15 réponses à ce sujet

[retailavenger85]

 Hey, I heard that you can convice Ken and Gabby to get together at the end of the game, but I've takled to them at every availible moment, and have never gotten that option. I only get, "Commander." and "The board is green." 
What am I doing wrong?
I love those two, and have wanted them to get together since I first met them in ME2. 

[Dusty Everman]

To my great sadness and embarrassment, it looks like there is a bug here that got introduced just before ship. It looks like the test for "is it time for ambient dialog in engineering" accidentally got switched to "are you good friends with Ashley". How did this bug happen? I have no idea, and need to do some detective work. This doesn't just block Ken and Gabby banter, but I think this blocks some Tali and Garrus banter in engineering too. As it stands now to see that banter, I believe you'll need to get Ashley in your party and take her on missions and/or give Ashley lots of attention by speaking to her and giving her the gift in the hospital. If you have Kaidan in your game, obviously this can't be done, and that sucks.

Though the fix is easy, the difficult part is getting the fix into a patch of some sort. Getting content fixes into patches is much harder than you'd think. It's a giant process. I'll try to get that fix through, but sadly, the odds of getting this type of fix into a patch is very low. It just kills me that so many of the people who care about Ken and Gabby (those of you reading this forum) didn't get to see that content. I tested the heck out of it too for weeks before ship. You just don't now how sorry I am.

[Dusty Everman]

avatar2396 wrote...

thanks for letting us know. I actually didnt have a problem with this since i had the appropriate conditions to generate the conversation. Also to note they dont really say anything until later in the game like after the attack on the citadel i believe

Actually, they are SUPPOSED to banter much earlier and through out the game.  The reason you only saw it later was that you can only buddy up to Ashley after she joins the Normandy, and the bug connected a check to Ashley for who-knows-why.

Priisus wrote...

So to trigger our lovely engineers
together... I need to be nice to Ashley throughout the game? I hope this
does not mean that Shep has to romance Ashley.. If not I'm screwed -
the only playthrough I have Ash alive is with a femShep Sentinel

You don't need to romance Ashley, but you do need to speak with her a bunch. However, romancing her definitely enables the banter. Basically the erroneous check is "Is Ashley a good friend?" and your true love is automatically considered to be a close friend.

[Dusty Everman]

CptData wrote...

By the way, Dusty, is Ashley's content bugged too?

As far as I know, Ashley's content is not bugged.  Are you seeing something wrong?

Modifié par Dusty Everman, 19 mars 2012 - 03:22 .

[Dusty Everman]

I’ve heard a couple people ask that if a fix is easy, why would a patch be difficult? That’s a very good question. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Fixing a bug could accidentally introduce worse bugs.

The Gabby/Ken bug is a great example of this. It turns out that just before ship QA found a bug where an Ashley dialog on the Citadel could get stuck under certain import/game mode situations. The person who fixed that bug unknowing introduced the Gabby/Ken bug, and this was after Gabby/Ken had been tested. The Ashley fix was tested on the Citadel, but of course the whole game of 30+ hours with many import and choice variations can’t be retested for every small change. That portion of the Normandy wasn’t retested because we believed it hadn’t been changed and was solid.

2. There can be technical issues.

In this case, the bug was introduced in a tool we call Story Manager. As of today, changes in Story Manager content can’t really be put into a patch due to some technical limitations. Our programmers are fixing those limitations, but until that work is actually successful, we can’t be 100% sure that Story Manager fixes can happen.

3. Content fixes in DLC bloat downloads.

Sometimes we can do fixes in the content instead of the code. However, this adds to the size of download on your disk, and due to how the content is structured, you don’t just get the fix. You get a copy of a bunch of other stuff, so depending on the situation, the amount added could be large.

4. The people who notice the fix may be so small as to not offset the risks and costs of a fix.

For example with the Ken/Gabby bug, the only people who notice that bug are those that imported a save game from ME2 where Ken and Gabby survived the Collector base, and they care enough about Ken and Gabby to recruit them again and go down and visit them in engineering. Though I’d like to believe that is a huge number of people, truthfully it’s probably a small fraction of the players. As with everything in life, our resources aren’t infinite, so we need to make judgment calls of were to apply our QA and development efforts.

I’m in no way saying that the Ken/Gabby bug won’t be fixed. Actually, I’m more encouraged than ever that the fix will get put into a future patch or DLC. We just can’t make any promises. I just wanted to shed some light on why knowing about a fix isn’t the same as being able to deliver a fix. I know that any answer that isn’t “We will fix 100% of the known bugs” will make some people angry, and I apologize for that. If we followed that, it would be impossible for us to make a large, rich game for you. I can say that everyone on our team cares deeply about the quality of experience we are providing to you. We do try our best.

Modifié par Dusty Everman, 24 mars 2012 - 07:12 .

[Dusty Everman]

Changer the Elder wrote...

I'm sorry, sir. I have nothing against you personally and definitely nothing against Bioware for developing three awesome games with hours and hours of fun content. But a response like that is begging for a snidy remark (thank you, abraham65).

