Another stupid bug

[Turbo]

Yes I have. For one, Jerome came online to state that the Protectorate Bug would be fixed in 1.2.

I stand correct then.

[motorhead]

I posted a link in one of the 'blinking trade icon' threads to a post at .com where CA confirmed it would be fixed in the next patch. I think the reason you don't see them come on and tick off every single thing they fix is it would only encourage people to clamor for confirmation that their pet bug will be fixed next, then screeching for constant updates. I'd guess CA has their own prioritized list of critical/moderate/minor bugs, to which they're assigning their time and resources accordingly.

This particular issue (withdrawing AI forces smacking into your off-map reinforcements) is probably a moderate bug. To be honest, i've never even encountered it yet.

edit: and keep in mind that a game of this depth and complexity is simply bound to have bugs. The first patch for MTW contained 10 new features, 51 SP campaign fixes, and 14 MP fixes.

[Grifman]

Ah, good point. I for one think that the developers have a responsibility to their customers to deliver a working product. At the very least I would like to see just one post from CA just acknowledging these problems and letting people know that a patch will be forthcoming.

They have, I've seen several posts from CA noting specific issues that will be or have been fixed in the next patch.

Grifman

[Grifman]

Yeah, that's true....you only ever seem to see them in threads about gameplay formulas or congratulations CA, etc. etc.

Maybe they can't comment without going to Activision or something....

Maybe they don't care to respond to someone being rude . . .

Grifman

[Grifman]

Oh I see, because it's "sandwiched between two insults" it doesn't exist right?


*imagines CA staff member sitting in front of PC crying eyes out at all the nasty words*

No because it's sandwiched between two insults who's going to care?

Grifman

[Grifman]

and being vocal about bugs is what gets them fixed. I shouldn't have to pussyfoot around and kiss ass in order to do it.

So how many bugs have you gotten fixed so far?

Grifman

[andrewt]

I reported a bug somewhere here and got two replies from Jerome. I've also seen the protectorate comment.

[motorhead]

I reported a bug somewhere here and got two replies from Jerome. I've also seen the protectorate comment.

but if you had really worked hard and thrown in a bunch of insults, i'm sure you could have gotten 3, maybe 4 replies from him.

[GFX707]

No because it's sandwiched between two insults who's going to care?

Grifman

Well hopefully CA is

[Colovion]

you're missing the point there - would you eat steak between two loaves of shit?

[GFX707]

This "CA don't owe us anything" attitude is stupid. We paid for their product and we have a right to expect that that product works without significant flaws.

I have seen this same stupid "The developers don't owe us anything" crap on hundreds of game message boards for years and it's so infuriatingly stupid and illogical that it makes me want to punch a baby.

We are paying customers. You don't buy a car and then find out that it has a bunch of wiring missing and then go "Oh well the car manufacturer doesn't owe me anything!" and crash placidly into a lamp post, now do you?

[foop]

I have seen this same stupid "The developers don't owe us anything" crap on hundreds of game message boards for years and it's so infuriatingly stupid and illogical that it makes me want to punch a baby.

I see your point. But tell that to Microsoft. Tell that to the entire software industry. Almost all software I work with - and I do this to earn a living - is delivered late, buggy and broken by companies that, unless you have an ongoing contract with them, don't give a damn. Quite how we fix this short of boycotting all crap software is beyond me; us consumers continue, sheep-like, to buy any old rubbish.

In the games industry it's even worse, because games are produced by developers and released by completely different companies. Good developers lavish care and attention on a game, only to have it forcibly released six months before it's ready with a manual 10% of the size of the one they wanted.

Yes, RTW has annoying bugs. Yes, I am surprised some of them got past QA and playtesting when I was annoyed by them in the first two hours of playing. But being unpleasant to Creative Assembly isn't going to help. In my experience, they care about their games and are good at releasing patches. If you want to raise hell, there's probably some slimy marketing guy at Activision that deserves it.

For what it's worth, I'm sufficiently upset by some of the bugs that I'm probably going back to MTW until a Rome patch comes out. But I'm fairly confident that patched RTW will be a truly great game.

Blimey, we've lurched a bit off-topic haven't we? Sorry.

[barocca]

...Maybe they can't comment without going to Activision or something....

I hadn't thought about them needing permission from Activision. I recall a post by one of the developers regarding MTW Viking and the automatic death at a certain age. He mentioned they needed Activision's permission before they could release a patch.

If I recall correctly a fair chunk of the work done on that patch was in the developers own time (after business hours) in the anticipation that they would get permission. A Patch costs money, wages have to be paid.

I Know the dev's would have wanted to release a perfect game first up,
but they have a schedule to work to, (a project plan)
with hard time cutoff dates,
(just look through the text files in MTW/VI - you'll see notations about cutoff dates all through them)

NOW
we want things fixed, some are critical, some are not
- it is not for me to say which is which.

