Has anyone tried it over hamachi? I downloaded the dedicated server thing, and joined my own game and it seems to work then.
edit: Actually found a group of german's playing over hamachi and joined with them, much lols were had. When they get the authentication server figured out, this just might be a good game.
Well, I'll give this one a miss, then. A shame they haven't worked out the worst annoyances after all this time.
Did you give HL2 a miss when the Steam servers went down on release day under the strain?
Except for they already released it and already went through all of these exact problems. Then four some odd years later they are still going through the same exact same scenarios? Unacceptable and in in no way can you compare HL2's launch to this. HL2 launch had no predecessor and was pretty much the first of it's kind as far as valve's concerned. This is just inexcusable. It's not like I'm in a fanboy rage here, I didn't even know development on the game even still existed, nor did I care. The only difference is before I would have tried and probably enjoyed it. Now I'm just not going to bother.
Well, I'll give this one a miss, then. A shame they haven't worked out the worst annoyances after all this time.
Did you give HL2 a miss when the Steam servers went down on release day under the strain?
Except for they already released it and already went through all of these exact problems. Then four some odd years later they are still going through the same exact same scenarios? Unacceptable and in in no way can you compare HL2's launch to this. HL2 launch had no predecessor and was pretty much the first of it's kind as far as valve's concerned. This is just inexcusable. It's not like I'm in a fanboy rage here, I didn't even know development on the game even still existed, nor did I care. The only difference is before I would have tried and probably enjoyed it. Now I'm just not going to bother.
Well that's not really a very rational response.
I think the root of the problem is that the Army just doesn't get games. The way it sounds is that higher ups were asking the impossible and not willing to pay for it, so this is what they got. Keep in mind that almost all of the problems happening currently are due to the fact that more or less at the moment of release they had upwards of 20 million connections to the auth servers, which those servers were totally unprepared for. Some people are saying they're the same antiquated AA2 servers, which now have to service both requests?
So, sure, they should have known, especially since presumably most of those were already preloaded on Steam, so hard numbers were actually available, but again, the Army doesn't get games. There probably wasn't any allowance in the (frozen) budget to upgrade those servers. The devs themselves were working long hours under huge pressure and with no information, and probably wouldn't have had the power to do anything about the server problems if they had known.
Of course, now that it's obvious that their $x million recruiting tool is literally unplayable, they (or rather, whoever the new dev team is :?) are going to do something about it. Presumably. We'll see.
Well, I'll give this one a miss, then. A shame they haven't worked out the worst annoyances after all this time.
Did you give HL2 a miss when the Steam servers went down on release day under the strain?
Except for they already released it and already went through all of these exact problems. Then four some odd years later they are still going through the same exact same scenarios? Unacceptable and in in no way can you compare HL2's launch to this. HL2 launch had no predecessor and was pretty much the first of it's kind as far as valve's concerned. This is just inexcusable. It's not like I'm in a fanboy rage here, I didn't even know development on the game even still existed, nor did I care. The only difference is before I would have tried and probably enjoyed it. Now I'm just not going to bother.
Well, Steam goes down whenever a big game launches. DoW II wouldn't install for a while when it came out. I'm pretty sure Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts broke it. Plenty of games I didn't buy get frozen when they're supposed to unlock because Steam can't handle it.
I think the root of the problem is that the Army just doesn't get games.
Honestly? I think your criticism here is off-base. Wargaming is a fundamentally-military endeavor. Some of the best wargames out there were developed specifically for one or more branches of the United States military with the express intent of being played over large decentralized networks before they ever were released to the public. Because of my background, the first game that leaps to mind in this category is Harpoon networked computer wargaming is hardly a Navy-only endeavor.
Also: from my experience with the ridiculous shit the Army wastes money on (see spoiler*) I'm disinclined to think of them as tightwads who won't pay for a recruiting tool.
This looks to be a combination of Steam's multiplayer release fuckups and the tired story of a vendor not delivering what they promised on a DoD contract.
