View Full Version : How is this going to look when new players arrive with BDoY ?
First of all, this is NOT a flame, just something that happened today (is happening now).
I talked a buddy at work to join Neocron, and he did. I mean, he is trying to. He's been trying to install this game for 2 days with no luck, and his free trial period is over in another day or two.
We are chatting on the phone and MSN. He just broke a keyboard over his knee in pure anger over the patching system which would not let him finish neither autoupdating nor downloading the patches manually from the ftp link I gave him.
I think he just broke his second keyboard, and he only got two. He's a really cool person otherwise, nice to everybody and easygoing, not the faintest spark of a psycho in this guy, still the game installation made him snap.
It made me think what kind of hell this forum could turn into with the release of BDoY, and I can only guess all of the patches will still have to be downloaded one-by-one, not in big chunks.
I fear this guy will leave without trying more, anyway, he just told me he had enough already.
I myself, am used to all the problems installing this game, but it is unforgivingly hard for newbies, period. Some get it easy, others get a nightmare.
Martin J. Schwiezer
29-05-04, 13:51
We are currently in the process of setting up an alternative patch server for the auto-patching, but there shouldn't be any problems with a fast manual download from the current server. Why was he unable to d/l the patches? What was his problem?
I am nut quite sure yet, he haven't spoken to me after he.. oh he just told me "to hell with it" (seriously) lol. Now he is fairly new at using computers too, but told me the manual download was cancelled for no reason. He's on ADSL with decent bandwidth, so I hav no idea what caused it.
I've heard this before, there is a problem.
It's very user unfriendly, it's slow (autopatch) and doesn't work for everyone.
Told two people from work to try it out, both had similar problems and didn't even make it ingame :(
and why doesn't the trial download contain al patches :confused:
My friend just told me he don't care about it anymore :( Well I'll just have to wait and see if he perhaps would want to have another go later. I told him to log in and post here, but he seems to have forgotten his forum username or password :rolleyes:
ResurgencE
29-05-04, 14:16
Heh..A similar thing happened to me.
Tried to talk a friend into playing the game. He kept having trouble installing the patches. When he finally managed it, he got into the game and had several sync loops/fres.
So he cancelled his trial account. :/
Hopefully with the advent of the expansion, things will get better. I have faith. :D
Firstly why not burn the patches to CD for your friends so they don't have to install them?
And also, maybe it would be an idea for KK to provide all the patches upto BDoY on the CD, so that it would save people downloaded them.
I'm sorry guys but that is the story of neocron.
The guy that manages to install it finally will be able to test it. And i've go work colleague that tried already and bailed out, because of the problem patching.
If the guy manages to install and launch the game. He will zone to sewer : Fatal...humm ok :wtf: . Relog..continue. Freeze ! Synchonize !!! hum ..ok O_o relog. Oh ! Syncrhonize still but 0 nc 0 health :eek: etc.. Ok Rerererelog. Oh !? Black screen synchronize 8| . Finally relog, and he is dead :confused: :mad: :mad: .
So he log off, uninstall the game and say ok i'll wait for beta to be over.
So i dont bother anymore trying to convince friends to play NC. There is too much stuff not working for a newb to come into the game.
Hope BDOY will fix a lot of those issues, but i can only hope, with the history of KK, I can't be sure. Despite the game is amazing, I love it so much and i've been playing even with all those problems, but no new comer will face them more then 5 minutes. :rolleyes:
That is what makes neocron a small game and not known, that is not the background, the classes, the playstyle, everything is amazing. The biggest chance KK had, is that Planetside is an empty game. Because MMOFPS has definitly a market to it, and Neocron shines in this gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, i dont want to play planetside, i want to play Neocron but without all the bugs and hassles that come with it. Managing to escape 5 people and then die because I crashed when zoning to the next zone while I run toward GR, is one of the most frustrating thing in this game :p
Darth Slayer
29-05-04, 15:02
Ok for u manual patchers.
When u activate the launcher and ago to the patch section to download the patches what ever you do DO NOT close the launcher this will cancel the download. I dunno if this is your problem manually downloading the patches but do please try it.
Breaking keyboards eh ? I dunno whether this is the right kind a game for your friend what ever will he do after he's been ganked for the 100th time... :eek:
Yes, I will indeed burn him a CD, but chances are he will just give me my NC CDs back on tuesday anyway, he is sick and tired of it even before he have tried.
He got an AMD PC with ATI Radion 9600 or something, not sure, and I have this feeling he will get the freeze / lockup / etc en masse if he got in anyway. I have a self-built Intel P4 2.8 and rarely crash at all with Neocron. Not to brag, just facts.
