| 30 SEP 2008 at 5:54pm |
Lucien21Guild Master
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Status : Offline | Well one of the problems that is distinct to the PC game development is the variety of configurations.
Microwave ovens and game consoles etc have a set standard for programming and so it is easier to make games without bugs.
Also I would imagine writing and checking a few million lines of cde isn't easy and bugs will naturally occur through error.
Good extensive beta testing can find many of them but not all and with limited funds and publisher deadlines it's probably doubly hard.
It is easier to ship it and fix the mistakes after.
Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsh*t now has a bodycount.
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 9:25pm |
CulturaJourneyman
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Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | Microwave ovens and game consoles etc have a set standard for programming and so it is easier to make games without bugs.
Also I would imagine writing and checking a few million lines of cde isn't easy and bugs will naturally occur through error.
Good extensive beta testing can find many of them but not all and with limited funds and publisher deadlines it's probably doubly hard.
Which all amounts to: cutting corners.
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 9:56pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Originally Posted By Cultura (30 SEP 2008 9:25pm)
Microwave ovens and game consoles etc have a set standard for programming and so it is easier to make games without bugs.
Also I would imagine writing and checking a few million lines of cde isn't easy and bugs will naturally occur through error.
Good extensive beta testing can find many of them but not all and with limited funds and publisher deadlines it's probably doubly hard.
Which all amounts to: cutting corners.
More like necessity in terms of real-world economics.
Cheers, Terry
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 10:02pm |
JKingSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | Indeed. Were the modern personal computer an atomic unit with predictable software configurations a sea of bugs would be unforgivable, but this is not the case, and indeed has practically never been the case. The more choice a user has, the greater the possibility for bugs, and thre's a lot of choice in the PC world.
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 10:11pm |
HalcyonSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | Defending bugs? Fascinating. I would think a publisher would be appalled that bugs slipped through, and there'd be crisis control, then a fix, a patch, or a public apology. Book publishers publish billions of words and typos drive them bonkers. Yes, they are inevitable, but never, ever acceptable or rationalized with a shrug. Perhaps this is one reason consoles are popular and supported.
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 10:27pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Originally Posted By TAS (30 SEP 2008 10:11pm)
Defending bugs? Fascinating. I would think a publisher would be appalled that bugs slipped through, and there'd be crisis control, then a fix, a patch, or a public apology. Book publishers publish billions of words and typos drive them bonkers. Yes, they are inevitable, but never, ever acceptable or rationalized with a shrug. Perhaps this is one reason consoles are popular and supported.
There is a HUGE difference between quality control in the traditional publishing buisness and the interactive game industry.
What's involved with the latter is infinitely more complex and time consuming than mere spellchecking, editing grammar and assuring good print quality.
There is also the little matter of third party software conflicts - not to mention user error and a plethora of hardware-related problems that are essentially beyond the control of any game maker.
Lastly, there is the relative age / maturity of these two industries. Book, magazine and newspaper publishing is an extemely mature business. By comparison, interactive games are still in their infancy.
Cheers, Terry
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 10:47pm |
HalcyonSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | None of which, Terry, are the publisher's fault. I'm referring to the bugs that are in the code and are their fault, which they choose to accept as "normal." That is what you're saying here, yes?
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 11:15pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Originally Posted By TAS (30 SEP 2008 10:46pm)
None of which, Terry, are the publisher's fault. I'm referring to the bugs that are in the code and are their fault, which they choose to accept as "normal." That is what you're saying here, yes?
To a degree yes. But finding every possible bug in today's complex 3D PC games (compared to finding typos in a book for instance) is infinitely harder and more time consuming / expensive.
If we are only talking about obviously bad design decisions, then yes, those would be the fault of the developer for making them and the publisher for not insisting they be fixed.
Regarding obscure technical bugs that most often crop up despite lengthy testing - well, again that's just a sad fact of this brave new digital world that includes so many variables and changes so fast the average user specs at the start of the dev process barely resemble those at the time a game is released.
As consumers, we demand constant, ultra-fast tech progress and that leads to a lot of mistakes. So yes, things do get rushed and corners get cut. But as I said to begin with, that is more a function of market / economic realities than anything else.