I think the root of the problem is that the Army just doesn't get games.
Honestly? I think your criticism here is off-base. Wargaming is a fundamentally-military endeavor. Some of the best wargames out there were developed specifically for one or more branches of the United States military with the express intent of being played over large decentralized networks before they ever were released to the public. Because of my background, the first game that leaps to mind in this category is Harpoon networked computer wargaming is hardly a Navy-only endeavor.
Also: from my experience with the ridiculous shit the Army wastes money on (see spoiler*) I'm disinclined to think of them as tightwads who won't pay for a recruiting tool.
This looks to be a combination of Steam's multiplayer release fuckups and the tired story of a vendor not delivering what they promised on a DoD contract.
*
I don't mean to say that they don't understand the technical aspects of wargames. There's an in-house version of AA they use for training simulations with VR or whateve that is supposed to be pretty cool, and is worked on by a different team (who I guess are now also in charge of the public version?). But the production, development and deployment of a mass-market online FPS is a fundamentally different animal. The way it sounds is that they put the out-of-house developer team for the public version under impossible deadlines during a hiring freeze while slowly firing them and not sharing any information, only to fire them all without warning immediately after release. That's mainly what tells me they're out of touch with the public games industry—*any gamer can tell you that the first patch is almost as important as the main release.
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release, or they were never given the resources to do necessary stress testing and upgrade the aging server platform. From the reports coming from the (now unemployed) dev team, it sounds much more like the latter.
Incidentally, the problems they're having with auth are completely unrelated to the (comparatively minor) Steam deployment problems. For what it's worth, my AA3 account page now reflects my grenade and 320 performance (but not SAW?), so the servers are running, they just can't cope with all the traffic. One theory I've seen is that people are doing the trainings, seeing that they don't register, and then doing them again, increasing the load on the servers even further.
Not yet. I believe auth is completely down now. They've posted that a hotfix is coming soon, and since when it doesn't work it locks up my system, I'm more than willing to wait for that announcement before I give it another try.
Well, finally got it redownloaded but I'm not too happy about it, seeing as the hud won't show up at all and I had to unlock basic marksman twice, and after completing that I didn't unlock weapon familiarization
and unless there's a way to increase accuracy other than the ironsights I don't see myself getting better than a 25/40 due to my shaky reaction with a mouse + weapon sway
Well I got the new patch and now I get a new bug: Pressing Esc brings up the menu, but pressing Esc again brings up a duplicate of the exact same menu instead of returning to game
:^:
edit: and now along with the MENU bugging, and the inability to see my own hud, I can't see the viewmodel during automatic rifleman qualification, just prone and whoops you have no gun!
Well I got the new patch and now I get a new bug: Pressing Esc brings up the menu, but pressing Esc again brings up a duplicate of the exact same menu instead of returning to game
:^:
edit: and now along with the MENU bugging, and the inability to see my own hud, I can't see the viewmodel during automatic rifleman qualification, just prone and whoops you have no gun!
fuck this, tell me when it works
old bug, try hitting the number buttons until you find the one that equips the SAW, I think it was 4.
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release,
Get back to me when you think you can do a better job. Servers cost money. Co-locations cost money. Bandwidth availability costs money. If you over-predict then you have idle servers sitting there costing you money by the minute, where as if you under predict, well, a bunch of people complain about a free game. Let us look at everyone's favorite gaming companies: Blizzard and Valve. Gee, they haven't had monstrous fuckups have they? Remember the WoW launch? People paid $15/mo to stare at a login screen or wait hours to get into a raid. Or the WC3 launch? Battlenet died repeatedly. Steam sucked balls for almost entire year before they worked most of the bugs out, and the servers still take a dump during free weekends or release of popular games. These two big shots muck up, what do you expect from a small fry like AA?
Give it a few weeks to weed out the wankers who'll never make it through training, the ones who try and don't like it, and the ones who just saw 'free' and decided to give it a chance but really have no interest.
