Topic: @ Taldren; Any word on the official SFC3 patch!? (Read 24431 times)

atdi · « **on:** June 10, 2003, 03:50:04 pm »

Are there any news? PLEASE answer!

atdi · « **Reply #1 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:16:10 am »

bump

Mantis · « **Reply #2 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:51:51 am »

What would be nice additions

1. An armor indicator - can use the current hull indicator but draw a line (alpha 1.0) over it in a different color (like yellow). As your armor was depleted the blue of the hull would appear beneath. I do not know if I am explaining this very well. You could also just have another line.
2. Hot keys for operating your tractor.
3. Official hot keys for preset power settings. Really would be nice when playing Romulan.
4. Better bandwidth utilization

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #3 on:** June 12, 2003, 07:45:18 pm »

How about a toggle to take your sheilds down, Taldren seems to have made it where the sheilds will recharge faster when they are offline, like was demonstrated in Equinox Part 1. I would rather expose my hull for 20-30 seconds of minor fire to get my sehilds back up to around 30-50% rather than let the enemy pummel them down and keep them in that state where they dont add up to much at all.

Max Burke · « **Reply #4 on:** June 13, 2003, 04:06:30 am »

LOL

Half a Year down the line since launch, and still no official patch to be seen!

Brings back so many memories

Can Ya feel the luv in this forum, well it aint coming from Taldren or Activision!

who was it that was quoting legal action earlier? That person might have a point.

Sorok · « **Reply #5 on:** June 13, 2003, 07:25:53 am »

Its not activisions fault. They've had plenty of other Trek titles that were successful and supported.

Cleaven · « **Reply #6 on:** June 13, 2003, 07:43:34 am »

Quote:

Its not activisions fault. They've had plenty of other Trek titles that were successful and supported.

You will have to practice a lot more on your sarcasm.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #8 on:** June 13, 2003, 08:31:21 am »

It is Activisions fault

Taldren would have released 2 or 3 patches by now (they've done it with the other games, they are still planning on releasing another OP patch, and very few people bought OP)

The problem is Activision has a policy of one patch only. And for a long time, didn't Beta test the patch Taldren made. They would have a couple guys play until they found a bug, and then sent it back because everything wasn't fixed. Eventually things were worked out, the Beta was posted for public download, and they are working towards the final version. But they can only make one patch, and that's not their choice

Hale · « **Reply #10 on:** June 13, 2003, 10:09:55 am »

So Interplay was the producer it was Interplay's fault, and when Activision is the producer its Activision's fault? The only constant I see is Taldren and their consistently buggy releases, and failure to fix them.

I can't really defend Interplay, but Activision usually does pretty well by their customers.

3dot14 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 13, 2003, 10:52:31 am »

1. OP patch has nothing to do with Activision (thank god). It's still Interplay territory. And therefore "Activision one patch policy" is not applicable at all. So Jarok didn't contradict himself at all.

2. Taldren's releases are buggy, perhaps. But they fixed them all for SFC1 EAW and now OP. SFC3 is an anomoly as far as patching goes. I won't argue about Taldren's release quality, but I will defend its ability and willingness for POST-SALE support (patches).

3. Activision has no Official one patch policy. But it does practices one. I play Medieval Total War (another Activision product) and it needs another patch on top of its 1.1 (Glorious Archievement still borken, it's the main "campaign" mode of the game), but won't get it cause Activision has already moved on to Rome Total War. (see Armada discussion below too)

4. Interplay's fault was to rush up release. But its hands off policy for patchs is much more helpful than Activision. (interplay does not advertise any patchins beyond 2007 and 2501, since those are the last official patches. But it does not get its, ahem, clothing in a knot if Taldren rleases more patches of its volition.) If Interplay is as uptight as Activision, we are still at EAW 2007 and OP 2501. But Taldren/KM took us all the way here. (Remember that Taldren DID try to take a public-beta patch to us months before the ATVI beta, with essentially the same content. But ATVI, namely SFC3's producer, took the initiative down. And that's what soured Taldren and ATVI relations.)

5. Activision is a big corporation and consists of many individual agent/producers. I don't mean to say ALL activision products are bad simply because SFC3 received shoddy treatment. However, the converse is false as well. Just because Armada and EF were good, doesn't mean the person handling SFC3 is as amiable.

6. While we are on the subject of Armada.
Armada 2 is only patched to 1.1.
And someone correct my A1 history if I am wrong. A1 was released with one patch only (1.1), A1's 1.2 patch was put together by Maddoc and the Former A1 dev team and community in an "extracurricular" role. The original patch 1.2's announcement at A1's official site DOES NOT include an Activision download. I remember that very clearly. It has a Fileplanet and a couple 3rd party downloads. No official ATVI server either. (later it was pciked up by Gaming.Startrek.com. Which is a joint site between Paramount and ATVI...)

BTW I am personally convinced that ATVI is holding up the release. As for what you feel, that's up to you, just so we get the facts (the public ones anyhow) of the cases striaght.

Sorok · « **Reply #12 on:** June 13, 2003, 11:54:38 am »

At the end of the day, the only Activision title that I've had a problem with is SFC3. As a consumer, that's what concerns me. Defend whoever you want whenever you want. But until someone posts some cannon facts, then my feelings remain status quo.

Ill even go one step further and point out that the a.) "buggy release", b.) inaccurate setting of consumer expectations regarding a patch, c.) the length of time it took to get our hands on the second patch ***AHEM*** the first "official" Beta patch and D.) the mismanagement of patch distribution coincidently happened at a time which Taldren was looking to hire someone as a product manager.

3dot14 · « **Reply #13 on:** June 14, 2003, 05:02:50 pm »

Like I said, Sorok, feel free to draw your own conclusions.

One one more thing, Armada and Elite Force were raised as "good Activision" products. I already talked about Armada (and in relation to one patch policy).

Now onto Elite Force. Elite Force 2 to be sure.

http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id=5165

Ritual lays off Elite Force 2 team.

I wonder how many patches it will get.

BTW I am sorry for the EF2 team. EF2's demo was very good. I hope the best to the team for their next project.

Reverend · « **Reply #14 on:** June 14, 2003, 05:09:24 pm »

Well, it was him, or him or her, but we still don't have an official patch on a half-assed game that doesn't even come close to living up to its advertsied expectations, and sure as heck not up to its competition. Give us the source code, so someone can reprogram it to soemthing decent. I almost hate Star Trek because of these titles. It is like buying the car of your dreams only to find out that doesnt come with seats, wheels, or a steering wheel, and the company doesn't build them, and denies their lack of existence.

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #17 on:** June 14, 2003, 06:44:17 pm »

My petition for the release of the source code isn't to correct bugs, but simply to alter certain hard-coded elements for preference in mods.

Alexander

Grav · « **Reply #18 on:** June 14, 2003, 07:20:19 pm »

Sorok A1,A2,BC and EF all received only one patch each up to this point so it would seem activision stick by their one patch policy

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #21 on:** June 14, 2003, 11:50:47 pm »

I don't want to start this again

No one can say Taldren has been this late on releasing a patch before

Erik Bethke posted an explanation, but removed it after he said things were worked out (or at least better)
The thread was turning into an Activision bashing thread, so it was probably good he removed it

After he said things were worked out, Taldren released the public data, and the weapons charts

I can't say I have all the facts, but I do know that this kind of thread will be annoying

Good night

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #23 on:** June 15, 2003, 09:43:37 am »

I was talking about the initial patch

Reverend · « **Reply #24 on:** June 15, 2003, 10:13:45 am »

Why aren't I this, why aren't I that- I stand on no one's back and proclaim nothing more than I would by myself... you shouldn't speak in such tones; it is the same tones I hear oh so often- the flailings of someone who is mad they don't have anything better to do, and of someone losing an argument.

