Playable again yet?

[CrazyYlian]

Well, not to be a sourpuss, but PS stopped being playable for me as of the 4.0 update.  Too many problems with the maps, couldn't move around without dying for no obvious reason, etc... I tried all the updating, but was spending more time with the updater than the game, and not seeing significant improvement.   After 4.01, I gave up.   I'm on dial-up, and the only way I can upgrade is to drive 45 miles to civilization to download & burn to a CD.

BUT I'M JONESING FOR PS & my guildies!!!!

So, before I waste half a tank of gas and a whole evening, is 4.03 workable?  I don't mean all the little quirks with spells, fighting, etc, I can deal with those, but the showstoppers are the graphic and map bugs.  Those kill the game, when I can't move around, or when moving results in something other than what the graphics are showing me (or not showing me as the case may be).   I don't mind being a guinea pig beta tester, but I'd like to be able to test something other than just trying to get out of Hydlaa...

(And before the chorus of "update your graphics drivers"... they are current.  It's not a problem with graphics performance.)

[Caarrie]

what are your system stats? most players can play the game so i dont know what your issues are and the only way to 100% know if the game will play on your system is to download it and try.

[CrazyYlian]

Well, my system(s) is beefy enough;  AMD X2 running Slackware Linux (2nd system -P4, also Slackware), both have 2mg ram & Nvidia 7600GT with current drivers installed and working.  (Running 32 bit PS just so I can package it once for both.)  And if it was hardware, I think I'd get different results, but both boxes have same issues.   Never had a problem with 3.x versions, only after update to 4.0.

My problem wasn't getting the game to run, it was actually doing anything once I got did.   Broken maps, maps with holes in them, graphics incomplete or missing.   I spent a week trying to get to the BD map only to fall through a hole at the portal and have to /die to do anything. Getting to the arena... that was an adventure, but ultimately fruitless... I might have made it 3 times out of 20 tries.  I saw other people posting the same problems, the answer was always 'run the updater', but that at best usually just switched one problem for another.   I saw a number of posts saying it was a Crystal Space problem, and I see from the changes that some CS stuff has been settled, so I'm asking if the map and graphics bugs are fixed enough that one can move about and actually get somewhere.

[Vornne]

While the recent update did fix a bunch of bugs, unfortunately a few of the worst graphics / map bugs remain:

FS#1838 - Falling out of bounds when colliding with an object

FS#1749 - Crash related to !leaf and leaf, related to colliding with objects unfortunately this one seems to have become a lot more common for some. It doesn't happen with the unoptimised builds used for testing (easier to understand backtraces), and it seems tricky to figure out, might be a problem in cs.

FS#1796 - Gap between the corridor from Hydlaa Plaza to the Arena, and other maps and also unfortunately this doesn't seem fixed even in the latest version of cs.

Though there have been bugs fixed, obviously, and I've heard some say it's more stable.

[Mythryndel]

The map boundaries bugs can now be avoided by portals that you can right-click-> Enter. Some are a little out of the way (Ojaveda Road 1 -> East Hydlaa is a rock a ways back down the path for instance), but they make the game playable for me. I know others that still get stuck in the terrain, but I personally don't have a problem with that. I am running 64-bit linux client (Fedora of one vintage or another) with nVidia 6200 or 8600.

Don't spend the money on gas just on my word though... I could burn a copy and mail it to you and it would be much cheaper.

[CrazyYlian]

Thanks for the replies.   Sounds like 'fixed' is a nebulous term ;-), but there's some work arounds in place.    Since I'll be out of the boonies for Christmas, guess I'll give it a shot.  I'm just getting this irresistable urge to hug an Ulbernaut.

[CrazyYlian]

Downloaded over the holidays & installed.  Better than it was in 4.01 (I can mostly move around now, the portals do help), but by Talad's left buttock, it is unstable!

The strangest things just crash me completely...  was standing in DR & saw someone looking lost, so I asked if he needed help, but as soon as I hit enter in the chat window I'm back on the desktop.  Bumped into the gentleman (forgot his name) who stands at the entrance to the temple, bam! program crashed.  I probably crashed 10-13 times in 2 hrs so far.  No pattern or consistency, so no way to tell why.

And movement is still weird... running into invisible barriers every 3 ft really slows you down.

Some nice new stuff... rogues camp, new construction in the winch, all looks great!  (But the winch is tricky... you can walk into the railing around the deck and get stuck bad, says you can't unstick, only thing left is /die.)

[Caarrie]

might have been http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=1749

[CrazyYlian]

might have been http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=1749

Yes, that looks like it... 

Unfortunate, because it looks like the only workaround is build it myself, which I don't mind except there's no source here and I'm not doing another long drive and long download to get it (unless there's a src pack somewhere that's reasonably feasable on dial-up?).  But the current situation leads right back to my title... not playable. 

.04 anytime soon?