Aliens: Colonial Marines AI Bug Due to Single-Letter Typo

A modder by the username of jamesdickinson963 has discovered an AI bug in Aliens: Colonial Marines is caused by a single-letter typo. Fixing the bug is as easy as fixing the typo.

[Activemessiah]

But according to Randy, it's the fans fault... ok randy... you %&*$!

[KillZallthebeast]

I've met him in person. He's just all around unbearable to speak to

[FTLmaster]

Pretty hilarious. Sums up the game, really.

[Direwolf484]

Pretty much, yea.

[porkChop]

There were lots of issues with the game, but that was a pretty big one. Kind of ridiculous that a typo made its way into the final game, like they didn't even check the code when the AI wasn't working right.

[Direwolf484]

I can't believe this made it past QA testing.

[Gaming4Life1981]

I'll fix it as I like the game as a die hard alien fan, modded of course.

[MadLad]

I forget the name of the mod, but someone already went through, fixed the ai, made it more aggressive, cleaned up the soldier encounters, prettied up some of the effects and lighting, and tightened the controls.
Didn't make for a great experience, but a lot better than what was sold to players at launch.

[Gaming4Life1981]

oh wow I'll have to look for that all in one mod. I honestly only messed with the graphics and lighting.

[mixelon]

This is one of the most hilarious game dev goofs I’ve ever seen. Seerrriously?! How did nobody involved notice the ai was so jacked up? It was brought up in reviews.. there were post launch patches! Haha, what.

[rainslacker]

I'm sure they knew about it. They just didn't fix it. Almost every bug is known on release, they just usually prioritize what to fix. Broken AI tends to be something most devs would prioritize.

But given the nature of this game, and funds being diverted illegally, it never got that chance.

While I'm not going to defend the dev here,I will say that sometimes even a single letter typo can not always be that apparent in troubleshooting buggy code. I spent two days troubleshooting with an algorithm once where the fix was a basic arithmetic error that should have been immediately apparent even as I was writing it. I felt really dumb when I finally realized it, and felt I wasted a lot of time having to do it after the bug report came back the first time.

[mixelon]

I think they probably missed it. It’s so trivial to correct once noticed. A debut console should be telling them that things are misfiring to this extent.

Another dev mentioned outsourced QA could’ve been a problem, or a breakdown in communications so people didn’t have the knowledge/experience of the game to notice the AI getting suddenly much worse. I’m not blaming any individuals, it’s just hilarious how they could’ve fixed this with such a microscopic patch.

[noxeven]

I hope Jim Sterling see this. He's gonna laugh so hard.

[maelstromb]

Randy Pitchford - "the snake oil salesman of the games industry."

[MadLad]

Which sucks, because his company, itself, is a respectable one; going all the way back to handling the excellent expansions for the original Half-Life, to the Brothers in Arms series, and then to Borderlands. Man can't seem to take criticism though, let alone responsibility for shoddy products.
I mean, nobody was really expecting DN:Forever to be a good title after all the development drama. But to then sit and call those who saw it for what it was "whiners" ... I mean, grow up.
And then piece meal out the development of Colonial Marines to a bunch of small studios in secret, while you concentrate on one of your main series, and then glorify a literally broken release ...

He needs to stick to running a successful company, be transparent about the titles they work on and, most importantly, shut his insecure mouth.

[Atomicjuicer]

Can’t believe no one empathizes with the devs.

I know the story of this game but this could happen to anyone and it took the modders YEARS to notice it too.

It’s a needle in a haystack situation and back then their tools weren’t able to catch it.

Game dev is hard. I think some compassion is in order here. A tiny mistake couldn’t be found and had very negative outcome that was also hard to understand and the game had to be shipped.