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Poltical Machine beta 2A available (0.85)

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Poltical Machine beta 2A available (0.85)

Lots of enhancements and goodies.

from JoeUser Forums

A new build is available. In the short time we've had sicne the last beta, we've tried to address as much of the feedback as we can.

Please tell us if we're on the right direction and which big trouble spots you see that we need to address.

Thanks!

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46,134 views 51 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top

To start a multplayer game you just slick on quick play and open the opponent slot. That's it.

Windowed mode: just w (no -w)

 

Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top
Pentium III 1.4GHz, 256Mb RAM, Win2K, Geforce 4 MX440 64Mb

The latest beta shows a completely messed up map on my system. The size of the map seems to big to fit, the available items on the map like the presidential candidates, the state HQ and the the selection cursors are misplaced and a few triangles with a basic color are the only overlay. The triangles switch color when you pick another view (like wealth, awareness).
These problems were not the case with the 2 previous betas.


Is this a known problem?
Would it help if I posted/emailed a screenshot?
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top
S.Alliance: Sorry, I havn't heard of this problem happening...though It does sound like you may have accidentally set a "Wireframe" mode that the programmers put in for testing purposes. Unfourtunatly, I dont know how to turn it off...plus, I would think it'd go away after restarting a game.

Post a screen shot, and hopefully we'll get somewhere with this problem
Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
I just played a bit of a game. Was playing on Normal, doing great, had every state but Hawaii and Maine under my belt by week 10 as the Democrats, but then I just started losing states around week 30, I had no money, and I couldn't get around to get them back. May be my strategy, but a TV ad brought the whole country under my belt early on.

Also, I noted define lags, mostly clicking on state details, and switching between endorsements, and generally after clicking anywhere in the game on something outside of the map caused a drag about 1 out of 3 times. Only happened a few times on the map.
Reply #30 from JoeUser Forums Top
S.Alliance: Sorry, I havn't heard of this problem happening...though It does sound like you may have accidentally set a "Wireframe" mode that the programmers put in for testing purposes. Unfourtunatly, I dont know how to turn it off...plus, I would think it'd go away after restarting a game.

Post a screen shot, and hopefully we'll get somewhere with this problem


Here's a screenshot. It's from windowed mode, but the fullscreen mode behaves exactly the same.
As said, I didn't have this problem with the previous betas.

I hope this helps. If you want more pictures, specific actions... let me know.
Reply #31 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hmmm...I'll forward this to the coders...I seem to remember one of them having a similar problem reciently. Hopefully they;ll have the answer
Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top
Owch... that does not look good at all. What are your hardware settings StrategicAlliance?
Reply #33 from JoeUser Forums Top
With my Win2000 machine I'm getting the same crash upon startup that I was getting with the last build:

The instruction at [hex address varies] referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read.

Does anyone know what the problem is?
Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top
Still getting the same lack of button graphics issues I was having with the previous build on my laptop at work. Buttons text is still there and clicking on it works, just no actual buttons.

Also still have the same slide-show (1fps tops) problem on the main map screen. Pointer response and graphic update speed is fine in the setup and interview windows, but pretty nasty on the main map. I'd be interested to see how the response is without the ticker on, so maybe an option to turn off the ticker, or less frequent graphic updates on the main screen?

Running on an IBM Thinkpad T23, 1.13 GHz PIII Mobile, 512MB RAM, 16MB S3 SuperSavage/ICX

-BiffMan
Reply #35 from JoeUser Forums Top
Now I can get past the ready screen, but 30 seconds into the actual game, it crashes. It doesn't matter if I don't touch anything, or whether I play normally, approximately 30 seconds into the game it shuts down. Very irritating, not sure what I can tell you that I didn't last time, Win XP home, directX updated, etc.

Cheers
Reply #36 from JoeUser Forums Top
Windowed mode? How do you activate windowed mode?
Reply #37 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hi, a few things: often when I’m on TV, I answer a question perfectly reasonably and it says it was a disaster. I think it would be great if there were more possible reactions to TV interviews. Also, I think TV ads are way too strong; one ad and I can get twenty states on my side in a blink of an eye. I think it was discussed here earlier, but I think it shouldn’t cost so much to fly around. Maybe it could cost more to fly to Oregon from Delaware than from Colorado. I think there should be some way to tell people your positions on the issues that are so low down you can’t take out an ad about them. Finally, at the end of the game, on Election Day, I really don’t like how it zooms in on each state. I think it would be better if it were more like CNN. It could stay in the regular view and maybe let you click on any state and it would let you see what percentage of the votes have been tallied, and how well you’re doing. It could have a fast forward button to let you skip to the end result. A few questions: in the final game will you be able to save the game? Will you be able to adjust how many weeks the game goes on for? And will there be Vice-Presidential candidates that you can pick? One bug: when I make my own candidates, after I quit the game, when I start it again my candidate is gone. Thanks.
Reply #38 from JoeUser Forums Top
a) Hecklers are nonfunctional. Instead of doubling opponent stamina costs, they -decrease- it by one. This leads to an infinite-stamina exploit when the candidate moves within the state.

