StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 564
Registered: 06-10-2003
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OK, my build 21 experiences. I've just made a walkthrough of the entire process, noting major, minor and cosmetic anomalies as I go. I hope that's OK. I see others have been reporting some of the same stuff, but I'm not redrafting now...



Build 20 installed in d:\\games\\drod
(exported holds and players - there was no export option for an 'edited' hold created by another player.

I had two players in build 20, one of which I was at level 15, the other I'd not left the first room on the first level. I still exported both, and each was ~26kB in size. The level 15 game is a few bytes larger.



Build 21 (fresh, full install) in d:\\games\\drodbuild21


Starting prompt is

'&New Player'

(suggestion)
I could really do with an import player option here, as I have to define a new player /and/ import my old player, thus getting two sets of player settings. Plus, each time I do this I forget, without fail, and have the same name for the new player and the player I'm going to import. Doh.


After naming my default player another dialog box appears before game start

'&Import'



In 'Who' and 'Where' dialogs, the 'Import' button text is replaced with 'Please give the name of the file you would like to import' stretching across the screen.



I import my player from build 20 (navigating to the build 20 homemade folder)

'imported successfully'

followed by

'ERROR: file not found'




Restore to the last room I was playing on level 15.

Crash to desktop, no error messages

The same thing happened with transition from build 19 > build 20 but I neglected to mention it in this group.

There was no crash upon restarting build 21, and I could begin play with no further CTDs, from level 15, restoring or continuing.



Wiped and reinstalled build 21, imported player data.

Selected 'Continue' to start from level 1

Quit to main menu

Selected 'Restore' to contine from level 15

No crash to desktop.



Wiped and reinstalled build 21. Performed same steps as the first time, and got the same crash to desktop, except this time, when I start Drod, it quits again immediately. Maybe I ought to reboot.


Chose not to reboot.

Wiped and reinstalled build 21 & used the 'Continue from level 1' fix to carry on playing normally.



I then noticed...

All rooms on level 15 had '&Restore' text appended to their names. All other room text was normal.

e.g. "Fifteenth Level: Twice East, Quarce &Restore"


Tried to quit & got this text

"After restoring this game, rooms that you've already conquered will be restored to their unconquered states. You can always restore from a more recent game later to avoid having to reconquer the same rooms again

Shall I continue restoring this game?'

If I select 'No' I return to the main menu
If I select 'Yes' the game quits



Have I got corrupt player data, or are these build 21 bugs? I've got all data from build 20 & 21 available, and the player data I imported from build 19 as well, if any are useful.


Oh, and another thing. If I'm drafting a message on the Drod webboard, and I click help in Drod, it replaces the webboard with the Drod help text, losing what I've written so far...

StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 564
Registered: 06-10-2003
IP: Logged

No reply so far, but no pressure

I'm seeing the same crash bugs with build 22. Importing my player data. Restoring to the room I was playing on level 15 causes the game to bug out, straight to desktop. Choosing Continue after importing my player data starts from level 1, returning to the main menu, and then choosing restore to return to my game on level 15, causes the game to play normally, no crash.

I saw the same crash bug in build 20, importing from build 19 & immediately restoring to a room in level 5. The game crashed to desktop once, and after restarting DROD, played normally. Though it should have, it didn't really register at the time (I usually end up playing this game pretty late) and I just carried on playing as normal.

Importing the data exported by build 20, into build 21 and build 22 gets the same results.

Sometimes the crash to desktop occurs once, after which the game is playable. Sometimes it crashes, and locks me out permanently, immediate crash on starting DROD every time.

I'm not worried about losing player data, it's part of beta testing. But, is it my files, exported by a buggy previous build, or a bug in the current build? What's the best course of action? Start with a clean slate, or continue with the data files I have?

Additionally, I used my workaround for the crash bug. When I finished level 15, the game paused for an inordinately long time (5-10 seconds unresponsive to input, after Beethro took his first step on the stairs) before going onto level 16. This was not repeatable upon restoring to the same room.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2810
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Some stuff I'm going to ignore because I think it has gone away. Please let me know if I missed something important.

StuartK wrote:
Build 20 installed in d:\\games\\drod
(exported holds and players - there was no export option for an 'edited' hold created by another player.

Okay, I entered that one in the database. Good find.

(suggestion)
I could really do with an import player option here, as I have to define a new player /and/ import my old player, thus getting two sets of player settings.

A reasonable request. It would not be so bad if we didn't have all these builds, however. We wrote code to upgrade your existing player from 1.5 data automatically, avoiding the new player prompt. We'd do the same sort of thing for any DROD release, but its not a priority to smooth the upgrading between beta builds.

Plus, each time I do this I forget, without fail, and have the same name for the new player and the player I'm going to import. Doh.

Yeah, technically DROD has to treat the two players as separate to protect against overwriting player data from someone who happens to have the same name.

Hmm. I'll try to construct a non-beta scenario that still makes your case...

If someone has a copy of DROD at work and they want to install a second copy at home, they would probably install it just like you did and enter his name. Next he throws in the floppy and runs the import and we get two same-name players.

How about this? A prompt will come up that says:

There is already a player named "Stuart" that matches the name of the player you are importing. DROD will keep this player, but rename it to "Stuart (old)". If you don't need the extra player, feel free to delete it.

