Coldstone Bug Resolution

Who says it's unprofessional? Much of these stats stated above are speculation anyway. Personally, I don't know what the future may bring. I do know that at work I've refused to upgrade to OS X because all of my apps run just fine in 9.2 and I'm not sure they will in OS X, and I have a LOT of apps. (If it ain't broke, why fix it?) At home, I can't afford a new computer that would take OS X, much less Panther. I suspect that there's lots of people out there like me. Who knows what the future might bring? If Panther kills apps, surely Apple would know this and if the market drops, they might do something about it (more speculation here). Perhaps Apple will release another OS after Panther that will take anything (speculation again). Perhaps Coldstone will be upgraded (speculation (with prayer) here). The point is, is that nobody knows. I'd rather deal with the here and now. And right now, I'm making a game. I hope to release to both Windows and Mac, but I'll do whatever I can.

As stated above, target an audience. An audience, however, isn't just defined by the type of computer they use.

------------------
-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions
(url="http://"http://www.danillitphil.com/graphics/index.html")www.danillitphil.com(/url)

I have to say that the figures for the target audience don't follow the figures for who owns what platform,

submit a game for PC annd watch your game get devoured in the onslaught of games released daily.

There is a difference in the pc & mac shareware userbase. Mac is smaller and produces fewer games due to the lack of immmediate( wysiwyg ) tools. PC the opposite.

Where is a megaphone the most effective in a bathroom or a fairgroundż

------------------

... bwahhaaaaahaaaaaugh fooooolish sammurai.

The only reason Panther breaks apps is because the developer's strayed from Apple's guidelines. Coldstone barely runs at all, its obvious that its badly coded and was put together in a hurry, with little testing. I cant see why everyone trys to rationalise the actions of beenox, they owe it to us, the customer, to continue to support their product. Coldstone is a great idea, but i'd say in its current state it falls short of the mark.

------------------

While I feel very bad for everyone on OS 10.x, I do not currently run OS 10 at home.
I have windows and OS 9. I was hoping to purchase PoG for Windows. How does crashing in Panther affect the windows release? Will you still include PoG on the windows Ambrosia CD? If so that means you are distributing software with manditory crippling since it is not possible to register.

Could someone describe how this bug effects OS 9 and Windows?

Quote

Originally posted by TomWoozle:
**Coldstone has suffered from some unresolved bugs for some time, and with the release of Panther it seems that all games built with Coldstone also do not work correctly. As such, we are sorry to announce that Ambrosia has withdrawn Coldstone and Pillars of Garendall from sale until further notice.

We are working with Beenox to resolve these problems, and are doing our best to ensure that we can provide updates to all our customers as soon as possible.

Customers who have ordered Coldstone and PoG already, please bear with us -- we are burning CD's for you as fast as possible and will also be sending you a pressed CD with the updated copy as soon as we have it.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this causes, and thank you for your patience.

**

It seems to me that the best way to get a company's attention is to cut off their cash flow. What if there were a way to stop all royalty payments for PoG to Beenox until they fixed the bug? Oh wait, by stopping the sales of PoG, Ambrosia has just done that!

Good luck, and I hope this is resolved soon.

Currently I don't think there are any major bugs in OS9.
The 3 main bugs with compiled games are:
• Movies and Audio wont work under Windows 98 or ME
• You can't create new saved game files in OSX 10.2 (you can overwrite saved games)
• You can't run games in 10.3

------------------
Pilky
(url="http://"http://www.mcubed.cjb.net")M cubed homepage(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.coldstonerc.cjb.net")Coldstone Resource Centre(/url)
Cheesiest film line of all time "Flash I love you but we only have 14 hours to save the earth" from Flash Gorden

Is there any word on when Coldstone will be updated for Panther???

I have an RPG I want to begin work on using Coldstone.

Quote

Originally posted by HashPipeK:
**Is there any word on when Coldstone will be updated for Panther???

I have an RPG I want to begin work on using Coldstone.**

Read this and other topics before posting such replies.
For the moment, no.

