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> some people made up long reasons for why such a lock could be in place, I was irked. Someone was wrong on the internet, and it fell to me to set them straight

> some people made up long reasons for why such a lock could be in place, I was irked. Someone was wrong on the internet, and it fell to me to set them straight. The lock was in place because one reason: Their developers did not know how to do this in a short amount of time. Their estimate may have been 2-3 months (because they would need to learn how to do it properly), and management decided against the effort. This shows how valuable a well-rounded team of developers can be "as an asset". If you only have one or two developers for very specific languages or platforms, their skillset is going to be very limited, and you're going to miss out on big opportunities.

Luc 13y ago
> Their developers did not know how to do this in a short amount of time. Their estimate may have been 2-3 months (because they would need to learn how to do it properly) Eh, what? They're not idiots, they know how to change resolution. They just figured it wasn't possible to do a proper job in the time/budget for something low on the priority list, so they didn't do it. Game devs like to get paid for their work, too.
- icebraining 13y ago
  It's not just changing the resolution, it's also fixing all everything that breaks in a game that was developed targeting a single resolution.
  - Luc 13y ago
    Indeed. Which is why it takes some effort.
    - Kiro 13y ago
      So basically you're agreeing with fragsworth.
      - Luc 13y ago
        Not that it's worth going on about ad infinitum, but no, I don't agree with "Their developers did not know how to do this [...]" and "they would need to learn how to do it properly". In fact I assume the opposite - their developers knew EXACTLY how to do this in a short amount of time (i.e. massive overtime), and they would NOT need to learn how to do it properly, AT ALL, because they know what they're doing.
        fragsworth 13y ago
        If they knew exactly what they were doing then it seems very unlikely that they would decide against doing it, because Peter Thoman's method only took about 2 weeks of his own time. The method the developers were considering may have been an internal one that required some kind of refactoring, and they were either unaware of any other way to do it, or they were aware but didn't know how long it would take because they've never done it before. Not every game developer has an extensive understanding of how to manipulate DirectX, considering that you can put together a pretty decent game by just using a game engine and ignoring the underlying graphics altogether. I can see them failing to hire someone who has experience with the lower-level stuff on PC, when the game wasn't for PC to begin with...
        pavel_lishin 13y ago
        But Peter's method, as he himself said, isn't good enough for software that would be released by a company for people to use: > Thoman says the difference between his fixes and official patches are primarily an issue of quality assurance. “When I write and program something, I make sure I didn’t make any obvious errors, and then I just release it,” Thoman told WIRED. “If it works for 90 percent of people, I already consider that a success.” > From there, Thoman starts working for that other 10 percent, but he says that there’s probably one percent of people that he will never be able to help. If he were in charge of a commercial product rather than a fan-made patch, he’d have a responsibility to make sure whatever he released worked for everyone and didn’t break anything.
        13y ago
Coincoin 13y ago
Those fixes just change a few constant here and there. Any game programmer (or any programmer really) can do that with her eyes closed. The real problem is QA, user interface elements and internationalization. QA will have to do a complete walkthrough for every resolution * language * FSAA * videocard combination possible. This is very long and expensive. There will be bugs and they will need to get fixed. At the end they decided it was not worth it. Another company with different priorities might decide otherwise. But what I can certainly tell you is this was not due to limited knowledge from the staff.

Luc 13y ago

> Their developers did not know how to do this in a short amount of time. Their estimate may have been 2-3 months (because they would need to learn how to do it properly) Eh, what? They're not idiots, they know how to change resolution. They just figured it wasn't possible to do a proper job in the time/budget for something low on the priority list, so they didn't do it. Game devs like to get paid for their work, too.

icebraining 13y ago
It's not just changing the resolution, it's also fixing all everything that breaks in a game that was developed targeting a single resolution.
- Luc 13y ago
  Indeed. Which is why it takes some effort.
  - Kiro 13y ago
    So basically you're agreeing with fragsworth.
    - Luc 13y ago
      Not that it's worth going on about ad infinitum, but no, I don't agree with "Their developers did not know how to do this [...]" and "they would need to learn how to do it properly". In fact I assume the opposite - their developers knew EXACTLY how to do this in a short amount of time (i.e. massive overtime), and they would NOT need to learn how to do it properly, AT ALL, because they know what they're doing.
      - fragsworth 13y ago
        If they knew exactly what they were doing then it seems very unlikely that they would decide against doing it, because Peter Thoman's method only took about 2 weeks of his own time. The method the developers were considering may have been an internal one that required some kind of refactoring, and they were either unaware of any other way to do it, or they were aware but didn't know how long it would take because they've never done it before. Not every game developer has an extensive understanding of how to manipulate DirectX, considering that you can put together a pretty decent game by just using a game engine and ignoring the underlying graphics altogether. I can see them failing to hire someone who has experience with the lower-level stuff on PC, when the game wasn't for PC to begin with...
        pavel_lishin 13y ago
        But Peter's method, as he himself said, isn't good enough for software that would be released by a company for people to use: > Thoman says the difference between his fixes and official patches are primarily an issue of quality assurance. “When I write and program something, I make sure I didn’t make any obvious errors, and then I just release it,” Thoman told WIRED. “If it works for 90 percent of people, I already consider that a success.” > From there, Thoman starts working for that other 10 percent, but he says that there’s probably one percent of people that he will never be able to help. If he were in charge of a commercial product rather than a fan-made patch, he’d have a responsibility to make sure whatever he released worked for everyone and didn’t break anything.
        13y ago

Coincoin 13y ago

Those fixes just change a few constant here and there. Any game programmer (or any programmer really) can do that with her eyes closed. The real problem is QA, user interface elements and internationalization. QA will have to do a complete walkthrough for every resolution * language * FSAA * videocard combination possible. This is very long and expensive. There will be bugs and they will need to get fixed. At the end they decided it was not worth it. Another company with different priorities might decide otherwise. But what I can certainly tell you is this was not due to limited knowledge from the staff.