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A few things to talk about, first bit is about bugs, glitches and testing and the second part is all about Realism in games.
Bugs, glitches and testing. I was thinking about these earlier and decided they play quite an important part in the gaming industry. All pieces of software contain bugs and glitches, games being software are no different. There isn't much way of fully getting rid of all the bugs and glitches, in an ideal world every piece of software would be perfect and bug free but this very rarely happens. Most of the time the bugs are kept to a minimum and have no serious effect on the final version game at all.
So what kind of bugs do we see in games? Well I am sure at some point during your gaming times that you have come across a bug or glitch in the game. Some may spoil the game, others just go un-noticed by a lot of the gmaers who play it. THings like vehicles that appear to overlap instead of colliding and causing damage or if you gain access to an area that you shouldn't be able to reach then the game freezes and crashes. These are bugs that shouldn't be there but it is extremely hard to notice these before releasing the final game.
Testing. It is an important part of any software development but is it carried out as well as it could and probably should. I have no idea how long games are tested for and how many people are involved but in my view it is an important stage in the games development and it should be taken serious. The problem I see is how long would it take to fully test a game? Surely there must be a time when they might as well stop and release the game as the bugs or glitches that are left probably have no effect at all.
Time to market,what is this? Well developers or anyone selling any products have to consider when the best time to release their product is. What I am worried about here is games that aren't fully tested just so it makes a release time. Some developers feel they have to release a game at a certain time to beat competition for example it is unlikely a developer of a average football game will release a few days after the likes of FIFA 2002 and Pro evolution soccer. So does testing get rushed to meet deadlines?
Future possibilities?Patches, they could be something we may see used in the future. For the future possibilities I guess the idea of on-line consoles is needed. Patches would need to be downloaded onto a hard drive or memory card and then run along with the game. Only problem is developers may abuse this right by making the final copy of a game a little poor and then just make it better with a patch.
Another idea I think we could see is the idea of on-line testers. Developers could allow users to download a small demo of the game and allow them to play and then give feed back to the developers about any bugs and improvements that could be made for the final version. I have been playing games for about 13 years and have never met anyone who has been involved in testing games, this way would allow us to get a preview of games and also give developers more options and help with the development of their games.
The way I see things is that testing for most of the big developers is ok but could possibly be better, I would like to see developers give gamers the chance to help with the development by testing small parts of the game. So what are your views?
Ok now onto realism. Realistic games are usually quite enjoyable, things behave like they should and with realistic games we usually get good graphics and gameplay. So what important areas are there with realism in games?
Characters actions. Characters in games behave at a basic level of realism. A.I isn't good enough yet to make totally realistic but this should improve with time and technology so who knows what is possible in the future. We could see characters that need to eat, drink, sleep, go to the toilet and generally behave like normal everyday humans. Whether we will see things like this all depends on what the developers and other gamers want.
Vehicles. A lot of the games based on the gamer controling a vehicle are at a high standard but there is room for improvement. But when is too far? Driving cars that require clutch control in manual mode, react differently in various weather conditions and behave depending on how much damage they have.
Violence and gore. With improving realism violence seems to always improve as well, more blood, ways of beating people and causing mayhem. But is this a good or bad thing? I guess it is all down to personal opinions and whether you like this genre of game. I think it could be better, I guess all parts of games could be better, we could see more realistic boxing and fighting games and violent games could be much better. But when they get better I am sure more and more people will call for it too be banned as they are too violent.
Weather effects. Weather effects could be a lot better, imagine realistic storms on the high sea, flooding, heavy snow and strong winds causing havok in any game. Driving games could be improved with the option of various weather conditions, black ice, snow, heavy rain, flooding and strong winds. Weather is something that has always been a little below standard in most games, probably due to the physics and how hard it would be to implement, but we are at a time when technology allows a large number of things to get better, hopefully weather effects will be one of them.
But will there be a time when games become to realistic? When the fun gets taken out of games as you have to do so many other things that side track you from the main story and aim of the game. I think realism is something that should be improved with time but I also believe there is a limit in most areas as to how good they should get.