And I really cannot help myself but to post this little... motivator.

I don’t need a picture to know what 1% of our customer base is.  You are missing my point. Our team just doesn’t sit back and smoke cigars when a project is done. We are not undedicated developers as you seem to be implying with your “motivator”.  We continually focus on the next highest priority work.  Things that affect 2%, 10%, or 100% of the players obviously have higher priority.

Though try as we might, we can’t make a 100% bug free game.  Let’s look at two great AAA games: Skyrim and Uncharted.  Skyrim gives the player incredible freedom.  It’s huge and sprawling… and full of bugs; some of them horrendous.  Is that because Bethesda is full of undedicated developers?  No, it’s just that their game is so complex with so many variables it would be near impossible to catch and fix them all and not introduce new bugs.  Then look at Uncharted.  It still has bugs, but for the most part it is very solid.  It’s also a very linear experience. It is a much easier game to polish and test.  Mass Effect 3 lies somewhere in between.  And guess what?  We have fewer bugs than Skyrim and more bugs than Uncharted. That shouldn’t be a surprise.

Would it have been impossible to fix all the known bugs in Mass Effect 3? No, but what would it have taken?
* Less Content
* More Linear Content (which is another way of saying less content)
* Later Ship Date
* Larger Team

The first two solutions in my opinion make for a worse game.  We would rather give you as rich and varied of content as we can if the price is a few bugs slipping through.  The second two affect profit margins…. Whoa whoa whoa, I see you opening your mouth to spout the evils of EA’s money grubbing ways.  Give me a second please. If you have a job, your salary is paid by the money your employer brings in.  If you like a game, and you want to see more of it, you want it to be as big a financially success as possible.  Why?  Cause more money will go back into the project and team.  Compare Jade Empire to Mass Effect.   And if we got a later ship date or a larger team for Mass Effect 3, we would have just made a larger game with the same number of little bugs, because we believe that is the best experience we could give you.

For example, if early in the project Casey came to me and said “Dusty, you need to ship the Normandy on time but with zero bugs”, this is what I would have done.  Cut Steve Cortez, cut Ken and Gabby (the irony), cut the memorial wall, cut the moving elevator (which sadly did have to get cut), and all henchmen would have stayed in one location like they did in ME1 or ME2.  With that, I think I would have had enough time to polish the heck out of the content, and gotten very close to zero bugs.

For patches, the same logic holds.  Effort spent on patches is work that isn’t spent on the next project.

I’m still trying to get the Ken and Gabby bug fixed.  I just wanted to share how game development, as with most everything in life, is full of tradeoffs and shades of grey.

[Dusty Everman]

CptData wrote...

Just asking. I dunno how BW developed ME3. However, you just gave me the idea BW never used modules but created large files that needs to be patched instead expanded by modules ...

*headscratcher*

I'm not sure if this is answering your question, but content is grouped into larger files so that they can be laid out on disk efficiently.  If everything was grouped into a bazillion tiny files, your disk would thrash and the game would spend much more time doing file seeks than actually transfering data from disk.

Modifié par Dusty Everman, 26 mars 2012 - 10:19 .

[Dusty Everman]

devSin wrote...

Dusty Everman wrote...

With that, I think I would have had enough time to polish the heck out of the content, and gotten very close to zero bugs.

Yeah, right. I bet the door to the war room still would have been labeled "Tech Labs". :-)

You can never think of everything. Perfection doesn't exist.

Note that I said CLOSE to zero bugs, which a completely relative term.  The moon is CLOSE to the earth depending how you look at it.

And oh my goodness, this is the first I've heard of the "Tech Labs" bug.  I literally have walked through that door hundreds of times and never noticed that.  My only defense is that early in the project it was an auto door, so its label wouldn't pop up.  It was changed to a manual door to make the exit feel better.  Every second you spend at that door is a second you don't spend in the security scanner.

[Dusty Everman]

IsaacShep wrote...

Dusty Everman wrote...
For example, if early in the project Casey came to me and said “Dusty, you need to ship the Normandy on time but with zero bugs”, this is what I would have done.  Cut Steve Cortez

<_< And why Steve exactly? Why not trim down some Normandy dialogues of over-pampered Garrus instead? As you said more varied content is better. Less characters =/= more varied content.

It's all hypothetical, and cutting Steve would have hurt me a lot more than it would have hurt you .  I'm just saying that the balance of content versus polish is a tricky one.  I was just throwing out some real examples of what it would have taken.  Hopefully it make things like this Ken/Gabby bug or the Conrad Verner bug in ME2 a touch more understandable if not palatable.

[Dusty Everman]

Dan Dark wrote...

OhManTFE wrote...

Yer you should be able to just walk through the security scanner like you do in the Citadel ones. It is really annoying having to pause there.

Also I found a temporary fix for the bug guys:

Using Gibbed Save Editor, you can modify the AshleyTrueLove boolean variables to TRUE right at the start of the game. Then you will get the entirety of their dialogue.

