[Splat]

Patch delayed = HATE!
Game delayed = KILL!
Game canceled = LYNCH!

Disgruntled gamers, so dramatic!

[X-Vector]

Caine, on Jun 16 2009, 07:31 PM, said:

he already is hated,blamed, the biggest joke etc. in gaming history.

Actually I think he's getting off rather lightly.

Perhaps it's because I don't follow the gaming news sites quite as closely as before, but I don't see a backlash anything as severe and widespread as John Romero received after Daikatana was released.
Which is strange, seeing as the long-haired one actually finished his project and did so in a third of the time it took George Broussard to end up empty handed.

[Kathy]

Because Romero is(still) more famous than Broussard. And Broussard is not a video game celebrity. Mainly because he didn't make a game in a decade. And he's not really a public person.

[Lt.Havoc]

Another diffrence is that Broussard also never had a Rock Band and drove fast cars and would show up on every game convetion like a VIP and so on. It also sems that Romero is still in the biz today, still doing games and that most gamers have forgiven him. I can see that this will aslo happen in GB chase with the years. I mean, gamers have a short memory anyway. Look at Peter Molyneux, he is the king of the hype, he annacoues stuff that will never be in the game in the very end and yet no one is trying to crucefiy him.

Or what about Bethesda and thier "200 possible endings in Fallout3" that they said would be in and we have like 7 endings or something? Or Gabe Newell that would tell HL2 would be out in 2003 despite the fact that everyone knew at the time that the game would at least take 2 more years before its done.

Lets face it, Brussard isnt the first guy who tells half-truths or lies in the gaming biz, if I look back we where very often manipulated as gamers to belive crazy company politics and half-baked ideas and we still get manipulated to buy games that look like they are still in Beta stage then completed, see Stalker, Fallout 3 Söldner etc. all great and interesting games, but tons of bugs and only promises to fix them, only to wait months for a patch that brakes more then it fixes.

Yet, we wait and wait, in any other branche we would have returned the product, not in the gaming industry, there we gamers wait and wait and hope somone fixes the crap we got and if we complain we get silenced by the company (Bethesda I am looking at you!) and we take this crap and hail the company for doing stuff like that.

We really must be totally crazy to do that, as crazy as wating 12 years for a game......

You know what that is? A danm Soap Opera and I would laugh if it woudlnt be real and fucking sad to no end.....

[ShXIII]

Quality control for pc games really has been awful lately, I too am tired of this "release now patch later crap" Any mindful PC gamer understands there are going to be some select issues but issues that completely stop you from playing the game at all is unacceptable. I fortunately didn't have problems with Fallout 3 or the DLC but I was a victim to the embarrassing PC port of GTAIV

[Delekhan]

ShXIII, on Jun 17 2009, 07:41 AM, said:

Quality control for pc games really has been awful lately, I too am tired of this "release now patch later crap" Any mindful PC gamer understands there are going to be some select issues but issues that completely stop you from playing the game at all is unacceptable. I fortunately didn't have problems with Fallout 3 or the DLC but I was a victim to the embarrassing PC port of GTAIV

I have to agree with that I have seen far too many PC games come out beyond broken. Like Empire Total War to this date still hasn't fixed the bugs that keep you from finishing the Road to Independence Campaign the rest of the game works fine but honestly you can't fix simple AI Trigger problems? Or even Relic which was known for quality control sure has been skimping lately. DoW2 was a buggy mess and still is their Tales of Valor expansion for CoH was an unplayable mess online which is humorous since it was mostly an online expansion.

[Tea Monster]

ShXIII, on Jun 17 2009, 07:41 AM, said:

Quality control for pc games really has been awful lately, I too am tired of this "release now patch later crap" Any mindful PC gamer understands there are going to be some select issues but issues that completely stop you from playing the game at all is unacceptable. I fortunately didn't have problems with Fallout 3 or the DLC but I was a victim to the embarrassing PC port of GTAIV

Say what you like about GB and 3DR, but they are one of the few people left in the world who I would have absolutely trusted to have given us a decent PC game as well as a good console port. Too many times the PC is the red-headed stepchild of the gaming world and GTAIV is only the latest in a long line of disgracefull messes - GoW, Resident Evil 4, the list goes on.

