PES Matters 13th March 2010
Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2010 News on Sat 13 Mar
This week I would like to bring up a general issue about gaming which has bugged me for a while. And that is the testing process that games go through prior to launch. This applies to most games out there, and definitely has a bearing on PES.
Basically are games too complex for games companies to test sufficiently to ensure there are no major bugs? Before the current generation of games consoles, there was no real possibility of redressing major issues with gameplay once a game had been released. There was no internet connectivity to automatically download a patch to resolve issues. Games that were broken remained broken, and as a consequence, many games died very early after launch. This put more emphasis on producers to ensure the games were tested properly, as they couldn’t afford major issues to occur.
Today we have a different arena. We now see many major releases which suffer glitches/bugs/undesirable exploits which can ruin gameplay. We need look no further than the juggernaut that is Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) as a perfect example. Just how many patches have been released already which have had to fix fundamental issues which really should have been play tested properly during development?
What I’ve drawn from the present model of gaming, is that either games are too complex to just rely on inhouse testing, or inhouse testing just isn’t mature enough to cope with gaming today.
Software testing in industry now is pretty well established, and is a vital part of development. But what state is software testing in the gaming industry in? I don’t think games are too complex to test. I firmly believe that testing in games companies needs to be taken seriously and to employ structured testing techniques to improve quality.
I am going to ask Konami what their testing model is. I believe that they currently may not have the required skills/personnel to adequately ensure the product quality is sufficient. I would be doing them a disservice to openly accuse them of not testing properly, so will invite them to respond to my question.
I would also like to point out that it is unfair for us to judge Konami in isolation, when the industry norm may not be well developed. But I will certainly try to find out just how they test games.
Given the nature of some of the fundamental issues we have witnessed and had to endure in PES2010 (like the shocking state of referees as a prime example) I think we have every right to question them about PES. I for one will welcome more open days for not only the likes of us to playtest the game, but for open feedback sessions from general gamers to give the game a bash and tell them directly what they thought of the game in production at that stage.
It could well be that they have a team of testers who are either too focussed on sub-areas of the game, or not appraising it holistically to ensure it doesn’t compromise it’s integrity. But no point speculating on these questions – we’ll try to find out the answers for you.
Something else which bugs me about all these games companies requiring us to download patches to fix their games – they are eating into a valuable commodity of ours called hard disk space! Xbox 360 owners in particularly will understand this point, since they pay a premium for their hard disks, but no-one really complains about having to give up 50MB for an update to fix a game. The sizes of patches for games do differ, but ultimately they eat up space. I don’t mind space being eaten up for DLC – that’s what we’re paying for – but there are plenty of games for which I don’t want additional storage space taken. I know we can just get larger disk drives, but that’s missing the point – why are we paying for fixes (in disk space) for issues which should have been eliminated during development?
I will be trying to push for open day test sessions for fans of the series with Konami. Whether or not this will be possible, I can’t say, but I think it’s essential for the series to survive.
One thing for sure with PES is that we deserve better. It’s time for Konami to show us some PES love.
Thanks for reading.
Dougiedonut
PES itself is incomplete, no matter we test it 200 times, the dev-team know they have not put what they’ve planned and this happens because one year is not enough.
But regarding the referees, I think they have failed to set the correct balance, when the game was launched we got hell lot of RED cards, now we lack the penalty, I have deleted my ML save file after a frustrating match in which i was brought down 3 times inside the box and two of my important players suffered serious injury – out for 8 weeks and I was not awarded penalty :X , what the faaaaaaaak will i do for the rest of the season without the target man. I lost the game and now I’ve to stay in 2nd tier for the 3rd season !! My two seasons of ML is wasted !!
2nd!!!!
I think that konami would have the dream game if they took the PES 5 game and pumped up the graphics and kept the core gameplay of that game seen as it was a great PES to play.
Greg inglis = BEAST
No.
