Jimquisition: Shaming PC Ports Because Why Not?
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
In defense of the Dark Souls devs they were upfront about the fact that they had never done a PC port and did it only because they were asked to do it anyway by many fans. It was priced cheaper, came with additional content and had "controller highly recommend" on the cover. I don't even think it was that bad a port. It never glitched on me, it was just missing some features people often expect of a PC game and didn't look as nice as it could have. Still not ideal but I'm willing to cut them slack for that.
Skyrim has way too many bugs. The fact that it's a huge game only gets it so far and doesn't excuse gamebreaking bugs. Even the main quest is bugged to hell. I've never managed to do it without having to use console commands to trigger a stage at some point which is unacceptable.
The first thing I do for every Bethesda game is get the unofficial patch for it and don't buy them on release because know it going to need patching.
Skyrim has way too many bugs. The fact that it's a huge game only gets it so far and doesn't excuse gamebreaking bugs. Even the main quest is bugged to hell. I've never managed to do it without having to use console commands to trigger a stage at some point which is unacceptable.
The first thing I do for every Bethesda game is get the unofficial patch for it and don't buy them on release because know it going to need patching.
You took Jim's words completely the wrong way. He did call Durante stuff like "layman" and "average joe" because by strict professional standards that's what he is. Doesn't matter how good he is, compared to the people making and porting these games, Peter "Durante" Thomann is a but a dedicated hobbyist as far as we know, despite his Ph.D. in computer science.redknightalex said:
Um, no.Raziel said:
Just because you added a semicolon here and there doesn't negate that the other 99% of the code was written and belongs to the devs. Not to mention you don't own the rights to the IP. And even if you had a legal precedent to stand on, as soon as it becomes a trend, devs would then do what they can to make it as hard as possible to access the code, which makes fixing the problems they left in harder, and your ports even worse.
In all fairness to the guys who made Dark Souls, they came out and said (Im paraphrasing) "Hey guys, the reason there is no PC version of Dark Souls is because we suck at porting to PC, its not something we can do well, so we weren't going to do it. But since you keep asking, here is our best attempt." In other words they bent to the pressure of the community and knowingly put out an inferior product, having TOLD everyone that it would be an inferior product. So yeah, I don't really blame them, they were up front and honest about it.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-07-from-software-having-a-tough-time-porting-dark-souls-to-pc-frame-rate-issues-remain
He doesn't say those words exactly but it is pretty much the gist of it.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-07-from-software-having-a-tough-time-porting-dark-souls-to-pc-frame-rate-issues-remain
He doesn't say those words exactly but it is pretty much the gist of it.
Next time I hope Jim will talk about the way DLC is no longer the extra content for a game, but seems like original content that was cut then put back in, like the Catwoman DLC for Batman Arkham City.
Skyrims default UI is unbearably worthless witha mouse and keyboard, why are the keys for actions in the menus so inconsistent?Mastemat said:
Stop it right there. I knew he would go after Dark Souls but I just have to say this because it's really irritating me: Dark Souls for PC is NOT broken, or shitty, or buggy. In fact it plays perfectly, more so than the majority of PC games out there. I played that game longer than any other game in the past 8 years and still it never crashed ONCE, I never experienced one "bug" and I certainly don't think the game is "shitty" in anyway.
The PC gaming community was experiencing a classic nerd-rage moment. simply because the game didn't allow for 60 fps and more control on the visual output of the game, something that's not entirely uncommon in many Steam games I own, yet this game due to popularity attracted a lot of hate for it.
Look, I agree they were missing some basic features that have become common for 3D PC games but those features are extra, they are not required to play or complete the game and enjoy the experience the entire time, LIKE I DID. I eventually did get the all-mighty mod every one seems to think "fixes the game" but in reality, i think most people saying that no nothing about what the mod really does. The mod is sloppy as you would expect from something made in less than 24 hours. Many of the mods features will freeze the game or cause graphical glitches, decreased performance and choppy frame rates. It barely makes it look any better and despite how powerful your PC maybe, the game was not optimized for 60 fps and all those increased visual effects, the game will run poorly and you will experience real bugs caused from an unofficial modification of the game.
