Decline [GQ was right] I am a proud member of the Patch Hater Club

[Roguey]

Even if all of those things are true, they were known in advance and the product should have been delayed more so as not to release at the same time as Half-Life 2.

Activision wanted Bloodlines to be released before Half-Life 2 and only couldn't because Valve said no. They were seething thinking about all the money they were missing out on for that quarter; delaying it longer would also result in more missing money. With publicly traded companies, it's all about the quarterly reports to please those investors.

Aside from that, even after all of Wesp's patches and the deep discounts, Bloodlines has never sold more than a million copies. It's a cult hit game, no potential at all to be a hit. Could be the setting, could be the gameplay, could be both. But "bugs" haven't been a factor for a long, long time (nor are they a factor for Troika's other games).

 

[J1M]

Even if all of those things are true, they were known in advance and the product should have been delayed more so as not to release at the same time as Half-Life 2.

Activision wanted Bloodlines to be released before Half-Life 2 and only couldn't because Valve said no. They were seething thinking about all the money they were missing out on for that quarter; delaying it longer would also result in more missing money. With publicly traded companies, it's all about the quarterly reports to please those investors.

Aside from that, even after all of Wesp's patches and the deep discounts, Bloodlines has never sold more than a million copies. It's a cult hit game, no potential at all to be a hit. Could be the setting, could be the gameplay, could be both. But "bugs" haven't been a factor for a long, long time (nor are they a factor for Troika's other games).

"We can't expect executives who make half a million dollars a year to make good decisions because [reason]!"

 

[Roguey]

"We can't expect executives who make half a million dollars a year to make good decisions because [reason]!"

They do everything for the investors and the quarterly reports. This often results in short-sighted decisions, but there's no choice in the matter.

The right long-term decision would have been to never greenlight Bloodlines in the first place because it was never going to give them the results they wanted.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I like the history rewriting you guys have based a mythology upon, but we can just go look at contemporary reviews to see the top complaints for their games.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041206224928/http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=57265

Easy to sum up: Game isn't finished.
At the opening, you forgive the array of bugs and glitches as it being "rough around the edges", so joining the long line of games which stressed imagination above mere competence and polish: Sure, characters glide out of the room in the intro sequence... who cares? Look how amazing Santa Monica is...

Problem is, as you progress, they escalate. By the time you've reached the climax, they're become impossible to ignore and made all the worse by you not even particularly enjoying the game anymore. Having animation flickers and textures going wrong is a different thing from - say - reloading and finding that simple action has broken some of the level's scripting or getting caught in a game-ending crash bug upon exiting a mandatory mission. It runs considerably worse than Half-Life, sharing the stutter-frame-rate problem of its mother engine, but generally worse. It eats up Virtual Memory like anything, with long sessions leading to increasingly lengthy load times and slower frame-rates (I'm not a programmer, but "Memory Leak" sounds like a likely explanation). It just crashes. Even surface level shows signs of being rushed to release amass, like the dialogue in Chinatown having so many typos that even I, with my rudimentary grasp of the English tongue, wince.

While a determined player - especially a PC RPG player - will forgive much of this, and my selection of bugs are fairly extreme examples of what's going wrong, it's really not on. Suffice to say, those stories about it being done ages ago and being stuck on a shelf until Half-Life 2 was finished are evidently a lie. Someone decided to throw this into the shops and then patch later.

I don't know about hunting Vampires, but someone should start hunting accountants.

https://web.archive.org/web/2005051...agetypeid=2&articleid=33424&subsectionid=1609

But if it's so splendid, what's wrong with it? The main problem is that V:TBM is completely ridden with bugs. From minor things (graphic glitches) to mid-range stuff (regular frame-rate problems) to absolutely shocking ones (bugs that stops your progress, crash-bugs), it's infested. This becomes more obvious as the game progresses, and by the end of it you're left with a nasty taste in your mouth. Forget holy water and crosses, what we need here is a big patch, sharpish. But considering its other attractions, you can almost forgive this flaw. Almost.

in before "noooo that isn't true, that's not the codex consensus we invented!!!!"

