NetPlay Saved Games

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I am collecting saved games for NetPlay problems. I've already received a few but I would like to have as many as I can get.

Debugging MWIF almost always requires me to first reproduce the problem the player encountered. To do that, I start with restoring a saved game. Now for Solitaire and Head-to-head games, I have thousands of saved games and can usually find one that is close to what the player was running when he ran into a problem. Of course, having the actual game the player used is even better, but for the most part, I can make do with the library of saved games I already have (close to 10,000 by now).

But for NetPlay, my library is rather sparse, several hundred. That's because I need to have two saved games, one on each of the computers I use to run NetPlay. Given all the optional rules, scenarios, phases of the game, and possible die rolls during combat, that really doesn't come close to covering the possibilities of what players may be running when they have trouble.

So, ...

I would appreciate it if when you encounter a problem with NetPlay that you create a post in this thread and attach a zipped file containing: your saved games (one from each player) with instructions on how to reproduce the problem. A short description of where the problem occurred as part of the post would be nice. For example: DOW - US Entry, Ground Strike - Antiaircraft fire, Naval Combat - Air-to-air combat, etc.

This will let me reproduce on my computers the exact same thing you saw on your computers. Then I can fix the problem you had. Even better, it will enable me to test my modifications to make sure they solve the problem.

To repeat myself, what I could really use whenever you have trouble with NetPlay is:
1 - a post to this thread with a short description
2 - an attached zipped file containing: (1) Axis player's saved game, (2) Allied player's saved game, and (3) instructions on how to reproduce the problem. The instructions may need to include die rolls and player decisions for complicated combats.

I thank you for any help you can provide.[&o]

[HoffnungSchutzer]

I have a beta account and then I bought the game so I have 2 serial numbers, and I thought I would try to see how NetPlay works. I followed the instructions on page 108 of the manual, and I could get the game to work on both computers. It was nice to see the game update in real time on both screens. My issue started when I tried to restart a saved game. I saved the game with the same name on both computers, and again following the instructions on page 109. Here there seem to be to be a couple of issues.

1) there is a long delay reading the players online, although I had shut off the second computer it indicated I was still online.
2) When I try to restart the game it hangs waiting for a response from the account HoffnungSchutzer (Windows 8). It does not matter whether, I start the request from Hoffnung(Windows 7)or HoffnungSchutzer.
I had saved the game at the exact same time on both computers with the same name, but did not use the autosave function.

I am sorry I do not know how to attach the save files to this post, but perhaps others have had this issue.

Hoff

[paulderynck]

Check in the World in Flames folder on each computer - what is in the NetPlayReg.txt files. One should match up with the beta and the other should match up with the purchased one.

You definitely need two separate username/password combinations to do what you are trying to do. The player names when starting a new game must exactly match (including upper/lower case-wise) the two separate usernames.

[HoffnungSchutzer]

I think I found out what went wrong. I had to restore the same saved game from both computers then it opened correctly. Just restoring it from one account did not work. Both players seem to need to restore the same game at the same time.

Hoff

[paulderynck]

It is true that both need to restore a save game. But using the same saved game, I think will cause some unexpected problems - probably at least with who can control which powers. Theoretically, each computer saves the game but the saves are different depending which side the computer user was playing.

To later restore properly, both the Game number and Next Entry number must be the same on both saved files (even though if you were to probe the files, you'd find differences).

[Centuur]

You can check if both saves are correct, by looking at the "Next entry nr.". If this is the same on both saved games, they match. Otherwise you can't restore the game.

[paulderynck]

I think though, that if somehow the exact same file were on both computers (as the OP said), then those numbers would still match, but the results would be unpredictable.

[Mik29]

Hi

Everything went well until we resumed our games.
It is port attack, allied side.
Allied player attacks (or not, same result); press the "next phase please" button and then the game crashes.