blankempathy
Member
I didn't mean his statement was bullshit but that in the case involving unity it is.
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Ubisoft dev on how Assassin's Creed:Unitys issues possibly slipped past game testing
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
I didn't mean his statement was bullshit but that in the case involving unity it is.
Here's a fact of game development, garnered from nearly 20 years worth of experience.
Brace yourself. You ready?
You test on retail kits and test kits before release. That's it.
This so-called explanation is nonsense.
stop showing me up, chubs
Snap.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Seriously, what the hell? I work in physical product design and you never launch something before getting samples in for review like a month before. You're really telling me they can't or don't have the factory bang out a low print run of the current code for testing?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Just wanted to point out that he is not saying that this is factually what happened.
Really all that needs to be said.
They need to keep their mouths shut on this and fix it, no other "explanation" or excuse needed.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Jade possibly left knowing this release was full of bugs.
grosvenor_92
Member
Despite having not played the game I think at least some of the issues could of been resolved before the game was released. This is just another example of a rush job which should of been avoided
I can understand the problems going from dev kit to retail console but SO MANY problems that were present on consoles were also present on PC version as well and they have every opportunity to develop and test on any type of PC hardware they choose.
Despite this, the performance of the game is bad across pretty much all but the most powerful PC hardware that is simply brute forcing it's way to a half decent frame rate but the other glitches are still there regardless of hardware.
:/
Despite this, the performance of the game is bad across pretty much all but the most powerful PC hardware that is simply brute forcing it's way to a half decent frame rate but the other glitches are still there regardless of hardware.
:/
ultracal31
You don't get to bring friends.
This may get buried but as a guy who used to do game testing for a giant publisher who has a branch in Montreal I'll chime in some thoughts:
- the dev in question isn't wrong per say. We do a lot of testing on both dev kits and retail version of the console but as he stated there are some strange glitches that do not get caught despite our best efforts. This could be due to a number of reasons such as the glitch only occurring 1/10 of the time, the firmware reason the dev stated or just plain old didn't occur on any build on both our side and Sony/Microsoft side.
- game testers often find the bugs which is probably no surprise to anyone here but it's really up to someone higher up to decide if there are worth fixing or not which is decided from the dev's boss or that bosses boss. We grade bugs on a letter scale so any bug that is an A level WILL get fixed which include things such as crashing the game 100%, consoles crashing and memory deletion. Anything lower than an A during crunch time will be looked out but if the bug does not crash the game it will be labelled as 'known shippable' or KS.
- someone higher up such as a producer or a coordinator or supervisor Christmas bonus is depending on the game to be shipped on time despite the bugs so even if a bug is at an A level they will decide to ship it as is with the intend to patch it later or not. If it's decided they will even cut out features from a game a week or even a day before going gold to get that sweet holiday sale numbers.
I'm sure none of this though is a giant surprise for most of you though. Feel free to ask any questions if you're curious to know some details.
- the dev in question isn't wrong per say. We do a lot of testing on both dev kits and retail version of the console but as he stated there are some strange glitches that do not get caught despite our best efforts. This could be due to a number of reasons such as the glitch only occurring 1/10 of the time, the firmware reason the dev stated or just plain old didn't occur on any build on both our side and Sony/Microsoft side.
- game testers often find the bugs which is probably no surprise to anyone here but it's really up to someone higher up to decide if there are worth fixing or not which is decided from the dev's boss or that bosses boss. We grade bugs on a letter scale so any bug that is an A level WILL get fixed which include things such as crashing the game 100%, consoles crashing and memory deletion. Anything lower than an A during crunch time will be looked out but if the bug does not crash the game it will be labelled as 'known shippable' or KS.
- someone higher up such as a producer or a coordinator or supervisor Christmas bonus is depending on the game to be shipped on time despite the bugs so even if a bug is at an A level they will decide to ship it as is with the intend to patch it later or not. If it's decided they will even cut out features from a game a week or even a day before going gold to get that sweet holiday sale numbers.
