Strange, played without a problem the past week, and with the new update - blam, two problems.
First, it crashed just after launching a new game - I'd set everything up, clicked on start - the screen went black, slowly filled with red form the top, and rebooted.

After reboot, everything works fine again, except that after a couple of turns, the turn button locks itself again - shows the clock, and doesn't finish the turn.

Weirdly enough, I finished an old game first (Geo told me how to submit properly), and had no problems.

Oh, well. I'll keep an eye on it, if something happens again I'll submit a proper bug report.

Asharak... You are forgetting a division, a corporate division, between Brad's team, and the SDC team.

Brad has stated here that he isn't involved with the SDC team. That means that he is the same as you and everyone else with SDC... just one more user for it.

While he might get to actually talk face to face with the SDC team, he's not a member or in charge of it. Therefore, SDC is beyond his direct control (unlike GalCiv, which he is the lead on, and therefore he can go and 'fix' or 'change' things directly).

Brad has publically stated he isn't pleased with all the difficulty his customers are having with SDC, and that he will bring up 'our' issues with the SDC team.

It's not an intentional split in customers, nor a lack of willingness to help customers. It's a different team's product, and that means he is dependant on that team handling the implementation and changes to SDC. A fact of his business world, making it a fact for us as well.

Give him and his team some time. Look at the great support they give us on matters they have direct control over.

"Partial refund..." because they can't get daily updates!!! "comparatively inferior service" what on earth are you talking about? There are no "rights" here, there is no "constitution" for game patching. This is the best game company product support I have every seen - it is stunning in comparison to what has gone before....!

Yikes.... so soon they forget. What most other game patching is like - occasional patches spread other months - if you are lucky.

RA

~SDC~

Since I've figured out how to use SDC I haven't had a problem with it. It was a bit unfamiliar at first, but it works very well now. Maybe some who don't like it haven't gotten past it's "newness" yet.

This is driving me crazy. I right-clicked on Drengin.net and entered my reg# (thanks! for the tip) and at least now I can see 1.02.036 as being available.
Next I went to 'tools', then 'refresh data' and then clicked on the 'update' button. But it insists on downloading a 85MB file, which I believe to be the whole GC app. All I want is the 4MB update! I bought GC at retail. Help!

I agree SDC isnt user friendly, and has some problems. But can we also agree that its our only method of getting point release updates earlier than having to wait on full patch releases. I like that, and hope that it continues.

olaf

Sometimes it shows the update as 85mb, but then when you start the update, it just grabs the exe. Try that, or try switching to SDC servers to whichever one you arent on, Cali or ATL.

olaf

Olaf73,

Thanks for the advice.
I tried switching servers from Atlanta to Ca, no go.
It's now at 7.50MB so I don't think it's just grabbing the .exe
For some reason SDC wants to grab the whole GC app instead of just the update?

85 Meg is the full product. It wants to download the whole thing, I think, to form it's 'base' line. That's a matter of discussion in several threads here. Some people managed to get around it. I didn't. SDC has been reasonable on the other updates, past the first big one.

Star Pilot,

I guess I'm stuck downloading the whole GC app. Hopefully for any subsequent updates, SDC will only download the actual 'update' and not the whole app again.

Unfortunately for some of us, that was/is true. However, so far, all my updates have been sweet and short.

It's the price we pay if we want the frequent updates. GalCiv is worth the bother of the SDC, to me.

Update, don't update...if the game is working for you, than just enjoy the game and wait until a separate patch is released...

If you can't play the game due to god know reasons, there are plenty of thing to do than seat in front of the monitor playing computer games or than again, you can play other games....

Speaking as someone who's done release engineering, building a Wyse installer isn't -that- bad. It's pretty much point and click, then stick on a website. The biggest problem with it in this situation is determining which patch deltas you're going to support. IOW, in order to release the 1.02 patch in a way that'll upgrade -any- version sitting on your system, it'd pretty much have to be the 84MB file everyone bitches about.

IMO, the other concerns Brad raises could be fixed with back-end automation at Stardock that worked similarly to the front-end automation here. The current setup is basically a version control system that syncs the home client machine with the Stardock server. If they had a similar version control system there syncing to a release machine, then autogenerating and posting installers from that release machine, that'd work. But that'd take some more development work on their part (which isn't really Brad's domain), and again, it'd be pretty much all 84MB files. Of course, they could release everything as a series of downloadable delta patches that you have to install all in a certain order, but that'd be upgrade and tech support hell.

