Topic: Starfleet Command III SP testament

[Lieutenant_Q]

Over the last couple of week I have gone through the SFC III SP campaigns on Admiral difficulty. Here we go:

Klingon Campaign: Very straight foreward, by far the easiest campaign.  Came across only two glitchs, both of them occured at the Unity Starbase, in the first mission, the Romulan ship would not appear, in the second mission, the Freighters that were supposed to attack the Starbase, only one of them turned hostile, and Jureths ships was also still friendly.

Romulan Campaign: The most difficult of the "standard" campaigns, and also the least buggy,  I dont know if it is just me, but I havent been able to obtain a victory in "Klingon Maru"  Everytime the Klingon ship breaks my tractor lock and slips into the black hole before I can come around and snag him again.  Minorlag encountered at the last mission, nothing game stopping.

Federation Campaign: Straight foreward, relativily easy as well, there are  missions that would be difficult, but Starfleet makes sure your well taken care of.  I did experience severe lag issues in the last three Fed Missions, while the rest of the missions, even the last Romulan Mission wasnt too bad.  Bugs encountered, one mission where there was a chain reaction with the Spontaneous combustion bug, it reached 2 AI ships and then my ship.  And another mission where I blew up at the very start of the mission.

Borg Campaign:  Despite what Taldren has stated, the final mission Status Quo is beatable, just very very difficult, You need to be in a Cube, and have your Marines maxed out, until the patch comes out, you need to board and capture each Borg ship, or destroy them, take your pick.  At the end of that mission, I had enough ships, Borg, Klingon, and Federation, to make an Assault on Sector 001.

Campaigns rated by difficulty: Borg, Romulan, Federation, Klingon
Campaigns rated by largest ship needed to get through them: Borg, Klingon, Romulan, Federation

Ship I was in at the last Mission
Klingon: Vor'cha (Could not afford a Negh'var)
Romulan: Raptor
Federation: Intrepid (So I have a soft spot in my heart for this ship)
Borg: Cube (as stated, very difficult to win the final mission even with it)

Starfleet Command III is a very well put together game right out of the box, granted I think the Federation Missions might be easier than they are supposed to be because the Romulan weapons are bugged a bit(fast disrupters not doing enough damage, AI not firing plasma often)  Now i have no experience with Dynaverse, im behind a firewall generated by my ISP and my router, between the two of them I cannot connect to it, So I cannot testify to the games playabliity online.  Those people who are leaving the game because of bugs should look at the Single Player scripted campaigns, they are very playable, as with most games you should save before starting a new mission, in case something goes wrong or you do encounter a bug.

Starfleet Command III is a "High Quality" game.  meaning that it will not run on lower end systems or Windows 95.  Of course there are going to be problems with it, they cant possibly test its playability on every possible system configuration.  Even "low quality" programs like Java, meaning that it will run on anything that's primary OS is not DOS, will not run the same on every system, Sun's Java will not run at all on my laptop, while MS Virtual Java will with out a problem.  That was Taldren's best strength the release of beta patches to the public, that all of us could test, that was why they final patch of EAW was so stable on almost every system.  This is also why Activision's current policy is such a failure, we are used to these patches getting put through more tests than Activision can, the problems with the patch get caught quicker, so Taldren gets them fixed faster.  With only 3 Activision testers playing the patch, most likely only on 3 systems, they are not taking care of some of the bugs that never at all cropped up in the initial pre-release test, but come out in spades in the community.  Once patching is taken out of Activisions hands, if Taldren still has time available for the game, we should see a much faster respsonse time than with the first patch, which should have probably been out before Christmas.

If Taldren had full control over the patch, we most likely would be waiting on patch #3 coming out Monday, instead of Patch #1.  I dont know about the rest of you, but id rather be waiting on patch #3 than patch #1.  

[Alexander1701]

  Amen to everything but the Activision slam

Alexander  

[Akhilles]

Quote:
  Amen to everything but the Activision slam

Alexander    

Hardly a slam, read Erik's Activision/Taldren Post

[Azrael]

What Borg Campaign?

My game doesn't have one.

Azrael  

[Blitzkrieg]

I have hardly played the single player, I got this purely for the MP game. I tried a few games of SP but I couldnt stick with it when the prospect of playing online popped into my head.