This is a modern disease and phenomina of modern gaming brought about by the complexity of the games of today,with even those most extensive testing not always bringing these bugs to the fore as the great gaming public tend to be more skilled then most testers in the industry now.You also have to take into account annual and quarterly figures,shareholdes and the marketing people that force some developers to release half baked poducts.
In pes2010s case its just a very unfinished game,there had to be a cut off point due to the limited development time and we the consumer are the ones who have to accept a BETA game for a year that is impossible to patch through a DLC update as this can only change player stats and address frame rate issues not physical changes to the core of the game.Everyone complained about the refs in pes2009,so what do people expect,konami always go from one extreme to the other theres never a happy medium.
Greg inglis = BEAST
Please no more PES5/6,weve been there and you always have the xbox version of pes5 and pes6 on the xbox360 if you want better graphics.Konami need to build a fresh game in pes2011 for a new generation for the future to build on,or refine the SH@T out of pes2010 making it perfect,otherwise there going to commit commercial suicide as most if not all pes fans have now had enough and this is there final chance.If ea can make a game as good as fifa10 then theres no reason why konami cant make a better one.
Peace!
If they test the game when its near finished or finished then that may be the problem because nobaody really notices flaws/bugs/glitches straight away maybe they should test the game throughout it being made instead of when its finished and if they already do that then they need new testers.
For konami to release a beta or have an open day im not so sure because they’re in direct competition with EA and tbh are really secretive anyway (and we all know why ¬¬)
RSTAR
Konami knew what they where releasing and how unfinished it was,look at all the secrecy and lack of transparency over the two demos in different regions.Even to this day they never openely admitted theyve tweaked pes2010 in the updates since and as we all know the games different from release,in my eyes worse.Graphics and ML aside the gameplay on the pitch is third rate even against the ps2 days and fifa10 makes those games seem old hat.
Unless they have something special fresh and different it will be the same this year,flashy videos that give know idea of gameplay or how the animation moves.
I will never forget gamescom and the look of horror on seabasses face,because he knew pes2010 wasnt a patch on fifa10 and everyone at the show was saying it.
Its sink or swim this year though,pes2011 either has to be a perfect pes2010 with bells on or something quite extroadinary,people are only so forgiving.Weve put up with fours years of broken promises and even worst technical flaws with a next gen product thats been found wanting.
Your only as good as your last game in this industry.
What konami need to do is make there software modular like VALVE do for there games on the PC,where they CAN release FREE updates and improvements to there base code via downloads.This is a company(valve)that cares about there customers and listens,there not into PR like tescos,ea and all the others because there more interested in profits and lining there own pockets,they(valve)genuinely want to make better games and keep there customers happy.
Konami could learn alot from this model!
Dopecoil
Perhaps yeah, given the time constraint they probably did know the game was unfinished and they done a bad job of hiding it.
The Crytek team are producing the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Crysis 2 all in sync with the PC version of the game with their editor so “there is no port”, which must save time. Dont know Konami are doing this but if there not then they should.
About the tweaks i think, for me, a few days ago i would have said they only improved the game but, recenlty, i could have sworn they’ve made the ai stupider, there off the ball movement has suffered? maybe because im playing with wolves in ML i dont know but i was grinding out the wins on TP because of great movement, but know its just poor.
I think everyone will be thinking 2011 would be the defining game for konami, i was thinking it when pes 2009 was out. I think the AI should be a big factor for the 2011 version with Euphoria type physics/animations to be the bells and whistles.
Im smarter than the game i could always adapt my game/style/approach with the below par animations or physics but i cant adapt if the AI blatantly cheating or if the AI on my side are being dumbasses.
I think yearly updates should cost $20 dollars each.
Why should I pay $60 dollars for a game that’s been in development for only one year? $60 dollars for a minor update?
If the cost is only $20 dollars, I would not be disappointed because I know that I should not expect anything great. But currently, the balance between what the consumer pays for and what the company sells… it’s ridiculous.
RE; RSTAR
If greg inglis isn’t a beast then who is.
