Any news from b.i.???

[roots 10]

There is no easy way to classify software as "complete" or "finished". Essentially no software is ever truely finished, because there's always room for improvement, new features, etc... Such a petition would only harm the customers even further since you'd either get 100% complete software or none at all, and there's no such thing as 100% complete software. Most is somewhere around 80%...

I am no doubt aware of that. But I'm not talking about some distorted textures that 2% of the users will see every 57h of playtime. I'm talking about severe code insufficiencies that affect a majority of the customers every time they run the software. Code insufficiencies that the devs not doubt must have been aware of before the game's release, unless they never actually ran the game outside stepwise debug mode.

However, the gaming industry's marketing policy has more and more become "just release it, those idiots will buy it anyway...". This, in fact, would hardly work with any other kind of products.

Call it unfortunately or not, the customer takes a major responsibility in this process as soon as he - naively expecting to get a working piece of software - buys the game right on release. If people, and this will certainly never happen, learnt their lessons from a large number of utterly unfinished releases over the past years, waited for the game to be tested by a number of mags & gaming sites and then decided whether to buy it or wait half a year before it has become patched to a certain degree of useability, devs and publishers alike were forced to think twice before they tag it gold status.

would you buy a book with 5% of the text pages unreadably blurred? would you get a DVD player where the play button is jammed every 10th actuation? ....

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I'm talking about severe code insufficiencies that affect a majority of the customers every time they run the software. Code insufficiencies that the devs not doubt must have been aware of before the game's release, unless they never actually ran the game outside stepwise debug mode.

And do you have any examples? I can't seem to notice any "code insufficiencies", does that exclude me from the majority of users?

You have to understand that developing PC games today is really tough work. When your customers all have different hardware & OS's, etc... it's impossible to make something that works perfectly on everyone's system.

[Joe_M. 10]

And do you have any examples? I can't seem to notice any "code insufficiencies", does that exclude me from the majority of users?

At least it does exclude you from majority of users being in the troubleshooting forum...

[roots 10]

And do you have any examples? I can't seem to notice any "code insufficiencies", does that exclude me from the majority of users?

Are you kidding me? Take a look around the forums - there are plenty of people who suffer CTDs and severe performance issues that are related neither to quality setting nor to their hardware.

What you call that? "Oh sorry, you see, some of our customers actually are able to take this BMW model past 40 mph...but we don't know why you can't...just stand by...this issue might be fixed within the next months..." ....

[SemiFrank 10]

I'm fine waiting cause if they released it prematurely we'd have 18,000 "where's patch 1.4!?!?!" threads.

Instead they released the game prematurely and now we get 18,000 "where's patch 1.3!?!?!" threads ;)

[Scrub 0]

Are you kidding me? Take a look around the forums - there are plenty of people who suffer CTDs and severe performance issues that are related neither to quality setting nor to their hardware.

What you call that? "Oh sorry, you see, some of our customers actually are able to take this BMW model past 40 mph...but we don't know why you can't...just stand by...this issue might be fixed within the next months..." ....

The guy who can't get the BMW past 40 is having problems because the dude's wearing boots who's heels are jamming the gas pedal. They just haven't been able to look there since he's on the other side of the planet. :p

Seriously, there are common issues we all have, but when the majority of the players have none of these particular, really bad problems with the same game, what's different? Not the code.

[roots 10]

Instead they released the game prematurely and now we get 18,000 "where's patch 1.3!?!?!" threads

Maybe the future gaming industry should be run be women: They usually don't like premature releases that much...

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Are you kidding me? Take a look around the forums - there are plenty of people who suffer CTDs and severe performance issues that are related neither to quality setting nor to their hardware.

What you call that? "Oh sorry, you see, some of our customers actually are able to take this BMW model past 40 mph...but we don't know why you can't...just stand by...this issue might be fixed within the next months..." ....

