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1.1 , last chance failure?

1.1 , last chance failure?

Okay, so I kept my mouth shut and waited for the great 1.1 patch; finally get it and less than 1 hour into my first game it CTDs.

I now really feel like the money I spent on this game was a complete waste and I will not be buying another Stardock product unless it has been out a year and half a dozen of my friends swear to how good it is.

I could have dealt with a much more modest revamp game play and balance-wise if it was *stable*! To have strung people along this long and put out something still this crash happy is just unbelievable.

430,574 views 106 replies
Reply #76 Top

Quoting Seabird, reply 65
The game should change its name from Elemental War of Magic to Elemental War of the Beta Testers...with all this squabbling going on between users.  My experience with 1.1: it did crash after about a good 2 hours of play...I should have saved, but was so hopeful that 1.1 would be the fix all and have the same stability as 1.09v....WRONG.

In addition, played the game on normal and challenging...the AI still seems a little wimpy.  On challenging, the wandering monsers seem to constantly harass my settlements, farms, etc, but the AI for the factions seems to be AWOL.  For instance, one faction declared war on me and then never invaded my territory (50 turns later still no invasion)...Maybe the AI just couldn't figure how to get around the mountain range.

Bottom line...I am glad that Stardock and Brad and his team have put the effort to make this game better than the original lease.  You guys are getting warmer, but not quite there yet. 

Just remember, Elemental does do autosaves. So you can go back to where you were.

I've been playing complete games without any CTDs since v1.1 went out.  No crashes. I'll keep an eye out for them but stupid AI stuff is what keeps me up at night at this point.

Reply #77 Top

Quoting Tempestwrath, reply 11
I'd also like to mention that the engine used for the game is one designed in-house by Stardock, and so it never (and really couldn't ever, considering Stardock's size) went through the rigorous compatibility testing that larger engines go through.

And some of the larger engines even have serious issues.   Look at Gamebryo. 

 

The only way to rectify this is to submit crash data; otherwise your voice, and your technical problem, might never be heard or seen.

Do you expect to have to test all the games you buy, or do you just give Stardock a pass?

Honestly, having bought this game when it first came out, there's no way in heck we should still have to be submitting our debug files to clean up crashes.  My crashes were becoming less common before the 1.1 betas started and then it has picked up again.  Still getting crashes with 1.1.  I have a fairly new computer with up to date drivers.  It's silly.

Reply #78 Top

Quoting dawgs4ever, reply 77

Do you expect to have to test all the games you buy, or do you just give Stardock a pass?

Honestly, having bought this game when it first came out, there's no way in heck we should still have to be submitting our debug files to clean up crashes.  My crashes were becoming less common before the 1.1 betas started and then it has picked up again.  Still getting crashes with 1.1.  I have a fairly new computer with up to date drivers.  It's silly.

The point is that the situation is what it is.  Whining doesn't change it.  Either help fix it or accept it.  The developers have acknowledged the issues, have admitted they made mistakes, have been massively open about how and why they made the mistakes, and have posted on the forums many times per day to keep everyone informed of what is going on.  The owner of the damn company has given us multiple mea culpas. 

At this point if you don't have a clear understanding of the situation than you're just obtuse.  The game is significantly better.  If you think the potential is there for a great game (like I do) than stick around and help out.  Sticking around and whining, while never posting a crash dump or bug report, is just polluting the air.  

I'm not quoting dawgs4ever because I'm saying he's this way, because I don't think he is.  His comment just made a good launching point for my point.  

Reply #79 Top

Quoting dawgs4ever, reply 77

Quoting Tempestwrath, reply 11I'd also like to mention that the engine used for the game is one designed in-house by Stardock, and so it never (and really couldn't ever, considering Stardock's size) went through the rigorous compatibility testing that larger engines go through.

And some of the larger engines even have serious issues.   Look at Gamebryo. 

 

The only way to rectify this is to submit crash data; otherwise your voice, and your technical problem, might never be heard or seen.


Do you expect to have to test all the games you buy, or do you just give Stardock a pass?

Honestly, having bought this game when it first came out, there's no way in heck we should still have to be submitting our debug files to clean up crashes.  My crashes were becoming less common before the 1.1 betas started and then it has picked up again.  Still getting crashes with 1.1.  I have a fairly new computer with up to date drivers.  It's silly.

You can go to any game forum and you will find people who are having problems with the game that that forum is about.   There will always be people who, for whatever reason, have technical issues with it. It's one of the down sides of the PC.

v1.1 isn't buggy or unstable for most people. I'm willing to personally help see what the issue is but to do that you need to provide some information.