Vysander · « **Reply #25 on:** June 16, 2003, 04:21:39 pm »

Sorry to have to turn up the flames a bit, but I haven't touched SFC 3 in... a couple months now.

Yes, a beta patch was released.. with a big warning saying that this isn't for dial up users. Well that excludes me.

Been waiting quite a long time for this patch... Be there a GaW or SFC4, i'm voting with my pocketbook. I'm not going to buy a Taldren (while under Activision, or probably anyone else) product again unless they manage to release a playable product that doesn't force a reboot of my computer every other battle, crashing single player about every 4th battle (the save button is my friend), and etc within a reasonable amount of time.

It's both the fault of Taldren and Activision for SFC3. It's a good game in concept, in execution it just blew. When a product doesn't deliver, it's the fault of all involved. Period. The 4th (counting OP) iteration of SFC is just like the rest of them, buggy. I should have learned my lesson around the 2nd time, but I am an SFB fan and was hoping for a good and STABLE game that delivers all that is promised on the box at least one of these tries (before patch.... heck, even after patch). I understand that games are released to literally hundreds of different computer configs, but for crying out loud, there's an abundance of cutting edge games out there that run decently! (admittedly there's another pile of junk games that don't deliver. Taldren seems to be throwing their games in this pile). I can't say that my rig really does deviate far from the 'optimal gaming machine', it's reasonably high end, STANDARD/POPULAR equipment with nothing funky done with the OS/Hardware/anything.

This thing was released over 8 months ago... Barely worked for me ~5 months ago, still barely works for me now. (definition of barely working is less than 1 hour of playing before something cops out)

This is ridiculous, i'm not enough of a fanboy to keep waiting and looking at this forum every week or so. I've waited long enough. I give up. You win Taldren, you got my 40 bucks (well.. times 4). Your cd's have turned into expensive coasters.

Vysander, Out.

Edit: *sigh* used wrong word, all fixed now

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #26 on:** June 16, 2003, 06:54:29 pm »

I have to respectfully dissagree with Toasty on one point. I will happily stand on the shoulders of giants and tell them that I would improve upon their game if only they would release their source code. Why not? How could Taldren see that statement to mean anything other than that I want to improve on something they made? I must have a special love for their game if I want to improve it instead of playing everquest or any of the 1000 other games out there. I consider myself a die-hard Taldren fan, and I'll be the first one to mod the game if they release the code to the community. To do anything otherwise would be un-fan-like.

Erik Bethke · « **Reply #27 on:** June 17, 2003, 12:39:53 am »

Hello All,

We have continually worked on patching SFC3 since Novemember, as you know from receiving the beta patch(es) earlier.

Recently we have gone through and did a big sweep of the remaining gameplay issues in SFC3 and have the D3 performance issues remaining. These are tougher bugs and issues and it looks like it is going to take us a good portion of the summer to finish these items up.

In the meantime Activision has received our patch updates and is on top of the project.

Thank you for your patience,
-Erik

Trickster · « **Reply #29 on:** June 17, 2003, 12:29:50 pm »

I don't think it is anyone's fault. Ok, so some decisions may not have been the right one's in the opinion of some people.

I doubt anyone here has made a game like Activision or Taldren, let alone completley bugless. It is easy as a customer to lay the blame on someone else, much harder to try and address these problems as a developer/publisher with how game development/support works. I don't know anything about it, I am sure it is a lot more complicated then altering a text file and calling it 'bug fixed'.

Even if the patch addressed everything that has been reported there will still be some bugs that don't get fixed or are created with new hardware/software releases. Also there will always be someone out there that isn't happy with certain aspects of the game.

Once the patch is released I am sure many will be happy with it, of course there will be those that are not. The same happens with other games and game companies as well.

quircus · « **Reply #30 on:** June 17, 2003, 01:26:23 pm »

Lets just think for a minute.

Taldren released a beta patch a few mionths after the game was launched (correct me if im wrong). This is OK, however, Activision pulled their one-patch policy into this game too.

After Activision spotted a few problems with the pacth, it was hauled back to the drawing board. It took a couple of months to then make a BETA patch, which demostrates there are still problems with it.

What I dont get is: Why do Activision have a one-patch policy??

If they didnt, then a patch (1.1) could have been released, and every few months a new patch could replace that and be better until we get to the point where there are no or few bugs left (as in EAW - which went from 2002 to 2035 fro Christ's sake!!) The one-patch policy sucks and it doesnt increase their popularity either. Why have they failed to see this??

Opinions welcome,

Quircus.

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #31 on:** June 17, 2003, 02:30:08 pm »

What source code? We don't have source code. We don't need no stinkin' source code...

I hope I don't come across as unkind, but I can't help but ask you a question or two; if you're such a seasoned programmer/producer/developer that you could accomplish better (in your humble opinion) why aren't you:
1.) Answering Taldren's help wanted ad?
2.) Raising the money;developing a like game;contacting Harry Lang to negotiate a licsense agreement...ect, then getting to it developing and distributing your vision of a cool Trek sim?

Or, would you rather stand of the shoulders of giants and tell the giants that you could do better than the giants if only the giants would give you their source code?

I don't mean this as flame, but it may come across as one none the less. My apologies if it does.

Best,
Jerry

I'm glad to see someone else thinking like I do. As stated multiple times in these forums, Taldren would have been more than happy to release multiple patches to fix issues IF THEY WERE ALLOWED TO. Also, I know that OP was buggy. I know that they have been promising a patch but, one question...

WHO'S PAYING THEM TO DO THESE PATCHES NOW?

God knows that they aren't making any revenue off of EaW or OP. Heck, in todays world of "take it or leave it" customer service, it amazed me to see any new patches being developed for OP AT ALL. I do agree with KoraH however, it would be nice for modders such as himself (and Pelican for instance) to be able to change as much as they liked but I understand the issues between Taldren and Activision. In other words, due to contractual stipulations, ACTIVISION OWNS THE CODE and I don't think they are going to chance giving it up to anybody that can get ideas on how to do something (big corporations are paranoid like that). I don't think that Taldren would mind a limited release of the source code, (didn't they do that already once to Khromag((I think was his name))?) maybe for a one time "licensing fee".

In the final analysis, if you can do it better, WHY HAVEN'T YOU?!?!?

Dogmatix! · « **Reply #34 on:** June 17, 2003, 04:58:07 pm »

I pretty much left SFC3 behind last January, after playing it relatively heavily for a few months. I got tired of waiting for the public release patch and I wasn't interested in applying a beta patch. Maybe when the game is done I'll give some consideration to installing it on my latest system (already has OP and EAW, both of which I still avidly play, even now).

Good luck with the bug squashing, Erik!

TheSatyr · « **Reply #35 on:** June 18, 2003, 01:36:10 am »

For those wondering on why it takes so long for patches to come out for SFC OP & 3 keep this in mind. David Ferrel is the one doing the fixing...with whatever help he can get from other Taldrenites...while they are all in the process of working on Black9.

Some people play golf in their spare time...Dave plays with patches...so cut them a little slack. It's not like there is this big team doing the patches...just a couple of people...when they have the time.

