StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Going around the net i'm finding a surprising number of people complaining how un-playable the demo is. The load times seem to obscene for everyone and frame drops are common with generally low average rates. Did they ask the guys at Crytek to code this game for them?

Load times are bad for me as well, but I'm not having any problems with slowdowns, nor with it behaving like it's crashed or anything. It runs quite well when it's actually loaded. This is on two year old hardware, so it's not because I have a supercomputer powered by a processor handed down from God himself.

In fact, the only real problem I've had is that my units keep getting stuck in trees (as in, they go into a wood, stop and then refuse to act on any orders I give them, to the point that they just stand there and let themselves be butchered when attacked), which is clearly a bug rather than a poorly optmised engine. Going by forums, any newly released game or demo is completely unplayable, because most of the people posting are the ones complaining because they can't get it to work properly. The people who can apparently don't bother most of the time.

Psychic_Sandwich wrote:

Going around the net i'm finding a surprising number of people complaining how un-playable the demo is. The load times seem to obscene for everyone and frame drops are common with generally low average rates. Did they ask the guys at Crytek to code this game for them?

Load times are bad for me as well, but I'm not having any problems with slowdowns, nor with it behaving like it's crashed or anything. It runs quite well when it's actually loaded. This is on two year old hardware, so it's not because I have a supercomputer powered by a processor handed down from God himself.

In fact, the only real problem I've had is that my units keep getting stuck in trees (as in, they go into a wood, stop and then refuse to act on any orders I give them, to the point that they just stand there and let themselves be butchered when attacked), which is clearly a bug rather than a poorly optmised engine. Going by forums, any newly released game or demo is completely unplayable, because most of the people posting are the ones complaining because they can't get it to work properly. The people who can apparently don't bother most of the time.

Just a side note, here's a link to the unpacker which decrease the load times.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=227956

Once you have unpacked, it should load several times faster.

Played some land battles this evening. I agree that the demo seems a bit clunky w/ regard to FPS. My PC is only about 1 year old and I was still having some slowdown issues.

Hardware issues aside (however legitimate they may be), I had a decend amount of fun with the Battle of Brandywine Creek. The intro is pretty funny, what with the cut to the american guns covering the ford and then a pan to a totally undefended crossing.

Sent my hussars ahead to scout and run into those bleeding rebel longriflemen. Pulled back into a little cul-de-sac and trapped them with a unit of line infantry. The rest of them gathered by the town hall and chilled out as I rolled up with 6-pounder horse arty and enfiladed them with canister. Seriously. For several minutes they just stood and took it, not even bothering to try and skirmish. Total War's 'brilliant' AI is once again exemplified.

Was pretty mad when a lucky shot gimped my general from halfway across the map. Apparently I should have done something to prevent this because the game awarded me a paltry 'close victory'.

All in all, though, pretty fun. I hope these technical issues get patched out soon.

Has anyone played the retail version yet? I was surprised when I saw it on the shelves in Tesco yesterday. I'm holding out on buying it until I know more about this Steam issue and how it affects other users.

Ubiquitous wrote:Has anyone played the retail version yet? I was surprised when I saw it on the shelves in Tesco yesterday. I'm holding out on buying it until I know more about this Steam issue and how it affects other users.

You cannot activate it until the 3rd of March.

ray245 wrote:

Ubiquitous wrote:Has anyone played the retail version yet? I was surprised when I saw it on the shelves in Tesco yesterday. I'm holding out on buying it until I know more about this Steam issue and how it affects other users.

You cannot activate it until the 3rd of March.

Ah a retarded activation date. Hopefully this one is more successful than the one I encountered for Football Manager 2009, which wasted my entire evening and has been the last PC game I have purchased as a consequence.