Civplayers OOS patch is live!

[CanuckSoldier]

The patch does not work for me. I have followed all instructions and gathered advice from the guys in the lobby but its no good. I now find myself excluded from online games of Civ. I've been playing regularly for years and i'm devastated. What the hell is going on here?

I answered your email, but if you have more info please reply to it and will help you.

CS

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Unfortunately, I can't really agree with you there. I've played online in the ZOMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKE games where I have a warrior sitting in the forest around my town before I can build anything (And I can't exactly root him out, I'd suffer penalties attacking that warrior and the forest otherwise chokes my development) and I've played long drawn out LAN games (far too drawn out, really) with friends. Neither is terribly exciting. Single player is the best arena for this game.

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't patch it to help keep multiplayer viable, however.

I think your making the mistake of thinking that the game can not serve both the needs of the SP player and the MP player, I assure you that both are possible, perhaps with different maps and mods etc, but entirely within the ability of a Game Company to do. Civ4 is already a huge SP success story, but from a purely financial standpoint just think how Civ could be if it had support like WoW for the MP side....if it can be done with RTS games like AoE's I'm sure a model can be found for a TBS game, especially the most successful one of them all...Civ.

CS

 

[AlexR1939]

Here I am, a casual Civ-4 player that generally plays in spurts online, and then disappears for awhile.

So its been a month or so, and I have the itch... I login on Saturday, and what do I get... crazy game names like FFA "patched" and FFA "non-patched"... I go to updates and nothing... so I'm like whatever I'm just gonna play.

Now I dont know if it's patched players joining un-patched games in the middle causing OOS... or what... but I know it seems a shitload worse than it did when I was last playing. I never made it much past 1AD in 3 attempts. 3 failed games.

In fact I was commenting to others that hadn't played online since Civ4-Warlords how much better the OOS problems were. And now I'm back and see they are as now worse than ever thanks to online players being mixed between patched and un-patched.

Oh, and what was even better... I asked twice... on a SATURDAY what was up with the patch. Guess how many people bothered to tell me?








0


Bad Bad Bad idea.

 

[Mylon]

I think your making the mistake of thinking that the game can not serve both the needs of the SP player and the MP player, I assure you that both are possible, perhaps with different maps and mods etc, but entirely within the ability of a Game Company to do. Civ4 is already a huge SP success story, but from a purely financial standpoint just think how Civ could be if it had support like WoW for the MP side....if it can be done with RTS games like AoE's I'm sure a model can be found for a TBS game, especially the most successful one of them all...Civ.

CS

A suitable mod definitely is needed. If anything the game needs to be sped up considerably yet slowed down at the same time. Scenarios with pre-built maps or a well-balanced map generator (which places multiple cities, to do advanced start, but skip the manual part of it) and either a tech tree that expands a particular era or redesigned so avoid the problem of units being obsolete by the time they arrive but still offer a quick pace.

 

[oyzar]

Wouldn't it be better to just have this as a MP "mod". That way it wouldn't cause problem with other mods and unofficial patches...

 

[AlexR1939]

My best guess is CanuckSoldier doesn't care about the casual players. Basically if it doesn't effect his game enjoyment, then it doesn't make a difference to him. At least that's the tone I get from reading the thread. Ladder players/Hardcore players all that matters, the rest can f off.



It's a shame, I can only have so much fun in single player games, and have great memories of some epic multiplayer games. And to have OOS issues seem better than they've ever been, only to now have to deal with patched/unpatched games.. and then every game with a rejoiner or fill-in seem to stop working.

 

[OctavianFlu]

Wouldn't it be better to just have this as a MP "mod". That way it wouldn't cause problem with other mods and unofficial patches...

This may have been a better idea. At least you know who has the patch/mod and who doesn't by the *MOD* prefix to their online name. Loading and unloading a mod is also something you can easily do via the options within the game. This would solve two problems with how CS released this patch, but still leaves one undesirable problem of splitting the community into patched/unpatched games. We are all seeing the side effects of CS's inexperience here, and unfortunately we have to pain through it.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

The reason it is not a Mod is because Mod's in MP are highly problematic, the mechanism to load a Mod and "see" other hosted games just doesn't work for alot of people. Not to mention that having to load a mod by rebooting the game and having a separate game list is just too much work for most people, and you don't see all the other games being played if you load a Mod. We have a very popular Mod at Civplayers called the Game Monitor Mod, it has alot of good things going for it, but it is still never used in the lobby games because of the above issues, we end up only using it in official competitions. I asked Firaxis to change the Mod loading code so that mods can be loaded in the stating room like they are in Civ3, but this effected far to much of the games core code to do as a patch, hopefully this is one thing they will change for the next interation of Civ.

And btw OF, I clearly understand that you do not agree with what I did, but please stop slandering me. I am not inexperienced, you well already know that I have been involved in the MP world for years, and I knew exactly what I was doing when I made this decision. You keep saying that I have split the MP community, and that is another lie. The vast majority of open MP players have the patch as well. The patch has been D/D'd over 5000 times now, and I am in the lobby every night and weekend educating people. You on the other hand I never see in the lobby, so I don't even know were you get your mandate to speak about there being a split community. You are only 2 hours ahead of me in time zones, so we are playing at the same time, if you were their. Anyway, you have the right to criticize my ideas if you want, but not my character, and I wil from now on report every attack that you make on my character to the mods here, it is slander and against the posting policy that you agreed to when you signed up here. So if I was you I would be more careful about what you say.

