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Reasons Why Your Game May Be Broken or Fail / MMOWTF: Giv Beta Plz
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
After reading the latest PC Gamer magazines (UK&US)http://www.pcgamer.com/
I came across an article on Bugs upon which was by a gentleman called Michael Russel If you get the chance his blog is a good read for a straight look at the life of a software developer/tester.
Anyways, after reading mmorpg.coms article by Dan Fortier last month (MMOWTF: Giv Beta Plz: http://mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/1349)
I kind of wanted to relate here some quotes from that article (PC Gamers one) from the view point of someone who has been in the industry.
So then here are some snippets from the article which I think people might find interesting in relation to our bug filled world of Beta and mmorpg's, With Age of Conan's release 3 months off (scheduled) and why we see people constantly asking for Beta.
Originally wrote by Michael Russell
1. The bug may simply of not being found."Its true, that not every bug will be found by the testing department. Its hard enough to locate the ones that we do find. Most companies tend to employ an "ad hoc" testing strategy, where you go through the game and follow hunches to the bugs. A few companies now use a more engineering focused strategy to test the code side of things, but even that wont find all of the bugs in a game"
" Staffing concerns crop up as well. While testers are generally among the lowest paid staff on any project, it can often be impossible to bring on the number of testers necessary to fully test a game, either from a financial standpoint, or a logistics standpoint."
2. The bug may have been negotiated away to get a worse bug fixed."As games get closer to shipping the bar raises for how severe a bug needs to be in order to get fixed. At about 8-12 weeks before gold, certain types of cosmetic bugs are automatically set to “won’t fix.” Gradually, it gets to the point where unless a bug makes it so the game can’t be finished, it won’t be fixed."
"There are also times we might decide on a lower impact fix, or to ignore a bug because to cure would be worst than the disease. Any change could introduce new bugs, cause older bugs to resurface, or inadvertently unveil a bug that’s been hiding the whole time."
" Sometimes developers will leave in broken code or content and just block it off to keep the bug or incomplete code from being triggered. Other times, if the choice is between having a revolutionary feature that works 95% of the time or not having the feature, the 5 % failure rate is considered “acceptable.”"
3. You may have a less-than-common combination of hardware and drivers."Configuration testing is an exponentially difficult problem. With dozens of different video cards, sound cards, motherboards, controller chipsets and network cards released every single year, trying to make sure a game will work on every single hardware configuration released over the last 3-5 years is an exercise in futility."
" Generally, the top 40 to top 100 components (based on market share) get tested, but depending on when the game is ready for config testing, many of the fixes might not make it until there is a patch. Additional software on your machine may cause issues. Most testing is done on relatively clean PC’s, so software interactions are rarely, if ever, tested."
4. Unstoppable force (schedule slippage) meets immovable object (ship date).
"There are times when a ship date just can’t slip. A sports game sells extremely poorly if released after the start date of a season. A movie tie-in generally relies on being released with the film to capitalize on the marketing dollars."
" During this run up to ship date, there may be enough time to find the issue and document it, but there may not be enough time to fix the problems before it’s time to make the gold master. Generally you will see a day one or week one update in a case like this."
5. Not every gamer is an admin.
"Most developers and testers are admins for their own PC’s, but not every game-player out there is an admin for theirs. As a result there are issues with reduced permissions that many developers and testers will never see, such as many of the user-permission errors that you are now seeing with Windows Vista."
" Microsoft published guidelines as far back as 1996 for where developers should store temp files, files shared between users, per-user files, etc/., but very few developers have listened, partly because those guidelines can make it slightly more difficult to ensure a current, proper build on a development machine. It’s a lot easier to have one folder with everything that you can nuke at will than five folders spread out all over the machine that have to be individually deleted."
"Now, nothing in this article is here to justify a game shipping broken. While all of these are perfectly valid reasons why a game could ship in a broken state, it doesn’t change the fact that quality assurance is considered an unnecessary evil by many portions of the industry. Until quality assurance is able to get the game time and resources it needs to competently test games, don’t be surprised if things get worse before they get better. "
Another point I wanted to bring up why I think it is easier to Funcom to squash any bugs that might and probably will be present at launch. That point is that the game engine is theirs / Propriety. By using a pre existing but heavily modified of their own game engine provides a battle tested technology base with employee's knowing and better capable on fixing any config issues.
Second point is: This is supposed to be a "Games for Windows" title. The Games for Windows initiative carries a set of coding standards with it, backed by massive marketing budget and something Funcom is taking advantage of. Properly handling installers, save game locations, user permissions etc et all, will help the game play nicely with Windows in the first place.
Well I found it an interesting read and figured with the features that AoC promises to deliever, lets not lose sight of the fact that mmorpg's being as complex as they are do release with bugs, but its the experience Funcom have - in showing they are capable in fixing issues thats holds any potential issues with AoC in good stead! They have their own way of doing Beta and they aren't far off the average mmorpg way of doing Beta. With the game coming out at the start of November (EU) there is still quite a ways to go till "Open Beta" if you want to judge the game based on other sucessfull mmorpg's that have released. The game is in a "Technical / Closed" Beta state right now, so like me, Im sure you guys hope that the testers find the bugs and the developers will have a better chance to eliminate bugs found.
