Patching Philosophies

[Queeg]

On balance, I think they are taking the right approach. I'm having a great time right now playing AACW - it's a great game. But it's also a very different game than FOF - and I'm looking forward to getting back into FOF when it's finished. But it really needs to be "finished" when it's finished. The time they are taking to really get it right is time well spent, I think. I'll play and enjoy AACW for the great game that it is. But I'll return to FOF too when it's done - because it offers a very different game than AACW.

[Johnus]

Queeg:

I understand your view and I'm not comparing the two games. They are very different. I am just learning AACW. I am also anxious to get back to FOF, which I love.

My issue is with the patches. I think BOA is on its eleventh numbered patch. When the game was new it seemed to be patched once a week. Saves were compatable with the new patches and problems were fixed before I even knew about them. I don't care if a game has 50 patches which fix 50 different problems. I don't think all problems (to say nothing about numerous improvements, which are not "fixes" at all) have to be fixed with one patch for which you have to wait a long time.

[Erik Rutins]

Johnnie,

ORIGINAL: Johnnie
Ageod has just issued its fourth patch for AACW, a game which is one week old. To be fair, these are quick fix patches. But what is wrong with that ?? See a problem, fix a problem and on to the next problem.

You can't really compare these two things. Fixing minor issues is much faster and safer than changing the AI, which is what has taken a while (up to when Eric's computer got hit by the virus). Then there's the need for testing, which when you make significant improvements in gameplay, features and AI is significant. As I noted, we released an update with quite a few fixes a week after the initial release. The current public beta, despite its name is stable and has effectively been a major patch release out for several weeks now while work has continued to improve it further. I know we've done everything we can to get this out as fast as possible to you.

[Gil R.]

What Erik wrote. These changes might seem like they should be relatively quick and easy, but they're not, especially when it comes to making changes to the AI. We're going about this the right way. Regardless of whether more things should have been patched initially, in terms of this current public beta patch and our efforts to get it ready for official release, there is no better way to do things than the way we're doing them now.

[Erik Rutins]

Well, I don't know that we've done a perfect job, but I can say we've done our best. As I said above, I think we agree a second quick issues patch would have been helpful but for various reasons we ended up with a mega-update which is now almost complete and a public beta available for everyone to try in the meantime.

[Yogi the Great]

Here is my basic feeling about "patches philosophy"  My opinion and 50 cents can't even buy me a cup of coffee, but what the heck I'm sitting here before work needing to feel productive.  This is about games in general, not specifically Forge of Freedom by the way.

When I buy a game, I use to expect it to work great out of the box.  I really don't care to have to endlessly work on bugs, play balance, graphics, sound, overall quality and mechanics, etc. etc. etc.

Today it seems (probably needing some money coming in) games are rushed out sometimes well before they are ready.  The philosophy seems to be, no problem we can fix it with a patch.  Soon the 7th major patch will be out for a game I eagerly awaited for and was one of the first to purchase about 8 months ago.

While it is nice that today we can download and patch, if you don't happen to have home access to high-speed internet it can become a real problem and frustration.  Further some will just give up on a game when it is so disssappointing and never even consider that a patch has fixed it.  Game manufacturers should also realize that when they issue a poor game out of the box - they may be losing a customer for life who vows never to buy a game from that company again.  They may even let a few others know (especially via internet forums) about the bad game.[:-]


I'm not suggesting patches aren't important and don't accomplish a  good thing.  I am suggesting that maybe today they are relied on too heavily and maybe game companies should worry a bit more about the quality of the first issue of a game (even if it takes longer) then the "easy fix" later.  While some of us may want the quick release of an anticipated favorite topic game of ours - perhaps some us also want it to be a great game, without the need to make a life project out of finding, loading and installing patch after patch.[;)]

[Erik Rutins]

It's simply a fact of life that issues will slip through. The more complex the game, the more likely this is to happen, for a variety of reasons. Then there's the fact that PC hardware is as varied as can be and it is simply impossible to test all configurations. The combination of complexity and compatibility leads to the vast majority of at-release issues, even after thorough testing and leads to situations where a player with a particular play style and system configuration says "how could you miss bug x, it always happens!", yet it never happens for testers or developers, etc.