So all i want, and i know this is asking too much, is for people to be reasonable, to understand the difference between missing features you want and being broken. this game, in it's original state plays perfectly more than almost any other 3D Steam game I have. it's a shame it's being seen as "one of the worst ports" all because it lacked a graphics feature, i can think of a shit load more games that perform way worse and actually does contain many bugs and crashes often.
Also i refuse to believe GFWL plays any part in the hate, sure people hate it because they're stupid but anyone whose played the game knows you won't be noticing it after the first 5 seconds of launching the game and with auto-login you'll barely even notice the logo. after launching the game for the first time, i completely forgot it existed. it is by no means the end of the gaming world and it isn't the only online game that requires you to LOG IN before playing, hell i've played Single Player games that require me to log in before playing.
EDIT: watching more of the video... i'm getting the feeling Jim is trying to make these games sound way worse then they really are. Perhaps simply to rage on companies and developers, i'm thinking he might just be redirecting his rage from something else onto this, or he really does want to jump at every chance to get the PC gaming community behind him as he points out the next "enemy of gaming". This video is not quality like many other of Jim's in the past, this video really is nothing but a baseless rant.
The PC gaming community was experiencing a classic nerd-rage moment. simply because the game didn't allow for 60 fps and more control on the visual output of the game, something that's not entirely uncommon in many Steam games I own, yet this game due to popularity attracted a lot of hate for it.
Look, I agree they were missing some basic features that have become common for 3D PC games but those features are extra, they are not required to play or complete the game and enjoy the experience the entire time, LIKE I DID. I eventually did get the all-mighty mod every one seems to think "fixes the game" but in reality, i think most people saying that no nothing about what the mod really does. The mod is sloppy as you would expect from something made in less than 24 hours. Many of the mods features will freeze the game or cause graphical glitches, decreased performance and choppy frame rates. It barely makes it look any better and despite how powerful your PC maybe, the game was not optimized for 60 fps and all those increased visual effects, the game will run poorly and you will experience real bugs caused from an unofficial modification of the game.
So all i want, and i know this is asking too much, is for people to be reasonable, to understand the difference between missing features you want and being broken. this game, in it's original state plays perfectly more than almost any other 3D Steam game I have. it's a shame it's being seen as "one of the worst ports" all because it lacked a graphics feature, i can think of a shit load more games that perform way worse and actually does contain many bugs and crashes often.
Also i refuse to believe GFWL plays any part in the hate, sure people hate it because they're stupid but anyone whose played the game knows you won't be noticing it after the first 5 seconds of launching the game and with auto-login you'll barely even notice the logo. after launching the game for the first time, i completely forgot it existed. it is by no means the end of the gaming world and it isn't the only online game that requires you to LOG IN before playing, hell i've played Single Player games that require me to log in before playing.
EDIT: watching more of the video... i'm getting the feeling Jim is trying to make these games sound way worse then they really are. Perhaps simply to rage on companies and developers, i'm thinking he might just be redirecting his rage from something else onto this, or he really does want to jump at every chance to get the PC gaming community behind him as he points out the next "enemy of gaming". This video is not quality like many other of Jim's in the past, this video really is nothing but a baseless rant.
Well I'm guessing the answer is that you haven't been playing their games on consoles lately. Their issue in my mind is the exact opposite of the subject, they release very sub-par efforts to the consoles. Their biggest crime is throwing three or four games on the PS3 with the exact same game-breaking issues and never fixing them. Even with Skyrim, which supposedly has a new upgraded engine, some of the very same issues plagued it on PS3. Basically no one buys their games on a Sony console because they're apparently too incompetent to make their games run on 7 year old hardware after FOUR attempts.Newhouse said:I really don't get the extent of the flack against Bethesda. Perhaps because I've just been blessed with few issues. I've played Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim (Can't really count New Vegas by the way Jim it was made by Obsidian and published by Bethesda). The only game I've only had slight trouble with is Fallout 3 and if I remember, it was quite a while ago, it was because I was mucking about for the first time with mods ( IE. CTD-ing instead of the rare autoclip or droid rocketing across the sky).
