Still waiting

[Admiral Scott]

Will this game ever be fixed?
I have been waiting to play this game for two years now.
The leader bug really ruined my first try at this game.
I refuse to start a new game until all the bugs are fixed.
Patch after patch, month after month, I wait, but when can I play this great game without bugs?
I appreciate every one trying to get this game in working order.
I think you are a great bunch of guys.
Can some one please tell me when they think this game will be fixed?
Maybe next time I will wait a year or two before spending 80 dollars on a game of this magnitude, to find out if it actually works.

[DuckofTindalos]

It's not ever going to be bug-free.

[SurrenderMonkey]

Perfection does not exist, either in reality or in videogames. WitP is terrific, but not (ever) perfect.

[Admiral Scott]

I'm not looking for perfection, just a bug free game.
Units and leaders disappearing are game killing bugs.
Ill keep waiting until the game is truly playable.

[DuckofTindalos]

Then I'm sorry to say you'll have to wait until the cows come home, i.e. forever...

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: SurrenderMonkey

Perfection does not exist, either in reality or in videogames. WitP is terrific, but not (ever) perfect.

With all due respects ... it's that attitude which is allowing software to be released before it has been properly tested. Sure there are ALWAYS going to be bugs which slip through but a majority of software companies don't even seem to strive toward putting out bug-free (as well as can be with proper testing) anymore. They seem to be taking the lead from Microsoft which puts out new operating systems and lets the end user be their testers for them.

If I would have ever put out a program at any of the places I programmed at that wasn't tested to be bug-free according to the test plans I wouldn't have been around long. I can remember taking 5-10 minutes to make a programming change and then spending the next two to three days running through the test plans for one single program before it was allowed to go on to the next person who would test how it interfaced with the entire system.

Please note in the above I did not say ALL software companies but a majority. It's sad but it does seem that the focus is on putting something out as fast as possible and that the users will accept bugs as a natural fact of life.

[Titanwarrior89]

At least they are trying and thats about all you can ask for from a game company and a game of this size. I am suprised there isn't more bugs than they are.[:D]

[Stavka_lite]

Absolutely every peice of software that is released has some level of bugginess. It is just a matter of fact for the current state of the industry. I spent 5 years working as an outsourcer in technical support for the Great Software Satan Microsoft and watched the hoops that they jumped through trying to get Windows98 an XP to a point that was acceptable to the public, NT and 2000 wasn't much better either, There were no less than 11 release canidates and countless beta versions for 98. But making software isn't like baking a cake, there are so many 'moving' parts that that there are going to be few that don't play nice together no matter what you do. In the original Windows95 there are over 2,000,000 lines of code and MS had teams, yes teams, working on eliminating bugs and they were never able to get them all worked out. While I don't think WitP has 2,000,000 lines of code I am sure that they didn't have but just a few people working on debugging the code. Debugging the code is much different than beta testing. Beta testing is just one method for finding issues within a program, it is a whole different animal to fix those bugs without creating new ones.I am happy that the game works as well as it does and Matrix contiues to support it for free, free support for MS products stops after 3 years by the way, if you can get free support.

[CaptDave]

My real-life job happens to be Quality Manager for a software company. Our product costs somewhere in the six figures (exact prices dependent on number of licenses, what modules are included, and so on). We certainly don't take quality lightly, and the only time we ever rush a release is annually at tax time (since the IRS doesn't care about any problems we might have).

Our emphasis on quality notwithstanding, it is physically and logically impossible to guarantee faultless software (incidentally, I'm curious as to what's the distinction between "perfect" and "bug-free" unless you're referring to personal preference issues in things like the interface). Sure, you can design software to pass all the tests, but it's impossible to design tests to meet all possible situations. Consider two examples:

1. Quite often, there is a situation where something breaks after n iterations. But, with rare exceptions, there's no way to know this ahead of time. We can design a test to run, say, 100,000 times. If the thing breaks on the 103,293rd pass, we won't catch it. There are practical limits to how many iterations can be designed into the test, primarily due to time. We could run it forever in an inifinte loop, but then the software would never be released.

2. If there are degrees of impossibility, it's even more impossible to test every possible combination of hardware and software on a computer. We know what we have on our machines, but we have no control over what our clients have loaded. Even if every possible combination could be identified, we'd go broke acquiring all the hardware and software to test with.

Every business decision in any industry is a trade-off between what's best for the company and what's best for the customer. It's unfortunate that all too often the second half of that comparison seems to be ignored, and I try not to do business with companies that are worried only about the next quarterly report and not about customer satisfaction (unfortunately, there's no getting around having to deal with Micro$oft). Matrix Games clearly is not one of these companies; they're doing their best with a staff even smaller than we have at my company (the Development Manager and I figure we need to increase our staff by 150% to be able to progress, but we're only one of over a dozen products that were acquired by the parent company).

Of course, major operational bugs should be addressed. Minor bugs are nuisances, but normally tolerable. Also keep in mind that all the releases we're talking about in this forum are officially "limited public beta" releases, meaning that some bugs are to be expected. Having a broad spectrum of testers -- WHO KNOW THEY'RE TESTING BECAUSE THEY DOWNLOADED A BETA RELEASE -- is going to result in more issues being identified more rapidly than if only an in-house staff were involved.