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release,
Get back to me when you think you can do a better job. Servers cost money. Co-locations cost money. Bandwidth availability costs money. If you over-predict then you have idle servers sitting there costing you money by the minute, where as if you under predict, well, a bunch of people complain about a free game. Let us look at everyone's favorite gaming companies: Blizzard and Valve. Gee, they haven't had monstrous fuckups have they? Remember the WoW launch? People paid $15/mo to stare at a login screen or wait hours to get into a raid. Or the WC3 launch? Battlenet died repeatedly. Steam sucked balls for almost entire year before they worked most of the bugs out, and the servers still take a dump during free weekends or release of popular games. These two big shots muck up, what do you expect from a small fry like AA?
Give it a few weeks to weed out the wankers who'll never make it through training, the ones who try and don't like it, and the ones who just saw 'free' and decided to give it a chance but really have no interest.
Someone made a post on the official forums, Feydr, claiming to be a member of the AA3 team. His post was deleted soon after. Here it is:
"I worked as a Dev at AA Emeryville for the last year and a half and I hope I can appeal to your rationality and common sense. I would like you to imagine trying to build a game with an impossible deadline, steadily declining workforce (via firings), a hiring freeze, constantly being fed misinformation, having the 'higher ups' completely ignore your weekly plea for either A) more time, or more manpower, working a ton of unpaid overtime, pouring your heart and soul into a misadventure only to have the uniformed community scoff at you for uncontrollable variables... RIGHT when you've just lost your job.
There are problems with the release beyond the devs control. In fact, the bureaucracy is so convoluted that you can't even begin to imagine the breadth and scope of B.S. the devs had to deal with daily. In short, imagine being the subcontractor of a subcontractor of a contractor to the government. Sure millions of dollars may have been poured into this project, but how much do you think made it to the actual DEV team, the people MAKING the game, after it was filtered by the bureaucracy?
I realize if you are a gamer, you rightly expect a game to work. Period. But I would ask that you imagine for a second that you actually DON'T understand what it takes to make this particular game, and you really don't understand the many obstacles that were placed in front of the devs... in nerdy terms: a Kobiyashi Maru.
What I would like you to understand is that the devs did everything they could, worked a TON of unpaid overtime, put their time and passion into an un-winnable situation, and were effectively stabbed in the back. Many of these guys are my close friends, they have family to take care of, and overpriced rent to deal with. They just came off busting their butts for months, to be let go, without warning. Perhaps a little empathy is in order.
Almost every multiplayer online game has problems upon release. These problems become exaggerated when a development team is kept in constant turmoil and paranoia via misinformation and a high rate of employee turnover. When the people you trust around you are being let go, it becomes difficult to emotionally invest yourself in the titanic sinking ship. Nonetheless, I can tell you the devs STILL pushed themselves as hard as they could.
Furthermore, the problem with the game at this point has everything to do with the authentication servers being slammed, A.K.A. not a controllable variable by the devs. Sure there are bugs, they WERE being fixed, and now you'll be lucky to see any fixes in the near future."
That's pretty much the gist of the post. Interesting if true.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
That kind of thing, if true, makes me question my resolve to become a game developer after I finish my masters in CS. I've always told myself I wouldn't let that bother me -- I would put a third or a half of my income into savings so I could weather the occasional "congratulations, good job -- now you're all fired!" from a developer.
Hearing about what it must have really been like to work there with all this going on . . . . It all makes sense, but I never pictured it that way. It must have taken real emotional toughness to produce these kinds of results in that environment. (Auth server problems notwithstanding.) Not sure if the devs will ever see this, but kudos.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release,
Get back to me when you think you can do a better job. Servers cost money. Co-locations cost money. Bandwidth availability costs money. If you over-predict then you have idle servers sitting there costing you money by the minute, where as if you under predict, well, a bunch of people complain about a free game.
I'm not blaming the ex-dev team for it, but I definitely think the Army screwed the pooch on this, again. Just because this game is federally subsidized doesn't make it free. And I mean, the information was available-- most of the people playing on release day had already pre-loaded the game. They should have had some idea of what the server load would be. If their plan was really "Let's release the game as unplayable, and in a few weeks when most of the people give up it'll be fine," then that's just as bad.