In Order to get the devs to WANT to fix as much as possible in the time they will have (which WILL BE FINITE!) we need to cooly and calmly list the bugs,
1. what happens,
2. what we expect to happen (but doesn't)
3. what we can do to MAKE them happen (how to replicate the bugs)

Saying "this is stupid" or anything insulting will only get their backs up,
Would you not get offended if your work was harshly criticised?
Yes?
Would you be more willing to investigate the problem if someone plainly stated "dude, i tried to do "this" and "that" happened instead"?
Yes?

PC's crashing or unable to load the game are almost entirely down to:-
1. Generic cheap ass components,
sometimes "non generic" drivers will fix those problems.
2. BAD drivers,
and yes they are out there, Nvidia had a rep for releasing unstable video drivers, they seem to have fixed that but i still tend to use their unified drivers rather than the specific ones for my card.
3. OLD drivers,
it would AMAZE and ASTOUND you just how many people are using outdated drivers, or even the WRONG drivers for their devices!
4. Conflicting Software,
dont tell it dont happen, it happens to me lots when i install some junk shareware or other, I HAVE a persistent problem with my XP machine, one of the old junk pieces of software i regularly uses overwrote some dll's (which it should not have done), and my "program interfaces" are all shot to hell
- i get Win95 interfaces on lots of software, even XP specific software!


SUMMARY
you want bugs fixed? list em in the bug report thread and
BE CALM,
GIVE PRECISE REPORTS,
EXPLAIN HOW TO REPLICATE THE BUG (so they can "see" it on their PC's)

[Papewaio]

This "CA don't owe us anything" attitude is stupid. We paid for their product and we have a right to expect that that product works without significant flaws.

I have seen this same stupid "The developers don't owe us anything" crap on hundreds of game message boards for years and it's so infuriatingly stupid and illogical that it makes me want to punch a baby.

We are paying customers. You don't buy a car and then find out that it has a bunch of wiring missing and then go "Oh well the car manufacturer doesn't owe me anything!" and crash placidly into a lamp post, now do you?

A reminder that we have ten year olds on this board so stop the swearing and violent attitude.

The bugs are not safety issues. You are screeching like someone who got the wrong shade of paint.

'Oh myyy gawddddd I can't believe that is an apricot pastel, I spefically said to the intewior designa that I wonted a strawbewwy pastel with hints of goldenwod.'

If you have an issue it would be better to state it clearly and stop the theatrics. The steam only clouds up the issue and hinders resolution. Always work towards the answer don't agitate over the fairness or unfairness as that will not make resolution happen any quicker.

So if you really want to resolve the issues quicker then state the bug, how it occured, rate of frequency and leave the snide comments out.

[GFX707]

Show me where I swore.

My metaphor was perfectly acceptable, the bug I describe is not cosmetic, but a problem of the game mechanics.

[Papewaio]

violence:

infuriatingly stupid and illogical that it makes me want to punch a baby

swearing :

crap

it is a swearword in the context that this site has under thirteens and more importantly the style/vitriole in which you use it.

Don't post with an attitude that you would not want your mum, grandma to see.

[GFX707]

Oh please. There's more violence and swearing in the saturday morning cartoons that every 10 year old watches. Not to mention that we are here discussing a game that REVOLVES around violence.

[Barkhorn1x]

Oh please. There's more violence and swearing in the saturday morning cartoons that every 10 year old watches. Not to mention that we are here discussing a game that REVOLVES around violence.

I have 11 year olds - and he has a point Papawoi. You pretty much over reacted here.

[barocca]

I have 11 year olds - and he has a point Papawoi. You pretty much over reacted here.

i don't think so

within the guidelines of this forum a level two warning is warranted,
further transgressions would incur a level four (ban)

Further I can assure that in some parts of the world saturday morning cartoons do NOT allow swearing and violence.


This forum is designed to fall into PG13 category,
and to conform to the lowest level of violence and language accpetable under that category,

NO swearing
NO threats
NO stalking

have i made myself perfectly clear?
i have no problems using the moderation tools available to this board if you are having any trouble understanding me
Barocca

[Colovion]

About the whole "if anyone, blame Activision" ideas - I would have to disagree, to a point.

They were the people who gave CA an extra YEAR in developement to make the game Awesome with almost everything implimented that they could. Heck, there's still things that they only got around to partially impliment but put in anyway because they know the mod community is so great. These things are the code which someone at TWC found for a Blood Mod - code which just needs to be "unlocked" to have it work. In my mind this is an amazing thing on CA's side as it makes it that the game can have blood, but it also makes it so that it needs to be modded in and won't stunt their sales by giving the game a Mature rating. There are also things like the Reflections mod which unlocks yet another piece of code which CA didn't impliment. It seems this one was left out because it doesn't work with some graphics cards, but when it does - WOW CA wanted this game to be amazing and it shows - I think we can cut them some slack right now. I've been pissed off from a number of bugs and oversights - but overall I can sidestep them and pretend they dont' exist for the moment; it isn't easy, but it's possible.

My point is that CA and Activision deffinately know that the game has problems and are well on their way to fixing them. All games and software now adays has patches and whatnot to make it run perfectly (and even then it isn't so). I agree that it's frusterating when a game loses some things as it evolves but hopefully we can adapt to those things or mod them to our likings.