Cheers, Terry
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 11:33pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
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Status : Offline | I don't buy the "it is inevitable" answer, either. For all the choice available, the way hardware interacts with the operating system is more streamlined than ever. In fact, the pc market is far more homogenized than it was 15 years ago, but most games back then (and adventure games in particular, which are far more manageable from a QA point of view than an RPG that can have vast scope and endless interactions and item combinations and therefore many things that can go wrong) did not suffer from so many bugs.
And even if the occasional crash to desktop is more or less expected due to the aforementioned reason, how exactly does diverse hardware configurations cause in-game bugs such as missing hot-spots and triggers not getting triggered?
At some point, publishers decided that treating the first wave of eager buyers as charge-free QA testers was the way to go, and consumers bent over and took it. It's as simple as that.
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 11:43pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Those things aren't (usually) caused by hardware conflicts Nik and I agree that's just sloppy coding / poor testing.
But many, many bugs are not so obvious and many games these days do involve a huge amount of code with a mindboggling number of gameplay variables.
Couple those factors with ever-higher competitive market pressure to get products done as fast as possible and we get mistakes.
Cheers, Terry
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 12:17am |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
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Status : Offline | Terry, I'm fairly new to the profession and can't claim vast working experience, but I'm a civil engineer, and my family and I have some experience with public works construction, a highly competitive market where the one who can deliver the fastest and at the lowest cost survives.
I hardly need to point out the vast amount of variables that have to be taken into account in the design and construction of complex structures such as bridges and dams, but mistakes are neither expected nor tolerated.
All due respect to programmers and software developers in the gaming industry, but the same goes for all professions but theirs.
I can't help but feel that the reason the gaming industry gets away with it, as Cultura put it, is because we as consumers don't feel the issue is important enough, despite paying hard earned money for the faulty games...
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 1:09am |
HalcyonSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | This is a question of intent. The original question and subsequent answer led me to deduce that publishers don't care too much about bugs in their product and that was okay by some of you. Yes or no?
I'm not asking whether bugs exist, because they do, but if it's forgivable if publishers just think that's SOP.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 1:34am |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
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Status : Offline | When we buy anything we expect it to work properly - right? And we take it back for a refund when it's faulty.
As yet we have no system for returning faulty bug-ridden games and letting the developer/publisher know that it's unacceptable. If we could do that, things may change.
If a person can't produce a decent game then perhaps they're not ready to be released just yet?
I think there is a difference between software/hardware compatibility issues and simply creating a badly coded, unfinished game.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 1:40am |
SirDaveGuild Master
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Status : Offline | To some extent I think the issue of bugs in adventure games comes down to whether the developers have an adequate budget to deliver relatively bug-free the type of AG they are creating. Though hardly an expert in the field, my guess is that 3rd person, dialogue-heavy, FMV games such as Law & Order Criminal Intent are going to cost more to develop and are more likely to both have more bugs & have more bugs that are going to require more extensive beta-testing to find.
On the other hand, the type of games from developer's such as Streko and Kheops and those from small indie houses (eg. The Lost Crown, Rhem) have a construct & design that is less expensive to develop & less likely to be bug-ridden.
In short, the companies that put out games such as Law & Order Criminal Intent are both over their head when it comes to the product they are putting out & are probably looking for the quick buck using name-value as a big come-on.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 2:27am |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Originally Posted By TAS (1 OCT 2008 1:09am)
This is a question of intent. The original question and subsequent answer led me to deduce that publishers don't care too much about bugs in their product and that was okay by some of you. Yes or no?
I'm not asking whether bugs exist, because they do, but if it's forgivable if publishers just think that's SOP.
In other words, is knowingly selling shoddy products okay? No, it is not.
However, I have seen dozens of examples in every game genre where forums are flooded with screams of frustration about bugs that I never saw in the same exact titles.
You see, like most avid PC gamers, I thoroughly research the technical requirements, run a very clean system, and generally employ good practices as a user. I also read numerous reviews from a variety of generally reliable sources and never ever pre-order games. In most cases I wait for the first official patch to be released before making a purchase - especially if there's even a hint of tech issues in the reviews.
