posted 03-15-99 06:40 PM ET     

I had assumed, naively, that all these problems would vanish with the retail version. I assumed that Firaxis had been sloppy with their demo, not a good idea in any event, but after all, you get what you pay for. I never imagined that much in the way of bugs (either gameplay logic glitches or system foul-ups) would find their way into the retail version. I have visited this Troubleshooting Forum regularly, and am dismayed to see that not only are there many dissatisfied customers, but that the version 2.0 patch that was put out failed to fix many customer complaints. People (myself included) seem to be waiting for a version 3.0 patch with the fervor that usually accompanies a messianic event. I imagine many of us (well, I'm speaking for myself, at least) wonder if version 3.0 will do it, or will patch versions 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 6.1 also be necessary. This is retail software, paid for in advance, not some freeware product that might arguably have some right to beta-test itself on its (nonpaying) users.

On the plus side, Firaxis has put up this forum, which encourages customers to voice their complaints, which besides relieving tension, is a useful way to gather bug reports on issues that obviously slipped past the playtesters and quality assurance. Incidentally, in the manual, Jeff Morris (Firaxis Games) is listed as Quality Assurance Director. As a bonus, high ranking Firaxis people respond to our troubleshooting woes, so at least we don't feel like we're being ignored. And, at least patches are coming out, much better than if Firaxis had washed its hands of us, and issued no fixes.

On the other hand... you know how people ask about when the 3.0 patch is coming out, and their posts are either ignored or answered with some variation of: "When it's bloody well ready!". Well, we wouldn't all be in this mess now if that "bloody well ready" attitude had been applied to the original SMAC release. Now, I can imagine the incredible pressure to meet release dates, honor distribution promises, and so forth, but if it is at the cost of releasing an incomplete product (especially one that could evolve into a classic), it's just not worth it -- or shouldn't be, anyway.

Probably, what ticks me off the most is the attitude that Firaxis people have been taking with the Terran.exe bug. I have the sneaking suspicion that lockups aren't happening to the majority of these people with all (or even most) of the other software products on their systems. To be told that it's their system settings, their bleeding edge graphic cards, their 3rd party faulty drivers, or that they must tweak their computers (play with hardware acceleration, download & install latest drivers, play with SMAC .ini file, adjust desktop resolution, paint themselves blue, sacrifice cuddly animals, eat pigeons, pray to Cthulu, etc.) is really awful. Again, it's not freeware, it's a retail game. It's supposed to be FUN right out of the box. You shouldn't require a Computer Engineering degree or be MCSE certified to derive pleasure from this game.

The claim that directx or third party drivers are at fault reminds me of an analogy: I buy a car in Northern Vermont. It's a brand new model, with lots of never seen before gadgets. It got rave reviews at all the car shows; it's a cool, new, "must have" item. I'm in heaven, but, as I drive it through a Vermont winter, I notice that it is beginning to rust at an alarming rate. I contact the car company, who by the way, has a state-of-the-art website with very responsive customer support. I am informed that the problem is not with the car, but with the winter conditions of Northern Vermont. All that ice and salt are going to corrode metal; it's a scientific fact. They recommend that to solve the problem, I should move someplace warm and dry, like Arizona...

Now let's be honest, QA missed a lot of gameplay-logic oriented bugs. In short, a sloppy job was done on what should otherwise have been a first rate gaming experience. Why then should we not assume that the dreaded Terran.exe and other lock-ups could have been avoided by a more "defensive" programming style, with more effort put into "bulletproofing" the code to make sure that some errant driver couldn't take it down, instead of labeling that somebody else's problem.

You might ask what I want. What is the point of this long tirade. No, I don't want you to help me get my saved game past a certain point. I don't want your advice on how I need to optimize my system settings for your specific product. My retail SMAC, bought for $63.00 at the local computer store, sits quietly on a shelf, awaiting whatever patch is required to make it play as advertised. What I want is a public apology to all those who have been put through this, for the time, effort, and money wasted. Some would say that not already having done so is a sign of arrogance or insecurity (probably almost the same thing, in any case). We're all just people here, so let's at least get that part right and do the honorable thing.

Thank you for at least allowing me the forum to express my views. I look forward to your reply.

posted 03-15-99 07:44 PM ET            

jkm

posted 03-16-99 12:39 AM ET         

I'm sure there are many gamers out there who are very grateful for your personal efforts in getting (or at least trying to get) SMAC to run on their machines. And I don't doubt that your personal efforts are genuine and well intentioned. But what I want, is a game that runs out of the box, from start to finish, without requiring your personal care. In five or ten years from now, when I'm trying to run SMAC from my Pentium-XII, will you still be here to hold my hand?

SMAC is a brilliant game design, but with all due respect, it has been a quality assurance nightmare for Firaxis, whether you're up to admitting it or not. Besides the system incompatibilities, there are also the many game-logic errors, and I'm not talking about AI. I'm talking about all the game errors where you wrote back: "Fixed in version 3.0". What I'm saying is that these errors should have been fixed in the original release. That is what playtesting and QA are for. The fact that so many issues slipped by quality assurance means (in my view) that quality assurance should be taken to task for its oversights. I still think that it would be quite appropriate for the director of QA at Firaxis to acknowledge blame and formally apologize on behalf of the company.

As a side note to those who claim to be unaffected. We are all hit by the errors in game logic. And the system incompatibilities hang over all of our heads, because they are as yet undefined. You may be okay with the hardware and system setting of today, but that leaves you no guarantee for tomorrow. QA should be everyone's problem. It is in the public interest for companies to be in the habit of producing reliable and effective products.

posted 03-16-99 03:52 AM ET            

I haven't been having any terran.exe problems at all. I've been playing the game for a week and a half now. So it's obvious that the problem is with CERTAIN system configurations. One can only hope that Firaxis is beginning to see a pattern emerge and can address what drivers and/or peripherals are causing the game to act unstable.