"t-t-they're just biased reviewers!"
ok
https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=113

Even the biggest fans of Temple of Elemental Evil (no, really, the game actually has fans) admit that the game was plagued by a bad bug problem. The situation isn't as bad in Bloodlines but it's dismaying to note that the game does have bugs and they are fairly annoying. There aren't the same endless hard crashes ToEE players encountered and the bugs generally aren't nearly as severe, but they exist and can be bothersome. Graphical glitches abound, mostly clipping issues. Occasionally, you'll get a crash when loading a new area. Perhaps the most annoying bug I've run into is save games unpredictably getting corrupted. You'll have saved your game when you left off last time and when you come back, attempting to load that save will crash the game. Fortunately, Bloodlines doesn't replace quick saves when you make them and also auto saves frequently (and doesn't replace autosaves, either, or at least not often), so you probably won't lose much progress when this bug hits you, but it's still annoying. A number of people also report a big game-stopping bug towards the end of the game that requires a bit of console hacking to fix. It's just not acceptable to ship a game with a bug like that, even if it only hits a minority of people. There's also a number of plain odd errors. For example, at one point in the game, there are locked doors you cannot enter. If you try, a guard posted next to it will say, "Sorry, you can't go in there" or something to that effect. However, if you kill that guard and then try to open the door--some invisible ghost of the guard (I think that they're called "bad level script" in the mythos) will tell you "Sorry, you can't go in there" anyways. It's that kind of unpolished quality that plagues Troika's games. In terms of bugginess, Bloodlines isn't as bad as ToEE, but it's still just not up to the standard that's expected from major releases.

you've told yourselves lies so many times that you actually came to believe them

 

[J1M]

"We can't expect executives who make half a million dollars a year to make good decisions because [reason]!"

They do everything for the investors and the quarterly reports. This often results in short-sighted decisions, but there's no choice in the matter.

The right long-term decision would have been to never greenlight Bloodlines in the first place because it was never going to give them the results they wanted.

This is nonsense. Companies regularly spend money in one quarter to make more money in another. They could have chosen to put some additional money into patching the game with the extra time they had. It would cost a fraction of the usual run rate because it would be a limited team.

 

[Roguey]

I like the history rewriting you guys have based a mythology upon, but we can just go look at contemporary reviews to see the top complaints for their games.

New Vegas got the same thing, didn't hurt sales at all. They fixed the bugs, now New Vegas is considered a classic.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim were full of bugs on release but journalists joked about how hilarious they were because they were having a good time, unlike with Troika's games.

Finally, game reviewers receive pre-release copies that are even more unfinished than what regular people get (so they can get in those day-one reviews). It didn't take long for Troika to patch all their games into acceptability (which is the case for pretty much all games).

This is nonsense. Companies regularly spend money in one quarter to make more money in another. They could have chosen to put some additional money into patching the game with the extra time they had. It would cost a fraction of the usual run rate because it would be a limited team.

As Tim Cain said, as far as they were concerned, they were already over-budget. There comes a time when one has to say "enough is enough." Troika was awful when it came to scope control and feature creep. You couldn't trust them to spend a few months just to polish what they already had, they'd insist on adding more.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

New Vegas got the same thing, didn't hurt sales at all. They fixed the bugs, now New Vegas is considered a classic.

Todd Howard adjacent, Bethesda is immune to bad sales due to bugs because they're a feature.

 

[Roguey]

New Vegas got the same thing, didn't hurt sales at all. They fixed the bugs, now New Vegas is considered a classic.

Todd Howard adjacent, Bethesda is immune to bad sales due to bugs because they're a feature.

There are plenty of janky Bethesda-published games that have bombed.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

New Vegas got the same thing, didn't hurt sales at all. They fixed the bugs, now New Vegas is considered a classic.

Todd Howard adjacent, Bethesda is immune to bad sales due to bugs because they're a feature.

There are plenty of janky Bethesda-published games that have bombed.

Yes but they weren't Todd Howard adjacent like a bethout is.

 

[J1M]

I like the history rewriting you guys have based a mythology upon, but we can just go look at contemporary reviews to see the top complaints for their games.

New Vegas got the same thing, didn't hurt sales at all. They fixed the bugs, now New Vegas is considered a classic.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim were full of bugs on release but journalists joked about how hilarious they were because they were having a good time, unlike with Troika's games.

Finally, game reviewers receive pre-release copies that are even more unfinished than what regular people get (so they can get in those day-one reviews). It didn't take long for Troika to patch all their games into acceptability (which is the case for pretty much all games).

This is nonsense. Companies regularly spend money in one quarter to make more money in another. They could have chosen to put some additional money into patching the game with the extra time they had. It would cost a fraction of the usual run rate because it would be a limited team.

As Tim Cain said, as far as they were concerned, they were already over-budget. There comes a time when one has to say "enough is enough." Troika was awful when it came to scope control and feature creep. You couldn't trust them to spend a few months just to polish what they already had, they'd insist on adding more.

I know you pride yourself as an internet sleuth, but at some point you have to apply logic to the facts you dig up. The company went out of business after they chose not to polish Bloodlines. Whether it was a fatal mistake to take the project or a fatal mistake not to patch, the person you are quoting made at least one fatal mistake.