As a result, I almost never get stuck with buggy games. But many people don't bother to do those things and they're often disappointed in their purchases. A lot of that IMO is their own fault - but obviously not all of it.
There have been quite a few notoriously buggy PC games released over the years. But many bugs really don't show up until a large body of players starts trying every conceiveable gameplay path on every imaginable system configuration.
In those cases, there really are some very obscure bugs that even the best developers / publishers can't find through pre- testing.
Of course, those are incidences of game makers releasing titles they truly believe are clean.
Cheers, Terry
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 10:50am |
CulturaJourneyman
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Status : Offline | But many people don't bother to do those things and they're often disappointed in their purchases. A lot of that IMO is their own fault - but obviously not all of it.
Obviously, I don't agree. Why should I have to wait for reviews and patches to come online before I buy a game? Sometimes reviews take forever, so I don't want to wait. I shouldn't have to anyway. I should be able, as a consumer, to trust the product that is being sold to me.
In the case of Law & Order, this is relatively simple game, not even 3D, just pre-rendered backgrounds, some dialogue trees and stuff. Even Syberia got that right (bug free!) six or seven years ago.
It is all a case of negligence, bad business ethics and disregard for the customer. But hey, they are not likely to complain if they all think as you do Terry.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 11:14am |
| Deleted User | I also, like Terry, have a relatively bug-free experience when playing games that are reccommended for my system, so this is not a huge issue for me (With a few notable exceptions, such as Gothic 3).
Unfortunately, though, if we all thought like Terry, and waited for other consumers to test a game before we buy it, who would there be left to test the games for us? How fair is it to the very first consumers who buy the game, and who consequently have to bear the brunt of the bugs?
I would say that devs need to leave a little more time for decent beta testing. There are many people quite happy to do beta testing for the only reward of receiving free games.
Stuff the expected release dates. They should either leave the dates fuzzy, or have the guts to postpone the dates.
When a dev/publisher postpones a date for technical quality issues, the respect they gain from me far overrides the frustration of having to wait a little longer.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 12:59pm |
JKingSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | Originally Posted By nik2008ofs (30 SEP 2008 11:33pm)
For all the choice available, the way hardware interacts with the operating system is more streamlined than ever. In fact, the pc market is far more homogenized than it was 15 years ago, but most games back then (and adventure games in particular, which are far more manageable from a QA point of view than an RPG that can have vast scope and endless interactions and item combinations and therefore many things that can go wrong) did not suffer from so many bugs.
Fifteen years ago the most cross-software interaction a game programmer had to worry about was rudimentary CD-ROM and sound device drivers, and usually this was worked around via a boot disk (essentially strippping out any offending software) rather than actually working through the problem. Granted, this was a strategy which was acceptable because of DOS' fundamentally limited memory pool, but some games even went as far as writing their own convoluted memory managers, and of course since hardware was accessed directly there were fewer intermediaries outside one's control which could go wrong.
In this day and age a game maker has to rely on the APIs the operating system exposes, and this is great, except that of course the APIs have their share of bugs, and so do the hardware drivers which hook into said APIs, and sometimes so does the hardware, and sometimes if you're really lucky, so do the toolkits and frameworks you're using to supposedly make your job easier.
Sure, it's easier these days to write a "simple" adventure game, but there's that much more which is out of your control, and this is in turn harder to debug and more expensive and time-consuming to test.
I'm not saying that a horde of bugs in a game is inevitable; some games are relatively bug-free, but I am saying that twenty-first century computer technology does not make bugs less likely to happen for a project of even middling complexity. Now as then some programmers are not as good as others, and all are rushed by the deadlines their publishers insist on meeting for economic reasons.
The difference now is that at least there is an easy distribution method for patches---and, for that matter an easy method for the discovery of patches. I played Return to Zork for years with a Pro Audio Spectrum 16, lighting matches in order to banish occasional loud, crackling sound stutters when the scene would transition---blissfully unaware that Activision had immediately released a patch to fix this problem on their BBS. But how was I to know? How was I to get it, without a modem?
I count myself lucky, these days: games are several orders of magnitude more complex than they were fifteen years ago, and most are still relatively bug-free. There's not much more one can ask for.