My friend couldn't be bothered with finding the official download, because both what used to be my main demo / trial / video download site (Gamershell) and the other download links on www.neocron.com (http://www.neocron.com) have made it next to impossible to get to the download at all.
I didn't believe him at first, but then tried myself, and I had to give up downloading anything. At that moment, at least one of the sources was a dead link, don't remember which one, but it is not my responsibility anyway to keep those official download links updated.
He couldn't download from any of the places, and gave up. And it is kind of sad if I have to do everything for him to play. What about other newbies then without friends to helping them out? Especially newbies with the attention span of a 10yo.
NO matter what, IT IS REALLY HARD to get into this game for a newbie, and that even before he/she starts playing! An additional autopatch server sounds nice for sure, it will be very welcome if it makes the autopatching faster.
Downloading patches manually? Well you know what, the last 2 times I tried patching that way when installing NC on my puter, it failed, due to something happening during the download. It is far from fail-safe. Then I will give my bud this CD with the patches, make him borrow my NC CDs for a little longer, make him forget his free trial period is up by long, and then get the pissed off messags on MSN: ""#Ī"#Ī it failed again! I tried copying those patches from the CD like you said, with the EXE, and it failed, I am so sick and tired of this!! *smash* (sound of him breaking my NC CDs).
It is most unfortunate that this has not been "fixed" long ago. It has been mentioned several times by other players how the installation itself has made many players go away before they even got to try the game.
I do understand that the guys at Reakktor is trying as hard as they can, and I myself really enjoy the game. I just hope certain issues will be fixed / improved (a lot) by the release of Beyond Dome of York. I really look forward to that expansion too, have of course pre-ordered it.
QuantumDelta
29-05-04, 15:28
Long shot but;
Tell him this;
Download ALL THE PATCHES MANUALLY.
Except 159, and except 186 (I believe it's 187 that auto re-downloads every time?)
Or, download the launcher for the US Version.
This problem has existed for a very long time, the work around is basically deleting the patches and letting it download those manually (unfortunately 186 is big).
Or Downloading the fixed launcher.
------
MJS - It's been said before, this problem, is probably one of the single biggest reasons why Neocron has such a low player count these days;
You get, virtually no new players because they can't get around this, or, if they do, it's simple dumb luck that they did, or it's because of the community telling them how to fix it.
I have even had people who've played this game a long time ask this question and genuinely not having been able to play neocron for two weeks with an active account -- because of this.
It really needs something more ....user friendly to fix it rather than a semi-suggestive Launcher replacement or a really bizarre workaround.
From the sounds of it, his problem is more complex than that, though, but those are the only real bugs with patching we're aware of.
Transfering files and having problems there, now that, sounds like an IDE Problem.
Totally agree with QD, it is a big problem.
I wonder how many potential players Neocron missed because of this. :(
ResurgencE
29-05-04, 15:31
Firstly why not burn the patches to CD for your friends so they don't have to install them?
I could only meet up with him on the weekend. By then, he was well on his way to yanking out every last strand of hair on his head. I gave him the CD with the patches, and it began manually downloading #160. I taught him the hotfix of deleting 159 (because the updated launcher doesnt work for him), and then it had a similar problem with one of the 180 patches. Had to hotfix it again, and then finally, he was in.
20 sync loops/fres later, he gave up. Its a pity, really, since its a wonderful game.
Well KK doenst care about the patching well read our FAQ "duh!"
Well 95% of the players are _MEN_
99% of them DONT read any handlingbook or FAQ to get started
THATS NOT MANLY TO DO!!!!! *aight*
So how hard is it to do a 1 BIG patch exe file that solves it?
Just put it on your FTP and its solved even my 14 year old sister would do that if she was president for KK :confused:
Make the playerbase bigger by doing them a favour...
He won't talk to me now, so I don't care anymore. Will tell him to uninstall and forget about it. Am not going to lose friends over a game.
Dribble Joy
29-05-04, 15:43
It's odd... I've never had patching problems.
But obviously there are serious problems.
If there is a fix to the patching dl system with DoY then all is good.
Let's hope it's good enough.
Just never ever use the launcher to DL the patches. Point people directly at the ftp.neocron.com ftp server and all goes smoothly. Downloading some patches and putting them in the patch directory is child's play.
If you get the download version of NC you only need from about patch 174 forward.
Just put this url into your browser:
ftp://ftp.neocron.com/retailpatches/
and drag the patches you need, either all at once or one at a time, to the c:\program files\neocron\patch directory.