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum;=Progress+logs&number;=18")The Progress Logs forum(/url)/(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum;=Pending+Chronicles&number;=17")Storage area for Pending Chronicles(/url)/(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum;=Bomb|APO|s+Plug-in+Guide&number;=31")Bomb's plugin Guide(/url)
Jingle Bells, Windoze smells, (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202.html")The Blue Mushroom Pub(/url) rocks (all 24 pages worth)!
How are you gentlemen!! (url="http://"http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com")All your base are belong to us!(/url) You will have no chance to survive make your time...Mwa ha ha ha...
-ZeroWing CATS, (url="http://"http://www.allyourbase.com")www.allyourbase.com(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by crizak:
**The only reason Panther breaks apps is because the developer's strayed from Apple's guidelines. Coldstone barely runs at all, its obvious that its badly coded and was put together in a hurry, with little testing. I cant see why everyone trys to rationalise the actions of beenox, they owe it to us, the customer, to continue to support their product. Coldstone is a great idea, but i'd say in its current state it falls short of the mark.

**

I would like to point out that Coldstone was neither put together in a hurry, nor did it have little testing. Coldstone was in development for more than five years, if I remember correctly, and with the public betas from Beenox, and the closed betas from Ambrosia, was in testing for several years as well. As to Panther breaking apps because of it being the developer's fault, I think you'll find that a great deal of apps broke with Panther. Does that mean that most developers don't follow the guidelines? In truth, the guidelines are updated and revised as the OS is updated and revised, and as such the developer can hardly release a 10.1 compatible product and expect it will work exactly the same in, say, 10.3, when much of the system has been revamped.

Also, in terms of guidelines, Apple doesn't follow them either, at least, not with Human Interface. Open any 'brushed metal' application to see what I mean.

-Andiyar

------------------
"Any good that I may do here, let me do now, for I may not pass this way again"

On the beta-list series of reports were submitted wherein many of the issues/bugs/slowdowns ( at least whichever ones were apparent under Os 9.2.x, possibly Cheetah ) were submitted months after "silence" took effect. I believe only a few of these issues were taken care of, more of them would have been resolved had the product had a normal life cycle. There were spans of months where there was no activity on ( their end of) the beta ( which is on of the things that lead us to believe that CGE would in fact be back in the shop shortly after 1.0. CGE was released in bursts, I believe a small streaming process would have worked better ( similar to CVS ) in which the testers were given an objective for the week, and that the artwork wasn't bundled with every release instead available as a package ( whenever new testers were added they could download it, trying to download 20mb+ on a 56k modem, 450ghz g3 communal mac really hindered my efforts ). The fact is we were just getting warmed up and just starting to really push the engine when the beta shut down.

The engine wasn't hurried but was rebuilt from scratch to include many new features many of which are crude and needed to be refined. See the progress log to see the abundance of ( In my opinion somehwat useless) features rolled into the releases. Count each one as a variable and allot for at least 5 possibilities for each variable, then multiply for a staggering yet modest idea of how much was actually done to make the engine stable.

------------------

... bwahhaaaaahaaaaaugh fooooolish sammurai.

{ edit : Quit your bellyaching and join the showcase! }

(This message has been edited by ellrx (edited 12-05-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by crizak:
**The only reason Panther breaks apps is because the developer's strayed from Apple's guidelines. Coldstone barely runs at all, its obvious that its badly coded and was put together in a hurry, with little testing. I cant see why everyone trys to rationalise the actions of beenox, they owe it to us, the customer, to continue to support their product. Coldstone is a great idea, but i'd say in its current state it falls short of the mark.

**

As one of the beta testers and forum member whos stuck around for awhile these comments kinda erk me. We tested as best we could and definatly put in the time on the CGE. If youd been around since then you could have seen the evol of this app that was Dee Brown's 'Epic Work' as for why he abandon it and us is anybodys guess.

Here dont make me get oldschool on your bleep http://homepage.mac..../CGEHistory.jpg

Quote

Originally posted by jh6p:
**It seems to me that the best way to get a company's attention is to cut off their cash flow. What if there were a way to stop all royalty payments for PoG to Beenox until they fixed the bug? Oh wait, by stopping the sales of PoG, Ambrosia has just done that!

Good luck, and I hope this is resolved soon.**

Ok what a great idea but Moki thought of this two years ago. Maybe thats the real reason Beenox dosent care to work on this app. I wonder if he offered them a bonus instead wed all be working with CGE 2.0?

Now my two cents is here.

ST

------------------
Coldstone_Dev Resource: (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/straytoaster/")Coldstone_Dev Resource(/url)

See Coldstone_Tips at: (url="http://"http://coldroom.150m.com/CGE_Stuff/CGE_Tips.html")CGE_Tips(/url)

Looking at Deimos Rising (or whatever it is called) makes me wonder: I kinda have the feeling it is based on the coldstone engine, but with some more options than we can acces using Coldstone.

So who ownes what? There is the engine and there is a front end (coldstone as we know it).

Ambrosia has the engine?