I guess the biggest point is that most companies give you patches on the order of weeks, not hours or days. We're getting -much- better than average service here, and I'm confident that even the downloadable patch rate will be much higher than most companies would do for. SDC has some problems--I'm certainly not its biggest fan, as I've stated in more than one forum. However, it really is optional.

~SDC~

Just wanted to say a big thanks to Brad and the team for the nice work you did on the latest patch!

The Auto launch feature for newly created ships has made a heck of a difference to my games, and I found it solved two problematic areas:

Turns are so much faster now! The game is much pacier, as I dont have to go through all the planets double clicking on the newly created constructors. As a result the game flows much better, and I can concentrate much better on my empire strategy. Nice one!

Secondly, upgrading starbases is now a considerably less onerous task. With the autolaunch, and no confirmation on starbase upgrade (already in the old version), each constructor to starbase upgrade only takes 3 clicks. This makes a huge difference, and my mouse buttons say a special thanks.

Anyway keep up the good work, and your hard work is much appreciated. GalCiv has been heartily recommend to my gaming friends!

Reminds me of an old expression I used to hear:

"The beatings will continue until morale improves..."



~SDC~

Well, much as I like the changes, I fear I will have to reinstall and apply the downloadable patch only.

The 4/4/03 patch has caused my turn button to go crazy again - after very few turns, it gets stuck in the clock display, and won't let me finish the turn.

I didn't mind initially (directly after the update), when it happened every hour or so (time to up the TLC slider on the cats again).
But now it's happening every couple of turns - help!

Anybody else have this problem? Any help at all would be highly appreciated!

Geo: I'm not going to mess with WISE installers. Right now, I can put an update by copying a file to a network share. I can do that, by myself, on a Friday evening with everyone gone.

Az: Your analogy doesn't really work. For instance, should an ATI Radion 9700Pro cost less for me because my P2-400 machine isn't fast enough to run Unreal 2 at the same level as a new machine?

That said, if it comes down to people demanding stand alone patches as often as SDCEntral then the solution would be that SDCentral updates would become much less often.

If we released updates once per month, which is pretty standard, I don't think people would have much room to complain. Is that the solution you are proposing? Because having us creating stand alone patches 3 times a week isn't an option.

~SDC~

Klaus: There is nothing in the update that would affect the turn button either way. If you get a repeatable case, feel free to email me the zipped save game ([email protected]) and I'll check it out.



~SDC~

I think it's been mentioned, but the trade good (maybe for galactic wonder too? not sure on that one) is still present. Guh, those silly other empires thinking they can ruin my monopoly... I'll crush them good!

Brad, what does the 'show all' button do on the trade screen? It doesnt work, whatever its supposed to do.

Also, the game seems a lot harder now on normal and up with this latest build. Not sure completely what it is. Might just be that the AIs are trading tech more amongst themselves, which undercuts a tech heavy player strategy a lot, which is the one I use.

olaf

err. I missed a word. the -multiple- trade good (and possibly galactic wonder) problem is still present.

Brad: I think the vast majority of the people are happy with the situation as it stands. You just have some issues to work out with SDC usability, but I think you know that already. Once a couple of standalones come out and people settle in a bit, there'll be less noise.

~SDC~

Well at least until 1.02a, 1.02b, 1.02c start showing up on SDCEntral.

~SDC~

#1 I use SDC more than I play the game
#2 Hurray for SDC and the option you have given us all to test new updates and help before they become official patches
#3 You are doing a wonderful job Frogboy and you have the patience of a monk

nuff said

~SDC~

Thanks, Brad, but I don't think I want to bug you with this at the moment. I'm very impressed that a developer would take the time for something like this, though - thanks!

See, I found a kinda-sorta solution: I activated the 'auto-turn' option. While I do have to get used to this, I think I actually prefere it...

Besides, this is what happens when you play like crazy without getting enough sleep - I completely forgot that this morning my Win98SE blew apart, so I had to fully re-install everything. Probably something there, so no worries.

And - I hear it now works under Linux! Whee! Tomorrow morning (oh, wait, it already *is* tomorrow morning) I'll set it up under Linux.