Our Favorite Bugs - Part I
Dec 04 2002
Original Link (now dead) - http://acdm.turbinegames.com/featuredarticles/?action=view&article_id=53
Our Favorite Bugs - Part I
By Alicia Brown
Software development occasionally produces results that are...unexpected. When these results do not create content or features in the game as designed, developers call them bugs. Sometimes, a bug can be the catalyst that inspires a new feature. At other times, a "bugged" feature can make developers laugh at the unexpected direction their so-carefully planned code takes. We wanted to tell you about some of the bugs that have tickled our fancy over the years. Some of these bugs actually made it into the game; most, however, are being shared with you for the first time.
Now you see it, now you don't!
Did you search for Thorsten's Armor? Part of that quest required adventurers to obtain the directions in a note from a chest located in a certain cottage south of Eastham. Players on some (but not all) worlds were unable to find the chest in the cottage -- which kept them from completing the quest.
Finding out how and why this occurred was no easy task. As it turned out, the developer creating this quest found a cottage model and picked a location he thought ideal for his "quest chest." Unfortunately, he was not aware that there already was a chest in that location - it just wasn't visible! The new "quest chest" was sometimes not the first to load, effectively causing it to disappear.
How could this have happened?
In the cottage model selected by the developer, the chest was "invisible" because it had been placed a bit below floor level. The chest was only visible when the original Lightwave 3D model of the cottage was opened -- something developers typically don't need to do; WorldBuilder, the tool used in placing content, did not show them. Apparently, no developer had ever attempted to place a chest in that location, so the bug of the chests being a bit below floor level had not previously shown up.
The inconsistent nature of the bug was due to a slight randomness that existed when objects loaded in the engine; the new chest only stays if it loads first, otherwise you get the "invisible" chest below the floor level that can't be seen.
Eventually the "invisible" chest was removed in the model so that using that version of the cottage fixed the bug in time for the next Event.
What do you get when you cross a Lugian with an abdomen?
The answer is...a golem!
Greek legend has it that the goddess Minerva sprang full-grown from the head of her father Zeus. The Golems were created in a similar manner from the abdomen of a Lugian; One day while testing some new code someone noticed that the graphics engine had developed a bug. Instead of drawing the 17 different parts of a human avatar it was drawing 17 copies of a single part -- the abdomen. So, for a while, developers could run around as nothing but human abdomens. The head, the arms, the legs, the feet -- all abdomens.
Voila -- the idea for golems was born! The dev team now realized they could do simple part swaps to make golems from some other creature. Because the human setup was too human for a golem, they decided to use the Lugian for golems.
Often, major features of the game come from bugs like these that players never get to see.
No Cow Tipping Here
Imagine...you run into a Monouga and you have no weapon. Pre-beta, the dev's were playing when someone attempts to pick up a cow. And he can actually lift the cow! Wow! But wait - now he's wielding it! And beating the Monouga over the head with it!
Cows, bunnies, all the creatures of Dereth now have a dual purpose - a weapon! And my, it was amusing to watch. As one dev said "Beating someone over the head with a cow was one of the best things I ever did in AC :) "
Out-of-Breath
One of the lifelike features of the game is the way you can see and hear your character breathe. While this is something we tend to take for granted now, when the developers first created the game, pre-beta, the avatar's breathing animations were way too fast. You'd have thought your stamina had been permanently altered -- which is almost enough to give you palpitations! One developer recalled that it looked as if living in a world filled to brimming with so many different monsters was making the characters constantly hyperventilate in fear.
Were those pack drudge dolls wearing red shoes?
No, they were not.
But, like that old fable, these drudges could not stop dancing and dancing...and dancing. In fact, nothing could keep them in place.
Try hooking them into a floor hook in your cottage or villa and -- unlike other pack dolls -- the dance was not reserved just for you and the guests you allowed into your humble abode! Slowly but surely, the drudge pack dolls would dance their way out of players' houses and escape!
Well, of course, we could not have dance-away drudge dolls on the loose, so this was corrected. Today these dolls stay in their place. Or hooked to the same place, that is.
Shard of the Herald
A game of this size and nature can only be planned so far. When the players themselves manage to change the game from what was planned, as happened on Thistledown, it's time to realize and acknowledge that the players are doing more to create the game than might at first seem apparent.
In November 2000, during the Should the Starts Fall Event, the Shard of the Herald was protected and sacrifices were made to it -- until it leveled itself and became nearly impossible to kill! Dedicated players changed their world to such a degree that even the creators of that world were happily surprised and left in awe. In order to bring down the Shard of the Herald on Thistledown, a special Live Op had to be done.