Game News Alpha Protocol Patch 1.10 Released

[Sceptic]

Yeah, I probably overplayed bugginess there, but mission progress-destroying bugs are the most serious bugs to my mind, and they never work well together with a savepoint-based save system.

The savepoint system is abominable, TBH. Then again I have this reaction at any save system that doesn't let me save at any single instant I want in a game made post-1990 (the only game I let away with this is Prince of Persia 2, because it's that awesome), bugs or no bugs. AP loses an extra point there for not letting you name your saves in any way (then again this seems to have become the new standard), so have fun trying to find out what each save is for when you look at them all a week later.

You're claiming I somehow should've seen it coming that the game would bug out and destroy mission progress and make hard saves for every save point just because...uh...

You're kidding right? Because this is what we've been doing with every game we play for the past 25 years or so?

I agree with criticizing devs for having mission-breaking bugs, but frankly if you're still going through a game on one save in the year 2010 I find it hard not to laugh. No, the fact that it's been present for so long doesn't excuse it, but really, saving to multiple positions became second nature to me decades ago (and at least now I no longer have to go back to DOS and back up the saves manually... the joys of single-save games) so I find it hard to believe some people still don't do it.

That is really invalid attempt to dismiss criticism.

Criticism of the bug itself? no, then again the worst bug I got in the game was a mission debriefing saying I was detected when I was in fact not (and then this had no effect anyway). I won't use this card, as claiming a game is bugfree because I didn't have any problems is kinda lame. Criticism of why you need to keep any manual saves? see above.

That said, I do find it odd that I never got some of the bugs you describe. Things like mouse sensitivity, crashes and so on are obviously very hardware-dependent, but getting stuck in scenery, falling through the level and so on are bugs I'd expect everyone to encounter. I never had a single problem like this. By contrast, the "getting stuck" bug is one I had over a dozen times in ME2 (requiring a reload every time of course). How often did this kind of thing actually happen? are we talking 2-3 times for an entire playthrough, or one every other mission? (I can see why the latter would make you rage at the game)

 

[Brother None]

You're kidding right? Because this is what we've been doing with every game we play for the past 25 years or so?

Edit for wordiness: if I had only one save and was complaining about that you might have a point. However, the problem here is that I had to go back to the safehouse because no, I didn't have any hardsaves in the mission. I'm sorry that doesn't live up to your arbitrary expectations on gaming but guess what, even if I did consider those standards personally relevant (I don't. I make hardsaves, but not all the time because I have to expect savegame-destroying bugs at any moment), I can't as a reviewer pretend everyone in the world can live up to Sceptic's gaming standards.

But by all means, call it laughable some more. You might convince yourself at some point.

How often did this kind of thing actually happen?

Bugs causing me to do an entire savepoint segment again about half a dozen times, having to go back to the safehouse once. That's six and one time too much, rough guesstimate.

Never got stuck in the terrain in ME2. Come to think of it, didn't have any bugs in ME2.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, it's not like you need the patch. The game works just fine without it.

"I lucked out and didn't run into many bugs so I'll pretend that means this game is bugfree for everyone"

On the other hand, one of my buds still can't get it too start.

Why do discussions on bugs always dissolve into retarded "yeah, well, I didn't run into any bugs" contributions. As if that means shit. It doesn't.

Of course it does, it's a discussion about a patch that supposedly fixes bugs, but creates new ones. If we only have the ZOMG UNPLAYABLE comments, it might look like everyone absolutely needs this patch and will just have to cope with the new problems, when actually there are people that can play the game just fine as is. I can also help because people can compare notes and maybe find what causes / avoids a bug.

It's only useless if the discussion was something along the lines of "What are the worst bugs in the game?".

 

[Sceptic]

Good god man. Chill out a bit. I was actually trying to not make it sound like a personal attack, guess I failed at that.

That's right, just assume your arbitrary behavioral standards are used by everyone. This is flimsy

Arbitrary and flimsy? if you follow them, you never have a problem with corrupt saves. That's about as far from arbitrary/flimsy and as close to a practical solution as I can think of.

it's obvious from the fact that you felt the need to say how laughable you think it is three or so times

You mean once? come on man, I was seriously not trying to troll you or rile you up. If you found my wording offensive, then I apologize.

Players shouldn't be forced to hardsave constantly if they don't feel like it, nor does the ability to hardsave excuse a bug.

