Didn't realize I was paying to join late beta...

[Schakar]

I honestly can't see a problem, if Obsidian are releasing patches to fix these bugs. The game has been out for a week. A week!

PoE isn't that much of a problem, just part of the bigger picture . IF the patch fixes (hopefully) the major bugs then Obsidian did decent work.

 

The real problem is, that there is no game release anymore, which has no BUGs. And it seams to get worse every year with more and more game-breaker BUGs . And this BAD status has reached the "standart". And that there are still people, who praise/defend this BAD status-quo . Sometimes with stupid try-hard arguments like "just a game" or "it's still new" (35+ YEARS is not "new"!!!! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD)).

 

We, the custumer, should NOT and NEVER accept this behavior!

[Valmy]

 

I honestly can't see a problem, if Obsidian are releasing patches to fix these bugs. The game has been out for a week. A week!

PoE isn't that much of a problem, just part of the bigger picture . IF the patch fixes (hopefully) the major bugs then Obsidian did decent work.

 

The real problem is, that there is no game release anymore, which has no BUGs. And it seams to get worse every year with more and more game-breaker BUGs . And this BAD status has reached the "standart". And that there are still people, who praise/defend this BAD status-quo . Sometimes with stupid try-hard arguments like "just a game" or "it's still new" (35+ YEARS is not "new"!!!! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD)).

 

We, the custumer, should NOT and NEVER accept this behavior!

 

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree. That is reality, and I am not in the business of screaming outrage at reality. Game makers already work absurdly long hours. I am not a sadist. Heck I am impressed and grateful anybody works in that crazy industry.

 

So long as it is good enough and gets patched in a reasonably decent time frame I am satisfied. The far more important issue is what it looks like after all the patches are done, was it a good and creative and fun product? So what during the first few days/weeks/months after release it had issues.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Valmy

[Bayzent]

I usually try to avoid making gripe posts, but my level of frustration and irritation with PoE is growing at such a rate that I kind of just have to let it out this time.

 

Despite being highly interested in a spiritual successor to the IE games of my halcyon youth, I didn't back the Kickstarter for PoE because I wasn't interested in playing a WIP/beta game. Instead, I bought the game a couple days after its official launch, but nevertheless, it feels like I'm playing a late beta version.

 

When literally not a single day can go by without me reading about or encountering a new major bug, I think it's fair to say that the game has launched in an unacceptable state. Disappearing passive bonuses from double-clicking to equip armor, endlessly stacking attributes from loading a saved game, disappearing focus regeneration from equipping an item designed specifically for the only class in the game which uses focus...

 

These are not bizarre, obscure bugs which only a small portion of the player base is likely to encounter, these are things which virtually every player is likely to encounter in the normal course of completing the game.

 

I'm still enjoying much of what PoE has to offer, but you can rest assured that I won't be making the mistake of paying full price for an Obsidian-developed game any time in the near future.

 

You haven't played a game since the 90's I take it.

[Schakar]

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

 

Game makers already work absurdly long hours. I am not a sadist. Heck I am impressed and grateful anybody works in that crazy industry.

 

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

And just imagin ... if a computer game with let's say 3 million code lines has so many (and sometimes critical) bugs ... would you EVER again trust a modern car software? With auto park asistent, auto drive (Google-Car), break asistent, lane hold asistent, routing-planer ... what ever .

 

The second statement is, unfortunatly, true . But it hits all and everyone working as software engineer. In germany for example we have no spezial IT union and no collective agreement . That's why I stoped to work as game coder. Yea, I did this job 3 years. Up to 18 hours 7 days every week. The closer the release date, the more hours. I started it as I LOVE games ... then I had to learn the hard way what's your position ... and what the position of the publisher/investors (the REAL bad boys) .

I decided: before I'm part of a BUGed release because of greedy publishers/investors  ... I'll never be part of this modern slave holders anymore.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Schakar

[Sleazebag]

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

 

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

Those are just the engines. They do not include actual gameplay or other assets.

 

And hey, since you can just download most of the code, I guess everyone can make huge video games now. After all, it was invented 35+ years ago. Gonna go download the code for Super Mario RPG now and use it to code a AAA rpg and release it on steam, it'll be easy!

[Nortalud]

 

When literally not a single day can go by without me reading about...

 

There's your problem. You are getting yourself worked up over something you haven't even experienced. I didn't even know you could double-click on something to equip it. That never even crossed my mind.

 

 

 

I'm sorry you aren't having as much fun as I am.

 

 

You're presuming that the bugs I read about didn't also affect me. They did.