As for how they are paying for the patches,I would assume they got their advance for Black9...and are putting some of that money into the patches.

Jester_OC · « **Reply #36 on:** June 18, 2003, 03:27:34 am »

Overall SFc3 was pretty clean. Yes it has/had bugs. Most games do. And we worked on a patch for SFC3 right after it shipped (before even).

.
.
.

I had written a details list of stuff we got hosed on, but I changed my mind. Just remember that patch Taldren Leaked out, we were out of time and being ignored, it was desparate and it seemed at the time to wake Activision up, but of course how long has it been since then? Now B9 is taking up most of Taldrens time. I have heard that Scott did some optimizations to the ship update code that freed up some major bandwidth. I have no idea if Activision is even looking at it (Don't read into that one, I don't work at Taldren anymore so I am out of the loop on recent stuff.) But I know that they had not been allocating QA for SFc3 Taldren for a long time. Who knows if they will.

Jester_OC

Toasty0 · « **Reply #37 on:** June 18, 2003, 06:27:07 am »

Dang, dude, where'd you head to?

Best,
Jerry

Jester_OC · « **Reply #38 on:** June 18, 2003, 12:40:36 pm »

I jumped out of the gaming business. Now working on thermal imaging stuff. It was great, but I have a growing family and it took way too much out of their time. Aside from the time, stress due to milestones and people who bag on every flaw in the game (which I really feel bad about and hoped a patch would have been out long ago.) it is a great gig. Working with cool people, and creating something fun to play is pretty good fun, but it can be HELL on relationships and other aspects of life.

Jester_OC (Marc Hertogh)

TheSatyr · « **Reply #40 on:** June 18, 2003, 08:46:11 pm »

Marc,you KNOW the Taldren Beta testers are better than any QA people Activision could throw on a patch.

We knew what to look for...they didn't.

Taldren is better off just letting us do all the testing.

Jester_OC · « **Reply #41 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:14:23 am »

Yea the Inner Circle always had the best bug reports especially balance and gameplay issues. It felt like Activision QA did not understand our game. For the most part they were competent, but we had a couple of guys who had a tendency to tack on different bugs onto other bug reports. That is how many of the biggest bugs got through. Interplay had always had a few guys (usually the leaders) who understood the game. Overall I liked working with Interplays QA team better, maybe if we talked more to the Activision folks it would have worked better, unfortunately we had only the bug database as a form of communication.

Jester_OC

ragamer · « **Reply #42 on:** June 19, 2003, 09:59:18 am »

Each time I read some topic where some1 questions Taldren products' quality I really get stunned by
the degree of patience/devotion that some fans have. This one is no exception... of course

I really even wonder what a BUG means in this forums... Here is some of the most common ways for
a fan to excuse the developers BUGS:

- "It's impossible to release a perfect bug-free software because PC world is too heterogenous". If you analyze
bugs in SFC series they appear in most of the PCs... With the remarkable exception, seems like, of the Beta Testers
comps :-?

- "The publisher have forced Taldren to release the game prematurely". Yeah... they have used guns as "negotiation
technique" when signing the contract with Taldren.

- "Some BUGS are expected to appear because the depth and degree of complexity of this simmulation". BUGS...
by definition, are NEVER expected to appear... If you plan a high complexity software... Then invest some more time
in the design phase or scale complexity down to the skill of your team.

Don't be fooled by my sarcasm... I like SFC concept and Taldren's fan support but I think that SFC series is well
below software standard quality... and It really hurts me seeing the devotion and personal effort that some Devs
have invested in this faulty products. Why?... Because I have been in similar situations in my work also...
Truly Deadends: To have promised a release date... To have A LOT OF real GOOD ideas... To believe in a project
because you are a FAN of it... And 2 weeks before the deadline you realize that your initial estimation was totally
wrong because your excitation and optimistic feelings were obscuring your mind when calculating the ammount of
man-effort days needed to complete your objectives.

I wonder what SFCs could have been developed if Mr. Ferrel had allowed a NON-FAN person to act as the project
coordinator... some1 foreign to SFC world to add some objectivity to it.

...Just another demoralized fan

P.S. As always, please, excuse my barbaric english.

Sorok · « **Reply #43 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:45:03 pm »

I feel your pain man.

Maybe we should make our own SFC tite, called "SFC4 - The demoralization" , then we could compete directly with Taldren on the next release. Naaaa. Taldren would probably be waaayyy better at developing a title like that.

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #45 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:57:21 pm »

Hey Sorok,

One question:

CAN YOU DO BETTER?

CmdrK · « **Reply #48 on:** June 20, 2003, 10:12:55 am »

Could someone tell me the release date of EAW and/or OP and the release date for their most up to date patch?

Also, how many patches were there for them?

Just curious, you guys seem to track everything, so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #49 on:** June 20, 2003, 12:06:22 pm »

Quote: "So, Starworlf, if you wanna publicly state how stable SFC3 is, and how clean the program runs, and how well the title has been marketed and subsequently supported, then by all means go right ahead. Please, go ahead. No, please, go ahead.
What? I don't hear you. OK, I'll go then...."

Cute. I give you points for turning up your sarcasm level. Now, I have never ONCE disagreed that the SFC series has issues. I bought SFC 1 kinda late in it's run but I have bought 2, OP, and 3 with 7 days of their release date. Now, that said, I have seen a lot of poeple start slamming Taldren for buggy games and they have been buggy games but if you look at Taldren's history with SFC2 and OP, they tried to patch things very quickly. I lost count of the number of EaW patches and they are still patching OP. I know that there is no new revenue provided for Taldren for doing this by either Interplay or Activision. So even if the new "official" patch is the Orkin Man of bug killers and suddenly the game becomes everything, everyone wanted it to be, Taldren won't get a dime extra. Taldren tried to go around Activision and release the beta patch for mass consumption (not to mention the fact that the more people you have looking at something, the more you are going to find) and got blasted by activision. I know that my memory is suspect but I think it was over 30 days before Activision released the beta patch and based on the README files, they didn't change much. I STATE again, I know that SFC3 has issues but the people who did most of the work to create it, have not been allowed to do much about fixing it in a timely manner. As for the point "Activision has released many good, clean games with good support, ect...", good for them. They are a large corporation with multiple divisions and different groups have different levels of ability. SFC is not Castle Wolfenstein and cannot be written in the same way.

Finally, I wish that I had the programming skill and cash and legal knowledge to get the source code, fix it, and get it out to everyone so that SFC3 would be clean and make everyone happy, but I don't. I have done enough programming to know just how hard it is, however, to make something like SFC3. It also doesn't help to have an outsider blowing your plans away with late minute changes after you have written thousands of lines of code. That may be part of the gig, but that doesn't make it any easier. Now, until something better comes along, I will continue to play SFC3 and to defend it.

FOR Vysander: I agree with your point concerning infrastructure and fixing things. Unfortunately hindsight is always 20/20.

