Gamespy's Savage Review

[Tim Partlett]

Is it standard practice to give small games the smallest allocation of review time, because most of the "professional" reviews I have seen of Savage so far, seem to have basic errors that could have been avoided with a little more than scant research. Tom Chick is probably my most respected reviewer, and so today's review of Savage on Gamespy came as a bit of a shock to me, because he seems to have fallen into the same trap. Tom has produced a review that contains not only errors, but errors that appear to have caused him to slate significant aspects of the game, such as the game engine itself. I'm hoping that Tom can explain the following to my satisfaction.

http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/october03/savagepc/?r=5

From the Gamespy review:

Tom says:

"Where's the 'idle peasants' key?"

The manual says:

"I - Find next idle worker."

Tom concludes:

"There's a lot of potential frustration for commanders, who have to struggle with a limited interface that doesn't do a very good job of duplicating the features you expect in a conventional RTS... More hotkeys would have helped."

Tom says:

"don't be alarmed if Savage tries to tell you that your AGP card is plugged into a PCI slot -- it's probably lying to you"

The "***EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR GRAPHICS CARD***" document, in the /docs directory of the Savage installation says:

"First and foremost, you must make sure your motherboard drivers are current.

Not doing this may cause your fast AGP graphics card to run in slow PCI mode, even though you might have it plugged perfectly well into an AGP slot. This is impacting your framerate in all games, although games that have to send a lot of polygons per frame to your video card (such as Savage) will be most noticeably affected."

Sam McGrath of S2Games says:

"Clearly the reviewer ignored the "Important Performance Information" document that's provided with the Savage installation. It explains, firstly, why he was getting that error, and secondly, what he can do to remedy the situation. In fact, the error message itself TELLS you to read that document."

Tom concludes:

"Savage is built from some absolutely wretched technology.... Part of the blame probably rests on the graphics engine, which is demanding out of all proportion for its visuals. An engine that doesn't look any better than this has no right to be this sluggish. "

If I played through Savage with my AGP graphics card running in PCI mode, I would have never bought it after playing the beta, and would have thought it one of the worst game engines I had ever seen. However, with all my drivers updated, I run the game at maximum settings, with a less powerful rig than Tom used for the review, and it runs very smoothly with a very high rate of FPS. I also don't experience any of the lag Tom describes, nor the bizarre ping reports of 1500+ and one minute waits at the server screen. I've heard of similar problems for some people, that have turned out to be a problem with routers or firewalls, and have been solved by a visit to tech support. Did you ask tech support about that Tom?

I'm not complaining about the score. We are all entitled to our opinion, and some people are just not going to like Savage, because it isn't always fun, and some people don't have the patience to wait for when it is. But when it works, and it works often, it is the best gaming entertainment I've ever experienced. What I can't understand is how you managed to experience performance issues that I have never encountered, except before I upgraded my graphics drivers, and how you appear to have reviewed a game while playing through it without fixing issues that are clearly explained in the manual and technical documentation that comes with the game.

[Desslock]

What the hell? Motherboards with AGP slots now think that cards plugged into it are (virtually non-existent) PCI cards?

[quatoria]

What the hell? Motherboards with AGP slots now think that cards plugged into it are (virtually non-existent) PCI cards?

I've never even HEARD of this problem, prior to this post. It certainly doesn't seem like something a reviewer should be expected to be up on before rating a game. I'm getting Savage for review in the next day or two, and I'd certainly never heard of this problem from any of the people who've discussed it on this board or elsewhere. Also, I don't habitually comb through install directories searching for other pieces of documentation not present in the manual or readme. I find it hard to believe that most people do.

[malphigian]

Also, I don't habitually comb through install directories searching for other pieces of documentation not present in the manual or readme. I find it hard to believe that most people do.

Well, if the error does in fact tell you to look at the documentation in that directory, it's not like they are expecting you to comb through the directory. Obviously, it's some bizarre error they ran into late in development and couldn't get in the manual. Worth a correction in the review probably.

Anyway, I play a decent amount of Savage, and I like it okay, but I don't particularily disagree with Tom. Savage lacks a lot of polish. It's also clearly heavily inspired by Allegiance, which was a far better game.

Savage sure seems to be having a lot of issues with reviewers.

[DennyA]

The PCI/AGP thing happens if you don't install the chipset drivers for your motherboard. With my P4PE, it originally saw my GeForce Ti4600 as a PCI card. Running the Intel motherboard driver installer made a dramatic difference in my graphics performance.

I'd find it hard to believe that Tom had been running with a misconfigured motherboard chipset all this time, though.

[Jon R.]

Evidently 3/5 stars = "GameSpy Review Says Savage is Crap!" circle jerk on their forums. That's cute. Containing gems like this:

SAVAGE has recieved great user reviews, in the 9's. Reviewers have a tendency to follow the pack. So if one reviewer gave it a 7 out of 10, you wont see the next guy giving it a 9 because that would conflict with the past review, no matter how wrong it may be. And lets face it, the point of reviews is to give users a clear idea on what playing the game is like. If scores varied on a game from 5 to 10, reviews would lose their foothold. I guess the moral of the story is, anyone can become a reviewer


Also "The reviewer is probably a 16 year old brat."

[chet]

I like the theory that all reviewers have some secret code of watching each others back. Which is true, the code is set during the finger cutting and becoming blood brothers back behind the tree house. How did these kids find out about the code?

If a game has some kind of major screw-up that requires you to do anything more than install it from the given CDs, otherwise the game will suck ass, they should put that tech tip on a sticker on the front of the box. Otherwise they get what they deserve.

Chet

[Alan Au]

Did it ever occur to people that the game just might not be all that good? :roll:

- Alan

[Tim Partlett]

It's not a major screw-up, it's a techical issue that affects a small number of users, which can be fixed by updating their drivers, which is the common fix for most technical issues that affect any game. I don't know about everyone else, but when I have a technical issue with a game, the first thing I do is look for a technical readme in the installation folder, and I'm just an average Joe game player. I would expect a game reviewer to ensure that such things are read. It's one of those things we have to live with when using PCs that have a million and one different hardware combinations.

