Patch Alpha – Report 1

Hi everyone,

First of all, we’d like to thank everyone who’s sent their crash logs and suggestions to the team. Your help is extremely valuable, and we really do appreciate it. We know how dedicated and thorough our fans can be, and it always raises our spirits to see all the effort and time you put into helping us make our sim better.

As most of you know – and we should have mentioned it when releasing the patch – all of Russia was on official holiday for four days. Most of the programmers took some much needed rest and are just now starting to sort through the bugs. Over 500 emails with reports and suggestions were sent to Luthier’s email over the holidays. He sorted through every single one of them and relayed everything to the appropriate team members, but if your email contained a question or a suggestion that requires someone else to investigate, it may take a little while to get a response. Ilya wants to apologize to everyone now if you do not receive an immediate reply. Your email does get read, and gets looked at very carefully, especially if it contains crash logs or dumps.

With that, we do have to respond to a few of the more common responses to the alpha patch.

1. “Why are my graphics busted?”
We did not reduce any graphics in the game! We did not resize any textures, redo any models, or anything like that! Also, in its current state, the graphics engine does not produce different FPS depending on texture resolution. You can very easily check the fact by watching the FPS counter as a plane’s external texture loads while the game is paused.
We’re simply ironing out some quirks with the texture manager in the current pre-release version of the patch. It’s been rewritten in order to reduce stutter. It no longer freezes the game when a large number of new objects have to get loaded with their textures, but it’s still imperfect. Lower res graphics are a temporary non-intended side effect.
We never ever tried to improve performance by decreasing the visual quality of the game.

2. “Fix your damn game! “
This is, after all, an alpha patch that was released with many known issues clearly listed, and the main purpose of the release was stated as locating and fixing crash bugs. We’re sorry it’s been frustrating. The remaining crash bugs are hard to catch, which is why we’re actually glad it’s been crashing for you. Yes, I said glad.
It’s been crashing for us too, and in a way that makes it impossible to catch the exact culprit. The crash needs to happen in a very specific rare way to point out the root cause. We need to get that specific crash report to fix it. We’ve got a few hundred crash dumps to look through now, so chances are, one of them should contain the smoking gun.
And, returning to the common thread in some of the responses – we are fixing it! That’s exactly what we’re doing right now! And you are helping!

Again, we do apologize if you are one of the people for whom the game crashes a lot. Remember – this is a pre-release test version of the patch, and you are not required to use it at all! Please roll back to the previous more stable version if you want to continue flying while we continue working.

Now we’re going back to work. We’ll release a status update by Saturday.

After reinstalling the patch I've grown to like it...the real plus is no longer need to cut the grass

Good to see a report, though christ knows how long its going to take to fix the loooooooooooong list of bugs, old and new.

Could have fooled me.
I must suck.
Time for selfinflicting spanking.

Before you start flagellating yourself, B6 did indicate that the graphics issues are due to having to ' iron out bugs in the texture manager' not due to something they intended.

The problem is Boknonist, they said at Christmas the patch was in final testing and the beta was within reach, so most of the ground work must have been done and the problem must have been seen, so why 5 months later haven't they sorted it? It just goes on and on and on.
I haven't been able to play CLOD once without there being a major bug or CTD in 14 months.

I was told so many times just after release, dont worry they are going to start adding features soon, stop moaning, yet here we are 14 months later still in a alpha state with nothing added and no plans to either.
The clouds even in the IL2 cotton ball stage cause single figure FPS drops, how the hell are they going to ever manage dynamic weather?

I stumbled on to this guide from Steam support, might be a help to someone here. CTD

Oddly enough, my reaction is - what a cool developer (open patch process, Sunday updates, facing fans head on).

Of course, this is a subjective impression - no one else needs to have it.

Completely understand Furbs, I was only responding to theOdens post, not trying to justify 14 months of frustration in any way.
I was very upset myself when I first installed the release version when it came out, completely unplayable. A couple of patches later and it was working ok for me, enough to have a lot of fun online, if not in SP. It is because of this I have had faith that it will be sorted. That plus the fact that their future income depends on them fixing the engine for future releases.
If I was getting constant CTD's as you and many others are, I would be just as frustrated I'm sure, and if this and the many other bugs aren't sorted once and for all then I will be just as upset , be sure!

Boko

I imagine that most of the machines they test on are similar to each other with a few exceptions and in a small company they probably don't have very many to test on, variety-wise of course the community is going to have every conceivable set-up and therefore will have different problems based upon their hardware. This can only be a good thing.

Cheers Boko, Its bloody deja vu i swear...


Luthier-"Its released!"

Us- "Its full of bugs and runs like a dog"

Luthier- "sorry about the release, we will patch it"

Luthier- Sorry about the release, here's a patch!"

Us- "patch causes other problems, and this isn't fixed"

Luthier- "The problems will be sorted in the next patch and im really sorry"

Luthier- "here's the patch!"

Us- "the patch broke the sound and this isnt fixed"

Luthier- "sorry about the sound and stuff, were working really hard on a patch"

luthier- "here's the patch!"

Us- "the patch causes CTD and this isn't fixed STILL"

Luthier- "sorry about the patch, were working 26 hours a day to fix stuff the CTD"

Luthier- "this is really hard, really im sorry"

6 months later...

Luthier- "here's the patch!"

Us- "the patch causes more CTD's than before and other stuff is now broken, though we have more FPS"

Luthier- "Can you help us fix the CTD's? were working really hard you know"

On and on and on and on and on.....

Luthier- "Here's BOM!!! please buy it"

Haha Furbs, spot on

Thanks Boko for a new word "flagellating" I really need to look that one up haha.

The statement that they did not remove anything is a straight lie. Look for cloud reflections in the water, they took that out in the first or second beta. Then go back and look at your early screenshots.

I thought they removed the cloud reflections in the water because people were hating them and complaining about it?

You might want to actually read what was written before introducing libel into your posts. Also, please aim dicssusion to the facts (ie. 'that is incorrect'), rather than speculating on intent (ie. 'that is a lie').

As for facts. Their claim is that they didn't aim to reduce the quantitative aspect of the graphics, or lower visual quality in order to gain performance. This does not mean that they did not remove the occasional qualitative feature from the beta because they either believed it to detract from their artistic vision or because they needed more development time before it could be reintegrated into the engine.

One could make similar claims about the decal system (eg. bullet holes).

If this isn't true, than it isn't true. But that is their position.

Now we’re going back to work. We’ll release a status update by Saturday


Anybody know what day it is today

The Holy day of the Saturn yes but do we itch to hear more excuses?
Can't really say I do

Here you go....

Patch report

Thanks for all the crash dumps, were looking very closely at them (we have no bloody idea what they mean or what to do with them)
and the team are working really hard at fixing the CTD's for you (were going to bang it with a spanner and then fiddle with it)

The texture problem is being very tricky to get right but were making steady progress (the guy who coded it has taken a week off with a headache, so were letting the tea lady have a go)
The Spitfire throttle being erratic is not a bug but a feature (we were told by a guy who knew a guy who once sat in a spit and he told us the throttle was sticky)

All the other bugs we are working on 27 hours a day to fix and should be sorted very soon (more banging with hammers, it might fix some but will prob break other stuff)

So to recap... we will finalize testing and fixes this week so expect a patch very soon! (were going to hold a group prayer meeting and then let the tea lady test it on her Mac, expect a patch with a made up name in maybe 6 months, we hope)

He just said that they have a mini fix for us today

LOL i was close, sort of.