With Vic2 out soon, can we expect any engine improvements or even the new map into HOI maybe in an expansion pack?
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i dont think using the victoria map works they are very different. about the engine improvement. the last patch includes engine updates. that is one of the reasons for the problem.
I don't know why there is all the complaining, other than the victory progress bubbles not working (yet they seem to work when they overlap water, wonder what that is about), I am having a helluva time!
But then, I am running ICE, so that might have something to do with it.
But then, I am running ICE, so that might have something to do with it.
I'm a software developer—and obviously a forum lurker—so I have a lot of empathy for the guys at Paradox. I think they produce a ruthlessly complex game with an astonishing lack of manpower and the fact that they get it to be playable at all is in itself a feat. I give them my money (twice over, once for PC and once for Mac which I'm sure they enjoy via some sort of royalties) for Hearts of Iron upon release simply because I understand that I'm not just paying for my experience but for their work. I'm fine with that.
And I'm fine with the bugs and the patches and the amount of transparency we, as customers, get (although I'd say that some of Battlefront's devs provide an equal if not greater amount of transparency; just go hang out on the Empires of Steel forum and watch Brit at work). I'm fine too with paying for patches masquerading as full expansions. Paradox is a small company and I see it as a kind of luxury tax imposed to play games like Hearts of Iron.
What I am not fine with—and, again, this comes from the viewpoint of a professional developer and not just an irritated gamer—is releasing a patch and not having anyone available to properly support it. They released it and went on vacation. Mind you, I'm not upset with the vacations; people earn and deserve them. My complaint is with the fact that they chose to release a patch—on a Friday of all days—knowing they had no devs to handle problems. Admittedly, the issues with the patch are, for the most part, quite inconsequential. But what if there had been some catastrophic problem? What if it started corrupting saved games? What if it was causing computers to lock up hard and require reboots? What if new games were failing after an hour's worth of playing? What if people were suddenly prevented from playing the game at all?
There would have been no one around to handle it. No one around to work on a necessary hot fix. People would have been stuck. That I find problematic. I know the issues the patch presents will be handled in one form or another. I know the pessimism expressed in the forums about Paradox's patch-oriented development cycle. You have to be living under a rock to not know Paradox's M.O. and to act surprised and offended by it now is kind of comedic... and also petulant. Kind of like buying coffee and then complaining that it has caffeine in it.
I really don't have much original to add to this thread and because I'm a lurker, I expect to have my opinion discounted immediately but as a paying customer and a professional, I couldn't let this go by without at least a little bit of overly verbose commentary.
Having written all of that, my plan is this: I'm shelving the game until the next patch and/or expansion. I think 2.03b is really close but it's just not ready for my particular primetime. I'll stick with Strategic Command: Global Conflict for now. I just can't invest the amount of time Hearts of Iron requires of me when I know that it's not ready to return that investment in full.
It's all moot anyway, though. Once Matrix's World in Flames is released, I doubt Hearts of Iron will see my desktop again for at least six months. Assuming of course that World in Flames is ever released!
And I'm fine with the bugs and the patches and the amount of transparency we, as customers, get (although I'd say that some of Battlefront's devs provide an equal if not greater amount of transparency; just go hang out on the Empires of Steel forum and watch Brit at work). I'm fine too with paying for patches masquerading as full expansions. Paradox is a small company and I see it as a kind of luxury tax imposed to play games like Hearts of Iron.
What I am not fine with—and, again, this comes from the viewpoint of a professional developer and not just an irritated gamer—is releasing a patch and not having anyone available to properly support it. They released it and went on vacation. Mind you, I'm not upset with the vacations; people earn and deserve them. My complaint is with the fact that they chose to release a patch—on a Friday of all days—knowing they had no devs to handle problems. Admittedly, the issues with the patch are, for the most part, quite inconsequential. But what if there had been some catastrophic problem? What if it started corrupting saved games? What if it was causing computers to lock up hard and require reboots? What if new games were failing after an hour's worth of playing? What if people were suddenly prevented from playing the game at all?
There would have been no one around to handle it. No one around to work on a necessary hot fix. People would have been stuck. That I find problematic. I know the issues the patch presents will be handled in one form or another. I know the pessimism expressed in the forums about Paradox's patch-oriented development cycle. You have to be living under a rock to not know Paradox's M.O. and to act surprised and offended by it now is kind of comedic... and also petulant. Kind of like buying coffee and then complaining that it has caffeine in it.
