Plea for help from the developers

[Griever9977]

This could just be me, but, it seems like the most helpful people to get feedback from, you, the developers, is not forthcoming. Thus making this board most wasteful. I was just wondering if you could have a thread of known bugs that's updated as more are reported, or even a hello we understand your concern and are working on it would be nice.

[xerevos]

http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20842

and

http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20895

[Avenger]

I've seen plenty of posts about customization and problems with quests. Don't bother working on any extras until you've fixed the game from crashing all the time. I see I'm not the only one with this problem. I've got plenty of different saves so I don't have to start over, but I don't want to repeat myself for fear of the same thing happening again. I'm at the final step in the Fathien Tomb to get the armor. Since I went past the four lever room, the game has crashed every five minutes. It has crashed at least a dozen times. Please make the game functional with some patches, then work on the custom stuff.

[3days]

Avenger if you really are having a bad problem with the game at certain points it could be a IRQ conflict since the game isnt really that demanding just poorly coded. If the problem keeps your from continuing you could try an editor here
http://www.geocities.com/northern_games/downloads.html
Try updating your drivers for your video and sound cards at the manufacturers websites. If you are current on all of your drivers then you probably will have to use one of those editors to get past whatever is causing your system to bug out. Hope that helps.
Zacho

[Coatimundi]

Griever, there have been a number of bug list threads. Do an all-forums search for threads with "bug list" in the title.

DrArkaneX has a separate bug database going. Check out the thread at:
http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22430&highlight=list

I do agree that dev feedback would be great and would help with clarifying the sequence and priority of fixes.

Avenger, it sounds like your crashing problem is pretty extreme. I've only had a few game freezes and only one where I couldn't task-manager my way to closing the game - the game locked up all keyboard input and that was that - time for the reset button.

I have two main areas of suspicion about DL game crashes: disk issues and sound card issues. Over time I've found more nasty hanging bugs with sound in games than with video and they usually don't manifest as sound problems. Have you tried turning off your sound card acceleration via dxdiag?

With respect to disk issues, maybe a full surface repair and full defrag might help. It's possible that some game files are stored in bad clusters/sectors and every time the game randomly loads the damaged file it dies. After full disk maintenance you could try keeping your existing installation of DL but renaming the directory. Then reinstall and copy your save games over to the new installation. You could still have a corrupted save game but hopefully not.

[GeorgeKeith]

There's no doubt the developers could fix problems for everybody; Everyone send their computers AND monitors to the developers so they can cure everyones problems individually.

Since that is not likely to happen, the developers only have just so many setups to make patches for. Nosiree, you can't satisfy all gamers all the time. Some gamers will NEVER get their game problems ironed out completely. You'll just have to live with something not perfect in an imperfect world.

I'm not trying to be crass or condescending, but does a few individuals put themselves ahead of the thousands that get along just fine and make do in any situation? I mean, come on, just THINK and be less self serving. Give developers their due and be grateful with what you get. Otherwise, if you just can't accept this, take up something else.

I've heard that computers make excellent clay pidgeons!

[Shock]

I vote for sending our $2000 computers to them as a donation for fixing a $40 game. What a deal.

[tardis44]

Good piont you made,but in my humble opinion,when you pay $40 to $50 for a software program and it does not work as promised it makes for a bad situation.I like playing this game but I can tell it was a rushed release and we are paying money to be the beta testers.this tends to be the case with small companies that cant afford long R & D and testing .Blizzard,EA and etc,have far less problems because they take the time to finish the games properly

[ldonyo]

EA has a nasty history of glitchy releases, too. Just look at the various C&C games when they first came out. To take that one step further, look at all the work that's been done on Generals since EA killed off Westwood. At least DC and Heuristic are making an effort to fix Dungeon Lords!

[Scyllis]

There's no doubt the developers could fix problems for everybody; Everyone send their computers AND monitors to the developers so they can cure everyones problems individually.

Since that is not likely to happen, the developers only have just so many setups to make patches for. Nosiree, you can't satisfy all gamers all the time. Some gamers will NEVER get their game problems ironed out completely. You'll just have to live with something not perfect in an imperfect world.

