How many glitches are too many?

Sarge034

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I've been thinking about this for a while, but the recent release of Aliens: Colonial Marines and Dead Island 2 has brought this back to the front of my mind. People were almost rioting over the Diablo 3 servers going down, Amazon was giving full refunds because of people's reaction to the ending of Mass Effect 3, and the people who bought SimCity... well you guys keep getting the shaft. Anyway, while there were calls to action to "fix" the prospective problems in those games it seems that the gaming community just kindda rolls over and takes glitches at face value. Why are there no loud symbolic pushes to return A:CM or DI2 in an effort to say the games are just too damn glitchy? At what point do we, as consumers, take a stand and say this level of defect is unacceptable in the product? I mean DI2 is almost unplayable from what I hear and the glitches I have seen on YouTube. So how many glitches should we, as gamers, allow a game to get away with?

Personally I feel it depends on the game and how hard the developer is trying to fix the game. While the glitches in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series are annoying I can understand why they exist and see that some of them have been fixed over the games' lifespan. I can not stand a game that has no reason to be that glitchy but is, for no other reason then in is an unpolished piece of rushed shovelware.

Thoughts? Please feel free to provide examples too.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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There simply isn't a set number, nor is there a set criteria. That said, I feel safe in saying that one's willingness to accept a glitch is proportional both to how common it is and how much it impacts the game's experience.

At extremes, this means a single glitch is sufficient to be too much for the average person. The Steam Version of Fallout New Vegas, for example, had an extremely common glitch related to cloud saves that resulted in entire save games being lost. By contrast, one is generally able to accept a game with dozens of glitches so long as they are neither frequent nor particularly irritating. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that people continue playing games that regularly feature patches that fix dozens of bugs at a time.
 

Ravinoff

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Eclectic Dreck said:
At extremes, this means a single glitch is sufficient to be too much for the average person. The Steam Version of Fallout New Vegas, for example, had an extremely common glitch related to cloud saves that resulted in entire save games being lost. By contrast, one is generally able to accept a game with dozens of glitches so long as they are neither frequent nor particularly irritating. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that people continue playing games that regularly feature patches that fix dozens of bugs at a time.
Don't even get me started on New Vegas. Did anyone else experience the glitch where you get a black screen freeze when transitioning to The Strip? The incredibly stupid reason and solution had to do with a quest you get in Freeside, to go kill someone on The Strip. From that point on (until they finally fixed the bug), the only way to enter The Strip was to be wearing the hat your target dropped. Luckily for me, I took it and sold it out at the Crimson Caravan Company depot, so I only had to track it down there and steal it back.
 

DoPo

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Ugh...are you seriously calling D3 servers failing a "glitch"? Now, let's for a moment assume it is, are you seriously trying to claim that it's 1 glitch but other games have more than one, why don't we complain of them as much?

I...

Erm...

What?

And Mass Effect 3 is a glitch? Really? You are comparing ME3 to D3?

What?

Also, there wasn't enough complaining of A:CM? Gearbox and SEGA are being sued over it, while Timegate already went bankrupt - that doesn't suffice?

What?

And, wait, you expect gamers to want A:CM fixed, the same way D3 (and so on) were fixed? You realise that a "fix" would be...impossible, right? You know that in order to "fix" it, the game has to be...well, redone?

What. This is the thread of what. I ran out of question marks.
 

ShinyCharizard

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New Vegas on release was the very definition of too many bugs/glitches. That game was just ridiculously broken.
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Does it completely erase any sort of data, including crashing the game or locking up some for of the game?

Then one is too many.

Does it cause minor graphical or gameplay stutters that don't take anything out of the game?

Then they're annoying, sure, but they aren't purely bad.

And the reason why people were upset about Diablo 3 and SimCity The Recent is because it was just poor service, no one was demanding change and refunds because of the actual game. All the rage was directed at EA not planning (or caring) about the enormous influx of people that they knew were going to play on release day. It would be like if a famous restuarant staffed only two people on the busiest day of the year, demanded that you wait six hours for your food, and was against calling up more staff.
 

DementedSheep

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There isn?t really a set number. It depends in what the glitch is, and whether it?s funny, inconsequential, annoying or game breaking.
If its a glitch which cause the game to cash, lose game saves, freeze or just plain stops you from playing the game then one is too much. Minor audio and visual glitches can be annoying but generally aren't too much of an issue and can even be funny.

Why did you bring up the ending to ME3? that isn't a glitch.
 

