» Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:11 am I LOVED that game, and even though it had a similar number of maps when it was launched (6 vs 8 for brink) It was for the most part the only game i played up until WoW came out and became my new obsession till about 2008.
Now with that being said granted Wolf:ET was free, Brink does not feel like it is worth $50 and i feel absolutely ripped off when a FREE GAME had MUCH more polish and quality of workmanship than this title does. This game is broken for about 25-45% of people that are capable of running it (ATi users should by no means have to resort to juggling drivers and cvars in the console just to get a game to have acceptable performance) and even besides that the sound will cut out, while not crashing the game; nearly makes it unplayable... And that's if you're not one of the fewer people that are having issues with the game even starting up properly and crashing to desktop, and I'm not talkinga bout the microsoft C# errors i sometimes get when i quit this game.
I do not know where the blame lies with the obvious lack of quality control, but allow me to elaborate on my opinion of where it lies. Wolf:ET was the first title that Splash Damage produced and ran fine without any issues for me as did Quake Wars did when i eventually bought that game. Whether that was because the game had an actual beta or not i cannot say, but perhaps this game would have benefited from similar treatment. Both those games were also published by Activision as well and that might have had something to do with the stability of these applications (games are applications afterall). So that leaves 2 entities out, ZeniMax and Bethesda.
From my understanding ZeniMax is only the media company responsible for packaging, marketing and distribution, and Bethesda is the actual publisher of this title. Now I also own Fallout3 which as you know is also published by them as well. Fallout 3 is a game that is 3 years old and still has bugs which hinder the playability of the game and apparently was even worse when it launched. Bethesda also published new vegas which is also heavily buggy as well (from what i read/hear from freinds and also by the production studio's (Obsidian) own admission
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109904-Obsidian-Admits-it-Has-a-Bug-Problem
Now judging from my personal experience and both from Fallout3, and Brink and by the admission of the producer of gamesas's previous title i have but one conclusion to make. Bethesda cannot make a quality product unless they make some changes to their QA structure, whether that means expanding their staff, allowing more time for testing, or (dare i say) firing those responsible only their management can say. I mean seriously. Did they even have any systems equipped with ATi cards in their testing and validation?! If not then WHY NOT? Did they not spend enough time doing QA? If not then why bother releasing the title a full week in advance instead of leaving it in for another month for much needed polish and further validation instead of worrying about the impending release of Duke Nukem Forever because lets face it that Brink was hyped, but nothing to the magnitude that a game with a 12 year development time and as much drama as DNF has and absolutely cannot compete with it. So why did you even try to?
TL:DR: Constructive criticism: HIRE MORE QA, OR LEAVE IT IN THE OVEN TILL ITS READY, STOCKHOLDERS BE DAMNED. NOTHING KILLS A COMMUNITY ORIENTED AROUND A GAME QUITE LIKE FRUSTRATION WITH TRYING TO GET A PRODUCT TO WORK THAT IS UNRETURNABLE AND ONLY HAS A WARRANTY COVERING IT'S PHYSICAL MEDIA... (also we all got to pay 50 bucks to do the QA for them on the game. THE GAME indeed)
PS. I love this game but like an ex-girlfriend... It's breaking my heart
