Huge update!

Thursday 20th February, 2003 · 0 comments
Posted by Mats0174, .

A huge update has just been send around straight from the Generals team!

Dear C&C Generals players,

Here's a short update from the team.  Thanks very much for all your energy, patience and support.

PATCH 1.3 STATUS

We're continuing to work hard on Patch 1.3. Rather than wait and continue to explore mysterious issues (the serious error continues to be hard to nail down but we're getting closer) we are going to release a subset of the intended fixes described previously. It's either that or we wait an undetermined amount of time to get everything in. We'd rather get most improvements out and then fix the remaining issues in the near future.

As of today, 1.3 consists of the following fixes:

- QuickMatch stability and matching

- General connection fixups behind routers (multiple players behind the same router, refreshing the player IP after a failed connection)  This isn't 100% but it should be better for most 

- Refresh button added to Custom Lobby

- Game List/Player List no longer pops to the top occasionally

- Player List no longer jumps, etc. making it difficult to click on a name

- Communicator requests addition of buddy to both players. Also, incoming messages get a sound effect

- Spaces in front of games in Game List no longer allowed

- Game Lists/Player Lists alphabetize in upper and lower case

- Ping tolerance icon adjustment to make more useful

- More accuracy in number of players per game in Game List

Obviously we would prefer to get everything sorted but we'd rather not wait to post a significant patch if we have a lot of stuff fixed up.

We are very aware of the various other issues hanging around and these are not forgotten.

Currently we're in the testing phase and expect to release the patch tomorrow if all goes well. Not sure of the exact time yet as we want to make sure we test a lot first.

SERIOUS ERROR

With regard to the serious error we've had some very helpful players that are local to our studio come in and let us fiddle with their systems.  The systems the players brought in should have been fine based on the system specs submitted.  In all 3 cases we found that there were problems with the actual systems...primarily overheating.  C&C Generals is a taxing game for any system and if you have any slight instability the game will likely manifest it for you.  Tomorrow we will post some links to diagnostic tools that should help players figure out if they have any issues.  We in no way deny that there may be a serious error lurking in the game.  We are saying that we can't get it to happen on any of our machines, we get numerous posts/emails noting the issue but the machines in question are under spec and the machines where we thought we might find a lead have turned out to be machine related.  If anyone has a true issue then we would love to get our mitts on your machine for a couple hours.  Anyone live in Southern California?  Send email to seriouserror@ea.com and mark it "SOCAL" to set up a visit and we'll give you a tour, some t-shirts, some games, etc. in exchange for you're bringing your system by.  We'll continue to work on it.

LOSTCONNECTION EMAIL

Please send info to lostconnection@ea.com if you continue to have trouble connecting online.  This will help us gather data to improve the system.  We will not be replying to these but will use them to help determine real community issues.



ROUTER WORKAROUNDS

As far as routers are concerned we've posted some info that should help many players work around the issues.  Thanks to Hautkarl for giving us some insights and ideas that really provoked us to try some new things.  Good work!  The community needs more guys like you!  We have provided workarounds here that should help some players. 

FAKE PATCH 1.2

Before Feb 15 a patch that we did not post was put up on Fileplanet.  If you got that patch then you will need to reinstall.  You can check to see if you have the right 1.2 version by checking C:\Program Files\EA Games\Command and Conquer Generals\Patch to make sure it is dated 2/15.  If it is then you are fine.  If not then you must reinstall.  The game WILL NOT work correctly if you do not have the right patch.  Simply reinstall and log into Generals Online or go to ftp.ea.com and visit the EA Pacific section to get the correct 1.2.

FORUMS

We've been pretty active with the forums so please make sure to visit generals.ea.com and read up!