 

Raedric's Keep CTD bug? Got it.

Infinitely stacking companion stats? Got it.

Faulty Drinking Horn necklace that breaks ciphers? Got it.

Cursor cage option not working? Got it.

 

Reading that many, many other people were also experiencing these issues and that many were identified within hours of the game's release just made them all the more disappointing.

[Blarghagh]

Since when is the number of lines of code a factor in how complicated it is?

[DocDoomII]

Yes I'm sure facebook has only ~20 guys working on it and its 35 years old code can work on any combination of hardware and software without a problem.

Edited April 3, 2015 by DocDoomII

[Yellow Rabbit]

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

You really know nothing about software engineering, don't you?

[Nortalud]

 

 

These are not bizarre, obscure bugs which only a small portion of the player base is likely to encounter, these are things which virtually every player is likely to encounter in the normal course of completing the game.

 

 

I've encountered zero bugs so far. 

 

I am glad to hear that, many other players (myself included) have not been so fortunate.

[Avantre]

 

When you go online, on a discussion forum, you are likely to find more people with problems.

 

I’m not saying that there are no bugs. There clearly are, otherwise we wouldn’t have that huge patch notes. However many here, including myself, never saw game breaking (real game breaking, because some people were saying that not being able to walk is game breaking...) bugs. The only thing *I* particularly experienced was somewhat frequent crashes that happen on MacBooks, and somedays they don’t happen. I’ve played 28h already.

 

I’m not that used to play games that are this complex, but I remember, for example, that when I played Skyrim, Fallout 3, and New Vegas they were incredibly bugged. Do that justify the state of this release? No, but if you are surprised by a few bugs (yes, a few, severe but a few) then you must be new in gamin

 

I don't want to sound rude, but  it doesn't matter what *You* personally never experienced. You might never have been to Nepal, but I can assure you it exists. People aren't surprised that there are bugs, but that there are bugs that outright stop/destroy the whole progress, that none of the testers found them and that some people are actively trying to deny/justify their existence.

 

It kind of does matter, though, because if it works for others (I've completed the game, only one real bug noted in my playthrough and it wasn't a game breaker) it shows there is a chance that their internal QA may not have encountered those bugs themselves when they tried with their best intentions to test for errors that only become apparent when the game's released into the wild of other PC setups that they didn't have in their test lab. It's the bugs that 100% of people encounter (like that stat inflating one) that really should be caught, but ones that happen for only a percentage of the audience are sometimes just a case of bad luck in the QA area not having the setup that was needed to get that bu

[Bayzent]

The only one I've encountered was having characters getting stuck in Adra stones in my way to three Elms...weird since I thought they were not 3D

[Nortalud]

 

 

 

Well, I won't repeat myself about how bugs and game development work. 

 

Patch fixing all known major problems & lots more expected tomorrow: https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-179-patch-notes-103/

 

"virtually every player is likely to encounter in the normal course of completing the game."

 

Clearly and objectively untrue, as the many many posters on this very forum will tell you. 

Let me clarify: virtually every player could reasonably be expected to potentially encounter the events which trigger these bugs.

Double-clicking an item, equipping a particular item, or loading a saved game are not unusual fringe events in a computer game.

 

Developers shipping a game with major bugs and then working furiously to patch them shouldn't be the default expectation.

 

 

Would it be better to have the game released in a year completely bug free? Or wait another 6 months? I get it, bugs suck, but it came out, what, a week ago? Bugs happen - the fact they are already working on a patch shows they care (or at least they arent going to just leave the bugs alone). 

 

 

6 months? A year? The handful of major bugs I'm talking about are apparently being fixed with a patch in under a week.

 

So, do I think it would have been better to delay the game a few weeks or a month to get these fixed? Yes, absolutely. If I thought otherwise, I probably would have bought into the beta.

[View619]

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

 

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

 

Please stop making references to previous game engines and stating that since they have x lines of code, POE should be easy. You clearly don't understand how Software Development works, I'm almost convinced that you're just trolling now.

 

For future reference though, lines of code != level of complexity.

Edited April 3, 2015 by View619

[Tigranes]

 

 

 

 

Well, I won't repeat myself about how bugs and game development work. 

 

Patch fixing all known major problems & lots more expected tomorrow: https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-179-patch-notes-103/

 

"virtually every player is likely to encounter in the normal course of completing the game."

 

Clearly and objectively untrue, as the many many posters on this very forum will tell you. 

Let me clarify: virtually every player could reasonably be expected to potentially encounter the events which trigger these bugs.