Restore to the last room I was playing on level 15.

I just need to know if this still happens in build 23. (Sorry, not your fault I got to your message slow.)

And as you probably knew, the weird text errors went away in build 22.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
Decent Apps - open source tools for writing and deploying privacy-focused LLM-based web apps.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2810
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:
I just need to know if this still happens in build 23. (Sorry, not your fault I got to your message slow.)

Actually, this sounds kinda dumb. It's been crashing for you since build 19/20 and we probably haven't changed anything affecting it.

How about sending me the latest version of your player export file which produces the error? erikh2000 at yahoo dot com is my email.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
Decent Apps - open source tools for writing and deploying privacy-focused LLM-based web apps.

StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 564
Registered: 06-10-2003
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:

StuartK wrote:
Plus, each time I do this I forget, without fail, and have the same name for the new player and the player I'm going to import. Doh.

Yeah, technically DROD has to treat the two players as separate to protect against overwriting player data from someone who happens to have the same name.

Hmm. I'll try to construct a non-beta scenario that still makes your case...

If someone has a copy of DROD at work and they want to install a second copy at home, they would probably install it just like you did and enter his name. Next he throws in the floppy and runs the import and we get two same-name players.

How about this? A prompt will come up that says:

There is already a player named "Stuart" that matches the name of the player you are importing. DROD will keep this player, but rename it to "Stuart (old)". If you don't need the extra player, feel free to delete it.

Yes. Maybe with the option to choose the text instead of automatic renaming.

Or else a full blown manual player rename option? Say I called myself "Sturat", and didn't realise until halfway through the game. Or wanted to change that "Stuart (old)" text.

Would it ever be concievable/practical/desirable to merge two sets of player data together?

StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 564
Registered: 06-10-2003
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:

ErikH2000 wrote:
I just need to know if this still happens in build 23. (Sorry, not your fault I got to your message slow.)

Actually, this sounds kinda dumb. It's been crashing for you since build 19/20 and we probably haven't changed anything affecting it.

How about sending me the latest version of your player export file which produces the error? erikh2000 at yahoo dot com is my email.

-Erik

I've got a number of player settings exported from different builds now, but I'll sort them into some kind of obvious order (i.e. figure out which one the hell is which)before mailing you

Could player files/holds be given version/build number properties, which display when file browsing?

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2810
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

StuartK wrote:
Yes. Maybe with the option to choose the text instead of automatic renaming.

Will think about that.

Or else a full blown manual player rename option? Say I called myself "Sturat", and didn't realise until halfway through the game. Or wanted to change that "Stuart (old)" text.

It's possible to rename players now, although maybe it's a bit convoluted. You change to the player you wish to rename with the "Who" screen, then edit your name in the "Settings" screen.

Would it ever be concievable/practical/desirable to merge two sets of player data together?

Yes, it would be a good feature. I thought of it too. But I'd rather put it in a next release.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
Decent Apps - open source tools for writing and deploying privacy-focused LLM-based web apps.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2810
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

StuartK wrote:
I've got a number of player settings exported from different builds now, but I'll sort them into some kind of obvious order (i.e. figure out which one the hell is which)before mailing you

Cool. I will try to remember what we were talking about when I see them.

Could player files/holds be given version/build number properties, which display when file browsing?

Well, you can edit their filenames to say the build#.

Although we're working with several different versions associated with different builds, the DROD:AE release will only know about one version of data when it displays files in the import/export dialog. Any extra formats we create from one build to the next are just going to get left behind.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
Decent Apps - open source tools for writing and deploying privacy-focused LLM-based web apps.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5466
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Ok. I found and fixed the crash bug on restoring after importing a player. Fixed it. <Developer stuff follows>

Basically, it was trying to load the room from the new, empty continue saved slot (with a roomId==0). Added a check for this eventuality.

Also, fixed the export to also export *hidden* saved games (stupid filters, always ignoring the hidden records) by adding flags to CDbDemos and CDbSavedGames for whether loading filtered records would ignore hidden records or not. Now a player will also have their continue and end hold saved games exported, as they should be. This is needed for editing privileges on completed holds.

Thirdly, fixed some potential db access (filter) bugs. Recall how I replaced all the Cdb instances with a pointer to the one global CDb. You can probably quickly guess how not resetting the filters correctly could wreak havoc here. So I put back some local db instances where filtering is being done. For example, in the export code. this will guarantee all filters are set precisely right. I'm hoping it will clear up some more random export/import bugs. Such as the "I imported my player and it has some weird saved game data in it" bug.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5466
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

My recommendation is for everyone, if they possibly can, to (1) using build #24, trash all your exported player records and re-export whatever you need, and (2) don't use any data they've imported. If possible, just re-upgrade data afresh from your drod1_5.dat records.

I hate to say it, but having bad export files floating around is a bad idea. A way to remedy this with your holds is to import any "bad" (i.e. any hold exported before this new build) holds you have, then copy the levels into a new, fresh hold that won't have any corrupted data associated with it, and then export this copied version. It should be clean. (It's not the rooms or levels that have the problem we've been looking at, just the hold they're in. So copying rooms/levels over to a fresh hold should get rid of the export problems.