For Eric:

[joshuamnave]

About two months ago in response to one of my questions you said you would talk to Steve about making the debug tool available to all of us. Did that conversation happen, and if so what was the result? I'm really getting worn down by game after game that never gets finished because of bugs that have no workaround and would appreciate having access to the same tool that the three or four happy customers have.

[Numdydar]

I'm a happy customer and I do not have access to the tool [:)]

There may be some others as well. Just wanted to point out that it is possible to be satisfied with the game without the tool in hand.

Of course if you became a beta tested you could have access as well without all this drama. As you are doing a good job of finding issues with edge cases, is there some reason you do not want to be a beta tester?

[joshuamnave]

I've never been asked to be a beta tester, and I'm sure everyone is happier that way. I doubt Steve wants my acerbic comments in the beta forums. As for me, I have no intention of signing a NDA.

Issues with edge cases? Like invading a hex, any hex? That's an edge case? Most of the bugs I find are far from edge cases and should never make it into a public release. And when they do make it into a public release, they should be hot fixed asap, not left for a month or more.

[michaelbaldur]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

I've never been asked to be a beta tester, and I'm sure everyone is happier that way. I doubt Steve wants my acerbic comments in the beta forums. As for me, I have no intention of signing a NDA.

Issues with edge cases? Like invading a hex, any hex? That's an edge case? Most of the bugs I find are far from edge cases and should never make it into a public release. And when they do make it into a public release, they should be hot fixed asap, not left for a month or more.

im a beta tester .. and been for years. as for the debug tool, like the rest of the game, it is not completely functional and you can really mess up a game, if you do not know what you are doing..

I think this question have already been answered, it is a no. the debug tool Is not ready for public use and it will create many more bugs and crazed games.

and about the bugs, the critical bugs are fixed asap(within a week), but it takes time before it comes out as a update. there need to be many major fixes before a update is send out.


steve is working hard at netplay, with occasional days working at critical solitaire bugs. that is also the main reason that he is not as active on the forums.

if he should answer all post and pm. send out small new versions to beta testers daily, new versions to the public weekly.. then when would he have time to work on the game ???

[michaelbaldur]

and for the finishing of games.. it have been a long time since I finished a game. but that is because I using a really slow computer. in the late game the supply calculation times are very extreme..

and for being a beta tester... steve have not asked for new beta testers in years. but sure that anybody that want to do the work is welcome.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Zartacla,

I discussed this with Steve. From our discussion, the main things we could see as useful there that are not already possible through other methods would be the move/place units and change control of a hex. However, these also make it very easy to corrupt an existing game as it has no safeguards and the debug tool has various bugs of its own. We are concerned about releasing something that has no real way to prevent a serious crash or corruption. It is also not going to give an effective work-around to many serious bugs, without those bugs being fixed. It helps us find bugs, but is much less useful at fixing them. With more work we could clean this up and make it safer for a wide release as a tool to help isolate bugs, but that's time taken away from other priorities which at this time are more important. We get the impression most players are thinking this may be a bug-fixer rather than a bug-finder, but really it's useful to help us isolate bugs rather than "repair" games. Therefore we are going to hold off on this for the time being.

Regards,

- Erik

[joshuamnave]

Thanks for the response. However, many bugs are fixable using the tool. I know this because often beta testers offer to fix people's saved games and send them back.

Here's the situation:
Matrix released a game that was nowhere near ready for release.
Matrix decided not to assign additional resources (ie: coders) to the project.
After a year and a half of patches, the game is still not remotely bug free.
New patches, which come out only about every six weeks or so, almost always include new game breaking bugs - which are foisted on us without fixes until the next patch, with a whole new set of bugs.
There exists a tool that would let players fix some of these bugs and thus enjoy the game they purchased a year and a half ago.

Given this, the stubborn refusal to release the tool just seems mean spirited. On the other hand, Matrix lost any and all future business from me over a year ago, so I guess there's no real cost to just letting me twist in the wind.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Zartacla,

I discussed this with Steve. From our discussion, the main things we could see as useful there that are not already possible through other methods would be the move/place units and change control of a hex. However, these also make it very easy to corrupt an existing game as it has no safeguards and the debug tool has various bugs of its own. We are concerned about releasing something that has no real way to prevent a serious crash or corruption. It is also not going to give an effective work-around to many serious bugs, without those bugs being fixed. It helps us find bugs, but is much less useful at fixing them. With more work we could clean this up and make it safer for a wide release as a tool to help isolate bugs, but that's time taken away from other priorities which at this time are more important. We get the impression most players are thinking this may be a bug-fixer rather than a bug-finder, but really it's useful to help us isolate bugs rather than "repair" games. Therefore we are going to hold off on this for the time being.