 

Reply #80 Top

Dude, submit your crash report. Every time your game crashes and you fail to report, you might as well be saying you like that crash and want to keep it.

Reply #81 Top

These people have been asked repeatedly to just post a debug, yet they haven`t. If they paid attention at all they would know how responsive Stardock is to issues like this, yet they can`t be bothered to do the slightest constructive thing. I understand that Stardock tries to help everybody but you cannot please everyone. They are obviously just trolls.

Don`t Feed the Trolls.

Reply #82 Top

Don't attribute to malice what could be simply stupidity. Honestly, i think rather than trolling, they are just clueless. They don't realize that the bug is probably a very narrow bug affecting only them, and that if they had submitted a report it would of been fixed months ago. Instead, Stardock must use ESP to determine the bug and fix it.

Reply #83 Top

I never had a crash since 1.1 (other then OOM errors, which I got at turn 66 first and then became more common). I seem to have solved the issue by using "Large Address Aware.exe" as adviced in some old threads so elemental can use more RAM in my windows 7/32 bits and also using ProcessLasso (free version) to optimize my ram usage, this last program may not be critical though. Sometimes the game suffers some weird slowdowns periods (elemental using 90%+ of my quadcore), which I don't remember to be in the game previously (maybe because of the new threads?), but I have to admit it has been a long time, since I last played. Seems I missed an update to my display drivers, will have to try that as well and then play a long time to draw more conclusions maybe even try AtiTrayTools again and see if it helps, it made supreme commander playable for me back in the old days :P

 

Frankly as long as the game doesn't crash on saving or too often I don't mind it much. I'll send a report, when I get another crash as OOM errors don't seem to happen anymore. Anyways with all the third party programs I'm willing to test, it could mak emy reports meaningless...

 

Hope this helps someone

Reply #84 Top

Quoting Kantok, reply 78



Quoting dawgs4ever,
reply 77

Do you expect to have to test all the games you buy, or do you just give Stardock a pass?

Honestly, having bought this game when it first came out, there's no way in heck we should still have to be submitting our debug files to clean up crashes.  My crashes were becoming less common before the 1.1 betas started and then it has picked up again.  Still getting crashes with 1.1.  I have a fairly new computer with up to date drivers.  It's silly.


The point is that the situation is what it is.  Whining doesn't change it.  Either help fix it or accept it.  The developers have acknowledged the issues, have admitted they made mistakes, have been massively open about how and why they made the mistakes, and have posted on the forums many times per day to keep everyone informed of what is going on.  The owner of the damn company has given us multiple mea culpas. 

At this point if you don't have a clear understanding of the situation than you're just obtuse.  The game is significantly better.  If you think the potential is there for a great game (like I do) than stick around and help out.  Sticking around and whining, while never posting a crash dump or bug report, is just polluting the air.  

I'm not quoting dawgs4ever because I'm saying he's this way, because I don't think he is.  His comment just made a good launching point for my point.  

 Sorry to disagree with your opninions since as soon as i saw you say "whining" is stopped reading it. Sure the game is more stable for enearly 99% of players (me included, and yes, I pulled that number out of my ass) but the game is more boring than before. In my last game, at turn 111 I decided I'd rather go spend time with my crazy familly than keep playing. That would have never happened with GalCivII... or a number ofother games I have on this box.

 Time for a massive quantity of :beer:   while I decide what I'd rather be playing to be entertained. Sorry, but tell me it isn't so with most of you as well.????

 http://forums.impulsedriven.com/402566 has a good point brought up by 

Reply #85 Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 76

Quoting Seabird, reply 65The game should change its name from Elemental War of Magic to Elemental War of the Beta Testers...with all this squabbling going on between users.  My experience with 1.1: it did crash after about a good 2 hours of play...I should have saved, but was so hopeful that 1.1 would be the fix all and have the same stability as 1.09v....WRONG.

In addition, played the game on normal and challenging...the AI still seems a little wimpy.  On challenging, the wandering monsers seem to constantly harass my settlements, farms, etc, but the AI for the factions seems to be AWOL.  For instance, one faction declared war on me and then never invaded my territory (50 turns later still no invasion)...Maybe the AI just couldn't figure how to get around the mountain range.

Bottom line...I am glad that Stardock and Brad and his team have put the effort to make this game better than the original lease.  You guys are getting warmer, but not quite there yet. 
Just remember, Elemental does do autosaves. So you can go back to where you were.

