The new patch is just about finished. We've started testing it today. Here are some of the new features... - Remove 50 year limit. - More frequent visits by I.M.Picky. - a better system of placing landmarks. A free landmark now appears in your landmarks menu when Ivana donates a landmark or a happy ending occurs on your course. - fix for save file corruption problem (thanks to Bill Harris his help) - you can pick up a golfer and move him/her to another place on the course, or to the clubhouse to eject him/her. - the ability to cancel a tournament or match. - more cash if J.P.Bigdome likes your course. - golfer in carts do not complain about slopes. - Gary Golf doesn't lose skills when buying new course. - fix for the "toilet bowl" firm fairway problem. - add Animals/No Animals to the preferences. - you can turn off golfer comments in the preferences - cleaned up display of stars,hearts,etc. at top left. - Esc no longer quits game but clears messages, etc. - Right-click clears messages, etc. before becoming an undo cursor. - Problem with invalid course records fixed. - Problem with your pro on bench not going to tee fixed. - 'No Dandelion' landmarks now prevent new weeds as well as spread of weeds. - faster scroll on members report. - Tab key cycles through unhappy golfers. - money cheat now indicated in your cash total. - a couple of other cool things.
Missed a couple of blank courses sent in by Don J. Signori, I have updated the collection which can be downloaded from the Files page
- I was brainstorming about course design, and it occurred to me that what we need is some kind of course drafting software tool. Building on a full map in the game is OK, but it's hard to plan and visualize due to the isometric layout and the lack of detail when zoomed out. A course map in SimGolf is 48 by 48 tiles in dimension. Each square in the grid would normally only have one tile type, the exception being a path placed on another tile, but we can ignore that right now. So what we need is a software tool/utility that displays a grid of those 48 by 48 dimensions, and allows us to change the contents of each grid square. The content of a grid square can be as simple as a letter ('W' for water, 'T' for tee, you get the idea). A more sophisiticated version would display a graphic icon representing each type. I know this ignores the elevation element, maybe there is some way to include it.
- This idea is not new; when I was deep into the Pharaoh game by Impressions/Sierra I saw a couple of tools like this over at Pharaoh Heaven. One was HTML based, the other was written in Visual Basic (I think). Does anyone have more info on those tools for Pharaoh?
- Also, it's quite possible that this kind of utility already exists as a general software tool. Maybe for landscaping, house layout, etc. So long as it is possible to change the contents of the grid squares, and to customise what can be placed in the squares, well, that might do the trick.
- I would ask anyone who wants to respond to the above requests to post the information on the Backswing Forum, so that we can exchange information and leads. Who knows, maybe we can come up with a common design tool so we can exchange design plans!
There are not a lot of design formulas in the book, which might be due to the book being finalized before the game was. There is a least one significant error, this regarding a formula calculating when Mr Picky shows up to sell you more land. The book gives a formula (n+1) x (n+1) x 25 = Fun Rating needed for a visit, when "n" is the number of times Picky has visted so far. This formula results in a progression 25, 100, 150, 400, 625, 900, etc. However, from observation, I have found that the progression is 100, 300, 600, 1000, 1500, 2100, etc. You can read more about my observations on the SimGolf In Depth page in the article "Buying Land and Making Fun". It's too bad they didn't stick with the formula in the book, as getting Mr Picky to show up in the released game is pretty hard for those last few sections of land!
So is the guide worth getting? If you are a serious course designer, or really want to get into the guts of the game, it's probably worth it to you. For the more casual player, you can live without it, no doubt.
to the Files page. I carried the "Tombstone, Arizona" theme through the names of the holes, marshalls, and celebrities.
"SimGolfians,
We are hard at work on the SimGolf patch, hope to have it in to QA early next week. Here are a few things which will certainly be in the patch:
- Remove 50 year limit (what was I thinking?)
- More frequent visits by I.M.Picky.
- a better system of placing landmarks.
- the ability to cancel a tournament or match.
- more cash if J.P.Bigdome likes your course.
- fix for the "toilet bowl" firm fairway problem.
- add Animals/No Animals to the preferences.
- more...
Thanks for all the excellent suggestions. We'll try to get as many more into this patch as possible.
It would be helpful to us to get savegame files for problems which you encounter. We are setting up an e-mail address for this purpose: gophers@firaxis.com
A brief description of the problem would be appreciated as well as the relevant .sve file from the your /saved games folder.
When we made this game we really weren't sure whether players would prefer the course building part of the game, the tournaments and competions, the personalities of the golfers, or the customizing features. It seems like all these aspects of the game are getting a lot of play - which is great.
Here's a feature of the current game which I don't think is documented - you can hit the keys 1-9 (top row of keyboard) to jump to that hole. If the hole is already on the screen, this will bring up the hole report. Press the keys shift 1-shift 9 to jump to holes 10-18 on the 'back nine'.
- Sid
"
By the way, we had already posted that "jump to hole" shortcut on the Tips page
.
. This course is what prompted me to write an article about the importance of getting your Fun rating up early before you start running out of land. Still, we are talking about an average of 200% Fun on each hole in order to get that last piece. Sheesh!!!
)
on the Files page, but they are fixed now. Thanks for the heads-up, PFunk!
Just wait till we start adding those Enron-themed stories!
image in front of the item.
- You can select the holes of a course through the keyboard. First press centers the screen on the hole, second press opens the hole info screen. Keyboard keys [1] through [9] will select holes one through nine. Press [Shift] plus [1] to select hole ten, [Shift] plus [2] opens hole eleven and so forth (thanks, JPaterson000).
- If you just delete or rename the "credits.txt" file in the main SimGolf folder the end credits won't play when you quit, it will just quit to desktop (thanks, Dirk Dashing).
The SimGolf patch which corrects the 500k tournament bug has been submitted to Maxis and should be available later today or tomorrow (Wednesday). I apologize for the disruption this has caused. A lot of people worked very hard to make SimGolf the best game that they could. Thanks especially to those of you who provided a detailed and clear description of the circumstances surrounding this problem. I hope that in the coming days we can talk about game play, strategies, cool things that you've built with the game, and features you'd like to see. The patch should appear first on the SimGolf web site which went live today at www.simgolf.ea.com, in addition there are a number of fan sites appearing for the game. I''l try to let you know as soon as the patch is up. Mishuno! - Sid M.
I found the crash which appears upon starting a tournament with a first prize of $500,000 and fixed it today (Monday). This bug only appeared once the final release build was created due to a difference in the way MicroSoft C++ compiles release versions vs. working versions. (Therefore I think Bill Gates needs to take some of the heat on this;) We will have a patch up as soon as we've checked it out: tomorrow or Wednesday... - SidIt appears that JSB1999 may be Sid Meier (on Jeff Briggs account?), based on some older posts. In either case it would seem that this news is reasonably official. We can only hope so, since it means that we will have a patch pretty soon. There was more to the message containg tips for the game, which logically I posted on the Tips page.
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