The second point I already agreed with in the previous post (as well as in other unrelated threads), but to prove my intentions I'll agree with it again here. First one: no, players shouldn't be forced to save constantly to avoid bugs. The REAL solution would be to never ever have corrupt saves in the first place... have fun trying to bring that about. There's a reason my "save first, look for bugs later" approach isn't arbitrary: bugs have been around forever, and harsaves to separate slots are the best solution we have against them so far. So, use hardsaves... then you can slam Obsidian about bugs and corrupt saves in the review without actually having had to replay an entire mission as a result

Now, more seriously, two small points: first, my very initial reaction was because the passage VoD quoted did make it seem as if you didn't even know the harsaves were there, though feel free to blame it on my reading comprehension. Second one is back to criticism though: 7 bugs for 2 playthroughs != unplayable. Bad, sure, deserving of rightful criticism, be my guest, but come on. Until you clarified I genuinely thought you got one every other mission. The small glitches, OTOH, are very common, true. Didn't get most of the ones you mention, but I did see quite a bit of graphical glitching in the background.

 

[Brother None]

You are replying to a post that's no longer there, Sceptic.

Whether or not I had to replay the mission is irrelevant to the review. The second time around I made hardsaves and in two tries got past the bug. Doesn't resolve it.

I already noted "yeah, I probably overplayed bugginess there". I won't complain about how it's only two paragraphs in an 8-page review and yet it's ALL PEOPLE CAN FUCKING TALK ABOUT and pretend I spent the entire review whining nasally about bugs. Won't complain about it. No matter how tempting. coz it's really annoying.

Stuff

Yeah, well...

Sega sucks.

 

[Sceptic]

You are replying to a post that's no longer there, Sceptic.

FFS! And you left all the bits that make it seem like I'm an abusive husband

I won't complain about how it's only two paragraphs in an 8-page review and yet it's ALL PEOPLE CAN FUCKING TALK ABOUT and pretend I spent the entire review whining nasally about bugs.

Yeah well blame VoD, he quoted that part as the ultimate reference in AP's bugginess and by extension made it seem that's what the review is all about. He didn't even provide a link to the full thing!

Sega sucks.

Let's just agree on that one and part on friendly* terms.

* by Codex standards

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yeah, well...

Sega sucks.

Sonic 4 is 2D, your argument is invalid

 

[Brother None]

Well-played sir.

I'm a huge Sonic fanboy. At least, of the platformers. I gave up at this Sonic werewolf and Shadow the Hedgehog shit. Sonic 4? Too sweet.

Yeah well blame VoD, he quoted that part as the ultimate reference in AP's bugginess and by extension made it seem that's what the review is all about. He didn't even provide a link to the full thing!

You mean, you never read it

*fragile ego crushed*

 

[Twinkle]

The savepoint system is abominable, TBH

Uh, this pile of dung doesn't even take a proper account of enemies you kill/disable so they may appear/disappear when you reload thus leading to potential level-breaking bugs.

Never got stuck in the terrain in ME2.

I did. Also observed companions getting stuck in boxes then floating above the ground.

Whatever, patches or no patches AP will forever remain a piece of shit.

 

[Sceptic]

You mean, you never read it

*fragile ego crushed*

OK I'm sorry! I went and read it now! It's great!

Seriously it is. There's a few of points I disagree with, namely graphics and the Leland interrogation. I thought graphics were good enough, in fact I had the opposite reaction from you actually: I thought they were good especially since it's UE3 (which is really not my favorite graphic engine). I won't give them any awards, but I'll take them over ME2's any day (to pick another UE3 engine from this year). Of course this does not apply to the glitches, of which I did see a few. As for the interrogation, I was very sceptical (ha ha) at first, but in the end I really liked the foreshadowing (especially when it announces a twist, but then it turns out to not be the twist I expected). They also need not be an identical replay of what you've done; Leland has very little knowledge of what happened in Moscow and you can fool him nicely there, though I need to replay to check if this affects anything (it probably doesn't, which would be a sadly missed opportunity).

That said, page 4 is awesome in both praise and criticism. I tip my hat to you, and hereby officially retract each and every abrasive comment I have made in this thread.

A question to you: did you make any of the non-handler NPC's hate you, and did you see a direct effect from this? I sorta went for having everyone like me, and while this paid off nicely in specific cases (Marburg's and Leland's were particularly interesting) there were also tons of smaller consequences due to people liking me (such as Heck offering to help in the Brakyo mission).

Uh, this pile of dung doesn't even take a proper account of enemies you kill/disable so they may appear/disappear when you reload thus leading to potential level-breaking bugs.