[quatoria]

HERECY! I SHALL REPORT YOU IMMEDIATLY TO THE SAVAGE AUTHORITIES FOR YOUR, um, whatever kind of punishment they dole out over there, I guess. Boy, all this sure does make me enthusiastic about the review I'm about to do of it. :P Maybe I should use a fake email address for that one....

[chet]

But Tim, it is an issue that is not apparent it is an issue. If a game told me I had the wrong graphic card I would just assume - stupid game.

Pretty amazing that 10 million other games have come out without this same glaring problem. I would say this past year damn near 100% of the games I bought worked out of the box technically with no screwing around by me, the days of your kind of excuse should be over - "Oh there are too many combinations, wah wah wah, it is too hard, wah wah wah" How come so many other developers don't have to have this special patch?

Curious Tim, are you connected to them in any other way than just being a rabid fan boy?

Chet

[Mike Cathcart]

But Tim, it is an issue that is not apparent it is an issue. If a game told me I had the wrong graphic card I would just assume - stupid game.
Yeah but what if the game told you you had the wrong graphic card and then said "by the way, check this file for a solution to the problem" and then you didn't do that and played the game as is?

[Nick Hyle]

I don't know about everyone else, but when I have a technical issue with a game, the first thing I do is look for a technical readme in the installation folder, and I'm just an average Joe game player.

I've never done this in my life. 'Technical Readme'? Somewhere other than the game's main directory? What the hell is the actual Readme for, if not this kind of "Oops, we fucked up the game you just paid money for" note?

So we're saying the Savage folks can't program OR figure out how to write an industry standard Readme?

I'm sure I'm being a little harsh, but this sounds pretty disorganized to me.

[Tim Partlett]

I think calling me a rabid fanboy is more than harsh. I run a fansite for the game, but I have not been critical of Tom, and I have only questioned what seem to be glaring oversights. I even made the point that I understand that not all people are going to enjoy the game, in my opening post:

"We are all entitled to our opinion, and some people are just not going to like Savage, because it isn't always fun, and some people don't have the patience to wait for when it is."

I would appreciate that you read all of my posts in a thread, before attempting to troll me.

But Tim, it is an issue that is not apparent it is an issue. If a game told me I had the wrong graphic card I would just assume - stupid game.

I have not seen the error message, but as far as I am aware it doesn't tell you that you have the wrong graphics card, only that your AGP card may run in PCI mode. The error message, according to the developers, directs you to the very technical document that explains how to fix the issue.

Pretty amazing that 10 million other games have come out without this same glaring problem. I would say this past year damn near 100% of the games I bought worked out of the box technically with no screwing around by me, the days of your kind of excuse should be over - "Oh there are too many combinations, wah wah wah, it is too hard, wah wah wah" How come so many other developers don't have to have this special patch?

It's not a "special patch", it is the latest driver for your motherboard, which every single game that I am aware of recommends that you update to ensure optimal performance. Just a quick check in my game folders, and the readme with the first game I look at, GTA:VC, says:

"Please ensure your motherboard chipset drivers are updated to the latest available versions."

The same readme lists a whole host of known issues with the game and certain hardware, and fixes for these. This is a problem with all PC games, and always has been. For most people the game works fine, right out of the box. This is a problem for certain people with certain motherboards, who have not updated their drivers.

[Mark Asher]

I've actually found that Gamespot's reader reviews are helpful. I hate to say it, but when a game tends to consistently get lower review scores at game sites than it gets in the reader review scores, my experience is that the reader scores are more accurate. At Gamespot Savage got a 7.1 but the reader review scores are 8.2, which seems like a better evaulation of the game. That's more in line with how I would have scored it.

I played that Starsky and Hutch game and found the same thing -- it got consistently low scores -- 6s and 7s -- and I thought it was an easy 8/10 game. It got an 8.0 from the Gamespot readers and a 6.8 from the Gamespot reviewer.

[Mike Cathcart]

I've never done this in my life. 'Technical Readme'? Somewhere other than the game's main directory? What the hell is the actual Readme for, if not this kind of "Oops, we fucked up the game you just paid money for" note?

So we're saying the Savage folks can't program OR figure out how to write an industry standard Readme?

I'm sure I'm being a little harsh, but this sounds pretty disorganized to me.
Did anyone bother to read the part of Tim's post where he points out that, in the case that your computer has this problem, an error message pops up and directs you to the file that explains how to fix it? Or are you all too busy trying to jump all over this game and/or Tim?

Apparently the PC gaming crowd has no trouble hunting down updates for DirectX, their video card, their sound card, the operating system, and any peripherals they're going to use, but going to the file browser and looking for a readme that the game directed you to? Say it ain't so!

Christ.

[DennyA]

Actually, if Savage's detection is accurate and it told Tom his AGP card was in a PCI slot, then Tom does have a major technical problem with his system that's going to significantly affect frame rates in most games.

I just checked my old 3DMark 2001 results. Without the motherboard drivers installed, my rig got a score of 8847. Simply updating installing the proper drivers for my motherboard's i845 chipset -- no other changes -- bumped my score to 13225. That's a 50% increase in graphics speed.

But it could very well be that Savage is detecting this state when it isn't true, which is what Tom was complaining about.

The ways I know to insure your card is in AGP mode:
1) Run DXDiag and see if "AGP Texture acceleration" is enabled
2) Look for the PCI-to-AGP bridge under System in the Device Manager

[GregB]

I'm actually curious how a largely negative review - one where there are "technical issues" and "frail gamplay" managed to get 3 Stars (good) at Gamespy. Does the reviewer assign this or does the site.

FWIW, I installed and ran Savage without a hitch. Framerates have been great even with everything maxed out. But the herky-jerky netcode? That's another story.

[SpoofyChop]

For a second there I thought that the Lord had come to weigh in on this issue, but then I realized that Cathcart was just being a blasphemer again.