There was one (1) crash bug in the release of Forge of Freedom which was fixed within a week. There were some other issues, some of them more serious than others. We tried to fix everything that seemed significant in that first update and then started work on the next. I don't know how many different ways I can tell you all that we did not intend for the second update to take as long as it did, that we have been working hard throughout and that it could not have been done any faster than it was without throwing testing out the window and saying "let's hope it works!".

Regards,

- Erik

[LarryP]

I have been watching these debates over patches for a long time in different forums and threads. I own probably more games than five people combined, it's a bad habit of mine at times. Money wise. What I have to add probably won't really help either side much, but I can sympathize with both.

On the gamers side, I am tired of software being released that's so buggy. Some games I have over ten patches downloaded into my trusty d:\download\games\game_name directory! Other games I simply stopped playing because I am waiting for a patch to fix a dreaded lockup at a certain point every time I play the dang thing. I don't like being at the mercy of a software companies schedule of patching after I plopped down $50.

On the software side, I know better than most gamers what can happen as I have been a hobby type programmer for almost twenty-years. I know four different programming languages (Basic, Delphi or Pascal, C++, and C#). I have an extensive programming library (another bad habit of mine) of well over two hundred excellent coding books. I have written lots of programs and small games, none though to the extent of Forge Of Freedom though. Not even close. I DO KNOW THIS... one little change can have many unexpected results! And those in turn can have many more unexpected results which creates a chain reaction of problems. Then there are the simple changes like a graphical box that just needs sprucing up and the underlying code need not be touched. Or adding numbers in a loop that counts how many times a player has fired a gun. That's the kind of fix that grants a quick patch and makes gamers happy and surprised.

I know from looking inside the FOF exe file that Matrix probably used C++ for their main coding. They also used inflate-deflate for security purposes so it's hard to read much, kind of like Winzip but for distributing exe files. I know from hours upon hours of pulling my hair out that just one single pointer not released properly and your program is nothing but a huge bug. C++ is nothing without pointers so there are probably tons of them, unless they used dotNets Managed code. Even then it can be a nightmare when exe's get as big as FOF is. Add Flash to it and you got lots of places for bugs and problems. Little problems with lots of relatives!

I think the best that we can do is trust Matrix on this. Surely they are not sitting on their duffs and intentionally drawing this out. That would be suicide. They have too many successful titles under their belts. These days games are constantly reaching out to untested territory that requires many different hardware configurations to find those elusive problems. Games are so big now that it takes a collective mass of players to punch that certain combination of keys to make that screen turn to mush. [;)] DirectX is always changing and Microsoft keeps changing their rules for it. Video drivers are also changing monthly. Now we have Vista that just finally came out that programmers have to cater to differently. The hoops keep moving and staying in those hoops is a full time job in itself. It’s a huge balancing act when you add monitoring these forums and working on other issues. I can’t imagine how hard it is. At least we have a company that does care and keep in touch, and how they continually interact with us is a great example. I’m old and tired I guess.

My 2 cents worth.

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: LarryP

My 2 cents worth.

Nice post LarryP but you undervalue yourself. It was worth at least a buck two-eighty [:)]

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

ORIGINAL: LarryP

My 2 cents worth.

Nice post LarryP but you undervalue yourself. It was worth at least a buck two-eighty [:)]

Thanks for making me laugh! Your post above was excellent and I understand and relate to all of it. It's a tough situation for all so there is no perfect answer.

By the way, I love Beagles. I can hear their bark now as I think about it. I have a Beagle story I will tell sometime. [:)]

[Gray_Lensman]

LarryP...
 
