reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

[dave360]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I too have no sympathy at all for Kush,2k, or VC. I knew the game would have a few bugs and was very lenient towards that, but a total game freeze for the majority of people that own the title is unreasonable. It needs to be mandatory at 2k now for all games to be bug tested on a "retail" system. I don't care if it moves it back a month, I'm tired of these buggy sports games from 2k and Kush. If they have 100 people bug testing games, then they need 200 people doing it. As much as I've bagged on EA in the past, I've never gotten a freeze in a single one of their games on the 360. I just feel bad for the people without Broadband access to get the patch when it comes out. This could be Madden 2004 XBOX all over again. It looks like they're gonna have to send out discs to folks without live.

[jim416]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

hardcore sports gamers like us are the minority...most guys here could care less about the "side games"....hence the silence

Guess my point is fix what needs to be fixed and then if you have time put new stuff in. Right now it seems to be fix somethings that need to be fixed, put something new and untested in that is buggy and will be worked on for NEXT YEARS game to get it right, along with all the stuff from the previous year they didn't fix.

Sort of a vicious cycle.

[fossen]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

4. Testers do not use retail 360s to test the game because this is not possible. A retail 360 can not play the burns of the constantly updated builds.

5. The 360s testers use are not identical to the retail 360s you all have.

They never test in a production environment? They never test the media?

You may be right, but that's a godawful bad test plan, then.

[ChicagoSparty]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I think this is more a reality check for the video game industry than it is for us. We knew all along these companies would screw us with any chance they got, whether that screwing took place in the form of unfulfilled promises, unfixed errors, or unresponsive support. We have seen it time and time again.

The companies, though, should not realize that there can be grave consequences for such activity (or inactivity) and that they better watch themselves, particularly in this era of exclusive licenses.

Also, add me to the list of people who don't care to hear whose fault this is, don't care to witness finger pointing, and overall don't want anything except a fix. You say these companies work night and day leading up to the release to ensure a quality product? Well, I believe that, because it is in their financial interest to do so. My only concern now is that 2K/Kush is working with that same fervor and diligence to fix the disaster it has created.

[basehead617]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

They never test in a production environment? They never test the media?

You may be right, but that's a godawful bad test plan, then.

I'm just saying the REAL FINAL MEDIA don't get made until the last step, right before they go to stores as far as I know. And the retail 360s obviously cannot play burned DVDs of the 'in progress' version so it's definitely risky... as we're seeing now. Maybe they grab a few off the last run the day they finish and check but as we're seeing, they might've gotten lucky with a few good copies and/or good systems.

[GamingJones]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I think a fair question to ask to is why was this game pushed up two weeks?

2K has no competition on the 360 in terms of baseball games, so why not take those two weeks and test some retail versions of the games?

This is going to hurt 2K in a bad way.

[basehead617]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I think a fair question to ask to is why was this game pushed up two weeks?

2K has no competition on the 360 in terms of baseball games, so why not take those two weeks and test some retail versions of the games?

This is going to hurt 2K in a bad way.

The obvious answer?: likely fixing bugs that WERE showing up in testing.. e.g. not this freezing.

[jim416]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

It would serve them right if the retailers just start pulling all their unopened games off the shelves, returned them for credit, and stop ordering the product for sale.

[GamingJones]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

The obvious answer?: likely fixing bugs that WERE showing up in testing.. e.g. not this freezing.

I am asking why they pushed the game up two weeks, from the 24th to the 10th.

[basehead617]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I am asking why they pushed the game up two weeks, from the 24th to the 10th.

Oh, sorry, misread - Of course it got pushed back 2 weeks too (they'd always like to release the games before April 1st) -- The Show was out for ages before either old or new gen were out.. oops!

[kingdevin]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

Wow...all this is krazy. I guess EA is laughing, laughing, laughing. Hmmmm, has anyone ever considered sabotage???? The Kush mole developer???? With all of this comp esp exclusive licensing who knows what is the reason behind the "freeze" (or maybe I just watch too much 24)

..the ramifications of exclusive or in this case restrictive licensing...

