Patch 2 release date

[Kraggenmor]

Or that my computer just hated me.

Computers hate us all.

The revolution is near.

[Quickening]

I'm glad you mentioned that, as I was afraid I was going mad. Or that my computer just hated me.

To be honest I took a leap of faith there and hoped it wasn't just me

[Carl]

Here's a question:

When's the fuller fix list due?

[pike master]

march 16th and patch is out a week after.

man what a turn around after sega got involved.

[Lusted]

man what a turn around after sega got involved.

Erm, it was already in internal testing BEFORE SEGA got involved.

[Dan.o6]

Nice patch size, shame about the February release. Guess I'll keep playing WoW until it comes out.

[Gingivitis]

Looks like I can continue my current game with a clear conscience knowing I won't be starting another one for a few weeks at least.

[alpaca]

Well the relationship between SEGA and CA is more like a subsidiary if you ask me. SEGA pays for CA employees though, and they pretty much tell them what to do, I guess (for example what to work on, like patches, tools or an expansion).
So, it's only natural they want to test the product before it's released, and professional testers have a lot of merits (such as they know pretty well what to look for and are not too closely-connected to the game, which can often be an advantage).

And I guess it was pushed back because some issues with new features or fixes cropped up.

[econ21]

And I guess it was pushed back because some issues with new features or fixes cropped up.

I suspect the discovery of the shield bug came after the patch was fairly advanced - it did not make the initial fix list, for example - and threw the original timetable into disarray. Rebalancing in the wake of that bug was probably quite an undertaking.

[Aquitaine]

> I did not realize the exact relationship between CA and SEGA, it's a unique relatioinship between gaming partners that I have not seen before. This means that CA relies on SEGA for the larger scale testing. The process they are using puts a huge burden on the devs, and quite frankly, makes the process of making solid patches very difficult to pull off. If this next patch is a failure, as I said before, blame the process, not the devs.

Most development hosues rely on their publisher for large scale testing. Only dev houses big enough to self-publish have their own QA people and labs.

[Foz]

If relying on the public was such a great business idea, it would be done much more often than it is. The fact is that most (but certainly not all) of the public doesn't know how to properly do QA work even if they are great at catching certain types of problems, and that using the public introduces significant risks as well. They have a process that they think works, or at least it's the best deal they could cut with Sega. Seems to be an improvement over what they had with Activision, anyway.

Amen, especially about the public. The fact is the public largely do not make good testers - they give good feedback about what they like or do not like, but in the end they have no idea how to test effectively. They start playing the game, and look for anything to go wrong. That's bad testing. To test effectively, you wrack your brain actively for every single thing that could possibly break the game, and then you proceed to do it. This usually includes vast lists of test cases: things to do, and observe the result. A professor of mine gave a great example of the idea of testing: every time he'd get a program to test that had any data entry box, he'd mess around with it a lot, enter weird symbols, give decimal numbers where integers were expected, etc, but in the end, he'd do something entirely ridiculous to it. He'd paste in a several hundred page document to see what happened, even for a single-digit number field. That test broke more programs for him than anything else he ever did. And that's good testing - cruel, calculated, merciless attempts to break that piece of software in half.

The other thing is that a lot of good testing requires programming background. There's an awful lot of stuff that you should test, but will miss if you don't totally understand how software is written and how it functions on a computer. Having the general public test things is like asking someone who knows nothing about car engines to see if the new engine you just assembled is working right. He can tell you if it starts up or not, and if it makes the car move. But if you've got a bad spark plug, or left some of the oil out, or any number of less obvious things, he'll never know, because he doesn't know exactly how the engine fits together or works in the first place. Anyone can see the big picture, but it takes a specialist to know everything to check and how to best go about doing so.

Coincidentally that's probably why you rarely see big public involvement in tests: people that are actually qualified to do real testing typically get paid to do so, because their work is more useful than what 1,000 random joes could do in the same amount of testing time each.

Developers aren't good testers.

It's not even that, so much as they aren't good testers of what they have developed. It's very difficult to spot your own errors sometimes - often they came up because of some faulty logic or assumptions you have, in which case looking at it further typically will not reveal anything to you - you'll keep thinking exactly how you did when you wrote it, never seeing the problem. For some there is also a certain amount of pride at code they've written, which further hinders their ability to test it - they have trouble finding fault with their own work, and thus are less motivated to attack it as good testing requires. Many developers would be more than adequate testers of other people's software, but it would probably be a bad business model to make different teams test each other's stuff - it distracts from their own projects too much. Far easier and likely more efficient just to have dedicated testers, which is probably why it turns out that way always.

[pat the magnificent]

great, now I'll probably go find a new game to play and completely loss interest in M2TW for a few months.

I was expecting it to be released in like... a couple days. This patch better be absolutely f**king amazing. Otherwise... well I just can't say... I just can't say.

If there's one damned bug, I'm not going to buy any new CA games... I'm just going to steal them off the internet.



march 23rd... just... wow...

[Barry Fitzgerald]

So they only just discovered the shield bug? Cmon give me a break! We were talking about that a week after the game hit the shelves!

Still life goes on.......;-)

[adembroski]

Didn't they ever hear of peer2peer downloading? That is how World of Warcraft distributes its patches, and they are always massive.
It would save CA a ton in traffic.

And it's the most unreliable, slow, irritating system I've ever come across, please don't put ideas in their heads.

[stealingjoy]

If there's one damned bug, I'm not going to buy any new CA games... I'm just going to steal them off the internet[/I]

Wow, what a noble stand. Why don't you take a stand by actually not playing the game at all if you're so pissed?

[Whacker]

Amen, especially about the public. The fact is the public largely do not make good testers - they give good feedback about what they like or do not like, but in the end they have no idea how to test effectively.

If you're talking about app testing as a job in a methodical manner, then yes I'd absolutely agree the public at large is ill-suited for this. If you mean in general for spotting errors or bugs, the userbase is arguably the best group for spotting any bugs big or small.

They start playing the game, and look for anything to go wrong. That's bad testing. To test effectively, you wrack your brain actively for every single thing that could possibly break the game, and then you proceed to do it. This usually includes vast lists of test cases: things to do, and observe the result. A professor of mine gave a great example of the idea of testing: every time he'd get a program to test that had any data entry box, he'd mess around with it a lot, enter weird symbols, give decimal numbers where integers were expected, etc, but in the end, he'd do something entirely ridiculous to it. He'd paste in a several hundred page document to see what happened, even for a single-digit number field. That test broke more programs for him than anything else he ever did. And that's good testing - cruel, calculated, merciless attempts to break that piece of software in half.

Very true, any dev test group worth half a git always uses testcases, AND they work very closely in conjunction with the devs to create these. That's not to say that there isn't random playtesting just looking for things, but by and large you run testcases based off of coded routines to verify correct functionality. Further, Puzz had a good point in a post he made awhile back. Some of the bugs (such as the shield bug) that have cropped up most likely would have been caught by the devs themselves if they would have done something very close to what you stated above, which is run their own debugging tests looking for something to throw an error. Good testing is done both by the devs and verified by the app testing team.

The other thing is that a lot of good testing requires programming background. There's an awful lot of stuff that you should test, but will miss if you don't totally understand how software is written and how it functions on a computer. Having the general public test things is like asking someone who knows nothing about car engines to see if the new engine you just assembled is working right. He can tell you if it starts up or not, and if it makes the car move. But if you've got a bad spark plug, or left some of the oil out, or any number of less obvious things, he'll never know, because he doesn't know exactly how the engine fits together or works in the first place. Anyone can see the big picture, but it takes a specialist to know everything to check and how to best go about doing so.

This is anecdotal, but I'll put it here anyway. I have two good friends who work as beta testers for major PC game publishers. Both know how to code well and are good at what they do. Oddly enough, when I asked them about this in the past, both in formed me that some of the best testers they knew actually had very little techincal background. Kinda funny how you'd expect the opposite no? The best explanation they could come up with was that it had to do with... ego, for lack of a better term. For example, someone who's running tests and knows how to code may eventually start to think they know how the code looks that's driving the particular part of the app they're testing. In other words, you start to make assumptions, and you start to gloss over things that a non-technical person normally wouldn't, and you unconciously eliminate scenarios that you otherwise wouldn't have. Of course this isn't to say that the technical testers aren't damn good, it's just that more often than naught the really obscure bugs are caught by the far less techincally inclinded folks.

Coincidentally that's probably why you rarely see big public involvement in tests: people that are actually qualified to do real testing typically get paid to do so, because their work is more useful than what 1,000 random joes could do in the same amount of testing time each.

Apparently the main qualifications that it takes to be a tester for these publishers is to be very analytical and methodical, and be able to clearly articulate and document the bugs and the exact steps taken to reproduce them. Technical background is a plus but not required.

It's not even that, so much as they aren't good testers of what they have developed. It's very difficult to spot your own errors sometimes - often they came up because of some faulty logic or assumptions you have, in which case looking at it further typically will not reveal anything to you - you'll keep thinking exactly how you did when you wrote it, never seeing the problem. For some there is also a certain amount of pride at code they've written, which further hinders their ability to test it - they have trouble finding fault with their own work, and thus are less motivated to attack it as good testing requires. Many developers would be more than adequate testers of other people's software, but it would probably be a bad business model to make different teams test each other's stuff - it distracts from their own projects too much. Far easier and likely more efficient just to have dedicated testers, which is probably why it turns out that way always.