I strongly doubt this game will fail, it may have a rough launch, but hey, what baby doesn't cry at first ? Just wait for it to smile 
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Comments
Yea, its old. But now It really feel like Age of Conan = Vanguard 2
Spoils of War - The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
Care to elaborate?
AoC = Un released
Vanguard = Released
Yea your right its OLD the Vanguard concern has its own thread: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1544825#1544825
Thanks Fion,
I hope as well that the information / showing of seiges is on par with the stuff we have seen before, but also that its more, if only to give another reason to get excited about this game. It seems the marketing department have the resources and capacity to make it a wonderful event in Leipzig and that they should jump at the chance to show the game off. Saying that, I'd rather see something nearly complete than something that doesn't look good, but considering the experiences we ahve had so far I bet its the former.
AOC is hiding something and it will be pathetic Fanboys who are here in 3 months time complaining about AOC and how it ripped you off.AOC could very well turn into a Vanguard with only a 1/4 of what they promised in the game.
Who you going to blame then..? surely the devs or will you still look for a pathetic excuse to blame some random WAR follower.We will see at Leipzig's exactly what this game is about..mainly PVE.
If people cant be bothered to wait then there is always G&H beta to keep you busy lol.
All you got to do is CLICK ON IT
Translated:
AoC doesnt release information that I'd want to see, right when I want it, and I'm a WAR fan, who doesnt have the stones to use my "WAR IS COMING GHOST SQUAD" siggy in the AoC forums, because I'm too afraid to stand on what I like. I'm also so insecure in what I like, that I'm afraid to let people know what I like when I'm trolling. After all, if I like one game, there is no possible game that can be good, because I'm obviously the smartest guy around (even if I dont have stones to use my little tag line here).
Cool, thanks, now we know how you feel! It's appreciated!
I wanted to respond to the underlined part: No, it definetly couldn't turn in to that, since they have shown approximately 2/3 of the game already. Maybe even more. (and just for your information pvp/pve is not a 50/50 situation, cause they have shown mechanical info, lore info, sights ... etc)
A HELL of a LOT more info is out about AOC then WAR. I don't see this same person on the WAR forums yelling about how the sky is falling. Seriously if a game needs to be doubted its WAR. All we see is people spamming the same 2 spells in a few video's. They've shown NOTHING new or Revoulutionary, its all the same thing we've seen over and over and over again. By the time War releases, the graphics will be so dated.
Give this topic a break it is getting old and frankly it seems like more trolling for those who doubt AOC.Noone says you have to be a fanboy or non fanboy to have some concerns. This company has the support of Eidos and is currently working with Microsoft. Do you think either of these companies would make deals with Funcom if they thought Funcom was unable to make a good game ? Get real people. This topic is old. Go spam this nonsense elsewhere.
Well this topic got off to a great start didn't it !
Did anyone else find it interesting?
I just thought I'd put the view across of someone in the industry as apposed to some average joe whose done 2 beta's for 2 different games.
While I don't agree with the negative views of this post... I find it amusing how AoC followers immediately pounce on WAR.
You CAN like both games people... it IS allowed.
As to the topic... There is a legitimate concern about funcom releasing AoC. Arguably the bad release of AO doomed the game. I hope funcom is a different company now and has learned from the past.
While not all bugs can be squashed at release, history of successful NA MMOs has shown us a lengthy beta usually makes for a smoother release. There will always be some issues, but I think it is a fatalistic view to say "release the game bug ridden because that is the only way to catch the bugs" this has already been proven false in the industry.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
that was a interesting read, i've learned something today.
and i dont think AoC will fail, look at AO, still going, funcom learned from their mistake, but i have a feeling that the game wont be released in time,maybe...
damn i was looking foward to GTA 4 and its coming out next year now.
Thanks for that Amazingavery a good read. I am always amazed at how easy it is to get a negative response on just about any subject. I for one am looking forward to both AOC and WAR, I will try them both and hope one of them shows me a good time for a while
...bugs can be fixed...
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
We haven't really been shown crafting yet, at least I don't remember seeing much about it...
Other than that there is a wealth of information out there, you just have to find it.
If I were to put down one criticism it would be that the official site can be a little confusing and the information could be laid out better.
I'm looking forward to AoC. I have very few concerns about it.
Would you pay 3 months of service where the game was unplayable?
That is obviously an extreme but many people start screaming the second day of release. Issues happen at release... the smother it goes the better the PR and higher the subscriber numbers in the first 2 - 3 months. That is why as many bugs should be fixed before release and not after.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Good read. AOC should be fine but I am not expecting a perfect release either.
Has there ever been a perfect MMO release? Now I am waiting on warhammer but one of my real life friends wants me to try AoC with him. I may or may not play from day one of both games but frankly I cant wait for something new.