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News Ubisoft working on 'permanent solution' to The Division woes

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 4 May 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. SexyHyde

    SexyHyde Minimodder

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    I didn't buy the game, #winning. Ubisoft have me excited for their games, but all the issues they seem to have means I can quite happily live without them once released.
     
  3. Locknload

    Locknload Jolly Good Egg

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    Little chance of a successful outcome for frustrated gamer's really.
    Ubisoft....pfft.
     
  4. DrTiCool

    DrTiCool Minimodder

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    I miss those good old days set in nineties of last century when you bought a game on any platform and it worked from start to finish, bugs were so rare that made you just lol.
    Nowadays. No dedication. Just dirty business.
     
  5. Alecto

    Alecto Minimodder

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    Not sure whether 'permanent solution' is going to cut it for Ubisoft.

    I would prefer to see 'final solution' for them.
     
  6. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yeah... I think we might have experienced a different '90s, personally. Bugs have been a thing for as long as computer programs have been a thing. When games were simpler, the bugs were easier to catch prior to release; the more complex games become, the more difficult the bugs are to find and excise - and the more bugs there are. Let's say there is an average of one bug per 1,000 lines of code - a number I've pulled out of you-know-where for illustrative purposes. Which game is going to have more bugs, 1K Chess for the ZX81 or GTA V - assuming equal levels of care and skill on the part of the programmers?

    Anyone remember Jet Set Willy? One of the most popular games of the 80s, the follow-up to the equally popular Manic Miner? There was a screen where the titular Willy would die within seconds of entry. The publisher initially tried to pass it off as a feature: the room was "filled with poison gas," it claimed. No, it was a coding error. As there wasn't really such a thing as patches in those days¹ thanks to a lack of a universal distribution mechanism and the read-only nature of copy-protected cassette tapes, the 'fix' came as a bunch of POKE instructions printed in magazines that you had to type by hand to modify the game prior to running it.

    Bugs aren't new, and releasing games with bugs isn't new. Once fixed, however, it's a heck of a lot easier to distribute said fix to users - which may, possibly, influence companies into going Gold Master on code that isn't quite there yet in the hopes that they can fix the show-stoppers between GM pressing (or whatever you call the same part of the process for digital distribution) and release with a day-one patch.

    ¹: Fun fact, here: the term "patch" when referring to the modification of a computer program to fix a bug dates back to the days of punch-card entry systems. In these the 0s and 1s of the program were represented by holes or the absence of holes; if your mistake meant you had to add more holes you could just punch 'em, but if you had to remove an existing hole you would place a small adhesive patch over the top. Hence 'patch.' Other terms of computing antiquity in use today include: "core dump," referring to magnetic core memory; "bug," which was popularised by the discovery of an actual physical moth in the vacuum tubes of an early US Navy computer system maintained by computing pioneer Grace Hopper, though its use to refer to glitches in mechanical systems predates that by a hundred years or so; "computer" itself dates back to the early 1600s but referred to human staff who would perform computation; "terminal" and "console," for the command-line interface fans, both originally referred to physical dumb machines connected to a timesharing mainframe system, and for the *NIX buffs "TTY" stands for TeleTYpe - basically an electric typewriter which acted as the earliest terminals in lieu of affordable and readable bitmap monitors, printing the computer's output onto paper (very loudly) and accepting input on its keys.
     
    Last edited: 5 May 2016
  7. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    The difference is the growth of internet access since the 90's and bugs are announced far and wide; and that there are plenty of knee-jerk sad-sacks who blow things out of proportion and trash games with known bugs without ever actually playing them, just because they read it on a forum.

    I first got internet access in the early 90's and it was quite some time before things developed to the point where games websites and gaming forums were widespread.
     
    Last edited: 5 May 2016
  8. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    hehe Jet Set Willy. It worked so well you couldn't complete it as the end level was broken or something. Ahh, those were the days. Playing Football Manager for ten hours straight then getting D Break CONT REPEAT or whatever it was.
     
  9. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I'm going to say the 1K Chess for the ZX81, did i win a cookie. ;)
     
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Another fun fact: 1K ZX Chess, written by David Horne, used 672 bytes of memory and was until 2015 the smallest functional game of computer chess - holding the record for 33 years. It has since been surpassed by BootChess, which takes just 468 bytes and includes a game feature missing from 1K ZX Chess.
     
  11. Hex

    Hex Paul?! Super Moderator

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    My problem with it is; it's becoming the norm for Ubisoft to release broken games and break things even more with patches. I lost most of my faith when the answer to the patch-introduced issues in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was "wait until next year, Assassin's Creed: Revelations might fix it". That's not an acceptable answer, Ubisoft. They also didn't fix anything. It had the same issues. Then there was Unity and I was really quit pleased I'd stopped paying for their games.

    Because of my links to ACB I do get gifted their games fairly often. So I still get to play them, but I can't think of one where I'd have been happy if my own money had been used. The Division was fine for me to solo 1-30, but honestly I haven't even started it up to grab free gear from the chests or do any dailies since. I collected all the things, took in the environment, listened to all the phone calls but... the DZ is just so broken I don't find that area fun. There's nothing to keep me playing. There were enough glitches and bugs just playing solo without getting into all the co-op/DZ specific issues.

    I've got an awful feeling they're going to balls up For Hono(u)r as well and I'll be very sad indeed :(
     
  12. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    It's actually far more widespread than that. Pretty much every PC game is released broken now and fixed after the fact. UBI are no worse (or better) than any other of these companies tbh.
     
  13. Hex

    Hex Paul?! Super Moderator

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    I agree it is widespread, but "oh that game's been Ubisofted" is a thing now... It just seems to happen with every single game they release. Also Ubisoft don't just break their PC ports. The console versions are also bug-ridden messes.

    I think what riles me the most with Ubisoft though is their attitude is quite patronising and "hehe yeah, whatever *pat* *pat*"or "well the sequel game comes out in 12 months, just buy that one". Whereas Bungie (who let's not forget Ubi thought using marketing materials trashing them/Destiny would be a good idea pre-launch of their buggy game) have messed up with patches quite a few times but their online presence is more "we tried guys, really sorry, we've put out a fix, we're learning!" Which I find a lot easier to accept.
     
  14. wolfticket

    wolfticket Downwind from the bloodhounds

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    Yep, I never spent ages in the 90's looking for patch 9.7.8.1 as it was a requirement for updating the boxed edition to 9.9.8.7, because out of the box the game was a buggy mess without it.

    [​IMG]
     

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