That makes it about 95 times faster to patch.
Another good piece of advice is to download all the software (game plus patches) before you start your trial account. Either that or just cancel your trial and start a new one once you have everything up and running.
N
/edit - I agree that the installation experience of BDOY needs to be foolproof.
Heres what you do. Wire your two computers up on a 100mb network and literally copy your Neocron folder onto his PC. That should go over all the patching bugs and get things to work right away :)
If not then you can always find new friends, plenty of fish in the sea :P.
MJS i think its gone past "talking about it" now...you know how long this has happened for, you dont have any info on the problem...you should have links on the DL page to some text for this problem, you should have links on the NC launcher for text on this problem. It isnt rocket science. Its like buying a new car but not getting the car keys for it so you have to hotwire it everytime you want to drive it.
the installation is foolproof, if you know how to.
problem is, newcomers, and players of old, do not know this, or have forgotten it.
I helped a guy get his to work not long ago, and I asked him for his error.logs, and that log that logs the patching process..
and if everyone else does the same as him, then FAR the biggest problem is the patch below 40 kb wonīt work and redownload every time, thing.
but another thing that was there.. which really surprised me, since it wasnīt in my own installation either..
File Check: file 'terrain\terraingfx.dat' is corrupt, missing, or has been modified. (not critical)
that error is in all my logs too..
however for some reason, he also had :
File Check: file 'neocronlauncher.exe' is corrupt, missing, or has been modified. (not critical)
how can the launcher, being corrupt, be "non critical" ??
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
SOCKMGR : Connection refused.
SOCKETMGR : connect failed
I found no error in his local socket settings, however it seemed he connected with "Localhost" and the self-ip "127.0.0.1" to the server..
which absolutely makes no sense.
my own connects, with my admin account, and my internet IP..
so I donīt know why his wouldnt.
anyways, those Iīve talked to, had some or all of these problems..
hope you can use the details I specified here, to make it easier to install it all, fo those that donīt know how, or those that canīt.
Actually, there's a super simple way to make sure no patching problems occur if you invite a friend of yours to play Neocron.
Simply give him/her your current, up to date, version of the installer. As well as all the patches you've got.
Now, let him/her update as normal, with the occasional running of NLSP.exe and all that stuff, and he/she should have no problems.
Way simpler then anything else, but not viable for completely new players. (Completely new as in, stumbled upon the download version and thouht they'd try it out)
Seriously when you think about its a shame, there should be one big ass package made everytime more than 5 small patches are ready. (5 min. work)
And they should be clearly linked on the front page, for every nib to bang his/her head on so he or she can't miss it.
And tbh I think there should be a way to order them on CD (they can cover the costs by making a price for it doh.)
Manualy downloading the shitloads of patches is a real pain in the a**
Maybe there is a way to tweak the patch system to keep them smaller, but I doubt it will be much smaller, so the work should be directed at the ease of getting the patches (preferably downloading just one big patch right after install)
on a side note: The "Idea" of making the autopatcher work (alot) faster is the best I've seen since retail started, people prefer hitting a button and getting some coffee while everything is patched automatically withoud interuptions.
There's already packages of existing patches Husk, not sure which ones exactly, but I'm pretty certain there's currently 5 and they go from patch 145 to somewhere in the 190's.
How can an even smaller "now company" company even do better at KK at this kind of stuff, even I can do that come on 15 years old how old are you MJS, 30 I dunno i have no idea.
This is totally bullcrap, I have no problem of installing this but i told my 10th friend to try it i had given up, it's stupid.
How can people download Counterstrike in own .exe and that's it, they can play whereas a PAY TO PLAY game needs to have 300 patches downloaded manually cause the autopathc is the worst piece of shit coding and the bandwith is from the gameplay servers aswell ??? (wtf, FROM THE GAMEPLAY SERVERS ??? DUDE!!!!!)
Maybe I'm just too easygoing...I crash, re-connect, GR, re-poke, and laugh about it with my victims/pursuers/friends...and then go back to whatever I was doing...I expect problems, it's normal, the servers have a huge load of people on them (alot of Europeans still use 56k, supposedly)...I'd say that a lot of people probably have SOME config problems...I'm using a crappy little 750mhz PIII, not too many problems....that alt-tab thing really pisses me off, more than anything else...the more people that are on the server, the more problems people will have, it's common sense...I don't know where Saturn is based, I know most of the rest are European, right?
About the nerfs and boosts, well...It's not like the player bases are agreed on the changes they want made, everybody wants something different..
