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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Via Mark Rubin, Executive Producer at Ubisoft:

So where are we in this?​

At the end of July, we started this process, and we got our first results back by mid-August which was a Not Pass. We realized then that we had more work related to compliance than we had anticipated. If it HAD passed, then we would have been able to ship at the end of Aug. But it didn’t and so we have spent the last 3-4 weeks fixing those issues and getting ready to do another submission. We are currently in the CM prep part of that process and will hopefully be submitting to 1st parties in a little less than 2 weeks. If that Passes cleanly, then we could be looking at a mid-to-end of September release. There is however a likely scenario where we get a conditional Pass meaning we have to do a Day 1 patch with some final fixes to ensure compliance. If we do need to do a Day 1 patch, then that pushes our date out to early/mid-October.

There's more info in their blog post: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/...te-on-the-release-of-xdefiant-from-mark-rubin

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

They're also shockingly transparent with regards to how the whole certification process works with 1st parties (E.g. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).

First things first. Here is a detailed description of how the submission process goes:​

Submission is the part of development where we give the game to the 1st parties (Sony, Xbox, etc.) to check that the game works correctly in their environments. To get to that we have to self-test with internal QA/Compliance teams to try and find any issues that might get flagged in the submission process. Once we have fixed or completed all of the tasks that we want/think we need for submission we then spend about 2-3 weeks prepping and validating a CM (Candidate Master) that we think is the final version of the game for submission. It then goes through 1 week of heavy QA & Compliance testing by several Ubisoft teams. If it passes, then it goes to the 1st parties to be certified for release. 1st parties take a week to get their final report on the submission and give us a Pass or Not Pass with a list of must fixes for the next submission. Also, to be clear during this submission process, the QC team at Ubisoft are putting the build through the ringer looking for functionality bugs and another team at Ubisoft, divided up into PC, Sony and Xbox groups are looking for compliance bugs. These are two different types of bugs. Functionality means “does this gameplay feature work as intended” (e.g., there is a bug where the damage from your weapon is altered after using a certain ability.) This is not something the 1st parties will be looking for unless of course it prevents them from testing. Those are on us to find. Compliance bugs are ones that relate to the systems and overall experience that the first parties expect from games on their platform. (e.g., Are trophies being properly tracked, is my friend’s list being properly updated with game status, etc.) After we get a Pass from all 1st parties, we are then ready to ship and need probably 1-2 weeks before launch depending on the date of the Pass. If we don’t Pass, then we need to spend about a month fixing the issues that came up from the submission and repeat the above process.

 

[DonF]

Damn, that's rough, specially for a company like Ubisoft...

Well, I'm excited for this game. I'm kinda tired of all fps shooters right now.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

A brief respite, phew...

 

[Elder Legend]

I forgot this thing existed. Was it even any good ??

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Where does responsibility fall upon when a game is released and crashes all the time? Wouldnt the first party company catch obvious stuff like this?

And when a game launches, it looks like no turning back (ie. first party couldnt test release day server performance). So when the lobbies all fail and gamers get kicked out of crashed games, it seems Nintendo, Sony, MS dont really care anymore.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I'm looking forward to the release. Hope it's sooner than later.

Appreciate the transparency. It's refreshing.

 

[RagnarokIV]

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I forgot this thing existed. Was it even any good ??

No.

Its basically being made as a wet dream game for COD "pros" and streamers so I'd wager its going to end up driving casual and core players away pretty quickly and end up shutdown within 18 months.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Nothing says quality like a game trying to scrape by certification.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Where does responsibility fall upon when a game is released and crashes all the time? Wouldnt the first party company catch obvious stuff like this?

And when a game launches, it looks like no turning back (ie. first party couldnt test release day server performance). So when the lobbies all fail and gamers get kicked out of crashed games, it seems Nintendo, Sony, MS dont really care anymore.

No, the onus is on the developer. I'll highlight the relevant parts from my second post.

Also, to be clear during this submission process, the QC team at Ubisoft are putting the build through the ringer looking for functionality bugs and another team at Ubisoft, divided up into PC, Sony and Xbox groups are looking for compliance bugs. These are two different types of bugs. Functionality means "does this gameplay feature work as intended" (e.g., there is a bug where the damage from your weapon is altered after using a certain ability.) This is not something the 1st parties will be looking for unless of course it prevents them from testing. Those are on us to find. Compliance bugs are ones that relate to the systems and overall experience that the first parties expect from games on their platform. (e.g., Are trophies being properly tracked, is my friend's list being properly updated with game status, etc.)

