The quality of Exult bugs

[Andrea B Previtera]

Absolutely no sarcasm here: I *LOVE* the bugs in Exult. They taste oldschool exactly like the bugs that once affected dos era games. Nowadays bugs are pretty much bonded to collisions, pathfinding, or minor graphical glitches. Once bugs affected the very core of game mechanics, resulting in funny or exploitable behaviors. This also makes me think that there is some "grand unification theory of code": games with complex dynamics are created using code that must have certain characteristics. Said characteristics bring... certain particular kinds of bugs. So in a sense, I am sure exult code must look a lot like the original U7 code!

[alagner]

Also w/o sarcasm: yeah, and Exult still reproduces original bugs like disappearing pikeman in SI so it's really close so it feels even more old-school

[TDI]

I think Exult has had it's share of pathfinding-, collision- and minor graphical issues. But the bugs do seem to be shifting in a different direction. Maybe because many of them seem to be side effects of new features.

"games with complex dynamics are created using code that must have certain characteristics."

Like this?

[Andrea B Previtera]

Being italian, I hereby refuse to accept that picture as something representative of the word "Spaghetti"

Said that, I believe that the current bugs are actually planting their roots deep into TWO layers of code: new usecode, and the exult engine itself. That should be why they so unpredictable and bizarre. (The disappearing pikemen bug should be usecode related btw, isn't it?)

[Dominus]

(The disappearing pikemen bug should be usecode related btw, isn't it?)

from the usecode_bugs.txt in our CVS:
(SI) disappearing pikeman:
===========================

The first part of the banquet usecode in Monitor accidently deletes the
List Field's pikeman egg when you're too close to that egg.

So I'd say the bug is a mixture of usecode and game data (egg placement)


And as for the current kind of bugs in Exult, there are no new usecode bugs, except for when you use the enhancements by Marzo. But I really don't consider bugs in those as Exult bugs.

Then there are bugs caused by a.) enhancements to the Exult engine aimed at making Exult more able to be an Ultma7-data-files-independent game engine and b.) new findings of how the original U7 worked and adapting Exult to those.
All those things are mostly caused by Marzo, but that is just because he is the MOST active in the team and if you are more actively developing you can be sure that you break things. I'd say he is steering Exult on a fine course and that those bugs creep out are a nice way of confirming that we still have a great userbase that actually play and find bugs this way

[nadir]

Being italian, I hereby refuse to accept that picture as something representative of the word "Spaghetti"

Ben detto, Andrea.


The crap that the world passes off as "Italian Food"...