Third Seasons Patch is out....

[Sagana]

Do you know if Guild2/the EP has any endgame? Guild didn't seem to have any - you'd go on and on and on, until eventually the game would crash

[Emma]

Didn't they fix the 'Pet gets §0' from a winning chance card in a previous patch? If so, they broke it again.

[dizzy]

The main problem I have with accepting Sam's word for anything is the fact that there is no transparency in anything he explains. His whole apology is a brief and unsatisfactory piece of specious reasoning that only bothers to cover a small portion of the issues. He talks in very general terms about the process but never describes exactly how it works or why they do things the way they do.

And he has the gall to compare EA's QA with a modders? Modders, as I'm sure he well knows, are limited to scripting environments that will work on any platform (given that the game engine has been sufficiently debugged). When we release code in the form of mods, it gets a lot MORE testing in the form of volunteers here who gladly look for bugs. If modders don't debug and revise their code, they quickly become known as lamers. The whole process here is an open one where anyone can take the code they are presented with and modify it further to see whether it holds to various testing conditions. In spite of not being paid for it we have thousands of available testers available on a few fan sites, and what does EA have? Who knows?

If EA coders were unpaid fans like ourselves, I'd be okay with how they operate and this kind of vague hand waving from Sam would acceptable. The problem is that EA coders are well rewarded for their efforts, so it is very reasonable for us to demand more transparency. We've earned that right.

[Magicmoon]

OT RANT

There were similar install problems with Civ4 and ATI, but not only did they have a work-around up the day after release, but the patch to fix it within a week. 

Every time I see someone say how Civ4 was fixed in the patch, I cringe. I've been a die-hard Civ player from the day Civ 1 was released. I've played every engine change since. Civ 3 never was balanced correctly to play a decent game so I rejoiced when Civ 4 was released. Much better, but several bugs that would crash you to the desktop. Patch applied. Better, but not fixed. Warlord expansion applied. Fixed a lot of stuff the patch never touched. Only a few bugs left. Patch applied. Doggone if they didn't fix a critical crashing bug, so I have to keep the patch, but they broke several things they fixed when I installed Warlords.  Grrr....

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

[Ambular]

The main problem I have with accepting Sam's word for anything is the fact that there is no transparency in anything he explains. His whole apology is a brief and unsatisfactory piece of specious reasoning that only bothers to cover a small portion of the issues. He talks in very general terms about the process but never describes exactly how it works or why they do things the way they do.

And he has the gall to compare EA's QA with a modders? Modders, as I'm sure he well knows, are limited to scripting environments that will work on any platform (given that the game engine has been sufficiently debugged). When we release code in the form of mods, it gets a lot MORE testing in the form of volunteers here who gladly look for bugs. If modders don't debug and revise their code, they quickly become known as lamers. The whole process here is an open one where anyone can take the code they are presented with and modify it further to see whether it holds to various testing conditions. In spite of not being paid for it we have thousands of available testers available on a few fan sites, and what does EA have? Who knows?

If EA coders were unpaid fans like ourselves, I'd be okay with how they operate and this kind of vague hand waving from Sam would acceptable. The problem is that EA coders are well rewarded for their efforts, so it is very reasonable for us to demand more transparency. We've earned that right.

This is starting to remind me eerily of the ongoing IE vs. Firefox war...

[eevilcat]

I imagine that one of the main reasons for screwing up the patch was lack of testing resource i.e. testers and machines. Being realistic, this was a second patch for the fifth EP and I'll bet that the majority of the test department are tied up with the next round or two of lies and propaganda (life stories pt2, bon voyage). They will also have concentrated their test plans on fixed Seasons bugs/functionality with likely very little regression testing against normal gameplay hence the crying babies creeping back in. This doesn't excuse what happened but it is probably a fairly accurate analysis. Yes, PC games are shipped with known bugs, it's just a question of where the publisher sets the threshold for what it believes the target audience will tolerate.

[J. M. Pescado]

The real question is why the unnecessarily fucked with something that wasn't broken just to break it again.

[eevilcat]

Maybe they fuxxed up their source control? They probably branched for the first patch and screwed up on the code base they started from for the second patch. I got the impression that the entire crying baby fix was absent.

