New Patch Eventually On the Way

[forty2j]

Just a head's up for anyone who exlcusively checking these forums and not the general forums. 2K's working on a new patch. No patches notes yet, but the suggestion is that it's primarily multiplayer stability.

Discussion thataway -> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=447812

One can only hope that the lag on the Mac patch would be significantly shorter than history suggests

 

[Sidlicious]

Did the patch just hit on the PC today or something? Over a year after this game came out I finally had a game going with my friend on Windows. Saved it last night to continue today, and we get a version mismatch.

 

[CGPanama]

Yes, the patch was launched today. Don't have any cross-platform games at the moment, but suspected what would happen, since there has consistently been a lag between the two platforms.

 

[Mavfin]

Yeah, I saw the notes on steam. Other than bug fixes, it was all MP.

Of course, will it be 1 month or four months?

How long before Aspyr gets a copy to even start on?

 

[Swerv]

Hopefully, when Aspyr does get around to working on a patch, they decide to repair the architecture bug that they ostensibly created, but have neglected to fix for the past 8 months.

 

[forty2j]

Yeah, I saw the notes on steam. Other than bug fixes, it was all MP.

Of course, will it be 1 month or four months?

How long before Aspyr gets a copy to even start on?

I'm sure they have their copy today.

I'm also sure most of the important people that could port this have started their xmas vacations, so we might be in for a bit of a wait.

 

[MrRich]

no..... so other months for one patch????
please aspyrryan let us know when it will be done also for us mac users

 

[AspyrRyan]

Hey guys!
As you might expect, most of our developers are on vacation right now. Once they're back, we'll be able to get to work on the patch.

I'll give one caveat on it: Multiplayer testing takes quite a bit more time than single player testing, and this patch has quite a few MP changes.

 

[jbmoll]

Wait... You mean programmers get vacation? I am so going to talk to my boss when he gets back from his yearly last 2 weeks of December conference he always goes to!

 

[forty2j]

Welcome back to work, Aspyr! Patch this afternoon?


Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Ryan. Basically, 2K released the patch at a time when they could maximize cross-platform incompatibility.

 

[Sidlicious]

Welcome back to work, Aspyr! Patch this afternoon?


Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Ryan. Basically, 2K released the patch at a time when they could maximize cross-platform incompatibility.

Yeah. I was in mid game with a friend. Now Civ goes back to the shelf for another few months until I can play with my friends on Windows. It was really nice playing Civ 5 again after months of it collecting dust. It's pretty obvious how little regard the developers have for their Mac users, and I fully understand that Aspyr is not to blame.

 

[buckley]

AspyrRyan,

I registered on these forums because I saw that you read them and hoped that you would see this feedback.

My boyfriend and I bought Civ V at launch for the sole reason of playing together while we're apart. He's in college, and when classes are in session, he's halfway across the country. My career prevents me from going with him. He's on Windows, and I'm on Mac. In addition, our tastes in games are somewhat different, so it makes it difficult to find things to play together, which we both feel is an important part to maintaining our long-distance relationship.

When we bought the game, we were under the mistaken notion that 2K and Aspyr would coordinate their patches, and that cross-platform multiplayer would work from the start. Obviously, we were very disappointed that it took over a year for cross-platform multiplayer to work, especially when the price of the game dropped by 50% between the time we bought it and the time we could actually play it.

I am not trying to blame either 2K or Aspyr for this, since I don't know if it's the same with Windows-Windows multiplayer, but even after your extensive multiplayer testing for the last patch, multiplayer has been buggy, with lots of disconnections. When you say that testing multiplayer will take a long time, my first thought is, "Why? It didn't seem to help for the last patch." It got so bad that we manually save the game before ending each turn, as disconnects happen between turns, and autosaves don't seem to work.

We were in the middle of a game, and now we face the prospect of not being able to complete it. So I'm writing to you to ask for two things:

1. Is there some way my boyfriend can downgrade his Windows version to the previous patch? We both bought the game from Steam, and it auto-updated for him during the holidays. Since we bought from steam, we don't have any retail discs, and it's my impression that Steam will automatically patch to the latest version if he tries to reinstall.

2. If that's not possible, is there any way I could get access to patches that haven't been fully tested? I don't mind that they'll be buggy and that there'll be disconnects, since we had that with the old patch too.

Thank you.

 

[Sidlicious]

2. If that's not possible, is there any way I could get access to patches that haven't been fully tested? I don't mind that they'll be buggy and that there'll be disconnects, since we had that with the old patch too.

Thank you.

With regards to your second part of the message, in terms of multiplayer disconnects, it may not be an issue with the game. Before the Windows version updated and put us out of synch, the MP games between my Mac and my friends Window machines worked pretty flawlessly. I experienced the same slow down I would in single player games as the game got bigger (no slow down if using strategic view), but not any significant connectivity issues. If you and your boyfriend were getting disconnected frequently it may have been for other reasons.

Which kind of made it worse, given that when we finally got our cross platform MP, it worked really really well. Until the patch put us out of synch. That is, MP worked as well as can be expected. The lack of customization options in MP in Civ 5 is just embarrassing, and a step backwards from the previous games. But that is another matter entirely.

