22-05-2003 00:28									#1
	PATCH Information from BHG Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your compliments about the game and your patience with the patching process. The earlier-than-expected release of the game caught us all (both at BHG and MS) a bit by surprise on a couple fronts, but we hope to have things back under control shortly. I just wanted to catch everyone up on where we stand and where we go from here.

When we sent RON to manufacturing we did so because as far as we knew all major problems had been addressed; so the various issues that have appeared are all things we weren't aware of in spite of a very thorough testing process. We could have all kinds of debate on why this sort of thing can happen, but ultimately the onus is on us to correct the issues as quickly as possible.

So here is the latest information on various known issues and what (and when) we plan to address them.


ITEM #1 -> "THE PATCH DOESN'T WORK"

Here are several reasons that could cause the patch to fail for you:

(1) You have a foreign version (including a British version). We've discovered as I said above that the manufacturing process introduced some unexpected EXE differences (all versions in theory run the same EXE). We had tested the game and the patcher of course, but had not been able to test them -alongside- a full manufacturing run. Again, our apologies, and we hope to have the problem fixed within the next day or so. Our understanding was that we weren't shipping in Europe until the 23rd, so this particular issue caught us a little by surprise. WE EXPECT TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM CORRECTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO.

(2) You have "modded" some of the game files (for example rules.xml). If your patch is stopping somewhere OTHER than 37% complete this is to be strongly suspected. The solution is to fully reinstall the game (including recopying files) and then patch. We'll work on something to make the patching process more friendly to modders.

(3) You have a warez version.

(4) We haven't identified any definite cases of US versions with differing EXE's, so we suspect most US cases are (2) above. If there ARE instances of this they should also be CORRECTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO when we put up a new copy of the patch that doesn't have issues with this. In the meantime if you know you have a US version and you know you don't have problem 2 or 3, it's possible that a completely clean uninstall and reinstall would overcome this).

If you HAVE the patch, your version number will be 01.14.05.0902.


ITEM #2 -> PREVENTING FUTURE PATCHING PROBLEMS

As soon as issue #1 is squared away, we're going to update our patching system so that we can check out these issue for future patches to avoid further patching problems. This will take a few days.


ITEM #3 -> PEOPLE WHO CAN'T RUN CONQUER-THE-WORLD

A few people seem to have a crash involving Conquer the World. Correcting this is one of our highest priority items once the patching system is back under control. We hope for a solution within the next week or two.


ITEM #4 -> PEOPLE WHO HAVE UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH LAG IN MULTIPLAYER FOR THEIR CONFIGURATIONS

Also a problem we hope to address within the next week or two. We're working on obtaining a machine that reproduces this problem (we never saw this in the config labs either at MS or BHG so there is probably a rare configuration combination that produces this); we're probably going to pay a generous volunteer to ship us their system that exhibits this problem.


ITEM #5 -> HOSTING PROBLEMS BEHIND ROUTERS AND NATS

We are looking into the problem hope to be able to address this on the "in a week or two" list, but I can't say 100% yet because we need to set up some test cases and see to what extent a fix requires changes on the RoN side or the Gamespy side. Thanks to those who've sent in helpful router technical information.


Those are the known "top priority" items right now. It's possible issues might get added to that list we find one of the "stopping people from using the game" variety and reproduce it. I know a few people have reported problems not listed above, and we're sorting through them to determine if there are some that aren't "don't-have-the-latest-driver" kinds of issues.


Then, for a patch in a few weeks, we will work on improvements/enhancements/fixes to the Gamespy environment. Some items currently on this list include:
* Rated games issues
* Stopping the scrollbars in the chat lobby and player list from "popping back down"
* Making sure everyone in the room has same patch
* Further anti-cheat/hack stuff
* Various other improvements

There will also be some improvements/additions to the rest of the game either for the in-a-few-weeks patch or afterwards. Among the things on the list--
* Multiplayer Save/Load
* Making the game (even) more friendly to "modders"
* Game Balance patches as needed
* Additional anti-cheat/hack patching as needed to keep up with the usual "arms race" with hackers.
* "Quick match" aka "blind" matchmaking


I'll try to keep everyone posted as I know more. Again, thanks to everyone for your support--they keep on rising!

