Game Development Giant - Chapter 826

c820 Technical issues are unpredictable

At the end of the year, with the arrival of a new year, the production of “Monster Hunter” has also entered the subsequent finishing stage.

Of course, this is talking about the production of the European and American mythology version, because this game will have three different versions, and the release time will not be the same. Although the three versions are being carried out at the same time, there are still differences in speed. Previously, Jester believed that they could develop three games at the same time and release them at the same time. This would create a greater momentum.

However, during the development process, they discovered that although the game mechanics of these three versions are the same and the engines are the same, logically speaking, development is becoming more and more smooth and easier.

But while still developing, many different problems were discovered, and different versions required different solutions and countermeasures.

As a result, the speed will be very slow.

After thinking about it for a long time, Jester gave up on the idea of ​​simultaneous development and concentrated on making the most complete version he had already made, which was the version of European and American mythology, and then concentrated on the remaining two.

When 70% of a team of 100 people gather together to work on a project, and the project is not too big and the content that needs to be done is relatively concentrated, it is not like an all-encompassing hodgepodge like “The Heroes” , especially after this team has faced more difficult and severe challenges, the speed is very fast.

This is also the reason why this game was unveiled at the beginning of the year and almost completed by the end of the year.

Of course, the production here is generally speaking of only the European and American mythology version. The other two versions will not be started until the European and American mythology version is completed.

When Jester announced the news, in the player community, players had become accustomed to it, because for Mars Entertainment, ticket delays are simply a common occurrence. However, players also agreed with Mars Entertainment’s theory that the game cannot be according to the schedule. They don’t want to come out either. But both developers and players want the game to get better and better.

If the game is not done well, it will definitely not be recognized by the players.

Rather than doing this, it is better to postpone it for a while. After the game is all finished and perfected, it will be released.

In Jester’s memory, Blizzard is most famous for ticket bounces, in the eyes of countless players. Blizzard is almost synonymous with ticket delays, but I think many people may not know that for Blizzard, their most famous and longest ticket delay was.

Some people may say it is “StarCraft”, but “StarCraft” to be precise was criticized by players after it was exhibited at E3. It is considered to be a clumsy reskinned work of WAR2, which is meaningless. After that, Blizzard decided to go back and redo it. To be precise, it is not considered a delay, because the game was started from scratch. Moreover, players were not looking forward to this game at the time.

There will be delays if there are expectations.

Blizzard’s most famous delay is probably “Diablo 2.”

Many people may not know that Blizzard first promoted Diablo 2 in 1997. At that time, they said that the game would be available to players soon. It was the climax of Diablo 1 at that time, and countless players were looking forward to the Diablo series. Blizzard also developed the game following the popularity of the new work. However, due to countless problems encountered in the development process of the game, Diablo 2, which was planned to be released to players in 1997, was delayed until the end of 1999. It was in the second millennium that there was a formal interview.

At that time, both players and the media were not optimistic about this game because it was released after a long delay. At that time, without exception, there was no outstanding one.

Therefore, the situation at that time was that countless people looked down on Diablo 2.

Especially some real RPG players, since the first generation of Diablo, they have scorned this game that has the name of an RPG game but does not have RPG elements. This time, they even went so far as to say that Diablo 2 will definitely be a violent death, and many game media also think so.

But the reality is that the excellence of Diablo 2 has questioned everyone’s doubts, and a new game type has been officially established – Diablo LIKE.

The ARPG game type has only had the meaning of naming since the emergence of Diablo 2.

You know, this is a span of two and a half years, or even close to three years. Although it is not the longest delay in Jester’s memory in the entire history of the game, it is the most effective. Storytelling and legendary.

This delay also officially allows a new game type to become one of the choices for players when playing games, and also allows a game company destined to be great to embark on their own path.

In fact, although Jester became a fan of Blizzard because the games are fun, after getting to know the company in depth, he likes the company more and more, not because their games are fun, but because they are better than the games they make. There are many game companies that are better, or not inferior to them, but creatures like Baobai have not appeared in other game companies, whether domestic or foreign.

Jester doesn’t know the reasons why others do this, but Jester knows his own reasons, which is the company’s persistence and stubbornness in game development.

They never change the game for reasons they don’t agree with.

Although they sometimes like to play games against players, many people say that WOW is a game that Blizzard doesn’t want to play no matter how much players enjoy it. The purpose is to prevent you from having fun. But having said that, if you have really played the period when WOW was first released, As time goes by, you will know that this game has definitely not been smooth sailing since its birth.

Even in a PVE server where there is no wild camp confrontation, if an alt is on the Novice Village map, if you have never played it, it is basically not difficult to die ten or eight times – especially if you choose some players, it will be difficult in the early stage. And when there are no teammates to work with.

For example, what impressed Jester deeply was that when he first started playing WOW, he played a warrior, because this profession of charging first and acting as a barrier to block all dangers is the most manly profession in his opinion. Although he chose a female character.

Jester didn’t have any gay friends to play with at that time.