It's not quite that, it's simply some enemies not spawning when you restore (regardless of whether you killed them the first time or not). Happened only once to me, but I saw it as a feature rather than a bug

(how did it break the mission for you though?)

I did. Also observed companions getting stuck in boxes then floating above the ground.

In my case they managed to get themselves stuck to where Shepard was, which involved moving through the scenery in hilarious ways. (well not so hilarious when that involved having to reload from a while back because the fucking game wouldn't let me save "in mind combat")

 

[Brother None]

Awesome. Glad to hear you liked it.

A question to you: did you make any of the non-handler NPC's hate you, and did you see a direct effect from this? I sorta went for having everyone like me, and while this paid off nicely in specific cases (Marburg's and Leland's were particularly interesting) there were also tons of smaller consequences due to people liking me (such as Heck offering to help in the Brakyo mission).

Spoiler-heavy warning:

Well I played it through twice in quick succession. First time pretty much everyone liked me (except SIE and Heck, but Heck didn't dislike me enough to betray me, which can happen), second playthrough Heck really liked me and Albatross disliked me (I shot Sis), it was different.

I was smug as hell the entire playthrough, including to Marburg, which means I got to fight him to the death in the museum sequence and got to keep his pistol. There were lot of smaller differences, but considering I didn't fight him at all in the first playthrough, that was a pleasantly large difference. AP is mostly smaller but not fake-consequences (unlike BioWare's fakeness), and while none of them are sweeping, opening a mission in the Moscow line and how often you see Marburg are some nice bigger changes.

Sadly I also broke the ending logic by first accepting to side with Leland and then convincing Alan Parker to work against the Protocol's interests. Game didn't exactly know what to do with that so it flubbed the ending a bit.

 

[Twinkle]

It's not quite that, it's simply some enemies not spawning when you restore (regardless of whether you killed them the first time or not). Happened only once to me, but I saw it as a feature rather than a bug I am very smug about this issue.

IIRC, when you reach a checkpoint then reload some enemies are removed from the level even if you'd simply ghosted behind their backs without disabling anyone. I failed several minigames at that tiny Bug CIA Outpost level and it was really noticeable.

As for mission-breaking bugs, they happened at the railroad station in Moscow. I lapred 100% clean spy, raised the alarm, quickloaded. Noticed that something was wrong - the level was totally devoid of enemies presence. Pushed forward to the gate which refused to open. Reloaded from an earlier save - same shit. Had to restart the level from scratch.

I won't give them any awards, but I'll take them over ME2's any day (to pick another UE3 engine from this year).

Well, character models in Brotocol are noticeably better, esp. hair and small facial details. Also, armors/clothing are better textured and there is no harsh gap between high-res face texture and washed out body you typically see in BioWare stuff.

 

[Sceptic]

Installed it, game stops running, as reported for patch 1. Well done Obsidian!

On a whim I decided to try the UK patch. I had previously tried using the US one. UK one works

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

Heck didn't dislike me enough to betray me, which can happen

Cool! I was constantly expecting him to backstab me, but I guess he liked me enough that he didn't do it. He did completely fudge my "no killing civilians" policy in Taipei though when he burned two of them to death for the lulz. And the game put their deaths on me, the bastard.

AP is mostly smaller but not fake-consequences (unlike BioWare's fakeness), and while none of them are sweeping, opening a mission in the Moscow line and how often you see Marburg are some nice bigger changes.

I noticed a lot of the consequences were story-related. So if you close that Moscow line, or fumble somewhere so you don't get to use a dossier option on an NPC, and so on, you don't drastically change the ending, but you definitely miss out on understanding what's really going on. It's particularly good in Moscow where you might think you figured it out, but in fact you (both the player and Thorton) are wrong. It would've been awesome if this also affected something later on in the game, but I thought that was a good step forward.

What I especially liked is that the choice of ending is not entirely binary Bioware-style. I've not checked it myself, but every reference I find suggests that Leland will only offer you to join Halbech if he likes you enough. And THEN you get to betray him and take over. It's the first evil ending I've seen since MotB that comes close to being as good as that game's.

Sadly I also broke the ending logic by first accepting to side with Leland and then convincing Alan Parker to work against the Protocol's interests. Game didn't exactly know what to do with that so it flubbed the ending a bit.

Really? why would it do that? Leland doesn't have the Protocol's interest at heart anyway, and Parker is already a double agent. Does the game not recognize that he's fully gone to Halbech's side by working against the Protocol?