We need more feedback

Have the beta? We need more info!

from JoeUser Forums

We are really looking for more feedback on the beta. We know hundreds of you have the beta, but we're not getting a lot of feedback. Especially in specifics.

We will be letting those who pre-ordered the game on its own (as opposed to getting Drengin) start getting it next week. But in the meantime, we really need your help in this. The game is going gold and we're in crunch time now (the amount we can do in 4 weeks you'll be amazed by). 

What things would you like to see that can be reasonably implemented? (i.e. don't suggest primaries or some other completely new game mechanism).  What play balancing do you think we need? Does it crash? If so, we need to know your video card and OS info and make sure you're running DirectX.

Thanks!

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Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hi, have you thought about including a multiplayer mode where two players can play on the same computer? It could switch from Democrat to Republican once a turn, and let the other person make their move. I think it would be great if there were more random events: WWIII, stock market crash, assassination attempt on one of the candidates, etc. In the final version of the game (or in this version that I don’t know about), will you be able to adjust the number of weeks that the game goes on for? Lastly, I find it really annoying that whenever you make an ad, a big newspaper comes shooting up right in your face. I like it after the TV appearances, but not after every ad. Maybe there could be a window that you can click on, and it will have the newspapers that would have come up in it. The second Beta version has a huge amount of bugs on my computer: the options menu is blank except for the sound options, the fantasy mode doesn’t work at all, you can’t go past the first screen, the ready button is dark and I can’t adjust any of the sliders. Also, in the whole game I can’t click any of the checkboxes -- sometimes the boxes in the campaign mode work, but not all the time. It just stops for ten seconds or so during the game a lot; sometimes it crashes in the middle of a game for no apparent reason; and lastly, on the news banner on the top of the screen it sometimes calls my opponent the president-elect. But I think it’s going to be a fantastic game when it’s done. By the way, is there any chance of a Macintosh version? My PC is a Dell Dimension XPS, 3GHz, 2GB RAM, RADEON 9800 Pro 128MB, Windows XP Pro SP1, DirectX 9. Thanks very much.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I just played the Political Machine for the first time. Puttered with it for about 30 minutes.

Here are a few things I found...

I was in Florida and had a small HQ there. Flew to Wyoming. Upgraded Florida HQ. A message went across the top of the screen that I had upgraded an HQ in Wyoming (which I hadn't). Unless I misread it, that counts as a bug.

Often pressing buttons has an annoying delay of several seconds. For example, pressing state info. There was a big delay when looking at the candidate stances on issues with the candidate information function. The scroll bar had problems being slid up and down.

In game setup, clicking on the magnifying glass by the candidate's name dropped me to dos.

There are no characteristic descriptions explaining what compassion, fund raising, and the like mean.

When the music ends it cuts off very abruptly. Would be much better if it looped into itself.

On Hardball, I had a question about how I'd treat my opponent. It had a response that had the word "serpants" in it. I believe that is a typo and should be "serpents".

The description for the Hollywood Friend has two slash-n's in the middle of it.

The save game function doesn't seem to be active (or at least I couldn't figure out how to save it). I looked in the options window and saw what looked like a save game menu but it didn't do anything.

One more bug, this time a typo on this site. When a user isn't logged in and considering joining, the word "beneficial" is spelled wrong.

Looks like a good game. I look forward to exploring it further.

--Aaron

PS, I also suggest you add the following features:

1 - The ability to campaign in DC. It's worth 3 electoral votes, after all. Check on Puerto Rico and Guam as well. Do they have any electoral votes? I'm not sure. If so, let candidates be able to go there.

2 - A running tally on the screen about how many electoral points the candidate has based on recent polls.

3 - Not sure if you do this, but polls should have a margin of error built within them. So how the states appear to be leaning can be slightly off. Makes for a slightly more unpredictable game.

4 - The ability to see the opponent's warchest. FEC filings make it obvious how much a candidate has in real life, so it should be easily available knowledge.

5 - The polls should not guarantee who wins a state on election night. Someone else suggested it and I like the idea. For every 1% ahead (the real percentage, not necessarily the polled pecentage) in the candidate is, he should get a +5% (or so) chance of winning the state. So if you're up 51 to 49 you have a 55% chance of winning. 54 to 46 is a 70% chance. And so forth. By the time you're up 60 to 40 you have a 100% chance of winning. If you think that's a little to open to chance, then make it a +6 or +7% chance per percent of winning.

6 - Someone suggested on election night you sometimes say a state is "too close to call" and come back to it a few states later. I think that's a great idea. It'll add to the mood.
TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Another two bugs.

