Kicked through the textures by a cyclope

[Blín D'ñero]

I didn't expect it had such a power in it.
The cyclope i was aiming at, like a prof football player shot a rock at me from a distance, só hard that i was launched through the textures and fell into another map.
Despite the two patches it can still happen. There remain some hidden bugs / holes. Well, like in most games, actually.
I had forgotten to save for some time and didn't want to replay that part again. That was not so funny. But the bug was funny!

[rditto48801]

It makes me wonder if they bench press elephants (or trees with armored cavalry strapped to either end) when they are not putting characters through walls with fast ball style boulders.

That would be funny, at least it would be if it had not been a while since last saving...
Reminds me of my days of playing Elderscrolls 2 Daggerfall... they got a cheat that is a single button... basically 'teleport character to last object/piece of land they were standing on'... because there are a few places were clipping through the wall (or just walking in a dungeon/cave, or jumping at the wrong spot) can happen without warning and send someone into the void...
Or getting infected by Lycantrhopy of one type of wearbeast, but the ingame graphic in the character screen, when transformed, is of a different type of werebeast...


I have seen other games that seemed to not be as patched as they could.
Ubisoft has not just fumbled the ball when it comes to patching Dark Messiah.
Silent Hunter 4 comes to mind, also done by Ubisoft.
They released a whole new expansion, but apparently had not entirely fixed the base game itself.
Nothing like seeing the watch crew on a Submarine on watch on the conning tower... when the sub is dived 200ft underwater. Or the crew suffering from CO2 poisoning while the sub is surfaced...
The mod community seems to have figured out fixes and work arounds to quite a few bugs and added a few sensible features that Ubisoft never fixed or otherwise didn't implement...
Here's the funny part, they also did Silent Hunter 3, and while they fixed a few things for Silent Hunter 4, there were other things they did not fix... and some things that worked that they apparently tossed out changed altogether... 'lazy programmers' or 'rushed job' come to mind based on what the first 4 patches fixed, not including what the expansion added/fixed (no patches for the expansion from what I have heard/found).

Unfortunately, "release the game now, make it play right later" has spread to console games, such as on the X-Box 360, since it is possible to use X-Box Live 'free' membership to download patches and such.

At least they do a better job than EA or Atari sometimes apparently does.

It is to bad that greed and impatience seems to be a major theme in game companies these days, because it seems quite a few games suffer just because a company is more concerned about maximizing profit and minimizing expenses rather than making a good game, plus the occasional game where the company is more concerned about making money to the point they get a game out ASAP and then don't even bother supporting it afterwards. Then there are some companies that actually have no trouble using the word 'delayed' and actually put effort into making sure a game works out of the box and requires few/minimal fixes.

[Blín D'ñero]

Nothing like seeing the watch crew on a Submarine on watch on the conning tower... when the sub is dived 200ft underwater. Or the crew suffering from CO2 poisoning while the sub is surfaced...

Really?! Oh man!
But ubisoft doesn't make patches, they're just a publisher. I have no idea how it all works in such companies, in that world, but sadly it is very common that those who make the decisions don't care about quality only about profit.
Programmers lazy? You think so? May be that such errors are much more complicated to correct than we tend to think, and the decisionmakers don't consider it costworthy.

[rditto48801]

Silent Hunter 4 is not 'stable' when it comes to Alt-Tab to mimize it. You can immediately save the game, then load the game you just saved, and the problem is gone.

The only things I find on the Silent Hunter 4 package, other than Ubisoft, are Bink (I doubt video people made the game) and something called DemonWare (something to do with "MiddleWare", whatever that is, and matchmaking), plus mention of something called PeriscopeFilm that furnished the video material.
I do recall one VERY annoying thing about Silent Hunter 4... load a game... it takes maybe 5-10 seconds for the 'loading' bar to fill, and as it nears the end... you suddenly stare at a blank screen with the message "Please Wait" for almost a minute... and then you have to set a speed and either 'rudder amidship' or 'resume course' to prevent your sub from coming to a stop or otherwise going in circles after reloading... because it saves the speed, but immediately on reload, you hear "All Stop"... and it doesn't save any course changes, just what the rudder was at last, and since minor course corrections are made at times, or if saved during a turn to a specific heading, it loads and 'keeps' the rudder at whatever position it was at when the game was saved, but not if the sub was turning to a specific heading or turning to follow a course plotted on the navigational map.
Basically, it gives the impression they fixed anything that might break the game or make it unplayable, and ignored anything that had any sort of workaround.