Brian

	22-05-2003 00:45									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Good to see you here, Brian! Superb work with RoN!

	22-05-2003 01:57									#3
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

cool beans Brian

i get paid tomorrow and i'll definately be picking up the retail version

Last edited by Inverse Icarus on 22-05-2003 at 02:28

	22-05-2003 02:44									#4
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Hello Brian,

Not addressed as yet is having the retail program hang as soon as it tries to play the intro video. Am I the only one who has experienced this? I posted a full description of the problem and my hardware in the bugs category in this forum on a thread named Black Screen of Death Retail Version. I had been running the demo quite successfully, so having the retail program hang was quite a surprise. I used the toggle in the rise2.ini file to turn off the intro video and now the game comes up and runs just fine, of course without the intro video and maybe without the ingame videos if there are any.

Other than the intro video hanging my system, no problems with this game other than it keeping me up until 2:00 in the morning last night! Horribly enough, I suspect it will do the same thing tonight as well!

Congratulations to everyone at BHG. Tour de Force!

	22-05-2003 02:53									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

*clap* *clap* *clap*

	22-05-2003 03:17									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Thank you for keeping us updated on these issues, Brian. Oh, and thank you for this damned addictive game... I only managed to play the demo so far (no signs of a retail version around here yet), but I can safely say that this is the first RTS game that didn't bore me after the first minutes...

	22-05-2003 06:44									#7
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UPDATE ON THE UPDATE (PATCH)

We've submitted a patch to MS that appears to fix the non-US patching problems. MS is waking folks in Europe so they can get things tested and turned around quickly. It's not so early in East Asia so we'll hopefully have word from there relatively soon. With luck, it'll be up late tonight. If not, baring additional issues, it should certainly be up by around 1pm PST, tomorrow (Thursday). We'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, here are some notes to add to Brian's:

* If the patch fails, you shouldn't need to uninstall, reinstall, or anything like that. Failure means no changes have been made.

* For the upcoming patch, any failure should create an error report in your game directory called patch.err. If you've modified a pertinent file, this should explain the problem to you. If you haven't modified any of the patchable files, the error report should help us quickly resolve the issue.

* For those that patched successfully, we do not believe you need to do anything further. However, it's not an awful idea to uninstall, reinstall, and udpate with the new patch once it's available.

* About 24 hours after the patch is available from GameSpy, a standalone patch should be available. In the future, the standalone and the auto-update should be released simultaneously. GameSpy Arcade will then be able to update you when appropriate.

Thanks to all for bearing with us,
J

	22-05-2003 14:26									#8
	Tired of ads?

Thanks for the update J

	22-05-2003 16:05									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Mr.Coleman needs a custom underlined title, he looks too much like a DL at present.

	22-05-2003 16:14									#10
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For the BHG guys:

In the topic
http://ron.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/...ct&f=1,895,0,10 users drop their issues with RoN. Some of the issues mentioned occur with multiple users, for example the error message: "Unable to Establish Network Connection. make sure you are connected to internet and try again.".

	22-05-2003 21:10									#11
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by FrustratedPoet Mr.Coleman needs a custom underlined title, he looks too much like a DL at present.

Yep. I almost started a DL dance...

	23-05-2003 01:50									#12
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

PATCH UPDATE

Unfortunately, there was a snag with one of the languages. The current patch is still in the middle of testing. More to follow.

J

	23-05-2003 02:49									#13
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hey jason, great to see you here!

	23-05-2003 05:26									#14
	Increase Your PM Length

I have downloaded the patch sucessfully and it installed, but i still have the problem with conquer the world. When i try to attack a country it loads half way and then crashes with the runtime error. Everything else works, is this going to be fixed, and how do i know if i have a US version or not???

	23-05-2003 06:08									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Eggfu I have downloaded the patch sucessfully and it installed, but i still have the problem with conquer the world. When i try to attack a country it loads half way and then crashes with the runtime error. Everything else works, is this going to be fixed, and how do i know if i have a US version or not???

This seems to be a very common bug, one that must be fixed soon. I have the same runtime error and I am almost certain it happens as the "Game Build" phase ends.

I bought RON for CTW, I wanted to conquer the world with every civ.