Double-clicking an item, equipping a particular item, or loading a saved game are not unusual fringe events in a computer game.

 

Developers shipping a game with major bugs and then working furiously to patch them shouldn't be the default expectation.

 

 

Would it be better to have the game released in a year completely bug free? Or wait another 6 months? I get it, bugs suck, but it came out, what, a week ago? Bugs happen - the fact they are already working on a patch shows they care (or at least they arent going to just leave the bugs alone). 

 

 

6 months? A year? The handful of major bugs I'm talking about are apparently being fixed with a patch in under a week.

 

So, do I think it would have been better to delay the game a few weeks or a month to get these fixed? Yes, absolutely. If I thought otherwise, I probably would have bought into the beta.

 

 

If it really was that easy and Obsidian could say, "we know there are 5 big bugs, do we release now? We could release 3 weeks later and we know for sure there will be zero bugs!"

 

Life would be so much simpler. 

[Amentep]

 

 

 

 

Well, I won't repeat myself about how bugs and game development work. 

 

Patch fixing all known major problems & lots more expected tomorrow: https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-179-patch-notes-103/

 

"virtually every player is likely to encounter in the normal course of completing the game."

 

Clearly and objectively untrue, as the many many posters on this very forum will tell you. 

Let me clarify: virtually every player could reasonably be expected to potentially encounter the events which trigger these bugs.

Double-clicking an item, equipping a particular item, or loading a saved game are not unusual fringe events in a computer game.

 

Developers shipping a game with major bugs and then working furiously to patch them shouldn't be the default expectation.

 

 

Would it be better to have the game released in a year completely bug free? Or wait another 6 months? I get it, bugs suck, but it came out, what, a week ago? Bugs happen - the fact they are already working on a patch shows they care (or at least they arent going to just leave the bugs alone). 

 

 

6 months? A year? The handful of major bugs I'm talking about are apparently being fixed with a patch in under a week.

 

So, do I think it would have been better to delay the game a few weeks or a month to get these fixed? Yes, absolutely. If I thought otherwise, I probably would have bought into the beta.

 

 

Why do either of you think that a few more weeks would have led Obsidian to find those bugs that are now being found now after 8 months of Backer Beta and however much Q&A they did?  I doubt they looked at the release date and said "Oh well, we were going to test double clicking items to equip, but I guess we'll skip it, the game has just GOT to get out the door."

[Nortalud]

 

Again, there's a difference between "bug-free" and "no crippling bugs linked to simply using absolutely core functions".

 

If saving and equipping don't work the game isn't fit for release. Period. Why was this version even made available? 

 

 

100% right.

 

Occasional flickering textures is a minor bug. A typo in quest text is a minor bug. Less than ideal unit pathing is a minor bug. I accept that these kinds of things happen and don't get heartburn when they're present in a shipped game.

 

Characters becoming indefinitely broken under common and easily replicated circumstances is not a minor bug. The only reason for things of this magnitude being present in a supposedly final product is inadequate testing and bugfixing. Whether that's because of limited resources, poor project planning, unreasonable deadlines from publishers, or any of a thousand other circumstances is, and should be, essentially irrelevant to the customer.

[Spivo]

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

 

Game makers already work absurdly long hours. I am not a sadist. Heck I am impressed and grateful anybody works in that crazy industry.

 

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

And just imagin ... if a computer game with let's say 3 million code lines has so many (and sometimes critical) bugs ... would you EVER again trust a modern car software? With auto park asistent, auto drive (Google-Car), break asistent, lane hold asistent, routing-planer ... what ever .

 

The second statement is, unfortunatly, true . But it hits all and everyone working as software engineer. In germany for example we have no spezial IT union and no collective agreement . That's why I stoped to work as game coder. Yea, I did this job 3 years. Up to 18 hours 7 days every week. The closer the release date, the more hours. I started it as I LOVE games ... then I had to learn the hard way what's your position ... and what the position of the publisher/investors (the REAL bad boys) .

I decided: before I'm part of a BUGed release because of greedy publishers/investors  ... I'll never be part of this modern slave holders anymore.

 

 

2 tons of low qual chocolate doesn't taste better than 500 grams of high qual chocolate, all it does is give you a bigger stomach ache.

 

When you see a program with lots of LOC's, it's very very likely what you have in your hands is the work of: "cope-paste old version + patching".

Windows 7 had fewer LOC's than Vista, does that make it an inferior program. Please say no...

 

 

That aside.

