On a vaguely related note, given the lack of replayability of the game and the immaterial impact from the games supposed choices and consequences I think it's a brave move releasing something that encourages people to play it again and discover just how little difference their choices made.
RPG Codex - 2008 In Review
- Thread starter Dhruin
- Start date
I think, releasing the EE is like MS releasing Word 2007 or so.
It's basically an upgrade.
If you want fixes, then you've got to buy it, because MS normally don't releases bugfixes for their office products in the same way game developers do.
Not as a patch per se, but rather as a KB entry.
Or as an security leak fix.
But all in all no major update.
The only difference is, that the "major upgrade" for EE is also downloadable, whereas MS would rather say: Buy the next version of Word." They rather wanna have money for the next major update/upgrade.
From that perspective, what CDPROJEKT did with the boxed EE is in principle nothing but normal business practise in the business software industry.
It's basically an upgrade.
If you want fixes, then you've got to buy it, because MS normally don't releases bugfixes for their office products in the same way game developers do.
Not as a patch per se, but rather as a KB entry.
Or as an security leak fix.
But all in all no major update.
The only difference is, that the "major upgrade" for EE is also downloadable, whereas MS would rather say: Buy the next version of Word." They rather wanna have money for the next major update/upgrade.
From that perspective, what CDPROJEKT did with the boxed EE is in principle nothing but normal business practise in the business software industry.
If The Witcher EE is almost the same as the original, then I guess I won't be getting it after all. I played the first chapter of TW and just didn't find it all that great, despite all the praise it was getting from others. I had planned on giving it another go with the EE.
Dhruin
SasqWatch
Geez, Alrik...how does giving it away for free not completely invalidate your comparison to Microsoft?
I'm really not sure what you expected. DU picked what I think is a disingenuous example of the script changes - while the new script isn't a massive difference, even a few words and sentences here and there help it flow much better. In that respect, I find it more enjoyable than than the original. But I didn't expect the core gameplay to change substantially...and it hasn't.
D
DarkUnderlord
Guest
I should register here at some point.
Windows XP Service Packs 1, 2 and 3 were all major updates from Microsoft and they were totally free. You could even send in your details in an online form and they'd ship the updates to you on CD at their expense. They're also all downloadable.
Microsoft also give away TOTALLY FREE stuff for their entire Office Suite all the time: Word 2003 Add-ins | Word 2003 Updates. They also regularly release Service Packs for everything they do (EG: Office 2003 has a Service Pack 1).
In the end I picked Olaf because that's what I found most of the changes were (plus it showed a few other things I wanted to cover). One or two extra words here and there that didn't change the meaning or context of what you were doing or what they were saying. Then again, I'm not one of those people who really had a major problem with the original translation. It wasn't "the best" and I've said as much but I've seen much worse. Though I'll temper that by saying I only played Act I and half of Act II pre-enhanced and then played them again post-enhanced. So maybe there is a major dialogue later that would've blown me away but the changes up until that point didn't indicate that.
What I will say though, is that if CD Projekt wanted to "get it right", why didn't they get it right the first time? Most companies today implement some form of quality control with Quality Control Managers and getting their business accredited to ISO standards and the like. I'd like to see at least one game developer focus on making a quality product right out of the gates. Did someone review the original translation and check it for accuracy? Did someone play the game on a min-spec PC and see if there were any issues like say, loading times, that might cause problems for some? Did someone try managing their inventory?
"It's the state of the industry" or "that's what we should expect" aren't valid reasons to me. In fact CD Projekt would've saved themselves a lot of time, hassle and money "getting it right" the first time around. We all would've ended up with a better game, it likely would've sold more copies and hey, they might've even released a decent expansion pack by now. Instead, we've almost (but not quite) ended up with a Spielberg / Lucas-esque "I always thought there should've been more robots in that scene". IE: Stuff that doesn't really warrant playing it again.