b) What sort of cheating do AI candidates do? In my most current game, I noticed the normal-AI Kerry consistently spending $200k+ in the hole, turn-by-turn, without sufficient fundraisers to back it up. At the end of the campaign, the charts showed I was outspent 2:1, the AI spending nearly $24 million.

c) In my most recent game, the icon for the opponent candidate became very large, then disappeared. It remained vanished for the remainder of the game.

d) The AI seems to be able to select from a number of issues that the player cannot. "John Kerry spoke out against Fighting Crime", when I never saw that as an issue, and also "John Kerry spoke out against Credibility" -- that's not even an issue to begin with.

e) The charts on the exit polls are reversed. I've figured out that the numbers mean, in order, "What percentage of people voted based on this issue," "What percentage of -those- people voted for candidate A," and "What percentage of those people voted for candidate B". The problem is that the last two columns are reversed.

f) The opening video shows significant color corruption for me. Either that or an animator -really- likes Hot Pink. [Win2k]

g) As reported above, hardware cursor really means invisible.

h) I got a random CTD, but can't submit the exception report because SmartException doesn't consider POLMACHINE.exe a Stardock application.

i) I'm getting seemingly random duplicates of candidates in the master list after I use one in a game.

j) Abraham Lincoln is corrupted, he has 100+ points in Money.

k) The previously reported issue with candidate creation (click-on-quality bar to move right, arrow to decrement for point credit) is still in this beta, including the infinite-point exploit.
Reply #39 from JoeUser Forums Top
ChrisS:

a) We'll add it to our Bug List.

b.) Yes, this is a bug...the more difficult games give the AI a little extra cash, but not $200k per turn. We think it has to do with advertisements, but we'll look into it.

c.) FIxed for Beta3

d.) Anotehr bug that will be addressed for Beta3.

e.) Weird...well, it shouldnt bee to hard to flip them Nice catch.

f.) We'll look into this one...I definatly try to steer away from using Hot Pink in animations (unless I'm trying to compliment Neon Green)

g) Another glitch we'll add to 'da list.

h.) Now THIS is an odd one...I dont knoiw much about SmartException (I just run it and it seems to work). I'll try and get a fix to anyone that's having this issue.

i) this is weirdness with the candidate details screen...sometimes it likes to make a duplicate version of the candidate you're looking at. Both C.Details and Edit.C use the same window, jsut different modes, so it some of the code might be overlapping.

j) Will FIx.

k) Anotehr fixer for Beta 3.

Alot of what we've been working on has been low-level memory tweaking. At one point, the game was running at 500mb+, causing ALOT of weird CTD's and bugs for users on the site. Memeory usage at this boint has been cut by 2/3rds, so we hope Beta3 will be alot more stable, and alot more fun, for lower end users. But don't worry, game functionality bug are being fixed as well...we'll jsut be able to fix them faster after the memory bugs are squashed.
Reply #40 from JoeUser Forums Top
fsk+: TO get windowed mode, create a shortcut of the game, then edit its command line in 'Properties' to have an 'w' at the end (just the w, not the quotes). Other commands inculde 'framerate' and 'notintro'.

jeblackstar: Could you install Stardock Centrals free program 'Smart Exception'? It'll take those seemingly random CTD's and make them into a readable log for the programmers to fix what caused the crash. We've used it on other game projects, and I tell you, it cuts bug fixing time by 3/4ths (at least.). Thanks for your help
Reply #41 from JoeUser Forums Top

h.) Now THIS is an odd one...I dont knoiw much about SmartException (I just run it and it seems to work). I'll try and get a fix to anyone that's having this issue.


Well, I'm only guessing that SmartException doesn't think polmachine is a Stardock app. It did nothing when PM CTD'd (no prompt), and even though I have a "POLMACHINE.EXE.CRA" in the list, the button "Submit Exception Repoort" does nothing. Maybe instead it has something to do with my default browser being Mozilla, not IE.

