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Heroes Community > Heroes 6 - The New Beginning > Thread: The End of Black Hole Games?
Thread: The End of Black Hole Games? This thread is 18 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 · «PREV / NEXT»
Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 22, 2012 07:50 PM

Quote:
Quote:
they should have fixed at least 10 such bugs per programmer each working day.


You must be kidding. First they have to find why is a bug, then they have to set a game environment to be able to test this bug within all possible actions, then finally try to fix it and probably browse big parts of code, while testing again and again. Such things take days, and only for one.


No, these are special and rare cases what you describe. Why are you people overmistifying this bugfix issue, believe me, in most cases it is easy to fix and test a bug. Dont listen to anyone trying to make you believe how difficult this is. They do it just to pretend how difficult a craft they are involved in and to legitimate the importance of their personal existence as a "profetional programmer". An real or renown expert would never claim such thing.

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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 22, 2012 07:58 PM

Quote:

I would totally agree with you if 95% of all Ubisoft games didnt suck.


Lol, well OK, but then this game never had a chance. As I said if BH doesnt jump on it just to spend the money then maybe noone jumps on it and UBI cant make this disgracefull project and later someone else puts money into it with nmore sincere intend. But Limbic is still a (minor) chance IMO.

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Zenithale
Zenithale


Promising
Famous Hero
Zen Mind
posted April 22, 2012 08:03 PM

Quote:
imbalances like the kappa leap

Kappa leap was nerfed in 1.2. It's not imbalanced anymore.

(I have no yellow star but I'm special since I have 378 posts. )
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Miru
Miru


Supreme Hero
A leaf in the river of time
posted April 23, 2012 03:21 AM

Well I did notice it doing less damage than the auto attacks recently, guess I should have read the patch notes more carefully. Still the point remains, there are plenty of simple number changes to be had.
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted April 23, 2012 12:38 PM

Quote:
No, these are special and rare cases what you describe. Why are you people overmistifying this bugfix issue, believe me, in most cases it is easy to fix and test a bug. Dont listen to anyone trying to make you believe how difficult this is. They do it just to pretend how difficult a craft they are involved in and to legitimate the importance of their personal existence as a "profetional programmer". An real or renown expert would never claim such thing.


I happen to work in the field of professional software testing (government), and this is simply not true. Some bugs are easy to reproduce and thereby debug and can easily be re-tested, but other bugs may be very hard to track, let alone fix (and also, even a simple bug may have a fix with deep implications!) and then test it. Some bugs may take days to find, fix and test.

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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 23, 2012 02:13 PM

Quote:
I happen to work in the field of professional software testing (government), and this is simply not true. Some bugs are easy to reproduce and thereby debug and can easily be re-tested, but other bugs may be very hard to track, let alone fix (and also, even a simple bug may have a fix with deep implications!) and then test it. Some bugs may take days to find, fix and test.


I am talking about concrete bugs already found by fans listed on the official UBI forum related to the game called Heroes 6 and not all cases of  bugfix in all possible product. What is difficult in fixing “a Griffin can dive in frozen state” bug? But if the code is extremely messed up, like everything is hardcoded, then everything is difficult to fix, because it may happen that part of the Griffin is in the game engine, part in the graphical engine, part in the necro Ghosts claws, part in the, say, ability dialog, part in Sandors shoes, part in a 3-d party 3D glasses driver plugin, part in conflux, part on the disk, part in the RAM, part in the video memory, part in the toilet and part in a vibrator driver planned for expansion packs. Also, I’m mostly talking about skill and ability bugs and not about access violations or memory leaks which are always difficult to fix and I am presuming that the codebase is in a relatively coherent state where objects encapsulate well defined entities and are not found intermingled inside a prehistoric soup. It’s really funny how people separate developers from so called “bugfixers”, as if those who fix bugs work with a volatile creature who’s behavior must be first studied, like Pavlov experiments with his dog. I am making my general raw estimation according to the concrete list:  certainly there are difficult ones to fix ones, but those are rare.

