Freshly installed, can not start / launch the game

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Horned Reaper
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I just want to play and build maps, but since the map editor update, I can not launch my game.

When I try to play, the game starts loading, shows the ingame loading screen... Loads a bit and then returns to desktop and tries to re-launch automatically in a loop...

I tried validating the cache integrity from steam proporties, I even deleted the game and redownloaded and installed, but still have this dissapointing problem.

I just want to play the game, I paid for, when I get back home from work.


Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1
BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/07/12 17:28:55 Ver: 04.06.05
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16306MB RAM
Page File: 7236MB used, 27422MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11


output_log.txt

Game Version:
Steam Public
Platform:
Windows

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Satisfaction mark by Horned Reaper 8 years ago

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Duplicates 1
Fail to launch, possible DRM issue (continuation)

(Continuation from this link: http://brightrockgames.userecho.com/topics/335-freshly-installed-can-not-start-launch-the-game/#)

Hello, after months of communicating steam's support team, they decided that this is their final answer;



23 Message by Support Tech Jared on Wed, Aug 10 2016 13:49
Correct implementation of Steam DRM is up to the developer of this game. A game that has implemented this feature correctly should not automatically close when a problem is encountered.



Unfortunately, we can't work on a game that our teams didn't develop here at Valve. The only path to resolution is through the game's support team, and, with all likelihood from what you've described, their development team.



Replies 46
Avatar
0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Thanks for your support! We truly appreciate it and honestly wish we could do more to help you.

As for the Humble Version, at the very least it will get your a Steam Key as well as the DRM-Free build, if you do go down that route perhaps you could use that key on a different account just in case?

Worst-case scenario I try my chances when the code hits market shelves as in a physical box, with all the artwork surrounding it, distributed evenly, I don't know may be 5, 7 years from now?

...At the very least, it'll make my day, the moment I learn about it...

My kindest regards to the whole team,

E.T.

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0
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
Quote from Horned Reaper

This is just sad.
This started to seem like malevolence from Steam's side, as if they purposely sabotage your growing fan base, I don't know why.


At first I wanted to buy the Humble store version, so you guys could earn more money. But the possibility of the things you just described prevented me (lack of updates etc).


But I want you and your team to know that I will continue to support your project no matter what obstacles lies ahead... I realize and appreciate your efforts for reviving a long dead legend and carrying it this far. And boy, Richard Ridings was the best move!


Anyways as I said, I'll be trying your suggestions tonight. Ty again.

Thanks for your support! We truly appreciate it and honestly wish we could do more to help you.

As for the Humble Version, at the very least it will get your a Steam Key as well as the DRM-Free build, if you do go down that route perhaps you could use that key on a different account just in case?

Avatar
0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

When I came to addressing your ticket I talked to the team about reporting this directly to Steam.


Unfortunately as surprising as it may seem there are very few avenues we can take to report bugs in Steamworks ourselves. In the past there used to be a system in place for Developer contact but this has gradually been shut down. One of the more frustrating elements of this issue :/

This is just sad.
This started to seem like malevolence from Steam's side, as if they purposely sabotage your growing fan base, I don't know why.


At first I wanted to buy the Humble store version, so you guys could earn more money. But the possibility of the things you just described prevented me (lack of updates etc).


But I want you and your team to know that I will continue to support your project no matter what obstacles lies ahead... I realize and appreciate your efforts for reviving a long dead legend and carrying it this far. And boy, Richard Ridings was the best move!


Anyways as I said, I'll be trying your suggestions tonight. Ty again.

Avatar
0
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
Quote from Horned Reaper

Thank you so much for sparing time to write to me.
I will look into the suggestions you just gave me. Afterwards I will write an update here.

I also contacted steam about this, waiting for an answer.

Could you also please officially contact Steam about this issue too? If it's true that this is their fault, they need to take it seriously.

I might not be the only one with this issue. I had this happening months ago and I finally can spare time to this. I can almost imagine other people who have daily jobs and just gave up on the issue.

When I came to addressing your ticket I talked to the team about reporting this directly to Steam.


