New DLC: Thumb up or down in 5 mn chrono

from GalCiv3 Forums

Regarding the new DLC, I'm quite thrilled by the new features that will be in, the hyperlanes gates, artifacts, new civilizations and more!

But really, I'll judge it also on how serious and committed Stardock is about fixing bugs that are known since months and reported by several players, including guys who went to the pain of posting summary PDF of the most important bugs (not me).

So, and this will be simple to me, I'll put a thumb up or down on the DLC in 5 mn, by creating two new survey ship designs. Build one. Then retrofit it into the second one.

If I pay again the admin cost, then Stardock has not done his homework. If, at last, the bug about paying again admin cost for constructors, colony ships, survey ships and all strat resources when upgrading a ship is gone, Thumb Up!

Simple like that. But I'm confident, Brad Wardell is not amateur, he runs his company with expertise and seriousness.

 

 

57,340 views 6 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I think you should prepare to be disappointed. I bet you the admin and resource issue gets fixed but not acquired and unique ship components... Or some halfway combination.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I guess the DLC will come with a companion free patch for everyone? Paradox does that but I admit I don't know what is Stardock policy for their new DLCs. 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Generally the core files need updating, and big fixes get disseminated. So yes .

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Oh by the way, this was a thumb down for me. Bugs that have been reported something like twenty times since a year are not fixed?

Come on.

 

What I dislike the most is when developers pop in and they 'do you have a saved game' or 'we never heard about this one', in a pseudo/fake naive answer. As if people are not constantly asking for bugs to be fixed, bugs that can be spotted by a new player as soon as they put one hour in the game.


That's like the bug where you pay again for strategic resources when you upgrade a ship. It is reported time and time again and then you get a dev saying 'do you have a saved game'. As if they pretended nobody reported it or as if they have difficulty spotting a systematic bug.

 

Anyway, case in point. A good half if not more of all the posts in the GC forum are from people reporting bugs. It speaks more than anything else. I understand that some old vets and modders are quitting and de-installing.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Nibelung44, reply 5

Oh by the way, this was a thumb down for me. Bugs that have been reported something like twenty times since a year are not fixed?

Come on.

 

What I dislike the most is when developers pop in and they 'do you have a saved game' or 'we never heard about this one', in a pseudo/fake naive answer. As if people are not constantly asking for bugs to be fixed, bugs that can be spotted by a new player as soon as they put one hour in the game.


That's like the bug where you pay again for strategic resources when you upgrade a ship. It is reported time and time again and then you get a dev saying 'do you have a saved game'. As if they pretended nobody reported it or as if they have difficulty spotting a systematic bug.

 

Anyway, case in point. A good half if not more of all the posts in the GC forum are from people reporting bugs. It speaks more than anything else. I understand that some old vets and modders are quitting and de-installing.

 

I'm frustrated as you by bugs I reported aeons ago aren't fixed.  But there has been a lot of progress elsewhere.

I understand their need for save game and images though.  You say a bug can be spotted by a new player as soon as they put one hour in the game.  And that is the problem.  We play the game for fun.  You're asking them to put one hour of mantime for one bug.  Compound that by 100, that means 100hrs just to spot the bug.  Then you need to fix it.

Yes, they should have a QA team playing the game and spotting the bugs.  But honestly, companies as big as EA have mostly worthless QA teams (and worthless thech support).  I imagine Stardock to be significantly smaller than that.

This is a very long strategy game.  Can a developper really invest 2-300hrs in playing a large map and a game in full to reach the end of the tech tree?  I'd love it if they did.  But I understand they can't.

I found the best way to fix something clearly broken is use the support ticket system, attach a screenshot, a save game and describe how you can repeat the problem.  CTDs and freeze are tricky in that they are often random (to us).  I move a ship around, one game it crashes, restart the game, I go on without a problem even if I think I'm repeating the same movements.

When we enter grey areas, like stupid AI behaviour, a particular strategy that is abusing the AI or gaming the system, long loading&saving times that aren't seen by all players, I think the forum is best to first discuss about it with other players.  Than attach the URL link to the bug report we produce.  See in particular the long loading and saving time.  Personally, it rarely happened to me since I don't often save&reload in a game (save often, but not reload constantly inside a game).  That particular bug was dependant on how we play the game, individually.  No one noticed how that bug appeared until very recently.  And as soon as it was discovered how it exactly happenned, the fix was very quick to come by.

It is an unfortunate system, it is far from perfect, I'd wish for something a little less chaotic at times, a little more feedback after a bug is supposedly fixed, but the game is making progress and many bugs are squashed.

Unfortunately, when the game nears 100% perfection, they introduce a new DLC and new features that breaks the game :P