:evil:

[chet]

So they could program the popup, but not the fix? There is some misdirected time. They should saved even more time and just had a popup, and that popup downloaded a good game.

Tim, you run a site dedicated to the game, but you aren't really a fan boy? So is it safe to assume, at this point we only count people who tattooed the game name on their foreheads or renamed their child after a character in the game as fan boys?

Chet

[DennyA]

So they could program the popup, but not the fix?
Considering that the fix (again, presuming the problem detection is accurate) involves downloading and installing motherboard-specific chipset drivers, I'd say the answer to that is "yes."

[Jobe]

Ad hominem going strong here. The issue is not how much he likes the game, but whether the points he raises are legitimate. The point isn't to describe why he feels the way he does, in which case you can talk about him liking the game a little too much, but whether what he feels is legitimate. Playing the fanboy card in this instance is common and worthless.

[Bub, Andrew]

Curious Tim, are you connected to them in any other way than just being a rabid fan boy?


Watch as Chet leaps wide logic chasms in a single bound!

[Anders Hallin]

So they could program the popup, but not the fix? There is some misdirected time. They should saved even more time and just had a popup, and that popup downloaded a good game.
Yes, I would LOVE it for my games to download driver updates without notifying me or giving me a choice in the matter.

[chet]

Umm... kids???

How many games use the same setup without this error popping up? I find it hard to believe Tom has been sitting there at a computer that struggles to play every single game. So the issue is not downloading the fix, but coding the game in such away to avoid the need for the patch to begin with. Something it seems almost every other single developer has been able to handle.

Chet

[Michael Fitch]

So they could program the popup, but not the fix? There is some misdirected time. They should saved even more time and just had a popup, and that popup downloaded a good game.

<Snip>

Chet

Greetings:
Am I reading that right? Are you saying that the engineers should have spent more time trying to program around an issue that only affects people who have a particular motherboard and have not updated their drivers for that equipment? Are you seriously comparing the time needed to catch a flag and throw a popup to getting the graphics engine to handle an entirely different pipeline?

You know, really, if the programmers were doing their jobs right, they'd spend all their time making sure that the graphics engine was optimized for every version of DirectX going back at least to 6.1, and for every graphics card out there, regardless of driver version, and while they're at it, why not program in compensation for non-defragged hard drives and grabbing cycles from programs running in the background. Hey, maybe they could put an interactive tutorial on programming into the load screens--no, wait, if the programmers are doing their jobs, there won't ever be any load screens or any inconvenience whatsoever. You'll just pop the CD in the drive and it will do the dishes, pay off your car loan, and give you a blow job during install--no, wait, a good programmer would be able to program around the need to install...............

Get a grip. If you want the performance that the hardware is capable of, the engine's going to need to rely on the technology to work the way it's supposed to. If you can get off your lazy ass to get the oil changed in your car so the damned thing doesn't blow up, I don't think it's all that crazy to expect you to do some maintenance on your computer from time to time. Otherwise, the performance problems you experience may not be the fault of the game.

Love the rants and all, Chet, but please.

Michael.

[Jason McCullough]

So the Savage developers are to be chastised for bringing a problem with your system which all other game developers ignore to your attention? I haven't even played the game, but a popup saying "your drivers are totally fucked" isn't a *bad* thing.

It's a bit like....oh.....buying a car which requires premium gasoline for best performance, and then complaining about the warning light on the dash after you fill it with regular.

[Matt Perkins]

(This is the first interesting topic on QTT in a while.)

Does anyone have the actual error text? That aught to make a huge difference to one side or another in this argument.

Is Tom going to make a reply here? Not that he has to by any means, but some of this could be cleared up pretty quick by Tom.

[chet]

It's a bit like....oh.....buying a car which requires premium gasoline for best performance, and then complaining about the warning light on the dash after you fill it with regular.


No. I think its like buying tires for your car, they work fine everywhere. You drive it on a brick road and they all go flat. You take it back to the tire store and they look dumbfounded at you - "You drove our tires on what?!?!?!"

Chet[/code]

[Jon R.]

Except, it wouldn't really be their problem if the tires went flat because your shocks weren't functioning properly.

The problem is with the MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS.
This problem affects all games.
Savage is the only one that tells you that something's wrong in that department.

If all games take performance hits, then why isn't id, or Blizzard, or Epic/DE/whothehellever just as much to blame?

This doesn't sound like some little quirk you can code around. This sounds like the MOTHERBOARD isn't handling the card properly. They may be childishly overprotective of their game, they may make the usual 'net misspellings, and the community is pretty incestuous, but this still isn't S2's fault. All that's left to decide is whether or not the detection of the error can bring up false positives, and if it really does tell you everything you need to know about fixing it.

Grammar is a son of a 2-balled whore.

[Mark Asher]

Except, it wouldn't really be their problem if the tires went flat because your shocks weren't functioning properly.

The problem is with the MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS.
This problem affects all games.
Savage is the only one that tells you that something's wrong in that department.

If all games take performance hits, then why isn't id, or Blizzard, or Epic/DE/whothehellever just as much to blame?

This doesn't sound like some little quirk you can code around. This sounds like the MOTHERBOARD isn't handling the card properly. They may be a little on the childishly overprotective of their game, they may make the usual 'net misspellings, and the community is pretty incestuous, but this still isn't S2's fault. All that's left to decide is whether or not the detection of the error can bring up false positives, and if it really does tell you everything you need to know about fixing it.

There's something a bit fishy about it if the problem really is affecting all games. I find it hard to believe that Tom's getting sluggish performance with all his games. Has he been running all games with his videocard in PCI mode? I can't believe that.

I have no engine performance problems with Savage, just to add my own anecdotal evidence. I get good framerates and performance.

[Bub, Andrew]

Speculation: He might be. On a high end card a 50% gain is only noticeable if you have something to compare it to. I had a mobo problem that caused sound stuttering. It also caused installs, load times, etc., to be really slow. I mean REALLY slow. I noticed the sound problem and I probably noticed the load problem... but then got used to it. When I finally found the fix, a mobo driver upgrade, well damn, THEN I noticed it!