Regards,

- Erik

Although I see both sides of the issue, I'd like to at least get on record some additional pros and cons from a beta tester viewpoint. First off, it is my impression the tools can (or should be able to) be enabled or disabled individually. If that is correct then I think we have three tools under discussion:

1. Disrupt/undisrupt - to me this one seems very unlikely to break anything. In my personal use of it, there's been no difficulties. Releasing this tool would allow players that want to use Option 47 (Isolated re-org) to self-police that rule until it does get coded, and keep in mind Option 47 was listed as available when the game was released. It also would allow the fixing of units that are in either state due to some corner case supply bug that messes up oil re-org. In my own case I've had oil dependent units that did not re-org and yet by all the rules in the game should have been able to, and in fact had their oil costs paid in the Use Oil step.

2. Hex Control - in limited use, this one can fix game issues that may not get bug-fixed for some time to come. Vichy and Vichyfication are the best examples. However if you did something like changing Berlin to US control in mid-1940, there's a good chance the game will blow up. Clear hexes with no rail lines in them (or at least no cities/ports/factories in them) are the best candidates for being unlikely to wreck the game and there was an instance recently where fixing one hex in Syria allowed players to continue with a game they'd obviously invested a good deal of time in. I'm not saying all such cases would cause the game to blow up but there are some real evident examples of extremely risky application of this.

3. Place Units - AFAICT this tool is just plain no longer functional. Any time I've tried it in beta, the game has instantly MadExcepted. Given the number of code changes since the tool first existed, I'd suggest it is unrecoverable and in any event is nowhere remotely close to get on a list for Steve to spend his time on.

If there are some unallocated flags in the game save file layout, why not have one that gets set - and stays set - after the first time a debug tool is used. Then if one or more of the tools are released give notice that if a game file is submitted due to a claimed bug, all bets are off as to whether it will even be accepted as a valid bug, let alone get worked on, if a debug tool was used during the game, even just once - in others words there'd be a caveat that yes, you can use a debug tool, but doing so is totally at your own risk.

If you can do the flag suggestion, then you could release the disrupt/undisrupt tool and the hex control tool. If you can't do that then I'd still recommend you rethink releasing the disrupt/undisrupt tool. From that perspective you could consider only enabling one or more of the tools in only the public beta releases. Any official public release would not have them.

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

I've never been asked to be a beta tester, and I'm sure everyone is happier that way. I doubt Steve wants my acerbic comments in the beta forums. As for me, I have no intention of signing a NDA.

Issues with edge cases? Like invading a hex, any hex? That's an edge case? Most of the bugs I find are far from edge cases and should never make it into a public release. And when they do make it into a public release, they should be hot fixed asap, not left for a month or more.

Well there is a 'Defending Spain' thread where the Allies invaded and their hex control from invasion seems to be working fine. Not saying that your game does not have an issue which is why I said your issue may be an edge case. I.E. For other people it may work fine but for you it does not.

I have no idea if that is true or not [:)]

[Erik Rutins]

Zartacla,

This is not in any way personal. We genuinely believe that releasing this tool, in its current state, will cause more problems and that it will not help in the way you and others may be thinking.

What issue(s) are you having right now that you think the release of this tool would solve?

Regards,

- Erik

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Zartacla,

This is not in any way personal. We genuinely believe that releasing this tool, in its current state, will cause more problems and that it will not help in the way you and others may be thinking.

A) I'm talking about game ending bugs that effectively end a game. Unless the tool contains a virus that will damage my computer, it can not possibly cause more problems. It's possible that it won't solve any problems either, but the notion that using it on a game that is unable to progress will somehow make it worse is ludicrous.

B) For over a year now you've asked us all to be beta testers with these beta patches, but we don't have access to the uber secret beta tester forums or the tool that official beta testers have. Perhaps the tool won't help in the way I and others may be thinking, but given the secrecy and the separation between "official" beta testers and the "unofficial" beta testers, we have only your word on that.

C) See below for why I don't think you have any better understanding than I do about what is and isn't broken, or what will or won't help.

What issue(s) are you having right now that you think the release of this tool would solve?

A) Honestly, this board gets what... 20 posts or less per day? Is it really that hard for the official rep to keep up with what's going on? This question tells me that you have no day to day interest in this game, aren't playing this game, and aren't keeping up with the progress on bug squashing or the current bug list. There are two current bugs that this tool might help with - the first of which is the invasion hex control bug. That one has now been isolated and a work around has been figured out, but it took two weeks for that to happen and during that two weeks the game was close to unplayable. The other is the conquest of china triggering a non existent unit digression bug which was introduced two patches back and stops a game completely, making it impossible to continue. Possibly the tool won't help with that, although at least one of the "official" beta testers believes it might, which you would know if you were keeping up with the message boards.

