I actually had no problems with any of this myself but I recently started a topic for this game at the Bay12games forum; it seems that a MAJORITY of the people interested can't play this game because of low resolution screens. It seems to actually be a catastrophic issue from the amount of complaints I've seen in that thread (id say at least 3 out of 7 pages of posts on that issue alone). There are also a large number of complaints about the installer. Namely people are confused about the 'yes to not override dlls' and having to unzip the AuroraUpdate475.zip file into the aurora folder after installation; this should really be done during installation. Many people were also worried about the installer because it modifies system32. There is also the missing msstdfmt.dll error on 64 bit computers; there is already a fix for this but building it in would be better. Some people are even reporting problems with their computer immediately after installing this game; this seems to be on Vista and Windows 7. I actually feel bad because it seems a lot of potential players aren't getting the chance to enjoy this game.
I read through the thread. Thanks for trying to promote Aurora!
Rather than trying to post responses on there, I'll try to cover the issues mentioned in this reply. Before I start though, people who have problems would be much better posting their issues on here where there are a lot of experienced players who can help them. I know some people just like to complain in forums but those who want to learn would get helpful answers to their questions on the Aurora forum. The installation program was written by Microsoft and is the standard installer included with Visual Studio so it shouldn't be doing anything strange to Windows. To create the install program I just list which Aurora program files are included. Microsoft's installer decides which DLLs are included. Many of the DLLs in the installer will be out of date because this is an old language, which is why the installer recommends keeping the newer version. If anyone deletes the latest version of a DLL in favour of an out of date one then I imagine there is a good chance they are going to have problems elsewhere in their system. This isn't Aurora-specific though as I am encounter the "Keep Latest DLL?" question in many install programs. For step 3, I am not sure why unzipping a specified file into a specified directory and answering yes to the only two override questions is proving so troublesome.
With regard to install issues on Vista and Windows7. I don't use those operating systems and I hope I won't be held responsible if Microsoft don't make their operating systems more backwardly compatible. However, the common problems and solutions have been posted on here by very helpful members of this forum so I would recommend reading those.
Anyone receiving the "3061 error from the DAO database: too few parameters, expecting 1" error, either has mismatched versions of the database and program, which means they may not have followed the installation instructions and should uninstall and re-install, or they have the decimal separator issue, in which case they need to change that in their regional setting.
To those who won't play because they refuse to spend a few seconds changing their regional settings before and after playing. That is entirely up to them. To be blunt, its a free game and I am unaffected by whether they play or not.
To the person who maintains it won't run on XP64, my development machine is XP64.
Yes, it is complex and difficult to learn. I make no apologies for that. At least 95% of people are not going to like the game or won't be prepared to make the effort to learn it. Aurora is designed to cater to the other 5%. There is a new v4.77 tutorial, which is very long and doesn't even cover 10% of the game yet. That is still your best bet for learning Aurora through. Also ask questions on here where experienced players can help.
The most common issue seems to be screen resolution. Sorry, but I won't be changing the resolution to a smaller one, although I do get asked about this quite often. Aurora has a lot of information and to reduce the resolution I would have to break it up into a larger number of smaller windows. I run a triple-screen system with 1920x1200 on each monitor so if Aurora had smaller windows they would look too small on my own system. I have tried scrollbars, such as on the Task Group Window, and resizable windows but it is a lot of work for each window and it's worth bearing in mind the priority for new features in Aurora is often dependent on my own level of enthusiam for each change. Perhaps if one day I did attempt to sell a future version then I would obviously look at such options to make the game available to a greater proportion of those who wished to play it. As it is free though, I would hope people don't judge me too harshly for concentrating on the more fun aspects of programming this game. With the amazingly low price of monitors these days then anyone who really wants to play could probably get a higher resolution monitor for not much more than they would pay for a new PC game.
Aurora is a FREE game, which I develop for my own use and make available for others to play if they want to. I enjoy the community aspects of Aurora very much but this isn't a commercial game. I will occasionally promote the existence of the game, such as the recent AAR in the Wargamer forum, but I am not trying to persuade people to play it or even to like it, although I am very happy to help those who want to learn. I don't have any problems with those who think it is a terrible, over-complex, badly programmed game with dreadful graphics and I am not going to try and 'defend' Aurora. As I said, it wil not appeal to the vast majority of people. If anyone has a specific suggestion to improve Aurora, rather than more general criticism, then please post it in the Suggestions forum. Many of the game's best features have come from player suggestions.
Finally, I don't live in London (you couldn't pay me to), I live in Lancashire, in the North-west of England.
Steve
