Was there undue pressure to realease the game while not ready?

[EUnderhill]

Third Reich and Squad Leader also had a corporate parent with lucrative Federal printing contracts (Monarch Avalon) that could support the games division at close to the vanity level. When the bottom line became important, business conditions having changed, Avalon Hill disappeared inside Hasbro.

 

[unmerged(16153)]

I just got the game, I've only played it twice. Yet I've just spent an hour going through this post - and I know absolutley nothing about the software industry. What does that say?
I spent hours last night, listening to the Radetsky march and trying to figure out if Belgium should start producing furniture.
Victoria is charming.


Oh...and I hate smilies too but here goes... :rofl:

 

[Belissarius]

Not relevant. Virus problems do not provide a guideline to the % of people who patch, instead your logic goes something like "unpatched products are bad, unpatched operating systems are dangerous, virus are bad and dangerous, therefore people do not patch their operating systems..."

I had assumed that as you made such definate and sweeping statements about the software industry that you actually had some hard evidence to back it up with.



Prove it.

I've already proven to you that 1.1 was downloaded more times than the game sold. I'm going to make a leap and assume that most Victoria purchasers were able to patch their game. If you'd care to actually disprove this then we can continue the discussion, but I'm not really interested into getting further into semantic arguements with someone who is presenting their opinion as fact.

I imagive that if I provide two articles that show patching of servers by admins show that they dont patch in the majority you would say its not relavent because "all gamers do patch" but I will provide two links to teh articles that show that patching isnt in the majority.

I took the first two non duplicate article from a google search of "Patching study software"

Study: Admins slow in patching Apache-SSL
http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/20/020820hnpatches.xml

"About 75 percent of Web sites hosted on Apache-SSL servers are vulnerable, as the software has not been upgraded to fix a serious flaw uncovered in June, according to a survey by Web server information firm Netcraft Ltd. of Bath, England."

The next one
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966398.html

"About 40 percent of administrators patched their systems in the seven weeks between the public announcement of a flaw and the release of the Slapper worm. Another 30 percent apparently patched the software after the Slapper worm started infecting SSL servers in September"

I think that this is proof enough that at least my assurtion is not just fabrication. I have read many other non-net material on the subject in newspapers and magazines but I dont save these source materials, The tone of some have been that I'm full of shit. Well here is prrof that people dont patch as a whole. And these people are Admins!! They are paid to maintain their systems they are bloody well paid to patch and they dont.

60% dont patch! Its not until the bloody problem happen that people started to patch, This patch was already avalable! its not until the virus/worm attacks do people patch in numbers that bring it over 50%. This is evidence that shows people dont patch.

These type of articles are not rare I read one about once ayear if not more (depends how bad the years virus attacks are).
Now i dont get my news from the net so i dont know where to to a more detailed search that the google search I did and Quite frankly. I think you need to prove the gamers patch better than admins that are more computer savy than the average gamer.

Simply because you patch as a matter of coarse doesnt mean that what you do is the norm. This weekend i talked to a frend whoworks in accounting and deals with peoples accounting systems and in the coarse of that job he deals with people computer systems regularly and he says as a whole people dont patch as well. So its not like i'm alone is this assestment.

 

[Belissarius]

That's numbers Paradox have tracked on their download server, not taken from a poll.

And who cares what most people do? What matters is what most gamers do, they are much more likely to patch than the 1000s of people who use their PC for email and word processing.

I wasnt making the conection to the download numbers and the statement of polls. I was indicating that forum polls are highly inaccurate to provide any type of indication of market trends or customer desire it was a general comment to support that people are not as plugged in as people indicate.

Even those download numbers arent that accurate as I downloaded 1.02 twice. I delete my patches once I install them. I did a re-install to victoria after I got some buggy results, I had installed another program and changed some system settings and i was getting odd responces from victoria I uninstalled deleted and re-installed and then patched again and the problems were gone. So download numbers are not accurate. I'd also say that piraters are likly to be more savey than the average gamer as well so they would likely patch at a higher percentage. The key is that raw numbers of the patches downloaded dont actually prove anything. They are not a good indicator of anything but how many times they have been downloaded. I think its a poor indicator of patching percentages and a poor indicator of piracy as well. At least a poor indicator of the extent of piracy.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one that has downloaded a patch more than once.

 

[Belissarius]

AFAIK, it's the other way around, the MS security patches were issued after a virus had exposed a security hole. In general, it's "virus exposes security hole -> Microsoft patches said hole", not "Microsoft issues patch -> virus programmers reverse engineer it to find what holes were there so they can hit unpatched systems."