Anyway, Steam is now downloading a patch which they say fixes the auth issues. Here's hoping.
Edit: But lots of people on the forums are saying that it doesn't help.
Edit 2: Yeah, I'm still locking up when I click training.
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release,
Get back to me when you think you can do a better job. Servers cost money. Co-locations cost money. Bandwidth availability costs money. If you over-predict then you have idle servers sitting there costing you money by the minute, where as if you under predict, well, a bunch of people complain about a free game.
I'm not blaming the ex-dev team for it, but I definitely think the Army screwed the pooch on this, again. Just because this game is federally subsidized doesn't make it free. And I mean, the information was available-- most of the people playing on release day had already pre-loaded the game. They should have had some idea of what the server load would be. If their plan was really "Let's release the game as unplayable, and in a few weeks when most of the people give up it'll be fine," then that's just as bad.
Anyway, Steam is now downloading a patch which they say fixes the auth issues. Here's hoping.
Edit: But lots of people on the forums are saying that it doesn't help.
Indeed, those of us in the US did pay for the game with our taxes.
On the patch: It worked ok for me, at least for training issues. I was able to complete CLS, MOUT, and unlocked SDM. Unfortunately I only got basic on that and too few people are doing the training to have a clear idea of what score / accuracy / # targets hit I need. Anyway, I wouldn't say the patch has 100% fixed anything, but it's at least worth trying to get through the training at this point.
I was able to get through all of training finally, and even got my MOS with the SAW.
Was only able to join one server and actually play so far though. Finding the punk buster enabled ones seems to have a better chance of actually working.
Yeah, it looks like this was the plan all along. And I don't think the launch problem is related to the dev team at all, just a problem with the old server architecture which may not even have been under their purview.
It's really weird how, for old AA, they kept the dev team around for years doing updates and such, and this time around they decided, "well, shit, it compiles, I guess we don't need these guys anymore!"
I mean, server auth problems are expected, but the menu bug (among many other examples in this rickety bullshit software) is inexcusable.
Daedalus on
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SixCaches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2009
I played aa3 for about 15 minutes last night. Ran into a few annoying bugs and had to quit.
Goddamn, getting into a game is the most fucking annoying thing. And while in the game you have to put up with the most goddamn annoying bugs... But if you're willing to put up with all the nonsense, this game is fun. A lot of fun. So much goddamn fun.
MegaMek on
Is time a gift or punishment?
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
edited June 2009
I don't think I've played this since.. 1.5 (if there was such a version). Back then, even, it was a chore getting into games. And I could never tell the good guys from the bad.
Also, it seemed like no matter what team I was on, I had an M16. Always. Yet the other team I was shooting always had AK's. I just couldn't wrap my head around that.
Posts
Negative, although they said any training you do manage to do, will count once it's fixed.
edit: Actually found a group of german's playing over hamachi and joined with them, much lols were had. When they get the authentication server figured out, this just might be a good game.
Did you give HL2 a miss when the Steam servers went down on release day under the strain?
Except for they already released it and already went through all of these exact problems. Then four some odd years later they are still going through the same exact same scenarios? Unacceptable and in in no way can you compare HL2's launch to this. HL2 launch had no predecessor and was pretty much the first of it's kind as far as valve's concerned. This is just inexcusable. It's not like I'm in a fanboy rage here, I didn't even know development on the game even still existed, nor did I care. The only difference is before I would have tried and probably enjoyed it. Now I'm just not going to bother.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
Well that's not really a very rational response.
I think the root of the problem is that the Army just doesn't get games. The way it sounds is that higher ups were asking the impossible and not willing to pay for it, so this is what they got. Keep in mind that almost all of the problems happening currently are due to the fact that more or less at the moment of release they had upwards of 20 million connections to the auth servers, which those servers were totally unprepared for. Some people are saying they're the same antiquated AA2 servers, which now have to service both requests?