- Just tried to play the game again. Got as far as selecting which candidate I'd be. It wouldn't let me continue though. The button to continue just said "loading" and didn't appear.

- From the main menu I clicked "options". Clicking on "resume game" dropped me to dos.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
I played my first entire game all the way through tonight. Beta 1 never let me get that far! So this is an improvement.

Are running mates gone I suppose? It would be cool to have a "pick a running mate" event at like week 20 to mix things up halfway through the year. Maybe this is too big a change this late...

In Florida I noticed that giving the speech "I favor Soc Security" were thumbs up across the board, but "My opponent favors Soc Security" was ALSO thumbs up...this seems counter-intuitive to me...

There is no ability to scroll the map. Will this change? As it is now I can zoom in with the mouse wheel, but if I want to zoom into any state besides Nebraska, I'm out of luck!

I think adding unpredictability to the polls (margin of error mentioned above) is a great idea.

I did several television interviews. I generally answer the questions consistently, but would nonetheless do well in some and bomb in others, not knowing at all why.

It seems I can fly some of my operatives around, and then others won't move (Al Franken and my Money Man)

I pushing buttons should give some feedback--a nice solid CLICK sound along with the button graphic becoming recessed

Those are my impressions so far. Thanks!
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
1) I like the addition of the newspaper after interviews and when some campaigns are started. Gives feedback as to how well your interview was taken by the public.

2) I noticed that vice-presidential candidates aren't really a factor in this beta. What are the plans at this point for dealing with vice-presidential candidates?

3) I also like the idea of keeping a running total of electoral vote distribution as a kind of "if the election were held today" gauge.

4) Are there plans on the table at this point for dealing with debates between the candidates? I think I've heard the question brought up before but don't really remember hearing a definite answer on that, so I just thought I'd ask.

I've noticed that in the two games I've played so far that the first time I'm invited onto JoeUser.com the interview goes off alright, but subsequent invitations to JoeUser don't seem to work. Clicking the yes option just clears the window and usually later I'll get a newspaper message about the results of the interview which never took place. Multiple interviews on other programs appear to function fine though. I notice that questions for more than one issue tend to be asked in interviews now, which I like.

I've noticed a few instances where there will be a popup window for an event and the description will just read "String not found". I could always play through again to find specific instances.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. I like the way things are looking so far. Great artwork.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Typo: An interview with JoeUser has a question about food stamps. The text ends: "What would". Obviously part of a question, but the question never finishes.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
#6 seems to be a common theme in Stardock games - text strings for descriptions or questions that are longer than the graphic interface allows. Ran into that a couple times in GalCiv and Corp machine.

- Newspaper names are too long for the newspaper graphic
- #6's interview questions cut-off
- I'll second #4's mention of the counter-intuitiveness of the "Opponent" speech options

- if you click on a window's background, was either the Speech or Ad interface, you're actually clicking the map screen behind it

- When you finish editing an existing candidate, the old one remains as a duplicate. If this is intentional, perhaps you could add a 'copy' command that does that, and have the 'edit' command change existing ones without creating copies?

- I created a "Ron Paul" candidate; he wasn't saved for my next gaming session (I.E., I think I need to re-create him every time)

- alt-tabbing in Win98SE seems to frequently cause a crash-to-desktop (2 out of 3 times so far). I'll upgrade when I get a socket 939 so you kind folks won't have to continue supporting us legacy users.

OS Version : Windows 98
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 005015AC 01:001005AC C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00000000
EBX:00000000
ECX:015DEED0
EDX:00000000
ESI:015DEED0
EDI:015DD0C0
CS:EIP:0167:005015AC
SS:ESP:016F:00B0FB28 EBP:00B0FB28
DS:016F ES:016F FS:197F GS:0000
Flags:00210246


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
005015AC 00B0FB28 0001:001005AC C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
004253F3 00B0FBAC 0001:000243F3 C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
0042549A 00B0FBCC 0001:0002449A C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
00432315 00B0FBEC 0001:00031315 C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
004324FB 00B0FC40 0001:000314FB C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
004329B0 00B0FCD8 0001:000319B0 C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
00432B81 00B0FD10 0001:00031B81 C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
0061BEB9 00B0FE38 0001:0021AEB9 C:\GAMES\STARDOCK\DRENGIN.NET\POLMACHINE\POLMACHINE.EXE
BFF8B560 00B0FF78 0002:00012560 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KERNEL32.DLL
BFF8B412 00B0FFF4 0002:00012412 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KERNEL32.DLL
BFF89DD5 8E75FFEC 0002:00010DD5 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KERNEL32.DLL

- Is the game performance OS related? 512 MB 1 GHz machine (the vid card spec'd above has 32 MB) ... the game seems deceptively simple, graphics-wise. Long pre-interview delays, jerky plane flights, scroll bar and button lag...