Sarge034

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DoPo said:
Ugh...are you seriously calling D3 servers failing a "glitch"? Now, let's for a moment assume it is, are you seriously trying to claim that it's 1 glitch but other games have more than one, why don't we complain of them as much?

I...

Erm...

What?

And Mass Effect 3 is a glitch? Really? You are comparing ME3 to D3?

What?
No I was bringing to light some of the other recent issues that have caused a massive fan retaliation, and asking why glitch filled games don't receive the same treatment.

Also, there wasn't enough complaining of A:CM? Gearbox and SEGA are being sued over it, while Timegate already went bankrupt - that doesn't suffice?

What?
They are being sued because of false advertising, not because the product was defective. So to answer your question, no it does not suffice.

And, wait, you expect gamers to want A:CM fixed, the same way D3 (and so on) were fixed? You realise that a "fix" would be...impossible, right? You know that in order to "fix" it, the game has to be...well, redone?

What. This is the thread of what. I ran out of question marks.
Why not? If a car has a defective part the company is required to offer to replace it. If a car has a defect that becomes a safety concern (akin to making a game unplayable) the company is required to preform a recall and either replace the vehicle or compensate the consumer. As a consumer why should I not expect the publisher/developer to deliver a relatively defect free product? If they are unable or unwilling to do that then why, as a consumer, should I not hold the publisher/developer responsible for their defective product and demand a function one?

If the company is so worried about cost perhaps they should have got it right the first time...

Make sense now?
 

Sarge034

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DementedSheep said:
Why did you bring up the ending to ME3? that isn't a glitch.
Exactly, it is NOT a glitch. ME3 played very well, I actually didn't see one glitch the entire game but the rushed ending was enough to send fans into a frenzy. I was using it as a comparison, and trying to show that a rushed ending on a playable game got more outrage and public outcry then catastrophically glitched games.

Sorry for double post too. Didn't see this one til I had already posted the other.
 

ZeroMachine

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One.
Games SHOULD be release glitch free.

But, they aren't, so... we just have to accept a few.

At least some of them are hilarious.
 

Jimmy T. Malice

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As long as it doesn't break the game in some save-destroying or quest-breaking way, it's OK. More bugs are acceptable for games on a larger scale, since it it's nigh impossible to test every possible combination of items and scenarios in, say, Fallout: New Vegas.
 

Ellie O'Daire

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There's a conversation to be had regarding the severity of glitches versus the number. I've had plenty of fun with incredibly glitchy games (Halo 2 pre-updates comes to mind; ROCKET LUNGE!), and on the opposite leaf, I've had otherwise great games wrecked by a single awful glitch (I hit a glitch like this in Assassin's Creed: Revelations and have never completed the game).

It's a question of degrees. Fun but glitchy games are A-Okay with me.
 

Angelblaze

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One glitch that makes you lose progress on an incredibly hard quest is too many.


Damn Marvel: Avengers Alliance....I don't need rescue that badly then.
 

BloatedGuppy

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ShinyCharizard said:
New Vegas on release was the very definition of too many bugs/glitches. That game was just ridiculously broken.
IS just ridiculously broken. I'm playing it right now. The random crashes on zoning are up to about one every 30-45 minutes now. And, in the OWB DLC at least, the number of mobs getting stuck on or randomly clipping through walls and scenery soared past comic straight into depressing.

I know Obsidian did some nice things with the setting, but it's absolutely ludicrous for a game to be this twitchy this long after release.

Sarge034 said:
Exactly, it is NOT a glitch. ME3 played very well, I actually didn't see one glitch the entire game...
ME3 was pretty damn glitchy. Lots of weird, hinky issues with the facial animations, lots of dialogue/lip de-synchs (especially early), some really weird shit with Shepard's hand in some shots, etc. Nothing game breaking, but a lot of it was pretty tough on the immersion. The first 2-3 hours of the game are actually littered with quality control issues.
 

Appleshampoo

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A game like Fallout: New vegas is one that shouldn't have even made it out of the gates. The game is just straight up broken.

Graphics glitches on people/corpses straight up freak me the fuck out. Played New Vegas for about half an hour, saw a boat fly thing get stuck in the ground and was stretching all over the place and was like 'Ok, I can forgive this one' then 10 minutes later, kill a dude and his corpse just goes crazy so I just thought 'Yeah, fuck this game. Bethesda can suck my balls'.