These people (and I have seen few who are unable to actually run the game) do not represent the majority of customers, not by a long shot. BIS is I'm sure working hard to get the game to work on as many different people's systems as possible. It's not possible for them to test every possible hardware configuration. Delaying the release probably wouldn't have made it any different... they need feedback from these users in order to fix these unexpected problems.

Even if there were "code insufficiencies" as you claim, spending more development time probably wouldn't do anything to change that. Probably the only way BIS could have used such time is tweaking and polishing the game.

[Whiskey Tango 10]

AI fixes, campaign fixes, bug fixes, MP "receiving" fix, MP/Coop campaign improvements, some optimisations, usual stuff :)

Thank the hairy fairy.

This is the best bit of news by far.

[hotel 10]

These people (and I have seen few who are unable to actually run the game) do not represent the majority of customers, not by a long shot. BIS is I'm sure working hard to get the game to work on as many different people's systems as possible. It's not possible for them to test every possible hardware configuration. Delaying the release probably wouldn't have made it any different... they need feedback from these users in order to fix these unexpected problems.

Even if there were "code insufficiencies" as you claim, spending more development time probably wouldn't do anything to change that. Probably the only way BIS could have used such time is tweaking and polishing the game.

I agree the game has "code insufficiencies" and I cannot even count how many times my game has crashed on 4 different hardware combinations. If you look at the polls for "How Satisfied are you with Arma2" you will see the majority of the community is having issues which you dont seem to have. This alone proves root's point.

Personally the people that marked the game perfect I feel are either blind or simply grabbing BIS's back no matter the state of the game. I love the game but it does lack the general finished feel I get from most games I play. The performance is god awful and the stuttering is terrible as well.

I am sure its just my hardware;) ROFLMAO

I got your back roots :)

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Whatever your problem is doesn't change the fact that my game runs fine... and I'm not the only one either. Anyway, you can't say it has "code insufficiencies" (which doesn't make any sense btw) unless there's a fundamental problem with the game code itself. If there were, we'd all be seeing it.

[roots 10]

I agree the game has "code insufficiencies" and I cannot even count how many times my game has crashed on 4 different hardware combinations. If you look at the polls for "How Satisfied are you with Arma2" you will see the majority of the community is having issues which you dont seem to have. This alone proves root's point.

Personally the people that marked the game perfect I feel are either blind or simply grabbing BIS's back no matter the state of the game. I love the game but it does lack the general finished feel I get from most games I play. The performance is god awful and the stuttering is terrible as well.

I am sure its just my hardware;) ROFLMAO

I got your back roots :)

have you checked your drivers? :D

[Litos 10]

Didnt you guys post like a whole list of features on devheaven?

I don't know if I'll get banned if I post it here so...but I'd looove to leak some information

[thr0tt 12]

Fingers crossed there are no major bugs with the patch, saying that... well lets just hope it gets here sometime in August/September 2009.

[kklownboy 43]

Whatever your problem is doesn't change the fact that my game runs fine... and I'm not the only one either. Anyway, you can't say it has "code insufficiencies" (which doesn't make any sense btw) unless there's a fundamental problem with the game code itself. If there were, we'd all be seeing it.

what he said. I have tested three different OSes on three different ARMA2s, with two different Computers with six different GPU combos. The game runs.... i havent had more than two CTDs. Granted the Campaign is a boogg at times ( at the wrongtimes too...) But SP, and MP (depends on the missions and server) are working good, and at times awesome!

Basic EVO is crap so that may be a bigg issue for some MP. I hope allot of the lil bugs( AI stuff) get worked out on 1.03. and my friends with NVDA hardware can keep form CTD....

[mosh 0]

Whatever your problem is doesn't change the fact that my game runs fine... and I'm not the only one either. Anyway, you can't say it has "code insufficiencies" (which doesn't make any sense btw) unless there's a fundamental problem with the game code itself. If there were, we'd all be seeing it.

Nope, you're not the only one. It runs good for me too.

As much as I want to rant about the people whining for 'more news' (what more news do you need? the patch is being worked on) or 'patch eta' (just tell them 6 months, then if it comes sooner, so be it). Maybe you all can just make stuff up everyday in a little column for them. Call it 'Today's patch news' and have stuff like, BREAKING NEWS - today an x was changed to an o in line 4565 of the UI code. It could be really exciting to read!

