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[TRENCHES] Thursday, November 28, 2013 - Managing Down

GethGeth LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
edited November 2013 in The Penny Arcade Hub
Managing Down


Managing Down
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/managing-down

The good ol’ switcheroo trick.

Anonymous

There are 2 kinds of show stoppers when you’re close to release.

First, there’s the ones that you don’t want the public to see. Then there are the ones the console manufacturers don’t want to see.

They’re pretty hardcore sometimes on finding crashes in places people will never go. And by that, I mean that no one will eject their disc and reinsert it while mashing the home/guide/PSN button… during the logo videos.

So we had a crash in our game, it occurred if the player did something no one would ever do on purpose. And it only occurred on the default multiplayer map! We thought that no one would ever get this crash and because it was impossible to fix we considered leaving it there, but we were worried about the console manufacturer…

So… We put that particular map last instead of first. They didn’t find it. Better that than to cut a map out of 6 huh?


Geth on

Posts

  • SpaffySpaffy Fuck the Zero Registered User regular
    Good comic, story is... Eh? There are some bugs nobody will ever find... It's cool

    ALRIGHT FINE I GOT AN AVATAR
    Steam: adamjnet
  • marsiliesmarsilies Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Good comic, story is... Eh? There are some bugs nobody will ever find... It's cool
    I think the tale is more complex than that. The developers found a bug that they thought no end user would ever find, but which they thought the console certification QA team may find. So instead of fixing it, the developers instead tried to hide it from the console certification QA team, which they succeeded at.

    Whether the bug actually was never found is likely something the tale author doesn't know. What the author calls something " no one would ever do on purpose," could be something that a few people actually do end up doing a few times. To wit:
    TychoCelchuuu wrote: »
    I mean that no one will eject their disc and reinsert it while mashing the home/guide/PSN button… during the logo videos.
    Uh I could actually imagine doing that. You put in a game you want to play then you say "oh shit just kidding I don't want to play it" so you eject it and start mashing Home, then you change your mind.

    What's interesting about the tale is the false dichotomy of either hiding the bug, or cutting the map, when there's a third option: fix the bug. The tale author calls the bug "impossible to fix," but I don't think it's actually true that there's ever a bug that's impossible to fix. It's possible that the bug would've taken too much time or money to make it feasible to fix, but it's likely fixable.


    About the comic: What job does Cora have? I thought she was head QA, but is she maybe just a liaison? I remember her communicating between Q and the rest of QA a lot.
    http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/intercessor

    marsilies on
  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    edited December 2013
    She just swapped working places with bat-dude. And took control of milestones for a bit. Still officially a tester as far as the comics say.

    rahkeesh2000 on
  • RaketemenschRaketemensch Registered User regular
    Is there no thread for "Being Bad?" I can't figure out what the dialog in frame 3 is supposed to mean.

  • marsiliesmarsilies Registered User regular
    Raketemensch wrote: »
    Is there no thread for "Being Bad?" I can't figure out what the dialog in frame 3 is supposed to mean.
    Right here:
    http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/185116/new-trenches-27-11-2013

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