My point is, for about 6 months I had a severe performance problem I thought was a minor one because I had nothing to compare it to.

[Desslock]

So the way to check if you have this problem is to download and run DXDiag?

[Xaroc]

So the way to check if you have this problem is to download and run DXDiag?

No need to download, go to run and type dxdiag.

-- Xaroc

[Jason McCullough]

It's a bit like....oh.....buying a car which requires premium gasoline for best performance, and then complaining about the warning light on the dash after you fill it with regular.


No. I think its like buying tires for your car, they work fine everywhere. You drive it on a brick road and they all go flat. You take it back to the tire store and they look dumbfounded at you - "You drove our tires on what?!?!?!"

Chet[/code]

Except brick roads don't make your tires go flat, so I don't see the point of this one. The product requires drivers installed correctly for best performance, and tells you if they're not. What on earth is wrong with that?

[Sean Tudor]

Except brick roads don't make your tires go flat, so I don't see the point of this one. The product requires drivers installed correctly for best performance, and tells you if they're not. What on earth is wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that but why is Savage the only game with this problem ?

I'd be really surprised if Tom Chick hasn't setup something as basic as AGP texture acceleration and latest mobo drivers - he isn't some gaming newbie.

[Mark Asher]

Except brick roads don't make your tires go flat, so I don't see the point of this one. The product requires drivers installed correctly for best performance, and tells you if they're not. What on earth is wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that but why is Savage the only game with this problem ?

I'd be really surprised if Tom Chick hasn't setup something as basic as AGP texture acceleration and latest mobo drivers - he isn't some gaming newbie.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. I'm guessing this is still something peculiar to Savage and Tom's hardware and not something affecting all of the games Tom plays.

[extarbags]

Nothing wrong with that but why is Savage the only game with this problem ?


It's not, it's just the only game that tells you about it.

[Tim Partlett]

Tim, you run a site dedicated to the game, but you aren't really a fan boy? So is it safe to assume, at this point we only count people who tattooed the game name on their foreheads or renamed their child after a character in the game as fan boys?

Chet, A fanboy is a derogatory term used to describe people who irrationally and unreasonably defend the game they play against all criticism. A rabid fanboy, which is what you called me, would be someone who behaved like this to the point of insanity. By calling me that, you were trying to suggest that all of my comments were irrational or unreasonable, and therefore worthless, yet I do not see where you have any evidence to support that.

Nothing wrong with that but why is Savage the only game with this problem ?

Sean, Savage isn't the only game with this problem, as it affects all people with particular motherboards. You notice it more with Savage because, as the developers explain in their technical readme:

"This is impacting your framerate in all games, although games that have to send a lot of polygons per frame to your video card (such as Savage) will be most noticeably affected."

[TomChick]

Ah, sorry I missed this thread for so long (how long has it been going on?).

To clarify, I get the error on three out of six machines in my house. I spent several hours following the recommendations in the technical documentation, scouring the 'net for mobo drivers, AGP drivers, various nVidia drivers, installing them, reinstalling them, and so forth. I know how to keep a rig up to date.

In the end, I contacted one of the developers at S2 Games (the very patient Jon Shiring) who helped me out with it. He eventually sort of shrugged and told me to just ignore it and that it would be fixed in a patch. FWIW, I trawled S2's tech support forums at the time and saw others having a similar problem.

Tim, you got me on the 'I' key. I see it now and feel like a total dweeb, since I love manuals and read them religiously.

As for the rating, my editor and I discussed a bit whether it should be two or three stars. We agreed three stars were appropriate considering the amount of post-release support it's gotten, but I should note that my review was subitted before the latest patch.

I forgot if there were other questions.

-Tom

[Jason McCullough]

Except brick roads don't make your tires go flat, so I don't see the point of this one. The product requires drivers installed correctly for best performance, and tells you if they're not. What on earth is wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that but why is Savage the only game with this problem ?

I'd be really surprised if Tom Chick hasn't setup something as basic as AGP texture acceleration and latest mobo drivers - he isn't some gaming newbie.

No; Savage is the only game that checks and tells you this will slow down performance. All the other ones don't check, but the performance decrease is still there.

[TomChick]

Hey, WTF? I knew that was too basic an error for me to make. For the damn record, I never said Savage didn't have an idle peasant key. It's a friggin' caption, for Pete's sake.

Sheesh.

-Tom

[TomChick]

Jason, do you know if there's some way to verify whether an AGP card is in PCI mode without booting up Savage? If so, go here:

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=146225#146225

-Tom

[sluggo]

I was the assigning editor on this piece, so to answer a question from earlier in this thread: It's our policy for our reviewers to suggest scores, which are then approved by editors to ensure consistency. As Tom mentioned, we debated whether Savage should get two or three stars, but arrived at three pretty quickly.

I have to admit: I'm pretty tired of Savage and all the nonsense that's accompanied what's basically an unremarkable game. I'm glad there's a small group of people who are enjoying it, but the way they (and by "they," I mean the developers, PR and a select group of fans in the forums -- they're all equally guilty) are trying to fling mud at anyone who dares to even imply anything could be wrong with Savage is nothing short of embarassing. I mean, does anyone really think Savage is a perfect game?

We're all professionals and I believe Tom did more than a professional job with this piece. It's too bad he's not being treated like it.

[Skinner]

It's a bit like....oh.....buying a car which requires premium gasoline for best performance, and then complaining about the warning light on the dash after you fill it with regular.


No. I think its like buying tires for your car, they work fine everywhere. You drive it on a brick road and they all go flat. You take it back to the tire store and they look dumbfounded at you - "You drove our tires on what?!?!?!"

Chet[/code]

Is that why I have four flat tires every time I go to German Village? Damn bricks! Only carriages should go down those old streets. Here I thought people were flattening my tires because of my bumper sticker.