Windows XP Service Packs 1, 2 and 3 were all major updates from Microsoft and they were totally free. You could even send in your details in an online form and they'd ship the updates to you on CD at their expense. They're also all downloadable.
Microsoft also give away TOTALLY FREE stuff for their entire Office Suite all the time: Word 2003 Add-ins | Word 2003 Updates. They also regularly release Service Packs for everything they do (EG: Office 2003 has a Service Pack 1).
Well, I was thinking of showing all the new references to Dwarf cock instead.Dhruin said:
In the end I picked Olaf because that's what I found most of the changes were (plus it showed a few other things I wanted to cover). One or two extra words here and there that didn't change the meaning or context of what you were doing or what they were saying. Then again, I'm not one of those people who really had a major problem with the original translation. It wasn't "the best" and I've said as much but I've seen much worse. Though I'll temper that by saying I only played Act I and half of Act II pre-enhanced and then played them again post-enhanced. So maybe there is a major dialogue later that would've blown me away but the changes up until that point didn't indicate that.What I will say though, is that if CD Projekt wanted to "get it right", why didn't they get it right the first time? Most companies today implement some form of quality control with Quality Control Managers and getting their business accredited to ISO standards and the like. I'd like to see at least one game developer focus on making a quality product right out of the gates. Did someone review the original translation and check it for accuracy? Did someone play the game on a min-spec PC and see if there were any issues like say, loading times, that might cause problems for some? Did someone try managing their inventory?
"It's the state of the industry" or "that's what we should expect" aren't valid reasons to me. In fact CD Projekt would've saved themselves a lot of time, hassle and money "getting it right" the first time around. We all would've ended up with a better game, it likely would've sold more copies and hey, they might've even released a decent expansion pack by now. Instead, we've almost (but not quite) ended up with a Spielberg / Lucas-esque "I always thought there should've been more robots in that scene". IE: Stuff that doesn't really warrant playing it again.
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Or perhaps they ran out of money? Or they started one way and itw as too late to fix it when they got to the point where they wanted to...there could be any number of reasons, the fact that the update is free to those that already purchased it should make you feel warm and fuzzy....now if they had done this and charged for it for those who already bought it you would havea point, right now its just something for people to bitch about when they really have nothing.
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Dhruin
SasqWatch
As far as I know, the answer to that is pretty easy (although admittedly still silly): their contract with Atari specified a script that was 20% shorter than the "completed" game delivered (there's a source for this). Atari had it cut down to meet the requirement.
Supposition from here on...I assume this was to cap Atari's recording and localisation costs.
It was, I agree, stupid for the parties involved to allow this to impact the game - someone should have moved (whether Atari being more flexible or CDPR paying the difference) to get it right the first time and save all the hassle and drama.
But sometimes these things aren't so easy in reality. It took a long time for CDPR to sign Atari - a second-string perpetually broke publisher - so I assume they weren't getting the right interest/deals elsewhere. Likewise, Atari constantly skates so close to the line, they probably take these costs quite seriously.
Next time I hope they estimate the word count better or don't sign such a restrictive contract. *shrug*
I still think the new script really helps, though. I admit the extra wordage isn't dramatic but first time 'round, I occasionally thought "huh?" and this one flows better, even with only minor tweaks.
Supposition from here on...I assume this was to cap Atari's recording and localisation costs.
It was, I agree, stupid for the parties involved to allow this to impact the game - someone should have moved (whether Atari being more flexible or CDPR paying the difference) to get it right the first time and save all the hassle and drama.
But sometimes these things aren't so easy in reality. It took a long time for CDPR to sign Atari - a second-string perpetually broke publisher - so I assume they weren't getting the right interest/deals elsewhere. Likewise, Atari constantly skates so close to the line, they probably take these costs quite seriously.
Next time I hope they estimate the word count better or don't sign such a restrictive contract. *shrug*
I still think the new script really helps, though. I admit the extra wordage isn't dramatic but first time 'round, I occasionally thought "huh?" and this one flows better, even with only minor tweaks.