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted April 24, 2012 12:07 PM

Stating them on a forum is one thing, reproducing, debugging and fixing them is another. And neither you nor I know anything about the code base or how they programmed the various parts of the game, which makes this whole discussion pretty moot anyway.

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Falconian
Falconian


Adventuring Hero
posted April 24, 2012 12:54 PM

Quote:
Stating them on a forum is one thing, reproducing, debugging and fixing them is another. And neither you nor I know anything about the code base or how they programmed the various parts of the game, which makes this whole discussion pretty moot anyway.


Yes, but you have to consider a couple other things as well.
First off, if you build a codebase that is still unstable after several months after release, that means whoever made the thing was an amateur and will prolly not be able to fix it either.

Take beth games for instance, they are notorious for being buggy but it didn't take 800 hours per bug to fix, because the coders were actually aware of how to code.
If you look at h6's code you can't but notice the coder doesn't know how to code properly.
The engine is natively unstable and the code is messy, even if they hired 800 programmers I doubt it'd reach a bug-free state ever.

It's like trying to turn the ugliest person in the world into a top model, it's a desperate mission no matter the amount of surgery you put in it.
Some issues are genetic, in the same way many H6's issues are native and bugfixing them would require a new engine and codebase.

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Avirosb
Avirosb


Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
posted April 24, 2012 01:06 PM
Edited by Avirosb at 13:08, 24 Apr 2012.

I believe most professional programmers are capable to some degree,
but not everyone is used to work with others (which may be a crucial part to be a good programmer, but still).
Black Hole was a small company, and it's not easy to get things done if everyone "speaks a different language", if you catch my drift.

I don't know anything about programming, it's just what it seems like to me.

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ywhtptgtfo
ywhtptgtfo


Hired Hero
posted April 24, 2012 08:14 PM

Quote:

Take beth games for instance, they are notorious for being buggy but it didn't take 800 hours per bug to fix, because the coders were actually aware of how to code.


Oh yeah... Their SDK is ridiculous in terms of design. They don't even have accessors for many of their attributes.

Quote:
If you look at h6's code you can't but notice the coder doesn't know how to code properly.
The engine is natively unstable and the code is messy, even if they hired 800 programmers I doubt it'd reach a bug-free state ever.
Yeah? Tell me how the code is messy because I don't remember its source ever being released. It's probably not well-written, but I would avoid making too much comments without actually having evidence.

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KaynaCrous
KaynaCrous


Adventuring Hero
posted April 25, 2012 05:19 AM

You can programm in many different ways to end up with the same result. One of them is the proper way, but that requires $ cheap arse ubisuck would never put on the table, so the other option is to give the job ENTIRELY to whoever they gave it. Not putting the $ and then asking a second company to patch things up is COMPLETE DISASTER that will, ironically, cost them a lot of $. But they dont care. Ubicock will put the money in bank earlier, and compensate with more interests.

Why put the money early to make a better game, when you can put less money at the start, place it in bank, then pay more money on the long run by using the interests? that way, you make the same cash, but your game sucks balls!

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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 25, 2012 10:06 AM
Edited by Bitula at 10:13, 25 Apr 2012.

Quote:
Yeah? Tell me how the code is messy because I don't remember its source ever being released. It's probably not well-written, but I would avoid making too much comments without actually having evidence.


You do not need to see the source, it simply follows from the TYPE and the AMOUNT of bugs which were NOT fixed during a period of LONG time. Those bugs which are reported in a way "sometimes happen, sometimes not", so which are not clearly reproduce-able are sometimes very difficult to fix it can last from 10 minutes to one month fixing such bugs, and that I can justify, but 95% bugs in the list are clearly reproduce-able and like 70% percent are even trivial, fixing these would require no more than a few minutes. The only other reason for them not being fixed is that zero (null) (0) persons worked on them, which is less likely I guess.

One more possibility is if the bug fixer did not participate in the development, which is somewhat the case for Limbic so here it is understandable that the fixing process is at first slow and then speeds up. A third and possibly final possibility is if BH itself has fired or lost some of their developers during original development.

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Avonu
Avonu


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Embracing light and darkness
posted April 25, 2012 11:49 AM
Edited by Avonu at 11:51, 25 Apr 2012.

