Dawn of War 2

I'm starting to not buy Relic's story about the Pop Cap Bug fix being held up because of GFWL. There have already been 2 patches...addressing SP performance/crashes, news tabs when you load up the game (nobody cares about them anyway), and other issues the game has.

Yet, the population cap bug (which ruins MP) still exists. Why is it that it's the ONLY issue that requires GFWL cert so far? To me, it doesn't add up. I think they still don't know exactly what they're going to do to fix it and are just giving us a song and dance about GFWL holding them up.

It's been what...a week? A week since the bug is reported? This is just getting ridiculous. Then of course we have the "patching a patch of a patch" conundrum from last night/this morning and all in all, Relic looks really silly here.

Anyone else find it fishy that the #1 issue with the game (nothing else matters until the pop cap bug is fixed. Broke is broke.) is the only issue that needs to be held up for 2 weeks because of GFWL?

seems like those other two fixes could have been data fixes, rather than code fixes to me.

What's your alternative hypothosys? That they are purposefully ignoring a game breaking bug for a malicious purpose? To spite their customers?

Occams razor suggests that is not the case.

This post has been edited by Bridger: Feb 25 2009, 16:39 PM

That's exactly it. Data fixes run straight through to steam, code fixes need certification.

No. In my first post I detailed what I thought was the case. Relic claims it's fixed and they're just waiting on GFWL cert. I believe, it's not fixed and they're still trying to figure things out. They're just telling US that it's fixed and not to worry because they want to do some damage control.

I mean is it really that far fetched? They botched the launch and let a bug like this make it into the live retail version. Is it that hard to believe that they don't know what they're doing in regards to fixing it?

I don't see how the Vista problem could have been just a data fix.

Either way, I'm pretty sure that they have the fix for the pop cap just like they said. I don't see how they could not, since pop was working in beta.

What I think is delaying it more than the Vista fix is that it's part of a bigger patch that changes more things, which means that there are more things for GFWL to cert.

The Vista patch was probably quick to cert for them and a conspiracy theorist might say that they prioritized it because the issue was clashing with one of their own (Microsofts) products.

Well if you want to be skeptical of what they say that's your call, but basing your claim on the fact that two data patches have gone through doesn't make sense. Data patches go through quickly, code patches need certification. Simple as that.

This post has been edited by stevensonmat2: Feb 25 2009, 18:06 PM

We should be seeing the pop-cap issue fixed at the end of next week or beginning of the week after. If not then either the GFWL certification process is taking longer than normal, or someone at relic told a fib.

So far we have no reason not to believe relic when they say they have fix for the problem and they just need it certified.

Yeah just be patient its under review from Microsoft and we prob will see the patch early next week. Give Relic some credit, at least they are releasing patches that fix some major crashes. I think this is the most aggressive patching that relic has done in a long time. The will streamline the whole process and patches will be implemented much faster. Its the first time they are using GFWL please give them some credit and chill out.

The thing that irks me though is that Relic made a decision to go with GFWL. If it turns out that GFWL holds back gamebreaking fixes for 2+ weeks, well then it was a poor decision to use GFWL.

Either way, Relic's at fault.

edit: For the record, it's already been a week. There's no possible way we're looking at another 2+ weeks. If we are, then this is the slowest patching process in years.

This post has been edited by ArtillerySmoke: Feb 25 2009, 18:31 PM

2 weeks : slowest patching process in years
what game have you played til now ?

the fact is they are patching this game so its not a slow process. This is the most aggressive I have seen relic in patching. Like I sad once the process of patching and getting it certified though GFWL is streamlined it will be faster.

Relic is on the right track. Without Steam, all hope would be lost.

The patch isn't in GFWL certification.

The issue is that there are other large changes in the patch that need to be internally tested as they change gameplay in some dramatic ways. Then it'll have to pass THQ QA before release. Microsoft aren't involved.

That's not what Jager said on the main forum. He said the patch with the fix was ready to go and should be through certification in one to two weeks.

Hey! I'm still waiting for a CoH patch...

Right...and in doing so, he lied to us.

This is why they haven't updated us on the issue in over 5 days. Because the "old truth" which was GFWL is holding it up, isn't true now. They're going to release a big patch with not only the pop cap bug fix but other fixes as well. In the end, we'll wait 5 weeks for this fix because they just had a schedule and were sticking to it.

In the end: The MP destroying bug will have never gotten any special attention. It will be treated like any other bug.

Go look @ their site right now. You can't find a trace of the 900 threads that mentioned it. They're onto the next thing already.

I just picked up Endwar. I'm sure it will keep me more than occupied until Empire comes out next week. But once it does, I and others probably won't care about DoW2's patching process much anymore. Relic had a chance to beat other games to the market and what did they do? Negated it by not releasing an immediate fix for the pop cap bug. With all of the other titles coming out now, they've definitely guaranteed that their active DoW2 community will be smaller than it was going to be.

Bottom line? Nobody cares about the bug. People who are unhappy are unhappy because it has never been treated as a priority of any sort. Just another fix that will be in a patch with a dozen other fixes. That and Relic's word game of "we've already commented on this bug 3 times - so for the next 5 weeks while you get nothing more, don't ask...refer yourself to the comment we made 35 days prior".

Why is there no news post about the bug? EVERY other bug, fix, patch, review etc has been posted on their news section in the community forums. Every one but the biggest problem of them all (the only one that ruins MP). Just a coincidence?

This post has been edited by ArtillerySmoke: Feb 25 2009, 20:47 PM

It hasn't been even been a full 7 day week since the retail came out.

ArtillerySmoke, if you know how to reproduce a bug it is very very easy to track down and fix(even easier when it's recently broken code). The bugs that programmers tend to have trouble fixing are the ones that are difficult to reproduce because the algorithms are breaking in a very obscure special case. The chances that relic is lying about having this bug fixed are minimal and the waiting for certification makes a lot of sense when you consider Universe at War patches had to go through the exact same crap.

Evidence please. Where has relic said they are going to bundle this with a big patch?

This post has been edited by Doggiedoodle: Feb 25 2009, 20:51 PM

But yeah, given my brief experience with the earliest version of GFWL in the UAW beta, I'm surprised they've been as good as they are about patching. The UAW beta released and never patched in like two or three months because of some kind of screwup with the GFWL certification process.

The popcap bug needs to be fixed, yes, but given how awful the balance is at the moment it is no more of an issue than imbalance. Either one on it's own breaks multiplayer, one just does it more blatantly. Nids (and to a lesser extent orks) are far OP, and damn near impossible to beat in 1v1 OR 3v3.

Also, I would bet that these two smaller patches were already in certification before release. They prepared the release patch and got it approved, then saw there were still some other minor bugs and set to working on/certifying them so they could release them as soon as possible after release.

They are loosing selling you know? People who bought this game are return it or do not buy at all.