I have no idea why but glitches like that just scare the crap out of me, so I generally don't play a game if something like that happens. Dishonored was the same, dropped down on some dude, his neck stretched through a railing and down onto the floor. Again, fuck Bethesda.

They are lucky Skyrim didn't suffer these kinds of glitches, or I'd have beaten them with a pipe. If they make the next Fallout on the Skyrim engine I'll be a happy boy. It was probably just the Gamebyro engine that caused most of the shit, but still, they could have at least made the effort to make the game less crappy.

Most other glitches I can deal with. Game crash? Np, if it's a good game I'll forgive the odd one or two crashes. Save data wiped? I'll probably just use cheats/mods to get my progress back to where it was.

Some dudes head spinning on his shoulders? Fuck you, I'm selling your crappy game. Assholes :(
 

Something Amyss

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DoPo covers most of what I have to say....

DoPo said:
Ugh...are you seriously calling D3 servers failing a "glitch"? Now, let's for a moment assume it is, are you seriously trying to claim that it's 1 glitch but other games have more than one, why don't we complain of them as much?

I...

Erm...

What?

And Mass Effect 3 is a glitch? Really? You are comparing ME3 to D3?

What?

Also, there wasn't enough complaining of A:CM? Gearbox and SEGA are being sued over it, while Timegate already went bankrupt - that doesn't suffice?

What?

And, wait, you expect gamers to want A:CM fixed, the same way D3 (and so on) were fixed? You realise that a "fix" would be...impossible, right? You know that in order to "fix" it, the game has to be...well, redone?

What. This is the thread of what. I ran out of question marks.
This thread makes my head hurt. Most of these aren't "glitches."

As an answer to the question, even though the examples largely miss the point, it depends on the prevalence of the glitch (frequency and severity). I'm more forgiving of an occasional freeze than frequent save wiping, for example. There's no fixed number, though.

The same goes for bad quality. Quality issues like Diablo 3 being unplayable at launch are bigger to me than most other issues.
 

Esotera

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For games where the server goes down due to an unanticipated number of players, it can be really tempting to say it's not actually defective behaviour during the development cycle. Most developers probably aren't going to performance test their servers for 1 million connections & even if they do, a fix might be really hard & they're just more focused on pushing out a release. I see this happen way too much at work (not with games, but other software).

Anyway, it's really hard to define quality of software, especially when you try and define everything as a glitch. Considering that dozens of people will be making simultaneous changes on a game & that shareholders want to kick it out of the door as soon as possible, it's almost a miracle that video games actually exist.
 

Daft Time

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Sarge034 said:
Thoughts? Please feel free to provide examples too.
It's less about the number of bugs, but more about the severity of the bug. Sometimes it's the amalgamation of multiple bugs that makes playing a game more hassle than it's worse, but number doesn't particularly matter. Take Skyrim, on the PC at least, was pretty stable at launch but had a plethora of bugs. There were bugs everywhere as if to remind the audience they were still playing a Bethesda game. Neither individually or combined were they deal breakers though, because I could still play the game.

Now take Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. This game, initially, wasn't worth the hassle. It took a long time to get working, and when it was it wasn't stable. Later, I got to try it with the unofficial patch and, while perhaps a little more length to set-up than desirable, it was worth playing again. The game was stable, though it had the occasional bug, and I could play it. It was awesome.

That's the big issues when concerning bugs; does it stop me playing the game? If I'm frequently crashing, unable to progress or there's severe issue that don't entirely stop me playing the game but make it unpleasant to do so (for example; texture glitches for the majority of the game - playing with the majority of the landscape as pink may as well be unplayable) then we don't have an immediate deal breaker.

This, however, is the bear minimum. If you're releasing buggy games - especially a triple a title and demand a significant amount cash from me - then we're still going to have a problem. I personally find Bethesda's practices in this regard rather disgusting. Skyrim was a good game, but charging me $100 at launch for something that should still be in beta?

Fuck you.
 

Vegosiux

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Twelve. No, thirteen!

(cookies for reference-getters)

But as was said, it depends on the kind of a glitch. There are glitches that make games unintentionally better, for example. Like, the thing that made hammer paladins a force to be reckoned with was a glitch, as Concentration Aura boosted that too, even if it was supposed to only boost physical attacks.

So if a glitch is funny, doesn't pop up too often, or doesn't disrupt the game too much, it doesn't really matter. The only ones I do not tolerate are frustrating, gamebreaking glitches (like the one that crashed your game after a certain mission of VTM: Bloodlines), and if there's no workaround, well, game gets shelved until there is.