[DrJones]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

Hmmm, interesting. basehead617 is correct in how he describes the development process. Sometimes strange things happen on the retail build that don't occur on the dev build. If the problem is as you describe, there's no way Microsoft would've let it through.

[baa7]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

Even worse- last year 2K had a chance to fix many of the problems with their second release of MLB 2K5 (WSE).. and they opted not to? The game shipped with the same problems?

But its funny how they are reacting to freezing issues, but broken gameplay mechanics never seem to raise any alarms.

Exactly. There are more issues here than just this freezing issue with 2K6.

[basehead617]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

Exactly. There are more issues here than just this freezing issue with 2K6.

No game-killers, from what I can tell. Talk to totalownership, he's hardcore and enjoying himself greatly.

I was just addressing the freezing.

I realize the vitriol on the forums is an accumulation of things from past games too.

[Jistic]

Re: reality check for you all - PLEASE read this

I'm going to have to repeat some things I've said in various posts:

1. I understand the frustration.. you paid and want to play.. however:

2. Over 100 people do nothing all day but test the game at Microsoft (once submitted) and at Take Two/VC (during development)- I know some of them. They do so in 24 hour shifts during crunch time before a game is released.

If you know anything about how the console game industry works, you know that it is almost impossible to get a game past Microsoft and Sony's compliance and approval process if there are crashes that are easy to reproduce or happen a lot. This problem did NOT occur in testing.

Yes higher ups at companies push for some bugs to be overlooked because if you waited for all bugs to be fixed, a game would never come out. They are slightly more lenient on yearly-released sports games because fans have shown they would rather play a game that is updated and improved in other ways than one that is totally bug-free.

However, you must take my word for it, Microsoft and Sony will NOT greenlight a console release on which it is easy to reproduce a crash in testing. They constantly reject first, second, and third submissions of great games that have even ONE easily reproducible crash, sometimes even in an obscure setting.

4. Testers do not use retail 360s to test the game because this is not possible. A retail 360 can not play the burns of the constantly updated builds.

5. The 360s testers use are not identical to the retail 360s you all have.

6. There are different hard drives and optical drives in various batches of retail 360s.

7. MLB uses the hard drive more than any other 360 game released so far to my knowledge. It uses them for replays, highlights, all sorts of things. This is my impression, not a guaranteed fact, but I guarantee the so-far-on-360 unprecedented hard drive usage is related to the problem.

8. The fact that some people have no problems even with a hard drive, online, offline, vip or not, is proof positive of one of two things: a) a problem between 'going gold' and the manufactured disks (manufacturing plant QC, master disc preparation, etc), or b) a 360 problem between different lots of manufactured units, that so far no other game has uncovered because of less or different hard drive usage than MLB.

The issue is crystal clear in this sense. If two people who have 360s, and two identical discs of the game (this is assuming the problem was not QC at the plant), both format their drives, both through an HDTV with default dashboard settings and one freezes and the other doesn't (this basic situation has played out hundreds of times in these threads) then it is a hardware issue. The fact that it hasnt happened with the limited number of other games from other companies on the 360 so far means nothing.

9. You can be sure 2K is freaking out about this and there is lots of finger-pointing going on behind the scenes, but you can also be sure there are people losing a lot of sleep and working a lot of long hours trying to narrow down what systems and what combination of factors lead to this issue with the manufactured discs. There is nothing worse for a game than early word of mouth saying 'dont buy it, it doesn't work - anything that affects the bottom line like this, to say that it is intentional, is foolhardy. All they can do now is hope they can come up with a fix within a few weeks and spread the word far and wide that anyone who purchased the game is eligible for the fix.

I just wanted to lay out a few things that I know are not widely understood. Please don't flame this, I've read every post on the board up until now and there is no need to repost things already said. If you've spoken your mind at all, I've read it.

Its totally understandable if you want to return or exchange the game. It's totally reasonable to be pissed, but nobody is served by lots of threads full of incorrect information.


thanks..

Nice of you to sign up two days ago just in time for damage control!