- the "Jobs" speech graphic is a gun.

- It is difficult to tell what causes a disasterous interview, unless it's my fringe politics (heck, I like Ron Paul, so that's probably my problem).

Game's shaping up pretty well. Looking forward to what you can do with 4 weeks.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
- the first Endorsement option is blank; when it's selected, there's a weird number showing up in the 'cost' field

- If your awareness penetration in a state is 100%, you only see "10"

- Maybe this was a paradoy of the O'Reilly factor, but I seemed to have gotten temporarily stuck in a question loop. He'd ask me about massing the army on our Mexican border, I'd say it's not necessary, he'd push the issue, I'll stay my ground, and then he asks the first question again. So that was four questions; the Newspaper follow-up said I was 'brave'. So I can't tell if it's a bug or not.

- I got JoeUser.com twice in my last campaign, and got the same question. Is this checking to see if I'm waffling?

- It seems to me that some of the henchmen you can hire have a very rare chance of paying off - especially the ones that interact with interviews - the odds of an interview appearing in a state you hired such an operative are slim.

- I tried using the numberpad to type in the campaign year - changing 2004 to 2008. Got 200h instead.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Just finished my first game--fun! I played openly gay Congressman Barney Frank in a race against George W. Bush. I'm happy to say that Frank wiped him off the map. The victory was all the sweeter in that it was my fantasy political matchup come true. : ) Will have to play again on a more difficult skill level (was at beginner).

Seriously, found a bunch o' bugs...

- Often after selecting candidates, sometimes the game never got beyond "loading". I gave up after waiting for an entire minute.

- In the media darling event, it says she raises all ratings by ____ (didn't have a number).

- The Joe User interview didn't always start.

- The Joe User interview came up an awful lot - like 4-5 times during the campaign. Twice it didn't start, twice it asked the same question.

- The smear merchant has a typo with the a period.

- There is no announcement when you obtain an endorsement. No noticeable immediate political effect either (at least in my games). Would be nice to get at least some feedback on what changes when I win it.

- In the Nightline question about China the text isn't finished.

- Sometimes moving from state to state results in the sound, but then a delay of 10 seconds before you see your character move.

- Joe User newspaper notices sometimes appeared for no apparent reason. (Might be linked to buying political capital - happened around then a few times).

- Text for the money man doesn't finish.

- At the end of the game in the exit polls, there is no explanation of what "all" means. I couldn't figure it out.

- When the news scrolls across the top of the screen, West Virginia doesn't have a space in it.

- The Barry King inteterview has a typo with the death penalty question.

- The Nightline question about Iran has a typo. It should be "mullahs", not "mullah's".

- The webmaster text isn't finished. (Oddly, a number of these texts that aren't finished are missing the word "in". Could it just not be displaying for some reason?).

--Aaron

PS, More suggestions for new features.

1 - Election night. Have an announcer graphic appear. Perhaps even have a recorded voice announcing, "New York has gone Democratic" or "Texas sends its electoral votes to the Republicans". I suggest playing up the election night and slowing down the results as the states come in. It's the battle that the whole game leads up to--it should be done as elaborately and enjoyably as possible. Make a show out of it, but one that isn't necessarily repitive.

If you decide to allow the possibility of election night upsets at the polls, consider having the announcer declare when a major upset has occurred.

2 - The statistic during the game to determine how a state is leaning is "awareness". In my campaign Florida went up to 100/100. It was totally red at one point. I dropped in for a visit and it turned to bright blue. It was impossible to tell how much either candidate "owned" the state by. I suggest changing "awareness" to "popularity". Awareness doesn't seem to be the right word.

To make it a more useful statistic, I suggest changing it from awareness within the state to the overall popularity. Ie; who is leading in the state polls. If you have this statistic somewhere in the game I didn't notice it. It would be a far more useful stastistic to know the percentages of who was leading, who was behind, and how many voters were still undecided.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
Excellent...you guys sure do deliver Thanks for taking the time to post this kinda' feedback...it's exactly what we were looking for! I'll touch on a couple of isses...