HE’S A HORSE OF A MAN
I think all game companies are now taking the microsoft approach of is it finished? does it work? are there lots of minor issues we could spend months looking for? Yes to all lets release it anyway and start making money from it and will fix all the issues as the users find them if they complain enough.
The only difference is some companies are better at releasing patches than others. The other thing I dont get is why these patches are not applied to new hard copies that are released. As and example I only got a PS3 last year and picked up a platinum copy of GTA IV, the first time i slot it in it tells me i need to download a update. Now this surely was a update which was released not long after the game originally came out, surley this could have been added to the re-released hard copy
A lot of bugs in PES should have been fixed before release.
Ref’s not giving cards.
The slow motion through ball bug where players run in slow motion to get to a through ball.
Through balls that go behind you instead of the player in front.
The lens flair on the pc version which makes seeing the ball and players impossible.
Players kicking, heading, clearing the ball when you have not touched a button etc.
In anyone’s personal opinion what do you think has been the best PES ever so far inclluding PS1, PS2, and PS3 games
I think PES 5
I am Amateur, I have had a hard time. Leave me alone with my PES thoughts.
Is is me or are PES just shooting themselves in the foot year after year.
THIS IS PES LAST YEAR TO SHOW THEIR FANS THAT THEY MEAN BUSINESS GAMEPLAY WISE GRAPHIC WISE AND ALL AROUND. ALL THE BUGS THAT SURROUND THE GAMEPLAY AND ALL NEED TO BE IRONED OUT LIKE WHAT FIFA IS DOING I WOULD SAY FIFA IS THE GAME GAMIN THE G SIMULATION YET AND AS A PES FAN I FOUND IT HARD 2 ACCEPT IT BUT ALL I DO NOW IS PLAY FIFA 10 COS OF THE BUGS IN PES. BUGS HAVR BEEN A CONTINUING THING EVER SINCE PES 2008 ON THE PS3 JUS HOPE 2011 IS THE GAME OF CHANGES
I would like to ask if the original poster has ever worked in the games/software testing industry? I worked in it for 3-4 years and let me say this, the testing procedures are extremely thorough, it is the development company who is to blame, not us testers. We sometimes go back to them with major bugs, or maybe more minor annoying ones and we get 1 of 2 replies. The 1st reply would be… as designed! the 2nd would be, don’t have time to fix it for release, we’ll just patch it, so don’t blame us testers, we have advanced testing cycles, plans and cert matrix documents we follow as well as our own initiative.
@ 14,
PES10
@ 15,
I am an anonymous assh*le, I have a boring life… the only thing I can do at the moment is write about pointless things… I am so cool, I think.
@ 19,
You are so funny!!
RE; post 20
stop messing about and talk about the proper subject which is football
post 19 is dopecoil………… the idiot doesnt seem to know his name,s bin marked.. lol
i am fat
@ 21,
I don’t understand… Did I not answered your question?
Me and my brother decided to give PES 2009 a go last night. It’s actually amazing to watch the opposition get sent off for terrible tackles and punished similar for bad ones as any human player would! Through balls and chips are better! As in the player doesnt run unbelievably slow, like he’s got piles or something. Also the opposition attacked me! I even scored a penalty! Everything else, like the grpahics, the movement and that suffered but it was still more enjoyable than being cheated.
To Amateur (post 10), Fantastic Idea! I would be more willing to shill out money for an update for 2010 that changed features, like the refs to that of 2009. Basically amending it whilst improving it! Radically changing an old game with a patch has to be better than releasing a new version, as amateur said, that has only been developed in a year.
This is a bit out of place, but still, I wanted to take a 2nd look at what we know of PES 2011 at this point.
“Winning Eleven [as the series is known in Japan] games until now, he said, have been just extensions of the Famicom era,” Andriasang reports. “Players were fine with this through the PS2, but the development staff now need to change their concepts and ideas to something more appropriate for the new generation machines like Xbox 360 and PS3.”
