AI War Official 8.002-8.005 "Lock And Load " Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Basically every time they make a solid-improvement OS, it's really successful and they gain confidence.  When confident, they try to put a ton of innovations into the next OS, which makes it a disaster and thankfully reduces their confidence.  They then revert to just making improvements to calm the mobs-with-torches (and avoid losing more market-share than necessary).

Windows 3.11.  Awesome.
Windows 95.  Crash-a-thon.
Windows 98.  Pretty good.
Windows ME The-OS-That-Shalt-Not-Be-Named
Windows 2000/XP.  Incredibly good.
Windows Vista.  Early-on disaster (not all that bad now).
Windows 7.  Really solid.
Windows 8.  What happened here?

As for the business model, it does seem to be problematic: if a given version is good enough for someone, they're just going to keep using it rather than pay more to have their world changed.  Especially with the reputation of the "innovative" iterations.

Further, they put themselves in a position where they have to (or at least think they have to) fight piracy head-on.  That's not a winning proposition for them or the legitimate users.

[Wingflier]

I was going to say within my post, with Windows you basically have to assume that *every other* OS is going to be quality.

[WingedKagouti]

Windows ME The-OS-That-Shalt-Not-Be-Named

For me WinME crashed way less than Win95 and the only two times (over the course of several years) that it BSoD'd on me were hardware related. Once when I managed to eject a CD while it was being accessed (don't ask me how, that should not have been possible in the first place) and once during a heatwave while playing a game during the afternoon (night time room temperature 35C or so and no air flow).

That being said, WinME wasn't an actual improvement over 95 or 98 and I was happy once I could afford to upgrade to XP.

[Aklyon]

Hey, my dad still has a Windows ME that worked fine last time I saw it a couple years ago, assuming you turned it on and then went to have lunch before trying to do anything on it.

[Lanwrath]

I have personally found that form a pure programmer perspective Mac is the way to go.  When I started playing around with Ruby on Rails, Chef, and Vagrant I initially tried to put it on my Windows Laptop... after two days of !!fun!! I decided to put it all on my Linux machine.  While that process only took a few hours it was still frustrating.  Company bought me a Mac Book Pro and it literally took me 30 minutes to get my entire environment up and running.  So as a dev I can see why most of my colleagues love their Mac's.  I actually haven't booted up my Windows machine in 3 months because AI War, Divinity Original Sin, and Planetary Annihilation run on my Mac.  But I can agree with Keith on the awesomeness that is Visual Studio.

Been playing AI war since 2010 and I can say that the Nomads are easily one of my favorite additions to the game.  Awesome work guys.

[Qatu]

Vanguard and vengeful seem problem currently. Did a quick test game this week-end with Vanguard+vengeful on both AI and at 50 AIP level 7.6 I was still getting waves of less then 10 ships and when breaking stuff wasn't getting revenge waves. Forgot to keep save after restarting, was on whatever version was available when I started game late friday night.

[Kahuna]

Vanguard and vengeful seem problem currently. Did a quick test game this week-end with Vanguard+vengeful on both AI and at 50 AIP level 7.6 I was still getting waves of less then 10 ships and when breaking stuff wasn't getting revenge waves.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,16144.0.html

[Qatu]

Made a 40 planet 7.6 game with both AI bouncer/brutal yesterday night and didn't see an extra brutal post anywhere in the galaxy after I cheated full vision.

[Malchuth]

without reading all:
sorry but the version 8.xxx sucks.

its some time i played before. really, really time before. but i never had problems. never, under all circumstances.

but now very often the game is frozen,
by attacking baaracks,
by hosting a game,
by even starting a game.

its a mac i am playing on.
to be honest: it sucks.

regards
malchuth

[Aklyon]

You're going to need to be more detailed than short sentences if you're wanting some help.

[Kahuna]

without reading all:
sorry but the version 8.xxx sucks.

its some time i played before. really, really time before. but i never had problems. never, under all circumstances.

but now very often the game is frozen,
by attacking baaracks,
by hosting a game,
by even starting a game.

its a mac i am playing on.
to be honest: it sucks.

regards
malchuth

Kind of sounds like a troll.

[chemical_art]

I find it humorous I find windows 8 OS's cheaper then 7 most of the time.

If capitalism tells you anything...that speaks louder then anything I could add.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't think he's trolling, I think the new engine/etc is not running well on his mac.  But it's hard for me to do much about it with that amount of information.  Presumably not english-as-first-language.


@malchuth: I'm trying to isolate specifically what is causing the problems for you and others (though there may be more than one different set of things going on, so one person's cause may not be another's, etc).  It would help if you can:

1) download http://aiwar.s3.amazonaws.com/AIWar7047-oldengine.zip

2) unzip that and run it.  It's a self-contained version of the game from before the engine switch.  You'll need a license key to get out of trial mode but perhaps even in trial mode you can see if the problems are present for you or not.

3) play around with it a bit and see if any/all of the problems you reported are present, and let me know.

[Cinth]

without reading all:
sorry but the version 8.xxx sucks.

its some time i played before. really, really time before. but i never had problems. never, under all circumstances.

but now very often the game is frozen,
by attacking baaracks,
by hosting a game,
by even starting a game.

its a mac i am playing on.
to be honest: it sucks.

regards
malchuth

What I can gather...
Used to play before and now the game freezes.
I'm guessing asset loading??  That's where most of my freezing comes from.  I try and stay away from near zooming if I can.  I use the F1 index to load up as much stuff as I can.  Large numbers of units can also bog down and make the game seem like it freezes.

@malchuth: How long ago did you play?  How old is your PC, err...Mac (I know jack about Mac, OS relevant here?)?
What type of game settings are you trying to play on? 

[Malchuth]

thanks for the helping offers,
but i am afraid the problem is hidden by using a new engine for version 8???

I played 1-2 years ago or so more regulary with the version 7 and had never performance problems, the game was stabil and solid as a rock. an with the new addon destroyer of worlds i gained the interessed to play the game again. but with version 8 i have more trouble as playtime.

To be more specific: Sometimes the game even dont start (simple black screen), sometimes its freezing right after the start of a hosted game. Sometimes it freezes after deytroying a barrack. Sometimes it freezes after a electric missile blow up.

i am playing on imac, OS X 10.6.8, 2.93GHz Dual Core, 4 GB RAM,
AI War Fleet Command version 8.004, 80 Planets, i have mostly close to all game options on. Fullscreen, max loading threads 220.
Anything else?

regards
malchuth