A general post on PC Games and bugs...

[Arsan]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

I feel better now too!

Actually what I really wanted to write is that if we leave the AI out, isn't there less chance of things going wrong?

Shouldn't we try it?

Yeah, sure! [8|]
And if developers stop developing games altogether and go instead to flip burgers at their local McDonalds there will be still less chance... [:'(]
But probably this is not the way... [;)]

[oldspec4]

[/quote]
Matrix is my fav publisher - not because of the games you release, as I have a couple of other wargames out there that are far better than anything I have from Matrix (apart from COTA and Forge of Freedom....and Kharkov DotD....and Panzer Command:Kharkov...and Uncommon Valour.....and GG:WbtS!!) - but because of the support and customer interaction you have.
[/quote]

Exactly IMO..

[Canoerebel]

Matrix is the only gaming company I've dealt with in a decade, so I can't measure Matrix against the others, but I can't imagine anyone doing customer service and product support any better. The trick will come later - when the founders and other early key employees retire or move on to other pursuits and you bring in new employees who are interested mainly in getting a paycheck and don't have that "pride in ownership and creation" attitude. But that's a worry for a later day. Matrix is tops right now.

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: jackx

ORIGINAL: Joram

With that said, I am very unforgiving to bigger developers as since they can sell tens if not hundreds of thousands, then they can certainly afford to put in some more testing into it.  I won't name any names as that will just get us off topic but some releases by big name companies since the beginning of the year are a case in point.   Those companies harm the industry as much as they help it.

Maybe, but they're probably still acting rationally. They're big, and so they have high running costs, and only part of their personnel can be used for bug-hunting/fixing, and if you combine that with a mainstream audience, which is far less demanding with regard to long-term support, releasing unfinished products in rapid succession seems to be an appropriate business model.

Not sure how that's going to change, or how one could actively change it, but customers are probably a large part of the equation - and since we're talking strictly non-essential products that nobody needs to buy, so long as people are buying, those who are selling are doing at least something right. ;x

That's why these days, I usually give multi-platform releases a wide berth, even if they look interesting. The PC version is probably the most buggy, but also the least-selling, and so patches/support are very unlikely - much rather, you'll get DL content for the console versions, as that is more profitable.

[/stream of consciousness vaguely related to the subject (sounds better than "rant", doesn't it?)]

Jackx, I know exactly where you are coming from and can't really argue with you. What I have a hard time believing is if that business model is ultimately sustainable. I think now there are more independant developers than ever, despite the bad economy, because of the often poor quality control of the larger developers (and just plain bad vision sometimes but that's not what this topic is about). Hard to say if it's indicative of anything greater like the ultimate closure of them or not but I guess time will tell.

[RHoenig]

ORIGINAL: Joram

With that said, I am very unforgiving to bigger developers as since they can sell tens if not hundreds of thousands, then they can certainly afford to put in some more testing into it.  I won't name any names as that will just get us off topic but some releases by big name companies since the beginning of the year are a case in point.   Those companies harm the industry as much as they help it.

I'm not talking flash over substance, that's always a matter of customer preference.  I'm talking about basic gameplay mechanics not working, even as designed.  For these larger developers, that's unexcusable.   For Matrix developers and other smaller companies, I am willing to be a bit more flexible.  Do keep up the good work!

I can´t realy agree with that (wait, not the way you think [:)], read on)

I strongly belive that there have to be the same standards for everyone.
I can´t rationalise the release of a nonfunctioning, bugridden piece of s**t from anyone, big or small.
This means, I agree with you on the "unexcusable" part, but not only for the big names, but for everyone!

The bottom line is: If I pay with good money, I expect a good product and it doesn´t matter one bit, if this product is made, say, by Microsoft or by a single person, programming away in his livingroom.

Note: This is a matter of principle, I am not implying this is the case with Matrix. I own only WitP and AE form Matrix and my experience has been very enjoable

[jackx]

I don't know enough about the games market to judge whether or not (or rather how badly) the big publishers are shooting themselves in the leg with such  a short-term strategy - instinctively, I'd say yes, but that's just a guess.
Ultimately, it'll depend on the customers, and what they are, and are not, willing to buy/put up with.
It's also the customers who would have to enforce any common standard of what is acceptable, and I'm just not idealistic enough to ever see that happening. Besides, it's business, and fairness hardly seems an appropriate approach to that.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

I think as a niche market, the wargaming community has alot to sing for. That why when I see (sometimes senseless, irresponsible) slagging of any wargamer devs it irritates me.