I'm not trying to be crass or condescending, but does a few individuals put themselves ahead of the thousands that get along just fine and make do in any situation? I mean, come on, just THINK and be less self serving. Give developers their due and be grateful with what you get. Otherwise, if you just can't accept this, take up something else.
Not only are you crass and condescending, but you don't have a clue about system validation. A SMART game company doesn't just randomly choose some motherboards, some sound cards, some video cards, etc. etc. to test. It is most important to choose specific CHIPSETS, such as VIA, ATi, nVidia, Intel, SiS, etc. that best represent the many more brands and models of boards currently available on the market.

Since you have no clue about hardware and how this process works, let me educate you, GeorgeKeith. A good validation process doesn't just take any ABit, ASUS, Intel, DFI, Gigabyte, Tyan, etc. motherboard model to test with. No, an INTELLIGENT validation team will only need choose a few motherboards with SiS 756, an Intel 865, VIA PT880 chipsets (a small but apt example). There is less need to obtain 10 different motherboards that all use the same chipset, because most of those motherboards will perform similarly, and have the same strengths & weaknesses. If you can target a few boards that hit on all the major popular chipsets (the focus being "popular", not only just "current"), you will do a lot more useful validation than if you just choose hardware randomly, which is what the developers and validation team of DL seems to have done.

The same process should be used for soundcards and video cards. You don't need to buy every single ATi and nVidia card on the market, for testing. You also don't need to buy every NEWEST one on the market, because many are similar. nVidia and ATi both sell their reference designs to 3rd-party hardware companies (like Asus, Gigabyte, XFX, Pine, Leadtek, etc. etc.) for those companies to make their own cards. Some are better, some are worse, but they use *the same chipsets*. 10 different companies, for example, can make a vidcard based on the nVidia 6600GT chip. Is it necessary to buy each of these? Of course not! A smart validation team only needs to select 1 or 2 cards using the 6600GT chip, and 1 or 2 using the Radeon 9800 chip, 1 or 2 using the x800 chip, and so on. This way, you test the most important thing, the interaction of the CHIPSETS, not the much-less-important brand differences.

Sorry to go on so long but GK, I'm getting tired of you passing yourself off as knowledgeable with hardware when you obviously aren't, and misinformation in a forum is a major annoyance and a dangerous thing.

If you don't know the answer to someone's problem, just keep your fingers off your keyboard and let the people who MIGHT know, try to help solve the problem.

[ldonyo]

I keep seeing the same type of post from you popping up all over. I hope you monitor your blood pressure, because you seem to be very tightly wound, Scyllis! ;)

With the breadth of hardware this game is supposed to run on, validating the last half-dozen or so chipsets doesn't begin to cover the possible system configurations of potential players. Plus, you forgot to mention the critical role device drivers play, which will increase the number of validation checks necessary geometrically.

It is the breadth of hardware that most game developers wish their games to run on that keeps many bugs from being found until a game is released. No matter how many beta testers you use, you just aren't going to cover every combination of hardware, operating system, and device driver. Yes, a larger beta testing group and a longer period of beta testing will uncover more bugs, but it will not catch them all.

[Scyllis]

ldonyo, again (and I'm going through the posts in reverse chronological order, so excuse me if you already read a response similar to this previously), if you search my recent posts, you will see a common theme and reason for my disappointment. Check whom I'm quoting each time you see me venting.

GeorgeKeith may have sound advice when it comes to aspects of the game itself, how to solve this or that puzzle (he seems wont to use walkthroughs though) or how to get himself unstuck...but this person should refrain from dispensing any advice of a technical nature. Not only is it unhelpful, but *he* is being rude to many other people who, unlike he, have technical problems with Dungeon Lords.

Do a search on his posts (as I did) and you will see what I mean.

[ldonyo]

I'm just going through unread posts from top to bottom, so I don't know which ones you hit in which order. I made a reply to one of your other posts that I believe is also germaine to this one.