Ruined My Life

Insurgency; Please Fix the Bugs Before Adding New Ones

Let me begin this by saying, Insurgency, you’re one of my favorite FPS games I’ve played in the couple of years, but why do you fail me? You were released, and promptly patched to fix critical problems, now it’s nearing two months later and you have yet to release a new patch nor any new content. We understand you’re wanting to expand the game while fixing numerous issues, but why not fix the “small” issues, and release the fixes, while you work on new content? I know you’re not being paid a salary for your work, but can you really expect to shove an unfinished game, technically a Half-Life 2 mod, to an eager, active community and not continue semi regular support?

I’m not a game developer, nor even consider myself an expert on the subject, but what I do know is what makes a game or mod successful in my view as well as many others. Producing and releasing a mod for any game is a task unto it’s self, but once you reach that milestone there has to be continuous support for the mod. For example, Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat both started as mods for Half-Life, but through their continuous updates and content additions they’ve grown to be full, retail games. Should we be expecting this kind of support from all mods that are released now?

The fact of the matter is development has to continue at a regular pace with regular updates to the game, otherwise your player base will gradually fall off, regardless of “larger” updates.  You’ll gain a few back with the new “large” updates but it will NEVER make up for the amount of players lost while waiting.  Releasing small patches, that fix a few bugs or address balance issues, consistently is a large factor in keeping players content.  MMORPG companies have realized this since their infancy, considering it means even more when your customers pay a monthly recurring fee.  You could say the bottom line is “Develop constantly, release often”.

The problem with Insurgency in this case is the small, underlying bugs that should have been addressed directly after the release of their 1.1 patch, instead as noted, they are currently aiming at a large release with 1.2 that will fix the current bugs and add new content.  Gamers love new content, but they also want their game to play as well as possible, just look at Counter-Strike 1.6.

I guess the easiest way to summarize my issue  with the Insurgency development cycle is;  fix the bugs before you bring introduce new ones!

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