007 Commander

thats the only reason I dont buy more of your products, I love them, but I'm waiting for that strategic war game for our LAN parties. And we used to play MNB with 6 to 8 people at a party, it was a blast. Using optional rules like border targets and so on. 007

The IP port that CM uses is not one in which your browser, email or FTP use and so if there is a issue there it would not neccesarily be immeditalty recognizable just from ones experience browsing the web or playing other online games. "Madcatt, is the port number listed? In the manual? Havnt looked yet, thanks." Your previous comment about you cracking the demo to enable TCP play doesnt really sit too well with us either. "Sorry, it would be one thing if I had done this started posting here about it and giving it away. To be honest, after my first demo tcp game, it was then that i was hooked, and why you now have another buyer. Off topic, it would have been a really good idea to release another demo with it enabled. What I did simply made you another customer, for two of your products. Once again, I apologize that my acts do not "sit to well" with your company. I am trying to solve another topic at hand here. Lastly, I am not even 100% sure that your crashes ARE being caused by the crew capture issue since you have not indicated if that happened during the affected turn or not. "Actualy i did indicate just that, i wrote that in the above comments. But I have had this crash with a very basic generic battlefild, only infantry. I have the crash happen several times without any captured prisoners. Just lots of dead people. I also have not had this until i started adding MG units to my custom battle." Now,then keep your posts on this topic to the Tech Support forum where they belong and I and others will try and work with you to get this resolved or at least enable you to continue playing your game with a suitable workaround Thank you very much for your patience with my threads. I hope some day to be able to sit well with your company again, maybe i can help solve this delima. I would like to get that port information too if i can. Thanks, 007

Wacky and Peter, Help me, if neither of you have had this problem, ever, AND you have played a complete TCP/IP game several times, lets say more than 3. Can you both give me your system specs? I am a tech and therefor have a hard time blaming coder and game engins for problems. I usualy blame my system first, however this problem seem way too common and on several systems the same problems even on a Mac, so that would leave a logical blame to the coding. But i am still willing to troubleshoot my system. I would like to compare your sys specs with mine. In fact of you both can run system info and save the text file of the first section (summary) this will tell me what im looking for. thanks, 007

007

Not true, for those of us that do have this problem this error WILL surface before 30 turns our up, about 80% of the time. So this does not indicate that TCP/IP works MOST of the time. In reality the error happens MOST of the time, for those that have it at all. All of what you said and very true. However for me, and maybe im alone here, but I didnt not buy the game in the begining. I did not buy to play PBEM. I loved the original Squad Leader board game and I am a devoted PC gamer. I have LAN parties every week, I just play multiplayer games. I bought this game for its TCP/IP ability, which is a STANDARD feature in todays games. My opinion is coming from a gamer consumer, not a war sim fan. I do realize the value and pontential of this product. Besides my prior thread really does not say anything contary to your response. 007

Yea, i agree with what you said, and I hope no one thinks I mean by any definition that BTS is out to screw people at all. But Ill have a game with you, as long as you dont ask me to call you sexy! 007 U can reach me at bond_7007@yahoo.com, I prefer taking a few hours for an attempted TCP/IP game rather than PBEM. So if you want to try email me.

I appreciate the info you have provided. I have placed that post here and not the tech section cause i wanted to draw attention to it in hopes of getting more players to see it and respond with a possible work around. I had to post this reply here cause that thread was locked. The workaround I posted does work. The one work around you stated, continuing one turn with PBEM then load it back to TCP does not work. I have tried that twice. The no refund policy that I am sure is there, I was under the impression that TCP worked. I understand you or the company as a whole frowns in refunds in general, but some concession should be made toward the people that payed 52.00 for TCP ability and have not recived satisfaction on this area. I will deal with this work around, and it will be a lesson as a purchaser that I obviously will not learn, cause as i hate to admit it, your going to get my money again when CMBB comes out. So I am the fool here, it seems. You have made a great game, but a huge issue has developed with a standard feature in todays gameing and it just so happend to have been the MAJOR selling point for me. TCP/IP is why I made this purchase. To be honest, I do still see a value with this product for the money i spent, I am just frustrated at having to deal with this issue on my own. I do have some more info for you as well. I was testing this yesterday for seveal hours. I used a custom map with nothing but 100% open ground. I started with both sides having just 4 platoons each. The error never happend. I added some heavy weapons like MG squads and then the error started to surface. Several times when the error surfaced, there was not any captured units, and no vehicle crews since I have not included vehicles at all. However it is possible, and you would know more on this then me, but maybe the game engine considers the men in a MG unit "crews". I will post more about my results on the tech forum. Thank you for your time. 007 [ February 11, 2002, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: 007 Commander ]

