Post 1.3.2 Bugs here

Guest_[tA]Kane_*

On my bank accounts overview screen, all of them are saying "Logging in...", and never display the account balances. They didn't use to; just a few hours earlier, they worked fine.

So, I logged into one of them, and went to view account screen.

That screen says "Accessing..." for Balance and Loan.

So, I goto the loan screen, and that's the only screen that works... wtf?

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Krevnik

Hrm, another issue came up... those system instability issues? Those were caused by a mis-configured L2 cache on my G4 upgrade card. Here's the kicker... everything running on the system: Neverwinter Nights, BZFlag, Photoshop, Descent 3 in Classic... etc. etc are solid, and don't hang the system. In fact I just spent about 3 hours today getting confused as heck in the NN Tech Demo and not a single hang....

Now I go back to Uplink... and it hangs. It hangs again, and again. The machine has the following specs:

PowerMac 8600
Radeon 7000
MacOS 9.1 & MacOS X 10.2.6
Metabox G4/400Mhz upgrade card
384MB of RAM

RAM, HD, etc all check out.
No other app is currently causing hangs in OS 9 or OS X.
Uplink is hanging the system in both OS 9 and OS X.
Uplink tends to last 5-10 minutes under OS 9, but on a rare chance will not hang at all.
Uplink tends to last 30-60 minutes under OS X.

Since this is a hang, not a crash... I cannot offer up any crash logs, although I would love to know if the hangs are in random spots of code, or in 1-2 specific functions.

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LouisB3

I have one of the the previously mentioned LAN problems. I can run LAN scan, I appear to be able to spoof systems, but no links show up anywhere when I use LAN probe.

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Thunderforge

Welcome to the boards LouisB3.

Occasionally, when I've just hacked a bank and I transfer money to my Uplink bank account, I can get caught for "hacking". Maybe this isn't a bug, but it sure is annoying.

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Clones are people two.
If UPS and Fed-Ex merged, would they be Fed-Up?
A man who's out to save Gidolan Keep, flies an Auroran ship, and hacks into computers to keep the bricks from falling past the line of destiny? Yep, that's me!

Slipperman

Uplink Bugs & Interface Flaws

Bugs:

When demanding full payment up front for a mission, the player is actually paid the full amount again upon completion. I don't have information on what happens when you demand half payment. Perhaps the same thing?

Interface Flaws:

The following are only my considered opinion, emphasis on "considered". This is not a rant and I feel that anyone with an ounce of common sense will agree with these observations. I have also worked in software and interface design, so I sort of know a thing or two.

No text selection copy and paste? In a game as heavily dependent on typing as Uplink, this lack stands out glaringly. I realise this is a port from a PC game, but - come on! - not even Windows is that stupid. The "Edit" menu suite is part of the bog standard Mac API, there's nothing to write in order to include those functions. That is, at least under normal circumstances. Other evidence in the game leads me to believe that a lot of reinvention of the wheel went into the interface, which tends to complicate things for subsequent developers. Question: how many game companies who produce first person perspective real time combat games have made their own 3D modeling engines? Answer: all of them. This is a point raised, surprisingly, in Introversion's own "manifesto". So much for manifestos.

Text boxes which say, "fill in the blank" but don't have that text selected so that by merely beginning to type it is overwritten. Again, there's no click-selection of text (nor does Command + A (select all) work) in the interface, so the only recourse is to backspace delete. Very very very very very very very very very very very very annoying when doing, for example, multiple name searches in the Academic Database.

Made a mistake while typing in that name, password or URL? Maybe the very first character? Too bad. Since you can't move the cursor in the text fields, you have backspace delete the entire text to get to the errant section. This can be a source of great anxiety when trying to get into a server (for example InterNIC) in order to head off a trace. Sometimes seconds are precious, and Uplink is not kind to indolent typists.

This naturally leads to an inconsistency in the interface with regard to known passwords on servers. When you visit a server on which you have a valid account, that name and password are displayed and you can quickly enter that information into the fields by clicking the text. On every server except InterNIC. There your password is displayed, but you must type it in. Either have the feature or don't have it, but in having make it consistent.

In the Stock Market, when you purchase a stock, its name is flagged by an asterisk in the main list. However, you cannot filter stock names by this asterisk, which would of course only be all too intuitive and logical. In other words there's no conveient way to examine one's portfolio of holdings, except by filtering their names one at a time, or using the scroll bar, but read on...

In the Stock Market when you scroll down the list and then call up the information for a stock, when you leave that screen back to main list, the main list has defaulted back to the top instead of staying at the point to which you scrolled it. The same happens in the Mission List, but probably makes sense there as the list represents chronological events and the assumption is that most users want to see the fresh jobs.