I agree 100%. This is a niche market and buying a PC wargame from a small developer is more often an investment in continued development rather than the purchase of a finished product. I also agree with Erik's comment that "This is the part where I think post-release support is simply necessary and a fact of life." It sure would be nice to see new games released without any flaws, but the fact of life is that continued development after release is the norm.

[SireChaos]

Thanks for your comments, Erik. So far I have only had positive experiences with Matrix Games.

There are, however, some companies who are not so good. I´ll post just three examples.

First, The Settlers IV was published with numerous bugs, including most conspicuously (besides many CTD errors making scenarios unwinable) that four of the six multiplayer modes had not been implemented. The company commented that the internal testers had not noticed that omission.

Second, Port Royale, when first published, was infernally unstable, averaging one CTD every 30 minutes; from the day I bought it to the day I gave up on it, three weeks later, not once did I exit that game manually - it crashed every freaking time. The company commented that something must be wrong with the computers everybody used.

Third, Pacific Storm had been bugged for years, with CTDs, memory leaks, you name it. After, I think, two years, in which they mostly did little to nothing to fix those known and well-documented bugs, the developers posted a message in the support forum that basically said, "Well, tough luck, guys. We´ve earned our money with this game, we´re off to develop something else. We won´t spend any more time fixing this game. Sucks to be you."


While these may be extreme examples, it seems obvious to me that an attitude regarding supporting a game as an expendable luxury is fairly widespread in the industry, Matrix Games excluded. This, while incredibly reprehensible, is actually only logical - after all, why spending money on support when you don´t have to? They´re computer game publishers, not the Salvation Army. What bothers me at least as much is that, apparently, gamers in general - present company excluded, I suppose - are such an easily pleased, plyable lot with the long-term memory of a mayfly that this business model can be sucessful.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: Arsan

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

... Actually what I really wanted to write is that if we leave the AI out, isn't there less chance of things going wrong?

Shouldn't we try it?

Yeah, sure! [8|]

Don't even want to try it? The first thing people are clamoring for these days in the boardgame world is a Vassal version of a game.

These are beautiful things with crisp, clear graphics. Better than any PC wargame I've seen. Smooth game play.

But the turn off is, you have to play them through the Vassal program and the Vassal UI.

Why not just create beautiful stand-alone war games like these? Perfect for PBEM and solitaire hotseat?

In another thread, there's a guy looking for an introductory war game for his family. Wouldn't it have been great to be able to advise him: "Sure buy Matrix's Shmactics 2 it's similar to a really famous basic board war game called Tactics 2 that plays stand-alone and has awesome 2-d graphics. The rules are learned in 10 minutes and you can set up the map as you want for extended gameplay after. It's a genuinely classic introductory war game that got thousands into the hobby".

Easy sale for me.

[RyanCrierie]

Mind if I quote your post some, Erik?

Similarly, in a much closer example to PC games, if you develop games for the XBox, you can expect that your customers will all have the same XBox manufactured by Microsoft with the same hardware. Once the hardware changes, it's a whole new platform (i.e. XBox 360 or Playstation).

Well, there are actually hardware refreshes for consoles, like in three-four years, that console will use hardware which is half the size, etc; look at the original PS2, and the new "slim" PS2s. But yes, they occur on stable preset time tables, and there aren't much moving posts.

What I'm getting at is the perhaps now old yarn that developing for PCs is different. Not only is every PC virtually unique in its own combination of hardware

Things have improved a lot since the "golden age" of PC gaming, the late 1980s, early 1990s; where you had tons of different sound cards, each with their own specific way of doing things, tons of different graphics cards, each with their own way of drawing SVGA, and of course tons of unique mouse drivers.