Glad to hear its not as buggy as what has been murmoured.

[Azrael]

Untrue.

There are a few major bugs in SP.

When playing SP, save your game after every mission.

If you do that, you'll be able to carry on when you come accross some of the SP Game's known bugs.

I still remember the Rakellian Base Station for one.  There are a few others, such as not being able to pick up the Romulan snooper in the asteroid field.

I've yet to see the movie you get for finishing the Romulan Campaign.  That one just played in sound for me.  No film.

And what about these Borg Missions?

Where are they?

Azrael  

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Quote:


And what about these Borg Missions?

Where are they?

Azrael  

They came with the special US version available at Best Buy.
However, the Borg campaign is rumored to be included with the patch.
I say "rumored" as I personally have not seen the patch.....  

[Lieutenant_Q]

I did mention the Romulan Snooper in the first Unity Station one, as for your one with the Rakellian Base Station, ive played the klingon missions three times myself, and watched two other people play it as well and they never came across that bug.

As someone else mentioned the Borg missions are only (currently) available with the Best Buy version of the game, but are supposed to be included with this upcoming patch.

As for the Activision slam, I didnt intend for it to come aross that way, but i believe that it is a fair assesment, Activision has only 3 people QAing this patch, most likely on 3 systems, which is not sufficient compared to the number of people that would have had the beta patch and have been done testing it.  I would say that no two computers are the same but that isnt entirely true, but for every computer out there, there are an untold number of different configurations available, Processor speed, Processor Type, Processor Brand, Hard Disk Type, Hard Disk Speed, Hard Disk Size, Hard Disk Brand, Memory, Video, Sound, etc... Each one interacts differently in some way with each other, which can cause unforseen problems, something that Taldren's Programmers and Activision's QA simply cannot catch because their systems are configured differently than ours are.  If we were all playing on consoles, i would expect the game to ship without any bugs at all (except of course for the "idiot proofing") since every console of the same type are the same.but were not on consoles and a game that runs flawlessly on one system may encounter any number of hardware configuration problems on another.  My roomate has a computer that beats everyone in our apartment in every category(HD size, Processor speed(two of them),memory) but it wont play a game like Diablo I.  

[Lieutenant_Q]

Over the last couple of week I have gone through the SFC III SP campaigns on Admiral difficulty. Here we go:

Klingon Campaign: Very straight foreward, by far the easiest campaign.  Came across only two glitchs, both of them occured at the Unity Starbase, in the first mission, the Romulan ship would not appear, in the second mission, the Freighters that were supposed to attack the Starbase, only one of them turned hostile, and Jureths ships was also still friendly.

Romulan Campaign: The most difficult of the "standard" campaigns, and also the least buggy,  I dont know if it is just me, but I havent been able to obtain a victory in "Klingon Maru"  Everytime the Klingon ship breaks my tractor lock and slips into the black hole before I can come around and snag him again.  Minorlag encountered at the last mission, nothing game stopping.

Federation Campaign: Straight foreward, relativily easy as well, there are  missions that would be difficult, but Starfleet makes sure your well taken care of.  I did experience severe lag issues in the last three Fed Missions, while the rest of the missions, even the last Romulan Mission wasnt too bad.  Bugs encountered, one mission where there was a chain reaction with the Spontaneous combustion bug, it reached 2 AI ships and then my ship.  And another mission where I blew up at the very start of the mission.

Borg Campaign:  Despite what Taldren has stated, the final mission Status Quo is beatable, just very very difficult, You need to be in a Cube, and have your Marines maxed out, until the patch comes out, you need to board and capture each Borg ship, or destroy them, take your pick.  At the end of that mission, I had enough ships, Borg, Klingon, and Federation, to make an Assault on Sector 001.

Campaigns rated by difficulty: Borg, Romulan, Federation, Klingon
Campaigns rated by largest ship needed to get through them: Borg, Klingon, Romulan, Federation

Ship I was in at the last Mission
Klingon: Vor'cha (Could not afford a Negh'var)
Romulan: Raptor
Federation: Intrepid (So I have a soft spot in my heart for this ship)
Borg: Cube (as stated, very difficult to win the final mission even with it)

Starfleet Command III is a very well put together game right out of the box, granted I think the Federation Missions might be easier than they are supposed to be because the Romulan weapons are bugged a bit(fast disrupters not doing enough damage, AI not firing plasma often)  Now i have no experience with Dynaverse, im behind a firewall generated by my ISP and my router, between the two of them I cannot connect to it, So I cannot testify to the games playabliity online.  Those people who are leaving the game because of bugs should look at the Single Player scripted campaigns, they are very playable, as with most games you should save before starting a new mission, in case something goes wrong or you do encounter a bug.

