Xbox 360 Black Ops II patch now live, all fixes detailed

 @Gen007  @Stillwind04 Agreed. I think the point is that your average joe, such as myself, doesn't always have a clear insight into the development process, so I appreciate insider knowledge such as yours.

I still believe that some developers are taking advantage of downloadable patches in order to fix their inability to spot bugs, whereas others do a damn fine job of ensuring a game is virtually bug free, e.g. MGS4 (at least, in my 14 playthroughs I never encountered a single one).

I am hopeful that in the future some new detection software, or whatnot, will be able to assist developers in spotting more bugs prior to release. Otherwise, future console games are going to prove a challenge.  

 @kavadias1981  @Gen007  @Stillwind04 Was a good back and forth we had there and i'm glad convince you or rather inform you + things stayed civil which isn't common on the internet. If i seem passionate it's because i am. I feel developers often unjustly get a bad rap when they really are talented hardworking people. Ive actually done some mild game work myself which is why i get worked up i guess. Its some of the hardest work i've ever done from a programming standpoint. I think it mostly comes from people not having an intimate knowledge of what goes into making the games they play. It's extremely easy to just be critical of the end product so i can understand.

 @Stonedwolfed It's okay. Gen007 already offered a very convincing argument which has made me rethink my stance on the issue. But thank you for your reply. 

 @kavadias1981 It's the size, inter-connectedness, and intricacy of programming that make programs destined to be bugged. Programmers (and more importantly computer scientists) have procedure for making error-free code or low-error code, for the likes of the nuclear industry and  ABS brakes. Either you must limit the size of code, meaning games can't be bigger than 8-bit C64/Spectrum games, or you need a lot of hardware to do containment checking (and who wants to dump half a million buying a games console?). You want games to *push* the hardware, right? To have better and more beautiful engines, larger and more complicated levels? That will be bugged. You want very, very simple Xbox Live Arcade quality games then the bug count will drop.

@Gen007 @Stillwind04 I believe your comment has changed my opinion. There aren't many people that can do that so kudos to you good sir.

 @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 Okay i'll respond to both of your post here. It's just not that simple to make bugs easily detectable and trust me they do everything they can to detect bugs from design practices the try to prevent bug and methods of testing things after the fact but at the end of the day there are too many possibilities to humanly test for.  When you are compiling code It's not uncommon for there to be no errors and have a program that runs fine but contains a fatal error that can be activated be something very trivial. For example a hypothetical, Say you have skyrim. Think of how massive the world is and everything that can possibly be done in that game. Say it was beta tested extensively and no probs were found. It ships but then later they find that some random person has  found a glitch that breaks the game when you step on a random rock in the middle of nowhere.  I mean there's literally not much you can do about from a programming standpoint . Its so random and probably one out of every 100,000 people that play the game is gonna run into this. How could they possibly know? They cant that's the answer what you are asking for is for humans to not be humans when you ask for bug free programs. Bugs have been around since the dawn of programming and there will only be much more once as things get more complex. You say that patch happy culture is something that just started but it isnt what has changed is how easy it is to deliver patches. games have always had glitches even the really early ones that you claim had none and i could point out examples if need be. Back then though games were left alone because to was no way to easily deliver a fix but there were plenty of bugs.

Also no one is assuming that everyone has an internet connection but (out on a limb here) i'm gonna say that most of their customers do and its the most reasonable way to deliver these unavoidable(key word) updates. It dosen't really matter actually because like i've said before the bugs cannot be eliminated permenantly. Its basically the better than nothing approach. Like i said i agree that releasing a game with a major game breaking bug is a no no. I also agree that maybe in some cases there are companies rely too much on patching a game after the release to fix problems but i will say that most of the time these are legit patches and fixes found after the fact. Lastly, id like to say people dont understand the game development cycle. A day 1 patch does not mean they knew about a problem before hand. What happens is that development finishes up on a game long before the release date even before the game has gone gold (if you dont know a game going gold means that the master copy was sent out for production) many times and these days they often move straight onto doing dlc and what not. So if they find problems after the fact and don't have time to integrate these fixes into the game before it goes gold than it becomes a day one patch. What many people also don't understand is that releasing a game is the ultimate bug finding test that can only be accomplished by well releasing a game. They could pay thousands of beta testers to search for bugs and it still wouldn't compare to what happens when a game is out in the wild and has millions of gamers exploring and exlpoiting every single inch of it. Bugs that they weren't aware of are bound to pop up.

 @Gen007  @Stillwind04 And for those people that do not have the means to download a patch? What about them? Is it okay that their copy of the game has bugs, big or small. It is unfair that they should pay full price for a game if this is the case. In fact, if so many games DO have these issues, then perhaps it's about time developers put warning labels on their packaging informing consumers that their games may have bugs and glitches due to the complexity of the game. Hey, if developers are releasing day 1 patches, then they know that these bugs and glitches exist. It is only fair that they inform consumers of their inability to finish a job properly. 

 @Stonedwolfed In that case, programmers need to find a way of ensuring that these bugs can be more easily detected. If it is this hard to detect bugs now, what about next gen? Programmers need to learn to adapt and find solutions to these problems. Not just say "oh, it's too hard to do a good job, so lets just give up and accept it". 

