[MCV] QA testers warn: Broken games fiasco of last year may repeat this Christmas

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Didn't they release ODST already?

Sigh. MCC is not perfect but it's a perfectly playable state and works as intended. It still has hiccups that could be straightened out in patching, but for the most part you can play SP and MP just fine.

Halo 5 ain't launching like the laughable mess TMCC was. It's a mainline game made in-house at 343i. Halo 4 was fine and had no problems. TMCC was made across many different devs and tied together pieces from different games and different iterations of the Halo engine. Not excusing what a shitshow it was, but Halo 5 logically should not suffer the same fate.
 
Guessing Halo 5 and AC:Syndicate on all the platforms their on, with SW:BF and FO4 working well on one platform, but far from well on at least one of the other two.
 
I honestly don't think there's any chance of Halo 5 having issues. MCC was pretty unique situation.

Syndicate I except to be fine as well, especially since they scaled some things back from Unity that were overambitious.

Fallout and Battlefront seem the most likely though given the IP and the money behind Battlefront I would be surprised if it ends up having major issues. And we all know at this point Bethesda pretty much gets a free pass.
 
Fallout will be a contender but I will give them the benefit of the doubt since its a new generation and they can't do much worse than the PS3 Fallout.

I say Assassin's Creed Syndicate will be fine, they can delay the title this year which they could not do last year.
 
It isn't the lack of QA testing that is causing buggy games to be released. Devs and publishers KNOW that the game is broken and exactly what the major bugs are, they simply refuse to delay the release of the game in order to fix them.

My beef isn't patches to fix bugs day 1, my beef is 5GB + content patches day 1 on principle
 
To elaborate on the games that won't be broken, I think Halo 5 will be okay because it's not 4 sets of code from 4 different developers stitched together like MCC.

AC: Syndicate will work better than Unity out the box because Unity was a huge PR disaster and Ubisoft will try to avoid that again. It'll be functional anyway.

COD will probably be fine apart from slightly sluggish netcode, which will probably be fixed quickly.
 
I don't think it'll be as bad this year... while it's natural to expect some issues with these big releases, I don't think anyone is willing to risk another full on outrage.

For example, AC Unity was considered the biggest offender last year and going by the shown footage, Syndicate looks like a very safe bet while also being noticeably downgraded in the technical department. I doubt anyone's willing to risk major damage to their reputation especially with their biggest IPs on the line.
 
Fallout will be a contender but I will give them the benefit of the doubt since its a new generation and they can't do much worse than the PS3 Fallout.
Well no other current console has a godforsaken 256MB RAM.

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Speaking as a QA tester, it is entirely possible to release sensible, largely-bug-free releases, but the games need to not be rushed. Rushing is what keeps bugs in.
 
Pardon the ignorance, but don't the big name publishers like Ubisoft and EA perform QA testing in house rather than getting an external company to do it? Unless we know which publishers use the quoted companies for QA testing it's just speculation which games are going to be problematic.
 
Speaking as a QA tester, it is entirely possible to release sensible, largely-bug-free releases, but the games need to not be rushed. Rushing is what keeps bugs in.
But the release schedule is set in stone. There is a new game every year. It releases every November. So really it is the scale and ambition of the games that is the problem. What we're seeing in Hitman and Metal Gear Solid V's multiplayer may be the smartest move we're seeing.
 
Sigh. MCC is not perfect but it's a perfectly playable state and works as intended. It still has hiccups that could be straightened out in patching, but for the most part you can play SP and MP just fine.

Halo 5 ain't launching like the laughable mess TMCC was. It's a mainline game made in-house at 343i. Halo 4 was fine and had no problems. TMCC was made across many different devs and tied together pieces from different games and different iterations of the Halo engine. Not excusing what a shitshow it was, but Halo 5 logically should not suffer the same fate.

Thank you for summarizing. It's been hard for me to find out about what its' status has been, so I just assumed what I heard last.

I would certainly hope Halo 5 isn't a disaster at launch, because I don't think the series couldn't take another blow like that.
 