I'm sorry. :rolleyes:

It doesn't matter, they will just ask again tomorrow...

[nominesine 0]

I'm talking about severe code insufficiencies that affect a majority of the customers every time they run the software

Crybaby ;)

[bangtail 0]

I am no doubt aware of that. But I'm not talking about some distorted textures that 2% of the users will see every 57h of playtime. I'm talking about severe code insufficiencies that affect a majority of the customers every time they run the software. Code insufficiencies that the devs not doubt must have been aware of before the game's release, unless they never actually ran the game outside stepwise debug mode.

However, the gaming industry's marketing policy has more and more become "just release it, those idiots will buy it anyway...". This, in fact, would hardly work with any other kind of products.

Call it unfortunately or not, the customer takes a major responsibility in this process as soon as he - naively expecting to get a working piece of software - buys the game right on release. If people, and this will certainly never happen, learnt their lessons from a large number of utterly unfinished releases over the past years, waited for the game to be tested by a number of mags & gaming sites and then decided whether to buy it or wait half a year before it has become patched to a certain degree of useability, devs and publishers alike were forced to think twice before they tag it gold status.

would you buy a book with 5% of the text pages unreadably blurred? would you get a DVD player where the play button is jammed every 10th actuation? ....

Another user with 5 posts telling us how EVERYONE is experiencing the problems he is experiencing.

I've never seen any "severe code insufficiencies".

Eth

[Bulldogs 10]

I've only had two crashes. One was a bsod when I massively overclocked my CPU for a bit of fun (I run stable at 3.5ghz so I tried 4ghz for some fun) the other being a ctd whenever I tried to join a multiplayer game, but that was caused by my router blocking icmp's, unblocking them fixed it.

Other than that, game runs perfectly, setup weekly LAN games with 9 others and we don't have any problems.

[Eagle911 10]

Quit worrying about when they will fix

Let them take their time, work everything out nicely rather than rushing and messing up and leaving things out.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

When ArmA (1) was 1st released, I had major issues with 8800GTX sli and single (was top dog in it's time). It was almost a year before Nvidia and Suma's patches smoothed things out (yes, it took both).

I still enjoyed the game during those problems though.

I've been baffled that I've yet to experience any of the "major" issues reported with ArmA II here on the forums.

Patch? I can wait.......I'm still enjoying exploring the great terrain we have to play on.

[roots 10]

Another user with 5 posts telling us how EVERYONE is experiencing the problems he is experiencing.

I've never seen any "severe code insufficiencies".

Eth

Maybe you should read both my posts and the forums more thoroughly. Btw. - my post count doesn't tell you anything about how much I've already read in this and other forums, does it?

Edited July 31, 2009 by roots

[Joe_M. 10]

Users with a high posting counter could as well be considered fanboys... I had a look at that community issue tracker. There are close to 500 (!) reports. You can't tell me, that a game with almost 500 unique reported issues 'runs fine for the majority'.

[Bulldogs 10]

Problem is that they aren't unique, even though they are meant to be.

Obviously there's problems with the game, all we're trying to say is that not everyone is having issues, I'd even go as far as to say that most people aren't having major issues. That said, as long as anyone is having issues then it's annoying and will hopefully be fixed for those people.

[Joe_M. 10]

Are you sure that they aren't unique? There are a lot of closed entries, saying duplicate or rejected. But I must admit, that I didn't go through all that 500 reports and actually check whether they're unique.

And honestly, I don't have any idea, how many people are experencing issues or not. All I know is, that 6 members of our LO/FC and BS squad bought ArmA2 and 4 of those are having problems. I know this is far too less for an average, but I guess it's a hint...

What I know for sure is, that in common, only people facing problems, would visit a troubleshooting message board. So I'm not suprised, that not very many people here don't have problems. So this doesn't reveal anything etiher.

Joe