Manual Release

Don't Ask,
Manual Release - from the weekly update - this time by third string quarter back on the Bungie Line up (that'll teach ya ya smug bugger ;))"

Currently the game is entering the RC process – in plain(er) English, we’re cutting our first Release Candidate. Now, the first Release Candidate won’t end up being the final shipping product, but it’s a significant step on getting Reach from us, to you, hopefully without leaking in France. Executive Producer and the man who brings out the worst in my mouth – and the best in my Halo play, Joe Tung offers some additional insight:

“The RC process can be favorably compared to passing a physical blockage. From the giant army of artists, designers and engineers that once fixed bugs with impunity now only a handful of people still have clearance to make changes to the game. ZBR can be a bit misleading because it suggests that you are done with bugs, but that isn’t really the case. You bounce from zero, ratchet up the bar, and take the worst offenders that would prevent cutting an RC. You start taking into account not only how bad an individual problem is, but how mainline it is – in other words, is it something that players will see in Matchmaking on standard map configurations in common gametypes? Or is it something that shows up with specific options on a particular map? Does it happen every time? Or does it require button mashing to reproduce? And so on.

The result is that, day by day, hour by hour, the number of fixes we take decreases, while the stability of the game increases. Matrices that chart the playability of missions which were once red across the board now come in green nearly all of the time. For everyone on the team that is already locked out, a good amount of co-op campaign, firefight and multiplayer is being played. We are knocking on the door of our first RC and may even have it by the time you end up reading this. (editor's note: Nope, not till Saturday)”

An additional perk of the RC process is that we do even more from-home network testing during this period. Folks who are locked out (almost everyone, including all artists, animators and much of Design) are at home all day playing in Matchmaking. The downside of playing from home, is that there are very few residences in Seattle with air conditioning and it just so happens to be our first ‘hot week’ of the Summer. 

Sweat it out, my compatriots.


The game's getting closer to being in your hands Halo fan - make it happen by preordering it on Amazon.

No comments: