POLL 18: Are you worried about bugs in civ3?

[DaveV]

quote: Originally posted by supremus on 03-08-2001 03:40 PM This kind of behavior is exactly what the companie's developer wait from the gamers. That's the less expensive way to make patches and keep customers happy. Launch unfinished products in the market place, wait some weeks for the fanatics gamers to find out bugs and then making patches. That's the way thigs are and they only will change when game buyers start to be as demanding as more mature markets buyers.

I disagree strongly. As someone who writes software for a living, I can attest that even the best designed and tested software will exhibit bugs when it reaches end users. It's impossible to test every possible combination of inputs to a complex program. None of the items on the Civ2 bug list is a game-breaker (obviously, since it's still being played 5 years later), and some might be considered design decisions rather than bugs.

I'd agree with Ming and Yin that there will probably be a narrow window of opportunity where Firaxis will make patches in response to (politely worded) lists of bugs and "misfeatures". The wider this window, the better the end product will be. But it's an economic decision for Firaxis: how many programmer hours do they spend improving the game from salable to perfect? We at Apolyton hope the answer is "a lot", but the guys in the green eyeshades are going to want to see some return on that investment of time and money. Do they get $100,000 in sales if the Apolyton team is made completely happy? I doubt it...

From what I hear about CTP2, some dedicated souls on Apolyton are trying to fix problems by using the scripting language: if Civ3 has something similar, that's probably the only answer to long-term maintenance of the software. If someone discovers a killer strategy after the game's been out for six months, Firaxis is not going to go back to patch the holes. But some fanatic at Apolyton might.

[yin26]

supremus,

I generally agree with you. If Civ3 really has some show-stopping bugs, we take it back to the stores. But we know it won't. But what it WILL have are the kinds of "little" (and a few not so little) issues that Firaxis testing didn't discover, etc. Now, as gamers we have a choice: Slowly uncover these things or deliberately seek them out know that our window of opportunity is just 3 or 4 months unless there's plans for an x-pack, but I'd like to not have to BUY a patch, ya know.

I'm talking about the Civ fanatics who don't want to have to resort to script hacks to try to finish the patch process on their own. Mind you, many people thought SMAC was just fine. Read the comments on the poll. But the hardcore people saw it a "disaster." So this will be a "harcore" fan's project.

Ming:

Great! You are signed up! Please help me find some other key players for this. Xin Yu is a must. How about you, DaveV? The Freeciv programmers might be very valuable as well. Let's start asking around...

[DaveV]

Sure, sign me up. But we should do this right: I suggest a single, locked bug list thread. The bug list moderator would have the exclusive ability to add bugs to the list, and the responsibility of assigning priorities to them. Each bug should be verified by a second person before being added to the list. Bug list reports should include system specs, save games if possible, and lots of information. Usually, the hardest part of fixing a bug is duplicating it; if the programmer is given a step-by-step report of how the bug occurred, it makes his job easier.

And that has to be our attitude: making Firaxis's job easier. Programmers can get awfully sensitive when you start criticizing something they spent a couple years of their life creating. We need to maintain a constructive and professional tone if we want a good response.

[Ming]

So true... if the company or programmers perceive it as whining or complaints, we won't get very far.
They do understand that there will be problems/bugs that they could never have caught. I found it interesting that Yin said that they had been very interested in the previous cheat/bug list that had been sent to them.
(Thanks for saying that Yin, I hadn't heard that before)
It just proves to me that they probably would be very open minded to a serious discussion on the subject. Now granted, if the fix for any problems we find require far too many changes, they probably won't get fixed. But at least they will fix most of the minor stuff that drives us crazy, and will lead to a better game.

[yin26]

Dave,

Precisely. It will be totally professional and as helpful as humanly possible. You are on the list. Please keep helping hone the format. I'm not sure if Markos would let me moderate that thread, but I sure bet Ming could...and he'd be a great choice.

[Ming]

Yin...
When Civ III is released, I have every intention of volunteering to moderate all Civ III forums. I hope Mark and Dan will allow me to do that.
And if they don't, I will still really push to moderate any section devoted to finding problems/bugs with the new game. However, I'm probably not the best person to bring all the information together and make it presentable.
There are better people (HINT HINT HINT) that have a track record of doing just that...

[DaveV]

OK, here's my idea of a bug report format, dug out of the Civ 2 strategy archives from one of Sieve Too's posts (another excellent candidate for bug catching duty, BTW).

Reported by: Sieve Too (email, ICQ)
Verified by:
Version: all
Priority: 3
Summary:
Airbases [behave like] city squares, i.e. the square on which a city is built. For both: units destroyed one at a time but no defensive bonus. automatically irrigated. automatically turned to farmland when Supermarket is built. automatically get road/railroad effects (movement, trade, shields). refuel your air units - but only if you "own" it. can't build a Fortress on either type.