[Grifman]

This "CA don't owe us anything" attitude is stupid. We paid for their product and we have a right to expect that that product works without significant flaws.

Who said they don't owe us anything? Sure we ought to point out bugs to them and they ought to fix them. We're just saying you don't have to stupidly rude about it! Talk about illogical - get a clue!

Grifman

[Gregoshi]

Interesting information about the blood and reflections hidden code, Colovion. As cool as it is, I'd beware of opening Pandora's Box...

One thing to consider regarding "buggy" software today: go back to your hard drive and look at the folder sizes of some 4-5 year old games in which you did a full install and compare this to the full install of games like RTW. There is a dramatic increase in the size of the programs, graphics, etc. The power of hardware keeps increasing by leaps and bounds every year, but I don't think software development has changed too much in that same time. The more complex you make a program, the more chance there is to introduce bugs and the more difficult it is to test every possible situation. If you doubt the point about testing, just look at many of the bug report threads. For just about every bug, there always seems to be one or more people saying they have never encountered that bug. Maybe that was also the case with the tester. That, at least, is my optimistic take on the subject.

[Duke John]

Try making a mod and make it as perfect as possible. Make it public and then bet for your Org membership that no one will find a single bug and that you have satisfied everybody.

That CA is making a great game doesn't mean that they can only deliver a perfect product. They do strive for it, but they are only humans. If your mailman delivers you a letter for your neighbour, will you then storm out and calling him a piece of ****? I really hope not or else you might better go live in a hidden valley until you discover the meaning of living in a society.

Besides you could have downloaded the demo before you bought the game. You would have then discovered how the voice acting was. If it really was such a problem then you can only blame yourself for buying a product that you didn't like in the first case.

[GFX707]

i don't think so

within the guidelines of this forum a level two warning is warranted,
further transgressions would incur a level four (ban)

Further I can assure that in some parts of the world saturday morning cartoons do NOT allow swearing and violence.


This forum is designed to fall into PG13 category,
and to conform to the lowest level of violence and language accpetable under that category,

NO swearing
NO threats
NO stalking

have i made myself perfectly clear?
i have no problems using the moderation tools available to this board if you are having any trouble understanding me
Barocca

You can say "cr*p" in a PG13. Saturday morning cartoons like Batman are extremely violent (and a lot include words including and worse than cr*p) but just because it's good guy versus bad guy most people (no offense but especially americans) don't recognise this as violence. Besides, as I said before, RTW revolves exclusively around killing and violence, and if a 10 year old can experience that then why not this? And should they even be here?

I am not trying to stir up trouble but I just think you mods are overreacting here.

[GFX707]

Who said they don't owe us anything?

GFX707... do you realize that the devs don't owe you anything?

This person said it Grifman. On page 1 of this very thread.

[motorhead]

Who said they don't owe us anything?

GFX707... do you realize that the devs don't owe you anything?

This person said it Grifman. On page 1 of this very thread.

it was a rhetorical question...

[GFX707]

No it wasn't. Of course *now* the original asker will say it was. What a waste of time.

[barocca]

GFX707, you can't use the word "C**p" on tv here in Australia during pg13 viewing time, and seeing we use lowest common denominator we'll go with that one.

(thanks for not swearing, appreciated)
B.

[Anselm]

GFX707, isn't this all a little rediculous? We're now on a 2 page thread for the sole reason that you can't post a bug without putting the word 'Stupid' infront of it. Theres no need man.

CA did a great job, Rome is one of the best games I've ever played. You can't go running round saying 'They owe me this!' or 'I demand they fix that!'. I can understand your frustrated, hell aren't we all sometimes, when that really important battle doesn't go our way because of a bug in the software. But your talking like they owe you your whole $50 all over again which simply isn't true.

I think to be this angry, you must really like this game. I think for the bugs to upset you as much as they obviously have, you must be tearing your hair out and selling your shoes just to get the chance for one more sweet drop of that oh-so-addictive gameplay that Rome can, and does, deliver. And If this is true, and I'm fairly sure it is, then CA don't really owe you anything. They've delivered you a game that is unlike any other game. A game that makes you think, and involves you, and starts to take up disturbingly large amounts of your free time, and when those bugs come along, and wake you from your day dream, you snap and become enraged because you love this game so.

So maybe next time you want to bring something to CA's attention, instead of writing down the first insult that comes to mind, take a second to think about how much fun you had because of those guys, then speak.

Anselm

[SpencerH]

If the thread originator had called the developers at CA 'stupid' then I would agree with the mods here. He didnt, he called a bug 'stupid'. I interpret that comment to mean 'a bug that should have been observed and fixed before the game was shipped'. If I bought a car with the typical, overpriced, factory-installed radio in it and the radio didnt work because there was no power harness designed for the car, I would call that 'stupid' too. Some bugs are acceptable, others are not. Too many of the bugs with this and many other games should have been fixed prior to shipment. Companies like Activision and Infogreed take the heat for pushing these product out the door before the developers are finished/happy (whatever), and I understand the contractual obligations to provide a product on time, but I'd like to know how it benefits the developers or distributors to ship products that are not ready? Where is the commitment to providing a quality product to the consumer?