When I press the Valkyrienet button in the multiplayer selection, the game engine appearantly starts a communication session with the valkyrienet server. I say appearantly, because the screen doesn't switch over to the valkyrienet lobby (yet), and the mouse arrow is frozen.
After something like 57 tries and an agonizingly long wait to determine if the game has in fact crashed or not, it finally does switch over, with a message box already popped up stating that no channels were found.
Please, for the next version, consider altering this.
1) Switch screens immediately to the valkyrienet lobby, and then try to retrieve channels.
2) When trying to retrieve the channels, check the main message loop (with PeekMessage if there is no other way), and respond to it. This allows me, the user, to a) see what's going on and b) press the back button if I want to bail out.
3) A side benefit of 2) would be a correctly functioning ZoneAlarm interface, and a working Alt-Tab key combination.
I already would settle for the Hearts of Iron variant, which places me visibly in the Valkyrienet lobby after 10 failed attempts to retrieve the channels, and then simply continues indefinately, but allows me, the user, to press the back button and bail out.
The above would give me, the user, control back over my own machine, instead of me waiting for a piece of code to relinquish control, and when it doesn't (in time), having to press the hard reset button and waiting for a 60 GB scandisk to finish upon the next boot.
Especially the ZoneAlarm interface starting to work normally would greatly benefit me (and other users, I suspect). Right now I was able to get it working, because VICTORIA.EXE wasn't known yet, and thus could be authorised externally. Now that it is known, a patch would lock me out, as I cannot re-authorise a patched executable externally, and the current Valkyrienet interface would (and does) lockout the ZoneAlarm popup windows, because of not checking the main message loop while trying TCP/IP traffic to retrieve the channels.
And no, don't suggest to uninstall or disable ZoneAlarm. That won't happen, ever. If I am forced to choose between not using ZoneAlarm or throwing Vicky out of the window, then Vicky goes out of the window. It's that simple.
Jan Peter
After something like 57 tries and an agonizingly long wait to determine if the game has in fact crashed or not, it finally does switch over, with a message box already popped up stating that no channels were found.
Please, for the next version, consider altering this.
1) Switch screens immediately to the valkyrienet lobby, and then try to retrieve channels.
2) When trying to retrieve the channels, check the main message loop (with PeekMessage if there is no other way), and respond to it. This allows me, the user, to a) see what's going on and b) press the back button if I want to bail out.
3) A side benefit of 2) would be a correctly functioning ZoneAlarm interface, and a working Alt-Tab key combination.
I already would settle for the Hearts of Iron variant, which places me visibly in the Valkyrienet lobby after 10 failed attempts to retrieve the channels, and then simply continues indefinately, but allows me, the user, to press the back button and bail out.
The above would give me, the user, control back over my own machine, instead of me waiting for a piece of code to relinquish control, and when it doesn't (in time), having to press the hard reset button and waiting for a 60 GB scandisk to finish upon the next boot.
Especially the ZoneAlarm interface starting to work normally would greatly benefit me (and other users, I suspect). Right now I was able to get it working, because VICTORIA.EXE wasn't known yet, and thus could be authorised externally. Now that it is known, a patch would lock me out, as I cannot re-authorise a patched executable externally, and the current Valkyrienet interface would (and does) lockout the ZoneAlarm popup windows, because of not checking the main message loop while trying TCP/IP traffic to retrieve the channels.
And no, don't suggest to uninstall or disable ZoneAlarm. That won't happen, ever. If I am forced to choose between not using ZoneAlarm or throwing Vicky out of the window, then Vicky goes out of the window. It's that simple.
Jan Peter
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