CS

 

[AlexR1939]

I knew exactly what I was doing when I made this decision. You keep saying that I have split the MP community, and that is another lie. The vast majority of open MP players have the patch as well. The patch has been D/D'd over 5000 times now, and I am in the lobby every night and weekend educating people.

CS

I guess you are ignoring what I and others are saying.

I asked about it TWICE on Saturday at different times and got ZERO response.

You can justify your decision anyway you want to, but the facts are it has SCREWED the game for a lot of civ players. It screwed every game I tried to play Saturday. It will SCREW up games in the future, EVEN IF I patch, when some non-patched guy joins a game in progress.

I wish you would've been more considerate about the people that play this game, instead of causing huge amounts of frustration for so many people that play.

And like what's been said before, imagine all the people that AREN'T members of this forum, that are probably also pissed and struggling. I wasn't a member until I had to search the internet for answers to this patch problem. Luckily I already knew of this website.


But it appears you are either choosing to be oblivious to this niche of the mp Civ 4 community, or you simply don't care.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well I apoligise for no one helping you when you logged in, but I can't be in the lobby 24hours a day. Despite your personal experience most new players to the lobby are helped by the people that already are patched, but I can't force 100% of the players to be helpful that is just human nature. Regardless of this is not hard to patch once you know about it, and it is easy enough to educate the new players that you come across. At this point it is a matter of educating the 5% of the players that are new each day or have not visited the lobby recently. I see "XXX Game patched" advertisements in the lobby constantly now, so it is no great secret, nor should it be a cause for alot of frustration.

What I chose was to solve a bug with a patch that Firaxis was not going to fix, you can disagree with this decision but was not for a "niche" community, 5000 D/L's is not done by a small group of people. And in the end I didn't force the open players to patch, I just recommended they do so, peer pressure and a critical mass of players are what spread the patch to everyone. I distributed this patch so that we can continue to evolve into new game styles that were impossible to play effectively under 3.17 with the OOSbug in place. You can agree or disagree with that but I assure you that it was not done to cause problems but to solve them.

CS

 

[mikeyia]

I can account for at least 2 downloads a day out of that 5,000 since I have to install to play online and then uninstall to play PBEM and pitboss games. I bet I'm not alone and I doubt there are even 5,000 civ multiplayer players. Gets a little tiresome but majority rules and the majority of players online are patched so I just deal with it and wait for a new Civ game to come out.

 

[AlexR1939]

What I chose was to solve a bug with a patch that Firaxis was not going to fix,
CS

Well thanks for ruining multiplayer and causing undo frustration for part of the community of civ4 players.

I'm looking forward to playing through half a game, and then having an "unpatched" player join in the middle and ruining it. Awesome.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well thanks for ruining multiplayer and causing undo frustration for part of the community of civ4 players.

I'm looking forward to playing through half a game, and then having an "unpatched" player join in the middle and ruining it. Awesome.

Well people joining in the middle of the game is not related to the patch...that happens with any game, and the solution is simple, the host should pw the game.

CS

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I can account for at least 2 downloads a day out of that 5,000 since I have to install to play online and then uninstall to play PBEM and pitboss games. I bet I'm not alone and I doubt there are even 5,000 civ multiplayer players. Gets a little tiresome but majority rules and the majority of players online are patched so I just deal with it and wait for a new Civ game to come out.

Yes I'm not saying there are 5000 players with the patch, but I'm sure there are more than 3000 easily, btw why are you D/L it all the time, just leave the installer on your desktop and install and uninstall as required. Or you can simply run this batch file in your BTS/Assets folder and it will switch back and forth between dlls.

http://league.civplayers.com/getFile.php?id=69

CS

 

[AlexR1939]

Well people joining in the middle of the game is not related to the patch...that happens with any game, and the solution is simple, the host should pw the game.

CS

You misunderstand me, I have no problem with people joining in the middle of a game.

Some of the best Civ mp games I've played were long multiplayer games stretching 5-8 hours. Some people join in and actually make a big contribution in the middle, especially taking over for an early quitter.



Answer me this: If an "unpatched" player joins a "patched" game, in the middle of the game, will it cause OOS?

If yes, that really really sucks.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Milage varies, it will eventually, but doesn't always on turn 1, I've heard that it sometimes doesn't go OOS for 50 turns. But in the big picture, it takes a few minutes to tell the new player about the patch and he can be back in 5 min and take part in your game. Myself I always tell players not to hotjoin games unless they are invited.....but that is just my opinion from playing Civ in a competitive environment.

CS

 

[Atlas]

The new system is fine. It was chaotic the first week, but now is settled. CS did a good job. It really takes very little time to switch the original and new game cores out your assets folder. A Mod would not have been better, for CS's above reasons.

You guys that play multiplayer should put your MP login names in your signature, if your CFC name is not the same. That way if I or CS sees you in the lobby we can help you.

 

[damunzy]

@CanuckSoldier: I give you respect for getting the game patched but as another casual player that has played in a year+ this has been very frustrating. I also had the problem of no one answering my question on what "Patched" means. I just had people laugh (to be fair, they might have been laughing at others in the chat room) and hosts kicking me out of their game before I could ask what "Patched" means.

 

[[KC]Bantams]

for all the people with problems ive posted instructions on my webpage most people should know the address by now for those that dont its www.bantamsworld.com goodluck

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

what about vanilla civ 4?

that's where the real (i.e. more balanced) multiplayer action is at