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[TRENCHES] Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - Suppurating

GethGeth LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
edited October 2012 in The Penny Arcade Hub
Suppurating


Suppurating
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/suppurating

Too Funny to Fix

Anonymous

I was working at a third-party testing house and we were working on a game that accurately replicated the city of Manhattan. By the end of development the bugs numbered in the thousands. I ran into some pretty impressive/funny bugs during my tenure on the game, most of which got fixed.

Some of my favorites:

1. Early in development there was a slightly disturbing feature. Pedestrians, hit with explosive weapons, left limbs behind that were usable as weapons. The bug I found was that they never went away. The bodies vanished, but the limbs remained. After a particularly impressive rampage, I took a screenshot of Wall Street littered with limbs and sent to devs.

2. The crowd AI responded with mayhem if you shot someone in broad daylight. Testing this feature with a Sniper Rifle had some great results. At a certain range, no one would notice when an NPC’s head was shot. They would continue their casual walk while their friends’ head exploded.

At an even further distance, the NPC didn’t get register being shot. Instead they spawned sunglasses (a la Matrix agents) and went about their business while everyone near them ran around in a panic.

3. My favorite bug of all time. The game had certain buildings you could walk into. Grocery stores, med clinics, banks and, of course, strip clubs. When walking into a building, the game dynamically loaded the models of the characters. Very rarely, the game would accidentally load every character in the building as the same model, but give them all the correct animations. After repeatedly being told I was just plain wrong; that it was IMPOSSIBLE that this bug could exist, I had my day in the sun.

Hours spent finally reproducing this bug, I caught video of my character walking into a strip club and every single NPC model was a cop. Cop on the stripper pole. Cop as a cocktail waitress. Cop getting a lapdance from another cop. Cop. Cop. Cop.

Beaming with pride at reproducing the bug and catching it on video, I walk into work the next morning with a note from the developer:

Will Not Fix: Too Funny.


Geth on

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    So what kind of GTA clone was it, I wonder?

    Because that does sound like a funny bug.

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    Man in the MistsMan in the Mists Registered User regular
    As a tester, being told "Won't fix" is annoying. But if I'm told "Too awesome, won't fix" my usual reply is "Well...yeah. Okay".

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    I have to side with the developers on this one.

    I wonder what EEEUGH.gif looks like?

    Also, I am now hopelessly lost on what Cora hopes to achieve.

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    JucJuc EdmontonRegistered User regular
    My guess is that she wants to pressure the developers into doing what she wants ala the mass effect 3 movement.

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    CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    As if anyone who plays MMOs can still be shocked by a gif...

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Juc wrote: »
    My guess is that she wants to pressure the developers into doing what she wants ala the mass effect 3 movement.

    But what does she want? She said way back at the start there would be a rollback, but now she's against this?

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    PaperPrittPaperPritt Registered User regular
    I remenber when i was young and would look at internet shock .gifs.

    Good times... or not.

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    King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    Juc wrote: »
    My guess is that she wants to pressure the developers into doing what she wants ala the mass effect 3 movement.

    The difference here is the Mass effect three "movement" wasn't forcing them to do anything. They just wanted an ending that wasn't stupid and it was entirely something players did.

    Cora is abusing her position for some sort of power fantasy. I expect it will blow up in her face when a surge of new customers come in to see what the deal is and don't give a shit about a rollback

    King Riptor on
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    agoajagoaj Top Tier One FearRegistered User regular
    How does he know it's Cora?

    ujav5b9gwj1s.png
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    King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    Um Cora flat out said she was on the side of the players?

    I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
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    StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    This is the best strip and the best tale ever.

    "Some seriously passive aggressive bullshit"

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
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    CyberJackalCyberJackal Registered User regular
    I flat out don't even understand what "the side of the players" is supposed to be. Are they saying the entirety of the playerbase is happier with the game's completely fucked up economy?

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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    I flat out don't even understand what "the side of the players" is supposed to be. Are they saying the entirety of the playerbase is happier with the game's completely fucked up economy?

    God only knows. The idea that an entire playerbase would actually "strike" like this is straining my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, though. To say nothing of Q knowing Cora is responsible and choosing to react by posting a GIF instead of firing her ass. Fire the whole damn company.

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    RaveBombRaveBomb Registered User regular
    Except Cora was advocating an ingame demonstration. This Unoccupy item is probably someone else.

    I'm off to pirate more music, steal software, and knock down little old ladies, then later I'm going to cover my self in Yak's blood, and lay in a pentagram, while reading some Marxist literature and praying to a heathen god.

    tata
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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Yeah, but the ingame demonstration got shut down by the server "maintenance." I wouldn't put anything past Cora, it's not like any of what she's doing is based on rational ideas about how to practically help the game, the players, or the company.

