Nice

I have an idea for #2 known issue.

Add an enchantements pop-up, where you can enchant your heroes/sovs/etc  , when you click on a stack, similar to how it is done in AOW2.

A another crash prone Beta release and then a hot fix patch, sounds familiar. Beta or not, what's the point of putting out a release that crashes every 10-15 min? Stardock is doing the same thing it did before the game was released. One has to ask, if Stardock keeps doing the same thing, how will the 1.1 release be in any better shape then Elemental's original release? Doesn't Stardock have any in-house QA ability?

We don't have a significant lockdown before a beta patch.  We could delay a few days and allow QA to do their job (they are excellent by the way, they just aren't being given the time to test) but we don't for beta patches.  This way is more efficient for us (developers cant do much during lockdown) and the community generally asks for patches as soon as possible.  We appreciate all the feedback, both in finding issues and other feedback.

But it does mean that beta patches aren't scrubbed for issues.  Which is okay as long as those playing them understand that thats exactly what they are.  If the expectations are that they will be release quality, then of course players are going to be frustrated.  So we try to warn people, but I know its tempting to install the beta to get all the new stuff.

For what its worth people (including me) had played games for hours on 1.09o.  The training bug came in late (the risk of not having a significant lockdown period) but I don't want anyone to think that we hadn't played a bunch of games for a long period.

The reason we skip lockdown (and risk crashes) now is that we have a list of features we want in 1.1, and a time frame to have them in by.  From a stability standpoint we could add a few features, lockdown for a few days, put out a beta patch and repeat.  That would give us the highest reliability, but it would take a huge amount of time to get everything in.  Check out the changelist for 1.09n.  It's huge, 1.09o is the same.

From an speed factor it would be best to just check everything in, dont test, and release the final patch and be done.  Of course that would be a disaster.

So the compromise is to do beta patches, try to get everything checked in.  Then lockdown and fix all issues for the public version.  The betas allow us to get your feedback and help finding issues, but we dont loose days and weeks to lockdown and at the end we still produce a stable release version.

But it does mean the beta can be a bumpy ride.  To those that participate and provide feedback, it is greatly appreciated.  We know it isn't always fun.  For those that are frustrated by it, we certainly understand.

Most game companies would just release these beta patches to a private community, and not allow everyone to participate (ive been involved with internal builds from game companies for years, they don't lockdown before them).  The process is the same, it's just a public perception difference.

Then again, no matter how much you tell some people that a beta is a beta, they still don't listen. 

Were you playing capitar?

Thats the start techs bug.  Modifiers form starting techs werent being applied correctly (its going to be fixed in todays patch).  Capitar get trade for free, but it didnt correctly unlock caravans.

No this patch will break save games (we have players reporting issues because they are starting them on former versions, so we are going to increment the min save version in this patch).

Thx for the quick answer

Based on the release time of the Patch yesterday I'd guess something between 6 and 8 Hours until release.

Great response to the training crash...........Thanks guys.......

Aww, I just managed to luck out and get a starting position with 2 farms, a lumber mill, a marble quarry, an arcane temple, a clay pit, a fire shard, and an air shard...

Btw, I'm loving the public beta dev process. Also love the new Enchantments Ledger.

Kael, is it possible to put the task of cleaning the XMLs on a (near) future patch's list? The indentation, the comments and sometimes the data have issues (outdated - war staff, I'm looking at you-, not easy to read, inconsistent, etc.). I know it's a lot of work, but modders are an important part of what could make this game cool, and our only tool so far is quite difficult to use because of the current state of the xml portfolio.

Thanks and congratulations for the great work.

Not in the short term.  I have an excel spreadsheet that writes xml for me.  the advantage is that everything it does is always perfectly formated and it validates data (Fall from Heaven also used an excel spreadsheet to write all the xml).

The spreadsheet isnt ready yet, it only has monsters, weapons, armor and a few other things on it.  And Im not sure that we are going to switch to it (at the end of the day it comes down to whats easiest for the team).  But the nice part is that if we do xml will be consistently formated and of course I will be happy to share the spreadsheet with anyone who wants it.