Steam Launcher

[endwerk]

Can you please remove the absolutely pointless and buggy launcher from the steam release?

Right after the initial release, I had endless issues with the launcher not starting and locking up Steam entirely because the game didn't close properly and wouldn't open properly either until I restarted Steam. It made the game nigh unplayable. 
A week or so after the release the launcher didn't pop up anymore and launching the game would send me straight to the window where I can load my campaign or start a new one and it worked like a charm.
That was until recently, where the launcher popped up again. It caused infrequent issues again, but after the patch yesterday, the game simply doesn't start anymore because of that stupid launcher.




Starting the game on Steam sends me to this launcher, which doesn't load anything and simply disappears after a few seconds. Needless to say that after not loading anything, the game also doesn't start. In the Library the game is busy for about a minute and then goes back to the green "Play" button as if nothing happened. 
If there is a way to start the game without going through this launcher, please make that the standard way to launch the game or give us a how-to.

[axe99]

I'm having this issue as well - even the RTW3 executable in the appropriate steams fires up the launcher and freezes going through that. Deffo keen for it to be sorted at some stage - will have to delay my next run of RtW3 until then, much sadness.

[williammiller]

Have reported this to Matrix, they are looking into it.


Just an FYI, they had already made some adjustments that seemed to help with this sort of issue, but it seems that it did not fix all possible cases...

[axe99]

Aug 12, 2023 10:22:12 GMT -6 williammiller said:

Have reported this to Matrix, they are looking into it.


Just an FYI, they had already made some adjustments that seemed to help with this sort of issue, but it seems that it did not fix all possible cases...

Thank you very much for looking into it   I'd been deliberately holding off to play it on the laptop while travelling, hence it not coming up earlier (runs on desktop just fine).  In case it helps, it's a Win 11 (22621.2134) machine. Device specs (copied from Windows settings 'About'):

Device name MSI

Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1240P 1.70 GHz

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)

Device ID AFED4A2E-3953-4D05-BB80-2256815D2292

Product ID 00342-22081-54227-AAOEM

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

[maximki]

Hello enwerk and axe99, I'm one of the Assistant Producers at Matrix Games working on RTW3. We're currently investigating this launcher issue.

Could you please provide your email and be willing to collaborate with our team to help investigate the issue?

[axe99]

Aug 14, 2023 8:20:30 GMT -6 maximki said:

Hello enwerk and axe99, I'm one of the Assistant Producers at Matrix Games working on RTW3. We're currently investigating this launcher issue.

Could you please provide your email and be willing to collaborate with our team to help investigate the issue?

Hi Maximki, and of course   I'll send you my email over PM if that's alright, don't want it on the internet for bots to trawl - will do that now.  I'm travelling at the moment, so might not be able to respond right away, but will do what I can now, and not travelling from the 20th and very able to support then (and will have two machines, the desktop and this laptop, that may be helpful to rule out things as well).

[endwerk]

Or, alternatively, just remove the launcher please. The game was evidently fine without it and I cannot for the life of me find a purpose of it other than to force me to jump through another hoop before I am able to launch the game. The only thing I am ever going to do in a launcher is to start the game that I expected to start already when I clicked the "Play" button.

[endwerk]

The same thing is still happening, please remove the launcher until it is fixed.

[williammiller]

endwerk  Have you had any long delay or related issues with the launcher, or is it more of the "too many hoops to jump through to start the game" issue? (Every bit of info we have on this will help...)

Thanks.

[axe99]

As an aside, I'm back from travelling now, and can confirm the Launcher works fine on the desktop - it's just the laptop where it hangs indefinitely and the game can't be started (Both running Windows 11).

[endwerk]

Aug 24, 2023 9:07:11 GMT -6 williammiller said:

endwerk  Have you had any long delay or related issues with the launcher, or is it more of the "too many hoops to jump through to start the game" issue? (Every bit of info we have on this will help...)

Thanks.

I've been away travelling for the last few weeks, apologies for the late reply.

As I have described multiple times here already, there are 2 main problems with the launcher:
Sometimes the launcher will open when I click on "Play" on Steam, stay open for a few seconds and then close without launching the game. Sometimes restarting steam helps, sometimes restarting the PC helps, sometimes nothing helps and I cannot play the game for a couple days while this problem persists. 

Even when the launcher works, it is just another hoop to jump through that serves absolutely no purpose. There are no important settings in the launcher and the only thing I ever do in the launcher is click "Play" (or whatever it's called there). And when you think about the whole sequence required to launch the game, it's absolutely ridiculous. 

After the first time I had problems with the launcher for a couple days, it was simply disabled through a patch or something and the game would start directly from Steam without going through the extra launcher. There were no issues with that, which makes it pretty obvious that the launcher is not required for any important part of starting the game. A later patch re-added that launcher once more and with it came the issues once more. 

Hence my request to simply get rid of that silly launcher. It does nothing, it serves no purpose and the game works better without. 

[williammiller]

Have replayed this report to Matrix, thanks endwerk .

If you can/wish to, please send a PM to maximki (he is a Slitherine/Matrix producer) here on these forums and let him know your email address, as he is looking into the launcher issues and your input could be a big help.

Edit: Opt in to/try out the latest RTW3 beta on Steam, it should not have the launcher enabled.

[axe99]

Sept 8, 2023 8:54:05 GMT -6 williammiller said:

Have replayed this report to Matrix, thanks endwerk .

If you can/wish to, please send a PM to maximki (he is a Slitherine/Matrix producer) here on these forums and let him know your email address, as he is looking into the launcher issues and your input could be a big help.

Edit: Opt in to/try out the latest RTW3 beta on Steam, it should not have the launcher enabled.

This is weird, I swore I had, but it looks like I haven't, so I'll PM them again.  Might have had a brain explosion. Sorry for the delay, getting smashed at work.

[endwerk]

Almost 3 months later and the same problem still persists.
And again I cannot understand why I have to go, if I count Steam as one, through 3 (!) ******* launchers to start the game. One starts steam, the next starts the absolutely buggy launcher which, in the rare cases that it works, then starts the next launcher which will finally get someone into the game. And all you can do in the second launcher is select a language, which you could easily fit into the next launcher, and a bunch of links to forum and so forth that could be put into any other place. There really is no need for that silly launcher. You had it deactivated before, please deactivate it again. And yes, it is also enabled when I opt into the beta for 1.00.32. The first time I did it, the launcher worked without problems, but a few hours later, the same bug with the opening and closing launcher rears its ugly head once more.

With how many problems your Steam version of the game has caused, I deeply regret buying it on Steam. It doesn't end with the launcher that, most of the time, simply refuses to launch the game that I bought. How that is still a persisting bug absolutely boggles the mind. I have also had to deal with the (disabled) steam cloud messing up saves and causing illegal ship type errors and other fun things that permanently destroyed two of my save games, each dozens of hours into the playthrough.

And then people are confused why folks simply pirate games. Considering that the people responsible for the launcher are either unwilling or incapable of fixing it, I might just have to resort to that.

[axe99]

Can confirm that launcher issues (Matrix launcher by the look of it - it gets stuck loading and hangs) won't function, making it impossible for me to pay RtW3 on my laptop. I've got a desktop I can run it on, so it's not a hard block for me, but an option to play it without the launcher, given the launcher flat-out prevents the game from running, might be something to consider. If this laptop was the only system I had, then I would have been unable to play the game at all, for at least a period of six months.

Edit: Also, the only beta available on Steam did have the launcher enabled, and had the same issues as the non-beta version of the game, so no joy there.

Edit 2 (as I look back over the thread): I messaged Maximki on two occasions and didn't get a response, so tried that avenue as well.