Update on Engine 4 patches

[A Canadian Cat]

11 hours ago, sttp said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to have two installations of CMBN running on the same PC, one at version 3.0 and the other at 4.0? I have a battle or two that were started on 4.0 that I can't lose access to, yet the thought of returning to 3.0's AI behavior is also very appealing.

I assume I'd just need to start another install, point it to a different directory, 

Absolutely it is possible. Just as you suggest. You usually don't even have to activate anything else either.

Many of us do it all the time.

Edited December 26, 2018 by IanL
Typo

[sburke]

On ‎12‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 11:44 AM, Thewood1 said:

 I'm not sure what is happening behind the scenes at BFC,

Nope you don't.  That should inspire some caution at making pronouncements about what is or isn't being done right, wrong or indifferently. No it absolutely is not the best of all situations to have to wait on patches.  There are limits though to what BF can do considering the resources involved.  Sure they could test a lot more as you and a couple others have noted, however would you like to have waited another 6 months for CMSF2?  Beta testing for CMSF was a bitch. I have no idea where you came up with the idea there was no testing. You should speak from what you know not from ignorance.   A brand new title would have been easier.  Everything has a price.  BF could have gone the route of doing the base game then each individual module.  Instead they took a shortcut to release the entire CMSF family and folks are bitching about that?  Damn..  The number of people who do not have all the modules is a subset of the total number of purchasers.  Possibly a small subset.  The Marine campaign will be fixed shortly.  The others to follow and in the meantime there is plenty of material to play with.  I swear this forum really amazes me how folks can't see the forest for the trees at times.  One issue was found with a campaign and the immediate response is "oh my god they released too soon" or "oh my god I found a bug how could they have missed this"?  good lord.  Perfect is the enemy of good enough.  No software is ever perfect so was CMSF2 ready for release? In my view hell yeah.  Was it perfect, no.  Would it have been perfect in another 6 months.  no.  Would BF have to consider another pricing model if it was gonna take another 6 months or simply drop the project.  Yep.  Given those options I for one am thrilled they went through with it despite the teething issues it still has.

 

[sburke]

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 2:51 PM, Bozowans said:

A lot of other game developers release small "hotfix" patches for their games if they find an important issue. Like a patch that just fixes one thing. It makes me wonder why Battlefront never does anything like that. I would rather download several small patches over time than wait two years for one big one. 

Funny because that is exactly what people used to bitch about  Updating to keep in line with patches.  And as you may know already BF is planning to release a hofix for CMSF2 over the course of maybe the next week.

[sburke]

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 7:15 PM, coachjohn said:

speaking of which - I thought sf2 stopped the men running out on to balconies rather than staying inside buildings.  A little disappointed with that. Very disappointed. Maybe patch? yeah right!

Not sure where you go that.  Yes there are folks that object to the behavior represented in balconies however that is not a "bug" and is easily remedied if you don't like it in map design.  They have their advantages and disadvantages just like any other terrain feature.  I have never heard from BF that they intend to do anything with that.  There are simply too many things involved there for me to contemplate the labor it would take and it is not a CMSF specific behavior.  It is easier to either design buildings with no access to the balcony if you want the aesthetic of balconies or simply eliminate them.

[Aragorn2002]

15 hours ago, mjkerner said:

 Curse the darkness, or light a candle.

I like that quote. Short and powerful.

[Michael Emrys]

17 hours ago, mjkerner said:

Curse the darkness, or light a candle.

Or if you're like me, do both.

Michael

[Ultradave]

10 hours ago, IanL said:

Absolutely bit is possible. Just as you suggest. You usually don't even have to activate anything else either.

Many of us do it all the time.

It's no problem at all. I have 2 FI's right now - one for the 4. patch testing, the other for the new FI module beta testing.  I just have renamed the top level directory. 

[Badger73]

15 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I like that quote. Short and powerful.

Original quote, " Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness."

Attributable to William Lonsdale Watkinson, 1907.

[Bulletpoint]

It's not only a problem of missing issues during testing. Some issues are old and well known and were fixed before - yet they reappear when new games are launched.

For example the issue of the game crashing when choosing an automatic mixed force without having all the modules. It plagued CMBN for a long time before getting fixed in 4.0. Now it's reappearing in CMSF2.

It's not some unpredictable problem you have to pay testers to work hundreds of hours to find. It's already known and should be on a checklist when you make a new game with the same engine and various optional modules. You know there will be OOB crash problems if a player doesn't have all the modules. 

Edited December 27, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[Aragorn2002]

13 hours ago, Badger73 said:

Original quote, " Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness."

Attributable to William Lonsdale Watkinson, 1907.

Wisdom. Thanks for the whole quote.

[mjkerner]

I knew it was an old quote from somewhere, but I was actually channeling The Greatful Dead (sort of), lol.

[sttp]

On 12/26/2018 at 7:42 AM, Ultradave said:

It's no problem at all. I have 2 FI's right now - one for the 4. patch testing, the other for the new FI module beta testing.  I just have renamed the top level directory. 

I'm really glad it worked so easily for some of you guys. Me... not quite as lucky!