WDLL · « **Reply #53 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:13:05 am »

I too would like to have the final? patch now. Unfortunately its out of my hands as to when it will be released. I do kind of, trust Taldren that they will (through Activision or else) eventualy release the patch. And when they do I will install it. I have read all the stories about the patch history and the problems with the one patch policy etc. As a gamer and consumer I am not happy. We are not talking about an expansion pack, but code that fixes the original code to work as it should. The thing with Activision is that they have been around for a long time (one of the first I think) and they are big. They have many companies/developers under their wings. So, it makes a bit more sense when I say the following. I will have to wait a lot (a few months at leasts) before I buy any future game from Taldren. I will visit the forums available (including this one of course) and wait till I can see that people are not complaining again and asking for a patch to fix the game. After a few months if they release patches that do, I will buy any of Ts future games. I know that I should be thinking positively and saying that perhaps any future game will not have "major" bugs, but, what are the odds???

I am not angry or anything, I am just protecting my money and my time. I fully support Taldren and I believe in them to create interesting games. Good luck Taldren you can do it.

I will propably be around till Fall.

Vysander · « **Reply #57 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:08:40 pm »

entire system was $1400, so this rig doesn't mean i'm a richboy.

Cable in my area of the country... well.. ahh.. sucks (not that dial up is much better), the dial up is a heck of a lot cheaper though than cable (yes, I did my research to find the lowest prices)... I play online yes, but haven't really REQUIRED cable ( I spend more time at LAN parties)

Not worth the expense, not that it would solve the crashing problems anyways (I actually had dl'd the beta patch, and I crashed just as much.. gave up and uninstalled the whole kit'n'kaboodle)

As for the games that you mention, I can open up say.. PC gamer... for this month and maybe find 2 out of the 12-15 games reviewed where bugginess is mentioned (not including bad AI as a bug...it's hard to write AI

)... so yes there are games that have horrible bugs, NWN and Rise, but they're in the minority

As for D2, which I actually do play from time to time, I dare say after you do patches 1.1 through 1.9 you would slow down a bit

Blizzard put out between 6-9 patches (don't recall if they skipped any numbers), that's 6-9 more patches than taldren. By all rights Blizzard should quit working on patches for D2 because it works fine besides for all the hacking that goes on which isn't their fault. The game is also ancient compared to SFC3. Taldren for SFC3 has yet to put out a real patch.

And not exactly sure how you got me beat on copies of SFC.. unless there was another SFC game I am unaware of... SFC1, SFC2, SFC2 OP, SFC3... I count 4

unless for some reason you bought multiple copies.... although pets/kids/God's will can make a guy do that

oh.. if you really want to talk fanboi, I have the original (yes, black and white the one that's about 5 by 7 inches) Star fleet command, expansions 1 through 3, then the commander's edition rules with the carriers expansion, and the basic and advanced doomsday rules with new worlds 1 through 3 and module K, battleships. Not the whole set, but I got the basics down

And I don't own either a cube or an xbox, so don't bother to flame me there. Have an Nintendo (8 bit) around here somewhere..... I play on my computer morrowind which is quite playable without patches, unreal 2k3 which was playable without patches, Q3 which again was playable without patches, Ghost recon, didn't bother with a patch for that, BF1942, err, played for a while before I got the patch, which made no difference it seemed except gameplay balance, Command and Conquer Generals... nope, no patch needed to play the whole thing through and multiplayer without crashing... blah, what else have I installed recently... only thing in recent memory that NEEDED a patch was this game. And btw, NWN I think was an anomoly, have balder's gate 1 and 2... unpatched, play great, although I am not much for that type of game, which is why I avoided NWN.

Out of all the games I own, the number that require a patch are very few in comparison.

"#6 shield holding cap'n! That was a weak volley! Specific Shield reinforcement held off most of it! Photons and phasers reloading!"

Keep trying to make me understand that this is acceptable behavior for a company, good luck.
Vys

Vysander · « **Reply #58 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:16:54 pm »

oh.. and MS OS's...

I don't know about you, but I just download the security patches, haven't downloaded Service Pack 1 yet and I seem to be running just fine.... not like Linux or anything like that, but major crashes happen once in a blue moon. Then again hiding behind a modem lets me get away with lax security and I don't need to download half of the stuff on that list.

I rather like WinXP, blah, so i'm an MS fanboi now too!

TheSatyr · « **Reply #59 on:** June 25, 2003, 01:34:14 am »

Heh,I'm still running a 667MHZ HP PC. And the only game I ever had a problem with was Rise Of Nations...it wouldn't run...period. Supposedly the next patch will fix the "lock up after intro" problem I had...It would be nice to actually get to see the menu in RON someday.

Incidentally,my pc runs NWN with only a slight slow down...runs Freelancer nearly flawlessly(and that's with full graphics enabled). Blitzkrieg,AOM...they all run perfectly fine.

HPs are good PCs...mine just needed more RAM and a better graphics card. The only drawback with a 3 year old HP is that it has no AGP slots...and uses the AC97 sound card. I'm probably not going to get a new PC until this one dies...besides,I'm too used to win98.

feargusf · « **Reply #60 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:37:29 pm »

I'll jump on the "defend HP" bandwagon and say that my 5 year old HP, with a Radeon 7200, runs SFC3 quite well. I will be getting a new computer by the end of this year, or early in the next, and I'm leaning toward another HP, since the one that I have has run like a champion. I'll also miss Win98, but MS is dropping support for it as we speak, so I have few options.

Vysander · « **Reply #62 on:** June 26, 2003, 03:44:13 pm »

i've had to call MS twice for new serial numbers... not even a small deal was made about it...

feargusf · « **Reply #63 on:** June 26, 2003, 09:24:18 pm »

Yes, it's true. It's called "Product Life Cycle" by the boys in Washington state. If you don't believe me, then ask yourself a few simple questions
1. Why are the most recent drivers for (insert name of product here) not WHQL cerified for Win98?
2. Why can't I install MediaPlayer 9 on 98, but can on 98SE and every OS thereafter?
3. Whatever became of support, patches, fixes, and other downloads for 95?
4. Hey, wait a second, wasn't 95 released only three years before 98?
5. If they stopped supporting 95 two years ago, or so, does that mean that the bell now tolling tolls for 98?
6. Extrapolating from the above, if 98SE was released about a year after 98, then where does that leave me, the 98SE user?
I hope that I didn't rain on your parade too much, but the sad fact is that Bill and Co. don't make any more money off of those of us using a five-year old OS.

WDLL · « **Reply #64 on:** June 26, 2003, 10:13:06 pm »

Perhaps if they contiinued to sell them they would make some money of them. I know at least 2 people who want to buy w98.

TheSatyr · « **Reply #68 on:** June 28, 2003, 01:40:16 am »

I've talked to a few people who tried XP and 2000 and went back to 98SE.

They claim that every OS that MS has released since 98SE was worse than the one before it.

Since my only OS experience is with win95,98 and 98SE and have no clue if they know what they are talking about or not.

