What is it with games being released so glitchy?

Fail said:
that's good and well BDV, but what about a bug that literally stops you FROM completing and progressing through the game?

that's NOT ok.

I'm not talking about just any random glitch, i'm talking about a GAME STOPPING glitch
Click to expand...

Again, given the thousands and thousands of different things coming into play, it is possible that the glitch was missed by devs and QA.

Or it is also highly possible that Sales pushed the card hoping for a 0-day patch... "hoping" is the keyword here.
 
Game stopping glitches and patches that fix problems but destroy saved games are the two worst things that have come out of this trend of releasing unfinsihed products.
 
Knyte said:
Game stopping glitches and patches that fix problems but destroy saved games are the two worst things that have come out of this trend of releasing unfinsihed products.
Click to expand...

thank you, exactly my point in all this.

these are NOT OK

NOT NOT NOT OK at all, yet some people seem to not mind it, that fucking amazes me.

I'm trending towards NOT buying games release day and just waiting months

i get the price drop AND I get the patched product (if it's even patched at all)

and if it's not patched, I save a bundle by not buying it to begin with.
 
I'm sure someone has mentioned it, but the reason games get released buggy is because folks readily buy up buggy games on the release date with no hesitation. This tells the publishers and developers that it flat out isn't necessary to "finish" the games before releasing them in order to get sales and here we are.

Personally, I just wait for a few patches first before buying most games these days. Usually a couple price drops occur by then too, so it's double bonus.
 
John721 said:
Personally, I just wait for a few patches first before buying most games these days. Usually a couple price drops occur by then too, so it's double bonus.
Click to expand...

This.

I almost never buy games at release anymore, I wait a couple of weeks to see if there are any chronic issues and how aggressive the dev is in dealing with them before paying out.
 
Fail said:
<rant>
Click to expand...

Personally knowing some of the guys that did QA on Inferno, I can guarantee it's not due to lack of QA. In the end, it's just another example of having to release a game by x date to pull even, and hopefully make a profit. It's unfortunate at this point, but games are at a point where they have to be released on time to have a chance at pulling even, so for those of us on the development side of the equation, it's fixing the most crucial bugs as quickly as possible, and hoping the rest aren't really that bad.

At some point we'll hit a point where this becomes unmanageable (and likely we'll go through something akin to the industry crash of the 80s), but we aren't at that point yet.
 
Playing devil's advocate, games nowadays are much more complex than they were in the past so it may be harder to release something that's 100% glitch free. Plus the other reasons already stated. Titan Quest's rubber-banding issue is annoying as hell, but unfortunately there's no better isometric ARPG out.
 
Releasing games with bugs isn't exactly something new. It's just with the increase in PC gamers we've had this past decade, and especially the latter half of the decade, more people get to experience the great fun that is 0-day game breaking bugs.

I remember experiencing them, but can't remember the names of quite a few games from before 2000 that experienced this. A few examples from earlier this decade were Temple of Elemental Evil and Black and White 2. By the time fixes came around the games were largely irrelevant to me, as I had long given up on them.

I will say that back then it seemed as though AAA titles didn't have this huge game breaking bug issue as often as today, as it seemed to reside with smaller devs being pushed by big publishers. After being burned by EA back then too many times for exactly this issue, I didn't purchase a game from them until just recently.
 
Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 1 and 2, sierra "quest" games, Icewind dale, uh.....crap I can't picture as many right now but I had plenty of freakin show stopping bugs happen to me in those games. I just didn't have a forum to whine about it. I usually jsut had at least 2 saves in the game because I learned from "my mistakes" that shit happens and you might want a backup save just incase.

Many of us who bought Dante's inferno didn't experience the bug you had and beat the game. Yes it sucks, get over it and try again. So it's very well possible it was a bug easily missed. I sure as hell didn't do the same pattern you did. I'm guess most people save and go foward or just save and "I'll get that when I come back to the game"
 
MartinX said:
This.

I almost never buy games at release anymore, I wait a couple of weeks to see if there are any chronic issues and how aggressive the dev is in dealing with them before paying out.
Click to expand...

I'm with this guy and the ones above him.

It's very frustrating getting excited for a supposed AAA game on release day, only to find out there's some glitchy conflict that keeps you from just jumping in and enjoying the title. Then you have to wait for the dev to patch the game or, with delinquent devs, the community to come up with fix tools.

It used to be difficult being patient, but with a growing backlog of games to be played sitting on my desk, I'm finding I don't get to new games until 3-6 months after release. Going back and forth between PC and console games also accounts for some of this.

As the guys above mentioned, you often save both hassle as well as cost. The quick drop off in PC game prices is an added incentive. I'll only jump on a new release if there's some sort of deal going (like Amazon pre-order $20 off type stuff).

An exception to this trend would be a game like Starcraft 2, which is much more likely to hit the streets uber-polished and also maintain it's market value for a long period of time. Coincidentally, I just pre-ordered from GameStop using the 20% off deal for $40+tax..

While these are the headaches we complain about, remember they're an offshoot of the PC platforms greatest strength:customization. All the things we can tinker with and add on after the fact to improve our experience - mods, graphical tweaks, control options etc... I dunno, I'll take the good with the bad (so long as the devs stay on top of their support)
 
inotocracy said:
Seriously? My god. How does anyone save past that?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you're being a smartass or not...but save files sometimes get corrupted at the 28% completion point, which results in the door to the room to accept the only available mission never opening, so you cannot progress any further in the game. The only way around this is if you load up a previous save, but that save has to be at or before 24%. Failing that, you have to start all over again.

Google "closed door glitch" and you'll find many pages on many sites reporting this gamebreaking bug (evident on all three platforms) has never been patched.
 
Fail said:
It's making me want to buy games long after their release date, and cheaper too instead of shoveling my money out the door to beta test a product and then wait for the final version to be released in the form of a patch AFTER I've already paid for the game.
Click to expand...

Last handful of games I wanted to play before released:

Test Drive Unlimited - waited 'til patch 1.66 was out before I played it for $7.
Far Cry 2 - patch 1.3, $10.
Crysis - returned the game when I realized how unoptimized it was. Still haven't played Warhead.
Bioshock - no proper WS support upon release, even though it was promised. Official patch came months later. Finally bought it for $5. Still haven't played it.

I love TDU & FC2, but sounds like they got majorly patched before I eventually touched them.

Crysis and Bioshock taught me a lesson 2.5 years ago that I doubt I'll ever forget.

Seems only Valve releases glitch-free gaming, but their stuff gets QAed and then QAed again...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top