 

[forty2j]

I'll just say that outside of the patch timing problems, I've had equal problems with PC-PC multiplayer and PC-Mac multiplayer.

Civ V is still an infant, basically, especially as it comes to multiplayer. If guaranteed connectivity and zero interrupts in PC-Mac cross-platform MP are your only concerns, you might be better off playing Civ IV: BtS for the time being. It's a fairly different game, but they're both still Civ at the core.

 

[Sidlicious]

I'll just say that outside of the patch timing problems, I've had equal problems with PC-PC multiplayer and PC-Mac multiplayer.

Civ V is still an infant, basically, especially as it comes to multiplayer. If guaranteed connectivity and zero interrupts in PC-Mac cross-platform MP are your only concerns, you might be better off playing Civ IV: BtS for the time being. It's a fairly different game, but they're both still Civ at the core.

They're very different games. However I think the biggest thing that prevents me from going back to Civ IV would be unit stacking. It may be the biggest fundamental change. Some of the other changes were steps backwards, I think, such as dropping religion. But only one military unit per space was brilliant and I don't think I can ever go back.

 

[AspyrRyan]

1. Is there some way my boyfriend can downgrade his Windows version to the previous patch? We both bought the game from Steam, and it auto-updated for him during the holidays. Since we bought from steam, we don't have any retail discs, and it's my impression that Steam will automatically patch to the latest version if he tries to reinstall.

Unfortunately, there isn't a way. Even if you had the retail discs, the best you might be able to do is to have the original retail release which would be far out of date.

2. If that's not possible, is there any way I could get access to patches that haven't been fully tested? I don't mind that they'll be buggy and that there'll be disconnects, since we had that with the old patch too.

We have no plans on doing public release of patches. Aside from being a support nightmare, there's no telling what unfinished patches could do to an install.


I'm curious about those disconnects you're mentioning. What happens when you disconnect? Most of what I've seen in multiplayer is a resync where all players return to the loading screen then pop into the game. I've seen it occur in games as small as PC-PC LAN games with my wife, but even in a gruesome 2 day long, 8 player PC/Mac games in our last test cycle, it didn't occur often.
Autosaves not working isn't something I'm familiar with, either. If you can give me some details about the games you're playing, I can try to reproduce those issues in our next test cycle.

 

[CGPanama]

AspyrRyan,

1. Is there some way my boyfriend can downgrade his Windows version to the previous patch? We both bought the game from Steam, and it auto-updated for him during the holidays. Since we bought from steam, we don't have any retail discs, and it's my impression that Steam will automatically patch to the latest version if he tries to reinstall.

2. If that's not possible, is there any way I could get access to patches that haven't been fully tested? I don't mind that they'll be buggy and that there'll be disconnects, since we had that with the old patch too.

Buckley,

1. From what I understand about steam, the multiplayer won't work unless you are connected and on the latest version.

2. With all deference to the developers, I would be surprised if they will do this.

One option is to try Steam (PC) a porting project for running PC steam games on the Mac. Prior to the Mac release, I would run CiV through it when I did not have the compulsion to Boot into Windows. The graphics need to be set pretty low, but it is serviceable. Not sure how well the Multiplayer will work, if at all, but worth a try.

The alternative might be to boot your mac into Windows (if you have an intel model and willing to but Windows).

If you need any help with this, please PM me and I will try to help out.

Craig

 

[buckley]

I'm curious about those disconnects you're mentioning. What happens when you disconnect? Most of what I've seen in multiplayer is a resync where all players return to the loading screen then pop into the game. I've seen it occur in games as small as PC-PC LAN games with my wife, but even in a gruesome 2 day long, 8 player PC/Mac games in our last test cycle, it didn't occur often.
Autosaves not working isn't something I'm familiar with, either. If you can give me some details about the games you're playing, I can try to reproduce those issues in our next test cycle.

Lots of people have been very helpful in this thread, but I'm at work right now, and I wanted to respond to this question for AspyrRyan hopefully during his work hours.

I don't have the exact settings on hand, but he and I are allied against 6(?) CPU players with no allies on a large map. The disconnects only happen between turns. It seems that when the AI takes a long time to make their moves, I can get a spinning beach ball, and when the next turn starts, we both see that the other person has disconnected and replaced with an AI player.

I am hosting, since I have access to my router to open ports, if that makes a difference.

As for autosave, neither of us had it enabled when we started the game, and turning it on doesn't seem to create autosaves, even though it's on in the options.

 

[AspyrRyan]

I don't have the exact settings on hand, but he and I are allied against 6(?) CPU players with no allies on a large map. The disconnects only happen between turns. It seems that when the AI takes a long time to make their moves, I can get a spinning beach ball, and when the next turn starts, we both see that the other person has disconnected and replaced with an AI player.

Ok, that gives me some things to try out. Do you have any idea if it happens on smaller maps, or if nuclear weapons are being dropped?

 

[CGPanama]

Ryan,

I have seen similar problems (the spinning beach ball followed by both players getting the disconnect/AI replacement). This has happened on a local network game with my daughter. She is on the low end of the system requirements, so I have always written it to that. I host from my MBP. Standard and larger maps. Happens in any era, and long before nukes.

We also get the resync where both players see the leader portrait at least once per session. But this is less of an annoyance.