I'm amazed. What kind of strange rationalizations and illogic did you use to reach this point? Did MS also put up Office 2007 for free download?
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DArtagnan
Guest
I'm not sure I'd be able to find a better example of not having an understanding of this industry, than someone comparing the upgrade tradition and procedure of an OPERATING SYSTEM to a game.
Microsoft have the OS monopoly, and if they're interested in holding on to that - they better do everything in their power to fight instability and security vulnerabilities. It's about as different from releasing a stand-alone game as you can get within the world of software.
It's an established standard for every developer of an OS, to constantly improve and evolve their software - because everything depends on a stable OS. It's so obviously a different case that I find it hard to appreciate how anyone but the most inexperienced person could miss that we're talking two entirely different worlds.
Are you kidding me? Do you think quality control equals perfect flawless software?
Arguably the biggest and most polish-obsessive developer in the world just released a patch for their biggest game, and it's extremely flawed. We're talking about Blizzard.
Saying "why don't you just get everything right the first time?" is like pretending we're not human with flaws, and that we have no economic boundaries to restrict for how long we can work on something before releasing it.
You're acting as if developing a game is not an extremely intricate process involving dozens, if not hundreds of people, and there aren't thousands of things that can go wrong.
You're displaying supreme ignorance of the realities of this business. You think that by simply expecting reality to be different, it can change. You're still pretending like CDPR wanted a flawed product out there - and they're simply stupid for not doing it right.
Wake up already.
DarkUnderlord
The Bitcher
Actually I spoke about the entire Microsoft Office Suite of products as well, not just the OS. But feel free to ignore that and focus only on what helps you score cheap little points. And for the record, I'm not the one who raised Microsoft in the first instance. I was only pointing out that Microsoft have released free major updates for all of their software products, something which was questioned. As I also said, they even went one further and sent the CD out to you for free if you asked for it, rather than you having to download a massive update. Not all of Microsoft's free updates have been related to security either.
Why, who's going to take their monopoly away from them? That's the whole point of a monopoly. Otherwise it's not a monopoly, is it? In fact Microsoft are in the position where they don't have to release as many updates (and in fact, have been criticised for holding back various fixes at times). What are you going to do, switch to Unix because an obscure bug related to some software conflict with a program or feature you don't use wasn't patched in time? That's not to mention all the non-critical updates that are also released like updated help files or the various add-ons for the Microsoft Suite I mentioned earlier.
This isn't a process restricted to OS developers. It's an established standard for computer game developers to release updates and fixes for their computer games in the form of patches as well. Blizzard have been constantly "improving and evolving" their games via free patches for years. In fact, everyone in the software industry does it.
Who said "perfect flawless software"? No doubt any piece of software is going to have issues because of some obscure conflict with an obscure video card, software, spyware or other issue. However, I'd hope the blindingly obvious (like a translation or obviously poor loading times) would be done right the first time. These aren't hard things to check for. Particularly when your goal is to release a well-polished game, I'd hope some effort was actually put into it. IE: That the developer is satisfied with the product before they release it.
Either CD Projekt were satisfied with what they'd done or they weren't. If they weren't, then we're back to the point Brother None raised earlier. They knowingly released a poorly made or incomplete product. We then run the risk of getting half-finished or incomplete games that desperately need patches on release day - and they'll only be patched if sales are strong enough - because a developer couldn't manage their budget or development process.
The people who suffer under that scenario are the end-users. In fact, non-OS software is potentially even worse than OS software. I'm always using my OS where-as I don't always play The Witcher. Releasing it in an incomplete or inferior state on day-one for "one-time" play-through software potentially means a lot of customers who won't be happy or interested in waiting several months for the update. That means the Developer has even more reason to "get it right the first time".
