any prototype changes in there at all? Any plans to look into that?

TGE

Great news, some of the balance issues that I heard were addressed, just have to wait till the game comes out in Portugal, probably another week. (while in spain its already been released a week ago...)

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glad that won't be there by the time i get online

Yep, we'll be addressing prototypes very shortly. Our system is put together so we can do balance changes simply and quickly. This will result in fast turnaround times for balance problems. As such, I'm hopeful we'll have some changes for the prototypes this week.

Awesome news, keep up the good work!

kissy face!

Oo la la. Looks like Cuotl are going to be a lot more vicious from now on!

Nice initial patch notes! Much needed small tweaks to Cuotl (Favorite race of mine). Any planned tweaks + balances for Alin? Mainly adjustments to some Tier 1/2/3 units Hp/Dmg/Atk to be more inline with comparative units of the other 2 races? Also are you guys aware of the CTRL + Group bug? Where sometimes you have units in their specified groups and they suddenly wind up all in one group and their groups also? For example;

Group 1 - Hero 1, 5x Desert Walkers
Group 2 - 3x Afreets, 2x Sand Dragon
Group 3 - 2x Glass Cannon, 5x Glass Spiders

If you switch between the groups rapidly it will sometimes lump all units from groups 1,2 and 3 into the last CTRL group you selected and they also stay in there own CTRL groups too.

[This message has been edited by Chaosknight78 (edited 05-22-2006 @ 09:21 PM).]

Thanks for this update.

Would it be possible to let us know if the problems with control groups are being addressed?

When you have units joining a control group from a production building they just stop where they are if you've told that control group to kill something. I can understand why it works that way, but I'd really rather they just went and joined the group so I don't have to scour the map to see who's been left behind.

It's as irritating as this game is awesome. Which is "very".

Nice first patch, but I'm hoping that patches in the future aren't just minor bug fixes and balance changes, but also feature additions? There are a few things that just feel like they're missing, and it's a wonder why when they're so small to begin with. Two things that come to mind immediately are no ability to password protect custom games on gamespy, and not being able to have an after-game chat by clicking Examine Map, like you could in Rise of Nations. Are these types of things being worked on as well, or are those of us who want a little more stuck with what we have? It's strange that there are things like this missing when Rise of Nations had them. The one I'm really wondering about is the incredible lack of options in multiplayer customizable games.... Rise of Nations really had this right, but you've back tracked with Rise of Legends. Was this an intentional decision, or are these features being worked on now that the game is released?

Has the AI been tweaked at all in this patch? I noticed playing against a tougher cuotl AI that their hero was running over my troops. Maybe it's been doing this, but i haven't noticed, or maybe it was unintentionally doing it. But it seemed like it followed the path of my units, seemed pretty cool...

Game balance tweaks are usually a good thing – nevertheless, in the next update could you please do something about limited zoom out capabilities. I may be alone here, but if I’m to face a new and improved Cuotl adversary – it would help a lot if could also see a wider view of the battle space. You did this in RoN, yet RoL still suffers from tunnel vision.

What about those silly restrictions the game puts on graphic settings? Have they been removed? And if they aren't, are you guys at BHG planning on removing them in the future? I mean I don't have the game yet (still playing the 2nd demo), and I really like it, but I dislike the way the game forces (and in some cases, quite wrongly) you to use certain settings.

If lag in a multiplayer game is such an issue, (which I still think isn't, I mean whose is going to play a multiplayer game with a speed of a few fps?) just give players who are presumable overusing their machines a different color, or some indication, so hosts can choose to allow them in or not. Or just disable the settings when playing multiplayer games. There is just no understandable explanation for this, in single player.

I for one never play games like this on the internet much, usually I play them against my brother via LAN, so why can't we ourselves decide how far we wish to push our machines?

This sounds like a great patch! RoL seems very balanced at the moment, and I didn't even know the things you guys balanced needed balancing :P.

Except for the thing with the Glass Spire units ^_^. I agree those Glass Heartseekers are too good for their price and that Marids are too expensive :P.

Hi BHG_Tim, I was wondering if the disapearing of all sounds while playing the game is a game problem?