Beenox has the front end?

How can I compile a game not using the Front end?

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by jeroen goulooze:
So who ownes what?

If you click on "questions" on the game's page, it tells you that the game was written by Swoop Software and the Windows port was done by Trihedron LLC. AmbrosiaSW owns the right to sell the game.

Coldstone was written by Beenox. AmbrosiaSW owns the right to sell (or not sell) the software. I can't see what is confusing about that.

------------------
My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

(This message has been edited by Rubber Ducky (edited 12-09-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by jeroen goulooze:
Looking at Deimos Rising (or whatever it is called) makes me wonder: I kinda have the feeling it is based on the coldstone engine, but with some more options than we can acces using Coldstone.

It isn't.

------------------
(url="http://"http://stark.evula.net/pogwalkthrough.htm")PoG Walkthrough and Compendium(/url) | (url="http://"http://stark.evula.net/plugins/dev_tools.htm")PoG Dev Tools(/url) | (url="http://"http://stark.evula.net/plugins/spells_expander.htm")Spells Expander(/url)
(url="http://"http://stark.evula.net")Stark.evula.net(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.net")EVula.net(/url) | (url="http://"http://mail.ambrosiasw.com/mailman/listinfo/coldstone_dev")Coldstone-dev mailing list(/url) | (url="http://"http://ucplugs.evula.net/pog.html")PoG Upcoming Plug-Ins Directory(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Stark Bledfast:
**It isn't.

**

Stupid me, I should have looked it up.

Please lock me up in one of the RPG games you are all making and let me be the bad guy so you can hit me with your swords over and over again 🙂

------------------

OK, I just recently discovered Coldstone and downloaded the demo. This is an amazing piece of software. My question about the bug issues is, I'm ok with most of these issues, Isn't there any way i can purchase the software even as bugy as it is? I've been looking for this kind of program for years and now that i have found it, i can't have it. So frustrating.

thanks,
Jo

Quote

Originally posted by Jo:
Isn't there any way i can purchase the software even as bugy as it is?

Hi Jo. Welcome to the boards. Have you tried contacting David Dunham at help@ambrosiasw.com to ask whether they will issue a registration for a copy which is already on your computer? It's worth a try I think.

------------------
My Doctor said I was having too much wine, women, and song - so I gave up singing because 2 out of 3 is not so bad.
The (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/")Kingdom of Garendall(/url) sectional map is easily printed from gif format pages.
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/damsels.sit?path=pog/addons&file;=damselsV1.1.sit")Damsels in Distress(/url) - A plugin for PoG. (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/rduck/RD-DEL.jpg")RD-DEL(/url)

RB-

I called tues. and the receptionist (sp?) said that they wouldn't do it.

I thought it was worth a sht to, apparently not.

It sucks because I'm running PoG on OS 9, and want to give a registration to my brother for Christmas.

-OF

Coldstone seems to be much less buggy in Classic. Try running it there if you have a problem with the bugs (and the non-panther-ness of compiled games).
Also, PoG is very shaky in Classic (OS 9 proper isn't working for me right now). Here are some thing that made it run better:

Turn off the music.
Give it more memory.
Run it in full screen (don't ask why, but it runs better in full screen than windowed. Not to mention certain parts of DiD look much more beautiful in full screen, like the ice cave 😉 ).

EdIT-punctuation annoyences
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/ambrosiamemberstonight/")Ambrosia Members Tonight!(/url) (url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/music/board_members/spamguy/moderatorsong.mp3")The Moderator Song(/url)
Jingle Bells, Windoze smells, (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202.html")The Blue Mushroom Pub(/url) rocks (all 25+ pages worth)!
How are you gentlemen!! (url="http://"http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com")All your base are belong to us!(/url) You will have no chance to survive make your time...Mwa ha ha ha...
-ZeroWing CATS, (url="http://"http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/")All your Base(/url)

(This message has been edited by LifeKnight (edited 12-13-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Organic_Farmer:
**RB-

I called tues. and the receptionist (sp?) said that they wouldn't do it.

I thought it was worth a sht to, apparently not.

It sucks because I'm running PoG on OS 9, and want to give a registration to my brother for Christmas.

-OF**

I only discovered Pillars of Garendall a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to get my copy registered. I emailed Ambrosia about this but have had no reply. Is there still no sign of the matter being resolved? From reading previous postings it seems as if the only major problem is with trying to use the game in Panther, which I'd quess few of us actually have.

Last thought - why are Ambrosia still offering the demo version? Seems rather cruel to me!