QA is costly and can be really time-consuming for a tiny publisher like Gaijinworks. One of the reasons to release digitally first was to make sure that there are no bigger issues with the game before they go ahead with the physical copies that can't be patched later on and would be stuck with all the bugs & glitches forevermore. And they specifically gave codes for the digital version so that people wouldn't have to wait for the physical version to play the game. They could've released this six months later and still not have found all the bugs & glitches that they have now, since even a few thousand gamers can do in a few days what even sizable QA teams can't do in weeks or months (or years), let alone smaller ones that have even more limited number of people working on the QA.
Yep, this is just the warm up for me. SN5 was a huge project though, hopefully CoH3 goes smoother.
Well, basically, yes. I imagine that they did as much work on QA as they could alone, got to a point where they could play the game without any major and very few minor problems, decided it was good enough to push out the digital version and then people playing the game have just found stuff that they missed. Of course there is also a possibility they may have even confronted some bugs that gamers are now complaining about but with limited workforce they perhaps didn't manage to replicate those bugs (it's hard to fix something they can't "find") and thus thought they'd be so rare that it wouldn't cause too much harm if they didn't go above & beyond trying to fix something. Or they fixed something that broke something else that they then missed. Software development is a bijatch.
Well, as far as we know, they did just that. They did start manufacturing all the pieces of a physical copy that they could (box, manual, whatever extras it'll have etc.) right after or soon after the pre-sale period ended. They've said that everything else is done and they are now just waiting for the UMDs. They are just now either still fixing bugs until they have a final release candidate ready & can go gold or they've already fixed everything and are maybe just figuring out the logistics of manufacturing the UMD copies.
Bugs are somewhat of a big deal when it's a physical PSP game we are talking about.
That's good to hear, I guess. I still assume they don't have dozens of programmers. If the bugs they have confronted are of the more persistent, harder-to-fix kind, a month or two really isn't all that long of a time to take fixing bugs for a small team or a single person, especially if they are having trouble nailing down what, exactly, is causing the issues or they just need to do some more thorough work to have it all fixed than fixing a few bits & pieces. I mean, look at Mighty No. 9. Seems like the game is content complete (in that all the assets & levels have been developed to completion, gameplay is polished to its final state etc.), but they have some huge issues with the online code that have already taken many, many months to fix. Sometimes shit just is harder to fix than just some single day's/week's work. It sucks for us who have paid for the thing months ago, it sucks for the people who have to bang their head against the wall that is software development & fixing bugs/glitches/broken shit at times.
Vic posted in this very thread in January.
Yeah, "Ironing out bugs still" is fine, or even "hard at work but can't disclose details." I'd hope their hands aren't tied for full radio silence anyway.
You ALWAYS have something to say, even if it is just "still working on it, will keep you guys updated!" "sorry it's taking so long, we ran into *problem x and y*"
I appreciate the offer but I'm gonna pass.
Just being in Life Resonance mode isn't enough, you have to actually use your character's Awakening skill.
I went the "slow and steady wins the race" route for the final battle.
