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Denver, 9:05 PM
Wed Nov 25
53 posts in the last 24 hours
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01/27/09
01/27/09
01/27/09
I understand that there are many, many parts of games that must be tested, and that there are people that will do things that are... unexpected. But when a game ships with critical glitches that cause things like "save corruption" through normal use, I find it exceedingly frustrating that someone would consider the game ready to ship to (potentially) millions of people.
Just look at how many games this last year had to be patched just so people can play the game normally. Fable II, Gears 2, Fallout 3...
I feel bad for all the people who don't have their consoles connected to the internet. Where's their fix for their new game? Nothing. They're stuck with what amounts to a unplayable game.
We never had to deal with this with games in the previous gen, when the vast majority of consoles weren't jacked into the internet. Why are game-breaking glitches becoming so commonplace NOW?
01/27/09
Precisely because the vast majority of consoles weren't jacked into the internet. On-line play can only really be properly "tested" in the wild, because no matter how big your Beta program, there's just no way to predict all the insane crap that going to happen once your entire player base (including legions of 'sploiters) are all hooked up.
As for issues with single player campaigns, chalk it up to the generally higher complexity of games this generation with the resulting higher development costs and thus and immense pressure to meet release dates - since the developers know that they have the ability to release a patch once the game is out (for the majority of players at least), they tend to take the initial release a little less seriously than they might have in the past.
01/27/09
There's an oxymoron if ever I've heard one. All leaderboards ever do is encourage boosters, cheaters, glitchers and modders. They never result in anything anyone could consider genuinely competitive.
I suppose if Sony can make that happen they should consider this the patch to end all patches.