I did a second install of CMFI, to a directory parallel to the original, hoping to run version 3 side-by-side with my current version 4. But when I try to run the CMFI executable from this new install directory, or if try to run the activation module, I get this message: "License Error. There was an error with your license. Please contact your vendor for assistance."

I've had activation issues before, but that's one error message I've never seen. If anyone else has, and knows a quick fix, it'd be great to hear about it. I suppose I'll be opening a help desk ticket in the meantime.

[Howler]

2 hours ago, sttp said:

I did a second install of CMFI, to a directory parallel to the original, hoping to run version 3 side-by-side with my current version 4. But when I try to run the CMFI executable from this new install directory, or if try to run the activation module, I get this message: "License Error. There was an error with your license. Please contact your vendor for assistance."

Don't run the installer a second time. A simple copy/paste will do just fine and won't cause licensing issues.

[Ultradave]

3 hours ago, sttp said:

I'm really glad it worked so easily for some of you guys. Me... not quite as lucky!

I did a second install of CMFI, to a directory parallel to the original, hoping to run version 3 side-by-side with my current version 4. But when I try to run the CMFI executable from this new install directory, or if try to run the activation module, I get this message: "License Error. There was an error with your license. Please contact your vendor for assistance."

I've had activation issues before, but that's one error message I've never seen. If anyone else has, and knows a quick fix, it'd be great to hear about it. I suppose I'll be opening a help desk ticket in the meantime.

The only thing I can think of is checking the license you are using. Did you go back and retrieve the v3.0 license from when you originally bought it?  If you are using the new license that came with the 4.0 update, that could be the issue. The engine 4 upgrades came with new licenses. Apologies if this is pointing out the obvious and you already had it that way.

[Battlefront.com]

On 12/28/2018 at 1:18 PM, sttp said:

I'm really glad it worked so easily for some of you guys. Me... not quite as lucky!

I did a second install of CMFI, to a directory parallel to the original, hoping to run version 3 side-by-side with my current version 4. But when I try to run the CMFI executable from this new install directory, or if try to run the activation module, I get this message: "License Error. There was an error with your license. Please contact your vendor for assistance."

I've had activation issues before, but that's one error message I've never seen. If anyone else has, and knows a quick fix, it'd be great to hear about it. I suppose I'll be opening a help desk ticket in the meantime.

Yeah, there are very specific series of events which can cause the license to lockup like that.  From what we can tell it has a lot to do with long term use of licenses, upgrades, parallel installs, etc.  Basically the system gets progressively more suspicious of activities because little things accumulate.  Usually clearing out the license will reset whatever the problem is.  A ticket with the Help Desk will get that taken care of.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

On 12/27/2018 at 8:20 AM, Bulletpoint said:

It's not only a problem of missing issues during testing. Some issues are old and well known and were fixed before - yet they reappear when new games are launched.

For example the issue of the game crashing when choosing an automatic mixed force without having all the modules. It plagued CMBN for a long time before getting fixed in 4.0. Now it's reappearing in CMSF2.

It's not some unpredictable problem you have to pay testers to work hundreds of hours to find. It's already known and should be on a checklist when you make a new game with the same engine and various optional modules. You know there will be OOB crash problems if a player doesn't have all the modules. 

In a perfect world this sort of second guessing works great, but in our world it doesn't.  Whenever any problem slips through someone can say "you should have had a test for that."  Logically that's true and obviously we can selectively choose to put a specific thing on a checklist.  However, deciding which things are likely to come up again, and therefore worthy of slowing down the testing process, is a tricky thing.  You can make long checklists of things, spend lots of time testing for them, and do nothing more than waste everybody's time.  Especially when so many problems are one off issue that aren't likely to pop up again.  The CMBN QB problem, for example, was specific to CMBN and is not the same problem that appeared in CMSF2.  Just because the symptoms are the same doesn't mean the cause is. 

There's always a case to be made that "x bug should have been caught before shipping".  I agree with that.  However, the fact that some bugs slip through is not an indication that the entire testing process is fooked.  It simply means that the testing process is imperfect, which is unavoidable.  Bashing our quality assurance done by 1 programmer and a bunch of volunteer testers as if multi-billion Dollar software companies with legions of paid staff also put out games with "obvious" bugs seems a little unfair, doesn't it?  As an old saying goes, if you expect perfection you should also expect to be disappointed.

Look, I get it that bugs suck.  We don't like them either because we do understand that it is better to nip a bug before it gets out into the public.  However, we know how many hundreds of bugs are squashed before we release something and therefore have a better perspective to judge things by.  Missing a few is inevitable and there's nothing practical we can do to change that reality.

Steve

[Thewood1]

Every program ever in existence has had bugs on release.  But the main point here is that when you take at worst years, and at best months to get patches out, some of your customers hope you have developed a solid testing plan.  

[kevinkin]

oy vey.

We would all be interested in the last time you played a Combat Mission battle. What did you think? Did you have fun? We all have fun with CM. We enjoy the best that any wargame can offer. But no. You have to be miserable in each and every post. As if Steve and Charles care about your negativity after so many years. Please take your misery and self-righteous attitude elsewhere. Your contributions are not productive. You come across as an old guy drowning away their wasted life in a gin mill dreaming they were actually good at wargames and had friends. 