I won't say I haven't encountered bugs or glitchs, I have autoclipped through the ground before and there's a bird permanently stuck in a tree just outside of Riverwood in Skyrim but, the only time I've CTD is running a ton of mods or in New Vegas which ya, putting that in the hands of Obsidian and Bethesda I'm surprised the game ran at all at launch.
Bethesda has admitted they even leave some bugs in because they're funny and I agree when I see robots just fly across the sky in Fallout 3 it's pretty fun. Now is this really a good excuse? Maybe not but, it doesn't break the game or ruin my enjoyment so I can deal with something like that.
Does this give Bethesda a free pass not to fix there games? Far from it but, I don't know personally I don't remember really having any trouble with their games to an extent that I'd say they weren't doing there job. However, I've played all of these for PC so I don't know what it's like for the console people (At launch too by the way, so maybe I do forget the launch state of the games but, if I can't remember anything it couldn't have been that bad or I've succeeded in supressing the nightmares*Upon editing I do remember it took them forever to get Operation Anchorage in a working state and it being delayed due to the bugs at launch but, that's about it)
Maybe I just have good luck with their games
That is Grade A bullshit development no matter how much goodwill you have with the PC crowd.
You know, Jim can be a smug little shit sometimes, but he's usually pretty spot on with his commentary. It's unacceptable for the first 3 weeks of a game's release to be essentially a beta test while everyone (devs for consoles, modders for PC ports) try to get everything functional. It should be functional on day 1. If Goldeneye randomly erased your save file or had enemies clipping through walls, it wouldnt've sold nearly as well.
Not really, a Professional [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional] from a work perspective simply requires the knowledge and/or training for that profession. Since Peter Thorman has a Ph.D and co-authored several research papers [http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/pers/hd/t/ThomanNorrdicus said:
eter] I would say he fits the bill.Either way the words layman [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layman], Average Joe [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_joe] and amateur [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur] don't apply because this guy is none of those things. Sure he doesn't work as a Games Developer, but the stuff he's doing is so far beyond that it's incredible.
Personally I would not feel ashamed if someone like this was fixing my code.
Looking at this thread, I'm happy that I'm not the only one in the universe who thinks that Skyrim was an absolute shitfest when it came to being functional. When I played it, it would always crash, after about a half hour of playing, like clockwork, every time. And sometimes the textures for trees would suddenly just not be there, at which point it would then crash. And that's not even getting into how I think about the actual game. I'm convinced all the "quality" testing went into the 360 version, because I've never heard any complaints about that one.
Well, to be fair, he admitted as much at the start.deathzero021 said:
it's functional in that if you have a gamepad, it works okay, cause it's a console gameTwenty Ninjas said:
god forbid you actually attempt to use a keyboard and mouse though, as if that was ever a consideration for the port. i mean, even the input logos are still xbox button pictures. if they don't bother to do that, we shouldn't expect the actual mouse input to work beyond acting as if somebody just sort of pasted that function into the code and didn't actually test it, even once
if somebody ported an RTS to a console, and that port had terrible gamepad controls (this has actually happened before, though), would it be entirely acceptable if they had an exception that it worked perfectly fine if you purchased a 30-40 dollar keyboard and mouse that worked with the console?
I've only played the 'vanilla' Dark Souls on the PC and it was smooth sailing the whole way through.deathzero021 said:
With ports, it's more about managing expectations. Being able to tweak graphics, remap the control scheme, and other customization are standard for PC games, but I don't mind if ports of those games aren't held to the same standard. It wouldn't bother me if a PC game was ported to the 3DS without 3D capabilities, so I can't in good faith get riled up about ports to the PC.
People are going about this the wrong way. Modding is used to make a game play better or add content for specific types. Of course a game ,tailor-made to suit you, is going to blow the original out of the water. No one can compete with that, so it doesn't make sense to condemn the game because 'Mods did it better'. If the mods did't make the game better then the player messed up.
The only argument that I found damning was the need for a game-pad, because it inflates the price of the game. I do think that a port needs to have decent controls. I already had a game-pad, so that didn't factor in.
My thoughts on the Dark Souls PC port was that it wasn't shitty. It was just below average. All I cared about was that it never crashed on me once, which puts it leagues ahead of other games that aren't even considered ports.