As for the "every reported bug was fixed before release" you object so much too, it tends to happen to me the next day after I turn something in. Only at that point do I start finding the problems I didn't fix. Also, you can see in the change log for 1.01 "fixed all reported bugs". Maybe you're refering to different things. You judge the comment from the state of 1.00 (which is perfectly natural and the most obvious understanding of it) while the comment was made on 1.01. Remember, 1.01 was available on release, so it's likely Paradox sees 1.01 as the state of the product then. (as a side note, it was certainly the state of the out of the box product in Spain, because of the delayed release)

As for your continued demand that "all critical bugs be fixed before release", I'd think that would be a pretty general wish. The problem is, some critical bugs aren't that easy to find. For instance, you say the game crashes a lot. Now, we have most people reporting no crashes, or only very limited amounts. So, it is quite possible that there is a problem that was not addressed because none of the testers ran into it. Sometimes, the testers fail to notice major bugs. The testers develop a familiarity with the product, and learn how to do things. The first time the untrained user lays hand on the product, an incredibly obvious problem is revealed. And it makes the testers look extremely careless. Or, problems show up in some system configurations that weren't tested. The spanish release didn't work on AMD K6 processors, for example.

Actually most major virus threats that have happen in the last few years had patches already out to stop teh security holes these viruses or worms used. Infact i have an article that shows that ^0& of people didnt patch before a problem. That ment only 405 of the people patched for teh virus/worm then once the problem had started anotehr 305 did patch. Thats is difinative proof of my statements before that their was security patches BEFORE teh virus. here is the link

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966398.html

As for the fixed all reported bugs i was quoting a statement made by Johan on this thread on page 1. Its a realy good indication taht he was telling use that they released teh game with all bugs fixed but thats not true. Beta testers mentioned the naval bug and that is in the released version.

The fact that they had a whole slew of bugs fixed for the game on the day it was released indicated that they released the game with bugs knowingly they had to know of the bugs to fix them.

 

[Belissarius]

Yes, they don't care but continue to work on their games after release instead of taking a break. That makes perfect sense.



Drivers are updates for things you are used to. If you have had the game graphics card for months or years you can forget all about them, whereas when you buy a game it's fresh on your mind and you know you should check for updates. It's like the way you don't hear your own breathing most of the time, but you notice the cd you just put on.



What? To take winXP from a clean install to fully up to date takes about half a gig of patchs, while to take Vic to 1.03 is 4.2 megs. Furthermore, you are talking about all PC users instead of just gamers, who tend to know more about computers in general and games in particular.



What has that got to do with anything?

What does that have to do with anything. It show that patching isnt as common as you indicate if even microsoft doesnt patch their computers.

Hmm most people DONT do a fresh install to patch security patches now do they? So indicating that security patches are about the size of game patches indicates their size. Windows has a hell of a lot of patches thats what makes a fresh install patching a pain its not like their security updates are any where near that size.

The fact that people dont patch unless the hear of a problem indicates that patching ISNT second nature, to most people. It indicates that its not as wide spread as you have being trying to say. You were trying to make out like everyone patches automaticaly except a rare feww.

 

[Belissarius]

My dear boy, it is fully warranted. Your claim to being a writer is an insult to every real writer. It's as if someone digging ditches for a living claimed to be a mining engineer.




I have a feeling you've indeed missed much more than one or any number of deadlines in your life. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to explain anything to you. I wouldn't need to if you were a writer. And explaining anything to you is likely to be as exhausting as it is futile.

Your personal attacks are proof that YOU dont know what you are talking about. i have shown you that your version of the business is true. One has to simply look at the industry and you can see that delays are common and that these companies still deal with the same publishers. they are not "black listed". They are not sued. How can you rationalise your view of the industry with the facts that games and books are delayed all the time? Your personal attacks on me seem to be an attepmt to either bait me or deflet any reader from the facts I have presented.

I have kept my comments on the topics at hand but you have resorted to personal attacks. I am a writer and as I said before I have ben late on more than one deline and I have never been sued nore have i lost business with publishers because of this. You have challenge that assurtion by making a huge list of claims that would result in the late deadline. And yet i have shown that those assurtions are simple too far fetch. They dont fit teh facts of teh industry. Many many game have been delayed its not an uncommon event in development. Books are delayed. Companies are not routinely sued for missing a deadline. I see companies being able to make new games after a game was delayed and that in turn proves that they have found a publisher AFTER they delayed. Yet you said no publisher would deal with someone who didnt meet a deadline.

You attack my credability, insult me personaly and then when I challenge your comments your reponce is "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to explain anything to you. I wouldn't need to if you were a writer" Well I completely broke down your whole arguement that "showed" that I wasnt a writer and you say if I am a writer you should have to back your attacks up?

