Good Read: The Effects of Armor and Shieldgate
I have noticed a lot on the forums (mainly multiplayer), a lot of people seem to be upset over the time it takes to get bug fixes, or how 'easy' an idea they have would be to implement. Most of the people on these forums are most likely not programmers.
As a forward, I'm not writing this to be condescending. I'm just trying to give you some enlightenment on BioWare's actions, from a programmers perspective.
There are many bugs with ME3. We all know this. Rocket glitch, Vanguard glitch, Map glitches, ULM doesn't work as intented entirely... but what game doesn't have bugs and glitches? You can't make a perfect game. You can't make perfect software. Every software developer knows this. If you want to know what I mean, get a Computer Science degree. At my university, almost 80% of CS majors drop out of the major before graduating because it's so difficult. And I live in one of the cities with the most tech jobs that actively seek graduates.
Every 10000 lines of code are almost guaranteed to have a bug no matter how much testing you put into it. According to Wikipedia, Windows Server 2003 has over 50 million lines of code, and that was almost 10 years ago. ME3 likely has somewhere around 10-30 million lines of code in it as well. Bugs are going to happen no matter what they do.
That doesn't mean they aren't going to fix them. Some bugs are never going to be fixed, simply because they don't effect people adversely, and they aren't game-blocking. I'm pretty sure vanguard and rocket glitches will be fixed. Many mutliplayer glitches will be fixed. Lag? That probably won't be fixed. Banshee magnet grabs? Maybe, but they'll likely just lower the grab distance. (It's still affected by your lag to the host).
Many people contribute ideas, like mixed enemies. I've played a mixed enemy mode (the host modified his variables file), and it's not as fun as you guys might think. Enemies don't work well together if they aren't designed for each other. A 'random enemy mix' also would require a considerable amount of work (though it is possible), because currently all waves are hard-coded as values in that file. I'm not saying it's impossible, but changing an entire gameplay mechanic (under the hood) isn't as easy as just writing "new RandomEnemy();". It would require quite a bit of debugging (software developers know how god awful debugging can be).
Though I am sure BioWare appreciates some of the ideas, and some of them still might make it a reality. One of the ones I commonly see are 'more enemies'. As some of you are aware, Zombie Mod was out for some time before it got banned. I never got to play it before it was banned, but the players who made it know how much lag it induces, as well as cripples computers that run it. Anything that cripples performance on Xbox or PS3 consoles is out. On PC it's a bit more acceptable because you have varying computers, but if it cripples the Xbox or PS3, it won't happen because it would be unfair to those players.
Bug fixes for PC are easier to make than consoles, since consoles need certification from their owners (MS/Sony), and you have size limits, and it also costs money to get certification. EA/BioWare might be rich, but I don't think they want to keep paying for incremental updates.
So before you deride BioWare for taking it's time with bug fixes or how they won't add enemies, or change MP, remember that it's not that simple. That's not to say if they never change MP you shouldn't deride them (I'm not saying you should deride them, but you should expect some change in the future... hopefully....)
I'm also not saying you shouldn't post ideas. I 'm sure BioWare reads most of them, and some of them might make the cut. But demanding that BioWare does this, or doesn't do this, is ludacrious. How about you have some strangers come to your job and tell you what to do without any knowledge?
Also, the live updates that they post nearly every week are just memory-patches that override some settings in the variables file. They do not override it (you can tell since the game does not use Administrator rights to overwrite it). They can only change a few varibles here, like gravity, some enemy spawns (Exorcist), ammo boxes (etc). They can't change code (that would need certification).
:innocent:
Also: Read this thread:
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/344/index/9948396
Bug Fixes that we know about so far (community):
Ultra Light Mod: http://social.biowar...9221/1#12650482
Modifié par Mgamerz, 12 juillet 2012 - 07:41 .
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