Couple more thoughts about polmachine:

a) Candidates seem to start off with trivial stances on all the issues. This lets them take leads in all states about equally; perhaps candidates should start with stronger opinions, giving players merits/flaws to work with/around?

b) The state "Top Issues" display doesn't seem to update as an issue becomes more/less popular over the course of the game. Campaigning seems to increase the importantance of an issue (see exit polls), but I'm not seeing this reflected in-game.

c) Do Radio/TV ads have any lasting national impact, or just at ad creation?

d) Under candidate info, the issues tab has the scrollbar badly misaligned. At its maximum extent, the box sits 1/4 of the way down the bar, and at its lowest it will go past the bottom of the bar. There also may be some improper bounds checking.

e) There might be a design flaw with some of the issues. Since, without a Level 2+ HQ, a candidate can only speak/campaign on the top 5/10 issues in a state, it iseems unlikely that any of the colorful, but lesser-known issues (such as "Scholastic Practices", "Drilling in the ANWR", and "Uncovering the Alien Conspiracy") will receive significant campaigning -- thus the game is always decided on the top 5 issues (normally Environment, More Jobs, and some of the War On Terror/War in Iraq).

f) What do Level 2+ HQs give me that I should be interested in, especially given the reduced level of contributions? With the current effect of radio/TV ads, awareness in the 50 states is no longer a problem, so the boost provided by the HQ is more useful only in the early stages of the campaign, where it doesn't count. The Flunkie from the Level 3 HQ is also nice, but I'm not sure he's worth $1.75 mil when total spending in a campaign is more like $16 mil. The difference is 3/4 TV ads (depending on whether you count the cost of the Level 1 HQ or not), which together provide a very significant national effect.

g) I think the question sets for the interviews are misplaced. I've gotten character questions on the "hard-line issues" shows, and vice versa. Also, the question sets themselves seem quite sparse -- I'll answer the same questions 4/5 times in a game if I go to all the interviews.

h) It's unclear what effect the candidate's characteristics (Credibility, etc.) have in-game, so it seems like a black-box to me. Similarly with some of the issues -- the candidate information issues graph is still very difficult to figure out, and the scale on it seems rediculously large: over a full campaign, the notches are unlikely to move more than even 15% towards the positive end of the spectrum... and I've never seen anyone significantly negative.

i) The value of negative advertising (Candidate Notme Favors/Opposes Foo) is unclear. Perhaps that will change with proper description in the advertusement screen.

j) The political flunkies have hard linebreaks in their descriptions, which leads to visual ugliness when we see the descriptions again in the News window.

k) Why don't we get a summation of total income/expenses for our opposition, on their assets screen? All the information is right there, so we can add it up manually, but that's more effort.

l) The scollbar widget needs some degree of touch-up in behavior. Especially in the candidate information screen, it's painfully slow to scroll all the way to the top/bottom (and glance over everything in between). Perhaps make a click-hold on the arrow repeat the scrolling action at some rate.
Reply #42 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hello,

This is a step in the right direction. For the first time since the betas started by laptop will at least start the intro. woohoo, unfortunatley it still crashes:

Faulting application polmachine.exe, version 1.0.0.1, faulting module polmachine.exe, version 1.0.0.1, fault address 0x000a98a5.

I can play it on my AMD64 so it is presumably something to do with the 16MB Video Board on the laptop??

Radio icons don't work. They appear but when you go to the state nothing happens.

I have had a complete lockup of the computer. The ? appeared and i flew into the state, nothing happened, I flew out and back in again and the second visit, old money bags popped up and then everything stopped. I had to hard reset the machine. The mouse would move but nothing else.

If you play two games without restarting the game between campaigns the game crashes to desktop. It happened in earlier betas but now it seems to occur several weeks into the second campaign.

Cheers,
Dominic
Reply #44 from JoeUser Forums Top
S.Alliance: Sorry, I havn't heard of this problem happening...though It does sound like you may have accidentally set a "Wireframe" mode that the programmers put in for testing purposes. Unfourtunatly, I dont know how to turn it off...plus, I would think it'd go away after restarting a game.

Post a screen shot, and hopefully we'll get somewhere with this problem


Here's a screenshot. It's from windowed mode, but the fullscreen mode behaves exactly the same.
As said, I didn't have this problem with the previous betas.

I hope this helps. If you want more pictures, specific actions... let me know.


Still no improvement with the latest beta build (0.90)