Your beating up the point just a little here. We're talking about a complete re-translation, loading times, a city of clones and an inventory system that could've been better. Again, these aren't obscure things not easily noticed. They're fairly obvious to anyone who pays them attention, like a beta-tester. If the game crashes the minute you fire it up for example, that's a good indication that something, somewhere is wrong and it should be fixed.
The fact that's its complicated or intricate is mostly irrelevant. If it's too hard for you to make a product that you're satisfied with, within the budget you have, you shouldn't be in business (I'm certain building space shuttles is also hard - it doesn't mean NASA get to say "Aww shucks, we're just human" when one explodes on the platform - they actually review their quality control processes). Regardless of that though, CD Projekt demonstrated their ability to resolve these issues by actually doing it, so technical issues and the "woe-is-me software is hard" argument your making are moot.
Nope. I don't think "that by simply expecting reality to be different, it can change". That appears to be a strawman you made up. I think that by implementing some very simple processes things can change. That's what quality assurance procedures are. It's about having someone responsible for checking the translation. It's about having someone sign off on certain key milestones before the project moves on. In other words it's actually about doing tangible things in order to bring about change. Not simply "expecting it to happen".
Ignoring the rest of your hyperbole, my point still remains. If CDPR didn't want to release The Witcher in the state it was in, why didn't they engage better quality control processes? Why didn't they insist on an accurate translation? Why did they sign an agreement with Atari that forced them to release a product they were unsatisfied with? If they signed that agreement due to financial circumstances, then once again, it means they knowingly released an inferior product. If they did that, thinking they'd patch it later, then we're now well beyond "software is hard" and back into "we'll patch it if it makes enough sales" territory which is not where I want my computer game developers to be.
I don't want to buy a computer game and then have the honour of gratefully playing the much-improved free updated version in 6 or 12 months time. If I bought it, it means I want to play it relatively soon. If it's not ready to be played, it shouldn't have been released. In fact, as I said, CD Projekt would've saved themselves a lot of time, hassle and money "getting it right" the first time around. I'm certain they could've done with the loading times at least.
Good Lord......
*Grabs more popcorn*
*Grabs more popcorn*
The loading times were a bit odd, it felt like they never even realised it might be an issue which is pretty surprising given they were clearly a MASSIVE issue.
THey sorted it soon though so I'm happy.
Alrik, you've argued yourself into a corner, facing away from reality.
That's the favourite place I live in.
D
DArtagnan
Guest
Let's try not to imagine things.
I'm not sure what this current obsession is about winning and scoring points. It must be something related to your own motives when making your case.
The point is valid for the Office Suite as well - just as it's valid for MMOs and similar products. We're talking about a continuing software standard that has existed for many years. That's why they have a vested economic interest in continuously updating for free - because it means extra income over time. That's not the case with a stand-alone product, especially not when it's a debut like The Witcher.
You'd be able to see that if you weren't fixating on winning or losing.
I'm afraid you're confused.
A monopoly is not a static permanent thing. If you establish one, it's pretty common to want to hold on to it.
Microsoft HAVE to keep updating and improving their software, unless they want someone else to take over. Whether it's on the same platform or not, they can't rest on their laurels. More would be transitioning to the Mac platform or even Linux if MS didn't improve their OS at a constant rate. They certainly have no interest in taking a chance on it, either way.
By the way, it's amusing you present MS as updating with some free major stuff, but then talk about obscure minor bugs that aren't updated in time as the reason Linux can't be a threat. Would that be an attempt to "score a point"?
It's pretty basic, so you'd have to already be aware of this.
Blizzard don't represent a standard. They play it safe and appeal to the mass market, which means they have all the resources in the world. Besides, we're not talking about bugfixes - and you can't mention anything from Blizzard that resembles EE. You're wrong, plain and simple.
If you're talking about MMOs, it's an entirely different story because they're by nature evolving and have a SUBSCRIPTION fee.
Are you saying no effort was put into releasing The Witcher? If so, you're not realistic - but then you've already demonstrate your inability to be reasonable.