This should allow us all to get our Ken + Gabby fix until Bioware patches it, that is assuming they ever will.

I was reading through this thread (glad I'm not the only one who had this problem!), and was wondering if something like this would work. My only concern is... "TrueLove?" That sounds like something that could potentially cause some problems with romances and whatnot... that is, if you didn't romance Ashley. If you did, this would probably work great. I'm curious if there's some way to trick it into work for everyone else, though - some way to force that "good friend" check to return as True, maybe, even if Ashley isn't in your game? That could potentially introduce even more problems, of course... but I figure it could at least be worth a shot, at least until an official fix can eventually be worked into a patch.

Yes, if you set Ashley "TrueLove", you are disabling every other possible romance.  You can have only one true love.  I'm not familiar with the Gibbed Save Editor, but if it can access the Ashley.Attention or Ashley.Missions variables and set either to 8 or higher, it would do the same thing without disabling other romances.

[Dusty Everman]

Changer the Elder wrote...

There's also one more situation, I'm not sure if it's cut content or just locked out during my playthrough, but at some point, Normandy was supposed to be sabotaged with either Donnelly almost dying or Donnelly/Daniels/Adams (always one of the three) giving their life to save the ship.

Yeah, early in the planning stages we were going to have a sub plot where a sabeteur was on board the Normandy, and Shepard would have to choose which engineer would could into the engine core and save the day, most likely dieing in the process.  That plot never saw the light of day, since I didn't have time to write it or script it and cinematic design wouldn't have had time to do the scenes, but we did have the dialog hooks in place for a dead Adams/Donnelly/Daniels/Tali in other banter.  Those lines will just never fire.

[Dusty Everman]

Virith wrote...

Jake Boone wrote...

Virith wrote...

How friendly do I actually need to be with the woman? I admit I don't like her and let her live in one of my playthroughs just out of curiosity. Is just talking enough or do I need to go all paragon on her?

I honestly hope it gets fixed, I want to hear both Ken/Gabby AND Tali's banter. So yeah, add one more player who cares about this thing.

I started to get them after you find Ashley hungover.

I haven't loaded my save with her alive yet, so I don't know when that happens.
But what I actually wanted to know is: what makes the Ashley.Attention status improve? Is just talking enough or does it matter what you say? Sadly, editing the savefiles is not an option for me. Neither is dragging someone with her skillset to combat.

The writer for Ashley controlled that, but i beleive there are a few things that add to it.  I believe mostly you just need to speak to her in the hospital and on the Normandy.  I believe giving her the proper gift and saying nice things instead of nasty things help too.  I believe that the score affects if you are able to recruit her versus being forced to kill her during the Citadel coup?

[Dusty Everman]

CptData wrote...

Since we're at it: afaik only few LIs are tagged as "true love". That's Liara, Ashley, Kaidan, Cortez and Traynor afaik. Not sure about Garrus and Tali.

What does that tag mean? Is there a "not-true-love-but-love" tag too? Was the "true-love" tag meant to be used at some point for extra content that later got cut?
Just wondering.

We internally called that flag "true love" to remind us that you can have only one of those set at a time, and once its set, there's no turning back.  I believe that every LI in essence has one, including Jack, Miranda, etc..  The moment you declare your true love, all other active romances quietly turn to friendship.  We didn't want to spend our dialog budgets on love triangles and break up conversations.  It wouldn't have fit the theme of the game, and as is we have less romance dialog than we would have liked ( as many of you keep reminding us )  It's better to spend the budgets on the romances themselves.

[Dusty Everman]

Alix71 wrote...

When Dusty reported the bug in the first place, he said:

the odds of getting this type of fix into a patch is very low.

And if you look at the patch descriptions for 1.02 and 1.03, there's no mention of them.

Maybe it'll get in the EC? But I wouldn't hold my breath.

It turns out that the Ken/Gabby bug couldn't be fixed in a code patch, but hopefully it can be fixed in downloadable content.  I can't make any promises, but I'm hopeful that it will get fixed in the Extended Cut, and if not that, then in a later DLC.

[Dusty Everman]

HBC Dresden wrote...

Yeah, did this fix make the Extended Cut? It is the only bug in the game that bugs me, other than the face import one but that was fixed. Well, that and the MP exclusive guns...

The Ken/Gabby, Tali/Garrus bug should be fixed now in EC.  Depending on the save game you use, you might have to complete a mission before any banter happens in engineering, but it should now behave as designed.

[Dusty Everman]

CptData wrote...

Glad they fixed Ken & Gabby 'though never saw it in my first playthrough. Was too late, I guess.
However, I wonder if BW also fixed Ashley's dialogue bugs as well.

As far as I know, there is no dialog bugs related to Ashley.  Ashley just doesn't have much dialog on the Normandy.  Each squad mate had a line count budget.  Though Ashley has the same budget as Kaidan, the writer for Ashley decided to use the budget more on the Citadel than the Normandy, so she doesn't have as much to say between missions, but she has more to say during her Citadel moments.