GB would have made sure that us PC players would not have come last in the reliability and playability stakes.

Hey, wouldn't it be ironic if, at the hearing, it came out that a part of the 'unacceptable deal' that T2 offered was to have DNF come out on the 360 first and the PC version be issued 6 months later?

[PokeThePower]

Tea Monster, on Jun 17 2009, 11:32 PM, said:

GB would have made sure that us PC players would not have come last in the reliability and playability stakes.

I dunno, all George would do on Shack is go on about PC players needing to get over it and move on to the consoles as that's where the future is at.

[Delekhan]

Wieder, on Jun 17 2009, 10:13 PM, said:

I dunno, all George would do on Shack is go on about PC players needing to get over it and move on to the consoles as that's where the future is at.

Haha I heard that noise before oh back when the NES came out. Always had a PC before and after the NES and PC Gaming is still going strong as the old joke goes, "PC Gaming Dieing Happily since the 80's"

[Redcard]

ShXIII, on Jun 17 2009, 07:41 AM, said:

Quality control for pc games really has been awful lately, I too am tired of this "release now patch later crap" Any mindful PC gamer understands there are going to be some select issues but issues that completely stop you from playing the game at all is unacceptable. I fortunately didn't have problems with Fallout 3 or the DLC but I was a victim to the embarrassing PC port of GTAIV

QC is hard on PC games. You have multiple users using cheap products.. theres no way to test how a product will react on a given system, and typically QA is done on systems that meet or exceed the reqs.

Here's an example.. your typical PC , unless you homebuilt it, is made by the lowest bidder. The parts in it are all bought in bulk, and the thing is cobbled together at a factory. NONE of it is actually made by the company that put the computer together. PLUS.. if you go one step further, to, say, the hardware manufacturers.. much of THEIR stuff is made by the lowest bidder.

That's right.. when you order, say, a video card.. and then five months later, order the same video card.. there's a chance (and sometimes a good one), that the components of the video card will be supplied by completely different companies.

And that's hard to test for. It's not a static, one size fits all environment like the console world or the old Commodore 64 world.

(And adding to the fun is oftentimes the 3rd party developers cut corners.. and OS developers and application developers have to code around those corners.)

It's just hard to do.

EDIT:

I also think people forget that Duke3d had PLENTY of bugs and patches in it too. Rose colored glasses, and all.

[peoplessi]

That's a load of bullshit right there on the hardware part.

First off, the quality isn't an issue - if the product works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't, there is no middle-ground for this. ATI and nVidia only sell GPU's to the manufacturers whom in-return manufacture them, produce the final card to reference or above, then sell the products under different brands. Some might have different quality in parts, but that doesn't mean a thing. The bare minimum is already enough, that's what most graphics cards are produced. Not an issue.

There isn't much of "choice". You go AMD or Intel, you go ATI or nVidia. I don't really see where you get this quality issue from? It's totally non-issue. IF something is made to lowest bidder, it doesn't mean it's shit - it's made to the spec. IF the spec is not met, there will be no contract. So, it's the lowest bidder who meets the quality standards, yes standards. You don't think ATI and nVidia knowingly would bring shit GPU's to the market? Or the partners to produce shit cards under different brands? Of course, there are cases where for example memory chips fail, but that's more of specialty case, than something that happens regularly.

The issue is vast majority of the possible combination's of said parts. You go from very low end <-> to very high end. In between you have machines running XP, Vista - with all having unique hardware setup. Some might have some apps(AV/FW are known to cause some trouble) / obscure hardware(some professional soundcards for example)

[Redcard]

peoplessi, on Jun 18 2009, 10:17 PM, said:

That's a load of bullshit right there on the hardware part.

First off, the quality isn't an issue - if the product works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't, there is no middle-ground for this. ATI and nVidia only sell GPU's to the manufacturers whom in-return manufacture them, produce the final card to reference or above, then sell the products under different brands. Some might have different quality in parts, but that doesn't mean a thing. The bare minimum is already enough, that's what most graphics cards are produced. Not an issue.

