Different Game Versions?

[Pieter Boelen]

Could be, lots of games have been buggy or sometimes even unfinished when released, maybe Disney wanted the game to release early on America so as to maybe make more money?

I suppose the truth will always remain a mystery.

 

[Cerez]

I suppose the truth will always remain a mystery.

Unless we get word from someone who had worked in the original development team here. Not unheard of -- it has happened on a previous game modding forum I've been involved in (after I had contacted the developer and put in a good word). He was happy to answer our questions and help out with our modding projects. The game was a work of passion for him and his colleagues, even if time and resources were very stretched. :3

Often in these instances business executives make the major/tough choices, and they're not actually involved in design and development.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We have indeed been in contact with some of the developers in the past.
But a lot has happened behind the scenes and we lost touch in the end.
Still... we wouldn't be as far as we are without their help.

 

[Baste]

Indeed I remember people complaining like mad about the original game stability, but never having such problems myself.
Seems the European version is somehow more stable than the US one. Haven't the foggiest why.

Seems to be memory management. The European versions seem to handle memory much better than any of the American versions.

If you ever want to experience the stock game being unstable, try the NTSC Xbox version. It has such fine issues like the game suddenly crashing for no apparent reason. One event in the game that works fine every time might suddenly not work, even though you didn't do anything different.

The game can crash with the screen being completely white. It's like the game surrendered.
Or maybe you'd like the crash where being on the sea shows nothing but the water. Nothing else is shown, and you can't move the camera, and no button does anything.
All you can do in both cases is turn off the Xbox and start it again.
And of course we have the favorite where save files are shown as "Bad Save" and can't be loaded. Especially fun when you have made a lot of progress.

These are some I remember. There are workarounds for some of them but they are still annoying.

My question is, if the American version is less stable why not just release the same European version in America, or why even bother to make a different worse version just for America?

For some reason there are different codebases, with the Russian being made first, then the American, and then the European. Therefore the European versions were released with improvements. Even so, they could have at least released a patch for all versions, making all versions have the same codebase and the same improvements.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Seems to be memory management. The European versions seem to handle memory much better than any of the American versions.

If you ever want to experience the stock game being unstable, try the NTSC Xbox version. It has such fine issues like the game suddenly crashing for no apparent reason. One event in the game that works fine every time might suddenly not work, even though you didn't do anything different.

The game can crash with the screen being completely white. It's like the game surrendered.
Or maybe you'd like the crash where being on the sea shows nothing but the water. Nothing else is shown, and you can't move the camera, and no button does anything.
All you can do in both cases is turn off the Xbox and start it again.
And of course we have the favorite where save files are shown as "Bad Save" and can't be loaded. Especially fun when you have made a lot of progress.

These are some I remember. There are workarounds for some of them but they are still annoying.

Ouch; that is NOT awesome!

Guess I was lucky to find the European version then.
(Not so strange of course, since I am in Europe. )

For some reason there are different codebases, with the Russian being made first, then the American, and then the European. Therefore the European versions were released with improvements. Even so, they could have at least released a patch for all versions, making all versions have the same codebase and the same improvements.

Effectively we ended up doing that in the end.
Build 11 included all the official Akella updates and worked the same on all known releases of the game.