I AM having problems with errant multiplayer freezing but I think that's probably a network code issue, which I personally am pretty sure exists.

My 4 cents worth. (hey, it's in Canadian cents)

posted 03-16-99 04:50 AM ET            

Running a game that relies on a stable system will get you errors if your system isn't stable.

The other approach (Microsofts favourite, I think), is to force you to install 600MB of unwanted software, like their IE, effectively rebuilding your system from scratch. In the process you'll lose your beautifully crafted stable system setup.

Ever tried to install Visual C? It'll make sure it runs, sacrificing a lot of already installed software.

I favour the Firaxis approach and their support is outstanding.

These statements are backed by 10+ years of 1st and 2nd line support experience to end-users, developers and other support teams.

posted 03-17-99 09:52 AM ET            

It does run slowly but that is probably due to my machine being below spec.

I am running a cyrix 6x86 p120+ and thats the overclocked speed. The only thing I have done is to turn the music off. However that is no great hardship as I always do anyway.

posted 03-17-99 09:52 AM ET            

It does run slowly but that is probably due to my machine being below spec.

I am running a cyrix 6x86 p120+ and thats the overclocked speed. The only thing I have done is to turn the music off. However that is no great hardship as I always do anyway.

posted 03-17-99 05:13 PM ET            

See my (latest) post in the "Still crashing Terran.EXE - Need Help" thread.

People who are experiencing a crash only later in the game, are probably experiencing the problem which has been corrected for version 3.0. Version 3.0 is still being tested, but if someone who is actually having crash problems e-mails me I'll e-mail a temporary version right away to try to get them around it.

Other users are experiencing various hardware configuration issues, which we can usually help you troubleshoot on a step-by-step basis. This is definitely not ideal, of course--we don't want anybody to have these problems, but we're doing our best. Believe me, we didn't release SMAC until there were NO problems like this on any of our many test systems.

But of course there are many more combinations of motherboard, CPU, video card, etc possible than we could conceivably individually test on, so in spite of our very best efforts some configuration issues obviously remained, for which we sincerely apologize.

Many apologies for any inconvenience! If you are having problems we will do everything in our power to help.

posted 03-18-99 01:22 AM ET            

(2) Harvey, I think you're right. As I posted last night, my only hangs have coincided with Librarian level, and my only page fault with Thinker level.

(3) Brian, why do we need 100 MB of swap space? That's an awful lot. Nothing I know has ever needed anywhere near so much virtual memory. There's just not enough happening in SMAC to justify it. So, I wonder, does that highly optimising graphics software you licensed, overuse the old method of trading space for time? Perhaps the hard word is that it falls short in both dimensions?

(4) I agree with the poster who said that beta testing and QA overlooked some glaring major logic errors, to which I'd add some obvious interface issues. These have been listed to death, so my question is: did the QA contractor and beta testers pay sufficient attention to their real task (not having fun, but finding defects)? Or were their briefs too restrictive?

If a tester said to Firaxis, ``It's a waste of time when the base window pops up over the unit window only to disappear again.'', and ``Why doesn't the unit window remember where you were a moment ago?'', and ``Why does SMAC tell me to make my Probes amphibious to attack an offshore sea base, but the Unit window won't allow that choice?'', were their concerns heeded?

These are situations that players face all game, every game, so it's inconceivable that any observant tester would miss them. In fact, surely Firaxis must have seen them during inhouse playtesting?

The crash due to AI units appearing on the maps edge (an uncontrollable phenomenon) sounds like an off-by-one error in a range check. Surely that's also happened to players at Firaxis?

Maybe the development of SMAC was a case of so many distractions (it being a large project), that many concerns fell off the bottom of the TODO list?

To correct occasional oversights like this, you do read each other's code, right?

Incidentally, I'm curious what house rules Firaxis has for input validation, modularisation, class inheritance, and reusable code?

posted 03-27-99 07:35 PM ET            

I have owned SMAC for about two months now and I have not encountered one crash yet. I think that this is an outstanding game with MANY different options and variables. This is why there are a few moving errors with the units.

And as far as releasing a game which you can play perfectly from start to finish, such a game does not exist. I think you will say that many games have come close; but think about it, how many strategy games have as much automation as SMAC? And also (though I am not a computer programmer) I think it is amazing that they had the forethought to keep the game code open enough to add features like hotseat to gameplay after the initial game is released without screwing everything else up.

I can agree with you on one point though, you stated that:

"As a bonus, high ranking Firaxis people respond to our troubleshooting woes, so at least we don't feel like we're being ignored."

Although this statement sounds at least slightly negative, I believe that it is a true one. Although I have created only two threads, Jeff has responded to both of them. I think this is pretty damn good if you ask me. Also, try finding an official site where users can voice their opinions on Sim City 3000 and give bug reports -- you won't find one.

As far as not releasing the game until ALL bugs were fixed, I would like to know what your reaction would have been if they had postponed release for another month or two. I think that you would have been whining just as you are now. I personally think that FIRAXIS did know about at least a few of the bugs before they released it. And that's fine. As long as they were going to make a patch (and they obviously have) they need to get there product out to market some time.

posted 03-29-99 08:58 AM ET         

"Testing (or use) doesn't prove the absence of bugs, only the existance" -- Djikstra (words in parentheses are mine ).