Unfortunately as surprising as it may seem there are very few avenues we can take to report bugs in Steamworks ourselves. In the past there used to be a system in place for Developer contact but this has gradually been shut down. One of the more frustrating elements of this issue :/

Avatar
0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hi Erke,


There's certainly something unique happening here as you appear to be the only player who's been affected by this issue.

I've just had a quick chat with V0id about your issue and It's certainly the Steamworks DRM service that's at fault as opposed to our code so there's not much more we can do on our side. Which is extremely infuriating on both ends.

Essentially our game is successfully calling the Steamworks DRM service but not receiving an appropriate response from it. When it calls the service it's no longer in our code but in Valve's.

At this point I have a few suggestions for you to try that might get you in the game:

Offline Mode
Firstly you could try launching the game while Steam is in offline mode, this might bypass the DRM check, though if it's never launched properly it may still need to verify at least once in which case this won't work.

Manual Steam Reinstall (Full clean steam install)
Secondly, I know you've already removed steam but I'd suggest going a step further and manually removing all Steam files from your system so that it's a definitely clean install. Backup and remove these files:

  • Your Steam Folder (In program files)
  • Your Steam Registry entries (Via regedit)
  • Your Steam App Data (Windows Drive/users/username/appdata/local/steam

Leave nothing in there and then install Steam from Scratch and download a fresh copy of War for the Overworld.

You can find instructions for removing steam manually here


Winsock Reset
This one comes from V0id and is an extremely rare issue that we encountered once in the past. If you've installed software that somehow corrupted Winsock it may be causing unusual issues to occur.

So you can give the reset a try

Contact Steam Support
You'll need a support account to do this, you'll have to submit a new question. Covering everything we've discussed here, taking them through what we've done with you and how we've come to the conclusion that Steamworks is at fault. If this fails then request a refund as below.

DRM-Free copy
If all of the above fails then the only suggestion we have beyond that is to refund your steam copy and buy a copy of WFTO from the Humble store this will get you a Steam Key and a DRM-Free copy.

There are caveats associated with the DRM-Free copy though. We update it less often, so it's currently sitting on Patch 1.2.3. We'll be updating it again after Patch 1.4. However Heart of Gold will not be available on DRM-Free (DLC is managed via Steamworks)

I apologise that we're unable to help you further in this regard. I understand how frustrating this must be for you. It's also frustrating for us as we don't want anyone to be left out of playing the game but at this stage it truly is out of our hands.

Thank you so much for sparing time to write to me.
I will look into the suggestions you just gave me. Afterwards I will write an update here.

I also contacted steam about this, waiting for an answer.

Could you also please officially contact Steam about this issue too? If it's true that this is their fault, they need to take it seriously.

I might not be the only one with this issue. I had this happening months ago and I finally can spare time to this. I can almost imagine other people who have daily jobs and just gave up on the issue.

Avatar
0
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager

Hi Erke,


There's certainly something unique happening here as you appear to be the only player who's been affected by this issue.

I've just had a quick chat with V0id about your issue and It's certainly the Steamworks DRM service that's at fault as opposed to our code so there's not much more we can do on our side. Which is extremely infuriating on both ends.

Essentially our game is successfully calling the Steamworks DRM service but not receiving an appropriate response from it. When it calls the service it's no longer in our code but in Valve's.

At this point I have a few suggestions for you to try that might get you in the game:

Offline Mode
Firstly you could try launching the game while Steam is in offline mode, this might bypass the DRM check, though if it's never launched properly it may still need to verify at least once in which case this won't work.

Manual Steam Reinstall (Full clean steam install)
Secondly, I know you've already removed steam but I'd suggest going a step further and manually removing all Steam files from your system so that it's a definitely clean install. Backup and remove these files:

  • Your Steam Folder (In program files)
  • Your Steam Registry entries (Via regedit)
  • Your Steam App Data (Windows Drive/users/username/appdata/local/steam

Leave nothing in there and then install Steam from Scratch and download a fresh copy of War for the Overworld.

You can find instructions for removing steam manually here


Winsock Reset
This one comes from V0id and is an extremely rare issue that we encountered once in the past. If you've installed software that somehow corrupted Winsock it may be causing unusual issues to occur.

