Progress Update Thread (formerly known as quest for glory 2)

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#226 Post by **Erpy** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:15 pm

Just letting people know we've compiled version 2 of the game and let in the 2nd wave testers. Let's hope it isn't going to take 5 more versions until the game is ready for release.

We also managed to track down a really annoying bug today that's been pestering us for over 2 years and just couldn't be consistently replicated. (mostly because it had 1:205 chance of showing up every time you attacked an enemy in battle)

EDIT: Whoohoo. 8500 posts.

MagusRogue · #227 Post by **MagusRogue** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:40 am

Awesome! That much closer to a final release!

Arseny · #228 Post by **Arseny** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:23 pm

Erpy wrote:We also managed to track down a really annoying bug today that's been pestering us for over 2 years and just couldn't be consistently replicated. (mostly because it had 1:205 chance of showing up every time you attacked an enemy in battle)

Any chance you tell us what the bug did and what caused it? :D

#229 Post by **Erpy** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:46 pm

We labelled it the "Too Close for Comfort"-bug and it occurred on seemingly random moments during battle, particularly while injuring an enemy. When it struck, the enemy would often end up 20 pixels to the left and 11 pixels down of where he SHOULD be while in melee range. (being either right in your face or the hero appearing partially on top of him) And if you or the enemy backed off so things looked good again, the game no longer considered you to be next to one another, so your swings and stabs wouldn't hit. This misplacement would last until combat ended.

The reason was ironically some stabilization code that was meant to insure the monster was not in "occupied mode" (i.e: busy performing an action) while going through its idle animation. If the code performed that check at the EXACT moment the idle animation was interrupted (usually because of you attacking and the enemy either falling over or defending) "occupied mode" was automatically disabled even though the enemy was going through an action, allowing the game script to perform another action while certain variables involved in the first action weren't reset yet. The chance of this happening was extremely low, like 1 in 200, but that also made it next to impossible to replicate. An alert beta tester sent us a quicksave taken right after that random point, but just before the actual bug triggered, allowing us to consistently replicate it and track down the cause of the problem.

gandri25 · #230 Post by **gandri25** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:30 pm

way to go beta tester for sending you that save

gamecreator · #231 Post by **gamecreator** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:33 am

Erpy wrote:An alert beta tester sent us a quicksave taken right after that random point, but just before the actual bug triggered, allowing us to consistently replicate it and track down the cause of the problem.

Nice!
About the quick saves: are they for beta testing purposes only or will they be part of the game?

#232 Post by **Erpy** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:34 am

They're just for beta testing...they allow people to save in areas where the game is usually not supposed to be saved and also allows them to quickly save without having to look up the number of the savefile.

Arseny · #233 Post by **Arseny** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:07 am

Wow, that was tough to catch. Thanks, it's always interesting to read behind-the-scenes stuff.

Another question, if you don't mind my curiosity – approximately how many bugs were fixed in first iteration of beta?

#234 Post by **Erpy** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:49 am

Bugs is a big word. I personally prefer the word issue or "entry". (as in entry on a list) After all, if a GUI needs to be placed 2 pixels to the right in order to be perfectly centered on the screen, one wouldn't call that a bug, right?

As the amount of entries fixed in beta stage 1, I'd say about 700 or so.

cew-smoke · #235 Post by **cew-smoke** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:58 pm

Wow 700?! You guys found and/or fixed 700 entries in like a month? That's impressive. You guys must be getting a distinct lack of sleep.

#236 Post by **Erpy** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 8:02 pm

It was a very busy month indeed. Fortunately, not all issues took long to fix. Some stuff was spelling/grammar, others were quick suggestions. But plenty of entries were bugs too.

Arseny · #237 Post by **Arseny** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 8:05 pm

Still, it's very impressive count. And it's very good to hear that progress is being made.

Actually, I think I will miss waiting for the game after the release. For the last 7 years it became a part of my life. :rollin

#238 Post by **Anonymous Game Creator 2** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 8:43 pm

Since the game's so complex, new bugs have a tendency to appear as side-effects of fixing other bugs. For example, in the latest beta, it's not possible to walk out of Aziza's alley with the mouse. You have to use the arrow keys (or warp out with the map) as a work-around.

This is the kind of example of a minor bug which has been accidentally introduced as a result of addressing another issue. It's not difficult to fix this bug, but when so many things affect other things in the code, new bugs always have a chance of popping up in place of old ones. This makes the numbers high.

I suspect that these kind of "side-effect" bugs will start to diminish the sooner we stop adding new code/suggestions to the game, and begin concentrating only on fixing what's there. A LOT was changed in between the first and second beta versions, (including a great deal of requests) so there's a good explanation for why there were so many new entries appearing on the list.

The beta can only really be considered ready for public release once a new wave of beta testers can play it through from start to finish without encountering the kinds of discrepancies mentioned above.