I really don't have much original to add to this thread and because I'm a lurker, I expect to have my opinion discounted immediately but as a paying customer and a professional, I couldn't let this go by without at least a little bit of overly verbose commentary.
Having written all of that, my plan is this: I'm shelving the game until the next patch and/or expansion. I think 2.03b is really close but it's just not ready for my particular primetime. I'll stick with Strategic Command: Global Conflict for now. I just can't invest the amount of time Hearts of Iron requires of me when I know that it's not ready to return that investment in full.
It's all moot anyway, though. Once Matrix's World in Flames is released, I doubt Hearts of Iron will see my desktop again for at least six months. Assuming of course that World in Flames is ever released!
The combat AI is buggy to.. I was fighting Britain in Egypt with Italy and the AI ignored my targets wich i didn't had a problem with before the patch came out. Also the number of the battle progress are GONE..
Considering that Semper Fi was buggy and the time we had to wait for this patch which was supposed to make Semper Fi playable, I must say I am disappointed.
We all know Paradox is a rather small company with limited ressources but still I would have expected for this patch to transform the game into reasonable shape which clearly it doesn't.
We all know Paradox is a rather small company with limited ressources but still I would have expected for this patch to transform the game into reasonable shape which clearly it doesn't.
1.
The work of you and Lothos was (and is) very encouraging to follow - and I really hope you will keep on working tro finish the events still on your list!
Lothos work on the LUA has allready gone a long way to improve things.
However the LUA and the EVENT projects contrasted starkly from the P'Dox Public Beta Patch handling.
These two projects showed how it can and should be done by P'dox: There was a constant responsivenes of you and Lothos in these threads, responding on feedback and constantly compiling smaller updates - step by step.
Opposed to this the 2.03 public Beta thread there was a complete feeling of absence - many players contributed but it remained unclear whether any Dev was following the feedback at all (in fact Lothos stepped in every once in a while and thus kept some spirit in that thread).
As it turns out Doomdark was away for a long period of time - and no one else from P'dox was there to take care of this Patch.
And then - all of a sudden a patch gets released that differs strangely (and negatively) from the latest published beta patch that many players had tried to improve via their feedback and suggestions. -> This is odd!
Why have a public beta at all if you dont test the release candidate in the same manner?!
(IMHO the combat balloons are not the game breaker but the messed up localisation texts are rather disturbing)
2.
Having said this I'm going back to the SF 2.03 beta patch with Lothos LUA and the the Event projects latest Events + Immersion Pack (which adds correct historical unit models and pics but retains the "vanilla" game).
For all the players who have not tried Semper Fi yet - you should really consider doing so!
SF with the above mentioned updates is a massive improvement over Hoi3!
The installing is a bit tedious, but it is merely copy and paste of the updates folders into the respective game directory.
a.) Get Patch 2.03 beta:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=484666
and follow the steps
b.) Get the latest LUA (AI) files:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=478981
c.) Get the latest EVEnt improvements:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=483605
d.) (optional) Get the latest Major Nation Immersion pack:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=446902
IMHO this improvement pack should be considered by P'Dox for the official version (as the LUA and Event project), as it completes and improves the vanilla product finishing stuff where P'dox somehow broke off:
1. It strives to give you the historical correct unit names (and sequence).
2. It gives you the matching unit pics (P'dox just didn't finish the job here)
I for one get turned off when I have to look at the generic Russian pre-war heavy tank when I actually move/build a Tiger I regiment.
PS
@King - thank you for your open feedback and information!
It's been a year since HoI3 came out. Let me repeat that. A year. It's also been 3 months since SF came out. It's also been a month or maybe more since that patch was in player testing - you can check the thread if you want, there was a lot - I mean a lot - of feedback.
So, after a year and two payments (for the game and the expansion) I still cannot play a campaign from start to finish without stumbling on some gamebreaking issue. Be it CVs without CAGs or Japan stalemating because of supply problems or Theater AI not recognizing all fronts or diplomacy out of whack or idiotic production queues by the AI or surrender events that simply don't work, etc etc etc.
That's fine. It's a complex game. I'll indulge PI and wait for them to fix it.
What adds insult to injury though is statements like "it's vacation time" or "we have concentrated our efforts on releasing Victoria II". Have I said it's been a year since we've payed for this game (maybe more considering preordering) and still it does not do the basics ? And when a patch comes out it's one step forward and two steps backwards ?