TheBigCheese · « **Reply #69 on:** June 28, 2003, 04:17:53 am »

I think XP is far better than 98SE but then I have an AthlonXP processor and they were designed for compatability

WDLL · « **Reply #70 on:** June 28, 2003, 04:44:44 am »

I am using XP with two different systems (one with athlon tbird 1.1 and the other pentium IVm) and there is no way I would go back to a previous version of windows. XP is IMO by far the best version of windows so far. Still, I prefer GEM and TOS. :-)

mbday · « **Reply #71 on:** June 28, 2003, 09:30:40 am »

I use winodws XP on a AMD Duron and have3 not had any problems.
I had Win 98SE on the seam system and had nothing but problems.
One thing I Have found is that if you use it with the Fat32 file system you will have problems. If you use the NTFS file system you do not have problems. I think it is the Fat 32 FIle system that MS can not get right.

atdi · « **Reply #75 on:** June 10, 2003, 03:50:04 pm »

Are there any news? PLEASE answer!

atdi · « **Reply #76 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:16:10 am »

bump

Mantis · « **Reply #77 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:51:51 am »

What would be nice additions

1. An armor indicator - can use the current hull indicator but draw a line (alpha 1.0) over it in a different color (like yellow). As your armor was depleted the blue of the hull would appear beneath. I do not know if I am explaining this very well. You could also just have another line.
2. Hot keys for operating your tractor.
3. Official hot keys for preset power settings. Really would be nice when playing Romulan.
4. Better bandwidth utilization

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #78 on:** June 12, 2003, 07:45:18 pm »

How about a toggle to take your sheilds down, Taldren seems to have made it where the sheilds will recharge faster when they are offline, like was demonstrated in Equinox Part 1. I would rather expose my hull for 20-30 seconds of minor fire to get my sehilds back up to around 30-50% rather than let the enemy pummel them down and keep them in that state where they dont add up to much at all.

Max Burke · « **Reply #79 on:** June 13, 2003, 04:06:30 am »

LOL

Half a Year down the line since launch, and still no official patch to be seen!

Brings back so many memories

Can Ya feel the luv in this forum, well it aint coming from Taldren or Activision!

who was it that was quoting legal action earlier? That person might have a point.

Sorok · « **Reply #80 on:** June 13, 2003, 07:25:53 am »

Its not activisions fault. They've had plenty of other Trek titles that were successful and supported.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #83 on:** June 13, 2003, 08:31:21 am »

It is Activisions fault

Taldren would have released 2 or 3 patches by now (they've done it with the other games, they are still planning on releasing another OP patch, and very few people bought OP)

The problem is Activision has a policy of one patch only. And for a long time, didn't Beta test the patch Taldren made. They would have a couple guys play until they found a bug, and then sent it back because everything wasn't fixed. Eventually things were worked out, the Beta was posted for public download, and they are working towards the final version. But they can only make one patch, and that's not their choice

Hale · « **Reply #85 on:** June 13, 2003, 10:09:55 am »

So Interplay was the producer it was Interplay's fault, and when Activision is the producer its Activision's fault? The only constant I see is Taldren and their consistently buggy releases, and failure to fix them.

I can't really defend Interplay, but Activision usually does pretty well by their customers.

3dot14 · « **Reply #86 on:** June 13, 2003, 10:52:31 am »

1. OP patch has nothing to do with Activision (thank god). It's still Interplay territory. And therefore "Activision one patch policy" is not applicable at all. So Jarok didn't contradict himself at all.

2. Taldren's releases are buggy, perhaps. But they fixed them all for SFC1 EAW and now OP. SFC3 is an anomoly as far as patching goes. I won't argue about Taldren's release quality, but I will defend its ability and willingness for POST-SALE support (patches).

3. Activision has no Official one patch policy. But it does practices one. I play Medieval Total War (another Activision product) and it needs another patch on top of its 1.1 (Glorious Archievement still borken, it's the main "campaign" mode of the game), but won't get it cause Activision has already moved on to Rome Total War. (see Armada discussion below too)

4. Interplay's fault was to rush up release. But its hands off policy for patchs is much more helpful than Activision. (interplay does not advertise any patchins beyond 2007 and 2501, since those are the last official patches. But it does not get its, ahem, clothing in a knot if Taldren rleases more patches of its volition.) If Interplay is as uptight as Activision, we are still at EAW 2007 and OP 2501. But Taldren/KM took us all the way here. (Remember that Taldren DID try to take a public-beta patch to us months before the ATVI beta, with essentially the same content. But ATVI, namely SFC3's producer, took the initiative down. And that's what soured Taldren and ATVI relations.)

5. Activision is a big corporation and consists of many individual agent/producers. I don't mean to say ALL activision products are bad simply because SFC3 received shoddy treatment. However, the converse is false as well. Just because Armada and EF were good, doesn't mean the person handling SFC3 is as amiable.

6. While we are on the subject of Armada.
Armada 2 is only patched to 1.1.
And someone correct my A1 history if I am wrong. A1 was released with one patch only (1.1), A1's 1.2 patch was put together by Maddoc and the Former A1 dev team and community in an "extracurricular" role. The original patch 1.2's announcement at A1's official site DOES NOT include an Activision download. I remember that very clearly. It has a Fileplanet and a couple 3rd party downloads. No official ATVI server either. (later it was pciked up by Gaming.Startrek.com. Which is a joint site between Paramount and ATVI...)

BTW I am personally convinced that ATVI is holding up the release. As for what you feel, that's up to you, just so we get the facts (the public ones anyhow) of the cases striaght.

Sorok · « **Reply #87 on:** June 13, 2003, 11:54:38 am »

At the end of the day, the only Activision title that I've had a problem with is SFC3. As a consumer, that's what concerns me. Defend whoever you want whenever you want. But until someone posts some cannon facts, then my feelings remain status quo.

Ill even go one step further and point out that the a.) "buggy release", b.) inaccurate setting of consumer expectations regarding a patch, c.) the length of time it took to get our hands on the second patch ***AHEM*** the first "official" Beta patch and D.) the mismanagement of patch distribution coincidently happened at a time which Taldren was looking to hire someone as a product manager.

3dot14 · « **Reply #88 on:** June 14, 2003, 05:02:50 pm »

Like I said, Sorok, feel free to draw your own conclusions.

One one more thing, Armada and Elite Force were raised as "good Activision" products. I already talked about Armada (and in relation to one patch policy).

Now onto Elite Force. Elite Force 2 to be sure.

http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id=5165

Ritual lays off Elite Force 2 team.

I wonder how many patches it will get.

BTW I am sorry for the EF2 team. EF2's demo was very good. I hope the best to the team for their next project.

Reverend · « **Reply #89 on:** June 14, 2003, 05:09:24 pm »

Well, it was him, or him or her, but we still don't have an official patch on a half-assed game that doesn't even come close to living up to its advertsied expectations, and sure as heck not up to its competition. Give us the source code, so someone can reprogram it to soemthing decent. I almost hate Star Trek because of these titles. It is like buying the car of your dreams only to find out that doesnt come with seats, wheels, or a steering wheel, and the company doesn't build them, and denies their lack of existence.

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #92 on:** June 14, 2003, 06:44:17 pm »

My petition for the release of the source code isn't to correct bugs, but simply to alter certain hard-coded elements for preference in mods.

Alexander

Grav · « **Reply #93 on:** June 14, 2003, 07:20:19 pm »

Sorok A1,A2,BC and EF all received only one patch each up to this point so it would seem activision stick by their one patch policy

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #96 on:** June 14, 2003, 11:50:47 pm »

I don't want to start this again

No one can say Taldren has been this late on releasing a patch before

Erik Bethke posted an explanation, but removed it after he said things were worked out (or at least better)
The thread was turning into an Activision bashing thread, so it was probably good he removed it

After he said things were worked out, Taldren released the public data, and the weapons charts

I can't say I have all the facts, but I do know that this kind of thread will be annoying

Good night

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #98 on:** June 15, 2003, 09:43:37 am »

I was talking about the initial patch

Reverend · « **Reply #99 on:** June 15, 2003, 10:13:45 am »

Why aren't I this, why aren't I that- I stand on no one's back and proclaim nothing more than I would by myself... you shouldn't speak in such tones; it is the same tones I hear oh so often- the flailings of someone who is mad they don't have anything better to do, and of someone losing an argument.