 @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 "People will appreciate simpler games" That's not true at all in fact people are demanding even more from  games and seriously i think your hugely underestimating what it take to make a full blown blockbuster quality game. I don't think the answer is to release broken games but you have to face reality. A game is not a book or a painting those can easily be finished as a game can not. I wasn't over exaggerating when said millions of lines of code. have you ever read a million line book ? okay for example skyrim has 46 millions lines of code just comprehend that for a sec. oh don't forget that code is only one pillar of a game. There's the Voice work. The story design, sound design, art design ect. Its actually funny that some people debate games as art when games are nothing but a combination of a bunch of art forms actually but on topic my point is that on top of all of that you have say 2 years with a game like COD to get all of that done. It's actually amazing they get it done at all and quite impressive i mean these are some of the most talented people on the planet when you really think about it. Dont forget the most important part money. Every day that goes by the project costs them more money. So yeah bugs are unavoidable. If the world ran on sunshine and happiness they could hold games forever but then they would take way longer than to come out than they do now and many companies would go bankrupt as a result. The best you can hope for in a real world situation is that they will actually take the time to do a patch and stick with the game after release and not just orphan it. Now if a game has a well know easily activated game breaking bug then fine that shouldn't be released but if it just has a few minor bugs i dont see the problem with releasing it which brings me to my last point. Sometimes they legit have no idea that the bug exists then what? I mean they aren't fortune tellers or anything so patches are a must.

 @kavadias1981  @Stonedwolfed But increase with code complexity. It used to be a game was written in 48 kb or so, so relatively few lines of code, often directly in assembler with low-res bitmap art .These days they are millions of lines of code - from C++/C# and routines to scripts with 3D BSP art, along with complicated compilers and libraries, sometimes incorporating several 3rd party libraries like Havoc and SpeedTree. As I said, IBM say 1 bug per 10K lines of code. Makes big difference if your game is a few tens thousands of line big, or several hundred thousand, or even several million.

 @DrizztDark  @Stonedwolfed  @airman20012001  @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 Drizz, seriously, get some help.

@Stonedwolfed @airman20012001 @kavadias1981 @Stillwind04 exactly.. So we should all be glad there is this thing called internet that gives us so much more pros for the video game world. Just get so tired of continuous bitching about what makes everything easier and possible to fix bugs/glitches. Instead there are fucktards like kavadias that bitch even tho they have a net connection...kid still deserves to get the teeth kicked in like a grub from gears. Get sum!

@Stonedwolfed when i was a kid, i didn't encounter a single bug in any of the games i played. I just can't accept that it has become the norm and that other people seem to think that it is ok to buy unfinished games.

 @kavadias1981  @Gen007  @Stillwind04 Like words of art no game is ever "finished", merely abandoned. 

You'll unlikely find any game of any complexity that is entirely bug free. 

 @airman20012001  @DrizztDark  @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 

That's not how development works. No code of this size is, or can be, bug-free. IBM has a ratio of "working" code to be one bug per 10,000 lines of code.

They could have frozen development and did nothing but bug-test with a full development team and huge staff of testers for a *decade* and never once have a code base that was bug free.

 @DrizztDark Clearly your parents didn't bring you up with the understanding that crime and violence aren't socially acceptable. You might want to discuss this with them. 

 @Killer6b9 It's a tricky place is a discussion forum, as misinterpretations can happen. But as you say, many people don't think first. If you explain it to them as if they were a 3 year old you can generally get your point across more effectively lol.    

 @kavadias1981 LOL your statement is funny!  Thanks for the laugh. People need to think before assuming, which I found out on here that most people do not. Everyone wants to add words to what I say and assume they know what I meant even though I put it in plain English....I have not thought about numbering out where they went wrong ....I may have to "borrow" your tactic with simple people.....

 @i_like_pie223  @kavadias1981  @Gen007  @Stillwind04

 Hey you feel like writing my english comp essay's lol

 @DrizztDark Calm down, Drizz. There is no need to get aggressive. 

 @Gen007  @Stillwind04 Do you believe that the solution then is to release unfinished work and just hope that a person has an internet connection? What about communities that still do not have an effective internet connection? Or those who cannot afford it? Or those who simply choose not to have it? Is it right that they have to play a buggy piece of software that they paid good money for?

Nobody would pay good money for a painting that was unfinished. Or a book with words missing. Even if the artist said that they would come over and finish it later. Why does the games industry think it's okay for them?

I respect that games might be harder to program these days, but if this is the case, then make them simpler. Don't try to do too much. People will appreciate a simple, quality piece of work, then a complex, shoddy one. 

 @DrizztDark  @airman20012001  @DrizztDark  @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 (rolls eyes)

 @DrizztDark It's as airman20012001 said. 

Plus your comment is one big misinterpretation and full of assumptions.

1. I have had an internet connection for... 6 years now. So no, I wasn't referring to myself. Did I say I was?

2. Why do you think "I can't have it, so no one should" is the typical view about most things these days?

3. I love new tech, I keep up to date with its development and happily evolve with it. When did I say I didn't?

4. I'm not your "bud".

@airman20012001 @DrizztDark @kavadias1981 @Stillwind04 or just get a net connect like everyone else

 @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04 I understand where you are coming from but as a programmer myself i can say patches are here to stay. The code that goes into todays game are extremely complex. Often at millions of lines of code and worst of all is that there are deadlines. Anyone who coded before knows first hand that things will go wrong in even small projects let alone a huge one like a game. Solving the problem is usually hard but so is just even finding the problem in the first place it can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Thats why they always tell beta testers when they find a bug to write down exactly what they did to make it happen. If They actually made sure the 110% of bugs were out of a game before it ship[ped well it would never ship.

 @DrizztDark  @kavadias1981  @Stillwind04

Your not getting his point.  He's saying develpers should finish the game before release instead of having a we'll fix it later mentality, which is a toatlly fair statement.

@kavadias1981 @Stillwind04 so your beef is basically I cant have it so nobody should... Typical view about most things nowadays... Sorry you don't have a online connection but if you can't evolve with tech nowadays you just get left behind. The way the world works and always has bud.

@shad40 cry some more