Some thoughts about OoB

[bjarmson]

This is an interesting and complex game, which I enjoy immensely. That said, it is one of the buggiest games I've ever played. It crashes, or freezes, or gives me a rainbow screen of death at least once or twice a scenario. There is the plane duplication problem mentioned below. Playing Leyte, I've come across something weird I've not had before. A Japanese infantry unit shows but I can move onto and through the tile. Problem is, though the unit doesn't move, it attacks me when I have a unit on top of it. I've tried quitting and restarting (which seems to solve the carrier aircraft duplication problem) without success. I've also had some other problems. The game has been out for more than 10 months, yet the crashing/freezing problems are still reported regularly. I might add I have a brand new iMac: 3.3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 G ram, Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 1536 MB, Retina display, so I don't think my computer is at fault. When will this game become stable?

[bru888]

I am not going to argue with this but I will attempt to soften it a bit by relaying my own experience.

Does the game occasionally crash? Yes. Does it frequently crash? No, not for me, and I have it playing on a three- or four-year-old laptop (ancient by today's standards). When it does crash, thankfully there is that wonderful Auto Save (Turn End).saz file waiting for me, every time. And, I have never encountered a situation where the game will not merely resume from that point.

So is the game "stable"? Well, not as stable as Civilization V or OOTPB 16 but those game developers have had many years to fine-tune their products. I have encountered much worse quality than OOB and I, for one, am willing to put up with occasional crashes for the sake of what they are bringing to the gaming table now, and what they promise for the future.

Now the scenario editor is another matter! If you are working with that program, better save often and back up your saves. Learning the hard way with that one.

[bru888]

Playing Leyte, I've come across something weird I've not had before. A Japanese infantry unit shows but I can move onto and through the tile. Problem is, though the unit doesn't move, it attacks me when I have a unit on top of it.

I have seen this. I remember in general this happening a few times but not the specific circumstances. Recall that commando units are special in that they can be spotted only by adjacent infantry units. That could be one explanation. I also recall moving onto and through a few enemy units but in my experience, those units were weak or near-dead and they simply disappeared. I thought of that as "surrender" which may be just a rationalization, I admit.

[bjarmson]

bru888, I agree that the autosave works well, but for a game almost a year old and still retailing for about $40, there are far too many crashes and freezes. Time to set this right. Make the platform stable. The weird, not there till you stop on top of it, unit as far as I can tell (doesn't show up when I click on it) is just a standard Japanese infantry unit. I've had some not actually there units in previous games which have always disappeared when I moved one of my units on the space. I also thought my new, top of the line computer would be able to play this game at the highest settings. When I tried this I constantly got a rainbow screen of death (whole screen turns into a rainbow (green top left changing to red/orange lower right). I had to lower the settings to second lowest to mitigate this (though it still happens occasionally).

[Myrddraal]

bjarmson, if you are able, posting auto saves from just before any crashes in the tech support forum can help us identify and fix the underlying issue. Same goes for any bug really (crash or other).

[bru888]

You have to give them credit for trying at least, bjarmson. The "Oops" message and invitation to send them the crash incident folder (example shown below) are unusual. As seen above, they apparently mean what they say.

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[Erik2]

The output_log.txt is also useful for the devs whenever something odd happens during play.

[MarechalJoffre]

The output_log.txt is also useful for the devs whenever something odd happens during play.

What version of Windows is that?

[Erik2]

Win7, but my Win10 installation looks the same.
The Slitherine folder is not the default folder when installing, just my choice from my beta days.

[SSLConf_Yolo911]

To BJARMSON,

Not to argue but I've been playing this game since it was released. And I did some beta testing for Morning Sun. My PC has never crashed. Not once.
I have been playing computer games for years and this is definitely NOT the buggiest game I've ever had to deal with.

Point being, there are as many computer configurations as there are players and not every one of them will be solid. So if my computer isn't having any problems running this game and yours is, then I can only draw one conclusion. It isn't the game.

Graphics and sound cards can be a real problem so it could be something in this area.

Cheers

[adherbal]

We can't deny the game still has some memory related problems which can lead to crashes. The reason we haven't managed to deal with this yet is because we've been too busy adding other new features ever since the release! However along with the upcoming Marine Corps update we plan to look into improving these problems. It is always a matter of deciding what gets priority cos we still have so much else on our wishlist (skirmish mode, unit counters, direct multiplayer, campaign editor, ...).

[bru888]

We can't deny the game still has some memory related problems which can lead to crashes. The reason we haven't managed to deal with this yet is because we've been too busy adding other new features ever since the release! However along with the upcoming Marine Corps update we plan to look into improving these problems. It is always a matter of deciding what gets priority cos we still have so much else on our wishlist (skirmish mode, unit counters, direct multiplayer, campaign editor, ...).

Thanks. Now get back to work! ( )

[bjarmson]

Yolo911, would that we all were as fortunate as you in having the perfect gaming system. However, out here in the real world many of us are having crashes, freezes, and other problems, which I may add have been acknowledged by adherbal, of The Aristocrats. My system more than meets the specs listed for the games. The game needs to be made stable for all players with systems meeting the specs, not for just your perfect system.

[bru888]

Yolo911, would that we all were as fortunate as you in having the perfect gaming system. However, out here in the real world many of us are having crashes, freezes, and other problems, which I may add have been acknowledged by adherbal, of The Aristocrats. My system more than meets the specs listed for the games. The game needs to be made stable for all players with systems meeting the specs, not for just your perfect system.

Can't argue with this. In my gaming experience, I have seen situations in which a game works fine for top-end machines, such as the ones the developers use, and when complaints like this crop up in the forums, there are always people with such machines who say "Not me. I'm fine."

On the other hand, many of those complaints are from people who either: 1) have low-end machines and/or 2) don't have the knowledge and energy to maintain their machines and programs properly.

Developers need to gauge from the amount and frequency of such feedback to determine whether there is a real problem. They have a stake in doing so because they want their game to be playable by the vast majority, not just computer nerds.

It made me shake my head the other day when I returned Cities Skylines to Steam. One of the choices for the return was "Bad FPS (Frames Per Second) Performance" or something like that; basically, the game was too choppy to be enjoyable. Granted, my laptop is not new but it's not old, either. It looked like a great game but I had to give up on it.

One less customer for Paradox. That game should not be too graphically-intensive but the way they designed it and did not provide options for preventing trees from swaying and other stuff that eats up video resources, made it a non-starter for this customer.

Perhaps Paradox is big enough to get away with that and not care. I doubt if The Artistocrats can say the same. We'll see how they do. For adherbal to say what he said here is very encouraging in this regard.