TPAF Audio Interview With Bobby King (Round 1)

[brakel]

I'm not all that familiar with Sony's DLC process. I was told that you can't update thier DLC, but only update the main app (which you can include dlc with). However app updates are incremental, so any patch has to contain all previous patches.



On PC it's 6.5GB, total install is over 30GB.

Can you replace a DLC with a new and improved DLC? In other words could you replace Black Knight with Black Knight 2 that gives the people who bought Black Knight the right to download Black Knight 2?

 

[Palmer Eldritch]

Just to clarify on the update issues with consoles.

Sony doesn't allow you to update DLC at all, so the only way to update that DLC is add it to the main game update. This increases the game update size. Once you add to the update, future updates will be that size (or larger)

And the problem with this is?

 

[smbhax]

The beginning of the interview was kind of blowing me away with all the new and improved features they're working on. What an amazing year it's going to be in video pinball!

It is a little disheartening to hear about the difficulties imposed in patching the console DLC. I'll hold out hope that the Farsight guys can come up with something clever, maybe like some way just to include the bits necessary for a table fix in the title update, and have a way for the game to see that it should use those new bits in the title update instead of the old (broken) ones in the DLC when it comes time to load the table. Although eh that sounds fraught with difficulty even to an ignoramus me so maybe I'll just shut up about it. Although I do hope that maybe some sort of global camera function fix could solve the various camera-stuck bugs.

Great job by Jeff, and everyone in coming up with questions. It's always a treat to hear Bobby because his enthusiasm and care for pinball and The Pinball Arcade really come through in his voice, and it's so obvious he's a guy who really gets it that it just makes me that much more enthusiastic about the future of the game. So yes, again, excited about all the new stuff he talked about here! Thanks to everyone who put this together, and to Mike for the clarifications about console DLC update issues.

 

[Chris Dunman]

Cheers Jeff, well put together. Thanks to you and BK for taking the time and effort. Maybe a few other companies should follow the example

 

[lettuce]

Great news on the whole, but bit concerned about the very first question about going back to the older tables and updating the flipper physics. Bobby replies with mobile and future platforms, so basically no flipper updates on older table for the PS3 and 360!? And this seems to be a theme that carries on through the interview basically mobile devices seem to be where FS main attention is being focused which saddeneds me really as the game is a more enjoyable experience on the PS3 & 360

 

[angrytilter]

Thanks Jeff and Bobby for the interview. It's good to know that more is coming... *fingers crossed*

 

[squidlr]

Great news on the whole, but bit concerned about the very first question about going back to the older tables and updating the flipper physics. Bobby replies with mobile and future platforms, so basically no flipper updates on older table for the PS3 and 360!?

You forgot to add 'Mac' to your little list - makes me sad that Black Hole will never have decent lighting.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Can you replace a DLC with a new and improved DLC? In other words could you replace Black Knight with Black Knight 2 that gives the people who bought Black Knight the right to download Black Knight 2?

I'm not sure on PS3, it doesn't sound like it. On Xbox I think this is the only way to go. However I can't get a straight answer from dev support, still working on how we do that.

And the problem with this is?

I personally don't know. Some people however have issues with download sizes.

 

[angrytilter]

Some people however have issues with download sizes.

I can understand why, because some ISP's still want to impose a 120gb/month data cap.

 

[Crush3d_Turtle]

I can understand why, because some ISP's still want to impose a 120gb/month data cap.

As a fellow Canadian I feel your pain regarding the joke that is called internet service. However, I have been very pleased with Bell's Unlimited offer. It is a bit pricey but for a heavy internet user this is no other choice.

 

[thetrout]

Great news on the whole, but bit concerned about the very first question about going back to the older tables and updating the flipper physics. Bobby replies with mobile and future platforms, so basically no flipper updates on older table for the PS3 and 360!? And this seems to be a theme that carries on through the interview basically mobile devices seem to be where FS main attention is being focused which saddeneds me really as the game is a more enjoyable experience on the PS3 & 360

I'd shift more of the blame to MS and Sony. It certainly seems like FS would LIKE to update the console versions more often, they just CAN'T.

At least this should never be a problem on Steam.

 

[silverjaguar7]

although it has been said already, very good interview indeed, thanks Jeff! especially dealing with quite a few pessimistic (but necessary) questions. Bobby seems like a very kewl guy and i'm excited about the table voting possibility indeed...

 

[grashopper]

I can understand why, because some ISP's still want to impose a 120gb/month data cap.

