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Why do updates always come with so many bugs?

23 replies [Last post]
Fri, 04/04/2014 - 13:55
Deleted-Knight's picture
Deleted-Knight

Almost every event/update Spiral Knight goes through is quickly followed by bug fixes. There's nothing wrong with that except not all the bug fixes have to do with the new content. For example, minerals appearing in the quickbar. How does adding new content affect mineral display mechanics? If that was an existing problem, why did it take so long to fix it?

I suspect each update/patch is actually a complete reinstallation of the game (supported by the fact it takes so long to update). You would think a "patch" just "patches" existing files, but apparently unrelated files are altered as well...
Thoughts?

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:08
#1
Krakob's picture
Krakob

Just call them temporary unintended features and keep quiet Σ:3

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:11
#2
Sandwich-Potato's picture
Sandwich-Potato

0/5 for Krakob's emoticon no Prismatic Bolted Vee.

The server also checks every file version with the server version, so that could accommodate for some of the delay.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:38
#3
Whimsicality's picture
Whimsicality

1) Open a Super Mario World ROM in the ROMhacking utility, Lunar Magic.
2) Add a Koopa Troopa, Goomba, anything really, then save.
3) Using the ROMHacking utlity, Lunar IPS, apply a Patch to the edited Super Mario World ROM.
4) Run in a SNES emulator.
5) Things break, because the patch is based off the Vanilla Super Mario World, not off of your version, leading to various glitches unrelated to what was added.
6) Or the patch could have been corrupt to begin with.

Same concept. Different game. Just swap SMW and its tools with the public and developer servers for SK. What may work just fine for the developers may become broken on the live servers as a result of incorrect patches, or arbitrary code that doesn't exist on the live server.

Also, relevant.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:44
#4
Seiran's picture
Seiran

@Auto-Target:
Files are probably reverted to a clean state during patches.

Anecdote: One of my old friends swapped out music files way back, and after updates, he'd whine about how he had lost the music he put into the game lol. Hopefully they were just copies.

---

Now, not all patches have to only contain information related to the content, but patches do provide a period where they can release bugfixes that might have been done since the last patch.

Cause you know, programmers are still working even if most of the announcements have been related to costumes.

Anecdote:
I used to be given big feature tasks as well as smaller tasks to work on for the day. Sometimes I'd get burned out on working on the larger tasks, so I'd switch to an easier task just to keep spirit up and things progressing. If there weren't any for the day, there's always a big backlog of bugs that have accumulated, and I could sometimes just pick one up if the fix just came to mind.

Also, once in a while, someone else's fix could unintentionally cause a bug somewhere else.

...That's just how development is when you have multiple people working on something at the same time.
Anyway, either of those are realistic scenarios to how that 'unrelated' fix came to be. It's unlikely that they were literally stuck on trying to fix it until now; it probably just 'happened', like when Gyre-of-Guile did work on the steam achievements.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:47
#5
Arcknightdelta's picture
Arcknightdelta

This sounds very familiar. I could link my thread...but oh wait!!! I can't!!!! Due to spoilers posted by [Name Retracted] it gets hidden......amazing. Great job fellow knights.

*AKD is not happy atm*

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 14:49
#6
Whimsicality's picture
Whimsicality

These sort of things happen. It's not the end of the world.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 15:01
#7
Arcknightdelta's picture
Arcknightdelta
@ Whimsicality

Fine.

*AKD suddenly becomes happy again*

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 15:19
#8
Ultimaximus's picture
Ultimaximus
...someone else here hacks

...someone else here hacks Super Mario World?

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 15:51
#9
Whimsicality's picture
Whimsicality

Yes, but I've run out of ideas a year or so ago.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 18:47
#10
Ultimaximus's picture
Ultimaximus
RedToonLink, huh? I do

RedToonLink, huh? I do remember you... Funny that we'd meet here of all places.

Fri, 04/04/2014 - 21:24
#11
The-Worst-Knight's picture
The-Worst-Knight
I don't know why do they

I don't know why do they unpack al files from archive, it will be much faster to check archive.

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 04:04
#12
Mystrian's picture
Mystrian
People make these too

Living on the Edge (Not my youtube)

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 05:33
#13
Gwenyvier's picture
Gwenyvier
Because there is no feasible

Because there is no feasible way for any dev team, much less a small one like the one that makes SK, to accurately predict how we, the players, will manage to break the game. Also what Whimsicality said.

~Gwen

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 06:02
#14
Arcknightdelta's picture
Arcknightdelta
@ Gwenyvier

How exactly do players break the game?

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 09:02
#15
Gwenyvier's picture
Gwenyvier
Simple my dear Watson...

Simple my dear Watson... thousand of players vs a handful to hunt down bugs. It is the very nature of patches that bugfixes come afterwards simply because you have so many more people playing on it that they'll encounter bugs (hence breaking the game). Discovering the Grout text bug is a fine example.

~Gwen

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 09:07
#16
Pipipipipi's picture
Pipipipipi
Behold, the evil squares shall take over the world!

I'm sorry, I am (one of the?) one(s?) who encountered the minerals in hot bar bug

I'm sorry... ;_;

/runs off

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 09:34
#17
Pipipipipi's picture
Pipipipipi
Behold, the evil squares shall take over the world!

Remember kids, if you find a bug, EXPLOIT IT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN UNTIL OOO FIXES IT

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 09:50
#18
Arcknightdelta's picture
Arcknightdelta
@ Pipipipipi

That's disgusting advice.

*empties contents of this afternoons meal into metal bucket*

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 10:20
#19
Fangel's picture
Fangel
Yeah, disgusting advice.

Now who would be doing that?

/stare Prismatic Bolted Vee market

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 10:33
#20
Oski-Boski's picture
Oski-Boski
Sorry, but you're

Sorry, but you're wrong...
The mineral thing was there before this update.
I believe that they just fix things that they find unnecessary. The question is, why don't they realise the unnecessary stuff before?
The answer is: No one is perfect...

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 10:35
#21
Seiran's picture
Seiran

^ Like I said in my previous post, it's not necessarily that they didn't realize it, but it's more likely that it was being put off as "not a priority" and they just happened to be working on something that they were like "oh, I might as well fix this too, while I'm here"

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 12:45
#22
Andyspace's picture
Andyspace
wo

they are busy people. also some bugs are rare and they couldn't have found it while playtesting

Sat, 04/05/2014 - 16:54
#23
Oskvion's picture
Oskvion
a

Bugs should be called Hydras. You cut off one head and two grow back.

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