Vysander · « **Reply #100 on:** June 16, 2003, 04:21:39 pm »

Sorry to have to turn up the flames a bit, but I haven't touched SFC 3 in... a couple months now.

Yes, a beta patch was released.. with a big warning saying that this isn't for dial up users. Well that excludes me.

Been waiting quite a long time for this patch... Be there a GaW or SFC4, i'm voting with my pocketbook. I'm not going to buy a Taldren (while under Activision, or probably anyone else) product again unless they manage to release a playable product that doesn't force a reboot of my computer every other battle, crashing single player about every 4th battle (the save button is my friend), and etc within a reasonable amount of time.

It's both the fault of Taldren and Activision for SFC3. It's a good game in concept, in execution it just blew. When a product doesn't deliver, it's the fault of all involved. Period. The 4th (counting OP) iteration of SFC is just like the rest of them, buggy. I should have learned my lesson around the 2nd time, but I am an SFB fan and was hoping for a good and STABLE game that delivers all that is promised on the box at least one of these tries (before patch.... heck, even after patch). I understand that games are released to literally hundreds of different computer configs, but for crying out loud, there's an abundance of cutting edge games out there that run decently! (admittedly there's another pile of junk games that don't deliver. Taldren seems to be throwing their games in this pile). I can't say that my rig really does deviate far from the 'optimal gaming machine', it's reasonably high end, STANDARD/POPULAR equipment with nothing funky done with the OS/Hardware/anything.

This thing was released over 8 months ago... Barely worked for me ~5 months ago, still barely works for me now. (definition of barely working is less than 1 hour of playing before something cops out)

This is ridiculous, i'm not enough of a fanboy to keep waiting and looking at this forum every week or so. I've waited long enough. I give up. You win Taldren, you got my 40 bucks (well.. times 4). Your cd's have turned into expensive coasters.

Vysander, Out.

Edit: *sigh* used wrong word, all fixed now

Captain KoraH · « **Reply #101 on:** June 16, 2003, 06:54:29 pm »

I have to respectfully dissagree with Toasty on one point. I will happily stand on the shoulders of giants and tell them that I would improve upon their game if only they would release their source code. Why not? How could Taldren see that statement to mean anything other than that I want to improve on something they made? I must have a special love for their game if I want to improve it instead of playing everquest or any of the 1000 other games out there. I consider myself a die-hard Taldren fan, and I'll be the first one to mod the game if they release the code to the community. To do anything otherwise would be un-fan-like.

Erik Bethke · « **Reply #102 on:** June 17, 2003, 12:39:53 am »

Hello All,

We have continually worked on patching SFC3 since Novemember, as you know from receiving the beta patch(es) earlier.

Recently we have gone through and did a big sweep of the remaining gameplay issues in SFC3 and have the D3 performance issues remaining. These are tougher bugs and issues and it looks like it is going to take us a good portion of the summer to finish these items up.

In the meantime Activision has received our patch updates and is on top of the project.

Thank you for your patience,
-Erik

Trickster · « **Reply #104 on:** June 17, 2003, 12:29:50 pm »

I don't think it is anyone's fault. Ok, so some decisions may not have been the right one's in the opinion of some people.

I doubt anyone here has made a game like Activision or Taldren, let alone completley bugless. It is easy as a customer to lay the blame on someone else, much harder to try and address these problems as a developer/publisher with how game development/support works. I don't know anything about it, I am sure it is a lot more complicated then altering a text file and calling it 'bug fixed'.

Even if the patch addressed everything that has been reported there will still be some bugs that don't get fixed or are created with new hardware/software releases. Also there will always be someone out there that isn't happy with certain aspects of the game.

Once the patch is released I am sure many will be happy with it, of course there will be those that are not. The same happens with other games and game companies as well.

quircus · « **Reply #105 on:** June 17, 2003, 01:26:23 pm »

Lets just think for a minute.

Taldren released a beta patch a few mionths after the game was launched (correct me if im wrong). This is OK, however, Activision pulled their one-patch policy into this game too.

After Activision spotted a few problems with the pacth, it was hauled back to the drawing board. It took a couple of months to then make a BETA patch, which demostrates there are still problems with it.

What I dont get is: Why do Activision have a one-patch policy??

If they didnt, then a patch (1.1) could have been released, and every few months a new patch could replace that and be better until we get to the point where there are no or few bugs left (as in EAW - which went from 2002 to 2035 fro Christ's sake!!) The one-patch policy sucks and it doesnt increase their popularity either. Why have they failed to see this??

Opinions welcome,

Quircus.

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #106 on:** June 17, 2003, 02:30:08 pm »

What source code? We don't have source code. We don't need no stinkin' source code...

I hope I don't come across as unkind, but I can't help but ask you a question or two; if you're such a seasoned programmer/producer/developer that you could accomplish better (in your humble opinion) why aren't you:
1.) Answering Taldren's help wanted ad?
2.) Raising the money;developing a like game;contacting Harry Lang to negotiate a licsense agreement...ect, then getting to it developing and distributing your vision of a cool Trek sim?

Or, would you rather stand of the shoulders of giants and tell the giants that you could do better than the giants if only the giants would give you their source code?

I don't mean this as flame, but it may come across as one none the less. My apologies if it does.

Best,
Jerry

I'm glad to see someone else thinking like I do. As stated multiple times in these forums, Taldren would have been more than happy to release multiple patches to fix issues IF THEY WERE ALLOWED TO. Also, I know that OP was buggy. I know that they have been promising a patch but, one question...

WHO'S PAYING THEM TO DO THESE PATCHES NOW?

God knows that they aren't making any revenue off of EaW or OP. Heck, in todays world of "take it or leave it" customer service, it amazed me to see any new patches being developed for OP AT ALL. I do agree with KoraH however, it would be nice for modders such as himself (and Pelican for instance) to be able to change as much as they liked but I understand the issues between Taldren and Activision. In other words, due to contractual stipulations, ACTIVISION OWNS THE CODE and I don't think they are going to chance giving it up to anybody that can get ideas on how to do something (big corporations are paranoid like that). I don't think that Taldren would mind a limited release of the source code, (didn't they do that already once to Khromag((I think was his name))?) maybe for a one time "licensing fee".

In the final analysis, if you can do it better, WHY HAVEN'T YOU?!?!?

Dogmatix! · « **Reply #109 on:** June 17, 2003, 04:58:07 pm »

I pretty much left SFC3 behind last January, after playing it relatively heavily for a few months. I got tired of waiting for the public release patch and I wasn't interested in applying a beta patch. Maybe when the game is done I'll give some consideration to installing it on my latest system (already has OP and EAW, both of which I still avidly play, even now).

Good luck with the bug squashing, Erik!

TheSatyr · « **Reply #110 on:** June 18, 2003, 01:36:10 am »

For those wondering on why it takes so long for patches to come out for SFC OP & 3 keep this in mind. David Ferrel is the one doing the fixing...with whatever help he can get from other Taldrenites...while they are all in the process of working on Black9.

Some people play golf in their spare time...Dave plays with patches...so cut them a little slack. It's not like there is this big team doing the patches...just a couple of people...when they have the time.

As for how they are paying for the patches,I would assume they got their advance for Black9...and are putting some of that money into the patches.