Publishers are responsible for patches in some ways.
Simcity Societies for example, developed by Tilted Mill, and published by Electronic Arts.
Tilted Mill, for example, would like to make more patches for the game Simcity Societies, but since Electronic Arts holds all the rights and is being an about things, and due to some other factor, Tilted Mill is not allowed to make any more patches for Simcity Societies. Simcity Societies apparently is now only available from a bundle pack that includes a few other 'simcity' style games EA publishes that includes a few Sim City type games, as I rarely see Simcity Societies itself anymore.
A clear case where the Publisher is responsible for not patching a game, because they won't let the game Developers do so... which makes no sense, since it's not like it would cost the publisher money if the developer chose to put its own time and money into working on a patch.

I like publishers like Stardock, they appear to be as much concerned about their customers as they are about their products. They seem to realize that...
Game that works + happy customers + positive image = more customers = more money.

Or the game Earth and Beyond, I got it but could never play it.
I despise games I buy to find out it REQUIRES a credit card number to install... even if 'time cards' were going to be used to pay for a subscription... my second attempt into online gaming stopped dead in its tracks...
And then, Earth and Beyond only had 25,000 regular customers, (that's a cool $250-500k per month, I forget what the monthly subscription fee was), so EA simply dropped ALL support, closed down the servers, etc.

I suddenly recall a sort of funny picture, a picture of the CEO of EA that was edited to make him resemble the Borg from Star Trek...


An analogy of sorts comes to mind...
A greedy filthy rich guy is going to the bank, he made two great deals of large size, and is carrying a large bag of money in each hand, that he plans to deposit in his bank account.
Suddenly, he hears a squeaking sound, he turns and down the sidewalk a ways was a not so greedy rich guy. The not so greedy rich guy struggles up behind, he has little money bags, lots and lots of them, ones the greedy filthy rich guy had ignored because they were 'small'.
The not so greedy rich guy has to use a large wheel barrel to hold all the little money bags, which form a huge mound that easily dwarfs the two large money bags held by the greedy filthy rich guy.
The basic moral... although the little money bags were worth less, there were lots and lots more of them. And although it took longer to get all the little money bags, their overall value was far greater than the two 'large' money bags the greedy filthy rich guy had.

As I joke around with a friend on occasion, it seems like going to a business school would prove valuable lessons of what NOT to do when running a business...


Sorry about the rant, it's a subject that gets me annoyed at times, of all sorts of troubles that can be tracked back to greed and apparent lack of common sense in some businesses, not just video game publishers.

[rditto48801]

I just ran into a far worse problem with Silent Hunter 4.
Corrupted game saves... which lead me to find out about something else...

A potential game killing problem.

Apparently, the save system is not entirely stable in SH4, especially if you 'overwrite' save games, and that it is possible for corrupt save games to occur.
Even if it does not cause problems at first, it can rear its head later on.
Some can apparently get so bad that the best option is simply restart the game, or worse case scenario, to simply uninstall the game, delete ALL saves, reinstall the game, and start out from the beginning, due to the game itself getting corrupted.


It's a WWII submarine simulation game, involving submarines and hunting down and sinking ships... but from what I have found while troubleshooting a problem, I found people saying that saving while dived underwater, saving while anything else is nearby (ships, aircraft, whatever), saving near a port, etc, has been known to cause problems with saves made during such times...
toss in absurd levels of aircraft in some area meaning there is no choice but to save while dived underwater with enemy units nearby...

I would be like being unable to safely save in Dark Messiah if there was an enemy anywhere nearby or if you were hiding in a shadow...

At least you were able to reload from before the cyclops knocked you into limbo, I am facing the chance of having to redo an entire war patrol or even have to delete an entire campaign and start from the beginning.
I just hope one of the 'less severe' fixes mentioned works out and reveals I don't have a 'corrupted game install', or else I will have dozens of hours of gameplay go down the drain.

[Blín D'ñero]

Wow that sucks. I don't have the game so cannot investigate.

Sometimes a corruption can be caused by not following the predictable way as the programmers intended. In Riddick Dark Athena, you encounter a victim who starts talking to you. If you ignore him and proceed while he is still talking, later on in the game a crucial video together with a crucial action will not happen! So you're stuck in a room with nothing to do, the game is DEAD. Luckily this all is in the first section of the game so starting a New Game isn't a big deal. [EDIT: no i just started replaying the game and specifically tested this, and it did NOT happen. So it must have been something else causing it.]

