Development Info Lionheart patch in the works

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Eric Dallaire; Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader; Reflexive Entertainment

<b>Eric "SPECIAL ED" Dallaire</b> has made a <A href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.php?t=27388">sticky post</a> on the <A href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewforum.php?f=26">Lionheart forums</a> about a patch in the works for.. Well.. <a href="Http://lionheart.blackisle.com">Lionheart</a>. Apparently, the patch is already in QA with <A href="Http://www.interplay.com">Interplay</a> already, but here's the info:
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<blockquote>We know that many of you have been waiting to hear word about a patch for Lionheart. We're happy to announce that there is currently a patch in Interplay's Quality Assurance testing right now.
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The patch fixes several bugs and also adds a performance feature that we agreed would help out people that were having difficulties with the game.
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Here is a list of the patch fixes:
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1) Optimizations to the size and frequency of network packets. This will help low bandwidth connections such as 56k modems.
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2) Increased the timeout time for non-guaranteed data so more of it gets a chance to make it to the client on a slow modem.
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3) Faster 3D rendering. This generally speeds up the game when there are numerous characters on screen. This doesn't mean that characters have been sped up, it means that machines that saw dips in framerate during scenes with many characters should see an improvement with the patch.
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4) Fixed rendering error that occurred in some loaded saved games with dragons.
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5) A Speed Slider has been added that allows the user to select the speed that the game plays out between ranges of 70% to 100%. It is accessed by hitting the escape button. There is a slider in the middle of the small menu that allows speeds to be switched.
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The speed slider will slow down all creatures and characters alike, however, some gameplay elements will occur at normal speed. For example, sound files will play at normal speed, regardless of what speed the animations or combat are set to. This implementation should help those players that want to play the game in a less frantic mode. Current tests show that at 70% reduction, there is very little to no loss of sync with battle sounds and ambient, but at slower reductions, it becomes very noticeable.
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In conclusion, some of you have asked whether Lionheart will be supported post release. We want all of you to know that Reflexive does care about this product very much and we have listened to the comments on this board. We won't be able to address every issue that is brought up, but we will do what we can to make sure that Lionheart is a fun and engaging game for as many people as possible.
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Reflexive will continue to monitor the boards and read your posts. Should any additional patches become necessary, we will post a notice on these boards.
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Thanks for your support and patience.</blockquote>
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So, there you have it, <a href="Http://www.reflexive.net">Reflexive</a> is still working on the game.
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[chrisbeddoes]

5) A Speed Slider has been added that allows the user to select the speed that the game plays out between ranges of 70% to 100%. It is accessed by hitting the escape button. There is a slider in the middle of the small menu that allows speeds to be switched.

That is very good .
Now non melee characters will be more "survivable"

 

[Seven]

5) A Speed Slider has been added that allows the user to select the speed that the game plays out between ranges of 70% to 100%. It is accessed by hitting the escape button. There is a slider in the middle of the small menu that allows speeds to be switched.

That is very good .
Now non melee characters will be more "survivable"

I doubt it, the slider probably doesn't slow down baddies (relatively speaking), and it probably doesn't speed up the rate at which magic can be cast (relatively speaking), so the only thing that it'll help you do is target. BUT, targetting could have been easier if they had allowed a way to adjust the mouse sensativity within the game. Ever notice how sometimes you have to double or triple click on an enemy?

 

[Spazmo]

They should drop the percentages and label the speed options "fast:, "medium", "slow" and "bullet tiem!!!!11"

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Anyone read that patch thread? It's pretty funny.

Increase the Spiritual Knight's range of sight.

In my last battle against the Old Man I summoned the knight right next to him while I was attacking with arrows from a distance... and he walked right over and stood behind me the entire fight. Seems rather ridiculous that would happen, since regular companions react to enemies far beyond even your sight.