Everything was normal in Elwynn Forest, the birthplace of mankind, and Northshire Abbey. But when you arrive in Goldshire, Sheriff Doohan asks you to go to the Fargo Di Mine to see the situation, and then Jester operates his A little warrior below level five. Running around all the way, I was first killed four or five times by the fish crowd in Crystal Lake, then I was killed two or three times by the wild wolves on the road, and then I finally entered the hole. Killed four or five times by kobolds.

Only then did he realize that he had arrived at the jade mine and not the Fargodi Mine.

At that time, Jester was about to cry when he saw his equipment turning red. Then he felt sad and angry, questioning whether he was not suitable for playing this game. The delay extended to the point of questioning his life.

After thinking about it again and again. Jester still felt that he should choose another profession to play for a while, and then he thought quietly and chose a thief. If he saw that the thief was sneaking, he should be able to successfully complete the exploration mission of the mine – and then the world would become better. Although I was able to die less often after entering the mine, I still had to be educated a lot.

Later, Jester saw a song from somewhere that talked about the difficult situation at the birthplace of human beings, and he immediately felt the same way.

What about the fierce battle in the mines, the crowd of fish by the lake, and the princess and her little brother? Hogg teaches about being a human being and stuff like that.

Especially Hogg, that is really an extremely terrifying shadow…

Therefore, ticket delay is not an unacceptable thing for an excellent game company and their fans. Even though sometimes fans complain that tickets have been delayed again, in fact, they are not They take it as a matter of course, because they know that the current ticket delay must be to make the game better. More fun.

This is what they are willing to accept.

Although it is delayed, it will not be delayed too late. Now that the European and American mythical version has entered the final work, the remaining employees can carry out the development of the other two versions. As for Qin Guangxia, whose framework engine has been established, these two models will be developed very quickly.

Basically, the European and American versions can be launched in the middle of next year, and then a version will be launched every two months.

Of course, this is a plan based on the planned timetable. No one can say whether it can be completed on time, because it is difficult to estimate how much time it will take to deal with some technical problems – such as a very small problem. The QA staff discovered the report during testing, but when the programmers repaired it, this repair triggered a series of chain reactions.

Then a small problem turns into a big problem, and it takes more time. This is not on the schedule. Although the schedule leaves a margin when it is created, developing this kind of thing, doing What’s bad is that it’s not done well. The plan can represent some situations, but it absolutely cannot represent all situations, just like how Blizzard later explained why the flight started so late in the version of “Warlords of Draenor”.

In the eyes of many players, isn’t this just a matter of changing a switch? Is it so difficult?

People who ask this must think that flight was included in the development team from the beginning, but the fact is that they did not include flight in the game at the beginning?

And what about the need for redevelopment?

Some people may also ask, isn’t it just to develop a flight? Is it so difficult?

In fact, it is so difficult and complicated that a function that outsiders think can be done with just a few clicks of a finger may require the design team to spend a month or more to solve it, because the method of solving one problem may cause other problems. .

Blizzard’s explanation at the time explained this problem very clearly, but many people were still reluctant.

“We are a software company, to be precise, we are video game developers. In the world of software development, nothing is permanent. Many things are unpredictable for various reasons. Therefore, we usually do not guarantee anything. A committed statement. This is our lesson. No matter how sure we are about something at the time, plans never change quickly, and many unforeseen things will make it impossible to execute our plans.”

“What the developer said earlier, ‘It will be online in a few weeks, not months’ is an example of this. When we announced this news, we were already confident that Tanaan would be ready in just a few weeks.” details, resolve known bugs on other maps, and then the flight patch can be turned on. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it? We just need to change a few bytes from 0 to 1, and we’re done.”

“Then, we detected more and more bugs, beyond our imagination. We found that such a small world could not fully adapt to the flying mechanism, and players often fell off their horses and died. We found that some specific mounts and Class skills can cause this problem, and some are caused by some online fixes, which ultimately prevent these mounts and skills from working properly. We also found that as long as you fly into the fortress from a certain angle, you will be disconnected. Then I was stuck in the character selection screen for more than half an hour.”

“Finding these bugs, making fixes, testing the fixes, and then finding more bugs (sometimes these fixes will lead to more bugs)… the total work time is far longer than we expected. Therefore, we had expected several hours of work. The plan to be online within weeks has been delayed for several months.”

“Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to make excuses for mistakes here. I also completely understand players’ displeasure and anger over our inability to keep our promises. Indeed, if we could have anticipated this, then There was no way in hell that it would only take a few weeks for the flight patch to be available. We made a mistake, and for that I deeply apologize.”

“However, the above explanation can at least help everyone understand what happened – especially the mistakes we have made recently – and we are actually more confident about this date than before, but we There are still no guarantees about what will happen between today and September 1st. However, we feel we can give a date.”

“But after all, there will always be some troubles at the end of the launch. It can be said that even if we have fixed all the bugs on the Saturday before the launch, the test is over, and when the patch is implemented next week Pretend, you press the flying mount and prepare to fly into the sky. Suddenly, you flash back to the cemetery in the western wilderness. Will this happen? Unlikely, yes. However, it is still possible, so we We must inform everyone that accidents may happen no matter what, and we only say this to avoid such ridiculous things from happening.” (~^~)