I have just mad a few small points for these, so what are your views on bugs and testing and also on realism in games.
Bugs, glitches and testing. I was thinking about these earlier and decided they play quite an important part in the gaming industry. All pieces of software contain bugs and glitches, games being software are no different. There isn't much way of fully getting rid of all the bugs and glitches, in an ideal world every piece of software would be perfect and bug free but this very rarely happens. Most of the time the bugs are kept to a minimum and have no serious effect on the final version game at all.
So what kind of bugs do we see in games? Well I am sure at some point during your gaming times that you have come across a bug or glitch in the game. Some may spoil the game, others just go un-noticed by a lot of the gmaers who play it. THings like vehicles that appear to overlap instead of colliding and causing damage or if you gain access to an area that you shouldn't be able to reach then the game freezes and crashes. These are bugs that shouldn't be there but it is extremely hard to notice these before releasing the final game.
Testing. It is an important part of any software development but is it carried out as well as it could and probably should. I have no idea how long games are tested for and how many people are involved but in my view it is an important stage in the games development and it should be taken serious. The problem I see is how long would it take to fully test a game? Surely there must be a time when they might as well stop and release the game as the bugs or glitches that are left probably have no effect at all.
Time to market,what is this? Well developers or anyone selling any products have to consider when the best time to release their product is. What I am worried about here is games that aren't fully tested just so it makes a release time. Some developers feel they have to release a game at a certain time to beat competition for example it is unlikely a developer of a average football game will release a few days after the likes of FIFA 2002 and Pro evolution soccer. So does testing get rushed to meet deadlines?
Future possibilities?Patches, they could be something we may see used in the future. For the future possibilities I guess the idea of on-line consoles is needed. Patches would need to be downloaded onto a hard drive or memory card and then run along with the game. Only problem is developers may abuse this right by making the final copy of a game a little poor and then just make it better with a patch.
Another idea I think we could see is the idea of on-line testers. Developers could allow users to download a small demo of the game and allow them to play and then give feed back to the developers about any bugs and improvements that could be made for the final version. I have been playing games for about 13 years and have never met anyone who has been involved in testing games, this way would allow us to get a preview of games and also give developers more options and help with the development of their games.
The way I see things is that testing for most of the big developers is ok but could possibly be better, I would like to see developers give gamers the chance to help with the development by testing small parts of the game. So what are your views?
Ok now onto realism. Realistic games are usually quite enjoyable, things behave like they should and with realistic games we usually get good graphics and gameplay. So what important areas are there with realism in games?
Characters actions. Characters in games behave at a basic level of realism. A.I isn't good enough yet to make totally realistic but this should improve with time and technology so who knows what is possible in the future. We could see characters that need to eat, drink, sleep, go to the toilet and generally behave like normal everyday humans. Whether we will see things like this all depends on what the developers and other gamers want.
Vehicles. A lot of the games based on the gamer controling a vehicle are at a high standard but there is room for improvement. But when is too far? Driving cars that require clutch control in manual mode, react differently in various weather conditions and behave depending on how much damage they have.
Violence and gore. With improving realism violence seems to always improve as well, more blood, ways of beating people and causing mayhem. But is this a good or bad thing? I guess it is all down to personal opinions and whether you like this genre of game. I think it could be better, I guess all parts of games could be better, we could see more realistic boxing and fighting games and violent games could be much better. But when they get better I am sure more and more people will call for it too be banned as they are too violent.
Weather effects. Weather effects could be a lot better, imagine realistic storms on the high sea, flooding, heavy snow and strong winds causing havok in any game. Driving games could be improved with the option of various weather conditions, black ice, snow, heavy rain, flooding and strong winds. Weather is something that has always been a little below standard in most games, probably due to the physics and how hard it would be to implement, but we are at a time when technology allows a large number of things to get better, hopefully weather effects will be one of them.
But will there be a time when games become to realistic? When the fun gets taken out of games as you have to do so many other things that side track you from the main story and aim of the game. I think realism is something that should be improved with time but I also believe there is a limit in most areas as to how good they should get.
I have just mad a few small points for these, so what are your views on bugs and testing and also on realism in games.