Starfleet Command III is a "High Quality" game.  meaning that it will not run on lower end systems or Windows 95.  Of course there are going to be problems with it, they cant possibly test its playability on every possible system configuration.  Even "low quality" programs like Java, meaning that it will run on anything that's primary OS is not DOS, will not run the same on every system, Sun's Java will not run at all on my laptop, while MS Virtual Java will with out a problem.  That was Taldren's best strength the release of beta patches to the public, that all of us could test, that was why they final patch of EAW was so stable on almost every system.  This is also why Activision's current policy is such a failure, we are used to these patches getting put through more tests than Activision can, the problems with the patch get caught quicker, so Taldren gets them fixed faster.  With only 3 Activision testers playing the patch, most likely only on 3 systems, they are not taking care of some of the bugs that never at all cropped up in the initial pre-release test, but come out in spades in the community.  Once patching is taken out of Activisions hands, if Taldren still has time available for the game, we should see a much faster respsonse time than with the first patch, which should have probably been out before Christmas.

If Taldren had full control over the patch, we most likely would be waiting on patch #3 coming out Monday, instead of Patch #1.  I dont know about the rest of you, but id rather be waiting on patch #3 than patch #1.  

[Alexander1701]

  Amen to everything but the Activision slam

Alexander  

[Akhilles]

Quote:
  Amen to everything but the Activision slam

Alexander    

Hardly a slam, read Erik's Activision/Taldren Post

[Azrael]

What Borg Campaign?

My game doesn't have one.

Azrael  

[Blitzkrieg]

I have hardly played the single player, I got this purely for the MP game. I tried a few games of SP but I couldnt stick with it when the prospect of playing online popped into my head.

Glad to hear its not as buggy as what has been murmoured.

[Azrael]

Untrue.

There are a few major bugs in SP.

When playing SP, save your game after every mission.

If you do that, you'll be able to carry on when you come accross some of the SP Game's known bugs.

I still remember the Rakellian Base Station for one.  There are a few others, such as not being able to pick up the Romulan snooper in the asteroid field.

I've yet to see the movie you get for finishing the Romulan Campaign.  That one just played in sound for me.  No film.

And what about these Borg Missions?

Where are they?

Azrael  

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Quote:


And what about these Borg Missions?

Where are they?

Azrael  

They came with the special US version available at Best Buy.
However, the Borg campaign is rumored to be included with the patch.
I say "rumored" as I personally have not seen the patch.....  

[Lieutenant_Q]

I did mention the Romulan Snooper in the first Unity Station one, as for your one with the Rakellian Base Station, ive played the klingon missions three times myself, and watched two other people play it as well and they never came across that bug.

As someone else mentioned the Borg missions are only (currently) available with the Best Buy version of the game, but are supposed to be included with this upcoming patch.

As for the Activision slam, I didnt intend for it to come aross that way, but i believe that it is a fair assesment, Activision has only 3 people QAing this patch, most likely on 3 systems, which is not sufficient compared to the number of people that would have had the beta patch and have been done testing it.  I would say that no two computers are the same but that isnt entirely true, but for every computer out there, there are an untold number of different configurations available, Processor speed, Processor Type, Processor Brand, Hard Disk Type, Hard Disk Speed, Hard Disk Size, Hard Disk Brand, Memory, Video, Sound, etc... Each one interacts differently in some way with each other, which can cause unforseen problems, something that Taldren's Programmers and Activision's QA simply cannot catch because their systems are configured differently than ours are.  If we were all playing on consoles, i would expect the game to ship without any bugs at all (except of course for the "idiot proofing") since every console of the same type are the same.but were not on consoles and a game that runs flawlessly on one system may encounter any number of hardware configuration problems on another.  My roomate has a computer that beats everyone in our apartment in every category(HD size, Processor speed(two of them),memory) but it wont play a game like Diablo I.