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Old 11-04-2005, 01:21 PM   #1
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Default Unbelievable bug in Law & Order Criminal Intent

Ok, I know this game is one of the most bug-infested games the world has seen. It has so many bugs, that after a while the thing is simply unplayable. Anyway, since I am a fan of the series, I tried to bypass all the annoying stuff and concentrate on the game. Untill...

In my second cas, the one with the dead banker, the most absurd thing happened: I was looking at my map and I clicked on an empty area, and a big arrow appeared (like the ones over the location, only much bigger). So I clicked on it. And suddenly my map had a new location, a location that I had not discovered yet (and it should have to appear later in the game, not until I had discovered some stuff and people). I clicked again on the big arrow, and another location appeared...

So all the locations are on the map, for some crazy reason, and I haven't discovered nor the locations themselves, nor the people who live there. So what's the point to keep on playing? I encounter people I don't even know who they are and what the relevance to the case is... The bug ruined my whole gameplaying experience...

Shame on you Legacy.
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Old 11-04-2005, 01:42 PM   #2
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Yes, this game apparently suffers from ridiculously many bugs (you may want to check out this and this thread to read about others' experiences). Perhaps Legacy will release a patch soon? For me it had looked like a game with true potential but it seems literally ruined by those problems now.
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Old 11-04-2005, 02:55 PM   #3
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Jeez. Are testers *that* expensive to hire?

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Old 11-04-2005, 03:18 PM   #4
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And there are more bugs in the game. When I click an item and Goren look it, he is turning, sometimes 10 and more turns. And an other, when I click to go left, he is go right and I can't do anything with it.

Now I work on a review for the L&O, and it's a hard work, and there percent will be no more then 75%.

Last edited by Rabbit; 11-04-2005 at 03:28 PM.
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Old 11-05-2005, 04:10 AM   #5
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Hey Rabbit, welcome to the forums

Well the game is totally bug-infested, although I noticed that the longer you play in one go, the more the bugs. Weird eh? Judging by what I've encountered so far, it is impossible to play more than an hour in one go.

It's simply ridiculous and it's a shame how a nice game can be destroyed, simply due to some person's laziness.
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Old 11-05-2005, 05:47 AM   #6
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Thx

Yes it's a very great game, when I disregard from the bugs. I hope, that the developers publish a patch, in the near future. Because now it has a very bad gameplay.
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Old 11-05-2005, 06:43 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolasFigaro
It's simply ridiculous and it's a shame how a nice game can be destroyed, simply due to some person's laziness.
Bugs are rarely due to laziness. Sometimes they're the work of a poor programmer, more often one who's simply inexperienced with the particular tasks of programming this kind of application. However, I would be much more inclined to blame poor processes. In a time crunch, quality control is often the first thing to go. And if the project leadership (perhaps under pressure from the publisher) changes the requirements repeatedly, it becomes hard to maintain good programming practices.
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Old 11-05-2005, 07:42 AM   #8
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Ok Snarky, let's say that bug's are really a matter of programming, which probably is true anyway. So, can anyone explain this: Why is the adventure games genre one of the most (if not THE most) bug-infested genre? I really can't accept that other genre games are easier to program. In fact adventures should be a piece of cake in front of other games, which use complex codes and 3D engines. I don't know a lot about programming, but it doesn't mke any sense to me.
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Old 11-05-2005, 09:09 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolasFigaro
Why is the adventure games genre one of the most (if not THE most) bug-infested genre?
Have you played Boiling Point? Or Vampire: The Masquerate - Bloodlines? Or Knights of the Old Republic 2, even? All of these were buggy (the first two still are). Believe me, there are a LOT of buggy games out there, and I'd be perfectly prepared to argue that adventure games, on the whole, are actually less buggy than their bedfellows.

I'm not saying, incidentally, that Law & Order isn't heavily bugged - it is, and I still haven't been able to get the demo working. But in the grand scheme of things I'd say adventures are pretty good. And those bugs that do creep through are probably do to lower levels of testing for the game than, say, Half-Life 2 probably received.
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Old 11-05-2005, 10:04 AM   #10
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Yes, in my experience adventure games are far less buggy than other genres. I don't think I've played a single RPG that wasn't bug-infested, for example. (Daggerfall still reigns supreme as the buggiest piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to try to play.)