I'm sure none of this though is a giant surprise for most of you though. Feel free to ask any questions if you're curious to know some details.
Wasn't there a post here from ages ago where someone said a developer showed off the game to them on an airplane ride, the NPCs were glitching like crazy and it was a year ago.
The issues happen on some PCs too.
While it's interesting that these firmwares are screwing developers, don't make it our issue.
The issues happen on some PCs too.
While it's interesting that these firmwares are screwing developers, don't make it our issue.
AtomicShroom
Member
This. I've had my fair share of time in various QA depts so I would know. The manufacturers make testing on retail kits possible, but it's often neglected during production and QA because most people on dev/QA teams never bother to switch their consoles to retail mode, either because they don't know how to do it, or because it turns off all debug functions which makes it impossible to easily debug problems. It's also a painful process most of the time which involves wiping the devkit with some obscure recovery disc, setting it all up from scratch, then burning your game onto optical media, or using a setup that requires a special cable that they never bothered to install because why would they? It's quite a hassle when they're mainly just used to dumping the latest build on the console through the network.
Also devs/QA usually test on "debug" servers of their online services, which are different from the servers used for final retail (so they can co-exist), and very often I've seen QA teams completely unaware of that fact, so they never bothered to test the various online features and services on the actual retail servers used by the retail code, resulting in tons of unforeseen problems.
The More You Know.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Again. Explain the same kind of bugs occurring in the PC code.
Obviously, im not accusing you, but your later answers are really the only reason for this. It was rushed out the door.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
ultracal31
You don't get to bring friends.
In this specific case of Unity, it's a combination of Ubisoft to no one's surprise labelling the PC port as a non priority and as you pointed out the reasons I stated.
All good dude on the accusation part, regarding PC it's actually a lot easier (at least in my experience) to pass certification on PC games rather than Sony/Microsoft. I was never too sure as to the reason why but the set of guidelines to test for PC was....never as strict.
Basically if the game runs semi decently it's good to go (crashes and all).
That's the one, later than I thought but yeah basically:
03-05-2014
Imagine how much worse it probably was
Everything is overblown on the Internet ... as with most things, only the vocal minority is heard ... NeoGAF and other hardcore gaming outlets are the epitome of a vocal minority ...
AtomicShroom
Member
Uh, that's because there is no certification for PC games? Anyone can release whatever the hell they want on a PC. There is no need to get anything approved.
And to play the devil's advocate: I don't understand how PC gamers expect companies to spend a large amounts of money optimizing a PC port (And optimizing for PC is much more costly than on console considering the gazillion of hardware/software configurations possible, not to mention PC gamers want more options available.) when the PC version accounts for only like what, 5-10% of their userbase, most of which just pirate the game anyway? It's just not profitable. There is almost no money to be made here unless you make a PC-only game or a subscription-based game that rivals with WOW (and good luck with that).
GameAddict411
Member
that's not an excuse whatsoever, by his logic every game that releases for the XO and the PS4 are broken garbages just like AC. I am guilty of buying the game even though i am aware of the problems, i just loved AC4 so much that i just couldn't wait. Generally, most of the problems gaffers notice in games I just don't encounter them. unity just opened my eyes to never do that again. the performance is so bad that i feel dizzy after just a few minutes. the controls and animations are extremely rough, something that AC4 have completely opposite. i don't know what to do with my copy, sell and loss a lot of money or wait until they fix all the problems(it may take months).
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Is not more like "I got lucky"?
The thing is that there ARE differences between the retail PS4 and the devkit PS4.
What he doesn't mention is that there are also testkit PS4 consoles that are virtually the same as a retail PS4 as far as I know.
Not to mention that any Xbone can be unlocked for dev use with LB/RB/RT/LT and the proper tools
They are not. Considering they can't even play Retail games, they can't be identical.