So let me get this straight. It's ok to have customers, that have already payed for your product a year ago, to wait for you to fix it because you have to go on vacation and because you want to develop another, quite different product for them ? That is one weird weird marketing and product support strategy indeed.
Guess why I didn't preorder Victoria II. Don't worry, I'll buy it - but not before I make sure everything is WAD.
Did I mention it's been a year and two payments and still HoI3 is not WORKING AS DESIGNED ?
So, after a year and two payments (for the game and the expansion) I still cannot play a campaign from start to finish without stumbling on some gamebreaking issue. Be it CVs without CAGs or Japan stalemating because of supply problems or Theater AI not recognizing all fronts or diplomacy out of whack or idiotic production queues by the AI or surrender events that simply don't work, etc etc etc.
That's fine. It's a complex game. I'll indulge PI and wait for them to fix it.
What adds insult to injury though is statements like "it's vacation time" or "we have concentrated our efforts on releasing Victoria II". Have I said it's been a year since we've payed for this game (maybe more considering preordering) and still it does not do the basics ? And when a patch comes out it's one step forward and two steps backwards ?
So let me get this straight. It's ok to have customers, that have already payed for your product a year ago, to wait for you to fix it because you have to go on vacation and because you want to develop another, quite different product for them ? That is one weird weird marketing and product support strategy indeed.
Guess why I didn't preorder Victoria II. Don't worry, I'll buy it - but not before I make sure everything is WAD.
Did I mention it's been a year and two payments and still HoI3 is not WORKING AS DESIGNED ?
I'm just going to retire HOI3 for a while and play the Vicky 2 demo.
Also retire for now until another patch is released.
When did Windows came out?
Yeah windows is also a LOT more complicated than HoI3...
And who whould pay for another windows verision if it's already perfect?
Think Microsoft puts bugs in it so they have something to fix...
Yeah windows is also a LOT more complicated than HoI3...
And who whould pay for another windows verision if it's already perfect?
Think Microsoft puts bugs in it so they have something to fix...
It might be more complicated in a way, but it is built up from relatively simple parts (mostly), which could work on their own. See most Linux distributions.
Being perfect and containing no bugs are two different things. Even if your software contains no bugs, you can always add new features.
This sounds like the most likely scenario. Someone trying to be really nice made a mistake, that is very unfortunate. I just hope PI is learning.
I can only second this.
Being in the Software Industry myself I am disturbed by PI's QA process - or rather the lack thereof - before releasing a product or patch to the unwashed masses. Anyone remember the state HOI3 was in at release?
I can only implore PI to change their erroneous ways and implement a proper Alpha -> Beta -> Release Candidate -> Gold Master cycle with nothing untested sneaked in at the last second. If you change something, build a new RC, if that tests ok, relase it as GM.
My2 cents.
Snoopy
I can only say that with the huge dissapointment hoi3 was at release and in the follow up patches. i can' t even convince myself to try out this new patch, was reading some replies here to maybe find some courage to try it, but actualy now i feel even less like trying it out.
I'm using the beta release and luas (a, b) too while waiting for a more acceptable alternative. Did not even know about the improvements and immersion pack (c, d) - so thanks for the post - I'll try that too.
Hi,
After updating via steam Hearts of Iron 3 Semper fi froze on Calculating paths loading screen, I pressed Alt+Tab but could not maximize the game anymore so I had to reboot.
After this my copy of Semper fi works perfectly but I don't see the numerical percentage on the map while in battle, I see the red/green/yellow color encoding next to my troops that indicate the battle status but not the numbers indicating percentage.
What can I do to fix this?
After updating via steam Hearts of Iron 3 Semper fi froze on Calculating paths loading screen, I pressed Alt+Tab but could not maximize the game anymore so I had to reboot.
After this my copy of Semper fi works perfectly but I don't see the numerical percentage on the map while in battle, I see the red/green/yellow color encoding next to my troops that indicate the battle status but not the numbers indicating percentage.
What can I do to fix this?
This belongs in the tech-support forum, you gain access to that forum once you have registered your copy of HoI3.
this update messed up my gameplay so I'll downgrade to the standard version of SF untill it is fixed.
I hope they release a hotfix soon Also the AI is "braindead"...
I hope they release a hotfix soon
Also the AI is "braindead"...- Status