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this Aliens : CM ini file bug is the kind of glorious story that gives everyone the chance to confirm whatever strong feelings they had about game development they had before they heard it.Permalink Look on archive.org
❤️ 22 Favorites Mood +8 🙂
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(backstory : a single character typo in an ini file for Aliens: Colonial Marines meant that a lot of the AI behaviours for the Alien never triggered. This was recently discovered by a modder, years after release)Look on archive.org
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is the root cause: -lazy devs -not verifying configuration files -a lack of automated testing -tiredness caused by crunch -a lack of slack in the schedule -under-resourcing of QA -brought on by a strategic choice to use Unreal -that making videogames is just very difficultPermalink Look on archive.org
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the bit that's actually annoying is the bit where people keep saying fixing this "fixed an awful game". the game was objectively bad before, now it is all fine. how silly of the devs not to have found this themselves! if only they knew a single character was all it took.Permalink Look on archive.org
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thinking further on this: we *just* shipped a game where it would be possible to break it by typoing something in a spreadsheet. there are tests, but there are ways this stuff could get round them. (until we're woken up by errors - this is a server-based game)Permalink Look on archive.org
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would it be nice to make the tests bulletproof? yes. would it be a good use of time? probably! did we find time in the schedule to do it? no.Permalink Look on archive.org