So where's my fog of war fix?

Great, they can take the time to update Stardock Central but they can't upload a fix for our games. Lopsided sense of priorities I'd say.

SDC isn't coded by the GC2 devs, so there's no conflict there.

The patch is being worked on--the devs have no intent of leaving everyone hanging.

You know Belanos, rushing a bug fix patch is liable to introduce yet more bugs. Let them make sure they've got it right and that it isn't going to screw anything else up or you'll just end up in the same boat all over again.

indeed.

According to a statement by Kryo, they already finished working on it last week. So how difficult can it be to post it on Stardock so we can download it?

The bug was fixed in the code. There's a lot of work that goes to turn updated source code into a patch on SDC.

until you're a game developer, i don't think you'd have any basis for knowing how difficult it is. i certainly don't. and if you are a game developer, i'd hope you'd have a bit more patience.

the fog of war bug may be patched in their internal build, but there are other bugs. this bug only affects the largest galaxy size, so you could play quite fruitfully on a slightly smaller map. some other players, by contrast, experience a CTD whenever they load a game, meaning they can't play a game past a number of turns dependant on how long they and their machines will hold out.

the fog of war bug does not make the game unplayable. it makes one setting in the game problematic. the CTD bug makes the game little more than a demo for a group of people. i'd say that's a bit more pressing, and i'd venture a guess that the devs are hoping to come up with a fix for this before they release the next 5X patch.

of course, maybe they just like to laugh at the impatient.

cheers,
nik

Even assuming the GC2 devs were the ones updating stardock central, how is that lopsided? Stardock isn't made of GC2, they have alot of other products too, and SDC is like the headquarters for all that stuff. So it would make sense to do a general update to please all of their customers who might have been having trouble with it then just a couple of people who use ONE of their products.

And since I at least download these updates through SDC, and looks like you probably do too if you knew it was updated, I would think even you could see the sense of updating SDC before GC2.

OK, so once again I'm a victim of misunderstanding. I'll try and show a little more patience. I'm just irritated because I went through alot of trouble and expense in order to update the game. I went out and spent $150 on a wireless rig, and then it turned to not be an easy install due to various complications. And after all that the game is now virtually unplayable for me. Anything less than Gigantic is too small for me, in fact even that size is a bit cramped with 9 races, and I don't want to go back to the cheesy tech trading in the original game.

that's truly unfortunate. while i understand that everyone has personal preferences, and indeed customization is one of the best selling-points for GC2 and especially DA, i've found the variety you can get to be one of the best features of the game.

some of my favorite games have been on smaller maps: i give custom names to all my planets (even some of the AI's) and all my larger ships, etc. it gives the game a much more intimate feel. during one battle in such a game, i even shouted, "No! Not the Draco!" as one of my favorite ships was destroyed.

maybe it's time to mix things up a bit by trying a new game setup? if nothing else, it might hold you over until the patch is available.

Your FOW fix?   

Anyway, I temporarily got around it by starting a Gigantic game and CTRL-N-ing untill I was near the middle. This way MAYBE the fix will be out by the time I get to THAT edge of the map.  

It seems the FOW bug doesn't affect all edges, only one.

I just pretend its an immense, frame-shaped nebula

---

Heh, that might not be a bad idea. Have large nebulae (not THIS size, but, say, 1/2 a parsec) that sensors are ineffective in. Good place to run to if pursued, or even hide a nice big battlefleet ; on the flip side, freighters going through it often get ambushed by pirates.

I'm coming from Civilization 4, where I play Huge maps with 11 civs. Even the biggest GalCiv has to offer seems small to me. I just can't see myself stepping down even further.

Great idea! But the hard part would be having the AI taking advantage of it. It would be too much cheese if the AI wasn't coded to hide their fleets in there as we would do.

Is there an XML file for the FOW? Kill sensor ability randomly leaving us to send our Colony Ships to every parsec/sector (i can't remember which is which)...again though lack of AI intelligence here would be a worry.

I tried my best to ignore it but I just can't do it, especially if I start the game being inside of it. Nor can I go back to the tech trading in the default game, it's just way too easy to gain a technological advantage. Every single game I played I was always way out in front without really having to work at it. It adds more tension to the game if I see another race is ahead of me.

that's fine, but for the time being it seems you can either live with the bug, play on a smaller map, or not play at all.



you could disable tech trading. you could also mod an opponent to be very powerful (or all of them).

you could also try some self-control. i don't mean that as an insult in the slightest. i read one person's post who limited himself to having only a single planet with a ship yard (after the colony rush). i tired it and had a blast. sometimes i limit myself in other ways to make the game more exciting/fair (like refraining from building the Eyes of the Universe). in one game, i modded my home system so that it had five PQ26 planets, and i had some very nice bonuses, but didn't allow myself to colonize any other worlds. it's not CIV: you can do different things and still win!