And while of course all bugs are ultimately programming errors, I'd be far more inclined to blame poor management and software engineering. It's simply impossible to write something as big as a computer game without making mistakes. It's the responsibility of the system architects and the producer to make sure that the errors are found and can be fixed. And then of course it's the pressure to get the game ready for release in less time than it takes to make and test thoroughly.
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Old 11-05-2005, 11:41 AM   #11
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Well Snarky and RLacey, you both are probably right and I do agree that there are a lot of games from other genres that have lots of bugs, although I believe that adventures in general are often examples of bad programming, which results in random crashes and horrible gameplay.

It is true that a computer game has a very complex structure, and for that reason it is almost impossible to avoid some mistakes. The thing is how do you minimize those mistakes. And the answer is: Through thorough and extent game testing. Why would you not test the game before its release? Because either you are too lazy to do so, or the publisher is putting pressure on you, so the game can be released to public. Right?

SO, do you truly believe that a game like Law & Order Criminal Intent is a game that the whole world is waiting for and its gonna sell millions of copies, and the developers are trying to meet the deadline, trying not to disappoint the hordes of fans who have preordered the game? Don't think so...
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Old 11-05-2005, 03:57 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolasFigaro
It is true that a computer game has a very complex structure, and for that reason it is almost impossible to avoid some mistakes. The thing is how do you minimize those mistakes. And the answer is: Through thorough and extent game testing. Why would you not test the game before its release? Because either you are too lazy to do so, or the publisher is putting pressure on you, so the game can be released to public. Right?
Hint : Can you think of any game developer that would like the idea of shipping a buggy product?
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Old 11-05-2005, 04:35 PM   #13
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At Law & Order: ther is the developer=publisher, so I think there is the answer to the bugs. I think, when an other publisher publish the game, they are search the bugs and the game will be better.
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Old 11-05-2005, 04:48 PM   #14
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I would have enjoyed the game more without the bugs but it's a good game nonetheless.
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Old 11-05-2005, 07:14 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolasFigaro
It is true that a computer game has a very complex structure, and for that reason it is almost impossible to avoid some mistakes. The thing is how do you minimize those mistakes. And the answer is: Through thorough and extent game testing. Why would you not test the game before its release? Because either you are too lazy to do so, or the publisher is putting pressure on you, so the game can be released to public. Right?
You talk as if testing by itself is going to fix bugs. It does not.
  • First you have to test the game in order to find the bugs (itself a complex process once you realize that you usually have to find repeatable ways to trigger the bug, otherwise there's no way to know whether it's fixed or not).
  • Then you have to find the part of the code that causes the bug. This is difficult! Often more difficult than writing the code in the first place.
  • Finally, you have to fix the bug, ideally without creating new bugs. In practice, it's impossible to know for sure that fixing one part of the program won't break another part, so the only thing for it is to test everything again.

If you wait till the end to start testing for bugs and fixing them, therefore, it's almost certainly going to be too late. You simply won't be able to fix most of the bugs without basically starting over on the programming. (Which isn't to say that some extra time spent in beta can't drastically improve the stability of a game, or any other application. However, it's the games that are of a fundamentally sound construction that have the most to gain.)

The way to avoid this kind of disaster, you have to test each bit thoroughly before you start putting them together (unit testing), and you have to have a clear idea of how each piece is supposed to fit. To achieve this, it's often very helpful to create a carefully designed framework that takes care of the basics and allows you to focus on the game itself. That's essentially what an "engine" (3D engine etc.) is. The problem, of course, is that you have to convince the project managers that you're making progress even though you have no bit of the game to show for it. This is what Ron Gilbert did when he created SCUMM for Maniac Mansion, and it allowed LucasArt to churn out adventure games with remarkably few bugs. Sierra, on the other hand, kept tinkering with and making ad-hoc changes to their poorly designed SCI engines, resulting in games that are notoriously buggy.

Quote:
SO, do you truly believe that a game like Law & Order Criminal Intent is a game that the whole world is waiting for and its gonna sell millions of copies, and the developers are trying to meet the deadline, trying not to disappoint the hordes of fans who have preordered the game? Don't think so...
Every extra month you spend making the game is a month you're paying rent on your office space and salaries to your employees. If you can't make the game on time and on budget, you'll have a harder time convincing a publisher to fund your next game.

Let me be clear: I think it's completely unacceptable to ship a game that is riddled with bugs. However, the reasons why it keeps happening are lot more complicated than simple laziness or impatience.
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Old 11-05-2005, 08:26 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gknight
I would have enjoyed the game more without the bugs but it's a good game nonetheless.
Which bugs in the game did you encounter, just out of curiousity?
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