240 réponses à ce sujet

[OhManTFE]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

Damn man, that sucks. We should try and petition Bioware to get it patched! I have Kaidan (a lot of people hate Ashley lol) so I never saw them talk, which sucks because apparently you can get them into a romance!

Do you think there is a way to tell people how to fix the bug? Like editing a particular line in notepad or something? Or is it vastly more complicated than that?

Modifié par OhManTFE, 24 mars 2012 - 11:16 .

[tigrina]

Thanks for the heads up, Dusty Everman.

[CptData]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

So in short: the bug is not annoying enough to get fixed - like Garrus' face and Ashley's "alien-animals"-line in ME1?

I still think Ashley's random banter is bugged since lack of content. Or it got cut. In that case, I really hope dummied out lines will return with one of the patches.

And I want Gabby & Ken coming together. I have Ash in my playthroughs but still have that bug

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

Oooh, on my first playthrough I thought I just missed it, 2nd playthrough they were dead (along with all squad/crew apart from Zaeed, Kasumi, Joker and EDI), on 3rd playthrough I thought it possibly didn't trigger because that Shep was very 'professional' with them (and Kelly).

So granted if this bug does ever get fixed, besides the flag you have quoted, is there any other flags that could affect it like if you act all professional with them instead of being friendly?

[BoneNinja]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

Well this is actually a big relief!! I (of course <_<) am one of the people that don't even have a playthrough with Ashley, I only have Kaidan, and I spent the entire game wondering what the heck happened to the banter and fun loving Ken and Gabby I used to have on my ship, it was all "Commander" and "The board is green" with me. They only took part in one (maybe two?) conversations, but it was only initiated when I talked to Addams. I never got ANYTHING from them through the entire game and I went down to engineering A LOT. Even my husband would ask me about them (and he never actually played any of the MEs). So it's actually nice to know that it's a bug and that they didn't get neglected. 

Here's to hoping you have success in getting it fixed and into the patch!!!

[Funker Shepard]

Thanks for the updates, Dusty, I was wondering a bit about that in the final game, and couldn't get this to fire off for me. Hopefully it gets fixed (or I figure out how to let Ashley down easily )

[killnoob]

gearseffect wrote...

II do know that most of Gabby and Ken's stuff was completely cut out from the finale game. The leaked scripts had so much great stuff and humor between Gabby and Ken and I went down to the engines every time I got back on the Normandy and only one of their lines made it in the game and that was due to finding that pipe for Adams and Gabby and Ken.

The leaks had some great comments by them like Ken talking about EDI's new body, and "what do ya think of our new Yeoman?" and "What ever happened to that hot redhead Yeoman" Those were a few of the high lights I remember from the leaks that didn't make it in the game.

There was also some sort of scene where Gabby was getting a gun and going to shot things attacking the Normandy or something and Ken said "I'm goin with ya,"
Gabby replied with "No your not you know you can't shoot to save your @ss"
Ken "well then I wish I could shot better, Be careful will ya and come back safely"
Gabby "Oh I'll be careful. Don't worry Ken I'll be coming back because I so enjoy fixing all your screw ups."
Ken 'Gabby I'm being serious here, we've lost so much already I couldn't stand to loose ya too"


I can't remember what Gabby said to him after that for some reason, but anyway Gabby and Ken got all but cut from the finale game. I was really upset by how much of their stuff was cut.

here's what i got from my playthrough 

1) Ken talks about inviting liara, samantha for strip poker, and he thinks ashley is a sore loser
2) Ken ask about whether asari women keep growing as they aged
3)EDI's body (there are two of the i think)
4)debate with Engineer Adam about whether "EDI is normandy" or "EDI is controlling Normandy"
5) useless mech dog
6)illusive man's poor choice of drink
7) Tali getting pawn by Gabby a
8)Gabby and Ken hugging

the one you mentioned in your post happens right before the assult on cerberus base

Modifié par killnoob, 25 mars 2012 - 09:02 .

[Malchus]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

This is the most interesting thing I have ever read on these forums. 