Nice way to make a spell useless, isn't it? :D

No potions! Omg, I have 180 hp and i must heal 5 hp per spell cast which costs me 10 mana. It takes ages to be fully healthy. When at last i'm fully healthy, I lose my 3/4 hp to kill 5 undeads. :/ U should implement amounts of healing potions as in Diablo or Dungeon Siege acRPGs. In Lionheart there are 3 or 5 potions per enter to the city

Speaking of useless spells!

Look to the sequal those of you who want massive changes.

Ummm.. Yeah, the way this game is getting panned and flamed, I'd be willing to bet no sequel is coming.

Even if there is, I doubt it sells as well as the first one just because of the anger.

Dont missunderstand me im a really great blackisle fan..ive buyed and played almost every single rpg based game of BIsle..but there is something very dissapointing in this game but it is not just the speed i dont know, but i think i was waiting something very very special and my heart is broken now. almost 50$ for a broken heart and the so many months.

Okay, I just added this because I wanted to point out what kind of idiots out there are BIS fans. Even they're pissed, though.

Also, disable insane spamming of "Gather your party" at area edges. For some reason it lags the entire game for everyone while a person's doing this.

Hah, and several people replied to complain about this glitch as well.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

hey

It looks like their not working on solving some of the ingame serious bugs, more of performance issues.

 

[Seven]

Re: hey

It looks like their not working on solving some of the ingame serious bugs, more of performance issues.

The patch is already in QA, so expect another patch. However, what's more disturbing is the fact that they would have had to begin (in all likely-hood) working on this first patch prior to release. EEEEEK, they purposely released a buggy product, nothing new; they expect us to sit by patiently and calmly, nothing new; they're bastards, nothing new. :evil:

 

[Spazmo]

That's ridiculous. They say a product is never finished, only shipped. It's only natural for them to have a few things to fix up after gold. In fact, Blizzard, the supreme lords of delaying games just a little bit more to finish them just right will always release a patch between gold and when the game hits shelves just to clear up any remaining niggling issues.

 

[Voss]

Thats a little too forgiving for my blood, Spazmo.

It isn't 'only natural', its just become accepted by consumers, because 'everyone does it.'
Feh.
Almost any other industry, and people's heads would be on spikes outside of business offices in order to placate the bloodthirsty mobs.

 

[Volourn]

All industries are different. I think it's kinda funny to sat "well... in this industry..." That's all well, and good; but this is the gaming industry, and at least for now; patching is expected; if not outright accepted.

 

[Voss]

Expected doesn't make it OK.
The idea that they could try to make a game perfect* out of the box, but fuck it, just patch it later, is frankly offensive.
Internet downloads have made people lazy- who remembers the old days when it was practically impossible to get a patch, so the games had to work?

*perfect as in no bugs, crashes etc... tweaking for balance issues is another subject

 

[Spazmo]

Well, Voss, consider this.

What I'm asaying is an acceptable practice is having the patch that fixes a few niggling things as soon as the game is on shelves. There's quite a bit of time betweena game going gold and it hitting shelves, and good devs use that for bug-quashing or resolving that last niggling design issue (Do we allow X race to use Y item or Z spell?). Release now and patch later isn't good. Gold now and patch before it's released is okay.

 

[Voss]

I'd rather they waited on the gold and released in good shape.
But I see what you're saying... and I remember kerfuffle over the delay on the Moo3 patch.
And some games are never fixed... PoR 2 comes to mind.

 

[Seven]

That's ridiculous. They say a product is never finished, only shipped. .

That statement rings so true for Lionheart. 25 hours of gameplay, phhf; buggy as hell; shipped with known bugs even after months of delay; lackluster RPG elements and helper dialogue cues for the intellectually impaired.

The question with Lionheart is not about a good game which could have been better (ie. product is never finished, only shipped); it's about a short-buggy-twitch-based-combat-system of a game that was shipped with gameplay, fun and loyalty to customers thrown in as an after thought.

 

[Psilon]

They added customer loyalty? Not in the boxes I saw at EB. I just saw the shipment with extra crappy spinoff.