- Running-Mates: Hopefully in by the next build, running mates will be chosen half-way through the game (week 20). He'll become a unit omn the screen that can be positioned wherever, but will use stamina and such.

- Joe User forum Weirdness: FOrums sometimes wont let you go to them if you've been there and all questions have already been asked. THis code isn't foolpoof, however, since Duodecimal seems to have gotten the same question 4 times in a row on O'Malley. We'll definatly have to get that stuff solid before the next few betas.

- Awareness: This stat isn't the overall popularity of the candidate...instead, is't how much of the people know your name, and have a solid idea of your stances on the issues. It's odd that dropping into a state would so drasticly change its color, though...that'll have to be looked into.

-Eleciton Night: THere have been alot of great suggestions for election night. Now that we have some of the major gameplay issues delt with, this kinf of polish is being properly addressed. Hopefully through the Beta period we can come up with the most enjoyable and ideal way to present the election results (announcer play-by-play, too-close-to-call states, ect.)

haha And I'm glad to see the BobVila has correctly identified the "Smear Merchant" as Al Franken. Good eye for us not having the final GFX in the game yet

ANyhow, back to work...I'll let some of the others take a stab at some of the issues mentoned....I have more art to get done
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
How about a screen shot detailing what all the screen elements are? What are those percentages at the top of the main screen? Is that the poll information? What do the thumbs up and thumbs down of different colors mean?

See President Forever for ideas and a well explained execution of game mechanics.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Here are a few issues from my games

Stamina: Way too powerful. I played with 15 stamina a week, and i could do so much more then my opponent that i got all states twice at normal difficulty.

Endorsements: In the previous built, they were way too powerful, but now, they might be slightly underpowered.

AI Issue: At one point, my opponent stopped doing anything for 3 weeks. If he was using this time to build political capital, he never used it.

Startup issue: Sometimes, in a "Start new campain", after you select your candidate and opponent, the "Loading" button will never change to "Start"

Political opportunities: When the symbol appear, and you rush to grab it, nothing happens. If you leave the state and come back a few seconds later, you will be able to get it. There seems to be a delay before you can grab it.

Interview: I was once asked the same set of question twice in 1 interview.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hi there,

I just installed the beta, but it doesn't run. It crashes a few seconds after starting it. (I don't even get to see the intro). Even if I add the no intro option, it still crashes. I have Directx 9 installed. I have a S3 Graphics Savage/MX (8 mb) and I am running Win XP Pro

For more information, you can always contact me at fistula80 at hotmail.com
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bug: When i upgraded my campain headquarter, it actually upgraded my HQ in the state my opponent was in.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
1) The candidatae information screen is a wee bit unclear, especially under "issues". The bars are unlabeled, so I have no idea what they mean -- likewise the red dots.

2) Most, if not all, of the starting candidates begin with more points used than are possible. Kerry begins with -12, for example.

3) Interviewers seem likely to repeat questions over different sessions. In the initial game I played, the first two instances of interviews were 50/50, and the questions were the same.

4) It's still too easy to cancel a game by going to options->main menu. Either allow resume from there or warn us?

5) Fantasy setup doesn't work, all controls nonfunctional.

6) In the "select a candidate" screen, it is possible to click on the bar for a candidate's characteristics, and so doing moves the bar. It does not update the number, however.

7) The simultaneous play is a cute gimmick, but usually means that the computer player moves before the human. Alternative suggestion is to alternate stamina points:
Candidate A and B each have 14 stamina to begin the round, so coin-flip on who goes first. Candidate A wins.
Candidate A makes a speech, costing 5 stamina and leaving him with 9.
Candidate B may now do -whatever he wants- until his stamina drops below 9. Then it is candidate A's turn again.
The candidate who ends his turn with the most stamina is given preference for starting first next turn.
This requires some modification for 'bonus' stamina picked at the candidate creation, but it's easy enough to deal with: trigger on crossing percentages (Candidate A uses 25% of stamina means Candidate B gets to use 25% as well), or simply apply the bonus stamina at the end.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
More stuff. I played about 2/3 of the way through another game before it crashed, so I have more to report.

1 - Barry King Live's intro text doesn't finish.

2 - It's difficult to see the ?'s very well in Vermont. They're too high on the screen and appear under the news bar.

3 - The Fixer's description doesn't make it clear enough what he does. I couldn't figure it out until I looked it up in the "docs" on here. You might want to be specific that he takes out an opposing operative.

4 - Game crashed (dropped to dos) after a Nightline Question.

5 - Text for the money man doesn't finish (missing the word "in" like so many other descriptions).