 

I think what we have here is a general conspiracy from the whole gaming industry. 20 years ago (when most of us were kids and loved games), they sat together and decided to keep making games more and more buggy, to slowly lower our expectations.

Obsidian, and all the other gaming companies, could make much better games with no effort (what was it? just copy the code from the internet?), but refuse to do so.

[Bayzent]

Why do either of you think that a few more weeks would have led Obsidian to find those bugs that are now being found now after 8 months of Backer Beta and however much Q&A they did?  I doubt they looked at the release date and said "Oh well, we were going to test double clicking items to equip, but I guess we'll skip it, the game has just GOT to get out the door."

 

 

Not only find them. Find them and fixing them in a way it would not screw up with any other part of the game and then finish the game start to finish with all side quests in order to chek it up as allright in several computers with different settings and characteristics to be completely sure. 2 Weeks? 10 DAYS IS ALL I GIVE THEM!!

 

The sooner people realize that in this day an age when a patch is just no biggie this **** is gonna happen constantly the more happy lives they'll be able to live. I never buy games that are not in Steam Sale and I hardly will pay more than 20 bucks for a videogame except in some cases where I like the devs, in which case I may pay all I can spare like in this case. AS a rule of thumb, never buy games on release, it has worked for me thus far.

[Tigranes]

I, too, would be offended by Obsidian's evil, if I believed you can predict how several hundred thousand PCs would respond to your software, and that you totally know how many bugs your software has before you ship it, and if I believed non-PC software doesn't come with critical bugs.

[Bayzent]

I, too, would be offended by Obsidian's evil, if I believed you can predict how several hundred thousand PCs would respond to your software, and that you totally know how many bugs your software has before you ship it, and if I believed non-PC software doesn't come with critical bugs.

They don't. If they come with bugs Mr Nintendo/Android/Sony/WhoeverOwnsAppleNow goes to their homes and breaks their legs with a baseball bat. It's just PC players who are screwed because Bill Gates doesn't go around beating people, bloody pansy.

[Nortalud]

 

Sorry it was long, so I shortened it. Removed it, actually.

 

So what's your reasoning as to why they would release the game with bugs? Do you really think they are that stupid that they'd risk their reputation like that? Do you think that they just said "aw to h*** with it, we'll just release it with bugs and be done."? Like, what logical, rational, reason could they have to not releasing it a month from now, completely (or mostly) bug free. Tell me why if you're such an expert? Because they can "get away with it?" How? Rather, it just forces them to be in a mad rush to get the bugs fixed ASAP so they can appease their fanbase. I can't think of one good reason they would chose to release it, knowing they'd have a buggy release, unless they couldn't help it.

 

Here's my list of possibilities. Let me know if you think of any:

 

a) Budget - they ran out of cash and needed the new income. Seems likely, especially since they already delayed it earlier in the year (if they were willing to do it once, why not again, if it makes the game better and they have the resources? Simple. They probably didn't have the resources.

 

b) Their testers (the QA guys) are just terrible and Obsidian really needs to invest in new testers because they've been consistently bad. And any business as large and successful as Obsidian knows that bad testers should be rehired to do another bad performance, right? Cause that just makes sense.

 

c) Somebody got lazy or missed something major, unintentionally. These things happen. Its human nature to make mistakes. How we fix them is what is important. Plus, as you mentioned, if EVERYONE simply MUST have these bugs just like you, but they are simply too unobservant or simply not as smart as you or some other BS, how can you possible expect a professional to find the bugs that got past thousands, if not millions, of people? That just sounds unreasonable to me.

 

d) Obsidian just doesn't care. Which I highly doubt. As you mentioned, from a business perspective, it makes no sense to just release it for no good reason. So there has to be a reason.

 

So which is it? Does Obsidian hate their fans? Was it a mistake? Are they incompetent? Or do you have some other solution? Maybe I'm just not observant enough or too stupid to realize it, so please enlighten me. Since you're an expert and all.

 

 

The stakes are clearly vastly lower in game development than in many other industries, but none of the scenarios you describe above would be considered acceptable if occurred with an airline, or an automobile manufacturer, or a telecommunications provider.

 

I don't think "oops, **** happens!" is a reasonable defense for a professional, for-profit business of any description. Bugs like this are not the result of unforeseeable circumstances, they are the result of things like poor deadline planning, poor allocation of resources, poor project management, or even negligence/apathy on the part of the company. I don't think the latter is the case here, but regardless, it is foreseeable that a game may have major bugs and developers should and can take that into account ahead of time.

[Elerond]

 

Eh it is not that big of a problem. The reason games are released with bugs is that it is really really hard to make software this complicated bugfree.

