[SUNFLOWERS] Status Quo regarding patch & Co [Archive]

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Nadine Knobloch

19-10-2004, 18:27

Hi everybody,

first of all I’d like to apologise for the fact that there hasn’t been an official statement regarding the Patch and Cheats - mea maxima culpa – this will be rectified ASAP.
Furthermore, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have made the effort to send us their comprehensive feedback as well as all their helpful suggestions.
All the Savegames you send are also of immense importance for optimising the game, a phat thank-you for those, too!

Right, and now to the really important bits ;-)

1. Patch
The BSS guys are busy coding the Patch right now. The first version should be available to our QA people as of next Friday.
In order to keep you in the loop, we’ll provide you with a “Patch Diary (http://forum.sunflowers.de/announcement.php?f=17)”. This will help you to always be up-to-date with the latest developments, i.e. where are the problems, which ones were we able to sort out once and for all, etc.
Frujin’s Preliminary List (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=2737) will be regularly updated and adjusted during the QA phase, and you’ll also find more details regarding the Patches here.
We are aiming for the release of the Patch by the end of November.
I can almost feel your horror, but I hope you’ll understand that we want to offer you a top-quality Patch which starts exactly where KoH ends at the moment.

2. Cheats
Of course there are Cheats – some of them have already made an appearance here in the Forum, and more experienced gamers will know where to find them anyway.
At the moment, the legal aspects regarding liability as well as the effects on the Support are being checked out. As soon as this process is finished, it will be decided whether we will publish the Cheats in one go or not.
Please note: Using Cheats is at your own risk – it could lead to instabilities and unusual game performance.

3. Zoom-Cheat
This isn’t a cheat in the actual sense, but rather a function from the early stages of KoH’s development which wasn’t used in the full version. As this function is NOT compatible with the current version and, moreover, is prone to crashes, we CANNOT provide you with this feature. Neither can we recommend using it at your own risk.

4. Multiplayer Europe
Conquering Europe in MP mode is definitely NOT part of the Patch – it might be more appropriate as a suggestion for a potential Add-On.
The development time for this game mode would be about 6 months…

5. Add-On
No Add-Ons planned for now.

6. Unit Showcase / Unit List
The Unit List created by Petwin, Duke of Earl, will be integrated in the Unit Showcase.
However, we will have to wait until we have the final values (amended according to the patch).
The updated list will also be published here in the Forum.

Alas, we are not au fait with the dark arts of magic and our responsibilities are not only to you, i.e. the customer - we are also bound by legal regulations, e.g. our contracts with BSS and Electronic Arts. This means that we can’t always act straight away, but we endeavour to manage these issues as swiftly as possible.
And finally, I’d like to thank you all on behalf of the teams at SUNFLOWERS and BLACK SEA STUDIOS for your dedication and patience. We hope that the Patch will be ample reward.

Cheers,
Nadine

Webmaster

19-10-2004, 18:29

there will also be a ranking poll for lord qudus improvements and suggestions list (german right now)
http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?t=2421

Funkybax

19-10-2004, 21:34

Thank you very much.

it seems a good service.

King Juhafin

19-10-2004, 21:39

Thank you very much.

it seems a good service.
Yes, thank you Nadine and Webmaster.

CustodianV131

20-10-2004, 09:37

Great work! Its good to see you're dedicated to support the game after release. Something which is being sorely neglected by some other companies nowadays. Lords of the realm 3 comes to mind... Grrrr.

3. Zoom-Cheat
This isn’t a cheat in the actual sense, but rather a function from the early stages of KoH’s development which wasn’t used in the full version. As this function is NOT compatible with the current version and, moreover, is prone to crashes, we CANNOT provide you with this feature. Neither can we recommend using it at your own risk.