The map has several things wrong. The squares that pinpoint server locations, their names and the connection lines are all the same colour, making for a real morass when dealing with convoluted link paths. The mouseovers are a nice touch, but the information displayed is insufficient. Only the name of the owning company is listed, whereas it would be highly convenient, again especially when things are getting dense, to have the full name of the server displayed.

When saving an connection route the text "connect" appears to the right of the Load button, where it is obscured by the map zoom controls, which should more proplerly be in the centre of that row of controls.

When the map is zoomed the alignment of solid or dashed borders, on those squares denoting admin level access, is skewed. The squares move out of their borders, or is the other way around? Not the intended behaviour one would think.

In the markets, the 'Purchase' button is just below the downscroll arrow meaning the user has to be extra careful about their aim, or -- Oops! -- you just bought something unintentionally. Move the 'Purchase' button to just above the 'Exit' button.

The goal of all good human interface design is to reduce, not increase the user's workload. To make those tedious repetitive tasks as effortless as possible. The examples above clearly violate this principle, tending to greatly reduce the overall quality of what is otherwise a super game concept.

But - and here's the cool part - it can (and should!) all be fixed. Unless and until these issues are addressed (or at least acknowledged) I will have serious reservations about paying for the game.

I make no apology for the length of this "rant" and I hope the intrepid reader will appreciate the time and thought that went into it.

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(This message has been edited by a malicious hacker (edited 07-05-2003).)

(This message has been edited by another malicious hacker (I hate when they do that!).)

(This message has been edited by Slipperman (edited 07-05-2003).)

Guest_Ricia_*

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
**
Text boxes which say, "fill in the blank" but don't have that text selected so that by merely beginning to type it is overwritten. Again, there's no click-selection of text (nor does Command + A (select all) work) in the interface, so the only recourse is to backspace delete. Very very very very very very very very very very very very annoying when doing, for example, multiple name searches in the Academic Database.

**

It turns out that you can just hit escape, and the text in the box will disappear.

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r

Slipperman

Quote

Originally posted by Ricia:
**It turns out that you can just hit escape, and the text in the box will disappear.

**

Oh-ah? Ta for that information. Usually it's shift delete to "delete all" and that's what I tried. The word "escape" has other connotations for me, but that's just me

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STraven

When you hack a LAN and destroy the system delete the sys directory, and shutdown), and if you try to reconnect to the LAN, the game crash, and quit. Try again after relaunching, you'll access it without problem.

Destroying a LAN don't make any news appear.

Hamster2

I'm running macOS 10.2.6 on a dual 1 GHz mirror door G4.
Whenever I close the whole window while I'm accessing an account, the graphics will appear as a white X on a red background. Then, when I scroll through the mission BBS, it unexpectedly quits.

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If you give a mouse a cyanide laced cookie...

Erica Marceau

I'm on the last Arunmore mission and the game seems to slow down as the minutes progress until it crashes. I've tried to beat this mission 6 times and it happens every single time.

Plus, the odd LAN bug in the Arunmore mission which seems to only show the lines if you scan the LAN, use the probe on everything, quit Uplink, restart, and use the probe again.

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Contributing Editor
(url="http://"http://www.applelinks.com")Applelinks(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.macosjournal.com")Mac OS Journal(/url)

Guest_Rubes_*

I think this one might have been mentioned in the last bug thread, but it's still in my 1.3.2...

In one of the ARC missions framing the Arunmor guy for bank fraud, I complete the mission, point the origination to the guy's computer, and sit and wait at the News Server to see what happens. First, the bank reports being hacked, then the story shows up reporting the guy is arrested for hacking the bank. Looks great. When I reply to the mission letter, it tells me they can see I performed the hack, but it's not pointing to the right guy's computer and the wrong guy might get framed. Beg pardon? He was just arrested for the crime.

Sounds like a bug to me, unless I did things wrong...

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Mundokiir

I was playing the ARC missionns an after I did the first one they sent me email saying I did it and they would have more missions for me soon. I waited 8 months and no new missions came for me and the story line progressed without me. :frown:

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"heart of crushed
Garnet, the eye of fury"

The Phantom

I downloaded Uplink about a week ago, and recently I haven't been able to get into it at all. If I try to open it a black screen comes up. I can still hear the music, but... I can't get in. That sucks, as I remember it was a realy fun game. So do you have anything for me to do?

