Yes I know, another Baldur's Gate 3 but I found this one genuinely funny.
https://baldursgate3.game/news/hotfix-4-redeployed_86
Yesterday we had to rollback hotfix 4 because of a rare compiler issue. To avoid this from happening again we’re changing the way we deploy patches.
Players who had downloaded hotfix 4 were unable to continue from their hotfix 4 saves once we had rolled back the patch. While this is not ok, rolling back the patch in order to diagnose the problem and limit those exposed to it was the lesser of two evils. We truly appreciate your patience & understanding while we worked to understand the problem.
Their fucking back end is so broken and buggy they're breaking peoples' saves trying to fix all the bugs they have in the game. I don't believe for a second this went through 'rigorous QA' as they claim. Even if they did and what they're claiming is true, this means that in plain English someone down the line somebody buggered the release build and instead of checking everything was good they released it anyway.
What number were they quoting to show off? 400 employees? Lol this is why I'm so disrespectful to these studios now. Even the ex-blizzard dev was mocking Diablo so that should tell you everything. I knew things were bad at the big studios but it really does explain so much. I have the sneaking suspicion that the reason many of these bugs and broken versions never get fixed is because they don't have people who are capable of it anymore. I mean, out of curiosity I checked out a video on Cyberpunk 2077 and it looked like they had 'solved' their FPS issues by downgrading the fuck out of the crowds and traffic in the city, don't know if that's changed at all but it makes me laugh a lot.
This is why whenever any 'gamer' or dev tries to pretend that game development is some mysterious, extremely difficult thing. I do believe it's just a lie to cover up their incompetence. You either know how to fix it or you don't and when you don't, you don't sit there bullshitting people you fork over the money to someone more experienced than you to deal with it. I bet despite the ESG money and everything they're probably too tightfisted to pay their programmers because it's easier to give woke activists minimum wage instead if that.
I think it's a bit unfair claiming that they don't have anyone to fix these bugs. They most likely so but they'll be in crunch trying to keep the claim of the least buggy launch of a AAA game.
And considering how broad and many paths Act1 (at least) has. I wouldn't be surprised if they fix one and make four more because of this.
It does fall on panic pushing updates and not properly quality testing patches before release. They might be but as PC gaming is such a broad area with so many varying hardwares; at least from the above quote they mustn't have encountered it.
Not defending shit patches for an overly hyped (not) Baldurs gate (3) but bugs getting created because of quick update life cycles is common in and software development when they panic push updates weekly. So I wouldn't treat this as an outlier. It's just a bunch of employees most likely running ragged trying to get it all fixed whilst they're being whipped by their managers
It's worth pointing out that these games have been worked on for years and all the devs have been doing it while on a proper salary as well. Now branching paths I grant you, those are somewhat tricky to pull off properly but much of this stuff is just basic RPG mechanics.
So really no, it's not unfair at all, when you learn programming even if you don't know their exact back end, you get a very good sense more than most of their software and how they would put everything together. This isn't some little indie dev or one man team hiring outsiders occasionally like me they're a gigantic company with tons of employees.
I suspect like when Elon bought out twitter and we found out just how bad everything was internally I would be pretty horrified learning how they work.
In my experience, the passionate yet small indie devs in gaming make less buggy games than AAA studios. Bugs have nothing to do with complicated code and unsolvable problems related to computer hardware. Like all other things in a job, it comes down to the competency of the people working. AAA studios are much more likely to hire and employ useless people, fulfilling the Pareto principle. Smaller, more passionate groups are less likely to be accepting of idiots, slackers, and parasites.
Applies to every industry really. I always credited that approach to SpaceX for being able to accelerate so fast as a startup, which (probably still) underpays and overworks their employees leading to quick burnout. But those employees REALLY want to be there and take pride in their accomplishments. Contrast to Boeing, or BlueOrigin that carbon-copied the big cost+plus contractors approach to space and where Bezos has given them more than enough money yet they've barely moved an inch. I have nothing against the employees of the other companies but they have different working environments and different priorities.
Agreed. I'll take it even further, and it applies to all groups of humans, regardless of pursuit. It's also why hobbies always start out with small, passionate groups, and the more "normies" enter it, the more it becomes watered down, pushing out the people who started it because they can no longer stand the medium or the people part of it.
Not sure how this can be combated, except through stringent gate keeping, and as a general rule, having a healthier wider society, with healthier and better people as part of the larger group of people/nation, that are less prone to watering down niche groups, and less wanting to do so, knowing the destructive nature of it.