6 - As has been reported elsewhere, opposing candidates like to just sit and do nothing for a turn.

7 - Sometimes operatives appear on top of each other within a state making it difficult to select one.

8 - I've been trying to get the fantasy game function to work but the continue (or whatever) button never "turns on".

A few suggestions:

Stamina - Why not have a baseline stamina (say, 10 or 12). Having an high or low stamina score gives a random chance that bonus points will be added or deducted per turn. I agree that having a 15 stamina would probably be overpowered unless your opponent is similarly high.

Endorsements: Make it clear what an endorsement does. I understand it changes the candidate's standing on various positions. But what positions?

New feature: The other political game out there (President Forever) has a GREAT function whereby you can put together a strategy to get 270 electoral votes. You could do it here. Simply have a map and allow people to click on various states to let them add or subtract them out of their battle plan to reach 270 electoral votes. Once they have made a strategy that is >= 270 votes, mark those states on the blue/red map (can't remember it's name) so the player can see how he's doing.

This will allow the player to immediately see the strategy he has set for himself and to concentrate his resources on those places. It can be done right now, but requires a pencil and paper and isn't intuitively obvious which states he needs to focus on to win.

The flipside of this is that the computer may not have a strategy and may be spending time in states where his performance doens't matter. I suggest the computer put together a strategy and focus on it. Perhaps a strategy that updates every turn in case it sees a better winning strategy that it is closer to achieving.

--Aaron
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
Real quick: I think the "Stategy Map" feature sounds like a GREAT idea (which is probably why other games have it). We'll throw the idea around the office and see if we can come up with a fresh implementation of it so its not just cut'n paste from another game
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
Strong suggestion: Fix the bug with starting a game (and the one with the fantasy settings) and release an intermediate beta. I am getting (at most) 1 in 10 games to start correctly. The rest only display the "loading" bug. I'm giving it perhaps 20 seconds per try. That should be way more than enough, especially since I'm not on an archaic computer.

If it does need more than 20 seconds to load, you should have a statement making it clear that it does so.

Fixing that bug and putting out a 2.1 beta will make it MUCH (x3) easier to test the game. Otherwise, testers may give up on it and go do something else instead (as I'm doing).

--Aaron
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top

I think The Political Machine could use more specifics in terms of what units do.

Having given this some though ttoday here are some examples:

1) The advertisement screen doesn't ever explain what the difference between the difference types of ads. We need to have a place on the screen that displays what the ads do (example):

TV ads: +/- 2 points to your position on a given issue + 2% change each week + 2% change in awareness in the state and 1% each week in awareness in adjacent states.

Should also say something like "lower's candidate's appeal with Democrats" instead of "lowers democrat appeal" which is vague. Or better yet Raises your appeal with Democrats. And when you target opponent it should say "Lowers opponent's appeal with Democrats".

2) Same thing when you make a campaign speech. No information is given about what they dy.

3) Units should have a "details" button that brings up their screen which explains what they do.

4) The fund raising screen should display how many times you've fund raised that state since that greatly affects how much money you'll get from that state.

5) Campaign HQ needs to be more clear too. Example: Level 1 HQ raises your awareness in state by +1% per week. Level 2 does +2% per week and +1% to adjacent states. And level 3 does 4% per week and 2% in adjacent states.

6) State details screen needs an area that shows why one player is winning.

Key factors that need to be shown: Population that is Dem, Rep, and Indie. Your awareness vs. Opponent Awareness. And your points on the various issues vs. his points.

Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
Aaron, you are assuming everyone is having the problem you described. None of our intenral machiens have this problem otherwise we would have alredy corrected a loading the game problem like you describe.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
Ahh, very true Frogboy. I shouldn't make the assumption that others are having the same trouble as I. You'll have to hear from them directly.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
My main criticisms:

Issues seem underpowered. I tended to be able to gain a very substantial lead before creating a single ad or making a single campaign speech. Fix this and I think you will have a big hit with this game; leave it as is, and I think it will be received as just so-so. You simply do not feel a compelling need to carve out a position on the issues as you play the game, and this takes away a lot of the sense of strategy and the sense of politics.

The TV shows still need a lot of polish. Many have intro text cut off. The questions are repetitive, and the reaction to them seems weird -- one time I gave totally innocuous answers on Hard Hitter but got bad results. Overall, I feel that the TV shows are going to get the worst reaction of anything in this game, because it such a strange hybrid of luck and strategy.

Other reactions:
Overall, the game has gotten easier, based on my games at normal difficulty.

