A programmers perspective on a buggy release.

I develop software, not games, but business software. Nonetheless, all software has a development process. Testing and QA is a HUGE part of the software development process. The fact that this piece of software was allowed to be released to the general public in the state that its in shows that it was rushed and the company needed to start making profits off of it.

Let me tell you, if I sent my code into production with this many bugs I would be fired the next day. If this game went through the proper avenues of FULL testing and QA then many of the issues should have come to light and been resolved. As it stands they havent.

To defend unfinished, unpolished software in hopes that it will be fixed in the future is unacceptable ANYWHERE but the gaming world. Consumers should not have to stand for it. I dont know why some of you sit there smiling while you're getting screwed.

 

I don't work in software, but in the product we do produce, we would also be fired pretty quickly if we shipped them to the customers and told them we'll fix them later. Pretty much anyone who produces anything would be.

 

Mind if I ask what kind of software you write?

 

I sure am getting screwed playing this game I find highly enjoyable.

Sure, I would love ALL software (incl. games) to come out with extensive quality control and play testing, but PC gaming is not like that. I'm not going to take some stance on principle when it will cost me the chance to play a fun game.

Video games don't rate THAT highly on the ethics scale for me to justify going on a crusade. So, in short, I see your point but I disagree with the solution.

 

I don't work in software, nor do I produce anything. But If I give my customers just coca leaves and 2 gallons of gasoline, I would certainly get FIRED at. lol wait -nevermind.

Sadly this is what PC gaming world comes to...and it's sadly slowly affecting console gaming as well. So I salute those who are tremendously patient. Welcome to the "Wait and see" club. None the less, I still like the new changes from the 50 or so turn of the demo. Too bad I can't play it to its full potential.

 

If business software is released with a bug, people can lose large quantities of money. With some kinds of software, people can die if there are bugs. When a game is released with bugs, your enjoyment may be decreased somewhat... but you can enjoy it sooner than if they had spent an extra year testing it to perfection. The game will get better faster with a whole community of people banging on it than it will with a dozen QA guys at one company on the job.

 

Meh, Blizzard manages it pretty decently...

Still, it isn't unplayable. But it could use some polish.

 

Yes, Blizzard's QA is very good and they definitely take their time.

Though they have some other Activision-related problems which are as bad if not worse than poor polish.

 

Compared to the release of Empire Total War this one is slightly better. Mount and Blade Warband also had a pretty buggy release. I really don't see this as a big deal.

 

That's hilarious. I forgot I could also purchase Civ5 from Firaxis' competitor.

You talk to anyone in the gaming industry and they will tell you that general release is where a lot of issues come out. Some issues don't present, or present consistently enough, in a beta release.

But yeah, I'm totally getting screwed while I wait for free patches to correct a game I've been playing for 20+ hours. Thanks for the help.

By the by, you don't play games much...do you?

 

Not to mention a 10-year release cycle. Blizzard is hardly perfect in other areas (I'll take steam 100 times over SC2's annoying/intrusive/buggy DRM).

Also, Civ 5 is one of the best releases I have seen in months. I see some problems, but nothing game breaking. I can play and enjoy the game with no major problems. That's really all I can ask for.

 

It's not. Every release has issues. Some small, some large. When there aren't large issues then the small issues seem large. Then, wait for it, they fix the issue. At no cost to you!

Not directed at you, by the way. A lot of people posting here are behaving like this is the first game they've ever purchased. I mean, comparing a game to something like Quicken? lololol

 

This.

Honestly if you fail to recognise this difference you are obviously still a junior programmer (or code monkey as I like to refer to you) with little real appreciation of key facts.

As someone who has worked as a consultant designing and doing bespoke development for some of the largest law firms in the world (specifically to do with their legal accounting software and databases) I can tell you that there is a HUGE difference between game programming and business programming.

Here's a few that you might want to consider before you puff your chest up too large

1)Business Software comes in two varieties, commercial and inhouse. In house software has the huge advantage of being able to be tested on the exact systems it will be used on. Commercial software DOES have bugs when it's deployed to an unfamiliar environment which is why businesses run test systems separate to their live systems where new products are tested extensively and issues referred to the software developer to resolve before go-live. Gaming systems can not be tested on every environment they are deployed on because private rigs are all different and non-standardised.

2)When commercial software goes wrong it can have a HUGE impact on a company. You make one small error in your database entry and suddenly you can be in significant trouble with auditors and various regulatory bodies even if it doesn't have a direct financial impact. When it does have a direct financial impact, you can make peoples lives absolute hell. Games don't have this problem, you deploy a game with a bug and guess what? you get some annoyed customers.. no-one loses their life savings, no-one gets sent to jail and their company doesn't fold or grind to a halt.

Honestly man stop and realise the difference before you start trying to compare the two. You'll make yourself look significantly less stupid.

Moderator Action: Flaming
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

I can't recall a single game I've ever played on release where someone doesn't say exactly what they OP just said.

Just because you work on software does not make you an expert.

The game is fine.

Shut up and play it.

 

One of the thing that most people with limited/different programming experience don't tend to understand with games is that even simple games are larger, more complex projects than nearly any other type of software, especially for large AAA game titles. About the best comparison would be operating systems, which also suffer from the same issues.

As a game developer, who has also worked elsewhere in the industry(bank software), the games are significantly more complicated with more overlapping systems and far more programmers with interdependent code, which leads to more bugs. The QA department here is 2-3x the size of as that of my previous employer, yet it's much harder to catch/fix all of the bugs, due to the scope and complexity of the project.

Can it be done better, probably. However, I haven't run into many bugs at all with CiV, especially not enough to warrant a rant like this. Especially when I've ran into more bugs in much simpler software, that I couldn't count on getting addressed in a reasonable timeframe, whereas at least with games I can expect a patch to come out and address most of the issues.

 

As a computer programmer who works with a business I myself know that bugs be a horrible thing. However, I know that with business software I'm not going to run into nearly as many crashes or slowdowns because of unexpected video cards, sound cards, drivers, or the like that video games rely on.

I've suffered three crashes in three days. Honestly for a freshly released game that is exceptional. I've never played a (decent) game where it didn't crash and die the first few days of launch or at least have bugs.

The difference between business applications and gaming software is huge. Performance is much more problematic to solve and you have to try to make it work with 2^32 different computer setup combinations. Meanwhile a business application runs so CPU heavy the bugs are from the code and not compatibility. Even well tested games will have troubles. During the StarCraft 2 Beta I had no problems. On release day my game was crashing every 10 minutes. It's feasibly impossible to fix all bugs on a launch.

I'm sure it's been said before, but I'll restate it. It's the beginning of a launched game. Amongst a tiny sample size (The sample being my 10-12 friends with CiV) I'm actually the only one who has crashed or had troubles with the game. That's excellent to me. The other problems will be fixed with driver updates and CiV patches.

 

Honestly I dont understand what youre getting at. So the fact that:

"no-one loses their life savings, no-one gets sent to jail and their company doesn't fold or grind to a halt.no-one loses their life savings, no-one gets sent to jail and their company doesn't fold or grind to a halt."

makes it ok to release buggy software?

And dont insult me under the premise of anonymity, you have no idea who I am or what I've done. If there was any chest puffing going on its clear who that was.

Moderator Action: And my comments stand on responding to these things, too.

Just ignore him. Let's all try to keep this civil, please.

 

I'm a programmer as well, have been for over 20 years.

If nobody released buggy software, no software would be getting released.

 

Then you should know theres a threshold for bugginess. All I'm saying is it was rushed.