[Ambular]

Well, in all fairness, even with the minor puttering I do I know it can be annoyingly easy to lose track of which version of a file is stowed where, and what changes were made in which version...that being said, though, you'd think a bunch of people who do this sort of thing for a living would have some kind of procedural policy to minimize that kind of confusion.

[Lorelei]

Top 10 things likely to be overheard from a Klingon Programmer

  10. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
   
   9. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!

   8. Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!

   7. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.

   6. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

   5. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.

   4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment on his code!

   3. Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.

   2. You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.

   1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

Oldie. Substitute EAxian for Klingon.

[akatarli]

For those who have tested the new patch....
I never got patch 2a, not because people said it was buggy, but just because I didn't feel that it was necessary. Is getting 2b needed, or should I just continue without?

[Zazazu]

Oh. So. Maybe patch bug, maybe unaddressed bug:
Ivy made a boo-boo on the level 10 Medicine chance card. She turned away the intern, but the greedy upstart went and reported her. She was supposed to be fired. She wasn't.

[KatEnigma]

Do you know if Guild2/the EP has any endgame? Guild didn't seem to have any - you'd go on and on and on, until eventually the game would crash

It always did have an endgame as long as you weren't playing in Dynasty mode.

Every time I see someone say how Civ4 was fixed in the patch, I cringe. I've been a die-hard Civ player from the day Civ 1 was released. I've played every engine change since. Civ 3 never was balanced correctly to play a decent game so I rejoiced when Civ 4 was released. Much better, but several bugs that would crash you to the desktop. Patch applied. Better, but not fixed. Warlord expansion applied. Fixed a lot of stuff the patch never touched. Only a few bugs left. Patch applied. Doggone if they didn't fix a critical crashing bug, so I have to keep the patch, but they broke several things they fixed when I installed Warlords.  Grrr....

I said that the installation problems were fixed.   Which they were. 

[NixRMax]

Something I just noticed, not sure if it's patch related or my game being stupid:

All computers, even custom computers, are depreciating before they should. If you place a computer, go into live mode and play for even just a second, then come back to buy/build mode and delete it, it's instantly depreciated as if it stayed past 12:00 AM. No other objects seem to do this, as I tested a few objects to see if they were affected in a similar way; no dice.

[Hook]

Standard game practice.  The computers depreciate the moment you buy them.

Hook

[NixRMax]

Really, never heard of that. Guess I need to pay more attention...

[Jack Rudd]

I think this is to stop the "buy a computer; check for jobs; sell computer - if your dream job hasn't come up, do the same again tomorrow" exploit.

[ZiggyDoodle]

I never got patch 2a, not because people said it was buggy, but just because I didn't feel that it was necessary. Is getting 2b needed, or should I just continue without?

If it ain't broke, why fix it? 

I have a patch folder containing all the patches, but the last one installed and running in my game is the patch for EP3. 

[dizzy]

Patches are cumulative (as all good patches should be). One of the few things they did right.

I don't get why some people make patches that require other patches. That is the epitome of stupid programming.

[Count Four]

I've got the empty template for G002. Do I need to replace it with the original before I attempt to patch? I read through this thread, but I'm still chicken not sure.

[SaraMK]

I've got the empty template for G002. Do I need to replace it with the original before I attempt to patch? I read through this thread, but I'm still chicken not sure.

Try to patch and see if the patch complains. If it does, replace the G002 with the original. No need to do extra work unless it's actually necessary.

After patching, check the G002 folder to make sure the patch didn't replace your empty template with a full-of-crap version.

[Giggy]

I'm having a problem trying to install the patch.
It won't install for some reason but give me the "Please reinstall seasons before you try this patch again" error message

[jrd]

Move the dialog up, and replace the file it borks on from the CD. Probably objects.package.

[Giggy]

tried your suggestion but somehow it didn't work.
I think the patch is borked or something

[jrd]

No. It installed without problems on my machine, and after I replaced objects.package from the disk, it did so on my sister's. So the patch is fine, your game isn't. Unpack compressed.zip over the Seasons install so it will overwrite everything and try again.

Of course EAxis could also start using a working patch mechanism instead. But that's wishful thinking. The RTPatch system sucks as much as installshield :/