Campaign headquarters in lots of medium-small states is too powerful a strategy. You rake in too much money as income, while piling up states that your opponent will be hard pressed to contest. Either income from campaign headquarters needs to be pro-rated by size/wealth of state, or your opponent needs to be better at this.

When you gain characters like the cheerleader or heckler through chance, they appear on a clipboard, but it is anything but clear how to control them .

There is some weirdness in the "ready" button to start the game. Sometimes it is lit up and available and sometimes it is not -- I'll just reload the game 3-4 times and finally it will start... Also, there is some instability if you use "esc" to skip the Stardock or the intro screens.

I like the news article that I am being blasted on an issue, and I think the game could be improved considerable just by expanding this idea. Since issues are clearly being tracked (based on the exit polls), I would urge that you hear more about taking a beating on specific issues, the population siding with/against candidates on certain issues -- even that big, close states are being influenced by certain issues… However, I did notice that when I took out a radio ad saying I supported more jobs, it was reported that I blasted my opponent on this issue. Maybe there should be a distinction between:
"Kerry Blasts Bush on Jobs"
"Kerry's Job Messages Wow Crowds"
"Polls Show Kerry Is Hurting Bush on Jobs Issue"

I like the exit poll a lot! But I suspect that this is the stuff that should come earlier in the game, to give it some depth.

I could see from the exit poll that my opponent spent no political capital at all.

I still don't like the endorsement system very much. How about this for an idea: In return for your 8 points of political capital, you get a chance at the endorsement, and your chance depends on your score on that issue. If you've been campaigning pro-environment, then you might have a 95% chance of getting that endorsement if you go for it. However, if you have been campaigning against the environment, your chances would be low… I felt pretty abusive ignoring issues except for grabbing the endorsement for 8 points.

I really like the choices offered in the Fantasy setup -- particularly the starting wealth (allows a choice between a fun game and a recreation of the actual situation) and the randomization (adds immeasurably to replay). Of course, these are not yet working, so I couldn't test them out.

I wish that in creating candidates you were not faced with a point limit. Maybe a Kennedy or a Reagan, accurately rated, comes out to have more points than this. It would be fun to be able to create super opponents to run against.

Stamina really should not be such an important stat -- I really doubt that it has ever been such a make or break factor in an election.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Just finished another game. Bill Clinton wiped out Bush jr. on challenging. To be honest, it was so easy that it took a lot of the fun away. In spite of the name, it wasn't challenging at all.

Bugs:

- For some reason I couldn't get any awareness in Minnesota. No matter what I did I couldn't get any. Neither visiting, campaigning, taking out ads, sending in consultants, media darlings, or political operatives could change that. I ultimately lost the state because of this.

- The Iowa HQ's appeared almost on top of each other. Made it almost impossible to tell I had an HQ in the state.

- The Hollywood Friend had two slash-n's in its description.

- Sending a fixer into a state resulted in one of my people being killed. I didn't try sending it into a state with an enemy operative (he never bought any).

- Computer doesn't use political capital.

- When I built a level 3 HQ it gave me a political operative. Clicking on it didn't put anything on the little screen even though it put the little circle underneath the icon. It wouldn't let me move it at first because it said I was out of stamina (which I was). Don't recall if it finally used stamina when I moved it next turn.

- On the campaign topics list, outsourcing of jobs has a lowercase "j". All other topics use all capital letters.

- On one of the shows (Nightline? Not sure), I had a question on campaign finance reform. The short answers on the left didn't fit on the lines and were cut off.

- I had a consultant in Indiana that appeared with a Bush HQ above it and a Clinton HQ below it. I couldn't click on the consultant as clicking anywhere near it registered one of the HQ's.

--Aaron

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Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
Another minor issue. The Jaded Consultant seems to be using a filler picture with some sort of label on it. Its text description is incomplete.

Just won (John Kerry vs. Arnold S.) on the 2nd or 3rd highest skill level (don't remember the exact name). Am pleased to report that the computer spent political capital on endorsements. Still didn't spend money on operatives though. Perhaps I need to move up to a higher skill level.

--Aaron
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top

The AI isn't even close to done yet so don't owrry about that.

In terms of issues and such - the reason you can make good headway early on without taking out ads is awareness. As politicans can tell you, awareness is more important than issues in the real world. That's why candidates at the end of a campaign will travel so much. Getting out to a state and shaking hands, kissing babies, etc. makes a big difference and this is modeled via awareness.

Once you both have awareness cranked up, the issues come into play.