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One does not wrestle the Muse, one hunts it down and beats it into submission. -Me

Ringwraith

First - a little more information on the LAN thing. I have found that when I use a theme the LAN links do not show up. But if I log out, revert to the default theme, and then log back in (no game restart) I can use LAN_Probe just fine.

Second - the Motion Detector still shows people around my gateway (I had to destroy it after the last Arunmor mission). So I bought another Trinity and loaded it up. When I turned on my Motion Detector, it was straight red. I almost nuked it again, but decided to wait and see what happens. I fast-forwarded for a week and no emails, no disavowal, Nothing. But the Motion Detector still shows red.

I have a 600mhz iBook w/640 megs RAM and 10.2.6

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"Always listen to the experts. They will tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it."
- The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
There are things more annoying than using MS Windows... but I can never remember what they are.
-Me

Crow42

I have just downloaded Uplink and have been unable to play thus far. Every time I open it up and try to make a new player, I enter the name, then the password twice, then I click DONE. The button glows like it's about to take me to the next screen, but then everything just freezes. I can still move the mouse around and force quit, and the music is still going, but I cannot get any further into the game. Could somebody help me out?

I am running a G4 Cube, Mac OS 9.2.2.

-Crow

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Guest_troll_*

List of bugs I've encountered so far:
color artifacts.
Refresh artifacts
missions to delete blah and blah is not their to be deleted.
bug in delete the file gio-data-7384123 (it does not even exist).
Menus do not mouse_event
the conection has a mouse_event and widget problem in wich if theirs an active item where it appears the games engine seems to want to "guess" what should be their most of the time this ends up being a mesh of multiple elements.
Memory leak causing game to crash after the game has been active for certai times (seems to be 15 30 or x hours. 10.2.6 in wich certain charectors are forgotten.
A glitch in the games start routine causes one of the start picture files to be left out. It has a place holder where it should be instead or skips that part of the boot sequence.

Pausing the games state internally causes a segment fault.

Theirs no way to pause the game then let it idle in the background.

starting the game in it's own process from the command line causes amusing bugs (like being un able to start a new agent).

This is in the demo.
On a iBook with 256 megs of ram
Cream colord
10.2.6

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-Hummanity is a disease,
and I am the cure.
YOU!- Me
Me

Guest_troll_*

Re: The post discussing the UI.

I agree.

I have done my share of programing. I know for fact any language worth studying has at some level a concept of includeable files. For instance in C standardin and out . In java their's a whole host of graphics optimised elements events etc. and here's the nice thing-They are part of the standard distrobution from Sun. C has a similler concept.

I know, it's a pain porting code, removing legacy code, blah blah blah. I know it's a pain even getting something to compile (yes I have cursed with much joy when my program had a human error line 133 of that one threaded object...and their is no line 133) However. For the love of gods Atmost! could you at least pretend to use a little common sense here? Tim? Helos, anyone else that programs at AmbrosSW sweet 13 Have you spent much time playing this game?
It's a pain in the ass to even do the things uplink emulates in the real.

btw I found some more bugs:
On the UI side I don't know quite where to start: Mouseover refuse to behave, the widgets are not elogant at all, (find a nice MacOS X API style guide), no text_copy, inconsistant text_in Stdnin in password widgets.

The registration program has a hardtime with IMAP e-mail acounts (it reports no acount found.)

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-Hummanity is a disease,
and I am the cure.
YOU!- Me
Me

epoch

When zoomed in on the map, it's incredibly difficult to select sites to route through. It's as if the coordinates for the squares have changed.

When you close the HUD Analysis window while there are proxy, firewall, or monitor bypassers running, the bypassers remain on the screen. They will cover the desciptions of items in the LAN viewer as well as any other window that opens in that area.

In the LAN viewer, text such as "guarded by" or "lock/unlock" move around when scrolling through the LAN. (The text can end up floating off in places where there are no devices on the LAN.)

I've also seen the bug where "Logging In..." and "Accessing..." cover the balances in the bank (any bank). However, this somehow corrected itself. (Possibly after I transferred more money into my account/s.)

At times when accessing the "Program Menu", there will be empty spaces and a program will be missing. Re-accessing the sub-menu usually brings them back. I think what's going on here is the program above the missing program has slid down out of it's slot to cover the one below.

When deleting files from a File Server, the file deletion program sometimes slides over and covers the file below the one you are trying to delete. However, the correct file is deleted.

I've only had this happen to me once, but I was running the voice analyzer along with 4 or 5 other programs. I was unable to decrease the %CPU for the voice analyzer. It was the last program in the list and I think I was hacking a LAN at the time. I could decrease/increase all other programs. I could only increase the voice analyzer.