Lol its amazing how Fallout 4 is a damn near universal choice for this issue
and I agree, although I won't be playing it.

I'd also throw AC: Syndicate, Rainbow Six and Halo 5 as prime candidates for providing a sad Christmas for many thanks to being busted.
 
QA firms trying to whip up the fan base to create a pressure for companies to use their services?

This article is basically a foxes guide to building chicken coops.
 
It isn't the lack of QA testing that is causing buggy games to be released. Devs and publishers KNOW that the game is broken and exactly what the major bugs are, they simply refuse to delay the release of the game in order to fix them.

Their shareholders which they need to please don't much care if their games are buggy or not. They just want the return on their investment on time. BUSINESS.

Good job that in general, Nintendo and indies are better with intensely polishing their games before launch.
 
I'm surprised that folks think Halo5 will release in a poor state. They've got so much riding on this game, there's NO WAY they make the same mistake twice...
Also, 343i to date has only released two console games. The first worked flawlessly... The second was overly ambitious and fell flat... But it's not like they have a pattern of releasing buggy software.

I doubt AC Syndicate has any serious issues either. Battlefront is looking to ride a movie hype wave, and Fallout is always buggy... If I had to guess, it's those two.
 
Fallout will be a contender but I will give them the benefit of the doubt since its a new generation and they can't do much worse than the PS3 Fallout.

I say Assassin's Creed Syndicate will be fine, they can delay the title this year which they could not do last year.

I am better Fallout will still be weirdly busted on 1 platform for no apparent reason. It will still be typical Bethesda busted on everything though.


Oh and Rainbow Six Siege is my prediction for this years most busted game. Just something about it.... I dunno.
 
QA firms trying to whip up the fan base to create a pressure for companies to use their services?

This article is basically a foxes guide to building chicken coops.
MCV is a developer facing outlet. I doubt fans really crossed their mind when they made these comments. But I do think change will be forced by consumers one way or the other.
 
I mean, as much as it's fun to joke about "A broken Assassin's Creed game, no way!", didn't Unity potentially cost them a LOT of money since they stopped selling DLC for the game as a result of the fiasco? I can't imagine that helped their bottom line, and it makes it even more baffling if they were the one company that didn't learn their lesson last year...
 
To be fair I think that due to the nature of a game like Fallout 4 it's probably going to have a decent number of bugs in it no matter how much time it spends in QA.

Rockstar doesn't seem to have the same problems Bethesda does, at least not nearly to the same extent.
 
modding, steam and bethesda. Fallout 4 seems like the platform where they might try it again.
That's one hell of an assumption... besides, even during that short debacle, can't say I remember unofficial patches being put on sale.

I don't think we'll see the idea of mods for sale again anytime soon... while I'm not completely opposed to it, coming up with proper implementation is a stuff of nightmares due to the unofficial "do it at your risk" nature of mods.
 
modding, steam and bethesda. Fallout 4 seems like the platform where they might try it again.
I was already forgetting about that. Thanks for the reminder, painful though it is to think about.

For anyone who didn't hear, a while back Bethesda tried working with Valve to add a system where Skyrim mods could be sold instead of downloaded for free, and Bethesda/Valve would presumably get a cut of the proceeds. The backlash was so huge going from an enormous modding community where everything was free, to one where people were trying to package mods up and sell them (and the issues with which content was actually theirs to sell etc.) that it was quickly scrapped.

Bethesda might try again with Fallout 4 since it will be a new community at release. There could literally be a situation where people make fixes for the game and then sell them, and Bethesda/Valve could actually profit from that.
 
Please stop telling other people how to spend their money, folks

You are right. People should spend their money how they want. However, when you have someone warning you, coupled with historical facts some people might want to take caution. These warnings aren't for the filthy rich who buy whatever pieces of garbage is put in front of their face. Some people are on a real budget and might only get a couple of games over the next few months. Best to not waste a purchase on a broken product. Smart, informed consumer decisions are never a bad thing and personally I appreciate the reminder of the shitshow from christmas past in an industry driven by deception and greed.
 
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