 

[Leg of Lamb]

Please consider...

Critics of the software industry should realize that programmers are forced to create products for an infinite array of hardware configurations operating with an infinite array of operating system configurations. In fact, the basic operating systems themselves are absurdly buggy. It is patently impossible to create a program that does what you want 100% of the time, no matter how much time you spend on Q&A.

Consider:
- Direct X keeps changing
- Drivers keep changing
- Engines are constantly in development
- Bill Gates is the Devil

Stop to think about the complexity level of the operations being performed on your computer. The simple act of typing involves platoons of magnetic memory locations turning off and on like some obscenely complex Turian machine. Every order of complexity beyond that introduces the possibility of errors into the system. Also consider that the programmers are only able to work within the area of their own influence. If there is a flaw in Direct X, a game programmer can only work around it.

One could debug a program as complicated as a computer game for 20 years and never finish. There would always be one last niggling quirk to be worked out. Of course, that doesn't mean that a product shouldn't be as stable and bug free as possible, but ranting about post-release patching is absurd.

Even games for platforms like the XBox ship with bugs (ahem... KOTOR), and the programmers for platform games have the advantage of defined architectures.

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

There's some truth in that, but there's a difference between a game crashing on 0.1% of system configurations and one that crashes on 60%.

I'd hardly place the first blame on the developer though. From what I've seen and been told, it's the publisher that is, more often, the culprit when it comes to games going out the door before they're 'finished'.

I also think you dramatize the situation somewhat, lamb. True, computers might be complex, but the use of intermediary applications/languages keeps people from having to work in binary or machine language. I can make a very simple and stable game in html using just notepad without having to worry about getting becoming an EE

 

[Jed]

That statement rings so true for Lionheart. 25 hours of gameplay, phhf; buggy as hell; shipped with known bugs even after months of delay; lackluster RPG elements and helper dialogue cues for the intellectually impaired.

Around these parts, we like to call those moron indicators.

 

[Seven]

Re: Please consider...

Critics of the software industry should realize that programmers are forced to create products for an infinite array of hardware configurations operating with an infinite array of operating system configurations. In fact, the basic operating systems themselves are absurdly buggy. It is patently impossible to create a program that does what you want 100% of the time, no matter how much time you spend on Q&A.

Consider:
- Direct X keeps changing
- Drivers keep changing
- Engines are constantly in development
- Bill Gates is the Devil

Stop to think about the complexity level of the operations being performed on your computer. The simple act of typing involves platoons of magnetic memory locations turning off and on like some obscenely complex Turian machine. Every order of complexity beyond that introduces the possibility of errors into the system. Also consider that the programmers are only able to work within the area of their own influence. If there is a flaw in Direct X, a game programmer can only work around it.

One could debug a program as complicated as a computer game for 20 years and never finish. There would always be one last niggling quirk to be worked out. Of course, that doesn't mean that a product shouldn't be as stable and bug free as possible, but ranting about post-release patching is absurd.

Even games for platforms like the XBox ship with bugs (ahem... KOTOR), and the programmers for platform games have the advantage of defined architectures.

I don't think any one expects a program to be bug free. But I take issue with many of the bugs and a patch which is already in QA for Lionheart for several reasons. Firstly, the game was delayed. This in itself is a big thing. When a product is delayed you expect improvement (BTW, if this is an improvement over what they had then look out because the think tank missed their mark on this one). Also the delay wa related to what *they* characterized as crappy combat conversion to RT; I gots news pa, they missed their mark again.
On to the post patch that was probably in production prior to shipping. Well, they had to have known about these bugs before going gold (this is the only explanation for it's expediency. You can't get a patch into QA so soon that addresses all of the problems they listed unless they realized that they couldn't make their dead line and said to hell with it we'll just release a post patch. It's this attitude which I'm against, but if you're for it then by all means spend your hard earned money as you wish).
Also given the lenght of the game they should have been able to release a better product. 24-28 hours at most; gameplay should have been much better. BTW, if you've read any previews/been on the BIS boards then you should know that we were promised a lot and this game just didn't deliver, so excuse me if I rant, but I believe I earned that right when I shelled out my $60 for a piece of shiy which ate up 26 hours of my my.


