Complete list of bugs and issues, and roadmap ?

[Siegfroh]

I can tell you a good news: there will be an official release indeed, before Summer!

Is there any detailed roadmap ?

What are the current issues known ? (please publish the detailed list)
Which ones will be dealt with with the next release ?
Which ones will be dealt with in later relases ? (and when ?)
Which ones will be left for good ?

I was so unlucky to buy (pay for) this game in a shop in 2011, to find out that I had only paid for becoming a beta tester. I contributed a bit in the paradoxplaza forum, but was soon fed up by the slow progress in dealing with the issues. So I just regarded it as a misinvestment. I still had enough money left to buy food and pay my rent. ;-)

By chance I came accross Pride of Nations again last week, and thought to give it a try again. It seems the game is quite playable now, but maybe it is not. I can't judge, as I don't know what is still wrong.

I could continue and play and find out myself, only to be told these things had been found out by other good-natured beta testers before:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?39821-Questions-on-French-units-with-the-1-04rc5-patch

But I want to play, not be held up by mistakes and bugs and waiting for answers and solutions.

I really like the concept of PON (though I will never buy an AGEOD game again), because of its complexity and the multitude of different decisions to be taken. But this means I would have to invest a lot of time to enjoy playing it, and I don't want to come accross a bug, unknown to me, but encounterd by numerous other beta testers before, which ruins my enjoyment of the game as late as turn 500.

Answering my questions above would help me to determine whether I can start a game right now (and live with all the pending issues), better wait for the next release, or come back in another four years and see what had happened in the meantime.

And surely this list of issues would be of use for others who have bought this game as well, and maybe even for new customers who think of buying the game.

[Lemoni]

Is there any detailed roadmap ?

What are the current issues known ? (please publish the detailed list)
Which ones will be dealt with with the next release ?
Which ones will be dealt with in later relases ? (and when ?)
Which ones will be left for good ?

I was so unlucky to buy (pay for) this game in a shop in 2011, to find out that I had only paid for becoming a beta tester. I contributed a bit in the paradoxplaza forum, but was soon fed up by the slow progress in dealing with the issues. So I just regarded it as a misinvestment. I still had enough money left to buy food and pay my rent. ;-)

By chance I came accross Pride of Nations again last week, and thought to give it a try again. It seems the game is quite playable now, but maybe it is not. I can't judge, as I don't know what is still wrong.

I could continue and play and find out myself, only to be told these things had been found out by other good-natured beta testers before:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?39821-Questions-on-French-units-with-the-1-04rc5-patch

But I want to play, not be held up by mistakes and bugs and waiting for answers and solutions.

I really like the concept of PON (though I will never buy an AGEOD game again), because of its complexity and the multitude of different decisions to be taken. But this means I would have to invest a lot of time to enjoy playing it, and I don't want to come accross a bug, unknown to me, but encounterd by numerous other beta testers before, which ruins my enjoyment of the game as late as turn 500.

Answering my questions above would help me to determine whether I can start a game right now (and live with all the pending issues), better wait for the next release, or come back in another four years and see what had happened in the meantime.

And surely this list of issues would be of use for others who have bought this game as well, and maybe even for new customers who think of buying the game.

So many people have bought Windows 3.11, Windows 95 Windows Vista. They didn t buy their food and they didn t pay their rent because they prefered to buy those unfinished programs. They were unlucky like you...What a pity..
After so many years since PON 's release the DEVS are still here, in this forum ,answering all questions and trying to do their best. But I guess they also have to buy their food and pay their rent so they work on other projects as well. Sorry for the irony but I couldn t resist...

[Siegfroh]

Smile, I didn't want to blame anybody. If someone were to blame, it would be the company's sales department.

However: On budget, in time, working: chose any two of them !

It is just disappointig for me to see a potentially great game still so buggy, or seemingly buggy, after four years ! But that is obviously my personal problem, if others like you are happy with PON as it is.

Therefore, in my first post I am just asking for some info to have the basis for a rational decision whether I will continue to invest time in the game, or leave it for good.

[loki100]

Smile, I didn't want to blame anybody. If someone were to blame, it would be the company's sales department.

However: On budget, in time, working: chose any two of them !

It is just disappointig for me to see a potentially great game still so buggy, or seemingly buggy, after four years ! But that is obviously my personal problem, if others like you are happy with PON as it is.

Therefore, in my first post I am just asking for some info to have the basis for a rational decision whether I will continue to invest time in the game, or leave it for good.

to be honest you may find people more willing to engage with your questions if you dropped the oh so witty 'look at me, I'm a beta tester' approach.

The game with the current unofficial patch is great - its completely stable and relatively ok for turn processing. You may need to do a little bit of event writing as the game goes on to help it along - but that is not essential and more a matter of personal taste. There has been a lot of work on the events, Pocus has indicated he'll try and do some work on turn processing. I'd rather wait a little longer for what will probably be the final patch so he has chance to see what he can do, but that wouldn't stop me starting a game now if that is waht I wanted to do.