Hoo boy, I've been very guilty of that in the past when I was doing dev work. You do get "attached" to your code and your app, and familiarity can be very dangerous as you go through the dev cycle.

[Whacker]

Wow, what a noble stand. Why don't you take a stand by actually not playing the game at all if you're so pissed?

While his statement could have been worded better and less caustic, this is also uncalled for. There are a good number of gamers who are ... less than pleased with the current state of the game.

[pat the magnificent]

Wow, what a noble stand. Why don't you take a stand by actually not playing the game at all if you're so pissed?

like whacker said, the point i'm trying to make it is this. PC gamers have a choice. Pay for games and support the companies they love, or don't.

I've long since stopped caring about the ethical issues of stealing copyrighted material on the internet. For me, I buy games that are worth supporting. I thought M2 was such a game, but I only have so much patience. It's about 5 months since I got the game and it STILL doesn't work right. Right now I'm thinking, "Man... did I even pay for this?"

And if this ginormous and horribly delayed patch doesn't it all better, then CA will have found it's way on to my s**t list.

I don't care if offend anyone's gentle sensibilities, I'm just telling you how I feel and how it is. Is it unethical? Probably, but I just don't care anymore.

[stealingjoy]

It's funny, usually people steal stuff because they want it. You make it sound like the game is crap but you have no problem playing it, heh.

And if this game is really in such a terrible state, why play it all? There's so many games out there, can you not find one that is worth playing and paying for?

I'm willing to bet that this magical standard of quality keeps getting raised higher and higher until you pay for no games but still continue playing them... it's a nice way of tricking yourself into thinking not buying is making some kind of point.

[pike master]

sometimes people have to just suck up their pride and admit they were wrong in how they were treating the community and how they bungled things up.

i ve been wrong before in my life. its embarrasing but youll get over it.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

It's funny, usually people steal stuff because they want it. You make it sound like the game is crap but you have no problem playing it, heh.

And if this game is really in such a terrible state, why play it all? There's so many games out there, can you not find one that is worth playing and paying for?

I'm willing to bet that this magical standard of quality keeps getting raised higher and higher until you pay for no games but still continue playing them... it's a nice way of tricking yourself into thinking not buying is making some kind of point.

Umm, I think you missed the point on all accounts.

Firstly many of us have been anticipating MTW2 for over 2 years and own no other games other than total war games. I certainly did not expect anything of this standard. In its current state the enjoyment is often severley interrupted, but we all hope that the patch will correct this.

There is no magical standard of quality. There is no grey area. It works as it should or it doesn't. Yes there are many games out there and my guess is you own quite a few, and with bugs equal or worse than MTW2 I bet. Buying a computer game is not like buying an electrical appliance. No department store would sell you kettle now for example and in 6 months time expect you to call in and pick up the electrical cable and element for it. But this is exactly what comp games developers expect you to do with their products. Theres absolutely nothing to stop them and repetitively buying sub standard or faulty games only encourages them to release more.

His point is that if they can operate at such a shameful level then why shouldn't he.

[stealingjoy]

And my point is, why play it at all if it's so bad?

Listen, I can completely understand getting a pirated version first and testing it out, then deciding whether you want to buy it or not. That just makes sense since you can't return opened software usually. However, if you're actually going to PLAY it but not pay for it, then you're just a hypocrite, because it's obviously good enough to spend your time playing.

If it's good enough to play then it's good enough to pay.

[sapi]

And the talk of piracy stops now

I don't care what your reasons are - there is no justification for stealing someone else's property, and doing so will not be discussed here.

[pat the magnificent]

And the talk of piracy stops now

I don't care what your reasons are - there is no justification for stealing someone else's property, and doing so will not be discussed here.

i didn't advocate it. i'm simply stating thats its a fact they have to deal with.

not talking about piracy doesn't make it not happen. and trying to silence conversion topics you don't approve of make you kind of an asshole.

you want to ban me, go ahead. i don't want to have anything to do with a community that won't let me speak freely.

[sapi]

It's not about denial or about free speech but about morals and the law. Firstly, no matter what your opinions are, it's just wrong to take someone's work without paying for it. Secondly, these discussions inevitably lead to links being posted, which opens up a whole new kettle of fish.

This is illegal for a reason, and you certainly can't go against the law on these forums.

[econ21]

So they only just discovered the shield bug? Cmon give me a break! We were talking about that a week after the game hit the shelves!

The game came out on 10th November. AFAIK, the shield bug was only hypothesised two months later: Foz started a thread on it on 10th January; CA staff first said they would look into it on 15th January. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

[econ21]

I'm closing this thread as it spiralling off topic into discussion of piracy, which is against forum rules.