[Tim Partlett]

I hope you are not referring to me, sluggo. I asked a reasonable question, because it seemed that unreasonable conclusions had been made. I understand that not everyone will enjoy the game. I'm glad Tom has had the chance to answer the issue, and I'll make sure his reply is heard by the screaming rabble. I'm am amazed, however, Tom, that you experienced this on three out of your six rigs. Did the graphics run jerkily on all six computers, or just one, because you seem to have been reviewing the game from the perspective of the computer that it didn't work too well on. That's fair enough, but I would think it only fair to mention this in the review. Nobody I have spoken to who plays the game experiences jerky graphics. While that may be biased by the fact that those who do would probably take it back to the place they bought it from, it still beggars belief that all six of them ran this badly.

And, btw, you don't write your own captions? Then who does?

[Nathan Phoenix]

I see nothing wrong with Tom's review, save for the one minor issue of unfamiliarity with the controls. Savage is pretty fun, but it has some distinct issues here and there. If I were to review it I would probably score it the same. There's nothing wrong with a reviewer noting poor performance either - I've done the same with games that didn't work well on my PC's, only to find out I was in the minority. A reviewer can't be expected to have every possible PC configuration.

I like Savage a lot - I played the beta intensively up until the last possible minute, and I experienced no technical issues on my PC. I still plan to picking up the game one of these days too. That said, I think the review is fair.

[TomChick]

Tim, the graphics were, to my mind, unacceptable on all three of my system, particularly those without the error message. Note that this was all prior to the v1.02 patch, which I haven't seen but I've heard it makes some optimizations to framerate and improve lag problems.

And I did write the caption, but it's sort of a 'Hey, you guys get to work! Where's the idle peasant key?' one-liner. How you guys figure that means I'm slamming it for not having an idle peasant hotkey is beyond me.

FWIW, I think Sluggo's reference wasn't to you, Tim, but to some of the folks on the S2 forums. Some of the guys at S2 were also a bit peeved at first, but we've since smoothed things over and they're all coming over to my house for lunch tomorrow.

-Tom

[quatoria]

Yeah, you can console them by saying "Hey, if you think this is bad, you should see what I said about Deus Ex!" That said, I hope gamespy has you review DX2, just for the sheer hell of it....

[Vic Davis]

I find the whole issue of the "idle peasant hotkey" caption quite revealing. It seems to me that a person who was inclined to be overly defensive of Savage would see the caption as gripe. Perhaps Tim went into reading the review with a bias towards seeing "unwarrented" criticism where there was none. When will this foolish savagery stop :?: :shock:

[chet]

So really when it comes down to it, to hell with savage as a game, it should get 10 stars for being a graphics utility.
And I love this:
So the Savage developers are to be chastised for bringing a problem with your system which all other game developers ignore to your attention? I haven't even played the game, but a popup saying "your drivers are totally fucked" isn't a *bad* thing.

and this
The problem is with the MOTHERBOARD DRIVERS.
This problem affects all games.
Savage is the only one that tells you that something's wrong in that department.

Savage is the freaking inside edition of video games, the only game that dares tells you the way it stands. Not scared to program around the issue, instead they dive straight in and then spill out the dirt between you and your motherboard.

So Tom lets be honest, your problem with Savage isn't that it is a so-so game, it is just simply YOU JUST CAN'T HANLDE THE TRUTH!!!

Especially from rabid Savage fan boys.

Chet

[Jason McCullough]

Chet, you dipshit, I haven't said a single thing about the game otherwise.

[chet]

huh??? What??? I cannot quote your comment, because that is your only comment in this thread?

[Jon R.]

Must be a really slow Monday.

[Kool Moe Dee]

Haven't played Savage, but I can certainly attest to the sheer utter crappiness of many hardware device drivers out there. Sure, graphics cards are better nowadays about not lying to you regarding what features they have, but there's still so much wacky behavior across chipset lines, manufacturer lines, and driver revs that it's practically impossible to get everything working correctly.

If there's a serious problem with a driver, many times you can't work around it. You're stuck either disabling a feature (undesirable, because hey, maybe they'll fix it in a later driver!), or marking it as an unsupported piece of hardware (undesirable, because hey, people bought that piece of crap and expect it to work!). If you're writing a game that uses some scarcely-used feature (or a brand new one), then dealing with these kinds of issues is tough, because you're basically reverse engineering bad behavior...evil.

I don't know if the problems cited with Savage were avoidable/fixable at run time, but it is certainly possible that they are not. (in which case they are doing absolutely the right thing by pointing the user at information on how to fix it)

[s2sammy]

I want to make something clear.

The "PCI mode" error indicates a problem with your motherboard drivers, and Savage is simply reporting it.

ALL games suffer performance loss from this issue, but Savage is most noticeably affected due to the very large number of polygons it has to push to the card every frame. Hence, we added the warning on startup in order to alert the user, along with a doc on how to remedy the problem. This issue affects a minority of players, and is usually fixed when they update their MB drivers. It is not fixable through any runtime method.

Again, this is NOT a Savage specific problem. It is a universal problem which affects all 3d games, some (Savage: ~150,000 polys per frame), more than others (Wolfenstein, Enemy Territory: ~15,000 polys per frame).

Savage takes specific advantage of the latest OpenGL extensions provided by nVidia and ATI to enhance AGP throughput. When these extensions are used, and the MB drivers are allowing fast AGP transfer to take place, performance is good. This is the case for the majority of people who play Savage, and the game was designed under the assumption that these parameters would be satisfied.

The "PCI mode" error is not expected to come up very often, but sometimes it does, and I think we provided a pretty adequate description of how the problem can be remedied. In many cases, people ignore the error (bad idea). In rare cases, as was regretabbly the case with Tom Chick, following the steps in the readme provided does not fix the error, possibly because even the latest drivers for the given motherboard do not properly support AGP.

No doubt as new games are released and polycounts grow higher, this problem will crop up with more and more people. I would not be at all surprised that many of the performance problems reported by people running the newly released Halo PC, in fact, are due to this very same issue.

