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Aliens: Colonial Marines AI fixed by a single letter
- Thread starter JigglesBunny
- Start date
I see. And these config files are usually done with barebones text editors? Boggles the mind that they wouldn't use tools capable of detecting these things to me if such grave errors can result from it.
I imagine they thought it was something more fundamental that was wrong, then they ran into a firm deadline and had to ship.
Still kind of morbidly funny.
Still kind of morbidly funny.
Goes to show you why external configuration files can be bad news.
I'm really not surprised. I spent almost 6 weeks trying to fix some broken deep learning code because the algorithm kept derping out, and it was only when I was eating cornflakes one morning I noticed a single typo that fucked the entire thing. It's easily missed when you have been staring at it for weeks.
Here's the common misconception of game dev in that every bug in a game is missed by QA, and that's not how this works. You are assuming QA didn't bug or raise the issue and 9 out of 10 times that is not the case. It typically falls onto the production staff to decide if the bug was worth the time and effort to fix. My guess is this is purely on the tech side of things in that they didn't know what the problem was and as such decided along wtih production that it wasn't important enough to address.
As crazy as that last line sounds, it happens. human error is a staple of programming.
This isn't unique unfortunately. Civilisation 6 had *numerous* bugs that were exactly the same. Misspellings in the ini files meant the AI didn't know what era it was, didn't realize how to settle cities, and prioritised religion over everything else no matter what. It's a big part of why the Civ 6 AI is so utter garbage,
They haven't fixed all of those bugs yet either.
They haven't fixed all of those bugs yet either.
This isn't code. Game code would be much harder to edit. This is just a plain-text .ini configuration file. I'm gonna assume someone stressed out and tired mistyped the value in the configuration file and the game didn't properly validate the input. Validation and proper error handling are often the things that you sort of brush over when you're trying to get a project out of the door quickly. This sort of error can happen very easily. This particular bug isn't a sign of incompetence or lack of professionalism on the dev's part, it's most likely stress and lack of testing.
Yeah speaking as someone who made some relatively complicated mods for XCOM 2, it's really easy to get yourself in the sense of that if there's a fuckup, it has to be in some of the major things you just changed, and maybe if you just take a second or third or fortieth look through it, maybe you'll finally find it.
Meanwhile the true culprit of one simple typo in a place you considered simple and shouldn't be relevant is silently laughing all the way.
I want to see a comparison video to see really how different it is. If it makes a significant difference its crazy that that they didn't catch the error before the game shipped.
this hurt sega way more than it hurt gearbox
2k would still pay for borderlands 3. after all most of the budget went towards borderlands 2.
This isn't a issue of competency. Gearbox even came in for quality reasons. Sega gave them a set date and it wasn't sufficient time.
Well gearbox didn't actually develop the game they outsourced it to another company, a friend of mine was running of working there during that project.
Amazing how literally one letter basically ruined an entire aspect of a game.
Makes me appreciate coders so much more.
Makes me appreciate coders so much more.
I know people are focusing on why this was allowed but I find this to be fascinating. I would love seeing the ins and outs of Game Development at a technical level even through the lens of sheer incompetence the fact one tiny mistake can break so much and fix it self with a similarly tiny adjustment is wild.
I would think so too, but I would genuinely like to hear from someone with QA experience in video games. My thinking is that they would have reported broken AI in testing the product and it was up to someone resolving issues to look for the cause. I have never heard of QA going through INI files though. Maybe I'm wrong.
As funny as it is, I doubt the game's perception would've changed if the alien AI was a little better.
Yes, that's definitely a factor too. Usually as a programmer, you have sort of a bias to look at the complicated parts first because those are usually the most error-prone. A mistyped constant, as often as it happens, is often the last place you'll look.
That original discovery is also 8 months old btw, those mods posts are from november last year. This was out there for months and never blew up. In that thread there's a newer post about a second typo:
"How did QA not find this???"
They most definitely would have, QA aren't just incompetent monkeys that don't notice cripplingly bad bugs. It's not up to them what gets fixed and what doesn't.
SEGA were the publishers they and the producers would've been aware of its current progress and the issues that surrounded their final build. People consistently prove in these threads they don't know how game Dev works.
They most definitely would have, QA aren't just incompetent monkeys that don't notice cripplingly bad bugs. It's not up to them what gets fixed and what doesn't.
SEGA were the publishers they and the producers would've been aware of its current progress and the issues that surrounded their final build. People consistently prove in these threads they don't know how game Dev works.
so wait
The "teather" file does actually exist though? It's just nothing? Did they like, catch that a non-existent file was being called, make a blank one with that name, and call it a day or something?
I guess the alternative is that someone caught that the file was misspelled, made a new copy with the same name, and then forgot to actually change the references?
The "teather" file does actually exist though? It's just nothing? Did they like, catch that a non-existent file was being called, make a blank one with that name, and call it a day or something?
I guess the alternative is that someone caught that the file was misspelled, made a new copy with the same name, and then forgot to actually change the references?
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/aliens-colonial-marines-collection
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/aliens-colonial-marines-collection
2.99€, If it's worth your time is another thing.
it absolutely would not, the hideous AI was the least of it's problems.
Fuck, I was one of the poor sods that went media blackout on the game from announcement, and pre-ordered it day 1 without checking reviews.
Needless to say, when I got playing the game I was completely baffled and deflated at what a fucking mess it was, I remember I used it as a beer mat for a good few weeks I was that pissed.
All QA does is report technical issues with the game the notice in playtesting, they can't fix them. The devs knew the AI was broken but probably couldn't find the reason.
I wonder if this was a result of the game starting at Gearbox and being outsourced.
Like, maybe there was a lot of code that didn't seem attached to anything, and band-aids were just put on them. 'There's something here about attaching a tether to an enemy...?', 'Maybe it was a weapon Gearbox were working on, but it isn't in this build. Just do what it takes to make it compile'.
Like, maybe there was a lot of code that didn't seem attached to anything, and band-aids were just put on them. 'There's something here about attaching a tether to an enemy...?', 'Maybe it was a weapon Gearbox were working on, but it isn't in this build. Just do what it takes to make it compile'.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but the entries in the INI file don't need to correspond to files. They're just text that the game reads and stores in some sort of key-value data structure. If I had to guess, I'd say that there's a part of the code that decides for each enemy type the type of AI behavior it should use, depending on what it says in the configuration file. If there's no value or an unrecognized value, it'd probably fall-back to the default behavior (which is what happened here).