Well, with continued testing i was able to come to one consistancy. After getting the error... I exited the game on both machines. My laptop was the machine that received the error, and always has, cause my main PC desktop is always the host. So, after getting the error for the umteenth time today, i loaded up the Laptop as the host and used its own autosave. It loaded up the sides in the correct order. Then I joined with the desktop and continued to play the game with both machines being on their orginal side and gameplay continued without any errors. I then quit both games... loaded up the game using the latest autosave on the desktop (orginal host), joined with my laptop and was able to also continue for about 4 more turns befor the laptop reported the error again. I loaded up the laptop again as the host using its own latest autosave and joined with the desktop and was able to continue for 10 more turns and the error never reocurred. So it seems that the host is causing the corruption and the client is just the unit reporting the error. However the when switching rolls of the host / client PC then this error did not occure. So its very possible it could be something in the system that can cause this corruption. Will continue testing.. but this was a workaround that did work since i did confirm it to work twice. 007 [ February 10, 2002, 10:30 PM: Message edited by: 007 Commander ]

I have done my share of reading on this issue. And here is what i have gathered in summary from the threads. Madcat has mentioned that he was unable to recreate this issue at all. Another forum member made comments that this most likely will not be solved since BTS made a statement that no more pathes will be worked on for CMBO. This could be due to the fact that of CMBB close to being completed. The problem I have is here, if the well known TCP/IP issue is being put on back burner cause of the next installment, then what can I do to obtain a refund? I fully intend on purchising CMBB (after TCP issue does not resurface) when it is released. But I only bought CMBO for the TCP/IP ability. However I have yet to finish one game without this crash occuring. The workarounds posted do not work. I have had this TCP/IP issue happen on 3 machines, both with TCP/IP thru a HUB, or over the internet. So bottom line. Is this TCP issue being worked on for CMBO? If not, then how can I obtain a refund or I will accept credit towards CMBB. I just dont want to spend 100.00 for one game works as advertised. If you are working on this TCP issue, can you share some of the results. Since the post by Madcat stated that no one in his dev or testers has had this issue? Can you let us know what were the testing conditions? In other words, if there is someone that has never had this issue? Information on systems or games that have never had this issue can help. I have spent the past 5 hours with 2 systems on my LAN and have had no success either establishing a CONSISTANT situation where the error occurs nor a workaround either. Thanks for your time. 007

I hope this issue isnt too dead yet. I just bought my copy for TCP/IP. I only play multiplayer games. However if my resolution is to wait for the next game, i had better receive that for free or obtain a refund from BTS. So, i hope they are still working on this issue, and not just blowing it off cause of the next game. 007

I have an idea.... Has anyone been able to have this issue recreated with a custom map? If so what units were included? Then take out some units and try it again... I wonder if this bug could be cause of certain units present in the battle. I may work on this, i have 2 pcs on a LAN at home. 007

OK, time for me to join this problem.. I have had the problem happen on an internet game AND LAN game with both the same PC's. It happened in the demo which i cracked to enable TCP/IP, on Valley of Trouble. AND it happend after we purchased the game the full 112 version. We were playing Son map, over the internet and the very turn befor last it also occured. Everytime this error has occured it has been with the client PC, not the host. Also we both have WinXP, client has 512 meg i think, and the host (mine) has 1 gig of RAM. Both have Gforce2 64 meg, with the latest 27.20 det drivers. Also, ALL of these complaints above and NO one post their system specs. Can we please start posting system specs when your reporting a problem. 007

I solved it, its the same font that uses for the save text files that Deanco site was talking about. rename 30002B&W.bmp back to the orginal 30002.bmp that worked for me 007

bty: I did read that post below regarding restoring a font type. This was also mentioned on Deanco's site, however the site was talking about SAVE GAME text fonts, those are working fine... so i am not sure if that solution also applies to the MARKER font... I guess i could try it and find out.. 007

I was installing all of his MOD's, like the gunmetal and thinlines and a few others. However the font for MARKERS is big thick ugly block like characters. I cant read them. Like lables for the streets or bridges, or markers i create with the map editor. Anyone know wha bmp is used for the Markers? Thanks all, 007