Priorities would be:
1 - causes program crash
2 - serious play balance problem
3 - minor play balance problem
4 - display or user interface glitch
5 - cosmetic display problem

[Jeje2]

Ok, I just have to comment this with a joke...

Who seeks and seeks and when finally finds it, curses out loud?
Old answer: The fisherman who is patching his nets
New: .... (You know )

btw. If possiple I'll help you to find bugs.

[This message has been edited by Jeje2 (edited March 16, 2001).]

[rah]

Having programmed for over 25 years and managing development teams/projects, I agree that the MOST important aspect is the ability to replicate the problem. And that the second most is that it be perceived as non-whining. The easiest way to accomplish the second is some official designation by the developers. People accept things better from true team mates. Considering that this type of effort could actually save a company some big dollars, it would seem that all we have to is get their attention. Which this site already has.

I too would volunteer to help. A pre-release copy to a designated team would seem to benefit all and be a no-brain decision. But having been in management as long as I have.......................


RAH

[yin26]

Dave:

Looks pretty good. Let's go with it.

Jeje:

VERY nicely chosen quote.

Rah:

We can only hope. But it's darn good to have you aboard.

[Tjoepie]

I am sure most the people who read these comments all agree that we should find as many bugs as possible as soon as possible to give Firaxis a change to work on them while "Civ 3" is still "fresh" and in the spotlights of their marketing and management.
That way they will be more eager and get more manpower to correct bugs, since alot of poeple might still be deciding if they are going to buy the game.
Lets face it, Firaxis is a company like any other (and I don't mean this in a bad way, it's just how things are ) they need to make some $$$ too.
The best way I can think of to put it is :

" WE NEED TO PUT THE INGREDIENTS IN THE POT WHILE THE STOVE IS STILL HOT! "

Anyway, count me in if we could get a beta and some kind of link to Firaxis to report bugs early on.

Sorry if my english spelling is not perfect...

[Adm.Naismith]

I'm going to replay the same, but I want to underline it once more, sorry for people that already red my rant

Living outside USA, silly as it seems my trouble is to have available only translated version of software (i.e. italian version).
Don't get me wrong, is nice to have a game in my language, but usually it become a nightmare every time a patch is needed (and we all know is needed, soon or later, often more than one...).

I was lucky with SMAC, because I found and bought USA version, but every time Firaxis released a SMAC patch, the owner of italian versions had to wait about a month before the related patch become available.

That's very bad, because the game life span is limited (CIV 2 hard core players not counted here ), and features like multiplay often doesn't works if games have different "engine release".

That's silly, because game code must (but sadly don't) be separated from user interface and messages text.

I know that when new features are included their related text must be translated, but I think that the effort will be greatly reduced (and I can live with some english word here and there, while waiting for proper version available).

Text "embedded" with game variables in another added complexity (and I remember Firaxis mentioned it about SMAC), but I worked in software development and I can assure it can be solved, at least I did it myself.

I hope Firaxis is developing code keeping it separated from text, so they will be able to release a single patch working for every country.

Now, in a dreaming world...
As an added bonus, a "do it yourself" translation tool could be available to let player self correct minor translation glitch (but editable text file will be OK, if praticable).

If Firaxis worry to give this control right to customers (e.g. it raise trouble with local software distributors), it can publish a web page tool where every player can suggest fast translation of terms added by patches and new features. After a week of fans input they can compile and build translated patch, almost simultaneous to USA version.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Rhuarc]

I know that I haven't been playing Civ games for a long time like a lot of you have, but I would like to volunteer my help on the whole bug finding effort. I plan on purchasing the game the day it comes out, so if you guys would like my help in a anyway I would be more than glad to provide it. Thanks!

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DO, OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY - Yoda

[smilo]

First : if you need any volunteers on the debug/cheat projects, count me in.

Second : I think it would be good to devise a list with bug types, this way we can make our efforts run parallel. We could start by going over the cheats list of civ 2 and see what categories of bugs come out of that list.
Some bug types could be :
- land improvement : like airports on hills
- movement : ship chain
- city growth : food caravan
etc ..

[Drakenred]

Lets put it this way

Firaxis is one of the FEW companies that left that i would consider doing a Beta Test for.

(and they are one of the few companies i would buy a new game from on Day one.(the other would be the crew that actualy does fallout 3, i have yet to install my copy of the game for my machine, my roomi has one, and Lord do i hate it when he plays! (he invaribaly crashes! folowed by a LOT of swearing!) (i get to play it this weekend from the look of things!))

Overall, from the sound of things they have been working tward launch from the end of AC, Even with the problems that Firaxis has gone through, you can hardly call this a rush job!(in fact i suspect that even if they did abruptly rush this, they would still have one hell of a game.

Incidentaly i only have one thing on my Wishlist for this game, (and yes i know this wish frankly will not happen) that the second people see that the inevitable patch is comeing, they will not show up clamoring for Feature XYZ to be added to the game!