Freshly installed, can not start / launch the game

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Horned Reaper
  • updated
  • Completed - Resolved

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 7 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
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0
Lee "Noontide" Moon
Quote from death12092

i looked in my files and looked for answers and it came up that i dont have teh wftogame.exe file that should have been installed whe ni downloaded it from steam why didnt it install i ahve tried reinstalling but it didnt work. i installed off steam

Sometimes Steam can fail to install games, it happens from time to time. 

Just try verifying the cache or reinstalling the game. If you still have issues please raise your own ticket.

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0
death12092

i looked in my files and looked for answers and it came up that i dont have teh wftogame.exe file that should have been installed whe ni downloaded it from steam why didnt it install i ahve tried reinstalling but it didnt work. i installed off steam

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2
Lee "Noontide" Moon
  • Completed - Resolved

That's great news Merket! If it was caused by bad sectors on the drive we would never have suspected, as we said we have absolutely no idea how the check actually works.


We will keep this knowledge for future reference however, hopefully it'll help others in the future. Now if only we could have Valve do the same :) Have a great time and enjoy the game.

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1
Horned Reaper
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hi Merket,


Just to let you know I will now be closing this as we are unable to proceed. I hope that my final suggestions have somehow helped to resolve the issue but at this point all our options are completely exhausted.


Of course if you're still having issue our offer of a free DRM-free key still stands and if we ever release any vastly improved versions of the game that are DRM-Free we'll also happily offer that to you as well. Please get in touch via a private ticket on our Help & Support desk if you would like us to action that for you.


I apologise that we cannot help any further in this matter and I want you to know that we all wish we could get you back in the game on Steam.


Kind Regards,


Lee

FINALLY GOOD NEWS!


Hello,

At first I didn't want to revive this topic as I got the problem solved but then I thought it might help you and the others who are having the same issue.


I upgraded my pc a couple of weeks ago and did a fresh install of both steam and WFTO to a new HDD. I also did a full format & couple of Chckdsk s to my old drive. It turns out that I had a lot of bad sectors in that drive and I came to believe that this was causing the issue.


I am so happy to be able to play the game again. The new map editor is charming. I thank all the team once more, as you did your best trying to help me. Who could have known it was those stupid bad sectors in the drive.


I wish you all a wonderful week.

Avatar
0
Lee "Noontide" Moon
  • Not Fixable

Hi Merket,


Just to let you know I will now be closing this as we are unable to proceed. I hope that my final suggestions have somehow helped to resolve the issue but at this point all our options are completely exhausted.


Of course if you're still having issue our offer of a free DRM-free key still stands and if we ever release any vastly improved versions of the game that are DRM-Free we'll also happily offer that to you as well. Please get in touch via a private ticket on our Help & Support desk if you would like us to action that for you.


I apologise that we cannot help any further in this matter and I want you to know that we all wish we could get you back in the game on Steam.


Kind Regards,


Lee

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0
Lee "Noontide" Moon
Quote from Horned Reaper

Thank you, I'll try my best to try test these.

Hi Merket. Any Progress?

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0
Horned Reaper

Thank you, I'll try my best to try test these.

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0
Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hi Erke,


I can honestly say that we'd never consider the possibility of you pirating the game, it's clear to us how genuinely eager you are to play and how much of a fan you are and that makes the situation we find ourselves in all the more frustrating. We take no pride in being unable to support you in this matter and we all wish we could do more but we're at a complete loss now.


Honestly at this stage we've exhausted all the diagnostic options on our side. Each of our three coders has taken a look at your issue individually and we're none the wiser as to what the cause might be. The steps we've undergone and the knowledge we have acquired all indicate that the problem does not lie in War for the Overworld's code, which is the only thing we can truly claim to be experts in.