	23-05-2003 06:28									#16
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PATCH1 (0902) IS LIVE

At last, our first patch is up in a form that should, in theory, work for all languages. Thanks to all for bearing with us. We certainly have a lot of work to do in this area.

Here's a summary of our current priorities:

PATCH2
Address our current inability to accurately test patches for all languages before going live. This patch will likely go up in the next few days and will be extremely limited in scope.

PATCH3
Address issues that are keeping some people from enjoying the game at all. The timetable is ASAP but, with all the testing involved, is likely to take 1-3 weeks. These issues include:
* Consistent CTW crashes on some systems. Some people seem to have solved the problem by upgrading their motherboard bios. We hope to either address the problems within the game itself or have a clear understanding of the problem so we can more effectively help people solve it.
* Severe MP lag for some, regardless of bandwidth or machine specs. Since we were unable to repro the problem on site, someone is graciously sending us his system which exhibits the problem. Thanks for the many offers.
* Inability to host behind a NAT via GameSpy even when the appropriate ports are opened.
* Poorly behaving MP rating system.

PATCH4
Hopefully, by this point, we can begin real improvements and start incorporating the many wonderful suggestions for improving online matchmaking and the overall game experience. We should have details at a later date.

Again, thanks for all the support,

J

	23-05-2003 07:22									#17
	Got spare money?

awesome, it patched perfectly. thanks

	23-05-2003 08:22									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Patch 4 sounds good. Can I have that one sent to me?

	23-05-2003 11:25									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Hiya
so when are we gonne be able to download the patch? ( britisch version )

	23-05-2003 11:32									#20
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

So is it available as a direct download yet? I am not a big Gamespy fan. And yeah, I am wanting the patch 4 as well. By the times those kinds of patches come out for the games I am playing, I am usually done with them

olaf

	23-05-2003 18:15									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

The patch is available via Online Matchmaking and has been tested for all versions, including British.

Right now, you don't need to actually log onto GameSpy, just select the online matchmaking option. At that point, the game will check for available patches. Once you get to the GameSpy logon, feel free to cancel.
In either the next or the following version, the game will have a "Check for Updates" button.

There should be a stand-alone patch available sometime today. In the future, the "auto-patch" and the "stand-alone" will be released simultaneously.

J

	23-05-2003 19:00									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Thanks, I was just gonna ask where to get it!

	23-05-2003 23:19									#23
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Your game doesnt play well with Zonealarm, that is another reason why I'd like to see a standalone patch.

Zonealarm trys to get focus to bring up its dialogue box informing me that something is trying to access the internet and do I want to let it, but RON doesnt budge and so XP is pretty much hard locked at this point. Annoying, to say the least.

There are a few workarounds, yeah. But it shouldnt happen in the first place.

olaf

	23-05-2003 23:37									#24
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olaf,

Thanks for the info. We'll check it out.

J

	24-05-2003 01:38									#25
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Hmm... I have had programs popping up boxes wanting to get my attention while playing RoN... and the game just kindly minimized, no problemo - on XP.

And BTW, RoN performance is fantastic! It loads games FAST, and I mean it!

	24-05-2003 02:08									#26
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Heh, ill send ya this systems specs too if you want =). Anything to get to actually play multiplayer. Can send a directx system output file or whatever you guys usually use.

	26-05-2003 02:34									#27
	Remove this text

WOuld this patch be able to fixt the crash that happens after the Video Intro?

	26-05-2003 13:34									#28
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by jcoleman olaf, Thanks for the info. We'll check it out. J

Hi Jason,

Just to inform you.

This problem is not related to Zone Alarm alone,
I think this issue applies to all firewall software, which displays a dialog screen, asking the user to allow traffic.

If I am running Kerio Personal Firewall and I click on "Gamespy matchmaking", RoN totally blocks, including the system, so I can't alt+tab to return to Windows. The only option then is to turn off the computer with the Power button.

I am using Windows XP Pro.

	26-05-2003 16:59									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Thank you for the info. We'll look at it today.

J

	26-05-2003 18:57									#30
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

hiya Jcole
any date about when the standalone version of the patch comes out
have the prob , that my ron won't autopatch
i did bought the game , but has something to do with the version of my game , and the language thing
L_Clan_Chaos has same prob , we from same country ( belgium )
hope you can help
thx alot Anne