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    astronautcowboy3astronautcowboy3 Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    This story is awesome. I think I agree with the developers. If once every 1000 times you walk into a strip club, a bunch of taxi drivers are humping, you leave that shit in. That's what we call a feature.

    astronautcowboy3 on
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    SatsumomoSatsumomo Rated PG! Registered User regular
    Well in GTAIV I once entered the strip, left and suddenly outside every female was a stripper. Lasted a while too. Don't remember if I have screenshots, but what I do have is from one time that I booted up the game, every single character and every single vehicle was a cop/cop car.

    I of course, shot one and it was hilarious how dozens of cops and cop cars converged all at once on me. After I got arrested everything went back to normal.

    Regarding the comic, I also suscribe to the idea that it might not be Corra.

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    The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    A tale that doesn't cause my misanthropy to further condense into a seething rage singularity! Shocking!

    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    edited October 2012
    For the record, I hope it's not Cora because it being Cora would be obvious and silly and tiresome.

    OK, wild theory just born of trying to think of who else could be behind this:

    Gwen. Remember how the comic introduced Gwen over the course of a few installments and then sort of abruptly shifted away from her? We saw from her interview with Cora that Gwen is a bit of a power-hungry type, perhaps not-so-subtly angling for Cora's job. Gwen has somehow orchestrated this knowing that Cora will be the obvious person who will be blamed.

    Of course, this assumes that Gwen could pick up on the dynamic of the office and Cora's white knight tendencies very fast, even aside from having to assume the implausible idea that Gwen or anybody could actually convince the playerbase to walk out en masse. But I am just spitballing here.

    Gaslight on
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    RatherDashing89RatherDashing89 Registered User regular
    I think Gwen is a pretty good guess. Obviously a protest like this could never happen b/c no matter how often a publisher pulls the rug out from under its customers, someone will always log in--especially since Lawstar can't exactly have the most discerning player base. But for the sake of the joke, it makes more sense to be someone like Gwen, who is actually shown to be capable, as opposed to Cora, who is regularly shown as out of touch--that's the joke with her.

    Also, yay happy story!

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    SilvercrossSilvercross Registered User new member
    edited October 2012
    I registered just to comment on this story.

    I too, did QA on this game, and remember these bugs. It was my first project, and I was there from the first day it hit the test floor, and now I'm positive that I must know the person who submitted this story.

    Another bug I really loved from that game was trying to drift in a bus using the "auto drift" feature, and flying miles into the air over the buildings of Manhattan. I also really loved the bug that caused a second main character to spawn, and you'd end up controlling them both at the same time. Nothing is better than getting into a car chase with yourself.

    Silvercross on
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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Mareley?

    Another intriguing theory, though I kind of doubt Marley/Rarley/Xarley/Xarles/Xarles Barkley could conceive of and pull off of something like this when it's already been demonstrated he's so fucking high all the damn time.

    But maybe his unjust(?) termination of employment motivated him to get off the ganja and focus on revenge???

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    HotandnerdyHotandnerdy Hot and Nerdy Kansas CityRegistered User regular
    A tale that doesn't cause my misanthropy to further condense into a seething rage singularity! Shocking!

    Lol. :P

    girl.jpg
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    fljaredfljared Registered User new member
    I flat out don't even understand what "the side of the players" is supposed to be. Are they saying the entirety of the playerbase is happier with the game's completely fucked up economy?

    I think it's because the developers are kind of fucking with the player base. Like doing a rollback without telling anyone. Her earlier leaks were her trying to tell the base so they'd be able to able to prepare for it.

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    Goose!Goose! That's me, honey Show me the way home, honeyRegistered User regular
    Geth wrote: »
    At an even further distance, the NPC didn’t get register being shot. Instead they spawned sunglasses (a la Matrix agents) and went about their business while everyone near them ran around in a panic.

    Ah, the "Deal With It" bug.

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    shoeboxjeddyshoeboxjeddy Registered User regular
    Gaslight wrote: »
    Mareley?

    Another intriguing theory, though I kind of doubt Marley/Rarley/Xarley/Xarles/Xarles Barkley could conceive of and pull off of something like this when it's already been demonstrated he's so fucking high all the damn time.

    But maybe his unjust(?) termination of employment motivated him to get off the ganja and focus on revenge???

    Or his high persona is more focused and competent than he is normally, a la Tyler Durden.

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    Wangticore1023Wangticore1023 Registered User regular
    I love this line:

    "Who is empowering these Morlocks?"

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    glimmungglimmung Registered User regular
    I love this line:

    "Who is empowering these Morlocks?"

    Except it should probably be "Who is empowering the Eloi?"

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    Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    glimmung wrote: »
    I love this line:

    "Who is empowering these Morlocks?"

    Except it should probably be "Who is empowering the Eloi?"

    Just so. Techies are more likely to identify with the pale troglodytes that keep everything running, to whom the beautiful people in the sunlit garden are merely prey, and to be proud of that.

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