What does their knowledge of it matter? That's irrelevant. You're pretending they had a choice in the matter. We don't know, but you believe they deliberately released a product with flaws and were free to avoid it. Do you think it's free to keep developing with a full team? You're dreaming.
It's not about their interest to release it in a complete state - though that's what they did. It's about their ABILITY to release it without flaws - which you claim was intact. But why would they not do everything they could if sales would improve? The only conclusion is that they were prevented, and the most probable reason is economic reality. Your case is weak.
Mostly irrelevant?
So, every single game more complex than tic-tac-toe should never have been made? Because ALL games have bugs and 99% have significant flaws out of the box.
NASA? That's hardly supportive of your case, now is it. Not only have they got an entirely different budget - they also happen to deal with human lives and yet they make mistakes and accidents have happened. I guess you would prefer they didn't ever launch anything.
None of my points are moot. They managed to improve their game post-launch - and to a great extent because they made enough money. Software on this scale remains extremely complex.
Another strawman, sigh.
Oh, so simply by having someone control the translation it would be enough to ensure top quality?
You're getting increasingly unrealistic post by post.
Now you've - all by yourself - invented the concept of actually checking what you release before release. I'm sure no one knew about that, and certainly CDPR had no such people.
Oh, they had the power to "insist" to the people funding them. Yeah, that's how it works. That's why every movie director gets exactly what he wants in Hollywood, right? Because he goes to the studio and "insists".
Inferior product? You mean the GOTY CRPG?
They shouldn't have released anything, because if it's not perfect they should just not do it?
Right.
They'll probably get past the tiny minority incapable of being reasonable and unwilling to have the most basic of realities. I would feel very proud of myself if I had been part of The Witcher development - and I would have a very easy time ignoring people with your kind of reason.
Maybe I should try to refrain myself from writing any commwnts in the evenings.
D
DBS
Guest
The Witcher EE-DBS
We forget the added content and work was done as the dev team had more they wanted to do to polish the game. The game was published early as most are and because the game sold well and the funds were there the dev team was able to do more than a standard patch and add and tweak beyond what a simple patch was going to cure. Knocking them for this is not what I would do but applaud the effort and love for their game. I only wish Gothic 3 got the same amount of work to fix what could of been a great game.
We live in a release early and patch later world. Let's remember some games never get the needed patches or fixes as well and you get what you get. Good business...no but there are so many things in this cycle let's be happy when a good game has work done to it to make it better.
We forget the added content and work was done as the dev team had more they wanted to do to polish the game. The game was published early as most are and because the game sold well and the funds were there the dev team was able to do more than a standard patch and add and tweak beyond what a simple patch was going to cure. Knocking them for this is not what I would do but applaud the effort and love for their game. I only wish Gothic 3 got the same amount of work to fix what could of been a great game.
We live in a release early and patch later world. Let's remember some games never get the needed patches or fixes as well and you get what you get. Good business...no but there are so many things in this cycle let's be happy when a good game has work done to it to make it better.
DarkUnderlord
The Bitcher
Okay.
Exactly. CD Projekt have a vested interest in releasing a product that's the best they can possibly produce on day one. So the question becomes, why did they release The Witcher in the state it was if they weren't satisfied with it? Particularly when they did demonstrate the ability and willingness to make the changes they did later?
I thought we weren't trying to imagine things.
... and then Microsoft released Vista which didn't go down well at all. In which case a botched released can drastically mess things up too. Perhaps if Microsoft had focussed on quality control as well (something they reportedly didn't with Vista, lacking clear design goals), they wouldn't be running the risk of losing that monopoly that way either? Once again, a better focus on designing a quality product would've resulted in stronger sales and better performance of that product without the risk of losing sales or credibility (both of which happened to Microsoft when they released their "improved" Vista OS) by releasing an "unsatisfactory" product.