So you can give the reset a try

Contact Steam Support
You'll need a support account to do this, you'll have to submit a new question. Covering everything we've discussed here, taking them through what we've done with you and how we've come to the conclusion that Steamworks is at fault. If this fails then request a refund as below.

DRM-Free copy
If all of the above fails then the only suggestion we have beyond that is to refund your steam copy and buy a copy of WFTO from the Humble store this will get you a Steam Key and a DRM-Free copy.

There are caveats associated with the DRM-Free copy though. We update it less often, so it's currently sitting on Patch 1.2.3. We'll be updating it again after Patch 1.4. However Heart of Gold will not be available on DRM-Free (DLC is managed via Steamworks)

I apologise that we're unable to help you further in this regard. I understand how frustrating this must be for you. It's also frustrating for us as we don't want anyone to be left out of playing the game but at this stage it truly is out of our hands.

Avatar
0
Horned Reaper

UPDATE:

I just uninstalled steam, re-installed it... And the game still doesn't launch... Same exact symptoms.


What is the refund procedure? May be If I unbuy and re-buy, it'll fix... =P


Since I am an early adapter, I don't want to refund, just wanna fix.

I have an early adapter bonus and look at the sorrow I'm in... =(

Avatar
0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Stefan Furcht

Hello Merket,

Do you have other Steam games which do work?

The thing is your log is fine, what you commented is a minor issue and in almost every log, so it should not hurt.
Your log looks like a normal start and then quit without issues.

However, when the game is restarting in a loop this is normally caused by Steams DRM check, which seems to fail.
What it does is detecting if Steam is running and if not, it quits the game and tries to restart it together with Steam.
Somehow yet it still thinks Steam isn't running.

This is more an issue with the Steam client it self than with the game.

I recall this happened before but is a very seldom issue.
If I remember correctly it was simply fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the Steam software.
This is what I would suggest you to try.
(Hint: reinstalling Steam client does not remove any of your save games or game settings, because all of them will remain safe in your Steam cloud)

I hope this helps!
Please let us know if it does.
Cheers

Hello Stefan,


Thank you so much for looking into my log file and figuring out the possible problem causing this.


Yet unfortunately, I did try completely uninstalling and re-installing the game, actually this is why I especially wrote "freshly installed" at my topic.


But if this is the issue I think I need more than just uninstalling, perhaps removing some registry keys? with your help of course...


Edit: I thought you meant reinstalling the game, sorry, tonight i will try to reinstall steam. You say steam does not remove save games nor game settings, but uninstalling steam does force steam to uninstall the games too am I right? If that is the case, you can understand that I wouldn't necessarily be willing to try this step, since WFO is the only broken game and I got lots of others in steam. Could you be kind enough to confirm this?


And yes, I do have other steam games which DO work, like Fallout 4, GTA 5, Cities: Skylines, Blockscape are just to name some that I launched recently.


Dealing with these DRM checks even after you bought the game are really frustrating as you can imagine; would you suggest that I contact Steam, or would they redirect me back to you, you think?

I hope we can solve this, because I really want to go back to playing this game and see what changes and updates you guys made.


Avatar
0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Jan - Eric Merzel

ill have to inform a coder on your issue then

Thank you

Avatar
-1
Stefan Furcht Programmer

Hello Merket,

Do you have other Steam games which do work?

The thing is your log is fine, what you commented is a minor issue and in almost every log, so it should not hurt.
Your log looks like a normal start and then quit without issues.

However, when the game is restarting in a loop this is normally caused by Steams DRM check, which seems to fail.
What it does is detecting if Steam is running and if not, it quits the game and tries to restart it together with Steam.
Somehow yet it still thinks Steam isn't running.

This is more an issue with the Steam client it self than with the game.

I recall this happened before but is a very seldom issue.
If I remember correctly it was simply fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the Steam software.
This is what I would suggest you to try.
(Hint: reinstalling Steam client does not remove any of your save games or game settings, because all of them will remain safe in your Steam cloud)

I hope this helps!
Please let us know if it does.
Cheers


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