I give them a pass on the tech choices (unlike Deus Ex 2) because the facial animation tech really was a praiseworthy centerpiece of the game they delivered.

 

[Roguey]

I know you pride yourself as an internet sleuth, but at some point you have to apply logic to the facts you dig up. The company went out of business after they chose not to polish Bloodlines. Whether it was a fatal mistake to take the project or a fatal mistake not to patch, the person you are quoting made at least one fatal mistake.

I give them a pass on the tech choices (unlike Deus Ex 2) because the facial animation tech really was a praiseworthy centerpiece of the game they delivered.

Activision didn't go out of business, they're still going strong. Troika went out of business because their three games weren't profitable enough to catch the interest of publishers to greenlight more stuff like them and the only offers they had left were games they weren't interested in making/playing.

 

[mondblut]

Activision had us work on the game until a certain point, and then they froze the project. We’d have continued to improve the game, especially by fixing bugs and finishing incomplete areas, but they didn’t let that happen.

Activision had become impatient and wanted the game shipped as soon as possible.

Publisher desperately wanting the game it paid for to flop. Totally plausible indeed

The only condition where this is possible is when Activision reviewed the team and released that were they allowed to "continue to improve the game, especially by fixing bugs and finishing incomplete areas", it would be even more of a mess by the time the embargo is lifted. Like, the morons who had worked on Vampire 2, they'd love to continue to improve the game too, were it not for that pesky Paradox axeman who looked at them and saw that they were nothing but a drain on the publisher's resources.

 

[mondblut]

Don't play a game until it's ~2 years old and/or devs have stated that they are done patching the game.

And milking DLCs. Basically, wait till the sequel is announced - that means the previous game is more or less finalized.

 

[Ismaul]

I like the history rewriting you guys have based a mythology upon, but we can just go look at contemporary reviews to see the top complaints for their games.

The fuck are you talking about? No one claimed Troika's games weren't very buggy on release.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Publisher desperately wanting the game it paid for to flop. Totally plausible indeed

i'll give you a reality check with just two words: "games workshop".
never underestimate the stupidity of stupids.

 

[Lhynn]

https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/ar...eeds-to-stop-removing-content-from-their-game

Opinion: Destiny 2 Needs To Stop Removing Content From Their Game​

Destiny 2 is a very odd game, instead of expanding locations, dungeons (Strikes in Destiny 2), or Raids, they permanently remove older content to be put into what they call “The Vault” and you can no longer do quest, earn rewards, do dungeons, or explore these areas, they are, once again, permanently removed from the game.

DAS RITE, if you bought Destiny 2 at launch content you PAID FOR is no longer available to play.

And this is a good thing.

 

[mondblut]

Publisher desperately wanting the game it paid for to flop. Totally plausible indeed

i'll give you a reality check with just two words: "games workshop".
never underestimate the stupidity of stupids.

Are you seriously comparing some gaymer cucks to (((Bobby))) fucking (((Kotick)))?

He'd sooner sell Anderson and Boyarsky for organs than let one cent of his investments go waste.

 

[BanEvader]

Their code butchers also drastically reduced the performance of large prisons, something the game struggled with already.

People who don't know how to code shouldn't make games.
Personally, I blame Unity.

 

[Bad Sector]

The company went out of business after they chose not to polish Bloodlines.

Note that depending on their contract it may not have been up to them: if the development time was to be paid by Activision (and most likely was) it might have been Activision's decision after the poor sales of the game to cut their losses instead of paying Troika to continue development on the game. Troika may not have received any royalties beyond the cost of developing the game (or their royalties would come only after the publisher has recouped their investment, plus some interest - but if the sales were poor this may never have happened and it was completely up to Activision who actually paid the bills to make the decision between continuing funnelling money towards Troika's black hole or cut the losses).

I remember reading an interview with Jason Hall about Blood 2 being in a similar situation where 2K wouldn't pay Monolith to fix the game's several issues, despite Monolith wanting them to do so, but due to their contract saying that Monolith wouldn't receive any royalties, they couldn't afford to do that work themselves and had to move on to other projects to keep the company afloat.

 

[Bad Sector]

As for the topic:

• Patches that fix bugs and make minor tweaks for things that turn out to affect the game's enjoyment -> good.
• Patches that make major changes and/or affect considerably how the game is played -> bad.
• Patches that remove content because licensing or other crap -> evil.

Also personally i prefer when devs stop dicking around with their games for years on because i want to keep offline copies for the games i buy and i find it annoying to download 298392428GB of data every time someone makes a 0.1% tweak on some damage modifier buff. Obvious exception being compatibility fixes for newer systems, etc, but those are rare in practice.