Also, Ashley took a bomb to the face back on Virmire in my game... so... Sorry Ken and Gabby, I didn't mean to block you both! 

[EmGo]

 Ugh... that really sucks... in all my 30 playthroughs (yep, 30) I have only one in which I don't kill Ashley on Virmire. Yea, I hate her. I also was wondering about that "quiet engineering". *sigh*

I... no. No friends with Ashley. Sorry, but no Hopefully we will see this patch:crying:

[damoose1]

Sad face. I had Kaidan and was like WTF are they not even conversing? Then my sister played (had Ashley) and there was tons of chat. I did not make the connection as it seems so unrelated. There were other bugs that she got, and I never. Like the crashing by that door in Sanctuary. Took me a while to help her get past that. My sister also did not see Kelly. There were also other little things that I cannot remember.

[gh0st wh1sp3r]

Bioware "inadvertantly" hates on Kaidan and "accidentally" promotes Ashley - she gets her own drunk scene, gets a sex-appeal makeover. Seriously. There's a lot wrong with that picture.

This should be fixed, because she DESERVES to be Virmire'd. Every. Single. Time.

[Changer the Elder]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

Even though I got lucky, have Ashley alive and well and had most (I'm seriously doubting it was all we could've unlocked) of the banter in its rightful place, still I feel like I have to react.

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.

Modifié par Changer the Elder, 26 mars 2012 - 06:57 .

[staindgrey]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

Two things...

1) Now I understand why I actually saw the content. Sweet.

2) Thank you for posting this. THIS is the type of feedback we've all been wanting with the issues in ME3, and this post here happens to be the first time I've seen it. Thank you very, very much for the quick and honest (no PR BS) feedback.

[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.

[CptData]

I dunno understand, Dusty.

Although I'm not a programmer, I do know some basics from engineering school. If you need to create a program, you do a plan first so you know when to do what kind of stuff. I'm sure the Devs did that too.

What I wonder: how's it possible to introduce such a bug? That's only going to happen if they didn't created the game with modules but created a huge mess of stuff no one can check out. I always imagined every single character has his/her own set of dialogues, interactions and variables. In best case, it's done like in Skyrim: you can expand every single character by simply adding NEW content by adding a new module that's called by said character.

In ME3 however it looks as if you only can expand a certain character by writing new stuff in his or her file.
That's nonsense tbh, especially since BW wants to sell DLCs - and the best way to do this is to use modules instead of what I described.

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*

[devSin]

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.

[0o-Constance-o0]

Dusty Everman, I'd really love to hear more about the development of Bioware games, particularly the 3D Modelling and animation. Can you point me anywhere?

I can see where you're coming from in regards to the bugs, my boyfriend is a software engineer working in the Unity 3D engine and even small time games can get massive bugs that make holes everewhere. I can only imagine how difficult it is to keep track of such a large game like Mass Effect, especially where imports are concerned. Looking forward to the updates and DLC!

[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.

[OhManTFE]

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.

[Kilshrek]

Oh, sadly with Ashley popping up on the ship at such a late hour no wonder I never got all of Ken & Gabby's dialogue. I really would have loved to have that moment when Tali tries to be clever and nearly kills everyone.

[Eyeshield21]

Dusty Everman wrote...

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.

now that you mention it, whenever I bring Ash on missions, every time I check in Engineering after the mission I hear Gabby and Ken banter. Never did if I didn't bring her.

Modifié par Eyeshield21, 26 mars 2012 - 11:19 .

[shepskisaac]

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.

Modifié par IsaacShep, 27 mars 2012 - 12:31 .

[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.

[shepskisaac]

Dusty Everman wrote...
I'm just saying that the balance of content versus polish is a tricky one.

I absolutely understand that  however, I think you can understand why would my eyebrow raised when I saw Steve mentioned as the first example, call it being 'protective'

In any case, hope Ken/Gabby bug will get fixed. If not meh but that's how it goes sometimes. I understand that there are still more pressing bugs like the Hanar Diplomat for example, or Elcor quest