The most annoying bug I ran into was in doing the Arunmor missions. I made it to where I should have gotten the final mission, but it never showed up in the BBS, nor did I get any sort of email about it. Only after checking the news did I realize that the mission had been "completed" (there were news events about how the virus was stopped). Left me feeling completely ripped off!

If you have trace tracker running while playing "Wargames," it covers the close button. Also, all other buttons and menus disappear. Though, maybe that's the point?

Lastly, I think it would be nice to have the ability to use key combos like cmd-tab to switch back to other programs.

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(life) is a tale told by an idiot / full of sound and fury / signifying nothing

Kidglove2

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
When demanding full payment up front for a mission, the player is actually paid the full amount again upon completion. I don't have information on what happens when you demand half payment. Perhaps the same thing?

Are you sure you've been paid once more? Or is it just that the standard reply email says you've been paid? I'm not getting this.

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
No text selection copy and paste?

While I agree with you that cut-copy-paste should be available, uplink most likely doesn't use standard APIs for text input.

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
When you visit a server on which you (...)

It's certainly no excuse, but there is a program available that can eliminate the InterNIC password.

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
The map has several things wrong. (...)

When I first brought this up, the response was that those things were design decisions on the part of the person who first wrote the game, and that there was nothing that could or would be done about it.

Quote

Originally posted by Slipperman:
The squares move out of their borders, or is the other way around?

Actually, both. See below.

Quote

Originally posted by troll:
Menus do not mouse_event

Huh? Please elaborate on what you mean by this. Do you click on menus and they don't respond, or what?

Quote

Originally posted by troll:
Theirs no way to pause the game then let it idle in the background.

Pause button, to the right of the current IP and to the left of the game speed buttons.

Quote

Originally posted by troll:
I have done my share of programing. I know for fact any language worth studying has at some level a concept of includeable files.

You mean libraries? The Uplink UI isn't supposed to look like you're in the normal OS. It's a game. It is meant to have it's own UI. Granted, the Uplink UI has several great faults, but the UI libraries for Mac or Windows aren't being used for a reason.

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
When zoomed in on the map, it's incredibly difficult to select sites to route through. It's as if the coordinates for the squares have changed.

They have. According to what was said the last time this was complained about, the reason for this is that the coordinates for the squares are calculated differently when drawing and when testing - Ambrosia (ASW) blames Introversion (IV) for the bug and will do nothing until IV fixes it.

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
When you close the HUD Analysis window while there are proxy, firewall, or monitor bypassers running, the bypassers remain on the screen. They will cover the desciptions of items in the LAN viewer as well as any other window that opens in that area.

This has been reffered to as a "feature" that allows you to close them down without having the connection analysis window open.

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
In the LAN viewer, text such as "guarded by" or "lock/unlock" move around when scrolling through the LAN. (The text can end up floating off in places where there are no devices on the LAN.)

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
I've also seen the bug where "Logging In..." and "Accessing..." cover the balances in the bank (any bank). However, this somehow corrected itself. (Possibly after I transferred more money into my account/s.)

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
At times when accessing the "Program Menu", there will be empty spaces and a program will be missing. Re-accessing the sub-menu usually brings them back. I think what's going on here is the program above the missing program has slid down out of it's slot to cover the one below.

These types of graphical glitches are all over, ASW says that if a bug is in the windows version, mac users get it, too.

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
When deleting files from a File Server, the file deletion program sometimes slides over and covers the file below the one you are trying to delete. However, the correct file is deleted.

"Sometimes"? This is normal behaviour for the file deleter tool. Kinda spooky considering how the file copier works, but that's the way the windows version works...

Quote

Originally posted by epoch:
I've only had this happen to me once, but I was running the voice analyzer along with 4 or 5 other programs. I was unable to decrease the %CPU for the voice analyzer. It was the last program in the list and I think I was hacking a LAN at the time. I could decrease/increase all other programs. I could only increase the voice analyzer.

What happens is that the program list is underneath the main graphics, and so when you try to click the buttons, you can't get to them because there is an invisible object above it. This happens to every program that is the number 5-6 and below.

'glove

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Compilers - the ultimate god games.
(edit) I wish there was a preview feature on this board. (/edit)

(This message has been edited by Kidglove II (edited 07-12-2003).)

BlackLite

When you get one of the 'Delete all data on a competitions server' mission, I once tried to delete all of the data through the console. It removed it all when I checked the server normally, but when I replied, it said that the damage had not been done yet. Whats up?

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Whose cruel idea was it to put an 'S' in lisp?

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