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[SIZE=3][COLOR="#D3D3D3"]The following is an attempt to collect relevant comments by Magna Mundi developers, as well as their answers to questions posted on the forum. Some of the content has been paraphrased for clarity.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[QUOTE=ubik;13912223][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Hi MM fans.
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[The] game is on a good normal release state. Considering the fact that we have one more month of development ahead, I don't see a problem with all this. There's nothing sad about Magna Mundi state of affairs.
Anyway, let me stress that I sent last week my opinion about what should be done with the game given the debt I consider we at UV and me personally have to the community. Of course, that's up to Paradox to decide what to do.
Expect at least two new "lets play" until the 15th May. Showing the game working is the best way to dismiss your doubts. :)[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs&p=13911946&viewfull=1#post13911946"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Q: How did this situation develop?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/URL]
[QUOTE=k_merse;13912030][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Most of the issues are with multiplayer, which wasn't tested so much simply because of our limited resources (namely: time) and has some nasty bugs indeed. Single player is in far better shape than several Paradox titles were at their release time and with the Day 1 patch it will be even better.
We still have several options for the game, including the beta release and shutting the whole project down, so it's up to Paradox which path to chose. As I see they have the following choices:
- Postpone release (they obviously don't want to do that)
- Release it as a Beta (it seems that the community supports this idea)
- Take over the project from here and release later (not the best idea because they would spend a lot of time learning how the mechanics and the modified engine work and only then can they start the bug hunt)
- Shut down the project (this option in itself has several scenarios which we will talk about only if this option comes true)
All I can say is that we will work in every minute of our spare time till the decision is made.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=ubik;13912223][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Just to add my voice over Merse here. The game is playable for 30-40-50 years without CTDs except in multiplayer. The multiplayer part is being addressed and even today was already partly addressed.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs/page4&p=13912287#post13912287"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Q: "The game is playable for 30-40-50 years without CTDs except in multiplayer" What does that mean? Will the game really crash every 30-50 years?
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[QUOTE=k_merse;13912415][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Let me answer that: It means that the game runs without CTDs in our 30-50 year test periods. We don't have the time ATM to run longer test scenarios. But according to my experiences even the game crashes, it loads the last save just fine and you can play on, even through the whole game period
We know what are the issues of the game. But for example in the last few weeks we focused our resources on the map instead of multiplayer. So the map issues are solved, but Paradox still wants the multiplayer to be fixed. I presume if we fix the multi they would want the map to be fixed...[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs/page6&p=13912465#post13912465"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Q: You've only run 50 year tests?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/URL]
[QUOTE=k_merse;13912533][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Oh, no! Of course we made longer test, full length tests, hands-off tests too. And the game is fine. A CTD may come around in every few decades though. What I meant that lately, as the deadline came closer we didn't have the time to run full-lenght tests, only to test specific systems, or make a limited, 50-70-100 years tests. But it is not even necessary to make longer runs because as all the features are in already (we're mostly hunting bugs and setting up features to WAD). And lately, we did not experience game crashing issues only in about 30-50 years periods. And these issues can mean only a missing } or " in the code and nothing more serious.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Zolotaya;13913090][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Hello to all the fans of Magna Mundi.
I am the person that was made "Q/A Manager" for the Magna Mundi project, and after Mattias' announcement in "The Sad State of Affairs" thread, I thought I'd write this to you all. First I will lay out a few facts that for better or worse play into everything Mattias claims.
1st Fact: I have gone through an international team of 20 + "testers" from 2009 until today. Only a total of three have stuck with their commitment and two of the three were pulled away from testing to work on other aspects of the project full-time. (i.e. Spanish localization)
2nd Fact: I have been testing Magna Mundi builds every day since the project began; sometimes for 12+ hours. Some testing has been hands-off, and other testing has been with various nations world-wide. More on this later.
3rd Fact: Members of the programming team itself have continually run tests to review theirwork. Sometimes reports from Helius and Ignatich were invaluable to their colleagues in their work.