Realism is something often discussed as games cannot always have true realism without making the game insanely difficult, but is realism really necessary?
Games are supposed to be for enjoyment, and hence supposed to distract the user away from real life, much like television, though some shows may render viewers devoid of all life whatsoever(Pop Idol). Games started off being surreal, as the technology did not exist to incorporate complex phsyics into games, and so you had characters such as dizzy and chuckie egg appearing, as they did not require much power, and the games distracted the player from real life as the games were so surreal. Of course there were genres such as racing where there was damage to cars, however this could not be helped, as the game would then have no point.
Even up to the Mega Drive and SNES games were pretty surreal, as ou had games such as Cool Spot, Cool Dog and Chrono trigger etc. There was an influx of realistic games, due to the power available through the evolving consoles.
Games aren't necessarily getting worse, but the fact that people are getting all stuck up about how realistic a game is or isn't is stupid. All games should be rated on gameplay, and while this has been said many times before, realism is not that huge a factor.
I'm not saying that games is dominated by realism, but there are fewer and fewer games that are surreal as well as enjoyable. There are some games that try to shun realism and advanced graphics, but many try to be quaint and just fail. Games like Airblade, Wipeout and Smash court tennis are welcome, but I fear originiality will be the victim of progression.
Games are supposed to be for enjoyment, and hence supposed to distract the user away from real life, much like television, though some shows may render viewers devoid of all life whatsoever(Pop Idol). Games started off being surreal, as the technology did not exist to incorporate complex phsyics into games, and so you had characters such as dizzy and chuckie egg appearing, as they did not require much power, and the games distracted the player from real life as the games were so surreal. Of course there were genres such as racing where there was damage to cars, however this could not be helped, as the game would then have no point.
Even up to the Mega Drive and SNES games were pretty surreal, as ou had games such as Cool Spot, Cool Dog and Chrono trigger etc. There was an influx of realistic games, due to the power available through the evolving consoles.
Games aren't necessarily getting worse, but the fact that people are getting all stuck up about how realistic a game is or isn't is stupid. All games should be rated on gameplay, and while this has been said many times before, realism is not that huge a factor.
I'm not saying that games is dominated by realism, but there are fewer and fewer games that are surreal as well as enjoyable. There are some games that try to shun realism and advanced graphics, but many try to be quaint and just fail. Games like Airblade, Wipeout and Smash court tennis are welcome, but I fear originiality will be the victim of progression.
Testing is indeed important, but 100% coverage is a virtual impossibility. I'm a softie in the aerospace industry - unsuprisingly, testing the software to eliminate potential bugs and ensure correct functionality is quite high up on the list of priorities. Anyway, my point is that the software that I work with tends to be far less complex (architecturally) than your average game, and is still extremely difficult to test thoroughly. It takes a huge amount of effort from a large team of engineers for a long period of time, and even then, there's usually things that slip through the net (although these are minor things - on a par with the overlapping cars you mention).
So unless you want games to take twice as long to develop, and cost you twice as much, you've got to expect a small number of glitches and bugs to make it through.
So unless you want games to take twice as long to develop, and cost you twice as much, you've got to expect a small number of glitches and bugs to make it through.
I have no idea of how long you have to test a game for, but you'll have to be one heck of a game player to notice only most of the bugs and glitches. Like you said, cars do overlap, and this is an example that shows how long and caresfully games do need to be tested for!
I also agree with your points on the realism in games and how they could be improved. And I think that things like floods and blizzards could appear in games in the not too-distant future. I think we'd all love to see games with features like this, but it's just a matter of time. And more advanced features could include more glitches, which could lead to more testing required!
Also, The Sims is a game for characters who need food and to go to the toilet. Good post too!
I also agree with your points on the realism in games and how they could be improved. And I think that things like floods and blizzards could appear in games in the not too-distant future. I think we'd all love to see games with features like this, but it's just a matter of time. And more advanced features could include more glitches, which could lead to more testing required!
Also, The Sims is a game for characters who need food and to go to the toilet. Good post too!
