BETA 1 Series: What We're Looking For

from Elemental Forums

A number of people have expressed some questions about what we're looking for in feedback right now. For this first early beta release, our primary focus is on technical issues. That is to say:

- Does it run?
- Does it crash?
- Does it hang?
- Does it run poorly?
- Does it look all messed up?
- Does some basic function (ex: save/load, map generation, movement) not work right?

These are the main questions we need your answers to right now. 

As Brad said in the pre-beta journals, it's not intended to be fun at all at this point, so "it's not fun" or "it would be better if..." feedback isn't going to be too helpful right now. Chances are very high that anything that seems dumb or unpolished we're already going to improve or replace entirely (or possibly even have done so already in internal builds). We'd love to get your input on how we should do that, but until those systems are implemented or in the process of being implemented, it would be better placed in the Ideas forum so that we can more easily find the higher priority stuff here in the Beta forum.

 

19,842 views 23 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Are you looking to have the questions above answered in this thread or would you rather us make a seperate thread for each?

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This post itself is just a guide for what sort or threads people should be making. Please don't post bug reports in this thread.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks kryo, that makes things a lot clearer, loved the 8 bit intro by the way that was fun.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

man, I'm glad to see this sticky.   I wonder how many people will ignore it....

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I've run it twice, about to go into my third iteration.

 

The installer installed the C++ 2008 distr; Lord of the Rings Online complained and insstalled 2005.

On the second run through, things seemed to be slower, about to go into another session now.

 

The first run crashed when I was clicking on a city square where something couldn't be built and trying to drop a hovel.

The second run crashed when I tried to move a guard unit.

 

I can't save so far

 

I have a scout with an ogre to the NE and one to the NW and I couldn't select it to move it.

Sometimes it takes a few clicks to select my king

Sometimes a move order will show up one tile north of where I actually clicked.

 

I'll say this much, I'm going to go back in for more because it's fun and has glimmers of more fun to come!

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

All,

      I have created a survey you can use quickly and easily to give your responses to Stardock in a format where they can get a better overview then the forums here.

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=n6YNuLXwSxV_2bvKEyy0Du8g_3d_3d

 

Sammual

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sammual, reply 6
All,

      I have created a survey you can use quickly and easily to give your responses to Stardock in a format where they can get a better overview then the forums here.

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=n6YNuLXwSxV_2bvKEyy0Du8g_3d_3d

 

Sammual
End of Sammual's quote

 

But this form doesn't give much actual info. They don't only need to know if it crashes, but when, how, and what your computer's specs are.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Ok, third run, can save fine, if I try to load, only units and roads appear, no cities on any view (1-4).

Clicking next turn crashes the game.

 

Going to jump in there again :)

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Fuzzyevil, reply 7

But this form doesn't give much actual info. They don't only need to know if it crashes, but when, how, and what your computer's specs are.
End of Fuzzyevil's quote

 

Yep, it is very basic and lacking in deatails.  I just used the questions Kryo stated that Stardock was looking for in https://forums.elementalgame.com/364444.

They want details posted on the forums here.  I am just attempting to give them a high level overview that they can't get on the forums.

 

Sammual

P.S. 11 responses so far.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I think you're trying to be helpful sammual, but I can tell you as a sometime software developer myself without detailed and specific information about the crash and the system that produced it a general overview like this is no use at all.

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Reading this should be a prerequisite to using the beta forums.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Bummer, I can't run it on my netbook due to insufficient vertical resolution (which has a maximum resolution of 1024x600).

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting veraxus, reply 13
Bummer, I can't run it on my netbook due to insufficient vertical resolution (which has a maximum resolution of 1024x600).
End of veraxus's quote

Hm...check your monitor settings. Maybe there is a "display unsupported modes" setting or something.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Yep. Game currently requires 1024x768.  I mentioned this a while ago in another thread. https://forums.elementalgame.com/364501. We just get to wait and see what happens.

 

Netbook support is going to be looked at later from the sounds of it...

 

 

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

a general overview like this is no use at all.
End of quote
  Actually it's proved quite useful, not with specific crashes, but with a general idea of our demographic and how the game is running is most people.  The more people that take the suevery the better our overall understanding will be :)

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Netbook support is going to be looked at later from the sounds of it...
End of quote
  Well, we're looking into technoloigies to make our screens run happier at the smaller resolution, but in general the netbook stuff is will be given development time after the main game is really looking good.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tormy-, reply 14



Quoting veraxus,
reply 13
Bummer, I can't run it on my netbook due to insufficient vertical resolution (which has a maximum resolution of 1024x600).



Hm...check your monitor settings. Maybe there is a "display unsupported modes" setting or something.
End of Tormy-'s quote

Hm also....what about windowed mode? You should be able to play the game in windowed mode at least.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

survey has been closed.. couldn't answer. 

good:

In any case, have been able to launch and play the game successfully (to some extent anyway) on Win7 x64. Used ATI & FullHD for playing and it went fine. (including using the setup-menu for that)

bad:

loading save games does not work, and sometimes a unit is shown but not selectable (happened in first game). Also firewall asking if the game should be let thru makes the game get stuck until something is selected. if full screen is enabled (as is by default), the only way to see that there is a selection to be made is by the change of cursor when crossing over the area. ALT-TAB did not help in this case (it should automatically minimize and pause the game so that no problems will arise later on - this way people would also be able to let the game get pass the first run problem, as some firewall's close the window (where they ask if application is allowed to access internet) when the application is closed.

hope this helps.

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

No issues here running the game using a 8800GT on Vista.

 

Only issue I had that was a little annoying as selecting things required the mouse pointer to be off target, apart from that it was a solid build.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

I had a very strange thing happen in one of my games.

I was finally use to moving around and clicking on things on the map and i was zooming alot and rotating and sliding map left and right.

Next thing i know the map is stuck in sliding left did not matter what i clicked on or how i played with the map it only fixed after restarting program.

 

XP sp3

2 Gig Ram

Athlon 64 x2 dual core 3800+

ATI Radeon x1950 GT

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

A suggestion for the beta process:

Create a program that runs/monitors the Elemental game and if Elemental crashes ask the user if it should send the dump and perhaps an explanation of what i was doing to get it to crash. It is boring to locate/copy the dump file and thus i never attach it and report only a fraction of the crash issues.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting BoogieBac, reply 17

Netbook support is going to be looked at later from the sounds of it...  Well, we're looking into technoloigies to make our screens run happier at the smaller resolution, but in general the netbook stuff is will be given development time after the main game is really looking good.
End of BoogieBac's quote

 

What about an iPhone version? :P

 

Warder