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Kabduhl
City Guard
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 127
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| Massive BUG found in Thief: Deadly Shadows |
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Dear RPGDot.com Editors, Staff, and Forum Visitors,
A massive game wide debilitating software glitch has come to the attention of the gaming community concerning the newly released Thief: Deadly Shadows Video Game for Xbox and PC, by developer Ion Storm and from Publisher EIDOS. As this is a gaming publication that deals with game news as well as carries advertisements for games and gaming merchandise it seemed fitting that this message board would be a great place to post information that might assist gamers and help to protect gamers' rights as consumers by reporting on released products that are plagued by game wide debilitating software glitches, or bugs.
The bug in question is present in every copy of Thief: Deadly Shadows and it effectively cancels out the ability of the consumer to play on any but the default difficulty setting. This affects the consumers in many varied and interconnected ways. Before talking briefly about how this game wide bug affects consumers it should be made clear exactly what this bug does. In the simplest of terms this bug reverts the difficulty settings for the Artificial Intelligence Routines of the Non Player Characters in the video game to the 'default' or 'Normal' setting (there are 4 settings, 'Easy', 'Normal', 'Hard', and 'Expert'). The difficulty setting is RESET to default or 'Normal' for the parameters that deal with Ai Perceptiveness and Ai Combat Ability. It is reset either when a Player chooses to load a 'Save Game' or when a Player must move to a game area he has previously visited before.
In one sentence what does this mean? It means simply, that in order for a player to be able to enjoy Thief: Deadly Shadows on any difficulty setting except 'Normal', the player must play the Entire Mission without reloading from a save game and without crossing a 'Zone Line' to a game area that he has already been to.
This creates a situation where the product a customer has paid for is not behaving in the manner in which it is meant to behave, in other words the product is broken. This is stated categorically as fact due to there not being any semblance of documentation either on the game disc or in the packaging for the game (manual or DVD case) which would lead a customer to believe that 'Save Game' functions do not behave in the same way for 'Hard' or 'Expert', or 'Easy' settings as they do for 'Normal' settings. Further, no mention is made anywhere in the game manual or on the game disc that eludes to Difficulty Settings in regards to AI Perceptiveness or Combat Ability being affected in any way by crossing 'Zone Lines'.
In the game Thief: Deadly Shadows a major portion of the game's fun comes from eluding and outsmarting the computer controlled characters. For veterans of the game and for those wishing to replay the game, the higher difficulty levels are ESSENTIAL to a fully featured product, because they help to ensure that gamers of all skill levels will be challenged and will be catered to. Likewise this software glitch is ignoring the ‘Easy’ difficulty setting as well, which adversely affects another portion of the gamers who bought or are thinking of buying this game.
Further it must be mentioned that the 'Advanced AI' emphasized heavily in any talk from the developers about Thief: Deadly Shadows is really only existant at the higher difficulty settings. It works in a logical manner; as the difficulty setting is raised, so is the AI Perceptiveness and the Combat Ability of the computer controlled characters in the game, as are the search methods and suspicion times. For gamers who love a good challenge the difficulty resetting to 'Normal' means that a good portion of their fun and enjoyment of the product is being reset as well. For a game that proclaims to center on the interaction between the player and the AI and likewise proclaims to have an extremely advanced AI, this is a remarkable oversight.
This letter was written with the express intent of putting this issue into the spotlight. Gamers pay good money for their games and they expect to be treated with respect. Gamers, gaming publications, potential game investors, video game store owners, and anyone else related to the industry should be made aware of this problem. Developers have a responsibility to provide fully functional software to their customers; Publishers have a responsibility to help ensure this happens. In this instance the ball was dropped by both entities, which will undoubtedly hurt their image and cost them customers. Perhaps if more gamers, more game stores, and more gaming publications stand up and demand better service from here on out and bring out into the open these serious issues less gaming companies will make such fatal errors.
Finally, it must be noted that some kind of restitution should be made by publisher Eidos and/or by developer Ion Storm concerning this issue. Refunds for the faulty software should be given provided the purchaser has retained their receipt and the companies should make the refunds themselves if the gaming stores will not. In concert with this open, voluntary recall a new release of the game should be made. In the new release the Xbox version should be fixed, so that the difficulty you choose to select should remain constant regardless of the number of times you 'Zone' during a mission and regardless of whether or not the player reloads a save game during the mission. If Eidos or Ion Storm cannot find it in their hearts to support their customers, it is the recommendation of the writer that the customers choose to no longer support Eidos or Ion Storm. |
Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:20 am |
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl |
I mentioned the bug in another thread in off-topic forum.
On official board, comments from Null:
quote:
We're looking into it.
Can't say anything more for now, and there aren't any guarantees ... but the find isn't being ignored.
_________________
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Tue Jun 08, 2004 3:19 am |
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