Twice you have attacked me personaly and it is NOT warrented.

What bothers me more is the blatant favoutism of the moderators. i dont give paradox blind support so it seems I'm free game for personal attacks. They delete posts or close thread they feel either dont give any contructive input or are "off topic" yet a personal attack is ok or the "If you like Johan or paradox then bump" thread is allowed to continue. Why wasnt that thread closed? and why is this type of personal attack is allowed to go with no responce from a moderator?

 

[Darkrenown]

What does that have to do with anything. It show that patching isnt as common as you indicate if even microsoft doesnt patch their computers.

That's not games patchs. I don't care what microsoft does. Giving me numbers on what everyone does or what microsoft does or what your friend in accounting does is no more valid than me taking numbers from a poll on www.wepatchourgamesassoonaspatchscomeout.com and proclaiming that everyone patches ASAP.

Hmm most people DONT do a fresh install to patch security patches now do they?

Well if these are the same people that don't patch windows then their version is going to be compleatly unpatched, the same as a clean install, isn't it? So fully updateing is going to be a hude download whereas Vic is 4.2 megs. There's no comparison.

The fact that people dont patch unless the hear of a problem indicates that patching ISNT second nature, to most people. It indicates that its not as wide spread as you have being trying to say. You were trying to make out like everyone patches automaticaly except a rare feww.

No, I am saying the majoritory of gamers patch. You are the one complaining about the release now, patch later culture in game devs these days, don't you think that people whos primiary hobby is playing these games knows it?

 

[Darkrenown]

What bothers me more is the blatant favoutism of the moderators. i dont give paradox blind support so it seems I'm free game for personal attacks.

Most likely they haven't seen it yet. You could always report it. As for favoutism, there is a 3 page long thread active at the moment where the first poster says anyone who likes 1.03 is a freak.

 

[Dinsdale]

I imagive that if I provide two articles that show patching of servers by admins show that they dont patch in the majority you would say its not relavent because "all gamers do patch" but I will provide two links to teh articles that show that patching isnt in the majority.

I took the first two non duplicate article from a google search of "Patching study software"

Study: Admins slow in patching Apache-SSL
http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/20/020820hnpatches.xml

"About 75 percent of Web sites hosted on Apache-SSL servers are vulnerable, as the software has not been upgraded to fix a serious flaw uncovered in June, according to a survey by Web server information firm Netcraft Ltd. of Bath, England."

Nice selective quoting Further through the article is states that 50% of regular Apache installations have upgraded. So while it does prove your point in some respects it's also contradictory, and further, missing a lot of information. It says nothing about planned upgrades. Commercial upgrading is very different from gamer; it costs a lot of money through regression testing to upgrade. Where I am contracted we are always about 6 months to a year behind latest patches and releases, even critical upgrades for a variety of reasons. Most important among these is that Paradox are not the only company who introduce new bugs in their patches, and the full impact of patches needs to be tested and verified. Waiting for others to patch first allows known issues to be taken into consideration before deciding whether or not to upgrade.

The next one
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966398.html

"About 40 percent of administrators patched their systems in the seven weeks between the public announcement of a flaw and the release of the Slapper worm. Another 30 percent apparently patched the software after the Slapper worm started infecting SSL servers in September"

Do you have any idea how much it would cost if every installed Linux or Windows seat was upgraded every time a patch was released? Network admins would do nothing else and in fact would still never be current as Windows releases critical updates at least once a month. It can take as much as a month to rollout upgrades to a user base. It's simply not possible to remain current. These days IT budgets are being slashed everywhere, admins are often the first department to take staff cuts and this makes the situation appear even more dramatic.

This does not mean that most corporate users do not patch, it does prove that most corporate users do not patch immediately. While the articles are interesting, IMHO they do not prove your point, though I appreciate that you are writing from real information and not guessing.

And these people are Admins!! They are paid to maintain their systems they are bloody well paid to patch and they dont.

As stated, often they are paid to ensure that they don't upgrade.

Simply because you patch as a matter of coarse doesnt mean that what you do is the norm. This weekend i talked to a frend whoworks in accounting and deals with peoples accounting systems and in the coarse of that job he deals with people computer systems regularly and he says as a whole people dont patch as well. So its not like i'm alone is this assestment.

There is a difference in not patching, and not knowing about patches. I still have Victoria 1.01 on my machine as I uninstalled 1.02 and haven't had time to play with 1.03. So would that make me a user who is unaware of patches simply because I have chosen not to upgrade yet?

It's already been stated that Paradox counts more patch downloads than sales. Surely that is enough for you to accept that Victoria at least has a user base which is aware of patches and downloads them?