Now Microsoft clearly have the funds and the market power to have made a much better product. They didn't. Why then? I think you'll agree that it wasn't because of a lack of funds, time or ability. It was a lack of quality control. Now sure, we can't be entirely certain why The Witcher was released as it was. Maybe they were poor, lacked the talent or got screwed by a bad deal. However, re-doing the translation a second time was certainly much more expensive than "getting it right the first time". Loading times are an issue of good coding and I bet some quality control could be implemented there too that would've helped head off those as well (making something "work right" in software often isn't a matter of funds or time - it can sometimes simply be just be a matter of focus).
It'll help if you stop trying to make cute little remarks and actually focus on the points at issue. I'm making the point that Microsoft have their monopoly and don't update their software as often as you seemed to indicate they should, "lest the threat of Unix overcome them" (Incidentally Unix marketshare is still bupkiss and a long way from being a credible threat - there's more than just a few bug fixes stopping Unix from taking over). There are even updates and errors in IE that Microsoft have ignored for years simply because they have a large market share (not even a monopoly). However, regardless of that they have released free major updates through-out that period, which was my initial point to counter the claim by others that they hadn't.
I like the little disparaging comments you like to constantly make. Not trying to score cheap points now, are you?
Not true. I don't think there's anything about what Blizzard do that "plays it safe". How many RTS' do you know that had more than two vastly different factions before Starcraft came out? Everyone else just copied what Blizzard did before. IE: They had two factions with the same units, only the units had different names. Blizzard innovated and took huge risks. Hell, Diablo was the creation an entire new genre.
You know why though? Because Blizzard "get it right the first time". They don't release a game with what some see as major translation issues. They don't release a game that has really unacceptable loading times, even going so far as deliberately using old-school "2d" technology with Starcraft in order to ensure it works on a range of computers. That's focus on delivering a product that works for their end-users. Not a focus on "well it works but only if you have a high-end machine". Blizzard focus on delivering a quality product. The result? It pays huge dividends. If more software companies acted like Blizzard, we'd actually have better products and probably a much stronger game industry.
Of course they put effort into The Witcher. What I am saying is it's about the type of effort they put in. You can spend a lot of time and money doing a job and getting a piss-poor result, or you can spend the same time and effort and deliver a quality product. The difference is on how you spend that time. If your design goals are "just make it work", then you're asking for trouble but if you do simple things like "Okay, we want load times to be less than 20 seconds on this type of machine", "this is a big international release, so I want the translation to be the best it can be" it changes how you approach the task. How does that affect our budget? How does that affect the time we have? It means decisions now get made based on the level of quality that can be achieved within the given constraints. Would CD Projekt RED have agreed to a 20% less translation if they were really intent on delivering a quality product? Particularly when such a translation doesn't really save that much time or money.
...
As I said, either CD Projekt were satisfied with what they'd done or they weren't and they very clearly had a choice in the matter. If, as Dhruin says, they agreed to Atari's 20% cut to save money then it means they deliberately signed up to releasing an unsatisfactory product because they didn't manage their budget adequately. Is that what we want game developers to do? Deliberately release games they aren't happy with? Isn't that the problem with most of the games that are released today?
...
Which means they failed to adequately take their available budget into consideration. At some point the decision was made that saving money was more important than striving for quality.
... and that's acceptable? Why should we as end-users continue to tolerate that? Would you tolerate a car that broke down every hour (like The Witcher's:EE did for me)? A toaster that only toasted 80% of the bread? A book that was so poorly translated that some people found it "jarring"? Maybe if they'd cut out that stupid Act IV, they could've made a better product. And hey, with the success they achieved, everything in Act IV could've been re-worked and released as a worthwhile Expansion Pack. Balancing time and budget constraints and working within them is not a new concept. If you get over-ambitious and lose focus on what your trying to achieve, you end up wasting a lot of time coding in that really neat flowing cloak system which you could've gone without. Did that opening cinematic really need to be that long? I'm sure they could've saved some money there too.