If your friend's PC has that much trouble, re-format, defrag, check the firewalls and memory, etc..(I had firewall problems, solved that by creating a second connection, used exclusively for Neocron)..Hey, you have 4 character slots on Saturn, be a pal and let your buddy use one, give him a chance to love the game like we do, maybe after he's played a bit, he will be more tolerant....
I can handle the crashes, only makes me swear during OP wars...my only peeve is waiting for Doy to come out, at least the new tunnels are something to do while waiting...
Disconnecting while inside the tunnels is fun, resume-ing all alone is hell..lol
Almost as much fun as getting piss-drunk blind and Venture Warping :)
The endless patches: well, that does kinda suck, I've got friends that play Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest, patches there are an event, very rare, and they usually always fix what they are supposed to...I think KK should spend more time on the test server or something, because this is getting silly...I'm really happy that the people who couldn't alt-tab before can now, maybe they can check my email for me?
I dont undersand the problem either... a few months ago, I reformatted my computer and had to re install NC. I was really afraid Id never play again because of all these threads like yours saying its impossible to install... it was no problem at all for me. I installed the game, then downloaded the patches in like 2 or 3 big files, unzipped them into patch folder, let the game update itsself, and that was it... took about 30 mis.
He had already installed the game itself, it was the patches that he could not figure out how to download correctly. I think he use a software (Norton) firewall, but I seriously doubt it has anything to do whatsoever with downloading the patches. A firewall simply decides what is allowed to go in and out, it doesn't decide to turn satan and destroy your attempts to make a game work just because it feels like it. And it ask you every time a new internet viable program attempts to connect to the world wide web, and you have to say YES for it to allow those programs to reach the net, simply as that.
*points at previous posts*
Like I said, he stopped talking to me, and I couldn't bother less when he start smashing his equipment over this. If he want problems he'll have it on his own. I've had enough already with a friend visiting me for the weekend, who got problems with his laptop, and of course - guess who's been working on it! Free customer support yay, call me! I guess he finally understood the hint when I yelled at him today, my face turning deep red. He managed to invite a couple viruses and spyware objects since yesterday.
Sometimes I wonder why some people are allowed to own a PC at all.
He had already installed the game itself, it was the patches that he could not figure out how to download correctly. I think he use a software (Norton) firewall, but I seriously doubt it has anything to do whatsoever with downloading the patches. A firewall simply decides what is allowed to go in and out, it doesn't decide to turn satan and destroy your attempts to make a game work just because it feels like it. And it ask you every time a new internet viable program attempts to connect to the world wide web, and you have to say YES for it to allow those programs to reach the net, simply as that.
*points at previous posts*
Like I said, he stopped talking to me, and I couldn't bother less when he start smashing his equipment over this. If he want problems he'll have it on his own. I've had enough already with a friend visiting me for the weekend, who got problems with his laptop, and of course - guess who's been working on it! Free customer support yay, call me! I guess he finally understood the hint when I yelled at him today, my face turning deep red. He managed to invite a couple viruses and spyware objects since yesterday.
Sometimes I wonder why some people are allowed to own a PC at all.
lol, yeah, your bro' might be better off with Super Mario, if he is that high strung
(I charge my friends for free tech support..yep, and they are cool with it, be it a doob, or cash, if it's gonna take me more than half an hour..well, that's life..I could have been playing Neocron when I was showing you how to install a new video card)
He won't talk to me now, so I don't care anymore. Will tell him to uninstall and forget about it. Am not going to lose friends over a game.
rofl he wont talk to you cos he couldnt install a game :lol:
I charge my friends for free tech support.
no wonder your a merc
Another good piece of advice is to download all the software (game plus patches) before you start your trial account. Either that or just cancel your trial and start a new one once you have everything up and running.
N
/edit - I agree that the installation experience of BDOY needs to be foolproof.
Something should have been done to the Neocron Download/Registration Page (http://www.neocron.com/index.php?name=NeoContent&op=modload&file=index&pageID=103).
So you can get the download before you registar the game....
In other words, slap the download link right on that page, tell them to get it patched and running...
And then create an account.....
instead of using the browser to download patches, use some free FTP software.
its always been faster than a browser download. i could see mass difficulty
for a new player though. i think the neocron launcher would take about 4 hours
to download everything, but my FTP prog only took about 7 mins i think. dunno
for sure because i was taking a cig break while downloading.
the patching process is a bit wierd too. i had to run the updatelauncher.exe?
a number of times before the game was fully patched. the whole process from
putting in the install CD to my first glimpse of the neocron world took over an
hour.
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