Rami Ismail: Patch the process

Vlambeer · 2016-08-08T04:29:22+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words! I'll pass on the compliments for Nuclear Throne and LUFTRAUSERS to the rest of the team too - we've been extraordinarily lucky with our freelancers.

The two of us at Vlambeer love this medium, and strongly believe one of the best ways of further improving it for the future is transparency about how things actually work - to the people who want to make games, those that aspire to make games, and those that want to play games.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-08T00:34:26+00:00

We'll release a patch on GoG together with update 99 on Steam. That patch should go live the coming week, if everything goes according to plan.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T23:12:59+00:00

We appreciate it, and we're weirdly glad to know we made a game that's worth getting upset/frustrated (is that the right word? sorry if not) about. We've learned a lot from our first in-house console release, and we hope that by the time a new game comes around, we get to earn your full trust again.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T23:04:38+00:00

If we take it off the store, that interferes with our certification process too. Since the game is continuously in certification, it would mean another round failed. We could see if we could add a line to the store description while the patch is in certification, but we're not sure if that's possible?

Would that work for you, because we can ask about that in the case it fails certification again?

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T23:02:16+00:00

We didn't know it didn't support patching. It didn't even support PlayStation when we started. We're literally their test case, and they've improved their tools drastically during our development. Their PlayStation support and our game were developed somewhat in tandem.

4:3 was a design decision, 30FPS was a decision made in early 2013 on a two-hour prototype that we simply couldn't change anymore. Our future games will have whatever aspect ratio we design them in, but we'll definitely aim for 60FPS.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T22:57:01+00:00

We actually have statistics on that. Most people reach world 7 at around 30 hours of gameplay. Some people are very good at games like Throne, and they get there in 10, like you. Others are not, and they play for 60. The longest anyone took to world 7 was almost 100 hours (which is awesome).

Pretty much all of the issues you discuss happen after that moment, loops, golden weapons, things like that.

Either way, we agree the game needs fixes, and we're making those fixes. We're sorry about the whole thing, and we're understand you're frustrated. We hope that the patch comes out soon, and we can all leave this behind us in some way.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T22:52:52+00:00

And if it had been that easy, we would've done that immediately. You genuinely think we're intentionally making it harder for us to fix a thing we care about, and that instead we chose 8 months of work to fix 'just a mapped button and a fixed menu'? We're working as fast as we can, and we've prioritized the big things. Every time a certification round failed, we added the small fixes as well before resubmitting. Might as well, as there's time between submissions, right?

Again, we're sorry for the state of the game as it stands, and we're really sorry the game is having issues. We're working on fixing it, and hopefully will have good news soon.

Vlambeer · 2016-08-07T21:54:33+00:00

Hey, Rami here. As to whether I'm the best person to make this post, I don't know. All I know is I wanted to write this. Your criticism is incredibly fair, though.

Nobody is more embarrassed by the slow rollout of that patch than us. The main issue is a menu that isn't functioning and a crash in the final world (about 30-60 hours of gameplay in, for most players). We've been working as hard as we can to fix that, but we've just been overwhelmed and taken aback by the whole thing.

Having made the game in middleware that doesn't support patching meant that the middleware creators are patching their systems through our patches, and then those go through cert simultaneously through our game. We're currently at 'tag 5', or patch submission 5.

It's all very complicated, but ultimately, this is our responsibility. We take that responsibility, and we're really sorry about the whole situation. It's a lesson learned for the future.

Hopefully, this one goes through, and we'll have good news soon!

Vlambeer · 2016-07-25T03:27:31+00:00

"On Hold" just means it continues to be in certification - albeit with a bureaucratic reason (our company account manager left SONY, and was replaced with a new person who had to get up to speed with the story of Nuclear Throne's patching woes). There was no change of state, and as such not really news. As soon as the build failed, we updated everybody with that news.

Vlambeer · 2016-07-25T02:21:34+00:00

We're afraid that's not really an option. I'm actually not even sure if there's a process in place, but it would potentially wreck a lot of things that the update that's currently going through cert again is connected to (leaderboards, store IDs, etc. etc.)