The biggest problem for PoN is that Paradox screwed up the financial basis by pushing it out a very low price and then allowing steam to sell it for $.99. That severly hampers development - something you might like to take account of when pushing the very witty 'beta-tester' line?

[Siegfroh]

When I am disappointed I tend to get a bit sarcastic - no offence intended with my "beta tester" remark - and I know I can't compare to real beta testers.

The game still fascinates me, but whenever I got into some detail, I came accross some strange behaviour, message line or tooltip (see my last messages in this forum). If I know before they are there (hence my request for the issue list) and don't mean anything or mean something different from what they indicate, I can live with this.

There are many other things which seem to work perfectly well (for example the whole economics system) and which have very useful and well thought-through ingame tools. But do they really work perfectly well ? I don't know, how can I believe they do when other ingame messages are incorrect and constantly undermine my trust in the proper working of the whole game ?

Whatever happened in the past (Paradox or other things), is not important in my eyes. What matters is the actual state of the game now (and possible future improvements or changes), so that buyers or owners can see under which restrictions they would play it, and decide whether they want to do it or not.

[Random]

If you're looking for perfection I would say bin the game now, along with all of your other games of any genre and type. There are a number of people in the PON community that continue to tweak this outstanding title but they are more concerned with coming up with solutions than for creating lists of bothersome issues for the attention deficit crowd.

Loki100 (one of those stellar PON community members) was entirely accurate in his assessment and certainly the game is not for everyone. It is quite complex and nuanced while some concepts and routines take some time to understand. It takes effort on the part of the Player and so is unpopular with the lazy and the stupid. It is a game for the long term that can be subtle but it's not "perfect" and probably never will be. Try it again or not as you like but it appears that no matter how the game behaves, you have made up your mind and have zero intentions on making any effort to appreciate the game for what it does. Rather, with you it seems to be all about obsessing over its flaws and nobody denies that these do exist and seek fixes instead of preparing a catalog to provide ammunition for the many PON haters.

There's help here for specific game issues, particularly if the sarcasm gets dropped at the door. Otherwise leave the lights on when you go as there are still people here (most far more knowledgeable than I) for whom PON provides an entirely unique and fascinating strategic gaming experience. Warts and all.

-C

[Siegfroh]

Random, it seems I didn't make my point clear. The only reason I am still present in this forum is the fascinating complexity of the game.

You and others have played the game for a long time, and when you come accross wrong or self-contradicting information within the game, by your experience you know what to make of it.

I as a newbie to the game do not. Of course, I can ask here in the forum, hoping that my style or sarcasm doesn't offend the knowlegable (not to mention that there exists no right at all to claim from others that they share their knowledge to anybody - I am grateful for everybody who does). In the meantime I have to wait for an answer, or maybe make a game decision I wouldn't have made had I known better. And maybe the game sometimes even gives some seemingly consistent info but which is wrong ? It would be good to be reassured.

I agree it can make fun trying to figure out what a message in the game really means, and look at certain wrong infos in the game as a kind of fog of war.

But the "list of bothersome issues" would just help to be able to concentrate on the really interesting features of the game. It would reassure me and other newbies that we can ignore certain ingame messages, or tell us what they are really meant to mean. Newbies like me wouldn't try to help improving the game by pointing out issues, only to learn they are known since ages and have been reported many times before. And the knowledgable contributors to this forum would not have to read the same boring questions over and over again.

It is not a "catalogue to provide ammunition for the many PON haters". Why should someone "hate" a game ? And if someone really does, of what concern is this to those who enjoy the game and love to play it ?

To sum it up: There are already a lot of very helpful strategy guides, AARs etc. which help to understand the game mechanics. What is missing, is the "bothersome list", maybe even with some provisional workarounds, which helps to understand and cope with the flaws of the game.

[JWW]

So you will never buy another AGEOD game again. How many do you own? J

[seathom]

I have great respect for Loki and the others who posted replies to your thread; however, as a very sarcastic American, I didn't take any offense to your replies. My view is that PON is the best game ever (even with its flaws). Those flaws still make the game absolutely playable as is.

A lot of the flaws that people discover are really more, "wouldn't it be great if the game did this or that" and the developers and others help us out how to do that (which I find quite rare and appreciative in the gaming community), not "I can't finish my game because its broken".

If you really want to play the game, my suggestion is go for it; my bet is that you would LOVE it. I bought the game early (version 1.01) and while I thought it was a super game, I couldn't really get into it because I didn't appreciate the economic aspects of the game (which is ironic because economics is my specialty!). I periodically would come to the forum and browse because in the back of my mind, I kept coming back to the game). Eventually, I read part of Loki's Sardinia-Piedmont AAR (on the economics aspects) and told myself to go for it and bought the game for a third time on January 21, 2015. With timely and sensational help from players like Jim-NC and others, I finally really got into the game and enjoy it immensely.