It is unfortunate that we, especially as a new company, must bear the brunt of the frustration caused by the lack of understanding many users have about this issue, but someone's gotta do it. (-:

Sam McGrath
Lead Programmer / CTO
S2 Games

[Tim Partlett]

One thing that interests me. Is it fair to describe a game's engine as "wretched", based on the fact that it doesn't work on your machine, due to an incompatibility with your system, but works fine on most other rigs? For example, when I played GTA3, which I actually reviewed, I encountered a similar jerky graphics problem, which I couldn't solve through the technical documentation that accompanied the game. Talking with people online revealed that I was not alone, but most people were playing the game fine. After several hours of messing about with various options, I fixed the problem, but I suspect that I would not have had the same patience for a title with less appeal to me. If I had written my review of GTA3 with the jerky graphics it would have been a god awful experience for me. If I subsequently did not mention my personal technical issue, and slated the game as having a "wretched" game engine, would that have been fair?

Personally I want the reviewer to tell me that they had significant technical difficulties, because if I see that a lot of reviewers have problems, I may well avoid a game, because I hate fiddling about trying to get things to work. However, I also don't want to be told something has "jerky graphics", when it is likely to work fine on my system, because the reviewer had technical issues.

[Mark Asher]

How's a reviewer supposed to know how the game performs on other player's machines? I had a bit of the reverse of this. I didn't really have any significant performance issues with Shadowbane when I played it, other than lag at times. A lot of other people did, apparently.

[blue_myriddn]

How's a reviewer supposed to know how the game performs on other player's machines? I had a bit of the reverse of this. I didn't really have any significant performance issues with Shadowbane when I played it, other than lag at times. A lot of other people did, apparently.

Its simple Mark - it is a matter of the author's accuracy with words. People in the media bear a heavy burden when constructing their sentences. They can't do it casually because their words carry a lot of weight to a great deal of people. Consider the following two very simple phrases:

"The game has many technical problems"
"I had many technical problems with the game"

That *simple* change in sentence structure conveys a very different tone. Sure, there is still some negative connotation in there, but the difference is that the tech problems are no longer globalized to the game, but rather isolated to the user.

It is worth noting when you have tech issues with a game as that can reduce the fun factor. However, it is also very important that you chose to word your reviews appropriately.[/quote]

[malphigian]

How's a reviewer supposed to know how the game performs on other player's machines? I had a bit of the reverse of this. I didn't really have any significant performance issues with Shadowbane when I played it, other than lag at times. A lot of other people did, apparently.

This is another issue similar to the previous qt3 discussion (related to savage, natch) about how long reviewers should play a game before making a decision.

In an ideal world where reviews weren't demanded quickly, and reviewers were payed more, they would play a given game on a few different computer configurations.

Since that isn't going to happen, it might be best to hedge, with something like "performance was wretched on my machine, even after trying a number of recommended optimizations". And include the reviewers machine specs, too.

EDIT: Actually, it appears Tom did indeed play on several systems, (see above, I somehow missed it: "3 out of the 6 machines had the problem"). Assuming tom has some variety in his machine configuration, I'd say he's pretty justified in his comments.

[quatoria]

You're splitting an awfully fine hair there, Myriddn. I know how to set up and manage my machine. If I have a technical problem when trying to play a title, particularly if no other title has this technical problem, particularly if, as Tom related, other people are encountering precisely the same problem and being stymied as to a workable solution, then do you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say that the game has technical problems, because there is a reasonable fear that anyone purchasing the title may encounter the same, or similar, problems.

[Nathan Phoenix]

The part of the engine that I thought was "wretched" was the network code. It's extremely melee-unfriendly for a game that has a very large portion of melee combat. You can be right next to someone wailing away and register no hits, only to have him turn around and bop you. Accuracy with ranged weapons is also impacted, which lends more strength to weapons with a high rate of fire or weapons with splash damage to account for this margin of error. If the network code were spot-on, I think perhaps you would have seen a complaint about the engine's sluggishness, rather than seen it described as wretched.

[blue_myriddn]

I would disagree quatoria.

Accuracy is always a desirable trait in a situation like this. To restate:

Q: Should technical issues be mentioned in the article?
A: Damn straight. A good chunk of folks including the reviewer's 3 machines had tech problems. That makes it worth mentioning

Q: Should it imply that the game won't work for everyone?
A: Not in this lifetime. The real question is the figure. Will 70% of the people have no problems? 80%? 90% Sure, some people will have a problem, but to imply that everyone is going to have a problem by listing it as a tech problem withteh game overall is a mistake.

Sadly - those of us who know the most about computer are riddled with the most tech problems. The reason is that we are pushing the tech envelope. My mother has a Dell 2400 desktop that is about as vanilla as it comes. Every single part on that computer is tested to the end of the world and probably as stable as a brick shithouse. It is a weak performer though.

Us hardcore folks though, buy the new stuff and that tends to cause goofy problems. That is why most hardcore gamers eventually become tech heads - we need to just to keep our rig performing well.

Either way - a better word smithed review would have gone a long way. Just think, Tom could then sit back and say "hey - I had tech problems, so I wrote in that I had tech problems. If you didn't have tech problems, that's great" and it would be case closed.

[Guido Jones]

And then the savage fan boys descended on QT3.

[XPav]

If Savage is pushing ten times the polygons to the card as Enemy Territory... why does it look about the same?

[blue_myriddn]

And then the savage fan boys descended on QT3.

Actually..I haven't ever played the game. I run a gaming website though and someone posted a link about the review. So I checked it out. I got a very different impression from the text of his review than what was actually occuring, so I posted my thoughts on that matter.


If Savage is pushing ten times the polygons to the card as Enemy Territory... why does it look about the same?

Very valid question that I too wonder. Savage isn't a Doom3, so what gives with the huge technical requirements to run it? That also touches on accuracy though. He didn't convey that sentiment, he conveyed that the engine was sluggish.

We now know that the engine was sluggish b/c he had tech problems. The more *interesting* question would be why does this game have such noticable video demands? That could very well be due to poor engine coding. The fine line between these points though was smudged with poor writing construction.