 

Game makers already work absurdly long hours. I am not a sadist. Heck I am impressed and grateful anybody works in that crazy industry.

 

THIS is exact the lie I was talking about!

 

Espezialy computer games do NOT have that many code lines compared to other software.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/

Quake 3 engine (just the graphic) a bit over 300k lines.

Cry Engine 2 or Age of Empire online a bit over 1 millions lines.

Unreal 2 engine around 2 million lines.

 

Compared to something simple like Google Chrome which has 5-7 million lines ...

Facebook 60++ million lines (WTF??? what for??? *g*).

Average modern car software 100++ million lines.

 

Games are NOT that complicate and most of the code is invented 35+ years ago and can be downloaded!

 

And just imagin ... if a computer game with let's say 3 million code lines has so many (and sometimes critical) bugs ... would you EVER again trust a modern car software? With auto park asistent, auto drive (Google-Car), break asistent, lane hold asistent, routing-planer ... what ever .

 

The second statement is, unfortunatly, true . But it hits all and everyone working as software engineer. In germany for example we have no spezial IT union and no collective agreement . That's why I stoped to work as game coder. Yea, I did this job 3 years. Up to 18 hours 7 days every week. The closer the release date, the more hours. I started it as I LOVE games ... then I had to learn the hard way what's your position ... and what the position of the publisher/investors (the REAL bad boys) .

I decided: before I'm part of a BUGed release because of greedy publishers/investors  ... I'll never be part of this modern slave holders anymore.

 

 

There are software and there are software.

 

Windows and Linux have millions of lines of code just for their kernels let alone software that comes with them, but they also have thousands of developers and they have been developed over decades (Most of your average car computers code lines come from operating system which they use.)

 

Google chrome is also product of over decade worth of developing time and it has been developed by hundreds if not thousands of people.

 

Game engines also have quite lot code lines, although not any where near the amount what previously mentioned pieces of software have, but they also have developed during very long time and by relatively large number of people.

 

PoE for example don't probably have even 100k lines that Obsidian has written, but it only has under 10 programmers and it has been coded and scripted in two years.

It is also made in format where some of it features are hard to test by automatic tests and going it through fully takes quite lot time from human.

 

Difficulty software development is not only in number of lines that something has but how big it is compared to team and time frame where it is done.

[Tigranes]

The stakes are clearly vastly lower in game development than in many other industries, but none of the scenarios you describe above would be considered acceptable if occurred with an airline, or an automobile manufacturer, or a telecommunications provider.

 

I don't think "oops, **** happens!" is a reasonable defense for a professional, for-profit business of any description. Bugs like this are not the result of unforeseeable circumstances, they are the result of things like poor deadline planning, poor allocation of resources, poor project management, or even negligence/apathy on the part of the company. I don't think the latter is the case here, but regardless, it is foreseeable that a game may have major bugs and developers should and can take that into account ahead of time.

 

 

I suppose the bugs with Windows, web browsers, financial planning software, big data software, educational software, etc. etc. were my imagination? 

 

You have yet to provide an actual argument about how a normal and competent development is guaranteed to produce zero bugs, and how each bug is clearly the result of extraordinary incompetence. You have also not provided an argument about how developers are meant to 'take it into account', beyond doing a lot of Q&A, patching the game on Day 1 and then in Week 1, and postponing the game for polish. All of which has been done.

[termokanden]

There are no guarantees in software development, unfortunately. A bug may suddenly be noticed even after years of flawless operation in the real world.

 

The second statement is, unfortunatly, true . But it hits all and everyone working as software engineer. In germany for example we have no spezial IT union and no collective agreement . That's why I stoped to work as game coder. Yea, I did this job 3 years. Up to 18 hours 7 days every week. The closer the release date, the more hours. I started it as I LOVE games ... then I had to learn the hard way what's your position ... and what the position of the publisher/investors (the REAL bad boys) .

I decided: before I'm part of a BUGed release because of greedy publishers/investors  ... I'll never be part of this modern slave holders anymore.

A bit off-topic maybe, but luckily this is not always the case. I know many software developers who don't have much overtime. Sorry that you had to be a part of that!

 

I know from myself that overtime is a waste. Quality and productivity both drop noticeably, so why some organizations are crazy about it is beyond me. Having realistic deadlines and making sure you're spending your time optimally during normal working hours while your mind is still sharp is so important.

 

That said, yeah sometimes there are crises and just have to put in the time.

Edited April 3, 2015 by termokanden