Quote:
95% bugs in the list are clearly reproduce-able and like 70% percent are even trivial, fixing these would require no more than a few minutes. The only other reason for them not being fixed is that zero (null) (0) persons worked on them, which is less likely I guess.


I don't think so. If anyone looked for example into translated texts file (generally there is only one, big file with descriptions of all spells, heroes, buildings, units and their abilities), then (s)he could find same sentence repeated over and over in this file. So to change/fix one description, you need to change at least 2 or 3 lines in different part of this file. And there are some old texts/files still left in game (as for example materials from Gamescom expo in 2010).

For me it looks like someone (or rather each new person which was hired to work on HVI) added new text line, instead of fixing old one. In the end, you need a large amount of time, to fix ONE descriprtion (you don't know, which one is used by the game).

I don't know how game code looks like, but I don't think it is in better condition then mentioned text file.

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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 25, 2012 12:38 PM
Edited by Bitula at 12:46, 25 Apr 2012.

Quote:
Quote:
95% bugs in the list are clearly reproduce-able and like 70% percent are even trivial, fixing these would require no more than a few minutes. The only other reason for them not being fixed is that zero (null) (0) persons worked on them, which is less likely I guess.


I don't think so. If anyone looked for example into translated texts file (generally there is only one, big file with descriptions of all spells, heroes, buildings, units and their abilities), then (s)he could find same sentence repeated over and over in this file. So to change/fix one description, you need to change at least 2 or 3 lines in different part of this file. And there are some old texts/files still left in game (as for example materials from Gamescom expo in 2010).

For me it looks like someone (or rather each new person which was hired to work on HVI) added new text line, instead of fixing old one. In the end, you need a large amount of time, to fix ONE descriprtion (you don't know, which one is used by the game).

I don't know how game code looks like, but I don't think it is in better condition then mentioned text file.


We are talking about the same thing!!!!!!!! I simply said one of the following can be the case:
1) The code is in a bad condition - then even simple bugs are hard to fix.
2) What I described as alternatives, no one is fixing bugs, too much original developer gone etc.
Or it can be both.
So I don't think we disagree on anything here.

(If I would to guess, given my experience, I would rather say dominantly 1. is the case).

Uuuuh, I've got a yellow star

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Avonu
Avonu


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Embracing light and darkness
posted April 25, 2012 06:54 PM

Generally, yes but you mentioned:
Quote:
fixing these would require no more than a few minutes

while from what I saw in that text file, even the slightest fix is time consuming (because same text is here and there and there and there...).

Of course this still means that your point no 1 is accurate.

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ywhtptgtfo
ywhtptgtfo


Hired Hero
posted April 25, 2012 11:16 PM
Edited by ywhtptgtfo at 23:18, 25 Apr 2012.

Quote:
You can programm in many different ways to end up with the same result. One of them is the proper way, but that requires $ cheap arse ubisuck would never put on the table,


Right... There's only one way that is proper.

Quote:
You do not need to see the source, it simply follows from the TYPE and the AMOUNT of bugs which were NOT fixed during a period of LONG time. Those bugs which are reported in a way "sometimes happen, sometimes not", so which are not clearly reproduce-able are sometimes very difficult to fix it can last from 10 minutes to one month fixing such bugs, and that I can justify, but 95% bugs in the list are clearly reproduce-able and like 70% percent are even trivial, fixing these would require no more than a few minutes. The only other reason for them not being fixed is that zero (null) (0) persons worked on them, which is less likely I guess.


They rushed the launch and played no part in the patching process. You claim to be a professional software developer, but I'd expect a bit more prudence from you in commenting on other people's source without seeing it. Based on my impression from v1.0, the far majority of bugs are trivial - as you've said - and the game itself is still relatively stable (aside from some memory leaks).

By my standards, "bad coding" implies one or more of the following:
- Inefficient algorithms (i.e. N^2 algos for linear tasks)
- Lots of memory leaks
- Immense amount of hard-coding
- Poor abstractions
- Poor thread management
- Poor variable management (i.e. ensure valid states, handle nulls, etc)

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Miru
Miru


Supreme Hero
A leaf in the river of time
posted April 26, 2012 07:26 AM

Every program as large as H6 had more bugs than H6 does while they were in development, they just released H6 before ironing out the number of bugs you are used to.

