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AI version 1 vs. Patch


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#1 jureidinim

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Posted 28 March 2008 - 10:59 AM

Seems the first Soulstorm patch is moving along nicely and is getting closer to a release.

Just wondering if the AI Skirmish mod will still be released or would it go into a holding pattern waiting on the patch?

(I am hoping it will be released first of course.. :) )

#2 thudo

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Posted 28 March 2008 - 08:13 PM

We're watching.. although I doubt it will be a balance patch as there are MUCH more critical expansion-stopping problems to deal with them balance. v1.2 will have what we want. :)
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#3 ThetaOrion

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Posted 29 March 2008 - 01:07 AM

Yea, it's always 1.2, six to eight months down the road, that has the stuff we are looking for want wanting most.

#4 Zenoth

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Posted 29 March 2008 - 01:21 AM

Yea, it's always 1.2, six to eight months down the road, that has the stuff we are looking for want wanting most.


ThetaOrion! Nice to see you're alive mate! :crazed: :thumbsupsmiley:

So how you've been man?

#5 ThetaOrion

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:40 PM

Yea, it's always 1.2, six to eight months down the road, that has the stuff we are looking for want wanting most.


ThetaOrion! Nice to see you're alive mate! :) :p

So how you've been man?


--

I don't know whether it is arthritis or fibromyalgia or simply age, but even though RTS is my main love, I found myself doing a lot more TBS last Fall 07; and I didn't play games at all this winter, 07-08.

This last month, I tried Forged Alliance -- that thing is even more buggy than Supreme Commander, if you can believe it, especially where skirmish play is concerned. There's some kind of lag issue that makes the Forged Alliance game unplayable -- a retail game that is unplayable most of the time in skirmish mode.

I got SoulStorm a week ago for the Easter Weekend. I've been playing the campaign in that. At least its playable. I played one Skirmish game in SoulStorm -- again, it was playable (no game-breaking lag), but many of the AI factions never tiered up at all, which was indeed as disappointing as you guys have been saying here.

Still, with SoulStorm, I seem to spend half the game with it paused, queuing up orders for everything -- I imagine it would make my replays look like I know what I'm doing, but my reflexes are pretty much shot, nowadays. TBS really is more my speed now. And, even then I don't have the time to do it right.

--

The best thing about leaving here is that you guys then went and got some people who are a whole lot better at the betatesting thing than I ever was.

It's good to see LarkinVB back here. He always went straight for the throat -- identifying and fixing the most significant game-ruining glitches.

And, Smokeskin is smokin!

And, Zenoth does those detailed reports that I always liked (and Thud always hated), complete with pictures even.

Even drednott and others seem to be coming up with useful suggestions.

The core team of testers around here are just a lot better now than when I was the core back in the WA days. And, as far as I can tell, nobody has recently driven Arkhan to tears or made him want to quit. So, I'm pretty impressed with the team you have here.

And, even though I still like to lurk, it's kind of nice to be out of the beta-testing thing. When I play computer games, I usually am trying to relax or wanting a break. And, beta-testing just always took the fun out of gameplay for me. It's nice to just simply play SoulStorm campaign just to play it, without having to look for ways to criticize it or improve it -- just play it to play it, without having to try to analyze it and figure out what's wrong with it. And instead, just trust you guys to make SoulStorm worth playing in skirmish mode someday in the future.

#6 LarkinVB

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:48 PM

Hi Theta,

Though I'd had my share of problems with you (which were mostly my problems!) - I really *really* appreciate your post.

Nice to have you back !

#7 ThetaOrion

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 11:07 PM

Hi Theta,

Though I'd had my share of problems with you (which were mostly my problems!) - I really *really* appreciate your post.

Nice to have you back !


--

Well, I drove everybody nuts, including myself.

I was too enthusiastic and tried to be too thorough. Plus, I still can't figure out how a person can criticize an AI in the depth that it needs to be criticized without it all sounding like a personal attack on the coder.

Plus, when I was beta-testing for corporations, that was all done in private, and I was encouraged to submit what I wanted to see improved, and I could say anything I wanted to say, because there was someone there taking my input in private and submitting the crucial bits on to the coders and designers. After my experience here, I decided that I was never going to do another public beta.

I figured that if I were to do it over again, I would submit my input in private to Thud and let him pass on the relevant bits, but that's not the way Thud works the program here.

--

Anyway, LarkinVB, it's simply much more important that you are back for SoulStorm after your DC retirement. You seem to always be the one to get the most crucial bits; and because you used to be lead coder, you know how to write the fix if you need to, and it seemed to me that while writing the AI for DoWPro, you always focused on the parts that needed the most attention and thus knew what needed the most attention here as well. Being a coder, Larkin, you just simply knew what Thud and Arkhan needed, a lot more than I ever did.

So, it's just really really good to see you back here out of retirement with SoulStorm, Larkin! They need you, and so does SoulStorm!

#8 LarkinVB

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 11:20 PM

Kind words, thank you very much !

I don't think though I'm needed as Arkhan is doing a fantastic job. There is a bunch of really great testers here and I'm sure that Thudo, Arkham and them will lift the AI to a final grand stage. Regarding the limits of code and bugs I'm pretty sure that Dawn of Skirmish for SS will be really great.

It was a pleasure to be part of it.

#9 Zenoth

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Posted 31 March 2008 - 03:54 AM

Well, I drove everybody nuts, including myself.
[...]
I was too enthusiastic and tried to be too thorough.


You never drove me crazy Theta :dry:

Never had a single problem with you mate, and I always thought that your detailed posts (long posts!) were nice reads. The team is indeed great, everyone I believe does what they can do best, but we're all humans and we all make mistakes, we all need some rest and can always one day wake up on the wrong foot but hey, things like that are part of life ain't they. For me being part of this team is a small dream come true, you know what I'm doing here is quite humble, and some times I feel like a mere worm with such coders around who know what they're talking about, I mean I'd like to have some knowledge in AI coding to help them even further, but alas all I can do is to watch the AI play and "ah!" notice a few things here and there.

I've always tried to complement my lack of coding knowledge by putting some irrelevant humor in some of my reports, that has nothing to do with coding nor perhaps even testing, but you know... just adding to the general atmosphere around here, giving it more colors if I can say. And without this modification I'd be stuck reading books about the WH40K universe to learn about it because I barely play on-line, so for me Skirmishes are must haves to keep interests in RTS'es, which is why I already stopped playing Kane's Wrath after finishing the Campaign, because their AI pretty much suck some grand dodo arses... so yeah, I better stay here and help these geniuses out because that's the least I can do to thank them for their time, their will to do what they're doing for free and their interests for coding.

And hey testing their builds gives me a good reason to buy some good German beers! :mellow: :mellow:

Edited by Zenoth, 31 March 2008 - 03:56 AM.




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