EDIT: also NO PRERELEASE COPIES OF THE GAME WERE GIVEN TO REVIEWERS. Hmmmm, I wonder why they did this?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: Please consider...

Critics of the software industry should realize that programmers are forced to create products for an infinite array of hardware configurations operating with an infinite array of operating system configurations. In fact, the basic operating systems themselves are absurdly buggy. It is patently impossible to create a program that does what you want 100% of the time, no matter how much time you spend on Q&A.

Actually, that'd be QA, which means quality assurance. Q&A means Questions and Answers, something totally different.

Consider:
- Direct X keeps changing

Yet still has the legacy functions in it. You can still code up a DirectX 2.0 game with the DirectX 9 SDK. I'm not really sure what your point is by saying progressive versions of DirectX makes a lick of difference here.

Furthermore, DirectX may be continually developed, but it takes a long, long time between versions.

- Drivers keep changing

Yes, they do. However, the reason you have APIs like DirectX, OpenGL, SDL, etc. is so you don't have to code for drivers, you just code for the API and it handles what it should for the drivers in question. At least, that's the theory. Sure, you can directly access the drivers and do funky things, but that's where you're going to run in to problems.

- Engines are constantly in development

Uhhh.. What? There shouldn't need to be much engine work done after the game is released.

- Bill Gates is the Devil

Granted, but this is mainly because of the opposite of what you were saying. MicroSoft updates things like crazy when they still have competition in an area. How many years was Windows 3.0 out before Windows 3.1 came out? Not until OS/2 Warp popped up. How many versions of IE have been released since MS won the browser war? One? How often is a new version of DirectX released now that OpenGL isn't used as much?

Stop to think about the complexity level of the operations being performed on your computer. The simple act of typing involves platoons of magnetic memory locations turning off and on like some obscenely complex Turian machine.

Magnetic?

Every order of complexity beyond that introduces the possibility of errors into the system. Also consider that the programmers are only able to work within the area of their own influence. If there is a flaw in Direct X, a game programmer can only work around it.

Luckily for the programmer, DirectX is filled with legacy code, as I pointed out. If there's a flaw in DirectSound version Y, just use DirectSound version X, because DirectX Z has both versions of DirectSound in it.

One could debug a program as complicated as a computer game for 20 years and never finish. There would always be one last niggling quirk to be worked out. Of course, that doesn't mean that a product shouldn't be as stable and bug free as possible, but ranting about post-release patching is absurd.

No, what's absurd is buying in to the notion that you can't write sound software and that games are senselessly complex compared to things like a spreadsheet, a CAD, or any other type of large software.

Even games for platforms like the XBox ship with bugs (ahem... KOTOR), and the programmers for platform games have the advantage of defined architectures.

And that should tell you something right there.

 

[Psilon]

Re: Please consider...

Stop to think about the complexity level of the operations being performed on your computer. The simple act of typing involves platoons of magnetic memory locations turning off and on like some obscenely complex Turian machine.

First, it's called a Turing machine. Given that Turing machines have very, very few legal instructions, any Turing machine more complicated than "is this number divisible by three" is going to have an obscenely complex state graph. Furthermore, the Turing machine is a purely theoretical construct; it's pretty simple by itself. I'm sure any physical implementation of one would be nice and complicated due to the whole "infinite tape" thing, but that's your problem.

Second, typing doesn't really do much by itself. All it does is cause a few transistors in your keyboard to wake up a portion of the CPU.

Only really horrible systems need to page out in order to add one more character to the screen. That's the only time magnetism shows up--regular memory is based off capacitance.