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 1:44pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By JKing (1 OCT 2008 12:59pm)
I'm not saying that a horde of bugs in a game is inevitable; some games are relatively bug-free, but I am saying that twenty-first century computer technology does not make bugs less likely to happen for a project of even middling complexity. Now as then some programmers are not as good as others, [highlight]and all are rushed by the deadlines their publishers insist on meeting for economic reasons. [/highlight]
.
Yes, I mainly blame publishers who line up their release dates to coincide with calendar events, such as Halloween or Xmas, with no regard as to how long it actually takes to develop the game.
Here I'm casting a particular dirty look in JoWood's direction. (Or whatever the reason is for JoWoods' problems with devs and with buggy games. I suspect in their case the problem might be more complex than merely rushed release dates )
Oh, look, JKing! You've become a PI now! [smiley=detective.gif] Congratulations!
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 1:57pm |
JKingSchattenjger
Posts : 2349
Joined: 4 MAY 2008
Location: 0
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By TheTraveler (1 OCT 2008 1:43pm)
Oh, look, JKing! You've become a PI now! [smiley=detective.gif] Congratulations!
Indeed! The game is truly afoot now, Ms. Watson!
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 2:48pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By JKing (1 OCT 2008 1:57pm)
Originally Posted By TheTraveler (1 OCT 2008 1:43pm)
Oh, look, JKing! You've become a PI now! [smiley=detective.gif] Congratulations!
Indeed! The game is truly afoot now, Ms. Watson!
/me pulls rank.
Hey! you rookie you - I'll have you know that I'm a journeyman in the Secret Service (just check out my insignia); so just because you've now been promoted, doesn't mean that I'm not still your superior in rank.
Therefore, I shall not tolerate you even comparing me to that idiot by name of Watson. [smiley=nono.gif]
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 3:32pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Maybe it's just me but considering the state of PC gaming I'll gladly live through a few bugs if it means getting a good game out of it.
Prime examples? Troika games. Vampire Bloodlines and Arcanum. They were bugged to high hell on release. However the community has worked to fix this. This was largely due to the publisher's stupidity and not Troika, but imagine if they'd scrapped the games due to bugs rather than released them as is? A terrible terrible shame it would have been.
The dos days are full of bugged games. I have *never* played a patched Sierra game. I played the games as they were, bugs and all. In fact I still do, as I can't be bothered to look up patches to games I know are 100% finishable. In fact I never patch my dos games....bad habit I guess but I just install the version I played as a kid and leave it at that.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 3:50pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
Posts : 1316
Joined: 15 JAN 2008
Location: GR
Status : Offline | I count myself lucky, these days: games are several orders of magnitude more complex than they were fifteen years ago, and most are still relatively bug-free. There's not much more one can ask for.
Yes, there is. A clear clause under international trade law that games that aren't "relatively" bug free (and what kind of excuse is a patch anyway? Finding out that a game has a bug, searching for a patch and downloading it takes time. Is your time available for free? If so, I've got some socks that need patching) are faulty and viable for a full refund.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 6:54pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Status : Offline | .
Eh, you guys can bemoan bugs all you want. But you know that a little patience, running a clean system, and doing your homework does eliminate 90% or more of all such problems.
As for free, official game patches and user-made extras, I love them. Not only do the patches fix numerous technical bugs, in many cases they also tweak gameplay balance, add new content, and enhance options. Many PC games also allow for user mods of every type and some of them are created specifically to fix what may be perceived as design flaws or omissions.
To answer Nik's question about the value of our time -
From a personal perspective, mine's just as valuable as anyone else's. But I know what the realities of the PC platform are and there isn't a single person or group on this planet capable of 100% perfect coding, 100% complete testing, and 100% flawless design decisions 100% of the time - made under pressure with real-world time/cost limits.
It simply can not happen as long as so many variables exist, human beings are involved, and commercial profits drive the whole show.
So again, obvious flaws and bugs are NOT exuseable. But that still leaves a huge margin for honest human error on the part of both developers and users. Moreover, I know for a fact that I can control exposure to 90% or more of all those problems.
Cheers, Terry
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