292 replies to this topic

[Spirit of the Wolf]

armyof1, on 14 May 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

So have you agreed upon a sum with your accountants that you'll be billing Crytek for debugging their engine for them?

I'm thinking 8 or 9 figures would be a start...

Carrioncrows, on 14 May 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

You magnificent ********

I have no idea what you said, but you sir's and madams are my hero.

I think it was 1337-5p34k.
In upside-down ancient Greek.
Being written right-to-left.

BitMonger505, on 14 May 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

I kept trying to tell them that trying to find a memory stomp in C++ was like trying to nail green jello to the ceiling in the dark with Night Vision goggles and a nail gun from 30 feet away, whilst a well trained german shepherd is chewing on your balls. Apparently this validates my statement.

I'm sorry, but the vision of anybody trying to do that sounds like trying to fill a bathtub with a sieve.
Or trying to count every 3rd prime number, and multiplying them by their negative cube roots, whilst hyperactive school children shout random letters in your ears, and random colors flash in front of your eyes.
Or like trying to smell the number purple.

Kyle Lawrence, on 14 May 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

Karl's been on the MWO team since the beginning. He just normally works on a separate system. His attention was simply diverted temporarily for this hunt.

Have the people who worked on this gotten their bonus checks yet?

Pater Mors, on 14 May 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

ʇɥıs ıs ʍɥɐʇ ıʇ ɟǝןʇ ןıʞǝ ʇo ɯǝ ɹǝɐpıuƃ ʎonɹ dosʇ˙ ı ɯıƃɥʇ ɐs ʍǝןן ɥɐʌǝ qǝǝu ɹǝɐpıuƃ ɐuɔıǝuʇ ǝƃʎdʇıou˙ ɥoʍǝʌǝɹ' ı ʇɥıuʞ ʎon ɟoɹ dnʇʇıuƃ ɐןן ʇɥɐʇ ǝɟɟoɹʇ ıu ɐup ʇɥǝu ɹǝdoɹʇıuƃ ıʇ ʇo ns ɟoɹ ʇɹɐusdɐɹǝuɔıǝs sɐʞǝ˙ ʎon ƃnʎs ɐɹǝ poıuƃ ɐ ƃɹǝɐʇ ɾoq ɐup ɯɐʞıuƃ ɐu ɐʍǝsoɯǝ ƃɐɯǝ˙ ʞǝǝd ıʇ nd¡

(This is what it felt like to me reading your post. I might as well have been reading ancient egyptian. However, I thank you for putting all that effort in and then reporting it to us for transparency's sake. You guys are doing a great job and making an awesome game. Keep it up!)

INSEkT L0GIC, on 14 May 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

I'm picturing Devs rejoicing with lots of mouth kissing followed by an awkward letter from HR about inappropriate touching.

Can you blame them? (Or HR?)

CyberDagger, on 14 May 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

So basically, this is MWO's MissingNo.

Kinda, except that MissingNo was also helpful when you needed rare candy.

Hammerfinn, on 14 May 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

Can we post this in every thread where people complain about laziness or incompetence at PGI?

^This^
Now.

Zynk, on 14 May 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Next time you give an explanation for a bug please use the K.I.S.S. method and give me the CliffsNotes in the first paragraph with the engineers version after.

I barely understood it either.
The TL;DR was at the bottom, which is where most people tend to skip to when they don't understand something.

On a side note:
How much you guys wanna bet someone is now going to complain that your posts are 'too detailed'? Because with this forum, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. (And I'm deeply sorry about that. )

Edited by Spirit of the Wolf, 14 May 2013 - 02:26 PM.

[BFett]

Thank you for taking the time to find the cause to the annoying bugs that have been bothering me and other players since closed beta. May your code be efficient and well commented!

[CyberDagger]

Deathlike, on 14 May 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

So, what he's saying that the game kinda tries to get data that isn't there yet (for whatever the reason), and kinda gets other data from other areas (where it shouldn't be getting in the first place)... which pretty much results in the HUD going out of whack.

So basically, this is MWO's MissingNo.

[PyckenZot]

Thanks for the explanation, As it was just one wall of incomprehensible statements to me, I am ever so glad I didn't go studying IT.
Great job fixing the HUD :-)

[Jojobird]

Good job on the HUD fix. Now I need to go bug my friends who just might understand what you wrote to translate it to English. GJ again and such feedback is appreciated.

Edited by Jojobird, 14 May 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Karl, you just entered yourself in my list of favorite Dev's at PGI.

The only other guy on that list is Thomas D., so you should be very proud of yourself. (at least until some other unsung hero's post a good in depth read, too).

[ElLocoMarko]

GroovYChickeN, on 14 May 2013 - 02:08 PM, said:

Holy crap!

