Leaderboard Bug? (or: I've lost WiredWorm!)

[choddo]

It's still a fantastic creation Jeff. I was in fucking awe of level27 firs time I saw it earlier tonight. This shit will all blow over. Things probably always look grimmest at 1 in the morning ... with a full moon.

As for the testing thing - could you have some sort of long weekender frenzied session of gaming, beer and curry, right when you think it's all as fixed as it will ever be at the end of dev where 4 or 5 volunteers try to trash the game? I don't think you'd have a shortage of vounteers off here.

[drivenstorm]

I am not going back into bloody cert again.

The period leading up to the release of this has been one of the most uniquely stressful things I've ever done. I'd no more voluntarily walk back into all that than I'd voluntarily walk into a bank of rotating knives and axes.

All this is trivial stuff that involves a few one-line fixes, if necessary we'll do that, but I am not walking back into that hell again and I am not going to goddamn *pay* to do so.

And next time out I want proper bloody test. Fucks sake.

This is the sort of thing that paying users of Xbox Live should be mad about. I'm paying £40 for the service, pay for the game and then things don't work 100% because they've cocked up in some way.
I loved Marble Blast Ultra but not being able to see Friends times took the edge off.

I'm still loving SG and to be honest I think it's worth 800 points easy. If it's going to cost you guys an arm and a leg then leave it. I think the paying customers have got to make a stink about it. If there was one thing I liked about XBLA was the idea of encouraging small developers and different ideas so why they should make the process of getting a game out so insanely difficult is very frustrating.

[Googer]

I was surprised learning about the cert cost as well - I guess I had figured that cert was free - or at least inexpensive - and that the majority (or all if free) of the costs associated with it were part of the pot that MS takes out of every sale. However in retrospect this does make sense with the various XBLA releases in the past that could / should have had patches released to fix various issues but never did.

[TodaysForgotten]

Jeff, while i dont know how the gaming industry is and can only understand how you feel, try not to get too banged up over this. You made a fantastic game, regardless. The bugs i found are common things i would have done regardless. That's just my nature in gaming.

As far as their being other bugs in this game. I would donate my sack to africa if im wrong, but im going with no. The game is otherwise flawless. I have spent hours analyzing levels and enemies. I couldnt find anything else.

[Harlequin]

*** HUGS Yak and Giles ***

I have heard rumours that Microsoft allows one free revision, although I would be tempted to present it to them as a DIFF file to prove that there was nothing more to check.

It seems to be in the nature of the console that testers must have access to devkits, which suggests that those on the development side are likely to be confined to Llamasofties who work in the industry.

I wonder if it would be possible, for future games, to initially port to PC for testing by a more diverse selection of people (including non-pros who have not been following development), while those able to do so test the console version? A side-effect of this might even be a shorter delay between release of the console and PC versions.

That written, I am unsure as to whether this leaderboard problem would have been discovered by such a method as the PC non-pros would not have had LB access and there might have been too few people on PartnerNet for the pros to have enough playing Friends.

[Jamesac]

I only count one potential real problem, despite four issues-

1) Sound drop-off
2) Friends falling off the leaderboard
3) Jump exploit
4) Control config

The sound drop-off isn't a game-breaker, despite being annoying. Friends falling off the leaderboard, likewise, is also more annoyance than anything else, especially seeing as they can be found in the full list. The control config is frustrating if you're the person who wants to use that specific combination, but there are ways around it.

The only real potential issue is the jump exploit, and the only thing it does is invalidate some leaderboard scores. Speaking as a person who wants to play Space Giraffe for the joy of playing, it's a complete non-issue. I like comparing my scores to others online, but if I can't then I'm pretty sure I'll get over it quick. Hell, the only reason it's a problem is because of the Friends Leaderboard, meaning I can't consistently check my score against people who I trust to play the game right. This is not a game-killing issue.

Space Giraffe is simply an amazing game, period. It's got a few dents in the technical polish but nothing that makes it less worth playing. If MS will let you fix the problems cert-free, then happy happy. If not, I'll just have to be content playing one of the best games released this year.