Jester_OC · « **Reply #111 on:** June 18, 2003, 03:27:34 am »

Overall SFc3 was pretty clean. Yes it has/had bugs. Most games do. And we worked on a patch for SFC3 right after it shipped (before even).

.
.
.

I had written a details list of stuff we got hosed on, but I changed my mind. Just remember that patch Taldren Leaked out, we were out of time and being ignored, it was desparate and it seemed at the time to wake Activision up, but of course how long has it been since then? Now B9 is taking up most of Taldrens time. I have heard that Scott did some optimizations to the ship update code that freed up some major bandwidth. I have no idea if Activision is even looking at it (Don't read into that one, I don't work at Taldren anymore so I am out of the loop on recent stuff.) But I know that they had not been allocating QA for SFc3 Taldren for a long time. Who knows if they will.

Jester_OC

Toasty0 · « **Reply #112 on:** June 18, 2003, 06:27:07 am »

Dang, dude, where'd you head to?

Best,
Jerry

Jester_OC · « **Reply #113 on:** June 18, 2003, 12:40:36 pm »

I jumped out of the gaming business. Now working on thermal imaging stuff. It was great, but I have a growing family and it took way too much out of their time. Aside from the time, stress due to milestones and people who bag on every flaw in the game (which I really feel bad about and hoped a patch would have been out long ago.) it is a great gig. Working with cool people, and creating something fun to play is pretty good fun, but it can be HELL on relationships and other aspects of life.

Jester_OC (Marc Hertogh)

TheSatyr · « **Reply #115 on:** June 18, 2003, 08:46:11 pm »

Marc,you KNOW the Taldren Beta testers are better than any QA people Activision could throw on a patch.

We knew what to look for...they didn't.

Taldren is better off just letting us do all the testing.

Jester_OC · « **Reply #116 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:14:23 am »

Yea the Inner Circle always had the best bug reports especially balance and gameplay issues. It felt like Activision QA did not understand our game. For the most part they were competent, but we had a couple of guys who had a tendency to tack on different bugs onto other bug reports. That is how many of the biggest bugs got through. Interplay had always had a few guys (usually the leaders) who understood the game. Overall I liked working with Interplays QA team better, maybe if we talked more to the Activision folks it would have worked better, unfortunately we had only the bug database as a form of communication.

Jester_OC

ragamer · « **Reply #117 on:** June 19, 2003, 09:59:18 am »

Each time I read some topic where some1 questions Taldren products' quality I really get stunned by
the degree of patience/devotion that some fans have. This one is no exception... of course

I really even wonder what a BUG means in this forums... Here is some of the most common ways for
a fan to excuse the developers BUGS:

- "It's impossible to release a perfect bug-free software because PC world is too heterogenous". If you analyze
bugs in SFC series they appear in most of the PCs... With the remarkable exception, seems like, of the Beta Testers
comps :-?

- "The publisher have forced Taldren to release the game prematurely". Yeah... they have used guns as "negotiation
technique" when signing the contract with Taldren.

- "Some BUGS are expected to appear because the depth and degree of complexity of this simmulation". BUGS...
by definition, are NEVER expected to appear... If you plan a high complexity software... Then invest some more time
in the design phase or scale complexity down to the skill of your team.

Don't be fooled by my sarcasm... I like SFC concept and Taldren's fan support but I think that SFC series is well
below software standard quality... and It really hurts me seeing the devotion and personal effort that some Devs
have invested in this faulty products. Why?... Because I have been in similar situations in my work also...
Truly Deadends: To have promised a release date... To have A LOT OF real GOOD ideas... To believe in a project
because you are a FAN of it... And 2 weeks before the deadline you realize that your initial estimation was totally
wrong because your excitation and optimistic feelings were obscuring your mind when calculating the ammount of
man-effort days needed to complete your objectives.

I wonder what SFCs could have been developed if Mr. Ferrel had allowed a NON-FAN person to act as the project
coordinator... some1 foreign to SFC world to add some objectivity to it.

...Just another demoralized fan

P.S. As always, please, excuse my barbaric english.

Sorok · « **Reply #118 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:45:03 pm »

I feel your pain man.

Maybe we should make our own SFC tite, called "SFC4 - The demoralization" , then we could compete directly with Taldren on the next release. Naaaa. Taldren would probably be waaayyy better at developing a title like that.

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #120 on:** June 19, 2003, 12:57:21 pm »

Hey Sorok,

One question:

CAN YOU DO BETTER?

CmdrK · « **Reply #123 on:** June 20, 2003, 10:12:55 am »

Could someone tell me the release date of EAW and/or OP and the release date for their most up to date patch?

Also, how many patches were there for them?

Just curious, you guys seem to track everything, so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks

starwolf3500 · « **Reply #124 on:** June 20, 2003, 12:06:22 pm »

Quote: "So, Starworlf, if you wanna publicly state how stable SFC3 is, and how clean the program runs, and how well the title has been marketed and subsequently supported, then by all means go right ahead. Please, go ahead. No, please, go ahead.
What? I don't hear you. OK, I'll go then...."

Cute. I give you points for turning up your sarcasm level. Now, I have never ONCE disagreed that the SFC series has issues. I bought SFC 1 kinda late in it's run but I have bought 2, OP, and 3 with 7 days of their release date. Now, that said, I have seen a lot of poeple start slamming Taldren for buggy games and they have been buggy games but if you look at Taldren's history with SFC2 and OP, they tried to patch things very quickly. I lost count of the number of EaW patches and they are still patching OP. I know that there is no new revenue provided for Taldren for doing this by either Interplay or Activision. So even if the new "official" patch is the Orkin Man of bug killers and suddenly the game becomes everything, everyone wanted it to be, Taldren won't get a dime extra. Taldren tried to go around Activision and release the beta patch for mass consumption (not to mention the fact that the more people you have looking at something, the more you are going to find) and got blasted by activision. I know that my memory is suspect but I think it was over 30 days before Activision released the beta patch and based on the README files, they didn't change much. I STATE again, I know that SFC3 has issues but the people who did most of the work to create it, have not been allowed to do much about fixing it in a timely manner. As for the point "Activision has released many good, clean games with good support, ect...", good for them. They are a large corporation with multiple divisions and different groups have different levels of ability. SFC is not Castle Wolfenstein and cannot be written in the same way.

Finally, I wish that I had the programming skill and cash and legal knowledge to get the source code, fix it, and get it out to everyone so that SFC3 would be clean and make everyone happy, but I don't. I have done enough programming to know just how hard it is, however, to make something like SFC3. It also doesn't help to have an outsider blowing your plans away with late minute changes after you have written thousands of lines of code. That may be part of the gig, but that doesn't make it any easier. Now, until something better comes along, I will continue to play SFC3 and to defend it.

FOR Vysander: I agree with your point concerning infrastructure and fixing things. Unfortunately hindsight is always 20/20.

WDLL · « **Reply #128 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:13:05 am »

I too would like to have the final? patch now. Unfortunately its out of my hands as to when it will be released. I do kind of, trust Taldren that they will (through Activision or else) eventualy release the patch. And when they do I will install it. I have read all the stories about the patch history and the problems with the one patch policy etc. As a gamer and consumer I am not happy. We are not talking about an expansion pack, but code that fixes the original code to work as it should. The thing with Activision is that they have been around for a long time (one of the first I think) and they are big. They have many companies/developers under their wings. So, it makes a bit more sense when I say the following. I will have to wait a lot (a few months at leasts) before I buy any future game from Taldren. I will visit the forums available (including this one of course) and wait till I can see that people are not complaining again and asking for a patch to fix the game. After a few months if they release patches that do, I will buy any of Ts future games. I know that I should be thinking positively and saying that perhaps any future game will not have "major" bugs, but, what are the odds???