I've been playing complete games without any CTDs since v1.1 went out.  No crashes. I'll keep an eye out for them but stupid AI stuff is what keeps me up at night at this point.

 

I have a fairly solid rig of a laptop, that runs everything else I have fine.  Elemental does occasionally crash.  It crashes about as frequently, as comparison, as early release versions of GCII. (GCII stopped crashing with your equivalent of the 1.1 update around 3-4 months post-release)  I do not think my issues are unique.

 

The AI issues are a bigger concern though.  Stability is an issue as well though.

 

I'd say for 1.2, if I was to set goals- it would be the following

 

a) Fix/improve the battle system

b) Improve the AI, which improving a) would help out here here

c) Improve Stability to where 99% of users can play to turn 500 without any crashes.  (There needs to be a concrete goal here, even if it means having a closed test group for this)

 

 

Reply #86 Top

I just came back to check if "blame the poster" was still in vogue here. Sure is. Thanks for proving my point.

 

 

2 months later and the forums are actually *worse*.

 

Awesome.

Reply #87 Top

Quoting greywar, reply 86
I just came back to check if "blame the poster" was still in vogue here. Sure is. Thanks for proving my point.

 

 

2 months later and the forums are actually *worse*.

 

Awesome.
Your last post in this thread before the necromantic resurrection (thread dead one day after your last post in it) of it was a little more than a month ago.

Awesome indeed.

Reply #88 Top

I just plain do not like the game anymore. I was hoping with the 1.1 they would fix my 'grievances' but it only seemed to make it even less fun to play (In my Opinion). And I was really happy when I bought it that I was supporting Stardock, since they have done so much for the gaming community... but now I am just disappointed ; ;

Reply #89 Top

Quoting Yskonyn, reply 28
Though I am sympathetic to the players experiencing the CTD's, I agree about the attitude issue brought up above;

Do the complainers expect some sort of disclaimer with every patch apologising over and over again that the game is not finished yet and the devs kneel to every player experiencing problems?

We're past that. They have admitted the game's faults already enough. It's time to build now. And you can either contribute in a grown up manner to help improve the game, or just whine and scream like a little child in an unproductive manner.

 

 

This.

 

 

There's no need for this kind of attitude. You have the CEO of this company posting on your thread offering to help you fix whatever is causing the crash. Open your eyes. You have more support for this game than you realize.

Reply #90 Top

Quoting GTRanma, reply 88
I just plain do not like the game anymore. I was hoping with the 1.1 they would fix my 'grievances' but it only seemed to make it even less fun to play (In my Opinion). And I was really happy when I bought it that I was supporting Stardock, since they have done so much for the gaming community... but now I am just disappointed ; ;

All they need now is our patience. It's certainly your prerogative to either grant it or bail but I am willing to wait. The plan looks solid and they are executing. It's just a matter of time. Try out the mods if not already done so - they add spice to the vanilla package.

Reply #91 Top

the probalem is todo with the 2gb limit i think. If you turn your graphics down a bit that will stop the crashes hopefully

Reply #92 Top

Should I play this game again? i have not been on in months so... are the updates great

Reply #93 Top

Quoting xStarfirex, reply 27
I really don't get peoples self entitlement. Yes the game isn't perfect and there are still some stability issues but the game really has come along way in the last few months. If the game is a failure in your eyes then fine chalk it up to experience and quietly move on with your life
Who the hell are you to tell people how to behave?! If someone spends £40 on a game that they think is crappy - even after waiting all this time, then they have every right to express their disappointment on the forum. You don't get peoples self entitlement, well other people don't get your willingness to spend money on something that is half arsed and then wait month after month for it to gradually edge towards being the kind of game it should have been to begin with. Especially when you could have just gone and bought a far better game like King Arthur or something.

Reply #94 Top

Quoting voodoochile123, reply 93

Quoting xStarfirex, reply 27I really don't get peoples self entitlement. Yes the game isn't perfect and there are still some stability issues but the game really has come along way in the last few months. If the game is a failure in your eyes then fine chalk it up to experience and quietly move on with your life Who the hell are you to tell people how to behave?! If someone spends £40 on a game that they think is crappy - even after waiting all this time, then they have every right to express their disappointment on the forum. You don't get peoples self entitlement, well other people don't get your willingness to spend money on something that is half arsed and then wait month after month for it to gradually edge towards being the kind of game it should have been to begin with. Especially when you could have just gone and bought a far better game like King Arthur or something.

 

And the options are either get a 75% refund for not liking the game, or after working with support and not being able to resolve crashes, getting a 100% refund. [email protected] has been posted many times on this forum.