B) Even if those two bugs weren't currently around, every patch something new breaks and it takes weeks, sometimes more than a month, to fix them. Often Steve will announce that a bug has been fixed shortly after it is discovered, but it still takes weeks to push out the patch for the rest of us, although the "official" beta testers are getting patches on a more regular basis that presumably contain these intermediate fixes. Since Matrix isn't willing to hot fix the bugs you introduce, I continue to maintain that it's mean spirited to not release the tool that might, in some situations, let us fix them for ourselves so that we can finish our games.

[Centuur]

Let me put it this way: I agree with the analysis Paul has given on the debug tools. You can't fix any game stopping bug, using them.

And on the part of the beta testers getting patches to test them, let me say that testing those patches is really tedious work. Usually, after Steve has fixed the bugs, there are regression bugs appearing which than needs to be fixed again. To be honest, I don't believe you want to use those patches in your games. Sure, sometimes we get lucky, but usually there is something rotten in those patches and it takes time to sort these out, without having the original bug reappearing again.

On the closed forums, I would like to comment that the beta tester team needs a place to be in contact with eachother, without having the whole of the community looking over our shoulders. That's not to say there is a lot of noise in those, but sometimes it is better that things don't become public.

For example: the last announcement on the state of the game from Eric was shared with us in that forum, making it possible for us to comment on those and suggest some changes. You don't want those things discussed in public, making such an announcement impossible and probably too optimistic or too pessimistic...

If you really want to help us, why not apply to become part of the beta test team yourself? Personally, I believe you would be an asset to the team. Than you know everything (and it isn't that much more than you know already). Think about it for a moment...

[Numdydar]

Plus then you WOULD have access to the debug tool and see how great or crappy it really is [:)] Then your comments about the tool and the beta team would carry a lot more weight. As far as I can tell the NDA is not stopping the team members from making their opinions know either.

I totally agree with Centuur that you would be a big help get the game into the best shape possible. Just saying ... [:)]

[gw15]

I have been playing solitaire global war with most options almost everyday and have finished 2 games and I currently have zero game stopping bugs.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Zartacla,

This is not in any way personal. We genuinely believe that releasing this tool, in its current state, will cause more problems and that it will not help in the way you and others may be thinking.

A) I'm talking about game ending bugs that effectively end a game. Unless the tool contains a virus that will damage my computer, it can not possibly cause more problems. It's possible that it won't solve any problems either, but the notion that using it on a game that is unable to progress will somehow make it worse is ludicrous.

B) For over a year now you've asked us all to be beta testers with these beta patches, but we don't have access to the uber secret beta tester forums or the tool that official beta testers have. Perhaps the tool won't help in the way I and others may be thinking, but given the secrecy and the separation between "official" beta testers and the "unofficial" beta testers, we have only your word on that.

C) See below for why I don't think you have any better understanding than I do about what is and isn't broken, or what will or won't help.

What issue(s) are you having right now that you think the release of this tool would solve?

A) Honestly, this board gets what... 20 posts or less per day? Is it really that hard for the official rep to keep up with what's going on? This question tells me that you have no day to day interest in this game, aren't playing this game, and aren't keeping up with the progress on bug squashing or the current bug list. There are two current bugs that this tool might help with - the first of which is the invasion hex control bug. That one has now been isolated and a work around has been figured out, but it took two weeks for that to happen and during that two weeks the game was close to unplayable. The other is the conquest of china triggering a non existent unit digression bug which was introduced two patches back and stops a game completely, making it impossible to continue. Possibly the tool won't help with that, although at least one of the "official" beta testers believes it might, which you would know if you were keeping up with the message boards.

B) Even if those two bugs weren't currently around, every patch something new breaks and it takes weeks, sometimes more than a month, to fix them. Often Steve will announce that a bug has been fixed shortly after it is discovered, but it still takes weeks to push out the patch for the rest of us, although the "official" beta testers are getting patches on a more regular basis that presumably contain these intermediate fixes. Since Matrix isn't willing to hot fix the bugs you introduce, I continue to maintain that it's mean spirited to not release the tool that might, in some situations, let us fix them for ourselves so that we can finish our games.

1 - I have fixed those two bugs for the next release.
2 - the conquest of China bug you encountered has been around since CWIF (i.e., 2004); it was not newly introduced.

===

You seem to think that the 'debug' tool will only be used on broken games.

I think that given a new capability, players will start messing around with it immediately, generating numerous emailed Mad Except reports for me to record, process, and examine.

Even more insidious is that if the Debug tool was made generally available to owners of MWIF, I would no longer be able to tell if a reported problem was caused by the officially released program code or by a player using the 'debug' tool and damaging the values of internal variables.