And that is interesting information. For my purpose, I have decided to hold off on getting Savage up and rolling until I get my new rig up and rolling as it appears the game has high requirements that my poor 2 year old computer might not be able to handle.

[Tim Partlett]

How's a reviewer supposed to know how the game performs on other player's machines?

A good question, but as a reviewer, I would be expected to do a little research to discover if this was an isolated incident. Tom appears to have done some research, by trying it out on several of his own computers, but checking with other users online should have resulted in the conclusion that the jerky graphics were not normal. Certainly when I had jerky graphics on GTA3, my initial response wasn't that this was a result of a poor game engine. Instead I checked on the tech forums of various sites, and found that while a few people had similar problems, for different reasons, most people were fine. If I had not been able to fix the problem, which took several hours of my time, and had written my review stating that GTA3 had a wretched game engine because of my technical problem, would that have been fair?

[chet]

Sadly - those of us who know the most about computer are riddled with the most tech problems

And that is interesting information. For my purpose, I have decided to hold off on getting Savage up and rolling until I get my new rig up and rolling as it appears the game has high requirements that my poor 2 year old computer might not be able to handle.

That *simple* change in sentence structure conveys a very different tone. Sure, there is still some negative connotation in there, but the difference is that the tech problems are no longer globalized to the game, but rather isolated to the user.

Either way - a better word smithed review would have gone a long way.

blue_myriddn jumps up the charts to try and unseat machfive or koontz for most annoying poster.


Also have to add, the little visit by Sam makes me think Sam is a real freaking prick. Tom posts here about taking the time to contact the developer, try and fix the issue and is told to ignore it by the developer. What does sam say elsewhere?

http://forums.s2games.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=100600955&f=971600065&m=3656079754
Clearly the reviewer ignored the "Important Performance Information" document that's provided with the Savage installation. It explains, firstly, why he was getting that error, and secondly, what he can do to remedy the situation. In fact, the error message itself TELLS you to read that document.

I'm really surprised by the lack of professionalism here. Not only did he provide erroneous information to the Gamespy readership by misinterpreting, and subsequently ignoring, an important warning message (the warning is there for a very good reason. Savage isn't "lying" to you), he took no steps to remedy it, and as a result got poor performance in Savage, which translated into a bad review of the graphics engine, and game in general.


So sam, since you have the ear of the unprofessional Tom Chick here in his own forums, why don't you speak the truth here about his ignoring and unprofessionalism? Or do you just pump up your tough guy routine in front of the fan boys???

I will never buy one of your games, who needs to fund another bunch of prickish developers who go head hunting everytime someone points out the piece of crap they made is a piece of crap.

Chet
ps. he later recants kinda - but why not check you facts first mr programmer of crap?

And blue_myriddn posts this gem - Hey tom, maybe he an tutor you to be a better "word smith"
http://forums.s2games.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=100600955&f=971600065&m=3656079754&r=4636019854#4636019854

[Tim Partlett]

As already posted by Sam McGrath to the "fanboys" at the main Savage forums:

"By the way, as was implied by that previous post, my original comments about Tom ignoring the PCI mode error were unfounded. I discovered that he had been talking to Jon at the time of the review, and did indeed try to resolve the problem."

http://forums.s2games.com/6/ubb.x?q=Y&a=tpc&s=100600955&f=971600065&m=3656079754&p=5

[chet]

Argh edited to add the blue stuff and looks like i edited to change the s3 crap so fan boy tim could jump in.

But i have to add blue_myriddn's final line in that post in case people don't click the link.

The article is a good overview and has some valid points. There is certainly room for improvement though, particularily in the writer's technique.

[blue_myriddn]

*bows*

Glad that I made a good impression on you Chet. Always nice to start off with a bang.

[s2sammy]

Had you spent a second and looked at the rest of that thread, you would have seen that I rescinded my original comments. I also sent a personal email to Tom explaining my original motivation for making those comments, along with an apology. I was unaware when I made that post that Tom had talked to Jon (s2 programmer) at the time of the review, in an attempt to solve his technical problems. This has all been settled between Tom, myself, the rest of S2, and Gamespy, so there's no use in discussing it anymore.

For those who were inquiring, there's one big reason why Savage demands a large number of polygons: there's a lot more stuff to render. (-: Most FPSs have to render the environment, player models, and a handful of props like vehicles. Savage must render all this, plus much more: structures that the commander builds, AI workers, and NPCs to name a few (structures especially have a considerable amount of detail, and there can be LOTS of them). Our environments, too, are very wide open; not too many places that can be occluded. We could have decided to lower the detail of our models considerably to aim for lower budget hardware, but as I mentioned in my previous post, we make certain assumptions about the user's hardware and drivers, and for people who meet those assumptions, the games runs just fine.

This is not to say that optimizations can't still be made for future patches. We plan on supporting this game as long as we're able, and making improvements in all areas.

To further clarify, when I made the comparison to ET, I was giving an example of a game which would not see much of a performance hit with outdated MB drivers. Other games, like BF1942, are more on par with Savage in terms of the number of polygons they render. Savage does get a little more demanding, though, once the bases start getting built up, and AI units start spawning. I should mention that this is all based on empirical data from my own tests. I haven't gone about it very scientifically.

If anyone wants to check out Savage, we've released a demo that you can grab here: http://www.fileplanet.com/files/130000/131246.shtml

Thanks for your time, everyone.

Sam McGrath

[Myth]

This thread has really become rather lame. Initially Tim brought up some valid concerns with the review and phrased them in a professional way, only to be accused later on of being a "fanboy", and now of course the whole topic has degenerated.

What is mildly amusing is that now it appears that game reviewers have their fanboys as well who will defend just as diligently and perhaps blindly, the work of their peers with just as much vitriol. Not mentioning any names of course.