4th Fact: Due to logistical and technical issues within the UV testing team early in 2009, Multiplayer aspects of the project were entrusted to Ignatich with the caveat that once these were addressed full multiplayer testing and support would resume.
In my opinion, as expressed by Ignatich earlier, the game needs a month of polishing upon the final integration of the diplomatic/war systems and mechanics.
One of the hardest aspects of testing during this project was that there were several points in its development that major changes were made (ie renderer) and that simply voided much of the testing done prior to each one.
The latest builds (we are in the 4500+ build) are stable enough to run "hands-off" for 50 to 70 years. At that point, reloading from the last saved-game point would allow another 50 to 70 years of game-play. Specific aspects of the game are running quite well.
For the most part, outside of multiplayer - the "well known" bugs that exist for the past year have been related to systems and mechanics not yet finalized. A few of them are legacy bugs and a few of them are bugs that re-crop up from build to build, after we think we squash them.
I have learned a lot from this project, and while there are a couple of things I'd refine and tweak for another, I am happy with the overall results achieved from a testing perspective. It is Paradox's final call on whether to release or in what way to release this title, but again, as Ignatich believes, so do I: it is not ready for release as is, but it is far from the point of deserving cancellation.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Arbus;13913211][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Hello everyone, I am Arbus and welcome to Magna Mundi
I want to stand by what k_merse said, and also Ignatich, and Ubik, and Zolotaya and husita. The game is playable. It has bugs, it needs balance, it needs polishing, but crashes are quite frankly rare (except for multiplayer). When merse says the game runs for 50 years without crashes, he doesn't mean it crashes on the year 50, he means we have other stuff to do other than to run Magna Mundi for 9 straight hours without loading even once. When we want to test something we go directly to the problem, or we run it for 30-50 years to see the trends. We are waiting for the Paradox report about the latest RC and we'll do everything possible to address those issues.
Now, cancellation is absurd. It was never directly mentioned, so I won't even consider it. There are other alternatives that are much better for all parts involved, Paradox, UV, the fans, and I want to think about those options instead. I talked to ubik about this last week, and we both agree about what would be the most generous proposal of all. I won't say anything more about this. Whatever happens I'll continue to make the gameplay videos, that I never edit for crashes and even talk about existing bugs, and I'll continue to support the game in every way I can.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs&p=13913485&viewfull=1#post13913485"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Magna Mundi has only had around 20 beta testers since 2009? That alone will guarentee lots of bugs. Why did they not open it up for more?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/URL]
[QUOTE=k_merse;13913496][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Because both parties were afraid that some of the Betas may post the build version on a torrent site, that's why.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs/page7&p=13912568#post13912568"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Q: It seems like the only issue is with Magna Mundi's multiplayer instability. Is Paradox overreacting here?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/URL]
[QUOTE=k_merse;13912605][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]The situation is not that simple. Paradox has right that they already extended the development time a few time. They also gave us the Divine Wind renderer for free. And there are still bugs in the game, even in SP. Not CTD bugs but bugs, and they must be fixed. So they have a point when they are impatient.
But shutting down the game would be a too drastic decision I think.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs&p=13912089&viewfull=1#post13912089"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]Q: Why can't you release the game with only a single player mode? Do that many people really play multiplayer in EU-like games?
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[QUOTE=k_merse;13912114][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]That was discussed within the team, but Paradox insisted on having the multiplayer in the first release. I don't know statistics, but according to them, many people play EU3 in multi.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL="http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs/page4&p=13912357#post13912357"][COLOR="#FF8C00"][SIZE=3][FONT=Verdana]What about turning to alternative methods of funding, like kickstarter or a paid beta release?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/URL]
[QUOTE=k_merse;13912415][COLOR="#FFFFFF"]That works only for independent projects and MM is a co-production of Paradox and UV.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
And it should come out looking like this:
Originally Posted by ubik
Hi MM fans.