Every order of complexity beyond that introduces the possibility of errors into the system. Also consider that the programmers are only able to work within the area of their own influence. If there is a flaw in Direct X, a game programmer can only work around it.

By, say, using a later version of DirectX? Most of the really gaping issues have been fixed by this point. That's a big reason why Microsoft is slowing down DirectX development. There's also, as Saint said, the fact that the market has now settled; you have your OpenGL camp, your SDL camp, and your DirectX camp. There aren't many independents.

Besides, what about the infamous Pentium F00F bug? OS programmers could only work around it. Broken shell functions? Work around them. If you choose to work at a given level of abstraction, in this case C++ for Win32 applications, you generally don't have the power to fix flaws at lower-level functions.

One could debug a program as complicated as a computer game for 20 years and never finish. There would always be one last niggling quirk to be worked out. Of course, that doesn't mean that a product shouldn't be as stable and bug free as possible, but ranting about post-release patching is absurd.

My ass. Most of the glitches found in today's games are stuff the QA team should have found before declaring gold. It's the kind of thing players detect almost instantly. Post-release patches should be for one of two reasons. New OS/hardware compatibility (e.g., making a 9x game run on 2000/XP), or game balance (e.g., cheat prevention or item nerfing). Network optimization is OK as well.

Even games for platforms like the XBox ship with bugs (ahem... KOTOR), and the programmers for platform games have the advantage of defined architectures.

Really. The XBox. What is essentially a Windows PC with controllers and no Internet Explorer. Of course it's going to be buggy whenever everything runs in kernel mode.

You want to see console QA (not Q&A) done right? Look at Nintendo. I've never had a GBA or GameCube game crash on me. My saves never get corrupted, and I can even use a Game Boy Player without issue. And that's on a platform where patching is impossible; I'm not even sure if you can update the 'Cube's BIOS.

 

[Leg of Lamb]

Well, yes

Yes, I managed to flub that up. It's tough to make a point when you're an idiot.

The one that actually stings is "Turian." I spent way too much time on stupid Turing machines in CS theory to make that particular mistake.

However, this doesn't change the fact that these poor gaming programmers must wade through piles of extremely complex code. I know I sure as hell wouldn't want to do it.

I think I've managed to reach a blue screen from every application on my computer. I have never, ever seen a bug free program on a Microsoft based operating system. Even spreadsheet programs give off plumes of smoke from time to time.

Yeah, Nintendo is crash free. This would be fantastic if they put out games I wanted to play.

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

Re: Please consider...

Most of the glitches found in today's games are stuff the QA team should have found before declaring gold. It's the kind of thing players detect almost instantly. Post-release patches should be for one of two reasons. New OS/hardware compatibility (e.g., making a 9x game run on 2000/XP), or game balance (e.g., cheat prevention or item nerfing). Network optimization is OK as well.

Who's to say they didn't? I've been in betas where people have been practically screaming for the devs to fix something, but they can't due to the time considerations imposed on them.

 

[EEVIAC]

I don't think people want games that are perfect - we want games that are stable. If there are a few issues that need to be optimized or abberations that need to be resolved with a patch, that's ok. To go looking for a patch on the same day you bought and installed the game is not acceptable.

Recently I was playing Diablo II and the game hung as I was entering a new area. I alt-tabbed out, noticed some exception error, closed the error box, then went back into the game and played for another hour, amazed that it was so stable. Why should I be amazed?

The problem I see with the declining standard of out-of-the-box quality is that devs are using the self-same "we don't have enough time/money" excuse for other game features.

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

I like Blizzard. I think they've done some fantastic work: even though I'm not a huge RTS fan(and the capacity I do have for them has been waning since Starcraft) and their cutscenes are pretty well unequalled (I keep thinking of the brood-war one with the firebat pointing to the mother ship, or the one in diablo II @ hellforge (damn good voice acting in that too)).

That being said, I don't think they're the same company now that they were a year ago. I'll be interested in seeing their next release and how it compares to their previous ones: I'm thinking it won't be so well received.