Oh, I know that by 1993-1994, they had hashed out a set of common SVGA extensions so that programming was a lot easier, same for sound drivers -- but by that point, Windows 9x was about to become dominant for game development.

Nowadays, there are only two-three "major" sound or video card manufacturers, and they all operate under DirectX's various modes; which makes developing a hell of a lot easier; instead of having to write code that calls on each manufacturer's own specific card, you just need to write a call for DirectSound or DirectX. However, there are problems (see below).

but even some of the up to date drivers have bugs or perform differently from the spec they are supposed to math.

Oh yes. Video card manufacturers are notorious for this; not meeting the DirectX specs, and taking all sorts of "shortcuts" to gain increased benchmarking performance; which means that a program that was written in compliance with Direct X 9.0c spec might have graphical errors on either ATI or NVIDIA hardware; due to each manufacturer taking their own "view" of what constitutes compliance with spec.

In fact, many driver updates also break older games, which is why a lot of people don't update their drivers regularly.

Just look at the games that Internet Browsers did until recently in HTML spec compliance.

What I think really has helped Matrix a lot, is that all of your software is aimed at the mid to lower end of computing software; even Panzer Command is aimed at a lower 3D machine spec; and this means that less issues will be created/found.

By contrast, bleeding edge games like CALL OF DUTY XLVI, have to play "loose" with the current specifications for DirectX; in order to get the graphical look/speed demanded by the market; and it's a mark of how good the programming staff is if they can push the bleeding edge and still have it run on the majority of common hardware with no major bugs. ID software is especially good with this.

[LarryP]

Excellent post Erik and your points well made. You professionals at Matrix have a lot more patience than most. I have been a dedicated customer and will continue to be one as long as you stay in business. You've treated me well. I've never seen a piece of software that does not have at least one bug, and I have had more software than most. Heck, I'm in debt over it all the time! [;)]

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Ok, so with all this said - right, we know that, we got in to the business knowing it and as professionals we do our best to make sure we work around it. Nevertheless, you have to keep it in mind because the reality is that we simply can't test on every single PC and we can't play every game exactly the way every single customer might play it, so things will slip through.

I think most game-buyers, even the more mainstream ones accept that. It is nevertheless, though, frustrating to discover that the game you have just bought has bugs that mean in extreme cases you are unable to play it.. and while most publishers and developers, including yourselves accept that, not all do (mentioning no names). I was cussing like fury when having forked out on AE it wouldn't even run. The problem was easily solved when I calmed down by setting the executables to XP compatibility. Though I assume that the problem was not affecting all Vista users (or indeed any other than me; I haven't seen anyone else mention it), that would have been little consolation had rather more than such a simple fix been necessary.

What really annoys people, though, is not anything dependent on particular hardware/software/OS combinations, but obvious bugs that any decent testing programme should have identified or, worse, those that were identified but the game was kicked out the door anyway.

[Hertston]

Duplicate post, sorry.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Hertston
What really annoys people, though, is not anything dependent on particular hardware/software/OS combinations, but obvious bugs that any decent testing programme should have identified or, worse, those that were identified but the game was kicked out the door anyway.

This is a really tough one.

IMHO, a lot this stuff doesn't appear to have been playtested at all. In my experience, the average producer/programmer team is utterly clueless as to the value of effective playtesting. It's an afterthought, or worse yet, an unnecessary burden. The prevailing wisdom appears to be, "given that we're such geniuses, these rubes really do owe us a pint, or two, for us allowing them pre-release privileges to our software." I know that comment will sound like hyperbole, or worse, to a lot of our readers. But, in my experience, it's rather closer to the norm than some of you might realize. I'd also note that the integrity of the game that you ultimately download onto your computer is inversely proportional to that kind of attitude.

I'm going to stop now, as I don't wish to step on one "stream of consciousness" exposition with yet another. [;)]

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Arsan]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

ORIGINAL: Arsan

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

... Actually what I really wanted to write is that if we leave the AI out, isn't there less chance of things going wrong?

Shouldn't we try it?

Yeah, sure! [8|]

Don't even want to try it? The first thing people are clamoring for these days in the boardgame world is a Vassal version of a game.

These are beautiful things with crisp, clear graphics. Better than any PC wargame I've seen. Smooth game play.