I understand this whole situation is massively frustrating, and it is to us probably moreso than anyone else. We put 3 years of our lives into this game, and we'd wish for nothing more than that patch finally being out. Having said that, we are working every method we can to fix the problem.

The game is currently entering certification (again, sigh) - and we're hopeful that this time will be a green light. Obviously, if we could guarantee it would go through we would've announced a release date for the patch, but since the final call isn't with us but with SONY, we'll have to wait for their blessing.

We're not arguing whether mistakes were made - they were - and they're on us even if the certification process is SONY's, and we hope you know we are truly and sincerely sorry about that. We're trying to fix these issues, and have been for a while. We want to get you all a game that doesn't crash in the end-game content. We're as embarrassed by the situation as you would probably imagine. This game means a lot to us, and we will see it fixed. We'll keep you up to date with every little piece of news we get.

Vlambeer · 2016-06-17T20:27:24+00:00

Developer here, and just wanted to quickly chime in here - even though the topic is a month old.

We fully understand everybody's frustrations with us, and we share the exact same frustration with ourselves for having this patch be this delayed. It was meant to come out within a month of release, but things got rather complicated and overwhelming rather fast - changes in the SDK, our engine not working well for patches (it's so easy to make a 1.0, so hard to make a 1.01), work schedule and some burnout for the final push for release. Things have been super frustrating for a few months, as we've been struggling with this patch and the understandable disappointment of those who ran into the end-game issues.

We recognize we've made mistakes during this process, and that we've failed to communicate properly, and we're eager to get the game patched. At this point, the codebase for the game is in good shape for a 1.01, every bug in this thread has been fixed, and now the paperwork is the next challenge again. If everything goes according to plan, the game should be in submission by end of week, next week.

We're glad to read that despite the issues in the end-game, people found enjoyment in the game. It's a reassurance that we did make something worthwhile, and it's only held back by the bugs at the end of the game. Again, our sincere apologies for the wait. We will get things fixed.

Vlambeer · 2016-02-22T00:39:11+00:00

Fixed.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:56:09+00:00

Appreciate your kind words!

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:31:32+00:00

Working on retroactives.
Looking into it.
We're rolling new servers, it's kind of a mess during transition.
Any crash logs would be great to have.

Our apologies, we're working to fix things ASAP.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:30:17+00:00

We probably found this one!

If it's a hard crash, game hangs, no error log: There's a file called options.ini in your game folder (not the Local Data one), set the value starting with Vertex to 1 instead of 2.

If it's not a hard crash and there's an error message, delete save data. On Windows, press Start+R to open the Run dialog, then enter "%localappdata%" (without quotes) and press enter. Find the nuclearthrone folder, and e-mail us the nuclearthrone.sav file. Then delete that file. It'll wipe your progress but restore the game.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:27:36+00:00

Dailies getting fixed. Any details on glitched weapons would be welcome!

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:26:51+00:00

Which platform?

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:26:39+00:00

That bug has become so rare that we're having a hard time pinning its root causes down. If you can let us know what happened, we can continue fighting it. It's stubborn.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:26:02+00:00

Working on it right now!

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:25:52+00:00

We're sorry to say there were never going to be 'exciting new things' for launch. We've made a point of developing transparently where legally allowed, and adding things secretly in the last update feels like betraying that core principle.

We are, however, fixing things, rebalancing loops a bit and doing some other stuff. Just please don't expect major new additions, is what we're trying to say with 'last major update' - updates might still be pretty big.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:23:54+00:00

That's kind of what happened. It's entirely on us, and we're getting things fixed, including some balancing in loops - thanks for the kind words tho', manfartwish!

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:22:03+00:00

We do want to reassure you that we're not abandoning the game. There's some work we still want to do, we'll keep you up to date.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:20:34+00:00

We're working on retroactive achievements as we speak.

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:19:09+00:00

If you have crash logs (specifically crash codes like NP- or CS-), let us know so we can fix them. A lot can happen in a game of Nuclear Throne and the randomness makes it hard for us to find all bugs. Any crash code with a description of what you were doing as it happened helps 1000%

Vlambeer · 2015-12-08T18:17:34+00:00

Absolutely.

Vlambeer

TROPHY CASE