Actually it works a little differently. So let me enlighten those that "think" they know how it works:
Customer support goes through customer problems, usually helping people configure their computers properly.
If a customer claims to be victim of a bug and the general config check works out fine then details are requested
Then comes a savegame to help reproduce problems. These then get placed inside the firms internal bug tracking system in whatever shape or size that may be.
The QA Manager (Now that is short for Quality Assurance Manager) then works with the Lead Tester to assign tasks to the programmers. They then try and fix a "reproducable" bug and build a new "daily". These get passed to the Lead Tester who does a so-called first run (checks the basics of an installed version) and then moves it to the internal testers.
Repeat this process for a few days (not to mention this process starts after the game goes gold).
When a gold anouncement is made, 2 weeks need to be added for production of CD, packaging, manual etc. and in those 2 weeks high prio bugs are attempted to fix and checked.
New bugs are fixed and old bugs are rechecked (to avoid repetition of bugs thought to be fixed).
Once this has reached a certain level, the patch is then compiled and handed over to the publisher.
This process again takes roughly 2 weeks as the patch is tested there. A new high prio bug might be found and the 2 week rule might be extended but in most cases when a patch is delivered to a publisher, its usually a 2 week waiting window before the developer gets the go ahead to publish the patch publically.
Anouncement that the patch was passed to the publisher was just under 1.5 weeks ago, so if all goes well (and when an anouncement is made it usually does) we can expect the first patch earliest this friday, latest this coming monday (if all goes well).
What a lot of you fail to realize is just how complicated fixing bugs and building patches has become so it would be nice if you do not continuesly ask for apologies and wait patiently for those to finish their work. Believe it or not it costs them many a weekends away from their family during "crunch time", time they would rather spend outside the office rather than listenting to those that expect perfection out of every box.
Console games are easier to make because of ONE hardware level. PC games are much more difficult. There are 50 different CPUs, 100s of mainboards, 1000s of graphic cards, more soundcards etc. Combine them in their different configuration probabilities and you are litterally looking at over a million system configurations and that is NOT including bodged driver configurations, user stupidity (excuse the term but unfortunately true), messed windows registry, viral invections and 3rd party applications running in the background.
There is more too it to think and those that shout the loudest believe it or not are, in my experience, those that do not even know how to copy a file from one directory to another, never heard what a patch is all about, do not know what a driver is for and could never tell you what their system hardware is if you asked them. Is this my frustration? No, I work in this industry and I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of those that do not know half of what they are actually talking about. So please, give those guys a little breather and excercise some patience because even if a game might not be good, years of work still went into it and if there are "SOME" stability problems, wait them out so they can find a cause and fix it in their own time. Nothing will run away and "ALL THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT".
PS: I think it is a shame that manners these days have fallen so low these days...