Short version- these are annoyances, and you know how to deal with them for the next game. Don't let it drive you nuts, because I really want to play whatever you come up with next.

James

[disciple]

Hmm, this sort of issue could hit any developer on XBLA. I mean bugs happen, they have to be found at some point. If MS don't themselves test a game for bugs pre-release then you would imagine they would account for this by making bug fixing & patching a game after it's live a straightforward affair.

[corrosive]

It sounds to me like Microsoft are charging too much for their certification if it's not financially viable for developers to fix small bugs like this. It certainly explains why the Marble Blast Ultra bug was never fixed. I can certainly understand if this doesn't get fixed, and I'd rather it didn't make it impossible for Llamasoft to produce another XBLA title in the future (not that that's been said).

The game's still ace at the end of the day, best 400 points I've spent on XBLA by a long way.

[peter_cushion]

I don't give a monkeys if there's a couple of bugs here and there. Course there's going to be - it's V1.0. All I care is that someone has created a fantastic game which I now own and can play forever for the price of a pint. Leaderboard, jump glitch. Who cares? It goes 'Moo moo' and has a giraffe that sneezes if you line it up with bullets as you exit a level. SOLD! It's easy to dwell on the negatives - get out and celebrate fellas. You've done an amazing job and can't wait for the next one.

[Zoot]

*HUGS*.

I'm with Peter here - if it costs, either in money or stress, don't do it.

SG is s thing of beauty, and a couple of minor issues don't detract/ Leaderboards are willy-waving, and the people who know about the score bug an exploit it deliberately won't have big willys (TF excluded from this, as he didn't know it was a bug).

*HUGS*

[prOnBoy]

It isn't MS's fault.

Their test is geared towards certain specific things - TCR compliance and suchlike, it isn't intended to be a complete and thorough test of the actual game.

Actual game test we tried to cover with our volunteer alpha team, and those guys have been playing since early Spring, but despite that and us here playing it forever it obviously didn't turn up stupid things like the damn holding the trigger in PZ thing (who the hell would do that? obviously people do but by goat so many of us played the game and nobody ever did that)...

Back at Atari test we had mad people who would just try and break stuff, they would have found such stuff, but test and cert and stuff was way different at Atari than it is here now.

It's worrying because it's not the kind of stuff I can test for, I can't have an Atari-style test team to help me, it isn't MS's fault since their test is geared towards certain specific things, there is no way that a small outfit like LS can afford "professional" test services which run into hundreds of grand per title, and I can't just point to a handful of guys and say "you guys get test kits, help us for the price of a curry" because I think that even though some people would do that for us the infrastructure to do that isn't there.

It's trivial stuff that should've been found months ago. It's making me completely upset and depressed that we even have to spend time fixing it when by rights we should be enjoying a bit of relaxation time after release. Instead of the stress going away it's just got worse. I think we can fix it this time, so long as TPTB play nice with us and don't decide to extract a pound of flesh - if they do, we're finished. And even if they don't, what can we do next time? A title needs proper test and I don't see how we can get it in the current model, and at this point I really don't know what to do.

At this point I'm too upset to really be much use. I'm going offline from YY and from everything until I can report some kind of solution to all this. It's just a handful of stupid trivial things that have conspired to make this all a big mess. Best game I've ever made spoiled by just stupid things. I'm so gutted.

Whether Microsoft play ball or not I guess depends on how much they want unique new IP's on Xbox Live.

If they want every release to be available on all three console platforms then they would be going the right way about it charge an extortionate amount to re cert.

If however they want to make Xbox Live a real selling point of the 360 platform then they need to give you guys a break. If I didn't already own a 360 and had played SG for a couple of hours it would have been a system seller.

We need more releases like SG instead of crap like Street Trace etc.

[alisdair]

SG is s thing of beauty, and a couple of minor issues don't detract/ Leaderboards are willy-waving

I completely agree that SG is amazing, and it's easily my favourite 360 game already. And I'll obviously still keep playing it even if the bugs aren't fixed.