 

[luj1]

this thread is for us enlightened people who realize patches are a cancer on gaming. They encourage lazy devs to release broken games

This is because you are an imbecile

All of your favorite games, such as Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout 76, were released in a broken state

This is something that Bethesda was historically known for - shipping a broken game with a good toolset (to fix the game yourself)

Their games were broken not because of patches but because the programming at Bethesda is traditionally sloppy and shit tier

Skyrim couldn't use more than one CPU core at launch, you get flickering trees, mountains, z-fighting, unresponsive console UI, etc. The code was so bad, that some of this stuff still cannot be fixed, only mitigated

Anyway no one cares because its gonna sell anyway and modders will fix it (fixed it). The budget goes to Hollywood voice actors, orchestral scores and marketing. This was Todd's and Pete Hines' approach ever since Morrowind saved the company from bankrupcy

Of course there was a time when games were released in extremely polished state, such as the old Blizzard games

So no, patches don't encourage lazy devs to release broken games, cash does. You don't understand this yet you lick the dick of Todd Howard, literally the man whom Horse Armor got children through college

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not reading that.

 

[J1M]

The company went out of business after they chose not to polish Bloodlines.

Note that depending on their contract it may not have been up to them: if the development time was to be paid by Activision (and most likely was) it might have been Activision's decision after the poor sales of the game to cut their losses instead of paying Troika to continue development on the game. Troika may not have received any royalties beyond the cost of developing the game (or their royalties would come only after the publisher has recouped their investment, plus some interest - but if the sales were poor this may never have happened and it was completely up to Activision who actually paid the bills to make the decision between continuing funnelling money towards Troika's black hole or cut the losses).

I remember reading an interview with Jason Hall about Blood 2 being in a similar situation where 2K wouldn't pay Monolith to fix the game's several issues, despite Monolith wanting them to do so, but due to their contract saying that Monolith wouldn't receive any royalties, they couldn't afford to do that work themselves and had to move on to other projects to keep the company afloat.

I will explain it as if to a child.

1) Don't sign a contract that has no royalties.

2) Given the choice between releasing something unfinished that will tarnish your business and working some unpaid evenings and weekends, the founders should have fixed the product. Even if all they were able to fix was their reputation.

3) I would also argue that they should have used some funds from their own business to pay a skeleton patch crew for the same reason.

If you look at what they were able to create in such a short time, the employees they had were probably 5x more productive than the average AAA dev today. A few months would have worked wonders.

Instead they poured those funds into an unsuccessful pitch for Fallout 3.

 

[Kutulu]

I barely ever downloaded patches for single player games pre steam... and i finished most of them without too much trouble.

My most downloaded patch was the "no-cd patch" because that shit was anoying as fuck.

 

[Bad Sector]

1) Don't sign a contract that has no royalties.

That is not how these companies worked (and probably still work but most big developers have become internal studios now). They approach publishers to pitch projects that the publisher hires them to do it - they had as much right to royalties as a carpenter hired to work on a bar has on that bar's earnings. The publishers had all the power (especially at the time) with the developer only doing the grunt work. The publisher funded the entirety of the game's development and if there was no funding, there was no money for the company to run at all.

Even when there were royalties, these royalties would come after the publisher has recouped their cost - and since the publisher was the side that actually paid for the game to be made, it was their decision how much money and for how long they'd spend that money. But that was increasingly less common - i worked at a gamedev company around mid-2000s where we were promised royalties by a big publisher, but only after their costs have been recouped and that was only because the company had already funded two years of the game's development.

The power was almost completely on the publisher side, especially as game development costs increased.

2) Given the choice between releasing something unfinished that will tarnish your business and working some unpaid evenings and weekends, the founders should have fixed the product. Even if all they were able to fix was their reputation.

No matter how nice that sounds, in reality it ignores the very practical issue where people have to get paid and to get paid, the company needed projects to work on. Working on something that brings no money will cause the company to run out of money to pay their employees - at which point their reputation would be worthless anyway (and BTW remember that while Troika did shut down, they didn't get bankrupt, they shut down in their own terms and paid their employees for some time until they found new jobs).

3) I would also argue that they should have used some funds from their own business to pay a skeleton patch crew for the same reason.

Same answer as #2.

If you look at what they were able to create in such a short time, the employees they had were probably 5x more productive than the average AAA dev today. A few months would have worked wonders. Instead they poured those funds into an unsuccessful pitch for Fallout 3.

Yes, because if that pitch was actually successful they'd be getting actual funds to make a new project that can bring them money (and on their IP this time as they tried to buy it) instead of wasting their finite funds on a project that would give them no income at all.