Another one:
On your way you pick up several nanomed cartridges (to give an extra load to the health devices ("nanomed station") you find throughout the whole game). After you have collected 5 of them and not used one, they all magically disappear. Luckily the nanomed stations carry some load already and if you play smartly usually that amount is enough. Plus, luckily, when you die too easily, the third time you reload game your health is slightly increased automatically.

[rditto48801]

It sounds like it is an interesting, if not slightly out of whack at time, game.

SH4 is basically a 'free roaming' game in some ways, missions are usually random (patrol, photo recon, life guard duty, or starting a new patrol with a mission like inserting commando teams, a spy or even supplies to some location), and there is no telling where your sub might be ordered to go. Even when based in Pearl Harbor, I can technically be able to wander all the way over to Australia, the East China Sea, Japan, Alaska, etc.

Although, it seems some real US subs in WWII encountered dozens of aircraft during their patrols, while SH4 tends to crank it up to dozens of aircraft per day (one time estimated 12-24 PER HOUR). Sub becomes more of a roller coaster than anything else while trying to avoid all the air patrols.

In the U-Boat Missions expansion, I have heard you HAVE to cheat at one spot, selecting the realism option for 'unlimited fuel', because you can apparently be ordered to patrol South Africa... from a base that nowhere near there, with a type of sub involved that has nowhere near enough fuel, meaning it would be a one way trip...

There is one 'unofficial' patch being worked on for SH4 itself... although the creator mentioned having to trim it down, due to a base size nearly 1GB in size due to all the small 'mini-mods' they acquired that are basically just fixes to assorted problems and poor scripting in the game (such as the above mentioned absurd levels of aircraft)

The one thing in Dark Athena, of ignoring someone and having something later not happen, reminds me of Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind, which had a few scripting errors that were broken in general, as in talking to someone and getting the right info doesn't ever register, basically breaking some things. Or a missing 'master trainer' for one of the skills. They are apparently there, as a 'cheat' to teleport them to the character is supposed to work, but otherwise the trainer cannot be found. From what I have heard, it was due to some 'error' (in X-Y-Z coordinate data?) causing the NPC to basically spawn in some part of the map (like UNDER the map according to one source), where the player can't get to them.

[Blín D'ñero]

^Ohhh... LOL

In Dark Messiah, when you meet the Orcs first time. That battle against 10 of them. During that battle, at some spot the ground they stand on is not trustworthy as it can happen that one or two Orcs just sink through it. You can hear them roaring and looking for you underground. They will never find you and you will never be able to kill them. So the level will never complete. Only fix is reload savegame.

What you said:

they got a cheat that is a single button... basically 'teleport character to last object/piece of land they were standing on'... because there are a few places were clipping through the wall (or just walking in a dungeon/cave, or jumping at the wrong spot) can happen without warning and send someone into the void...

is exactly what can happen at a few spots in Dark Athena. I was waiting for an approaching enemy, in crawl position cautiously walking backwards with my rightside against the glass wall. I didn't notice i was backwards walking upon a diagonal part of the structure, backwards in fact being upwards, untill i suddenly ended up estimated 6 meters in the air above the enemy. Who i heard saying words like "I know you're here. You cannot escape me" but he didn't see me. And i could go nowhere, i could only move the camera to look around but not move any limb, i had become 'one with the textures'. Only fix was reload savegame.

Btw, if you like first person shooters, Riddick is one of the MUST PLAY games. It is pure fantasy in a dark doom sci-fi atmosphere with a 'Redick'ulous macho cliché, a mix however that is só well done it is convincing from the first second to the last, visually and soundwise stunningly on the spot and fun! The creators used a magical formula! :thumbup:

[rditto48801]

A friend owns Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay on X-Box, and he let me borrow it once so I could play and beat it myself. I also happen to have seen two movies with Riddick, one simply called Pitch Black, iirc, and the other movie (I forget the name), which tie into the basic story line of the Riddick games.

It does sound like Dark Athena is a game worth getting (as soon as I can pry myself away from Silent Hunter 4, Civilizations IV Colonization, SimCity Societies, and The Sims 2... although Sims 2 has hit a save data crash and burn and SH4 is getting save game corruption, so those two might not be played much longer until I can get them working right).

It's amazing just how many bugs, flaws, glitches and 'stupid nonsense features that players initially think are bungs' end up in games these days.

Heck, for a major example of games with problems...
Battlecruiser 3000AD...

[Blín D'ñero]

When i specifically tested Dark Athena for it, it turned out that ignoring the first victim does NOT cause any bug (such as later on a certain video not playing and finding yourself stuck in a dead room)... So it must have been a completely random incident...