Let me emphasize again one of Erik's points with different words: though the name of the feature is Debug, that is a programmer's definition of the word. The tool is designed to find and fault isolate bugs. It was never intended to repair games in progress. Indeed, I often use the tool to create situations so the program might fail, just to see if the code is working correctly.

[Zorachus99]

Love the reasoning.

If I give out the tool, people will use it inappropriately, making my job harder.

So those of us who have lost games, valuable time, and money to supporting this project get screwed.

Honestly, with supply being uncorrectable, and no way to correct the mistakes made by the program, I along with many other PURCHASERS of this product cannot play it. You release the game and KNEW supply didn't work. I was on the beta team for years, and know that you could never trace supply correctly across the Med, which still was the case at release.

Additionally Option 47 was thrown to the side, as being un-needed. After all, if supply doesn't work, why work on an optional relating to supply?

My point is, if you think you are playing the game, and aren't using Option 47, you are playing the game wrong. For those of you who don't care about supply, I understand that beer and pretzels are satisfying, but you'll be tossed out of competitive games and/or conventions if you ever want to participate, as you demand to re-organize isolated and disrupted units.

I feel bad I talked my disabled friend into buying this game, because we haven't been able to play this game through. It's a lot for someone on a fixed income to pay $100, not to mention find out that the game is unplayable.

[Numdydar]

Please help me understand. Option 47 is an Optional Rule correct? So that means you 'should' be able to play in tournaments without it correct?

I have played many other games that have optional rules and typically these are NOT used in competitions simply because not everyone uses them. It would be unfair in competitions to use optional rules that some of the people play with on a regular basis playing against someone that has never played with those optional rules.

If this was a rule that everyone HAS to play with why is it not a part of the RAW versus an optional part of RAW? It seems like your anger should be directed to ADG versus Matrix since ADG are the ones saying this is an optional rule versus part of the core rule set.

Also while definitely not a WiF expert, I have to disagree that calling this game without using this ONE OPTIONAL rule a beer and pretzel game is a little extreme [:)] Even just the base game with zero optional rules used I would also consider this to be untrue. If you really believe your statement, and I have no reason to doubt your word, why aren't you playing War in the Pacific AE [:)] As that is the only game I know of that I think is harder to play than WiF [:)]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

Love the reasoning.

My point is, if you think you are playing the game, and aren't using Option 47, you are playing the game wrong. For those of you who don't care about supply, I understand that beer and pretzels are satisfying, but you'll be tossed out of competitive games and/or conventions if you ever want to participate, as you demand to re-organize isolated and disrupted units.

warspite1

Ignore it....ignore it..... okay try counting to 10 and then ignore it..... stay calm....deep breaths.....

Oh to hell with that. You've been banging on about Option 47 for so long now. When you started some of us, many of us, had sympathy with your position regardless of whether we would personally use the Option or not. You may be surprised to know that a few of us still do think this is important and have actively sought movement on Option 47 very recently. But this sort of pathetic comment makes me wonder personally why I bothered.

Put Option 47 in or leave it out - either way WIF/MWIF is NOT a beer and pretzels game and the idea that this one rule - amongst the hundreds of rules that make up this wonderful game - makes that much difference is faintly ridiculous. But moreover, the idea that you are somehow a superior player because you happen to deem the Option vital is frankly risible.

No one is definitely right here and no one is definitely wrong. You, and others, have stated your case as to why you think no Option 47 = unrealistic. Equally many people have put forward equally (or probably more) detailed arguments as to why, in the context of a strategic level WWII game, no Option 47 is perfectly explainable from an historical perspective - and thus acceptable from a WIF/MWIF perspective.

Slagging experienced, long time, committed players of WIF/MWIF as being no good for anything more complex than a beer and pretzels game and childishly exclaiming that WIF/MWIF is unplayable without Option 47 just lowers any respect people have for your opinion.

[CrusssDaddy]

2 - the conquest of China bug you encountered has been around since CWIF (i.e., 2004); it was not newly introduced.

I'm playing a CWiF campaign right now where I gave Japan a conquered China in S/O '39. No China bug, and I've had other games where China was conquered and never experienced a related bug.

[CrusssDaddy]

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

2 - the conquest of China bug you encountered has been around since CWIF (i.e., 2004); it was not newly introduced.

I'm playing a CWiF campaign right now where I gave Japan a conquered China in S/O '39. No China bug, and I've had other games where China was conquered and never experienced a related bug.

By the way, I'm able to do things like give all of China to Japan because of the CWiF debug tool, which is not only helpful alleviating structural problems but also fun because you can create "What If?" scenarios. It objectively adds playability to the game. But it might minorly inconvenience Steve to add a single line of code that marks save games in which the debug tool has been activated, so it's downright impossible and that's what Steve tells Matrix and that's what they believe, because they don't care enough to check for themselves.

How's the remodel coming, Steve? Post more pix when you get a chance.