There isn't much of "choice". You go AMD or Intel, you go ATI or nVidia. I don't really see where you get this quality issue from? It's totally non-issue. IF something is made to lowest bidder, it doesn't mean it's shit - it's made to the spec. IF the spec is not met, there will be no contract. So, it's the lowest bidder who meets the quality standards, yes standards. You don't think ATI and nVidia knowingly would bring shit GPU's to the market? Or the partners to produce shit cards under different brands? Of course, there are cases where for example memory chips fail, but that's more of specialty case, than something that happens regularly.

The issue is vast majority of the possible combination's of said parts. You go from very low end <-> to very high end. In between you have machines running XP, Vista - with all having unique hardware setup. Some might have some apps(AV/FW are known to cause some trouble) / obscure hardware(some professional soundcards for example)

That's not bullshit. That's fact.

I can buy two Nvidia cards that have different lot numbers that were made by entirely different PLANTS. Those plants got their supplies from entirely different groups, at the same time. Those plants five months later get their supplies from altogether DIFFERENT groups again.

That's why when you have product recalls due to faulty equipment, you have serial numbers X to Y being pulled back or covered.. because of SQI. (Supplier quality issues.)

The fact is, the components that run on the cards that Nvidia makes and the ones that ATI makes, often are made at the same shop.

Companies don't really manufacture their own stuff nowadays, they source it. It's how manufacture works. The Xbox360 isn't built by Microsoft. It's built by a company in Taiwan that microsoft outsources. The Nvidia boards you buy in BestBuy or online aren't built directly by Nvidia.. they're built by four or five manufacturers, depending on who bid low for that particular project.

Maybe final assembly is done at Intel or AMD.. but a lot of parts now are going overseas or to the cheapest bidder. And those cheapest bidders sometimes cut corners.

EDIT:

http://cens.com/cens...nner_23301.html

Talks about Microsoft and who really builds the XBox360. If you read around the electronics / semiconductor/ IC / hardware world, you'll find thousands of articles like this for every component in your computer.

[ShXIII]

Redcard, on Jun 18 2009, 01:27 PM, said:

QC is hard on PC games. You have multiple users using cheap products.. theres no way to test how a product will react on a given system, and typically QA is done on systems that meet or exceed the reqs.

Here's an example.. your typical PC , unless you homebuilt it, is made by the lowest bidder. The parts in it are all bought in bulk, and the thing is cobbled together at a factory. NONE of it is actually made by the company that put the computer together. PLUS.. if you go one step further, to, say, the hardware manufacturers.. much of THEIR stuff is made by the lowest bidder.

That's right.. when you order, say, a video card.. and then five months later, order the same video card.. there's a chance (and sometimes a good one), that the components of the video card will be supplied by completely different companies.

And that's hard to test for. It's not a static, one size fits all environment like the console world or the old Commodore 64 world.

(And adding to the fun is oftentimes the 3rd party developers cut corners.. and OS developers and application developers have to code around those corners.)

It's just hard to do.

EDIT:

I also think people forget that Duke3d had PLENTY of bugs and patches in it too. Rose colored glasses, and all.

Yes I'm perfectly aware of the difference in PCs, I work on computers for a living and build my own pcs, I'm just stating the quality control has been slipping bad recently and that's do to crappy ports from consoles as a quick cash in for the developer and a big fuck you to us pc gamers. Yes older games had problems but the problems hardly consisted of literally a broken game unable to run. I am a hardcore PC gamer and if I were to show you my collection of games it could probably be considered a sickness, all I'm saying is it has got progressively worse and worse. If consoles were 100 percent compatible with keyboard and mouse I would have ditched PC gaming during the latest console releases and just had an extra monitor on my desk for the consoles.

Forgive me for using GTAIV as an example all the time but I was burned severely by Rockstar on that game, just look at all the reviews for the that game on PC and all the scores were really high. what they failed to mention was the the game only worked on 1 percent of consumers computers, (last time I ever trust a review from a game site). That piece of shit didn't even deserve a 2 out of 10 for a score. Granted the game was good on consoles but that doesn't automatically make it good on PC.