At this point the problem as far as we're concerned could only lie in one of four places or a combination of multiple of these:


  • The Steamworks API
  • Your Software
  • Your Hardware
  • Your Network

My only suggestion would be to try and eliminate the variables and gradually troubleshoot each of these things until you find a solution. As Steamworks is obviously out of bounds and Valve had pulled out we can't possibly support that so here's what I'd recommend trying next:


Software Troubleshooting


  1. Backup your system or buy a new hard-drive, make sure you keep your old files safe!
  2. Do a completely clean install of Windows, install nothing but a graphics driver, Steam and War for the Overworld (and a network driver if necessary)
  3. If it runs then your problem is likely software based. Restore your computer and then slowly start to remove variables that might affect Steam. Try and bring the system closer to a standard configuration bit by bit. Perhaps seek professional help on the workings of Windows.


Hardware Troubleshooting

  1. Try the game on another device using the same install of Windows you have now.
  2. If it runs your problem is hardware based likely culprits as far as I know would be:
    1. Hard Drive
    2. CPU
    3. Motherboard
    4. RAM
    5. Network Adapter


Network Troubleshooting

  1. Take your PC to another Network and try from there
  2. If it runs something is happening on your network that is preventing Steamworks from talking to the Steam Server correctly.

That's the best I can really do, with anything else we wouldn't really know where to start. Windows is a pretty complex beast and I'm sure you've already followed our previous steps to try reinstalling dependencies etc.


Hope to hear good results,


Lee

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0
Horned Reaper
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hi Merket,


I've discussed the issue with the code team and they can confirm that the issue is occurring as part of a very simple bit of code that Valve provides and recommends. They provided this extract from the steamworks documentation:


// If Steam is not running or the game wasn't started through Steam, SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary starts the // Steam client and also launches this game again if the User owns it. This can act as a rudimentary form of DRM.// See the Valve documentation for more information: https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/drm#FAQ
if (SteamAPI.RestartAppIfNecessary(new AppId_t(230190)))
{
Application.Quit();
return;
}
The Steam wrapper doesn't support .Net applications. Instead of using the DRM wrapper, use SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary(). SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary() detects if Steam is running, and will only return true if a restart is needed. If true exit the process. If it returns false, your game was launched by the Steam client and should continue running. One exception is that SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary() will return false if a steam_appid.txt file is present. This allows you to develop and test without launching your game through the Steam client. Be sure to remove the steam_appid.txt file when building the game depot.

According to the team this is the reason the game restarts in a loop which is behaving exactly the way it should provided it's getting the correct input.


There are two reasons this would return a "True" and thus restart the app:


  1. The Steamworks code is unable to detect that Steam is running for whatever reason
  2. You don't actually own or launch the game via Steam ( We're assuming this isn't the case ;) )

Unfortunately this once again leaves us stuck, the problem is clearly within the Steamworks API which is not supported by us, merely used in line with the documentation provided to us by Valve themselves.


I understand that this must be genuinely frustrating and we share your frustration because our hands are tied in this matter and unfortunately Valve customer support seems content to do the bare minimum possible.


We'd just like to clarify as well that the way this is being used is not actually for DRM Purposes, because as far as DRM goes it's not exactly a strong solution and can easily be spoofed. It's being used to ensure that Steamworks and it's features are accessible by the game as the Steam version relies heavily on those features.


For players affected by this issue we'd be happy to help you get your hands on a DRM-Free version of the game, we've updated it to Patch 1.4.1 and we'll be updating it again once our latest hotfix is out. You can find out the differences between the versions here: DRM-Free Build FAQ


I'm also going to tentatively say now. We're investigating the possibility of a GoG.com version in the future and if we are able to release that it will be more fully featured than the DRM-Free Build. Once more it's still tentative but if it does come out we'd be happy to provide you with a free copy.