#239 Post by **Erpy** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:00 pm

Since the game's so complex, new bugs have a tendency to appear as side-effects of fixing other bugs. For example, in the latest beta, it's not possible to walk out of Aziza's alley with the mouse. You have to use the arrow keys (or warp out with the map) as a work-around.

Yeah, the "special alleyway screens" (like Aziza's alley and the WIT alley) didn't have the feature of the cursor turning into an arrow to mark an alleyway exit south when the mouse was moved to the bottom of the screen, so I added that feature to those screens and one of them backfired on me. My mistake for not checking all special alley screens...the other special alleyways didn't have the problem. It's circular bugfixing like this that adds to the workload.

On that note, I spent a good deal of time today overhauling the bargaining system so merchants don't immediately reset their new price when you stop that particular bargaining session and click the money pouch on them again. I usually dislike tweaking "core"-stuff like that, but multiple people mentioned it already. The feeling that comes with tinkering of the inner game mechanics at this stage is somewhat similar to trying to defuse a live bomb...if you screw up, there's a BIG mess to clean up. Fortunately, I didn't get to see any unwanted results in my testing sessions.

Aleister · #240 Post by **Aleister** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:41 am

Arseny wrote:Still, it's very impressive count. And it's very good to hear that progress is being made.

Actually, I think I will miss waiting for the game after the release. For the last 7 years it became a part of my life. :rollin

I totally know what you mean. Checking this thread has become a ritual. It's so cool to have the inside scoop on the development. Big thanks to Erpy for keeping us all posted.

Klytos · #241 Post by **Klytos** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:38 am

There is nothing worse than bugs that creep into the code due to a bug fix. And the worst part is that the new bug usually has nothing what-so-ever to do with the fix you've made. It's usually a daisy-chain effect, one problem doing something to a second thing, which does something to a third thing which in turn creates your new bug.

That's my experience anyway. Bugger bug-fixing a game like QFG2.

Brainiac · #242 Post by **Brainiac** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:24 pm

Klytos wrote:There is nothing worse than bugs that creep into the code due to a bug fix. And the worst part is that the new bug usually has nothing what-so-ever to do with the fix you've made. It's usually a daisy-chain effect, one problem doing something to a second thing, which does something to a third thing which in turn creates your new bug.

Actually, I can think of one thing worse and I think it happened testing KQ3. You insert something new and an OLD bug, fixed months ago, comes back as a result. That's got to be teeth-grinding.

etherlad · #243 Post by **etherlad** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:00 am

Erpy wrote:The total to-do list got over 500 entries.

Some stuff is easy to fix like: "put a comma after this word and put a period outside the quotes".

I'm going to have to disagree with this person, then.

Punctuation Rules: Quotation Marks

Rule 1: Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, even inside single quotes.

It's not a rule that comes across naturally to anyone who has ever dabbled with programming or HTML, but it's technically correct.

AsianMusicGuy · #244 Post by **AsianMusicGuy** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:53 am

Not this again, for starters each language culture and nation has different rules.
No one grammar or punctuation is correct for I one do not see a point in continuing this debate lets face it its a age old debate that will never be settled Erpy is a highly respected and loved person of the great community that is AGDI and i feel bad for him as this debate was at his expense due to a grammar style so on behalf of everyone on this board I apologize to Erpy and I urge you all not to clutter up a "progress" thread with a debate that has nothing to do with the game.

etherlad · #245 Post by **etherlad** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:21 am

Sorry; I had neglected to read page 9 before posting. :o

#246 Post by **Erpy** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:30 am

Heh, thanks for commenting AMG, but I can stand up for myself quite well if necessary. I might have misquoted one of the beta entries...it doesn't really matter.

Klytos · #247 Post by **Klytos** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:09 am

It is a hell of a tough job deciding what correct English is, that's why I created a list of basic grammar rules for IA.

AsianMusicGuy · #248 Post by **AsianMusicGuy** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:04 pm

Klytos wrote:It is a hell of a tough job deciding what correct English is, that's why I created a list of basic grammar rules for IA.

Great idea why don't you do that for AGDI Erpy? not only will it save us from these debates in the future it will also always be there to remind me to use grammar :)

#249 Post by **Anonymous Game Creator 2** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:34 pm

Actually, it's already been decided that we're going to be remove all the English spelling and grammar, and replace it with Engrish instead.

All your base are belong to us!

#250 Post by **Erpy** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:37 pm

Well, people shouldn't be using grammar because I say so or put together a list. They should be using it because it makes their messages easier and more pleasant to read. (besides, I'm hardly the best person to put together spelling/grammar rules; my native language isn't even English)

We currently have a volunteer going through the game text in order to guarantee consistency. We took most lines in the game directly from the EGA version and the original QFG2 was really inconsistent with stuff like capitalisation. It's a shame we're doing a job Sierra should have done nearly two decades ago, but ah well...better late than never.

Progress Update Thread (formerly known as quest for glory 2)

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