He wouldn’t give share specifics about what kind of changes to expect, but he did say that the area of the game that most clearly shows the changes is the relationship between AI and player motions.
The changes will have an effect on how the game controls, said Takatsuka. Until now, they’ve had a “Famicom-like” belief that good controls means fast movement. But it isn’t this simple. Particularly on the new hardware, this type of thinking will lead to players being too fast. Some players in Europe have actually complained that the game’s tempo is too fast. On the other hand, some players do seem to like faster speeds. The staff will be taking balance into account during the tuning process.
Despite all the changes, Takatsuka said to expect the new Winning Eleven between November and December. The game is currently 30% complete.
————————————-
As can be seen, Konami have admitted that:
* “it isn’t this simple. Particularly on the new hardware, this type of thinking will lead to players being too fast”
* “On the other hand, some players do seem to like faster speeds. The staff will be taking balance into account during the tuning process”
* “Players were fine with this through the PS2, but the development staff now need to change their concepts and ideas to something more appropriate for the new generation machines like Xbox 360 and PS3″
Is this a hint that Konami are working on different speeds and concepts for the game?? Perhaps a concept more appropriate for a 10 Minute Simulation and a slower more realistic concept for a 20 Minute Simulation?
What do you guys make of it?
http://winningelevenblog.com/
“If a week is the PES meeting in London. After that, we can expect a press release was relatively close at hand. Come back with more clues about PES 2011, when …”
Who the f is cannigia
Pointless. ill informed and a grammatical nightmare!!!
that was translated, and if any news come , we gotta appreciate and look forward for the full detail, I don’t see this happening here.
@26 Amateur – I think the only thing that info tells us is that we might see a slower PES this year. Fifa is much slower than PES, and still only a 10 minute game, so I expect that either they will match that sort of pace, or else have adjustable speed options. As usual you can already adjust the amount of time in a match, but who knows, maybe they are planning something like a simulation mode (I have no idea, but like I said, I would like it personally).
BTW – There was other statement made about PES 2011, from John Murphy to add:
“I’ve also been back to Japan to see the team. They started work on PES2011 months ago and as promised the basis for changes has been feedback from fans. The big news from me is that I’ve already played a really, really early version of the code and it blew me away! Obviously I’m sworn to secrecy, but what I’ve seen is the biggest shake up of PES ever! I’m not kidding. It’s awesome, but I can’t say more.”
Yes, he’s a PR guy, so he likely can’t be trusted, but when he says it’s the biggest shake up ever(!), that should mean some significant changes IMO.
As for game testing, I think what needs to be commented on here is that Konami are doing a much better job of adjusting and resolving problems with patches than they have previously. No, the refs haven’t been fixed, but the fact that they removed easy headers still impresses me and shows that they are at least trying to make changes to the game post-release to fix issues (and easy headers were indeed the biggest problem IMO). Refs don’t really bother me, but easy goals was ruining the game for me. Again, what’s important is the improvement they have shown. In other words, PES 09 was a much poorer game IMO than 2010, and not only that but they have done more to improve 2010 post-release than they did to improve PES 09. For example, the problem which ruined PES 09 the most IMO was the 90 degree turn. They didn’t make that less effective via a patch, but they did make PES 2010’s biggest fallback a thing of the past, so you see improvement there in terms of support for the community. The fact that they haven’t fixed the refs baffles me though. Maybe there is a reason for it, i.e. maybe it can’t be changed via patch, or it’s too difficult code-wise to change, or maybe they even think they are good that way. Who knows?
Dave O,
Yeah it does sounds like PES 2011 will be the slowest and most realistic PES yet.
The most interesting thing for me, is that already giving a very clear hint that PES 2011 will be slower, what will they do with the additional time on the pitch??
Slowing the game down without touching the core mechanics would make the game very boring and predictable, and I think Konami have already dealt with that issue; my main interest is how Konami replaced their current “Famicom-like” concept.