So, sure, they should have known, especially since presumably most of those were already preloaded on Steam, so hard numbers were actually available, but again, the Army doesn't get games. There probably wasn't any allowance in the (frozen) budget to upgrade those servers. The devs themselves were working long hours under huge pressure and with no information, and probably wouldn't have had the power to do anything about the server problems if they had known.
Of course, now that it's obvious that their $x million recruiting tool is literally unplayable, they (or rather, whoever the new dev team is :?) are going to do something about it. Presumably. We'll see.
Well, Steam goes down whenever a big game launches. DoW II wouldn't install for a while when it came out. I'm pretty sure Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts broke it. Plenty of games I didn't buy get frozen when they're supposed to unlock because Steam can't handle it.
Honestly? I think your criticism here is off-base. Wargaming is a fundamentally-military endeavor. Some of the best wargames out there were developed specifically for one or more branches of the United States military with the express intent of being played over large decentralized networks before they ever were released to the public. Because of my background, the first game that leaps to mind in this category is Harpoon networked computer wargaming is hardly a Navy-only endeavor.
Also: from my experience with the ridiculous shit the Army wastes money on (see spoiler*) I'm disinclined to think of them as tightwads who won't pay for a recruiting tool.
This looks to be a combination of Steam's multiplayer release fuckups and the tired story of a vendor not delivering what they promised on a DoD contract.
*
I don't mean to say that they don't understand the technical aspects of wargames. There's an in-house version of AA they use for training simulations with VR or whateve that is supposed to be pretty cool, and is worked on by a different team (who I guess are now also in charge of the public version?). But the production, development and deployment of a mass-market online FPS is a fundamentally different animal. The way it sounds is that they put the out-of-house developer team for the public version under impossible deadlines during a hiring freeze while slowly firing them and not sharing any information, only to fire them all without warning immediately after release. That's mainly what tells me they're out of touch with the public games industry—*any gamer can tell you that the first patch is almost as important as the main release.
So there are two possibilities: Either the dev team was totally incompetent, and didn't predict the server stresses from general release, or they were never given the resources to do necessary stress testing and upgrade the aging server platform. From the reports coming from the (now unemployed) dev team, it sounds much more like the latter.
Incidentally, the problems they're having with auth are completely unrelated to the (comparatively minor) Steam deployment problems. For what it's worth, my AA3 account page now reflects my grenade and 320 performance (but not SAW?), so the servers are running, they just can't cope with all the traffic. One theory I've seen is that people are doing the trainings, seeing that they don't register, and then doing them again, increasing the load on the servers even further.
and unless there's a way to increase accuracy other than the ironsights I don't see myself getting better than a 25/40 due to my shaky reaction with a mouse + weapon sway
:^:
edit: and now along with the MENU bugging, and the inability to see my own hud, I can't see the viewmodel during automatic rifleman qualification, just prone and whoops you have no gun!
fuck this, tell me when it works
old bug, try hitting the number buttons until you find the one that equips the SAW, I think it was 4.
Get back to me when you think you can do a better job. Servers cost money. Co-locations cost money. Bandwidth availability costs money. If you over-predict then you have idle servers sitting there costing you money by the minute, where as if you under predict, well, a bunch of people complain about a free game. Let us look at everyone's favorite gaming companies: Blizzard and Valve. Gee, they haven't had monstrous fuckups have they? Remember the WoW launch? People paid $15/mo to stare at a login screen or wait hours to get into a raid. Or the WC3 launch? Battlenet died repeatedly. Steam sucked balls for almost entire year before they worked most of the bugs out, and the servers still take a dump during free weekends or release of popular games. These two big shots muck up, what do you expect from a small fry like AA?
Give it a few weeks to weed out the wankers who'll never make it through training, the ones who try and don't like it, and the ones who just saw 'free' and decided to give it a chance but really have no interest.