But the turn off is, you have to play them through the Vassal program and the Vassal UI.

Why not just create beautiful stand-alone war games like these? Perfect for PBEM and solitaire hotseat?

In another thread, there's a guy looking for an introductory war game for his family. Wouldn't it have been great to be able to advise him: "Sure buy Matrix's Shmactics 2 it's similar to a really famous basic board war game called Tactics 2 that plays stand-alone and has awesome 2-d graphics. The rules are learned in 10 minutes and you can set up the map as you want for extended gameplay after. It's a genuinely classic introductory war game that got thousands into the hobby".

Easy sale for me.

Not for me. No AI, no sale. [:-]
What's more, i want a decent AI, not some half baked thing that can't use half the game features.
This is a PC gaming forum and we are talking about PC wargames not your dear boardgames [;)]
The main reason computer wargames exist is just that: to have an Ai that offer you a decent rival anytime you want.
Solitaire hot seat gaming may work for... maybe 1 in 50 buyers??
PBEM, maybe in 1 out of ten.
But most of the above also want an AI to play the game in addition to PBEM/solitaire play.

Doing no AI games would shrink and already minuscule war game market to maybe less than a 10 per cent.

Decision games is doing this with his Computer War in Europe, but i think they will hardly sell a million copies of it, even using such a famous boardgame as WiE...
Ok, the 60 bucks price for a no AI game surely doesn't help either [;)]

Regards

[Johan]

Good post Erik.

/Johan @ Paradox

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: Arsan

What's more, i want a decent AI, not some half baked thing that can't use half the game features.

Me too Arsan, don't worry [:)]

ORIGINAL: Arsan
This is a PC gaming forum and we are talking about PC wargames not your dear boardgames [;)]

LOL!

[htuna]

Excellent Post Erik....PC's are like drag racers... all different parts going in.. could blow up any second.. especially when new software is introduced.... Console is like a family car. you drive it off the lot...

[Fallschirmjager]

I would say in general since I started PC gaming (about 1990) until now that games in general have gotten less bug ridden as a whole.
That is not to say that buggy games are still not released. But I think overall that games are less buggy when seen as a industry.
One reason I think is that there is more talent in the software industry than ever. It has become such a economic force that many companies are better organized and attract more talent than ever before.
Secondly and perhaps most importantly the power of the internet and internet game reviews has played a huge roll in how companies release games. Once a game is hit with the stigma of being bug ridden and having bad support then that is a hard thing to shake off and the company itself might even be effected for future releases.
I would also say that customer support has gotten somewhat better since I started gaming. I remember back in the late 90s interacting with AAA software developers on their forums was like dealing with egotistical athletes. Their egos got in the way of listening to customers and they had poor people skills.
But as I said earlier now that gaming is more profitable than ever so it pays to listen to your customers and provide good support.

Saying all that, I would agree that Matrix is among the best wargaming companies in terms of customer service and among the best companies in gaming period.
There are several AAA companies who are also fantastic at customer support so I don't think pre judging AAA developers is accurate.

Console gaming on the other hand has become slightly buggier since I began console gaming (in the mid 80s)
I think the power of the internet and internet enabled consoles has actualy contributed to this. For the first time ever console games can be updated and patched and don't have to be perfect out of the box.
Console gaming has also became a lot more complex since the hardware in those systems has grown in power so much.

Anyways, I am not sure if what I wrote has anything to do with what Erik wrote or not. But it is the state of gaming today as I see it.
I disagree that PC gaming is a dying breed. It may not dominate like it used too when half of all a game stores inventory was PC games. But PC gaming revenue as a whole has increased yearly because gaming overall as a whole has exploded.
Gaming makes more money than movies and music these days almost combined. PC gaming may have a smaller % than it used too but it makes more money than it used too (if that makes any sense)
I see PC gaming as here to stay as long as developers can continue to produce titles that are unique to the PC and keep making their customer service better and better.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: E

As I recall, Pong was bug-free! (NO! do NOT deflate my happy memories of throwing quarter after quarter at those damn pixel paddles!)

And Space Wars was viral back before it was cool too !