Slowing the game down is not what I would call “changing the concept”. So I am interested in the changes that should come hand-in-hand with the slower game.
I don’t actually think PES needs to be slowed down by a great deal. It just needs to be a touch slower, maybe reduce the speed of the short passing a little. Other than that I think the pace of PES2010 is ok.
I test software for a living and have been doing so for over 10 years.
Many people don’t understand what a Quality Assurance person actually does in the industry.
It is not the Quality Assurance (test) team’s responsibility to make sure something functions the way most people wish that it would. It is the Quality Assurance team’s responsibility to make sure that application performance meet’s the application’s specifications.
If a QA person comes across something they don’t like or think will be unpopular they can recommend a change to the designer (or engineer) and if the designer agrees the designer can tell the developer to implement the change if it won’t interfere with what’s most important… shipping on time and getting paid for everything you just spent months (or years) working on and thousands upon thousands (if not millions) of dollars to create. If the designer doesn’t agree, 9 times out of 10 it stays just the way it is.
To blame the testers for the referees not issuing enough red cards or penalties is not fair, unless you know for a fact that the designer wrote a requirement specification that stated a red card or penalty would be issued under those exact circumstances.
Having the game lock up while the players are waiting to leave the tunnel during the pregame intro is clearly something the test team should have uncovered.
The real problem is most likely not that the game studios don’t have adequate ability to test their games, but that they don’t leave adequate time to properly test their games.
A certain amount of time is divided up between design, development, and test each software release cycle. Test is obviously always last. If design or development take more time that initially planned for, where do you think the extra time they need comes from? The test cycle. The test cycle is the only cycle that is ever shortened.
In order to achieve better quality the studios need to either A)make everyone work a ridiculous amount of OT to get the job done (which still doesn’t always help) or B) Release the game “when it’s done”.
That last one didn’t work out well for Duke Nukem Forever.
My take, as someone who knows game developers personally, is this;
That the games industry is massively bigger now than it’s ever been in its history. As the industry gets bigger, publishers get tighter with their deadlines as more franchises are created that are directly in competition for their customer’s money. Deadlines get more aggressive.
When consoles went online, the ability to patch was a going concern because many people saw how PC gaming had gone – games were rushed out with the intention of making publishing deadlines and release dates to satisfy their increasing business needs. These would be released and patched, or finished, later.
Games are now more complex to make, but the yearly release dates for PES/FIFA for example are now the same. The facility to patch these games at a later date isn’t laziness but a pandering to the money men who run these companies but don’t make the games.
This knock down effect means that most big releases these days, even if not just yearly updates, still have tight deadlines so the commercial need to release it on schedule is made paramount, with the knowledge that it can be fixed with online updates later on. It’s becoming rarer and rarer these days whereby titles (like GTAIV) can be delayed until they get the game just right.
I’m basically defending the games developers and testers here. If they could have their way, they would have all the time they need to finish and properly test their games because they are the people who care about making decent products. Like I’ve already said, it’s the publishers and business end of games companies that force developers to put out their games, on time, regardless of if it’s finished. The ability to patch games gives the publishers the perfect excuse to put deadline pressures onto the developers, because the businessmen of these companies know that it can be released without being fully finished.
And of course – unless publishers such as Konami or EA relent on their own development teams – the dealines will remain just as tight each year, but the games will progressively get more and more complex to make, and more and more titles will be released with more bugs in than ever before.
@32
“B) Release the game “when it’s done”.
That last one didn’t work out well for Duke Nukem Forever.”
Works out pretty well for Blizzard Entertainment – time and time again they delay a game for months on end (Starcraft 2 is roughly 2 or 3 years late so far, and counting. Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 and expansion packs, all delayed). Yet people are happy to wait because the end result will be an improved game.
If they are currently working on PES2011, then great. If they can’t get it finished properly so the ref’s are roughly equal to either side, and the goalkeepers are better, then delay it by a year and just make it PES2012. Don’t rip me off in the mean time.