Wanted weapons of fate was another game that pissed me off, I actually managed to play that and beat it but it crashed on average every 15-20 minutes of gameplay right to the desktop


Vista Ultimate 32bit latest updates
e8500 core2duo
Nvidia GTX 260 latest drivers
4gigs ddr2 800
MSI P965 Limited Platinum

[Lt.Havoc]

I wasnt talking about hardware, I mean games that are bugged to no end, where the code is badly written and whatnot. The Operation Anchorage DLC had massive issues on both the PC and the X-Box, with missing textures and whatnot. Took them a while to fix that. Stalker has still has some bugs left, despite the of the numours patches relazed. It took them 6 months to fix the bug in Test Drive 5 that would corrupt savegames and chhange your stats, your settings and whatnot and this bug was widly reported and could be regenrated eaisly.

Or how about the totally bugged add on to Gothic 3 that was unplayble and was rushed by the dev team that had no expirnce at all so the publisher could throw it on the market to cash in on the title? These are just some examples of broken games we get these days.

[peoplessi]

Redcard, on Jun 19 2009, 03:21 PM, said:

That's not bullshit. That's fact.
...
Talks about Microsoft and who really builds the XBox360. If you read around the electronics / semiconductor/ IC / hardware world, you'll find thousands of articles like this for every component in your computer.

You are saying that manufacturers commonly sell faulty hardware? It's not that common as you make it out to be. And certainly as you make it out to be between manufacturers. nVidia and AMD don't manufacture their GPU's, they are too outsourced to outside fabs. Likes of: TSMC, UMC, SMIC, and Chartered. There are more, but those are IC focused fabs.

It's absurd to claim that the hardware quality would be the most significant issue in PC game development. The vast possibilities of hardware / software combination's are far bigger issues. I can't really think why you defend your original point so enthusiastically.


For graphic cards(PCB & Assembly & Packaging & Support), short reference:

MSI
-Own brand

Palit
-Own brand
-Gainward
-Xpertvision

(Palit owns Xpertvision & Gainward)

PC Partner
-Sapphire (ATI based)
-Zotac (nVidia based)
-Inno3D
-Asus
-Connect3D
-Sparkle
-Manli

TUL
-Powercolor
-Club3D

Foxconn
-Own brand
-Leadtek
-OCZ

Ge-Cube
-Own Brand
-Gigabyte

ECS
-Elitegroup

[Sinisterambo]

George has posted at 3DR board:-

http://forums.3dreal...ead.php?t=35956

[Redcard]

peoplessi, on Jun 19 2009, 12:00 PM, said:

You are saying that manufacturers commonly sell faulty hardware? It's not that common as you make it out to be. And certainly as you make it out to be between manufacturers. nVidia and AMD don't manufacture their GPU's, they are too outsourced to outside fabs. Likes of: TSMC, UMC, SMIC, and Chartered. There are more, but those are IC focused fabs.

No. I'm saying that manufacturers sometimes have faulty requirements and don't meet specs. For example, there were some video cards a few years back that advertised themselves as being DirectX9 compatible, with some special features for shading and texturing and what not that Microsoft was using as hardware acceleration. Turns out that the fan used on the card couldn't keep the temperature of the card down, and this was presenting overheating issues within the computer. The driver for this actually included a disabled hardware acceleration in some areas just to fix the problem. The original card was spec'd to do something, but the spec didn't reach the fabs, and so they put together a faulty product.

It's not common.. but it does happen enough that many developers can't emulate it in their QA labs.

See, to test a console game, you buy a few consoles, and test. Nowadays, you actually test on developer kits that are even more souped up than the retail counterparts.

To test a PC game, you likely have labs that have purchased all their computers from one place. They run all the software at or above recommended, and do very few "Unrecommended" tests through full regression testing. But in the commercial world.. you'll get people running these things on all types of computers.. with all types of hardware, both "low quality" and "higher quality" components.