Because I have sound when it first starts, then 2 or so minutes later no sound at all, and even exiting to the main menu, does not bring the sound back, because even there you now have no sound. This includes music, voices, and battle sounds. This problem ruins the game and its atmosphere. Sorry if it sound a bit confusing.

[This message has been edited by Dragon Fly (edited 05-23-2006 @ 09:02 AM).]

I wonder if they will fix so control groups can be spots on the map like it says you can in the manual.

Example : Ctrl +1 when not selecting anything should store that map spot and when you hit 1 you should travel there instantly.

This is really huuuge for microing armies if its done right.

The manual and in game tips states this is possible but when i try it it says I have no hero selected..wtf.. :P

Could BHG address the clock speed detection for game settings?

The detection is bugged; it incorrectly states that most centrino and solo/duo core processors couldn't handle the high end options, not to mention AMD processors that either don't or barely make the cut despite being rated over 3ghz in actual speed. The detection is fine for Pentium 4 machines, since it seems based on that, but they don't even really sell pentium 4 machines anymore. Even Dell only includes Celeron D / Pentium D on their desktops now... and although they are over 2ghz they are still "slower" clock-wise than the older P4 processors... I mean, should we also believe a 3.2ghz P4 is superior to a Pentium D 820 dual core in performance?

Tim, any chance you guys will ditch Gamespy once and for all? Or at least introduce a "Direct Connect to IP" option like in Rise of Nations?

I don't know why you guys changed from the MP interface in RoN. It was perfect!

Rhetorical question(s): Why do so many developers/publishers use Gamespy? It always has issues and has inferior options. Blizzard's own Battle.net is like 10,000 times better. Why don't you just develop your own matching system and save yourself the licensing fee; it couldn't work any worse than Gamespy.

"I don't know why you guys changed from the MP interface in RoN. It was perfect!"

O_o ?!!!!!!!!!!

Hi all,
Thanks for the responses! I don't want to step on Joe's toes while he's away, but I'll answer some of the q's and leave the rest to Joe upon his return.

*We have heard of the sound effects dropping out. Any cases where we have investigated this, the problem has turned out to be outdated sound card drivers. However, we are actively looking into this since we've been getting sporadic reports on this front.

*We're looking at control group problems, but it's not something we've been able to replicate in-house yet. Chaosknight78, are you seeing this with the "Unit Multigrouping" option checked on or off?

*We will be releasing "variant" types of gameplay in the vein of the RoN MP variants. They will be baked into new maps that we'll be offering for download in the future.

*No AI tweaks occurred in this patch. Trampling heroes have been in since launch.

*To address Taldarin's point about restrictions on graphics settings--the only time we restrict graphics settings due to system configuration is if the particular card can't handle a certain setting such that a crash would occur. If you discover a case where we've wrongly restricted access to a feature that your card could handle, please let us know and we'll work on fixing it. Otherwise, you should be able to turn everything "on" if the perf hit is acceptable to you.

*We do the ability to chat in RoL while in "Examine Map" mode after a multiplayer game. The session remains active until you hit "quit."

Thanks again for everyone's time!
Tim

[This message has been edited by BHG_Tim (edited 05-23-2006 @ 03:19 PM).]

Hi Tim,

Nice to hear from you and thank you for listening to us. There are a few things I'd like to see addressed in RoL. I personally think its a great game, but there are a few things that are easily fixed that would make it better.

1. As was mentioned before about performance setting restrictions, there really shouldn't be restrictions on SP or LAN play. My machine has 2 processors and the game only reads it as raw clock speed at 1600Mhz. I thusly get to look at static buildings and dont get to see all of the beautiful art that you guys have taken the time to make. I feel I did pay for the game so I should have all features available to me. My machine is well maintained and still quite powerful and could very well handle the extra performance taxation. In MP online, I will tend to drop my settings to medium anyway to make sure I dont lose any frame rates, but in SP I would like to play with everything.

2. Alrighty, this is more of a bug. I found that turning on the left mouse button setting where LMB does all actions and RMB deselects, I cant garrison units. It works fine with RMB and (as I found out last night) works if I hold Alt while clicking the building, but I cant fast garrison using the LMB configuration. The garrison roll over icon doesnt even show up. Its just something to look into.