I still have questions, but those are more, "do you think I should do this". My only concern is that later in the game I may have to script an event or two but I know if that comes I will get great help and once that fear is over, I will have learned something new -- so it's actually a win-win situation once I conquer my fear and laziness! I was around turn 400 and accidentally lost the saved game when I started poking around other nations starting positions and didn't pay attention to my own saved game, otherwise I would still be playing that game and I had no problems mechanically with the game. In fact, I live 90 miles south of Seattle and my groans were heard within the city - they though Putin was flying warplanes overhead, at first they were overjoyed, then they remembered that Putin was not Lenin and they started sobbing like me - a very sad situation!).

[vaalen]

PON is the most rewarding game I have ever played. It still has some problems, but these are so minor when compared to the incredible experience I have had with this game that they do not matter that much to me. If I could choose only one game in the universe to play, it would be PON, without question.

However, when you said you would never buy another Ageod game, I lost all interest in helping you. I love Ageod, and have great respect for the developers and the community. I have bought every game Ageod released, and I will continue to do so, because I know I will wind up with a treasure.

[ifailmore]

i brought pon acidentally at full price it was ok for a bit but ive yet to see bugs cos after 4 or so years the turn time is so slow i would like to expereince the game further but im finding it hard to hold on

[Siegfroh]

However, when you said you would never buy another Ageod game, I lost all interest in helping you. I love Ageod [...]

I didn't mean to upset you or others. These were hasty words, and one should never say never. I was just ill-humoured by being confronted with the imperfections in the game.

But it remains quite improbable that I will buy in the future any Paradox or Ageod games (I speak of the companies, not the game concepts). If I buy a newly published game, we have to expect that there are still some bugs and glitches. It is like this, all companies do it, so we bear the impertinence that we are sold a half-finished game. Usually, within a year, after a few updates, the game is completed and works. And we are used to it.

Four years after it has been presented to the public, Pride of Nations still greets you with little bugs and mistakes:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?39827-XY-are-now-ready-to-make-peace-with-my-nation

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?39821-Questions-on-French-units-with-the-1-04rc5-patch

I didn't seek for them, I just came accross them within the first two rounds when I was studying aspects of the game in order to learn the game mechanics. During the last four years, hundreds of new players must have been confronted with them like me. Four years ! They are not some arcane mistakes only one player in hundred would come accross after hundreds of turns, or problems of modding, which is just a bonus for which we can't claim support (the more happy I am for the one answer I got). That they have not been mended is surely not because they got unnoticed, or fixing them would be too complicated. It is just because Ageod the company doesn't care to provide a finished game in a reasonable time, and assign enough man hours to achieve it. No need to, we have already paid for the game.

Instead, on the company's product page:

http://www.ageod.com/products/486/details/Pride.of.Nations

no mentioning of any pending issues, the game is presented as being perfect (as it was in 2011, but with a newly published game we know what to expect).

I for myself feel fooled by such a behaviour. And I do not want to support this by buying other products of this company. Especially, because I don't know whether the other games they sell are treated the same way ;-)

If it were a freeware game or a modding project of volunteers, the situation would be different: no money taken, no promises, here I must be grateful (and am) for everything which is offered.

By the way, if I have involuntarily upset or insulted anyone here, forgive me, it was not my intention. It seems my style of expressing myself is not in line with the feelings of many of the regular contributors here. No offence intended nor taken, it is just incompability of characters. So best I leave.

The proposal I made in the beginning of this thread would help to systematically eliminate all bugs and glitches which are still there.

As I am still fascinated by the game concept, I will come back in a few months, or maybe in four years, in the optimistic hope that the game will have been updated to a reasonable level.

[ifailmore]

on the french units bug does it affect the ai in making more units making it hard for the french to develop? A for your wolof/algeria post I thought as france you already control algeria making the nation in itself eliminated and if any rebels show up they will be the algerians.

[Prussia]

bump

[Caoster]

The biggest problem for PoN is that Paradox screwed up the financial basis by pushing it out a very low price and then allowing steam to sell it for $.99. That severly hampers development - something you might like to take account of when pushing the very witty 'beta-tester' line?

These are not mutually exclusive things.
Did Paradox screw up the sales of this game? YES.
Did I buy the game the day it was released? YES.
Was I essentially a beta-tester for this game for almost a year before it worked right? YES

Paradox screwing up the sales in no way negates my justified opinion that myself and all the other early buyers were and in some ways are still beta testers for this game. This game was literally unplayable on release. It crashed ALL THE TIME. So yes, many of us are going to continue to feel that way about this game, and that opinion is never going to change.

"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad," - Shigeru Miyamoto.

EDIT And I just realized this thread was bumped and is a year old.

But to answer Siegfroh, sadly, there is still no authoritative list of bugs and issues, and no list of when or how they will be fixed.

[Siegfroh]

But to answer Siegfroh, sadly, there is still no authoritative list of bugs and issues, and no list of when or how they will be fixed.

My impression from the last two or three weeks is that finally all the known remaining issues are taken care of. The only problem is that some issues with the game may be unknown to those currently playing it.

If someone comes accross a stilll pending issue in the game, best is to (re-)post it here and profit from the attention the game currently gets from the developers:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?50532-PON-official-quickfix-1-04-2

[Pocus]

Positive thinking