Ouch, this is a nasty one for me! I bought the game on the promise that i could at least use a cheat to have the zoom function. This really hurts the gameplay/fun for me. Wish I could have hold off on buying KoH, then I would have known beforehand the zoom option was out of the window and a lots of the nagging issues would have been fixed. Alas, I should have followed the advice my grandfather gave me when I was a little boy: “Never buy a game on release day”. *sigh*

Also its a bit of a mystery to me. You can fight battles everywhere and then the game shows the close up view, which is a derivative of the world view situation. Ie in forests you get wooded area, at a farm you get a farm ect. And now you're telling me you can show it without troops on it? Seems strange i must say.
Just pause the game when the nice screen is shown and continue the game when you quit the close up view.
I know its only fluff… but that’s so important in this world.

Bad decision to leave this out imo… its where KoH looks its best.

Anyway great to see you’re hard at work and I hope that if the game is better balanced, more user friendly and the bugs are squashed, it will be so good that the missing zoom option doesn’t hurt the fun so badly anymore.

I’ve put my KoH on ice atm, because I was getting more and more frustrated at some of the issues. I’ll try again after the patch and hope that I’ll be able to recommend this game to my friends then.

Keep up the good work!

joasoze

20-10-2004, 11:48

End of november - thats a long wait. But the game is playable now, so I guess it will be ok. As a general rule I will stop buying games until patch no 1 is released. Most games need a patch to be a good experience, some need more. Still KOH is a good game, and the patch could make it great.

Noldy

20-10-2004, 16:03

Thanks for the service! :go:

Alex Poff

20-10-2004, 19:27

Joasoze, I agree with you, the game is definitely playable now. It will just get better by the end of November. Even with all the little things (and I mean little, there is nothing about the game that makes it unplayable for me) that need fixing, we can still have a lot of fun! Crap, I had to work today and I still spent 5 hours playing last nite until 3 AM extending the rule of the Norwegian Kingdom! Only lousy thing was that during one generation my King had no children, so when he died my best knight became king. I was lucky, in so much that when he became king there was no internal strife and he was considered "young", so at least he had a long life ahead of him. But, unfortunately, he will now eventually die and it is going to be a ***** to have to replace his level 3 experience in the 6 leadership qualities. Ah well....

CustodianV131

20-10-2004, 19:48

Aye, there are no real gamebreaking bugs for sure. Still there are a lot of little nagging issues and my hope is that when those are fixed KoH will be a great game to play instead of a decent game to play.

I don't mind waiting till the end of November.. rather wait longer and have it fixed in one big faultless patch then get a series of small patches that break things on their own again.
Still i hope you're prepared/willing to bring out a small fix patch if needed.

EDIT: Been playing KoH for a bit last night, but knowing now there won't me a zoom function really makes me enjoy it less. Such a shame al those beautiful castles ect, only see them in the few battles now and there might be that i'll never see :(

King Juhafin

21-10-2004, 11:25

EDIT: Been playing KoH for a bit last night, but knowing now there won't me a zoom function really makes me enjoy it less. Such a shame al those beautiful castles ect, only see them in the few battles now and there might be that i'll never see :(
Aye.. ;( i have been thinking the same...
(expansion is in my mind :rolleyes: )

end of november? well, it's good, like others have said.. btw, mp needs fixing. when you have fought a battle, it ends, and you have to make new server to play again.. well it's fine. but chat in there where you change your team and colour, buy troops.. i think it's not good because texts go so fast,.

Maizena

21-10-2004, 17:16

wait wait wait.. Nadine, are u saying that there will be no zoom even in a patch???
Frujin promised!!!

Webmaster

21-10-2004, 17:18

when and where did frujin promised this ?

CustodianV131

21-10-2004, 21:19

when and where did frujin promised this ?

Check this tread. http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?p=57263#post57263 Frujin implies/promises quite a few times that we'll be able to zoom using a cheatcode. Not that it matters now.. but yeah he did say it was possible. I don't doubt he said so, thinking it was possible, he's a good & honest guy as far as i know.

Frujin
Super Moderator Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Bulgaria
Posts: 454

There was zoom function ... you still can zoom by using cheat code .. but not in a demo.
It was gone for good.

This was the post that made me buy the full game so that I could zoom. Its not that i'm wishing that i had never bought the game. Its still a good game, but for me it would have been a lot better/more fun, if i would have been able to zoom. Also it would have "hurt" less if i had known beforehand that we would never be able to zoom.