Nice to know there are other "ancients" on board, LOL, I started out on a TRS-80 in 1978, myself. Before that I probably had accumulated over 100 board wargames, mostly Avalon Hill and SPI, but with little kids running around, boardgames were an exercise in frustration. I might possibly have you beat in computer game accumulation, however, although, I could not begin to get an accurate count since I have thrown/given away most of the MSDOS based games.
 
Bugs have been around since programming began of course, but it seems to me over the years, that a shift in attitude has slowly affected the publishers handling of them. Some publishers more than others, of course. I grew increasingly frustrated with the huge retail publishers, because there were too many examples of programs pushed out the door, just in time for Christmas sales for example, that my game purchases slowed to a crawl. When I discovered that a lot of the good wargaming designers had moved to online publishing, I felt that this might be a good thing, since less money would be going to publishing and more to the designers/programmers, and this would result in better products (less buggy before publication), or the cost would come down, or both. To my disappointment, neither has occurred. I will generally give Matrix much higher marks than most publishers in their efforts to keeping their associated developers plugging away at bugs, but I only wish they would playtest much more thorougly before offering a product for sale to the public. With less publishing costs associated with online publication, and yet the finished product costing the same as a Retail product, I would expect some of the additional profit(s) to be directed to ensuring a more finished final product.

[Yogi the Great]

This is starting to sound like the over the hill club!
 
As may be obvious by my signature, I go back to Avalon Hill Gettysburg (before hexes even).  Spent quite a few years after that collecting each AH game as it came out.  Sad part was I didn't really have anyone to play them with, but could always play solitare and/or just look over the game and map.  Also added in SPI, Victory games and a few others like Gray_Lensman.  Yeah setting up a game became a real problem.  Plus the fun of finding your two year old had picked up your counters for you and even chewed on a few of them adding to the challenge.
 
So while I too admire the progress of computer games, I still long for computer games that would match some of the old board games.  Just like the past, I do most of my gaming solitare, so AI is a big issue, and one that is often neglected.
 
Back on topic, I appreciate what the designers have to go through.  I fully understand that it is not possible to catch all bugs.  My main gripe is when I buy a game and it is obvious to see poor design, poor game mechanics and/or just a really bad game.  I don't care to throw money away on a bad product.  When I spend $50, I don't expect to be part of the beta testing team, I expect a good product.  As to Forge of Freedom and Matrix, the fact that I'm on the forum says I appreciate their product and efforts.  We can of course always hope to continue improving.
 
I'm not as concerned about "play balance" as I am about a reasonable simulation.   If you are given the same situation as the historical it is likely that  the winning side will win again.  The challenge is to do better then history.  The fun of the game is in the recreation of history, not just in who wins.

[Gil R.]

Yogi,
The game we released was absolutely, positively, NOT a beta version. Other than two critical bugs that were never came up in beta-testing and were fixed within a week of release -- a very low number, compared to other games -- FOF at release was a perfectly playable game, as is shown by the large number of people who have been playing non-stop since release. So I strongly differ what that characterization. As for the current patch and the process of having it publicly tested, the reason it is so large, and the reason it is taking so long, is that we've been listening to customer feedback and putting in numerous improvements that enhance the game, but are not necessary -- i.e., bonus features, features that give you more than your $50 worth. And there are so many, in fact, that we cannot properly test them internally, which is why we're having public testing. So it's a very good thing that we have such a large patch, and that we're soliciting input on it before it's officially released -- not a reason to be unhappy.

As for the game balance issue, yours is just one philosophy -- some people want the exact opposite from a Civil War game. With this new patch, everyone will be happy: those who want more balanced games, and those who want the historical disparities between both sides to be reflected.