Someone made a post on the official forums, Feydr, claiming to be a member of the AA3 team. His post was deleted soon after. Here it is:
"I worked as a Dev at AA Emeryville for the last year and a half and I hope I can appeal to your rationality and common sense. I would like you to imagine trying to build a game with an impossible deadline, steadily declining workforce (via firings), a hiring freeze, constantly being fed misinformation, having the 'higher ups' completely ignore your weekly plea for either A) more time, or
There are problems with the release beyond the devs control. In fact, the bureaucracy is so convoluted that you can't even begin to imagine the breadth and scope of B.S. the devs had to deal with daily. In short, imagine being the subcontractor of a subcontractor of a contractor to the government. Sure millions of dollars may have been poured into this project, but how much do you think made it to the actual DEV team, the people MAKING the game, after it was filtered by the bureaucracy?
I realize if you are a gamer, you rightly expect a game to work. Period. But I would ask that you imagine for a second that you actually DON'T understand what it takes to make this particular game, and you really don't understand the many obstacles that were placed in front of the devs... in nerdy terms: a Kobiyashi Maru.
What I would like you to understand is that the devs did everything they could, worked a TON of unpaid overtime, put their time and passion into an un-winnable situation, and were effectively stabbed in the back. Many of these guys are my close friends, they have family to take care of, and overpriced rent to deal with. They just came off busting their butts for months, to be let go, without warning. Perhaps a little empathy is in order.
Almost every multiplayer online game has problems upon release. These problems become exaggerated when a development team is kept in constant turmoil and paranoia via misinformation and a high rate of employee turnover. When the people you trust around you are being let go, it becomes difficult to emotionally invest yourself in the titanic sinking ship. Nonetheless, I can tell you the devs STILL pushed themselves as hard as they could.
Furthermore, the problem with the game at this point has everything to do with the authentication servers being slammed, A.K.A. not a controllable variable by the devs. Sure there are bugs, they WERE being fixed, and now you'll be lucky to see any fixes in the near future."
That's pretty much the gist of the post. Interesting if true.
Hearing about what it must have really been like to work there with all this going on . . . . It all makes sense, but I never pictured it that way. It must have taken real emotional toughness to produce these kinds of results in that environment. (Auth server problems notwithstanding.) Not sure if the devs will ever see this, but kudos.
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
I'm not blaming the ex-dev team for it, but I definitely think the Army screwed the pooch on this, again. Just because this game is federally subsidized doesn't make it free. And I mean, the information was available-- most of the people playing on release day had already pre-loaded the game. They should have had some idea of what the server load would be. If their plan was really "Let's release the game as unplayable, and in a few weeks when most of the people give up it'll be fine," then that's just as bad.
Anyway, Steam is now downloading a patch which they say fixes the auth issues. Here's hoping.
Edit: But lots of people on the forums are saying that it doesn't help.
Edit 2: Yeah, I'm still locking up when I click training.
Indeed, those of us in the US did pay for the game with our taxes.
On the patch: It worked ok for me, at least for training issues. I was able to complete CLS, MOUT, and unlocked SDM. Unfortunately I only got basic on that and too few people are doing the training to have a clear idea of what score / accuracy / # targets hit I need. Anyway, I wouldn't say the patch has 100% fixed anything, but it's at least worth trying to get through the training at this point.
Was only able to join one server and actually play so far though. Finding the punk buster enabled ones seems to have a better chance of actually working.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59202
Apparently they got fired either way.
Yeah, it looks like this was the plan all along. And I don't think the launch problem is related to the dev team at all, just a problem with the old server architecture which may not even have been under their purview.
I mean, server auth problems are expected, but the menu bug (among many other examples in this rickety bullshit software) is inexcusable.
Yeah, don't think I'll bother.
Also, it seemed like no matter what team I was on, I had an M16. Always. Yet the other team I was shooting always had AK's. I just couldn't wrap my head around that.
Also, had me passing all the training but the last one. Weird, that.
Audio sounds horrid through my headphones - particularly the trainers talking. But anyway, it's perfectly playable now.