A few things to talk about, first bit is about bugs, glitches and testing and the second part is all about Realism in games.
Bugs, glitches and testing. I was thinking about these earlier and decided they play quite an important part in the gaming industry. All pieces of software contain bugs and glitches, games being software are no different. There isn't much way of fully getting rid of all the bugs and glitches, in an ideal world every piece of software would be perfect and bug free but this very rarely happens. Most of the time the bugs are kept to a minimum and have no serious effect on the final version game at all.
So what kind of bugs do we see in games? Well I am sure at some point during your gaming times that you have come across a bug or glitch in the game. Some may spoil the game, others just go un-noticed by a lot of the gmaers who play it. THings like vehicles that appear to overlap instead of colliding and causing damage or if you gain access to an area that you shouldn't be able to reach then the game freezes and crashes. These are bugs that shouldn't be there but it is extremely hard to notice these before releasing the final game.
Testing. It is an important part of any software development but is it carried out as well as it could and probably should. I have no idea how long games are tested for and how many people are involved but in my view it is an important stage in the games development and it should be taken serious. The problem I see is how long would it take to fully test a game? Surely there must be a time when they might as well stop and release the game as the bugs or glitches that are left probably have no effect at all.
Time to market,what is this? Well developers or anyone selling any products have to consider when the best time to release their product is. What I am worried about here is games that aren't fully tested just so it makes a release time. Some developers feel they have to release a game at a certain time to beat competition for example it is unlikely a developer of a average football game will release a few days after the likes of FIFA 2002 and Pro evolution soccer. So does testing get rushed to meet deadlines?
Future possibilities?Patches, they could be something we may see used in the future. For the future possibilities I guess the idea of on-line consoles is needed. Patches would need to be downloaded onto a hard drive or memory card and then run along with the game. Only problem is developers may abuse this right by making the final copy of a game a little poor and then just make it better with a patch.
Another idea I think we could see is the idea of on-line testers. Developers could allow users to download a small demo of the game and allow them to play and then give feed back to the developers about any bugs and improvements that could be made for the final version. I have been playing games for about 13 years and have never met anyone who has been involved in testing games, this way would allow us to get a preview of games and also give developers more options and help with the development of their games.
The way I see things is that testing for most of the big developers is ok but could possibly be better, I would like to see developers give gamers the chance to help with the development by testing small parts of the game. So what are your views?
Ok now onto realism. Realistic games are usually quite enjoyable, things behave like they should and with realistic games we usually get good graphics and gameplay. So what important areas are there with realism in games?
Characters actions. Characters in games behave at a basic level of realism. A.I isn't good enough yet to make totally realistic but this should improve with time and technology so who knows what is possible in the future. We could see characters that need to eat, drink, sleep, go to the toilet and generally behave like normal everyday humans. Whether we will see things like this all depends on what the developers and other gamers want.
Vehicles. A lot of the games based on the gamer controling a vehicle are at a high standard but there is room for improvement. But when is too far? Driving cars that require clutch control in manual mode, react differently in various weather conditions and behave depending on how much damage they have.
Violence and gore. With improving realism violence seems to always improve as well, more blood, ways of beating people and causing mayhem. But is this a good or bad thing? I guess it is all down to personal opinions and whether you like this genre of game. I think it could be better, I guess all parts of games could be better, we could see more realistic boxing and fighting games and violent games could be much better. But when they get better I am sure more and more people will call for it too be banned as they are too violent.
Weather effects. Weather effects could be a lot better, imagine realistic storms on the high sea, flooding, heavy snow and strong winds causing havok in any game. Driving games could be improved with the option of various weather conditions, black ice, snow, heavy rain, flooding and strong winds. Weather is something that has always been a little below standard in most games, probably due to the physics and how hard it would be to implement, but we are at a time when technology allows a large number of things to get better, hopefully weather effects will be one of them.
But will there be a time when games become to realistic? When the fun gets taken out of games as you have to do so many other things that side track you from the main story and aim of the game. I think realism is something that should be improved with time but I also believe there is a limit in most areas as to how good they should get.
I have just mad a few small points for these, so what are your views on bugs and testing and also on realism in games.