I don't think Pinball Arcade would take that big of a hit to the cap.
I vote for a big patch if it helps improve the product if FS was willing to give us the same improvements. I can't imagine it would be that big. At this point the whole game is at 800mb.

Thanks for sticking around and answering questions Mike. Just a bit scary to think we might get left out of future fixes. Hopefully you guy can figure out something that works well for everyone.
Thanks again

 

[lettuce]

I'd shift more of the blame to MS and Sony. It certainly seems like FS would LIKE to update the console versions more often, they just CAN'T.

At least this should never be a problem on Steam.

Im not sure how you can blame M$ and $ony for the bugs, missing art, some game breaking bugs and bad rom emulation on some tables etc. If FS carried out play testing thoroughly then this wouldn't be an issue. I know Sony and MS procedure of their online system isnt the most easiest to traverse and im sure it must be a mindfield but this isn't something they have all of a sudden change its always been like that, so all fool FS for not having the foresight to see this.

So im afraid the blame has to rest of FS shoulders on this one. Hopefully the new release of the 360 version is better suited to updating and fixing tables with less cost and hard work endured.....but i wont hold my breath

 

[Sean]

I have to say given the issues with the DLC even discounting the loss of their publisher, why does Farsight continue to develop on Xbox primarily? Wouldn't it make more sense to do primary development on Windows or Mac OSX?

 

[Heretic]

Farsight have mentioned once the pc version is released itll become the main platform for development anyway

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Im not sure how you can blame M$ and $ony for the bugs, missing art, some game breaking bugs and bad rom emulation on some tables etc. If FS carried out play testing thoroughly then this wouldn't be an issue. I know Sony and MS procedure of their online system isnt the most easiest to traverse and im sure it must be a mindfield but this isn't something they have all of a sudden change its always been like that, so all fool FS for not having the foresight to see this.

So im afraid the blame has to rest of FS shoulders on this one. Hopefully the new release of the 360 version is better suited to updating and fixing tables with less cost and hard work endured.....but i wont hold my breath

True, bugs aren't the fault of Sony or Microsoft. However updating DLC isn't just about fixing bugs. We would need to update DLC to add new features, improve physics, lighting, adding pro menu, etc.

I have to say given the issues with the DLC even discounting the loss of their publisher, why does Farsight continue to develop on Xbox primarily? Wouldn't it make more sense to do primary development on Windows or Mac OSX?

At some point I plan to switch to using PC.

There are a few reasons I currently use Xbox as the development platform.

1) It's easier to develop for over any other platform.
2) Excluding PC, it's one of the fastest turn around times from hitting run in the debugger and seeing it on screen (few seconds). PS3 has longer connection and boot time as well as many of the mobile devices.
3) If the game crashes on Xbox,, the console resets, takes about 15 seconds. If the game crashes on PC, it may crash my entire PC which requires full reboot.
4) On my previous PC (just upgraded to a new PC), if I ran the game on my 2nd monitor, so I could debug on my primary monitor, the game ran at 30fps. I think that was a limitation of the GPU.
5) Xbox has some of the best tools for development. PIX (Performance Investigator for Xbox) and XbPerfView (CPU Performance Test) tools are quite useful. PIX for Windows doesn't work nearly as well. Not sure why it's called PIX for Windows and not PIW.

 

[Cowboy]

No, I'm not Jimi Hendrix. Sorry to let ya down

You're not foolin me Jimi...I mean Jeff....lol

 

[Cowboy]

Thanks to you both for doing that....great job Jeff on the video !

I haven't gotten all the way through it yet....but I'm going to !

 

[SilverBalls]

Being a developer myself I love hearing all the techy stuff

Im not sure how you can blame M$ and $ony for the bugs, missing art, some game breaking bugs and bad rom emulation on some tables etc. If FS carried out play testing thoroughly then this wouldn't be an issue. I know Sony and MS procedure of their online system isnt the most easiest to traverse and im sure it must be a mindfield but this isn't something they have all of a sudden change its always been like that, so all fool FS for not having the foresight to see this.

So im afraid the blame has to rest of FS shoulders on this one. Hopefully the new release of the 360 version is better suited to updating and fixing tables with less cost and hard work endured.....but i wont hold my breath

But Lettuce surely you agree that testing a Pinball game is tougher than other software where there is a lower number of permutations of possible sequences of events Things just aren't always easy to reproduce.

Plus bear in mind they don't have a teams of 20 or 30 testers, we recently learnt there is only a total of 20-25 employees in the whole company. The product just completed it's first year and has many tables on multiple platforms, so that isn't a bad achievement - we just need to be patient for it to mature a bit more, and things will get better.