[Gray_Lensman]

In the late 90's, it was common for me to spend between $100 to $200 a month on games, since then, with the proliferation of incomplete, buggy products, I have tapered down to less than $300 a year. It's not because I have less time or money to give to computer gaming, quite the contrary, I just prefer not to purchase software that ends as shelfware, while waiting for bugs to be removed or new features to be added. User forums help guide my purchasing direction, although occasionally I allow myself to be overexcited and purchase some products too soon due to the subject they are going to be covering, FOF and the civil war is a good example. I will admit the v1.94 beta is allowing me to experiment with the game somewhat, but my immersion level is not what it could be, since I know that some day?, week?, month?, whenever, perhaps the actual comprehensive patch will be released.
 
As a side comment, I thought I might edit the .pdf manual to incorporate some of the changes up to the v1.94 beta release... Then I found out that is not even possible due to your use of proprietary fonts within the .pdf file itself.  Why issue a manual to a game that is going to have all these new changes, and then use a font format that prevents editing those changes within the manual?  Can we expect a timely update to the manual (incorporating all the new improvements) also?

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Yogi,
The game we released was absolutely, positively, NOT a beta version. ------------------- So I strongly differ what that characterization.

Sorry Gil if that didn't come through clear enough in my post. I was not referring to FOF being a Beta version, I meant to be making a general statement about computer gaming and some of the other games I have purchased. As I put in my post I have a positive image of FOF and Matrix.[:)]

[Gil R.]

Sorry to misread. Since FOF's price is $50 I assumed that was a statement about that game in particular.

[ericbabe]

The current build of the game has some AI issues that some may regard as "game breakers" and we'd like to address these things before making an official release. There should be a new public beta up before too long, though we would like to fix the most critical issues before we release that. FOF, on the hardest settings, is a fairly complicated game; tweaking the heuristic side of the AI takes a lot of work -- the AI component has hundreds of little rules it looks at. Adding or modifying one little rule might make it perform better 70% of the time, but doing something bizarre and suicidal 5% of the time. People who critique the AI usually do so in very general terms "make it think about concentrating its forces" or "have it outflank only when circumstances are good for outflanking" but trying to express these behaviors in terms of a list of heuristics is much more difficult.

My advice on viruses is to uninstall Java 1.4!

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

The current build of the game as some AI issues that some may regard as "game breakers" and we'd like to address these things before making an official release. There should be a new public beta up before too long, though we would like to fix the most critical issues before we release that. FOF, on the hardest settings, is a fairly complicated game; tweaking the heuristic side of the AI takes a lot of work -- the AI component has hundreds of little rules it looks at. Adding or modifying one little rule might make it perform better 70% of the time, but doing something bizarre and suicidal 5% of the time. People who critique the AI usually do so in very general terms "make it think about concentrating its forces" or "have it outflank only when circumstances are good for outflanking" but trying to express these behaviors in terms of a list of heuristics is much more difficult.

My advice on viruses is to uninstall Java 1.4!

From the programming point of view, making changes to the AI to "think this way or that way" deals with a lot of underlying decision making. I can see the coding loops and trees in my head and it makes it spin. It certainly is not simple. There are so many values that have to be checked and the threading of those decisions can end up disasterous! Like you said, 5% of the time maybe, but that's the 5% that players will find.

I just removed Java 1.4.2. Is that what caused your virus problem last week? [&:]

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: LarryP
I just removed Java 1.4.2. Is that what caused your virus problem last week? [&:]

Yes, there's a vulnerability in Java 1.4 and earlier that allows malicious websites to install a Trojan when you hit the "close window" button on what seems to be a standard pop-up advertisement.

Here's a Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vundo_trojan

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

ORIGINAL: LarryP
I just removed Java 1.4.2. Is that what caused your virus problem last week? [&:]

Yes, there's a vulnerability in Java 1.4 and earlier that allows malicious websites to install a Trojan when you hit the "close window" button on what seems to be a standard pop-up advertisement.

Here's a Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vundo_trojan

If you click the "x" exit button in the upper right corner of the pop-up, does that avoid the virtus?