Bugs, glitches and testing. I was thinking about these earlier and decided they play quite an important part in the gaming industry. All pieces of software contain bugs and glitches, games being software are no different. There isn't much way of fully getting rid of all the bugs and glitches, in an ideal world every piece of software would be perfect and bug free but this very rarely happens. Most of the time the bugs are kept to a minimum and have no serious effect on the final version game at all.
So what kind of bugs do we see in games? Well I am sure at some point during your gaming times that you have come across a bug or glitch in the game. Some may spoil the game, others just go un-noticed by a lot of the gmaers who play it. THings like vehicles that appear to overlap instead of colliding and causing damage or if you gain access to an area that you shouldn't be able to reach then the game freezes and crashes. These are bugs that shouldn't be there but it is extremely hard to notice these before releasing the final game.
Testing. It is an important part of any software development but is it carried out as well as it could and probably should. I have no idea how long games are tested for and how many people are involved but in my view it is an important stage in the games development and it should be taken serious. The problem I see is how long would it take to fully test a game? Surely there must be a time when they might as well stop and release the game as the bugs or glitches that are left probably have no effect at all.
Time to market,what is this? Well developers or anyone selling any products have to consider when the best time to release their product is. What I am worried about here is games that aren't fully tested just so it makes a release time. Some developers feel they have to release a game at a certain time to beat competition for example it is unlikely a developer of a average football game will release a few days after the likes of FIFA 2002 and Pro evolution soccer. So does testing get rushed to meet deadlines?
Future possibilities?Patches, they could be something we may see used in the future. For the future possibilities I guess the idea of on-line consoles is needed. Patches would need to be downloaded onto a hard drive or memory card and then run along with the game. Only problem is developers may abuse this right by making the final copy of a game a little poor and then just make it better with a patch.
Another idea I think we could see is the idea of on-line testers. Developers could allow users to download a small demo of the game and allow them to play and then give feed back to the developers about any bugs and improvements that could be made for the final version. I have been playing games for about 13 years and have never met anyone who has been involved in testing games, this way would allow us to get a preview of games and also give developers more options and help with the development of their games.
The way I see things is that testing for most of the big developers is ok but could possibly be better, I would like to see developers give gamers the chance to help with the development by testing small parts of the game. So what are your views?
Ok now onto realism. Realistic games are usually quite enjoyable, things behave like they should and with realistic games we usually get good graphics and gameplay. So what important areas are there with realism in games?
Characters actions. Characters in games behave at a basic level of realism. A.I isn't good enough yet to make totally realistic but this should improve with time and technology so who knows what is possible in the future. We could see characters that need to eat, drink, sleep, go to the toilet and generally behave like normal everyday humans. Whether we will see things like this all depends on what the developers and other gamers want.
Vehicles. A lot of the games based on the gamer controling a vehicle are at a high standard but there is room for improvement. But when is too far? Driving cars that require clutch control in manual mode, react differently in various weather conditions and behave depending on how much damage they have.
Violence and gore. With improving realism violence seems to always improve as well, more blood, ways of beating people and causing mayhem. But is this a good or bad thing? I guess it is all down to personal opinions and whether you like this genre of game. I think it could be better, I guess all parts of games could be better, we could see more realistic boxing and fighting games and violent games could be much better. But when they get better I am sure more and more people will call for it too be banned as they are too violent.
Weather effects. Weather effects could be a lot better, imagine realistic storms on the high sea, flooding, heavy snow and strong winds causing havok in any game. Driving games could be improved with the option of various weather conditions, black ice, snow, heavy rain, flooding and strong winds. Weather is something that has always been a little below standard in most games, probably due to the physics and how hard it would be to implement, but we are at a time when technology allows a large number of things to get better, hopefully weather effects will be one of them.
But will there be a time when games become to realistic? When the fun gets taken out of games as you have to do so many other things that side track you from the main story and aim of the game. I think realism is something that should be improved with time but I also believe there is a limit in most areas as to how good they should get.
I have just mad a few small points for these, so what are your views on bugs and testing and also on realism in games.