Game Players Manifesto

[MacIntoc]

I could quote Helmuth von Moltka the elder here and say "no plan survives first contact with the enemy...everyone seems to think the Fdev team can test their software before releasing it, but even an alpha wouldn't have the number of users the release will have. The only real test of a new version of Elite is to be played by the number of players Elite has

Most of bug were in alpha and reported by players. Most of them, at least, should have been corrected in release. It was not the case.
We are not talking about fresh new bugs.

 

[Distant Carrier]

This already exists at Gamasutra. It's called the No Twinkie guide. Only developers and the curious are familiar with things like this, and everyone here should read through it.

Whenever you see a bird with a sword, as in some lately encountered Steam decorative stuff, it is a classic reference to this guide being made by developers who are already aware of the pitfalls of trying to entertain non-developers with software.

 

[Distant Carrier]

Most of bug were in alpha and reported by players. Most of them, at least, should have been corrected in release. It was not the case.
We are not talking about fresh new bugs.

I'm not being snarky, but I want to point out that you're making the assumption A: most of all bugs present in the release were reported in alpha, even back-end bugs like the carrier mess, and B: that most of the bugs reported are easy to correct in an arbitrary amount of time with any amount of effort, regardless of what work is in the pipeline already.

Scaling things for a release on a gigantic scale is a bug in itself, and the chief bug. I'm not meaning to criticize you, but what you say here gives handles on the misperception that if serious, widely known bugs remain unfixed it automatically indicates bad faith. That's just not the way it is.

If Elite: Dangerous were a car of some kind undergoing repairs, I couldn't imagine trying to explain to the owner that the car is one of a kind, is insanely complicated, cannot be shut off, has no repair manual of any kind, has no replacement parts of any kind and also requires not a single mechanic but an entire team of engineers, and also probably there's just one irritable person who even knows where the hell everything is under the hood... yet that's what Frontier is faced with - and there's not just one car owner but millions of us. ....lol.

Edit: I'll file this under "The Poor (male person without a legitimate claim to the succession) Making Games" Manifesto

 

[MacIntoc]

A: most of all bugs present in the release were reported in alpha, even back-end bugs like the carrier mess

Where did i say that ? I'm just saying that the bugs that were reported in the alpha were almost all still present in the final version.

B: that most of the bugs reported are easy to correct in an arbitrary amount of time with any amount of effort, regardless of what work is in the pipeline already.

Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. FDev could not have been more unaware of the state of the game than we were. If FDev didn't have enought time to fix enough problems in time for a quality release, they should have delayed the release date.

 

[Ozric]

What we need is a Game Players Manifesto,
to give developers basic guidelines that we expect in a released game.

 

[Distant Carrier]

Where did i say that ? I'm just saying that the bugs that were reported in the alpha were almost all still present in the final version.


Once again, you are putting words in my mouth. FDev could not have been more unaware of the state of the game than we were. If FDev didn't have enought time to fix enough problems in time for a quality release, they should have delayed the release date.

I'm not interested in putting anything in your mouth, and there the conversation ends.