Dude from one programmer to another. Kudos! If I had to deal with all of that I would have broken a number of mice and most likely put my fist through my monitor.

He probably did sacrifice a few mice. Maybe a goat or two...
Good find. I sent the post to my brother even though he doesn't play MWO just because he has to fix the same kind of bizarre crap on cell phones... He will appreciate it for the good hunt.

I applaud the long form. Posts like this rekindle my faith in the dev team.

[Mishatron]

Wow. Huge round of applause for Karl, Jin, Sean, and the whole QA department. As a coder, I really enjoyed reading your account of the bug hunt (although, since my field is web-development, and my C++ is rusty at best, it wasn't easy to make sense of!)

If I can find the time, I'd like to write an annotated version of this post, just so the non-programmers can get an idea of the extraordinary effort and skill that went into this fix. For now, if that wall of text made your eyes glaze over, here's what I took away from it:

The main problem was a result of a bug in one of the third-party tools used by MW:O i.e., the error wasn't made by anyone at PGI. Nevertheless, PGI were able to track down and correct the bug, by doing painstaking analysis and a huge amount of testing. Fixing a problem like that takes both a great deal of patience and some serious Computer Science chops.

[Dishevel]

Look.
You communicated.
And the community liked it.
Do more. Communication is good and community equals money.

Also.

Give me General Discussion back.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

It's called CRYengine for a reason! The MWLL guys use to go bonkers when they had issues with Cryengine, lost sleep, lost days, lost brain matter.

[Traigus]

Good job everyone involved!

[Psikez]

Can you write all the things for PGI?

[INSEkT L0GIC]

Zynk, on 14 May 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Next time you give an explanation for a bug please use the K.I.S.S. method and give me the CliffsNotes in the first paragraph with the engineers version after.

Most seem to prefer detailed reports. The Cliff Notes versions tend to generate too many complaints & frustration about vague updates and would spawn hundreds of replies and QQ threads from those trying to read between the lines and seek further explanations, often buried in the thread or in related threads. No thanks.

[akatrio]

Really enjoyed reading the technical write-up! As a programmer, it was neat to read about the bug resolution process with such intricate detail from another's perspective. Nice job to all involved on hunting down the bug & resolving the issue.

Edited by akatrio, 14 May 2013 - 02:53 PM.

[Ardney]

Props on the fix but bigger props for the post-mortem. Dev transparency and communication goes a long way.

[Hammerfinn]

Coolant, on 14 May 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

While I applaud the effort and technical knowledge of members of the PGI team, and appreciate no longer having the recurring HUD bugs, your initial statement makes it seem like every constructive criticism post ever levied toward PGI ("every thread" - your words) is baseless and unfounded. Some of us do not agree with some of the decisions PGI has made nor agree with their priorities. Many of the items listed in that partial list above should've been included with Open Beta and yet it's nearly 7 months past Open Beta. I mean sync-dropping...really? And PGI needs a PR rep. The big announcement of the screenshot of map was way overblown. Not to mention the misunderstandings usually following one of the team trying to clarify or explain upcoming features or game direction. PGI has created a fun game, cares about the IP, and trying hard to do it justice, but they are far from perfect, and your post (2nd post in the thread, you were ready for retribution), makes it seem like they do no wrong.

I referred specifically to posts about laziness or incompetence. Respectful disagreement and constructive criticism should always be posted.

Edit: Oh someone else already said that. Heh. Fancy that, someone understood my post.

Edited by Hammerfinn, 14 May 2013 - 03:01 PM.

[TyGeR STD]

While a good bit of the info in this write up is over my head I did enjoy the read. I hope that we can see more write up's like this one for issues that are fixed in the future.

[Praehotec8]

Thank you for this post, and the fix. We all greatly appreciate both!

For the people who are (apparently) never satisfied...It's really nice that the company took the time to explain this, and I find that there is much more communication and interaction with developers here than many other, larger, products. It's very nice, but in some sense, it's just a bit entitled sounding to expect developers to update players on every issue for a game that's still in development. With many things in life, there simply are no quick fixes, and changes take time. Complaints are valid, but a measure of patience is in order (when you know things like bugs are being addressed).

Basically, while this type of explanation is greatly appreciated and we'd all love to hear more, it should neither be expected, nor denigrated just because the entire game is not finished. Cool off and let the talented people do their work. Just because things take time, doesn't mean that the company is stupid or the people lazy (as has been implied by many).

[Marik Steele]

Count me in as one of the many who was happy & excited to see more technical detail than I expected. Also seems like more readers here than I expected have some amount of comp sci background. Is there a way to enable more logging/stack traces we can email to you for debugging future issues?

[Spokes]

Nice.