Yes, that means making changes to the game and delivering a slightly different product but the point is the focus is now on the bits that matter and the game works as it's intended to. Other "cool" features and feature-bloat that aren't necessary for the game can be added in once the core game has been successful. Then instead of wasting time and resources on releasing much-needed patches (depending on whom you talk to), you can focus on delivering more and better content. Stuff that's actually worth playing a second time around.
DarkUnderlord
The Bitcher
There's a 10,000 character limit? You're shitting me.
They thought the loading times were acceptable for a release day product. They accepted a 20% reduction in the translation. They think a game that crashes on Vista every hour is okay. These aren't things I agree with. CD Projekt deliberately and knowingly released The Witcher in the state it was.
By the way, I hate how quoting a post doesn't bring up my quotes as well.
... and when the shuttle does explode, do you hear them giving a press conference saying "Well, making shuttles is hard" and "we ran out of money to do the job properly so we just used cardboard"? Nope, most companies get sued for that. If a car breaks down on the highway or the brakes fail because the company didn't have the budget to make proper brakes, you don't get to use "making cars is hard" as an excuse. There is no excuse. The company failed to adequately manage its resources properly. Releasing the "working shuttle that doesn't crash after take-off" 12 months after the first one exploded isn't a cause for celebration. It means someone botched it the first time around.
Nope. It's not about insisting, they had control over their own budget. They had to power to make decisions that would've seen a better quality product released. They chose to spend the money as they did. If something doesn't work, it's because they lead themselves to that end point by sacrificing some things for others. Why I'm sure if they had a bigger budget, The Witcher might even have some real choice and consequence. I'm certain there's a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor that we "missed out on" due to time and budget constraints. I'm quite certain features and ideas proposed at meetings were knocked back due to cost or because they'd already spent the money somewhere else. The whole point is to take better control of those things. The whole point is they chose to focus on other things instead of load times and other issues. The whole point is if they had chosen to focus on making a stable game engine, they'd be better off.
"Software is hard" isn't an excuse. Anything is hard. I'm sure making a toaster has its own difficulties. I've certainly never made one, so it'd be hard for me. Can I use that as an excuse when my first toaster burns someone's house-down? "Well... it was hard". If I don't know how to make toasters, I shouldn't be making them. If I can't make a toaster that works, I either don't waste my time or start looking for ways on how I can make it work. That means managing my budget, maybe hiring someone who's really good at making toasters and if I can't release the toaster I want, I either change my design goals so that I can ("I'll have to drop the crumpet feature") or accept that i'll be releasing an inferior product. The later is what CD Projekt ultimately chose to do.
They thought the loading times were acceptable for a release day product. They accepted a 20% reduction in the translation. They think a game that crashes on Vista every hour is okay. These aren't things I agree with. CD Projekt deliberately and knowingly released The Witcher in the state it was.
Yep. The GOTY RPG that had load times criticised, clones, translation issues... Incidentally Fallout 3 got Game of the Year last year too. Strangely, a lot of awards seemed to counter that with "It was the only decent RPG released".
Nope. They should've altered their focus. I'd like more game developers like Blizzard to start focussing on making games that work right out of the box. I want a focus on games that work on a fundamental level and don't crash. I want games that don't drive you insane with loading times that literally have you questioning whether or not the game has crashed. "Is it working? It's working, right? Maybe if I just go away and leave it for an hour..." shouldn't be part of my game-playing process. Believe it or not, I want to play your game. I don't want to be distracted by bug-related issues. And if you can't manage to do what you want within the budget or time-frame you have, change your goals. Don't start making worth-less "Enhancements" for things that either add no real value to the game or simply should've never been an issue in the first place.
In that case, I'd suggest you don't get into software development. Otherwise you'll be like that guy from Iron Lore who blames everyone other than themselves for the failure of their ill-conceieved and poorly designed product.
By the way, I hate how quoting a post doesn't bring up my quotes as well.