[Tea Monster]

peoplessi, on Jun 18 2009, 09:17 PM, said:

That's a load of bullshit right there on the hardware part.

You are wrong.

They do sometimes knowingly sell faulty hardware. They also issue software with bugs. I know what I'm talking about as I worked for many years in retail support and I got all the help files and gossip that you didn't.

Even if the component on your PC ISN'T faulty, there are litterally thousands of diferent component manufacturers and different standards to support, not to mention all the different operating systems and service packs for those OS's. There are also thousands of different kinds of software that can affect your game and its performance.

Just check out whats happening with the Polymer render with ATI and NVIDIA cards. Now imagine all the different sound cards, video cards and motherboard chipsets that have been issued over the last few years. Now multiply it be the number of Operating systems, Service Packs, versions of Direct X and you get how complex the job can be.

As has been fundamentally demonstrated over the last few years, nobody gives a crap about PC games, or gamers.

[peoplessi]

No shit, wasn't that just covered? This was about the hardware side. There have been issues, in the past, with ATI + OpenGL, and with nVidia + Direct3D. On hardware level those two players do things differently, and driver is the wrapper to their hardware. Usually you code around these things, when they come up. For older products, that's not a viable thing to do.

As for the actual hardware being knowingly sold "faulty" is false. As your story doesn't cover any other parts that reside in PCs'. The hardware faultiness is minor issue, if almost non-existent to the vast jungle of software and hardware combinations you can have, which have been discussed, I don't agree on the "faulty hardware" part.

You can't prove your case with 1 sentence saying you have worked in retail support. Not at all. If you'd be a CEO in some IC company, I would take your word.

[Tea Monster]

peoplessi, on Jun 20 2009, 04:07 PM, said:

As for the actual hardware being knowingly sold "faulty" is false. As your story doesn't cover any other parts that reside in PCs'. The hardware faultiness is minor issue, if almost non-existent to the vast jungle of software and hardware combinations you can have, which have been discussed, I don't agree on the "faulty hardware" part.

I don't care what you believe about the situation, I'm telling you it DOES happen. Again, not all the time, and not out of malice, but it does happen.

And as to the NVIDIA/ATI issue? Thats happening NOW. Go ask Plagman about it. Go over to the Blender web site and read up about problems they are having writing patches to the game engine that work under ATI and NVIDIA cards under Open GL.

[peoplessi]

I know that, as far as I know, it was limited to cards that are no longer supported(ATI). As for nVidia's situation, I have no idea, but they have had the most complete OpenGL support for ages, if it doesn't work on them, maybe there is something in your code that should be thought over. Again, this isn't even close to the "faulty" hardware claim.

It's an non-issue compared to the other problems.

[Master Fibbles]

Are you guys really talking about hardware? WTF?! Someone posted a link to an official comment from GB and you guys are talking about hardware?!?!?!?! Talk about derailing a thread.

[Lt.Havoc]

Well, I saw GBs post and all and that he does seem to care, but as I thought, he cant say anything right now, so nothing really changed. The lawsuit forced them to say even less then usally.

[peoplessi]

The Apogee's response is up on internets. Very interesting read. After reading both of these, Take Two's side, and Apogee's side, it's pretty clear situation to me.

[Lt.Havoc]

Edit: mevermind found it myself: http://www.shacknews...article.x/59230

So, what is clear about that? That Take 2 wanted to harm 3DR and the duke franchise all along, halting the development of Duke Nukem Begins and not telling 3DR about it? But why would Take 2 do that?! I am confused.....

[Kristian Joensen]

Yes? What is the clear situation as you see it?

[peoplessi]

The issue at hand, Apogee/3D Realms was more specific in their response.

What unclear is there really? It will go to trial, and after that result is known. I can't think of anything more clear than that :l

[crunchysuperman]

I seriously doubt it goes to trial.

[Delekhan]

crunchysuperman, on Jun 22 2009, 12:36 PM, said:

I seriously doubt it goes to trial.

Exactly, more then likely it will be settled out of court.

[Lt.Havoc]

Well, we can only hope, because that would speed things up a lot.....