Kevin 

[JoMac]

All I know is that I'm here for BF & Crew..."Hi, my name is Joe...We are Friends till the End" :-)

[sburke]

6 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Every program ever in existence has had bugs on release.  But the main point here is that when you take at worst years, and at best months to get patches out, some of your customers hope you have developed a solid testing plan.  

Question here and no agenda.  Just curious from a personal standpoint and happy to continue this in PM if you prefer.  Do you work in software development in any capacity?

[Ultradave]

At work one of the programs we use for radiation analysis has been around in some form since the mid 60s. Of course then, our mainframe had 64K of main memory and they had to pull all kinds of tricks just to have room for the data the program used (there are still places in the program where 3 numeric variables are stored in one program variable - too hard to unravel and it work. The programs has grown (just a little  - about 150,000 lines of code now, not including the GUI, 2 satellite programs for pre and post processing, and a 3D visualization program, maybe a total of 500,000 lines in all). The original developer, who is one of the smartest engineers I've ever worked with, would say as a joke "We just fixed the last bug in GRAD"  Every few months.  Every one always got a laugh.

Our group wrote/writes most of our own software, usually 2 people working on that one, 1.5 on a different suite. We thoroughly test the new features, do extensive regression testing, distribute to 2 national labs who also run their own tests. Still find bugs now and then. Seems there's always some odd combination of configurations that didn't come up before.

The only similarity to CM is the scale of the operation. Completely different kind of software (scientific computation), and no beta testers   Just an anecdote, no commentary.

[MOS:96B2P]

10 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

All I know is that I'm here for BF & Crew..."Hi, my name is Joe...We are Friends till the End"

+1    Be honest .......................... you were already a few deep into the New Year's Eve booze when you typed that .............  

[JoMac]

39 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1    Be honest .......................... you were already a few deep into the New Year's Eve booze when you typed that .............  

No, No...In all dishonesty I'm a recovering Non-Alcoholic, and not a drink since...snooze-snooze-snooze. (stay thirsty my friends :-)

[Battlefront.com]

On 12/31/2018 at 9:16 PM, Thewood1 said:

Every program ever in existence has had bugs on release.

Absolutely.  So by that definition whatever we release, no matter what sort of testing plan we have, will have bugs.  And therefore, by your own logic, you are saying that customers should be understanding of this reality and keep things in perspective.  Which is to say that if a game is overall enjoyable and playable day in and out for years on end, despite some bugs, then on balance it's done pretty well.  Great, it looks like we have no disagreement then.  Thank you for clarifying your previous remarks.

Quote

But the main point here is that when you take at worst years, and at best months to get patches out, some of your customers hope you have developed a solid testing plan.  

So what you are saying is you would prefer customers wait years or at least months to have us release stuff that has a few less bugs?  Well, I can certainly develop a solid testing plan to do that.  But methinks it wouldn't be very popular.

The truth of game development is a flawless release can only happen if there is no release at all.  Which, IMHO, is a bit of a flaw Therefore, the more a game developer attempts to focus on an unobtainable goal, the less likely it will produce anything that players will find much value in playing if the game is even released.  That's just the way the world works and wishing it to be otherwise isn't helpful.

That said, customers are well within their rights to request fixes for defects in the products they purchase.  I even understand the desire to extend this to complaining about more than just the bugs themselves.  For example, when my cutting edge, not at all cheap (even with the 50% off sale due to over production in a recession), flat screen TV crapped out on me after only a few years because the company employed a defective soldering process, I definitely had some opinions about their "testing plan".  Fortunately I found a fix on YouTube that involved pulling the motherboard and putting it in the oven for 10 minutes to remelt the connections (crazily enough, it worked!).  Would be better if LG had offered a motherboard swap, but at least I got my TV working again.  That said, at least there was no risk of death, unlike my Honda's passenger side airbag that I'm getting replaced next week.  I'm not happy that I drove around for 3 years risking death because their "testing plan" wasn't solid enough, but they do get credit for telling me about it and offering to replace the bag for free.  Downloading a patch would be so much nicer than 1.5 hours of driving and sitting in the dealership for an estimated 1.5 hours.

Ack.  Sorry, I've got a habit of injecting perspective into vacuums.  Dang, my chance to skip that for the year was last night.  Oh well, maybe not doing that can be my New Year's Resolution for 2020.

Steve

[MikeyD]

You know that old phrase "There's many a slip twix the cup and the lip". I've gone over soon-to-release Beta builds from top to bottom with a fine toothed comb and found nothing wrong. Then the title gets compiled for the installer just before release and suddenly its "Hey, where did that piece of art go?" or "Hey, I thought that behavior got fixed long ago!" or "Hey, why is the game now crashing when this happens?" Testing and retesting can't counter 'gremlins'  sabotaging things for spite in the most obscure corners of the game at the last minute. And it happens every time.  Most of the time the alarm bell is sounded and things quickly get re-fixed and re-complied. But those gremlins are sneaky little buggers.