Sorry I can't be any further help,


Lee

Hello Lee,

First of all thank you so much for helping me with this topic. I wouldn't dare to contact you nor Steam if I didn't bought the game. I've said it before and want to underline again; I am a fan of this game and this team since Bullfrog, Dungeon Keeper times. So I especially wanted to support developers by buying the game and I bought it the moment it was available, that's why I got "Early Adapter version" of the game which is a title I would like to keep and that's why I refused the option to refund. If I have been able to learn in time, I would also support you guys via Kickstarter. So you can rest assure that I own the game in legit ways and I can forward the bills if necessary.

That being said, I also let Steam know that you guys were having hard time reaching them yourselves and encouraged them to get in touch with you, that final answer from them came afterwards.

I have a highly customized windows setup; custom Appdata, Roaming and Local folder paths. I once duplicated my user folders and settings by mistake and reclaimed my original profile, may be that's causing some detection issues within the windows registry I don't know =(

Knowing that I'm a truly "Bad Luck Brian", I can believe that this happens to only one or two users out of tens of thousands... It's just my bad luck...

I'm really happy to hear about the DRM-free version, again I said it before, I would definitely prefer to buy a boxed version of the game if possible, honestly I just chose steam cause it was easier and the boxed version was not out yet. I'd happily do without Steam, especially after experiencing their support team. But after reading the link you provided, it seems that a lot of features are missing in that version by nature (multiplayer, DLC etc.)

So before trying that as a last resort, I would really appreciate if we could somehow fix this, just tell me what info or files you need and I'll do my best to cooperate.

Best regards to all,
Erke

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0
Lee "Noontide" Moon
  • Pending Customer
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hi Merket,


I've discussed the issue with the code team and they can confirm that the issue is occurring as part of a very simple bit of code that Valve provides and recommends. They provided this extract from the steamworks documentation:


// If Steam is not running or the game wasn't started through Steam, SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary starts the // Steam client and also launches this game again if the User owns it. This can act as a rudimentary form of DRM.// See the Valve documentation for more information: https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/drm#FAQ
if (SteamAPI.RestartAppIfNecessary(new AppId_t(230190)))
{
Application.Quit();
return;
}
The Steam wrapper doesn't support .Net applications. Instead of using the DRM wrapper, use SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary(). SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary() detects if Steam is running, and will only return true if a restart is needed. If true exit the process. If it returns false, your game was launched by the Steam client and should continue running. One exception is that SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary() will return false if a steam_appid.txt file is present. This allows you to develop and test without launching your game through the Steam client. Be sure to remove the steam_appid.txt file when building the game depot.

According to the team this is the reason the game restarts in a loop which is behaving exactly the way it should provided it's getting the correct input.


There are two reasons this would return a "True" and thus restart the app:


  1. The Steamworks code is unable to detect that Steam is running for whatever reason
  2. You don't actually own or launch the game via Steam ( We're assuming this isn't the case ;) )

Unfortunately this once again leaves us stuck, the problem is clearly within the Steamworks API which is not supported by us, merely used in line with the documentation provided to us by Valve themselves.


I understand that this must be genuinely frustrating and we share your frustration because our hands are tied in this matter and unfortunately Valve customer support seems content to do the bare minimum possible.


We'd just like to clarify as well that the way this is being used is not actually for DRM Purposes, because as far as DRM goes it's not exactly a strong solution and can easily be spoofed. It's being used to ensure that Steamworks and it's features are accessible by the game as the Steam version relies heavily on those features.


For players affected by this issue we'd be happy to help you get your hands on a DRM-Free version of the game, we've updated it to Patch 1.4.1 and we'll be updating it again once our latest hotfix is out. You can find out the differences between the versions here: DRM-Free Build FAQ


I'm also going to tentatively say now. We're investigating the possibility of a GoG.com version in the future and if we are able to release that it will be more fully featured than the DRM-Free Build. Once more it's still tentative but if it does come out we'd be happy to provide you with a free copy.


Sorry I can't be any further help,


Lee

Just gonna keep it set as Pending Customer so I definitely see any updates you put on :) I'll leave it like this for up to 2 weeks.