Beta 4 news, pre-orders, and release schedule...

Just a head's up

from JoeUser Forums

The beta 4 series will be the last set of betas prior to release.  Users who want to pre-order and beta test the stand-alone game (as opposed to Drengin.net) will only be able to do so for a short amount of time. After we go into release candidates you will have to wait until the game ships to get it.

Stardock is about to sign a publishing deal with a major retail publisher which will affect the release date.  We expect to go gold near the end of this month but general availability will likely be mid July or early August due to retail manufacturing/marketing/distribution set up.

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16,316 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Perhaps I've misunderstood, but does this mean that people who pre-order will, in fact, be able to download the beta without joining Drengin? If so, how/when/where?
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
We charged existing pre-orders this afternoon. You should have an email from Stardock with a link to create a Stardock.net account (same as the one used here, on WinCustomize, JoeUser, if you have ODNT, etc) and download Stardock Central.

Install Stardock Central, configure with your PM serial number (included in the email) under Tools / Register Products / Games / and use the dropdown to select Political Machine from the list in there. Press Register or Update and make sure you can see Pre-release versions (under the View menu). Install PM through SDC.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
What was changed in Beta 4? I didn't see a release notes, either here or on Stardock Central.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Comments on the latest beta:

a) I'm still getting significant corruption of the opening movie. The colors are corrupted as before, and I'm also noticing a very low framerate.

b) Still cannot alt-tab out/back to PM. Well, you can alt-tab out, but it CTDs when you try to get back in.

c) Special Agents that reduce opponent rankings in a state seem to boost negative ones. If opponent has -10 in, say, Abortion Rights, after moving one of these units in they'll have -9. I expect boosting your own rankings would have the same (opposite) flaw.

d) The AI still pounces, more often than not, on ?'s. This is annoying, and I noticed it in the first campaign game.

e) Do negative-popular-opinions really work [e.g. Democrats on War in Iraq or Tax Cuts]? I ask because campaigning on controversial issues doesn't seem to have reduced (or polarizing) effect.

f) The campaign failed to advance after winning the first match (Kerry vs. Rice).

g) The scroll bars in the 'news' section are 'off' in the same way as most scroll bars were in .85.

h) News descriptions are often incomplete, e.g. for poltical operatives from ?'s... unless you really do mean "SCOT!!!!"

i) [comment] Great work on the ''polls' feature, guys.

j) Issue order under 'Candidate Info' appears to be random. It is neither alphabetic nor by issue importance, and thus is confusing.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Stil getting a very messed up starting movie, the top half goes to the bottom every time.

I like the new ways the polls work, with states being neutral until you influence them.

Played the first campaign mission and it might be too easy. Got Condie to only four states, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho.

Haven't found any major bugs, but I would like it, if possible to have the interviews a bit different. Every interview by a certain interviewer asks the same questions, regardless how many times you appear. And I answer questions the same every time, and once I get a positive result, the other questions my sanity.

I would like it a lot more if different questions came up every time, even if each interviewer only had like 5 questions to rotate from. Also, I tend to get only two or three different news services. Maybe a bit more randomness, and I go for every one.

Thanks for your time. This game is great! Aside from these things, I haven't found really any problems.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Reminder: Need hardware info.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I just have a problem with some in-game positioning. For example, the issue "Drilling in ANWR", Democrats are for it?? Hmmmm...I challenge you to find me one who is. There are other issues like that, that I don't think are quite right.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think that might be an issue with the campaigning. I noticed that, after extensive campainging in a state on the issue by Condie, everyone was for the issue. If that is really the mechanism, then I like the feature -- it represents what people start to think if you only present one side of the issue over and over and over again.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bugs:

If you get an endorsement in one game, you can’t get the same endorsement if you play again right after the first time unless you quit the whole game.

The only question I ever get from “JoeUser.com” is about food stamps.

The only questions I get from “50/50” are: 1. Why do I want to be President? 2.
What is my greatest weakness?

I played a campaign game and we both got 269 electoral votes, but I lost.

After playing a campaign game and losing, I restarted and the calendar which shows the number of weeks remaining was gone.

After playing the above campaign game, I went into Fantasy mode, but in the candidates selection screen the candidates’ names still had the Vice-Presidential candidates’ names, e.g. John Kerry/Al Gore.

The options menu is mostly blank -- there’s only sound options, Hardware mouse, skip intro, and one or two others.

The Random Issues option still doesn’t change anything.

Suggestions:

I think having the ability to change how long the game goes on in Fantasy Mode would add a great deal to it. It would make the game a lot more fun for me.

I don’t like being able to get only one operative a turn. You shouldn’t be able to get twenty, but I think two or three would be good.

I think the Vice-Presidential candidate should be more powerful.

In strategy view, you should be able to see how many electoral votes you would get with the strategy.

Pentium 4 3GHz, XP Pro, DirectX 9, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
Had issues with the JoeUser.com interviews in seperate games.

One time I was already sitting in the state when the interview for my party appeared in the same state at the beginning of a turn and immediately brought up the yes/no prompt to do the interview. Selected yes and was kicked back to the main map without the interview taking place. Subsequent attempts to exit the state and return to activate the interview would get me the prompt again, but never the actual interview. JoeUser.com showed up twice later in the game and it never would let me actually get into the interview from that point on.

Had another game where attempting to start the JoeUser.com gave the same results, but I didn't start in the same state or anything that time, just wouldn't let me take the interview.

I've seen this in previous betas and it only ever happens with JoeUser.com.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
Also noticed that the state wealth view is either wrong, misleading, or hard to interpret. On a standard (non-fantasy) game, it sure looks like the order of state wealth (brightest states) is TX, IL, CA, OH, FL, NY, PA when according to the actual wealth numbers listed in the state detail, it should be CA, NY, TX, FL, IL, PA, OH. At the very least PA and NY look exactly the same even though there's a large difference in wealth and TX and IL sure do look like the brightest on the map.

Am I misinterpreting the state wealth view? Is that showing fundraising potential rather than state wealth or such?