I am not angry or anything, I am just protecting my money and my time. I fully support Taldren and I believe in them to create interesting games. Good luck Taldren you can do it.

I will propably be around till Fall.

Vysander · « **Reply #132 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:08:40 pm »

entire system was $1400, so this rig doesn't mean i'm a richboy.

Cable in my area of the country... well.. ahh.. sucks (not that dial up is much better), the dial up is a heck of a lot cheaper though than cable (yes, I did my research to find the lowest prices)... I play online yes, but haven't really REQUIRED cable ( I spend more time at LAN parties)

Not worth the expense, not that it would solve the crashing problems anyways (I actually had dl'd the beta patch, and I crashed just as much.. gave up and uninstalled the whole kit'n'kaboodle)

As for the games that you mention, I can open up say.. PC gamer... for this month and maybe find 2 out of the 12-15 games reviewed where bugginess is mentioned (not including bad AI as a bug...it's hard to write AI

)... so yes there are games that have horrible bugs, NWN and Rise, but they're in the minority

As for D2, which I actually do play from time to time, I dare say after you do patches 1.1 through 1.9 you would slow down a bit

Blizzard put out between 6-9 patches (don't recall if they skipped any numbers), that's 6-9 more patches than taldren. By all rights Blizzard should quit working on patches for D2 because it works fine besides for all the hacking that goes on which isn't their fault. The game is also ancient compared to SFC3. Taldren for SFC3 has yet to put out a real patch.

And not exactly sure how you got me beat on copies of SFC.. unless there was another SFC game I am unaware of... SFC1, SFC2, SFC2 OP, SFC3... I count 4

unless for some reason you bought multiple copies.... although pets/kids/God's will can make a guy do that

oh.. if you really want to talk fanboi, I have the original (yes, black and white the one that's about 5 by 7 inches) Star fleet command, expansions 1 through 3, then the commander's edition rules with the carriers expansion, and the basic and advanced doomsday rules with new worlds 1 through 3 and module K, battleships. Not the whole set, but I got the basics down

And I don't own either a cube or an xbox, so don't bother to flame me there. Have an Nintendo (8 bit) around here somewhere..... I play on my computer morrowind which is quite playable without patches, unreal 2k3 which was playable without patches, Q3 which again was playable without patches, Ghost recon, didn't bother with a patch for that, BF1942, err, played for a while before I got the patch, which made no difference it seemed except gameplay balance, Command and Conquer Generals... nope, no patch needed to play the whole thing through and multiplayer without crashing... blah, what else have I installed recently... only thing in recent memory that NEEDED a patch was this game. And btw, NWN I think was an anomoly, have balder's gate 1 and 2... unpatched, play great, although I am not much for that type of game, which is why I avoided NWN.

Out of all the games I own, the number that require a patch are very few in comparison.

"#6 shield holding cap'n! That was a weak volley! Specific Shield reinforcement held off most of it! Photons and phasers reloading!"

Keep trying to make me understand that this is acceptable behavior for a company, good luck.
Vys

Vysander · « **Reply #133 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:16:54 pm »

oh.. and MS OS's...

I don't know about you, but I just download the security patches, haven't downloaded Service Pack 1 yet and I seem to be running just fine.... not like Linux or anything like that, but major crashes happen once in a blue moon. Then again hiding behind a modem lets me get away with lax security and I don't need to download half of the stuff on that list.

I rather like WinXP, blah, so i'm an MS fanboi now too!

TheSatyr · « **Reply #134 on:** June 25, 2003, 01:34:14 am »

Heh,I'm still running a 667MHZ HP PC. And the only game I ever had a problem with was Rise Of Nations...it wouldn't run...period. Supposedly the next patch will fix the "lock up after intro" problem I had...It would be nice to actually get to see the menu in RON someday.

Incidentally,my pc runs NWN with only a slight slow down...runs Freelancer nearly flawlessly(and that's with full graphics enabled). Blitzkrieg,AOM...they all run perfectly fine.

HPs are good PCs...mine just needed more RAM and a better graphics card. The only drawback with a 3 year old HP is that it has no AGP slots...and uses the AC97 sound card. I'm probably not going to get a new PC until this one dies...besides,I'm too used to win98.

feargusf · « **Reply #135 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:37:29 pm »

I'll jump on the "defend HP" bandwagon and say that my 5 year old HP, with a Radeon 7200, runs SFC3 quite well. I will be getting a new computer by the end of this year, or early in the next, and I'm leaning toward another HP, since the one that I have has run like a champion. I'll also miss Win98, but MS is dropping support for it as we speak, so I have few options.

Vysander · « **Reply #137 on:** June 26, 2003, 03:44:13 pm »

i've had to call MS twice for new serial numbers... not even a small deal was made about it...

feargusf · « **Reply #138 on:** June 26, 2003, 09:24:18 pm »

Yes, it's true. It's called "Product Life Cycle" by the boys in Washington state. If you don't believe me, then ask yourself a few simple questions
1. Why are the most recent drivers for (insert name of product here) not WHQL cerified for Win98?
2. Why can't I install MediaPlayer 9 on 98, but can on 98SE and every OS thereafter?
3. Whatever became of support, patches, fixes, and other downloads for 95?
4. Hey, wait a second, wasn't 95 released only three years before 98?
5. If they stopped supporting 95 two years ago, or so, does that mean that the bell now tolling tolls for 98?
6. Extrapolating from the above, if 98SE was released about a year after 98, then where does that leave me, the 98SE user?
I hope that I didn't rain on your parade too much, but the sad fact is that Bill and Co. don't make any more money off of those of us using a five-year old OS.

WDLL · « **Reply #139 on:** June 26, 2003, 10:13:06 pm »

Perhaps if they contiinued to sell them they would make some money of them. I know at least 2 people who want to buy w98.

TheSatyr · « **Reply #143 on:** June 28, 2003, 01:40:16 am »

I've talked to a few people who tried XP and 2000 and went back to 98SE.

They claim that every OS that MS has released since 98SE was worse than the one before it.

Since my only OS experience is with win95,98 and 98SE and have no clue if they know what they are talking about or not.

TheBigCheese · « **Reply #144 on:** June 28, 2003, 04:17:53 am »

I think XP is far better than 98SE but then I have an AthlonXP processor and they were designed for compatability

WDLL · « **Reply #145 on:** June 28, 2003, 04:44:44 am »

I am using XP with two different systems (one with athlon tbird 1.1 and the other pentium IVm) and there is no way I would go back to a previous version of windows. XP is IMO by far the best version of windows so far. Still, I prefer GEM and TOS. :-)

mbday · « **Reply #146 on:** June 28, 2003, 09:30:40 am »

I use winodws XP on a AMD Duron and have3 not had any problems.
I had Win 98SE on the seam system and had nothing but problems.
One thing I Have found is that if you use it with the Fat32 file system you will have problems. If you use the NTFS file system you do not have problems. I think it is the Fat 32 FIle system that MS can not get right.

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Topic: @ Taldren; Any word on the official SFC3 patch!? (Read 24431 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

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Topic: @ Taldren; Any word on the official SFC3 patch!? (Read 24431 times)