3. Gamespy's online engine. I've played countless games that use this engine and it still hasnt been stabilized. I personally havent gotten any DC's, but there are alot who get them all the time. I do however see alot of loading... and alot of times I cant connect to a game. While in the custom game lobby, things run fairly slow. When a refresh happens, things stop like mouse movement. Once in game, MP is great. Runs incredibly fast and in the couple 2 hours games I played, there were only 2 or 3 waiting for players. These only lasted a fraction of a second, so I cant complain too much about MP. I do have to say I like how the online lobby system looks. The overall layout works pretty well. If stability and speed could be fixed, it'd be fine

4. I miss RoN's world domination campaign. Are there any plans to bring that back? The new campaigns are fun, but they lack the epic feel of RoN's. When I finish RoL campaign, theres not going to be much left for me to do. I'll already have exhausted the story and the quick battle and online wont hold my interest for long. The thing I liked about RoN's world campaign was playing a battle here and there and having it count for something elsewhere. I could use real strategy like in Risk to conquer the world deciding which front I wanted to fight on. RoL campaigns are very linear with really only a hand full of variations. I guess I like alot of choice. Anyway, thats one thing I would like to see come back

Anyway, I hope these get concidered and looked into. They are all things that would greatly increase the games replay value and make it better. This game has the potential to become among the ranks of starcraft and warcraft 3. The balance is decent from what I've read throughout the forums as the debate between who's overpowered is pretty even among the 3 factions. A few more tweaks here and there and it will be just about perfect!

Finally, I just want to say thanks for making this game and supporting this game. There is a level of professionalism in this game that far too many game companies dont have for their games. I will continue to support your games as long as you continue to support your games. I appreciate your commitment to the gamers and your willingness to listen to us. Thanks again for this great game!

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I am sorry to say this, as I respect you guys and your work so much, but what you say here just is not true Tim. You should check with the programmers on all the restrictions that the game imposes without having perfect hardware recognized as such. Right now the only issue I personally am having is with the processor check. Since my processor is a stock 1800mhz chip(as reported in the windows control panel), which is slow in intel clocks, but quite decent in amd clocks, I am unable to turn on large unit physics(which might seem minor to some but putting a decent amount of cash into my setup I expect the best settings). This alone proves that these restrictions are more steep than "a certain setting such that a crash would occur."

Besides this, I also noticed that when switching out my older(but absolutely upper mid-end) video card with 128mb vram with one with 256 vram, many new graphics options opened themselves up. I know for a fact that many of these options would have been playable on the older card, albeit exceeding the video memory and reaching into slower system memory. These options really should be made available for individual tweaking. After all, isn't the "auto-configure" option there for those who don't feel comfortable with tweaking settings?

They would have to make sure that this didn't work online because we'd have those people running the game way too high, causing lag for everyone.

Continuing on what I was saying earlier about the performance restrictions, in MP online, there should be restrictions in the game setup itself. Everyone being forced to play at med settings or lower for reducing lag in game would work just fine. As it stands now, I can play online with best performance and it will stutter slightly so the restrictions arent preventing the whole online experience to be as intended. If a player wont admit that his/her rig isnt up to spec for online play, then there should be limitations in the custom game setup online for the group as a whole for that single game, not in the general game. That way, people who arent happy with it, can choose not to play that game or start their own game. Some people are happy to play a stuttery game in SP with full graphics settings. If they arent happy with the performance, then they should be the ones to turn down the settings, not being locked out from the beginning. I hate to say it, but this limitation mentality is very paternalistic and demeans those who you are trying to please. Sadly enough, this is a very Microsoft approach as there are many restrictions in their software. So anyway, thats just my view on this stuff, but I think it fits pretty well. I still hold a high regard for BHG as a company and I think they make a decent product. Companies just need to realize that consumers hate restrictions on items they purchase, especially ignorant ones.

Alright, I'm done rambling. Thanks for listening!

I spent only $950 for this comp, including vid card, and can do whatever I want with the options. Perhaps it's time some people upgrade. It's not like I'm running a super comp or anything.