Ummm state the obvious eh?



Hey buddy i don't see that there is any other way to take that sort of a comment!

Whilst i agree that we all need to have a little patience, i can easily see how it riles people to have a bug fix break more things Jumping up and down yelling have some self control doesn't help the situation at all & in fact it only makes things worse. As for your other comments, they are interesting but then again why should a player have to mod the game when all they want to do is play it the way it was intended to be played?

Guess we all need to step back a bit and let those that have to say the things the rest of us are thinking say them Best thing is if you don't agree with a post made by a member then don't read their comments or maybe even the thread. Saves you getting into a flame war with someone for the sake of a little tolerance.

D

You know, I wouldn't be as frustrated if I didn't have to jump through so many hoops in order to get the game updated in the first place. Like I said, I went out and spent $150 on a wireless rig, specifically so I could connect to the internet and update the game. And after a relatively difficult time getting it up and running, I end up with a patch that has a major bug in it. If I could simply have downloaded a file from the public network I have access to, I'd be feeling a lot more patient. I wouldn't have ended up feeling that I had just wasted a bunch of time and money as I do now.

bingo. by doing so, i was trying to call attention to the fact that part of why the game is unplayable for the OP is because s/he'll only play on gigantic maps. sometimes stating the obvious is a great way to call attention to a person's own role in a preceived problem.



i didn't mean self-control on these forums; i was referring to self-control in game play, such as, "i'm going to prevent myself from building more than one shipyard." i used that phrasing because, through playing such games, i've found it really does take a measure of self-control, at least for me, because rules one imposes on oneself are so much more tempting to break.

it interests me that you picked those comments to respond to; i'd say my first few replies were more flaming than that one. you're right, of course, that players shouldn't rely on mods and self-fixes to enjoy the game, and shouldn't have to. i was merely offering it as a temporary fall-back while his preferred style of play is still being fixed (the fine art of compromise).

normally, when i see the makings of a flame war, i walk away or leave only a small snide comment and leave it at that. constructive? no, of course not. in this particular case, i decided to be more actively involved because i do think s/he (and other players) might enjoy an alternate game setup in the mean time. perhaps it's naive or egotistical of me to think i can "open others' eyes" to the wonderful world of, uh, ...other ...game ...options? but then, i'm not exactly losing sleep over it either; i was killing time at work (and now i'm killing time waiting for a friend to pick me up on our way to the bar).

ps: Dregin, i thought to mention that for the most part, i find your commetns very insightful and useful, this one included.

Oh yeah, and on top of the time and expense of just getting myself an internet connection, it took me several tries to even get the patch downloaded due to the crappy connection I'm stuck with. My download timed out at least 3 times because my signal dropped. So I have some very good reasons for being pissed off at getting a sub-standard patch. I basically wasted my entire weekend just trying to play this game.

i never meant to belittle your frustration. many players who refuse home internet (for various reasons) have similar problems. though i have to ask, how did setting up wireless cost $150? wireless routers are about $50, and USB adapters, about $20. when i've set up cable/internet the company (it's been Cox and Time-Warner at different places i've lived) usually charges a smallish setup fee, but the cable modem is provided, and and the setup fee is nothing on the order of $80, more like $30. well, whatever the reason, i don't mean to pry.

also, there is a way to archive the patches, but from what i've gathered it's not exactly practical because you have to burn a DVD every time you need to patch the game - but it's an option.



is this a connection you're paying for?

I've you've got drive space to burn, there's no need to waste writeable discs. DA alone is only 250MB or so in its entirety, so even if you did put it on discs, you could fit two past builds on a single CD-RW.

Actually more like $140 now that I think about it. It cost me $80+ for the wireless card and another $60+ for a larger attenae, since I was having problems with reception on this network. It seems my computer is in a bad location for wireless, I've had nothing but problems with it. It's an issue I've had before and I didn't want to go back there, but Stardock has left me with no choice if I want to update this game.



No it's not. That involves installing Stardock Central on an internet connected machine and I don't have administrator rights to install anything on the public network I have access to. My only option was to connect to the wireless router on this system.



God no, I would never pay for a connection that's as unreliable as this one is. Even browsing the web can be like pulling teeth. Earlier this evening I kept dropping signal every 5 minutes or so. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it works but is slower than using dial-up. And I really, really didn't want to go through all this again, especially not for a crappy game patch. It would have been all worthwhile if it had been a good patch, but I didn't even get that satisfaction. And I'm probably going to have to spend hours again trying to download the fixed version. Thanks a hell of alot Stardock!

i see. well, it looks like your patch is out, so if you can arrange to download it, hopefully it'll manage to fix all your problems.

I take it you are unfamiliar with the well-known "One City Challenge" games for Civ IV players, right?