The phrase "on a game that they think is crappy" shows more that a person doesn't like the game vs it's functionality. I've bought plenty of things I don't like, and I just learn my lesson and move on or return it if I can. Those are the options here if you don't want to stick around. So people can still go and buy your better game.

Consider the fact that most places don't allow returns of games, only exchanges, so the options here are a lot better than elsewhere. Elsewhere one's only option would be to learn from their mistake.

I understand that xStarfirex's post didn't start off the best way. But the last sentence is basically the only option you'd have had if you'd bought the game from a lot of places. Self entitlement is when a person feels they deserve something they don't, so stating that people have a sense of self entitlement to Elemental being a good functioning game when it was advertised as such is insulting to both those that want out and those that want to stick around.

I take offense at it myself because I believe I'm entitled to what was advertised, and I'm giving Stardock a chance to make good on their promise. That doesn't mean I think that I'm entitled to something I'm not - I feel I'm entitled to what I paid for and what's been promised.

Reply #95 Top

No there is another option, complain on the forum and then move on. So stfu and let people do what they want to do.

Reply #96 Top

Quoting AlLanMandragoran, reply 90


All they need now is our patience. It's certainly your prerogative to either grant it or bail but I am willing to wait. The plan looks solid and they are executing. It's just a matter of time. Try out the mods if not already done so - they add spice to the vanilla package.

Yeah, I was happy to wait. But now that I've read more of the direction they wish to take it, I don't think I will ever like it.


For one, right now resources are WAAAY to important. If I don't spawn near a mine or something, I fall so far behind the computer that they roll me like a scene kid at a rave. To me making a mad dash to grab all the good resources isn't strategy, it's a must.

 

But then again I am not a rush kiddy, and will never be, so as I said, this might not be the game for me that I was hoping it would be ; ;

 

*Edit: A refund? O_o for a crappy game? Shoot, if that happened almost every game company would be out of business. Hell, Square would have a million returned copies of FFXIV, well, every FF they released lately... Maybe that's why there are a bajillion used copies of FFXIII at Gamestop...

Reply #97 Top

Quoting GTRanma, reply 96


 

*Edit: A refund? for a crappy game? Shoot, if that happened almost every game company would be out of business. Hell, Square would have a million returned copies of FFXIV, well, every FF they released lately... Maybe that's why there are a bajillion used copies of FFXIII at Gamestop...

 

I don't know. Take the new WoW expansion. I didn't like what it did to healing on my paladin. I tried it out for a few weeks, filed a petition to have my 3 month sub refunded and they even offered to let me send my game in for a refund. So I sent in my copy of the Cata expansion and got my $42.00 back. While I wasn't happy with the expansion, and I am kinda glad to have kicked the wow habit after 6 years. I am very happy with them being willing to refund an unhappy customer no questions asked. Blizzard is aces in my book for that. I love stardock too so don't take this comment out of context. But the point is they didn't have to do that, but they did.

Reply #98 Top

Quoting dragoaskani, reply 97

Quoting GTRanma, reply 96
I don't know. Take the new WoW expansion. I didn't like what it did to healing on my paladin. I tried it out for a few weeks, filed a petition to have my 3 month sub refunded and they even offered to let me send my game in for a refund. So I sent in my copy of the Cata expansion and got my $42.00 back. While I wasn't happy with the expansion, and I am kinda glad to have kicked the wow habit after 6 years. I am very happy with them being willing to refund an unhappy customer no questions asked. Blizzard is aces in my book for that. I love stardock too so don't take this comment out of context. But the point is they didn't have to do that, but they did.

 

. . . Really? Wow... I wish Square-Enix would do that -.- I can't stand either of their new games. But that was really nice of Blizzard and prolly quite rare for a company to do that.

Reply #99 Top

Can we stop with the White Knighting now.  Brad already admitted that there are reasons some people are currently experiencing problems.  Just hoping that the next update corrects the big issues that are plaguing some people.

Reply #100 Top

Ya basically when I shell out money for something that was broke at release and remains broke I definitely feel like I should also have to bug test it for free to on top of it. I think that's a reasonable position that people should definitely consider taking. Definitely shouldn't say mean things, that is super Unproductive, unlike spending time trying to fix garbage game I was scammed into buying in the hope that in some vague indeterminate future months after release I'll be able to squeeze a tiny iota of fun out of it.

 

It's okay. Everything is Fine. Elemental was always good game. We've always been at war with Eastasia.