Interview with Ondrej Spanel ( Suma )

[Sevan 0]

very interesting interview so far this week. I'm listening to the download version right now.

The ESL part was nice. It was one of the first times I can remember that the person interviewed actually played ArmA regularly. So, they were able to dicuss some game aspects in greater detail then normal.

[whisper 0]

Games should not have to be patched at all!

Your expectation is completely unrealistic.

No it's not! I have played lots of games which were at their initial release version and I did not notice a single bug during the whole time I played those games.

So a conclusion has to be made: it is a realistic goal to make games which do not need hundreds of megabytes of patching after initial public release. And that is what should be aimed for.

My comments about this "patching" are meant to remind people who seem to want patches that they have fallen into something which is certainly not needed. They have fallen into accepting that they constantly buy seriously flawed products and "it's okay as long as we get patches x years after initial release". And then the screaming starts here at this forum "when is the patch coming out!!".

I hope ArmA II will not receive so huge patching as ArmA I has received already this far. I hope the game is good-enough that there is no need for so huge patching. Is there something wrong with this kind of hoping? Unrealistic hope? I certainly don't think so.

wamingo, Microsoft Windows is an operating system and as such it is a critical, very complex component of your PC. I think we should not start to compare operating system patching to game patching, the two are not comparable in my opinion. Your games are not responsible for anything other programs are supposed to be doing or for communicating with the hardware directly, unlike an operating system.

Also your example about cars is not really good here. The car manufacturers get revenue from the work they do after the initial sale of a car, when they sell spare parts and maintenance work. Did you pay BIS for your ArmA patch? No you did not.

I said earlier it is the nature of the beast, unfortunately. That statement in my opinion should have made it clear to you that I understand why errors get into software products and why they need to be patched. But there exists proof that not all software products need huge patches, so it is not unrealistic to expect that others could make such products too.

Games that do not need patches were game made for PCs of old. With current very high number of different hardware, installed softwares that can interact, making a bug free product is simply impossible.

You can label this, and me, as nerdish talk all you want, but that's a fact. Tell me a of a current game software that has required zero patching and was bug free, please.

And it is not current programmers getting lazy when devs of old were good, it's just the immense possible combinations of hardware and installed softwares that screw up your code most of the time.

And if you think games have no hardware and software connexions with other installed elements, or are just less "complex" than OS, then ... well... just think about the interactions with firewalls, antivirus, other game's game protection system, or simply the bunch of different drivers installed, how they behave, use memory or hardware features that OS don't really bother with (shaders and such).

The problems won't be the same, but saying there's no interaction is wrong.

BTW your initial statement never talked about the size of the patch. Just that patches shouldn't be there in the first place. That's why you get so called nerd-reactions denying it.

[KeyCat 131]

Just wanted to say thanks to Jerry and of course Suma for the interview. Interesting to hear things from the developers point of view...

/KC

[rundll.exe 12]

Nice interview! But It takes some dedication even to listen to it 90 minutes

[BraTTy 0]

Nice interview! But It takes some dedication even to listen to it 90 minutes  

Ya it does, I actually used my bluetooth headset and was still able to walk around and tend to the kids and do stuff

[rowdied 44]

Offtopic,

Good post Whisper, you put it much more eloquently into words than I could doped up on pain killers and anti inflammatories last night.

But honestly, can any of you name a game you played that didn't have a bug or cheat as I called them way back when.

Intellivison hockey had the score from center ice with the pass button, so did NHL'91 by EA sports and that bug lasted all the way to 2000.

Legend of Zelda is really only one I can think of that didn't have bugs... that I can remember.

Sorry, back on topic,

Nice interview Jerry, and thanks for all the effort that went into it.

[max power 21]

Legend of Zelda is really only one I can think of that didn't have bugs... that I can remember.

In the old NES days it was fun to find and exploit little glitches and stuff. It was all part of knowing the game and sharing secrets with your friends and such... but thinking back on them, a lot of those games had faults or strange bugs.