Some of the bugs would be very hard to fix, others wouldn't.

Is that really that hard?
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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 26, 2012 10:45 AM

Since there are too much misunderstanding about what I say (probably because many read my posts out of their context) let me give a clarification summary of what I claim.

1) You do not need to see the source to come to certain conclusions, which I was talking about.
2) You need to see the source to come to certain other conclusions which I was NOT talking about.
3) Trivial, low and normal complexity bugs can be fixed relatively quickly ONLY IF the code is in a GOOD condition.
4) High complexity bugs are difficult to fix in general. These are rare in well structured code and can be many in bad code.
5) Fixing trivial, low and normal complexity bugs in BAD code MAY take long.
6) If one sees that lots of such bugs remain unfixed for a long period of time it means that the code is in BAD condition OR – and do not forget, this OR – whatever I described in the alternative section, which I will not repeat here.

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ywhtptgtfo
ywhtptgtfo


Hired Hero
posted April 27, 2012 06:25 AM

Quote:
Since there are too much misunderstanding about what I say (probably because many read my posts out of their context) let me give a clarification summary of what I claim.

1) You do not need to see the source to come to certain conclusions, which I was talking about.
2) You need to see the source to come to certain other conclusions which I was NOT talking about.
3) Trivial, low and normal complexity bugs can be fixed relatively quickly ONLY IF the code is in a GOOD condition.
4) High complexity bugs are difficult to fix in general. These are rare in well structured code and can be many in bad code.
5) Fixing trivial, low and normal complexity bugs in BAD code MAY take long.
6) If one sees that lots of such bugs remain unfixed for a long period of time it means that the code is in BAD condition OR – and do not forget, this OR – whatever I described in the alternative section, which I will not repeat here.


And in this case, I dispute (1) and (2) because I don't think the bugs that plagued H6 is necessarily evidence to poor fundamental code architecture. It simply suggests a huge lack of polishing.

Re: (6) Stop dramatizing. As others have pointed out already, BH played no role in the patches and Limbic has to deal with learning them from scratch without help. Also, there are tonnes of games out there were the devs don't bother to deal with certain bugs of varying levels of complexity. This is a testament of the devs' lack of dedication and not necessarily a testament of intrinsic problems with the code structure.

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Bitula
Bitula


Known Hero
posted April 27, 2012 09:26 AM

Quote:
Quote:
Since there are too much misunderstanding about what I say (probably because many read my posts out of their context) let me give a clarification summary of what I claim.

1) You do not need to see the source to come to certain conclusions, which I was talking about.
2) You need to see the source to come to certain other conclusions which I was NOT talking about.
3) Trivial, low and normal complexity bugs can be fixed relatively quickly ONLY IF the code is in a GOOD condition.
4) High complexity bugs are difficult to fix in general. These are rare in well structured code and can be many in bad code.
5) Fixing trivial, low and normal complexity bugs in BAD code MAY take long.
6) If one sees that lots of such bugs remain unfixed for a long period of time it means that the code is in BAD condition OR – and do not forget, this OR – whatever I described in the alternative section, which I will not repeat here.


And in this case, I dispute (1) and (2) because I don't think the bugs that plagued H6 is necessarily evidence to poor fundamental code architecture. It simply suggests a huge lack of polishing.

Re: (6) Stop dramatizing. As others have pointed out already, BH played no role in the patches and Limbic has to deal with learning them from scratch without help. Also, there are tonnes of games out there were the devs don't bother to deal with certain bugs of varying levels of complexity. This is a testament of the devs' lack of dedication and not necessarily a testament of intrinsic problems with the code structure.


1) No one is talking about necessary evidences you again just ignored the OR in 6. Your reasoning is somehow based on imaginary text or you are lazy to read full posts.
2) Regarding (6) what are you talking about...??? Of course BH played role in patching, they did the 1.2 patch. They were not involved in 1.3 only. Or am I mistaken here?

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