.....
I wouldn't call Microprose the MS of gaming, they just aren't big enough a company, that's why I put the bullet on EA. EA is huge, the largest of game companies and they are a disaster.[/QB]

Well they've released their fair share of bugged games. Problem is that their games are almost always great to play as well. For example, the greatest game ever produced (after SEIV of course..) Masters of Magic was a Microprose release as well. Playable, but bugged as hell. Good thing they released a zillion patches for it heheh.