But it's a high score game, so leaderboards are obviously very important, and it's silly to pretend otherwise. I'm not very good at all, but a lot of the drive to keep playing comes from seeing how far up the boards I can get. If the bug isn't fixed, then I'll only be playing for fun instead of also for competition's sake.

[gilesgoat]

We are extremely gutted about what happened and what's going on now.

We are in the process to find out how much is going to cost us to release
a patch, the bugs are easely fixeable .. a couple of lines of code there
and there and they are gone.

What really pisses us off is the fact despite all our testing and such we
did not manage to find them out before, we did all the best we been able
to set up some proper testing and extensively test in & out all this stuff.

Reality is, small developer like us will never be able to afford a "complete
Q&A team" costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and even in that case
you can't be sure you'll make something 100% bug free.

From what I heard looks like "you have to put in your budget costs" the
cost of a patch as well, you can't really reproduce "in the lab" what a few
days of SW "in the wild" where many thousands of people can play it all
in once for hours can do.

Now we know all that is not cheap, how much it will be we'll get to know soon

It's a bit of a fucking thing because you finally after all this time think
"I am finally done, now I can chill" .. and you are NOT finally done at
all there's still "this very last step".

Now hopefully we won't have to pay too much for it, don't know how it
goes no idea, we'll see what comes out.

In all and all I think I can well affirm that the *dream* that "XBLA is the
thing for bedroom coders" is really false, it's not really like that and it's
not going to be like that .. it simply can't be.

It's true that is a thing "lot better" for small developers than what
"a full retail game is" yet it's still a complex thing and the problem is not
"in the XBLA thing" but in "how the software has to be today" all the
quality standards you have to adhere to and all the various processes.

In short we can really say "yes today is really lot more complex to make stuff" and the risks are really big.

It's still doable but it's really very hard you can do it only if you have balls
of steel and huge determination to arrive at the end .. a bit less than this
and you won't get there.

Now with this bug stuff we are with the morale down the shoes, can't wait
to hear the news and finally fix that up and then say a "fuck off" to all this
I personally don't even care any more about all we are going to loose or whatever I just don't want to hear
any more for quite a bit about SG, I truly can't stand to see it any more now.

I am fucking fucking fucking tired to have to deal with this kind of crap
and have this feeling of "it's not finished yet".

It's our beloved thing sure but in this moment it's also the stuff I hate more.

It's really shite .. and I can't still take it well .. I can't believe that despite
ALL we have done to it this shite has to come out .. it's unbelievably furstrating.

You can't just take a breath of air and say "Hey yes I finished this game"
that you are again in the shite and people complainig blah blah and blah ..

Months and months and months and months of work .. and still we have
to see one penny coming out from it.

No words the describe the frustration and the stress.

[Zoot]

You can't just take a breath of air and say "Hey yes I finished this game"
that you are again in the shite and people complainig blah blah and blah ..

Months and months and months and months of work .. and still we have
to see one penny coming out from it.

No words the describe the frustration and the stress.

I don't think that people are complaining - I would like to think that we are all supporting you and, whilst we can't imagine at the stress this is causing you, I for one can certainly sypathise, because I have spent two seperate one year periods of work with stress.

I say what I said before - SG is a thing of beauty, and you should both be bloody proud of what you have done.

Take a step back, and a deep breath.

*HUGS*

[kalmar]

Giles, no point stressing about it. Wait and see what M$ says. I can guarantee you are not the only ones to have been in such a position. If there is a charge, no need to take the first offer but negotiate a bit (politely). At the end of the day, they will want the thing fixing.

Likewise, even if it's going to take a little while to do, that's not a big deal because you don't need to rush into patching.. what, 3 or 4 bugs?

OK, some people are going to be annoyed when the scoreboards get erased, but on the other hand it'll be a great chance to start again with the assurance of a level playing field.

I would suggest doing something else for this week while you talk with MS. Don't work on SG, don't sit on the forums but take advantage of the nice weather which has finally arrived