Stability patch?

There's still months of beta ahead.  Pace yourself, my friend.

Sometimes I feel that I dont want a patch, cause I enjoy the game right now

Its the levelling of my Sovereign and troops in general. It scratches my itch in the same way as Kings Bounty (which I highly recommend everyone to try).

I agree.  The game is quite engrossing in its current state. In my opinion all it really needs is some AI work and bug tweaks.

I wouldn't know.

As always, your call, Brad.  Here to help.

Have you turned off the particle effects?  Apparently there is a bug Frogboy found that causes all of them to run all the time.

Also, try playing above Normal AI level. In another thread, users who upped the difficulty level had much fewer crashes. Probably some AI thread locking problem.

Winnihym, I'm with you. I think stability should be the primary focus of the developers, and so do others. A significant portion of the surveyed voted for this, and I would imagine the beta testers are more computer aware and hardware endowed then the general gaming populace. The point being that FE would have major stability complaints in the marketplace.

   Anyhow, my current game is set on ridiculous (well above Normal AI) and I turned the particle effects off - it just crashed on the 3rd move after reloading (season 175). The only reason I can still play is that FE reloads relatively quickly.

   Actually edit the above, it is crashing every second turn now - and its doubly frustrating because if I try to save - it crashes then also! I guess I'll just wait for the new release...sigh.

   g

Kings Bounty is a fun but simplistic 4X game. Kind of a 4x lite game much like Hero's of Might and Magic yet more fun than that. The Tactical Combat is more like playing a battle chess as oppose to fighting a battle much like FE and AOW:SM and MOM was.

I agree with both you guys; and I just wanted to add my voice to yours.  I am concerned that if we don't continue to speak up, on an issue like this, that it may not get the attention that it deserves.

In fairness to Mr. Wardell, and the whole FE design staff (see his Reply #2 above), it  is  still early in the Beta-testing-feedback-and-design-process.  The next 6 months may well see a host of fixes and improvements, that will take FE far past it's current limitations.

On the other hand, I see so many Respondents asking for more features, and more options, and more empire diversification, and more "glitter", and just:  more, More, MORE,  that I remain a little concerned that ambition and customization may end up trumping stability and accessability. 

I have completed two FE games to date; but have started three others that I really just could not complete, because of persistant, recurring crashes.  The single biggest problem for me (but far from the only one) has been the host of crashes attributed to "Out of Memory" errors, when I tried to save an on-going game.  My concern in that regard, is that the FE Design team may (at some point) just decide to abandon those of us who have 32-bit systems, (with our 2 Gigs of addressable memory limitation).   I have explained why I think this would be a mistake for Stardock, in my replies on the forum thread entitled "Who is still running Windows XP?" . 

In any event, whatever Stardock decides in that regard; I hope that they won't let their enthusiasm for the possibilities of this game, get in the way of creating a good  stable  product, that will be as accessible as possible, to as wide a base of customers, as possible.    That way lies greatness, for FE ... and high profitability, for Stardock ! 

Some good points here.

I hope you do realize that as they write new code and implement new features, they need to do stability testing all over again. They can't just make the game stable now and then have it stay as stable until the end of development.

They're going to make the game plenty stable before it is released, don't worry.

Make sure to submit crashes to SD, not just through the crash method but via the Support forum, too.

Wow!  lol

Playing King's bounty right now, and thought no one had ever heard of this.  As much of a HoMaM clone it is, I find it quite unique in its own way.

Other way around. The original King's Bounty was what HoMM was based on. I remember getting it in the old HoMM 1-3 collection bundle. Good times...

It always makes me sad to see that Winnihym can't enjoy the game. You can come over and play sometime. I don't get crashes! 

Thanks for the Tip, StevenAus !! ... Following your suggestion, in Reply #5 above, I turned off the "particle effects" feature in the gameplay section.  This does seem to have substantially helped with the  "Save Game"  crashes that I personally was experiencing.  I have since managed to play the FE Beta for two hours straight, with several Saves; and experienced no crashes during that timeframe. 

I am impressed ! ... and Thanks a lot for the Tip ! ...    

I would still argue that Stardock needs to emphasize stability/accessibility throughout the whole Beta testing process.  It shouldn't be an issue that they tackle only as an afterthought, or otherwise late in the process.  However, as I admitted before, it  is  still early; and I do understand LNQ's point (Reply #11 above), that stability can not be guaranteed continuously, through-out the whole process.    I  want  FE  to be great for the customers  ... and a major success for Stardock!

I'm encouraged that Brad keeps finding ways to optimize/tweak memory usage, threading, graphics, etc. as they're implementing new features. So, while FE is getting new features, it's also getting more refined. We'll see what happens when we get the beta this week (right?).

 Hey, no worries, Seanw, but thanks for the concern; I've reported the crashes I had, but I find it unplayable because I can't get past around leather armor/2-3 medium size cities before the crashes hit.  Its something endemic to the data, because the autosave files, when reloaded, crash in the same spot.  I'm all for helping in the Beta Test, it's what I signed up for, not gameplay.  There's little more that they can learn from me at this point, though, so without anything to fix whatever issue it is that I'm experiencing, I just won't be able to help playtest.  No big deal, there's lots of better eyes than mine watching and making suggestions; SD probably doesn't need the marginal help of one more person.

Out of curiousity, how far would I have to travel to come over and play?  I'm in New Mexico.

Lol, Washington. Better off just heading to Stardock HQ. 

But the game is so awesome!
even in beta.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I wouldn't expect the game to be rock solid until mid Summer to be honest.

When the game gets stable for me, I'll be sure to let you know.  Some builds feel more stable than others.  But I typically fix a couple of crash bugs per day when I'm working on it. 

The most common crash has to do with multiple threads changing some data at the same time. It's a timing issue and we sort them out and make the engine more robust as time goes on.

why i dont see  the FE beta forum?

i just found out in this thread there are mods and i was able to track that mod down following  sean posts but i still cant see the whole forum...

The mod forum is hidden due to the nefarious nature of our mods. We are the fallen of Elemental and Heavenfall our Lucifer. Join us ddd888. Join us! 

I have to add my name to the please sqaush crash bugs list. I have given up on .86 as it crashes to often to be playable for me the previous version was far more stable for me. I guess I will just have to be patient and wait for next release.