Webmaster

21-10-2004, 21:28

King Juhafin

21-10-2004, 22:28

thats a fact not a promise !!!
there is no word of providing this ... it was part of KoH in an early state but canceled. the game changed and the zoom is not appropriate to the current state of KoH engine. you will be disappointed by using it!
:yawn: yeah... but it still feels bad that you can't zoom to the castles.. graphics are awesome..! ;( :nono:

TheSaint

22-10-2004, 01:37

Webmaster

22-10-2004, 10:24

first ANNO has nothing to do with KoH !!!
second as i wrote 2 posts before it was not promised as feature.

CustodianV131

22-10-2004, 10:51

Guys-

It really hurts to know that there will be no ZOOM in KOH. Without it the game is as stated before a clickfest. If I wanted just stratergy, I would have bought EU2 and Victoria which have far supeirior AI than KOH> The reason a chunk of the population bought KOH is cause of the zoom cheat.
I would have been happy had they incorporated this in the patch and but it doesnt seem likely.
I doubt the game will carry interest for a Add-On. Its a good game but not worth the $65 it cost me to import it in the US. Watch for it on ebay for hafl the price very soon. I am sure people cant keep cliking forever !! The AI is pretty much a joke...
I will never ever buy antoher game without waiting for a review. Just to give you an idea... 17 of us decided to buy this game ...all fans from 1503 AD. I was the only one who ordered it on the first day..the rest of the 16 backed out after reading that there was no zoom. If I wouldnt care about graphics I would buy Simcity, Warcraft, Warhammer for that matter not KOH/.... Sunflowers major selling point was 1503AD and 1503 meant AWESOME GRAPHICS
Its a sad day so much promise so little delivered...
Here comes the UNINSTALL button.....
Wacth for my listing on ebay 25bucks...
Saint

Aye very true! Also have a few friends that backed out of it now they know its not like they thought it would be, with the missing zoom option as the foremost reason. Others i'm not even going to try and get into the game now, because i know some will be turned off by the graphics and/or rather play a paradox/civ-like game instead.

Hopefully the patch will make the worldview gameplay better though, but I’ll always miss the zoom feature.

thats a fact not a promise !!!
there is no word of providing this ... it was part of KoH in an early state but canceled. the game changed and the zoom is not appropriate to the current state of KoH engine. you will be disappointed by using it!

ERhm I don’t get this… is there or is there not a zoom cheat? Reading this it looks like you say there is.
I can understand you don’t want to support it officially as its probably really buggy since it was taken out early. Would be a support nightmare I guess ;( Still find it silly... i mean its there, it works for battles... but it can't work without troops. That does tell me something and i don't like what it tels me for sure.
Just like the stupid, deaf people that populate the battlemaps... or were people just a lot braver back then? I would hide/ run away when being overrun by two fighting armies :)

Ah well, maybe someone will find the code if its there. Might at least enable me to make some nice wallpaper...

*sigh* KoH could have been so great… just had to high hopes for it i guess :(

Lighthope

22-10-2004, 21:35

I don't understand what all the fire is about a zoom feature? CIV III had it and I never used it because all it was was a static picture. Yeah, looked pretty but you couldn't do anything with it.

Exactly how would a zoom feature enhance the play of KOH?

Lighthope

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Sir Turylon

22-10-2004, 22:21

It would give you a chance to view your castles/towns without having to an enemy attack it.

Also... one of the nicest screenshots is of a knight attacking an enemy camp.

You get the feeling that the screenshots were publicity stunts and nothing more. Nice neat little encampments of troops? Viewing peasents working in a town with no soldiers around? Those "living pictures" where there was no fighting going on...

Publicity stunt seems to be the mantra in this case.

I don't think anyone is gonna buy it for $25 on ebay Thesaint... they'll just wait for it to hit $19.99 retail... sadly, it shouldn't take but a few months. :nono:

#1, 4, 6 seem nice though... why have cheats anyways?