Personally I though Tom's review was good, but I don't necesserily agree with all of it. However, as we all know, the final score of any review is usually weighted heavily on the reviewers enjoyment of the game overall which of course is entirely subjective. In many cases I have seen reviewers turn a blind eye to a games technical problems (the Gamespy's 5 star review of Halo comes to mind) because they though it was a great game.

In general too, it seems to me that many reviewers are "harder" on new or small game developers. Someone mentioned earlier that "reader reviews" will often give a more accurate assessment of the games strengths and weaknesses. I agree with this.

Personally I think Savage is a fantastic game from a small developer. For me it is extremely fun to play, and it should be encouraging to the developers that it is being received so welll by the gaming public. The demo sold me on the game, and the truth of the matter, it will sell others on it as well.

The developers also seem commited to developing the game further and improving on whats already there.

[Mark Asher]

I like Savage and still play it. The engine's fine for me. The netcode does seem a bit flaky at times. The game does hinge on having a competent commander, but they seem easy to find most of the time now.

I want to see some new units though, some kind of vehicle or rideable mount.

[S2Jesse]

Tom did a good job reviewing what he had. He obviously had technical problems which made the play experience less than enjoyable and that's unfortunate all. We have to realize, even all of our fans, that one is only able to review what one has access to. Tom reviewed the game before some of the new optimizations and fixes where in. I can tell he spent a good amount of time playing the game based on his review and that's appreciated. With that said I have to be honest we don't love seeing terms like "wretched engine" but again whether that is the hardware drivers or the games fault, Tom still experienced the problem. I think tom had some nice things to say in the review also that obviously get lost in the hoopla. The majority of reviews are overwhelmingly positive and our "fans" well obviously are fanatic to say the least :). The majority of people who give Savage a shot seem to really enjoy it. So all I ask is for the savage fans to chill out a bit and for anyone who truly questions the game try out the demo for yourself. Tom thanks again for the review and the positive remarks and as mentioned its unfortunate you were plagued by technical problems. I hope sometime in the future you can give it another shot.

Jesse Hayes
COO / Co-Founder
S2Games

[Machfive]

*bows*

Glad that I made a good impression on you Chet. Always nice to start off with a bang.

Don't you dare try and usurp my position. I worked my ass off to become the 2nd most hated member on this forum. I'll be watching you.

[Aszurom]

I can tell he spent a good amount of time playing the game based on his review and that's appreciated.

But, did you check the server logs?

Hey, since you're here... how about addressing the question of "why so much horsepower to run this engine?" It's a good point, and I'd enjoy the "official answer".

Also, while I'm at it... the humans can right-click to block. But blocking doesn't seem implemented yet. Eh? How much of a balance issue does this cause, or will it cause when it works?

[MikeSofaer]

Well, obviously I'm not official. But.

The so much horsepower is because of the long sightlines and large numbers of commander-placed buildings, I think is what Sam said.

The humans' block is implemented. It doesn't eliminate damage, but does seem to reduce it. It also freezes the attacker very briefly, and he has to start his swing pattern over again. As far as I can tell it's only effective early, before stalkers come out.

[Jon R.]

Except for the times when blocking doesn't work, or causes the person using it to get stunned instead of the attacker. Other than those times, it's really useful.

[S2Jesse]

As for engine demands:

Just imagine watching about 40+ players on your screen with a base built up consisting of about 15 structures, ai workers, npcs, siege weapons, weapon effects firing off, tons of trees, outdoor terrain and grass and other effects. It all adds up pretty quickly. The engine is very well optimized for graphics and this is one of the reasons Nvidia showcases Savage.

As for blocking:

Due to lag you must anticipate your blocks. You'll learn when you should block and how long to hold it and if it misses you quickly must block again. The block will disengage after a short period of time as to prevent cheesers just holding block all day. With practice this becomes second nature. If you see an attack coming over a slow internet connection it may sometimes be too late to block. Again just have to learn to anticipate a bit more. Once you learn to you'll easialy see your kill / death ratio sky rocket.

Jesse

[Nathan Phoenix]

Personally I find it far easier to just leap at people and eat them.

[Michael Fortson]

Umm... kids???

How many games use the same setup without this error popping up? I find it hard to believe Tom has been sitting there at a computer that struggles to play every single game. So the issue is not downloading the fix, but coding the game in such away to avoid the need for the patch to begin with. Something it seems almost every other single developer has been able to handle.

Chet

Their statement could have been better worded. But a couple of things:

Not all games suffer much (if at all) from PCI-mode transfers over the AGP bus. Hell, the Voodoo 5 AGP graphics card didn't even *support* AGP transfers - it was all done in PCI mode. It's usually only an issue if you have to load alot of heavy textures during gameplay (small amount of card ram, huge uncompressed textures, etc). The primary difference in gameplay comes from everything fitting into memory - or not. Streaming textures always chug. Given the order-of-magnitude speed difference in loading something from onboard RAM compared with calling something from memory which is then routed over a card interface (agp or pci), the AGP benefit pales in comparison (especially if you're talking about AGP 2x or 4x, which plenty of people are still running).

So it's not unthinkable that someone might not have seen poor performance in a large number of titles, and yet have never installed the chipset drivers for their motherboard (keep in mind, most likely they were not installed - EVER - not just the most recent - in order to cause AGP transfers to still be off). MMORPGs (as an example) are fairly unique in that they tend to need to stream textures in realtime during gameplay as something nears clipping range while the player moves about, rather than loading them all at level-load time.

Having the game check to make sure AGP transfers are available is something most games don't bother to do - and I'd call that a case of programmers being clever and helpful. Assuming that, once checked, you tell the user something useful about what to do: if they need the message, they probably also need a little help understanding what that means :P

*disclaimer*
I've never played the game, or even read the review.

[malphigian]

What's with all the zombie thread voodoo going on around here lately? Does phpBB have a way to lock threads older than 6 months?

I guess it shouldn't bother me, but it's just so odd -- how did you get struck with the urge to practice this necromancy ciparis, esp. given you haven't even played the game?

[Michael Fortson]

Possibly the same reasons you might have had for asking me that question: mild astonishment, slight interest, and boredom :P