 

[yurinka]

Damn, that's rough, specially for a company like Ubisoft...

There's nothing rare, it's pretty common to fail it once or even twice.

Nothing says quality like a game trying to scrape by certification.

The certification has nothing to do with the quality of the game. Read the article.

Where does responsibility fall upon when a game is released and crashes all the time? Wouldnt the first party company catch obvious stuff like this?

The platform holder only does some basic tests mostly related to console specific functionalities like trophies/friends/chat/shop/etc plus banned content etc.

Many bugs are often difficult to reproduce, so maybe you see them before any tester from the publisher or from the platform holder. Because there are millions of players and only a few dozen testers.

And when a game launches, it looks like no turning back (ie. first party couldnt test release day server performance). So when the lobbies all fail and gamers get kicked out of crashed games, it seems Nintendo, Sony, MS dont really care anymore.

It depends.

Server performance often only fails when hugely stressed by a huge real world population but sometimes it doesn't fail when tested internally even in stress tests because even if similar they aren't the exact same conditions than when the game is released for real and faces huge stress situations. Btw, platform holders don't perform stress server tests.

 

[feynoob]

Bernoulli
Call of duty killer is doing fantastic for starter.

 

[theHFIC]

+++frantically looking around my room+++ I know I have that Shigeru Miyamoto quote about a delayed game vs rushed game around here somehwere...

 

[M.W.]

Sounds like it could be something small too. Apparently if you send something to Sony that mentions MS and vice versa it can be rejected. I don't think it's a quality issue as the beta's have been solid.

 

[jorgejjvr]

I forgot this thing existed. Was it even any good ??

Yes. Very good

 

[Fbh]

+++frantically looking around my room+++ I know I have that Shigeru Miyamoto quote about a delayed game vs rushed game around here somehwere...

You can thank me later.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Via Mark Rubin, Executive Producer at Ubisoft:




There's more info in their blog post: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/...te-on-the-release-of-xdefiant-from-mark-rubin

Ouuuwwww yeahhhhh!!!

 

[MiguelItUp]

Man, as someone that has shipped various games, the cert process can be so damn annoying because it's SO tedious, lol. Definitely worse with some platforms than others. I'm sure it's improved to some degree since I last did it, at least I'd hope so.

Really wondering what caused them to fail though, don't hear about that too often. But it happens, it's normal. We're only human, sometimes people can forget the SMALLEST thing. Hell we had plenty of times where we THOUGHT something was going to fail, and it didn't, lol.

 

[Skifi28]

Remember that Cyberpunk managed to pass on consoles.

 

[Mikado]

Games fail cert all the time.
Then the issues get fixed and they pass.
Why are we even hearing about this?

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Remember that Cyberpunk managed to pass on consoles.

Also trash like Just Cause 3.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

People should check out this reddit thread as well:



There's lots of AAA devs chiming in on the matter:

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

They're also shockingly transparent with regards to how the whole certification process works with 1st parties (E.g. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).

Yea this is wonderful info, it's the worst when people use transparency against others which causes them to stop being transparent.

 

[Clear]

Failing cert for both Sony and MS is pretty unusual. I can only think they were trying something different maybe with their back-end integration?

As noted, UBI's internal compliance QA should have picked up any obvious issues, but that a version was submitted that failed on both suggests a common cause.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I forgot this thing existed. Was it even any good ??

Surprisingly good first impressions from veteran COD streamers who played it back in June. Also, it seems the game has already received a somewhat cult fan following. Not saying this lightly but Ubisoft be cooking something special with Xdefiant.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Remember that Cyberpunk managed to pass on consoles.

Yes, because the compliance check they mention doesn’t say anything about how the game runs. It is something more basic - does it crash the console, does it cause the console to overheat, is there some exploit that can be used to bypass console-level security, etc.?

This makes Ubisoft look way more incompetent than if the game just had shit performance.

 

[3liteDragon]

How did Redfall get past Xbox QA?

 

[Robb]

X-Defiant

Just throw it on the GAAS-bonfire with the rest and move on to making something interesting.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Damn, that's rough, specially for a company like Ubisoft...

Well, I'm excited for this game. I'm kinda tired of all fps shooters right now.

This whole process is completely normal. The unusual thing is how honest they're being about the process, and promising to release the game as soon as it's ready. Normally every game company goes through the same process, but they just make the release date a month or two past the longest certification might be held up.

 

[Neolombax]

Hope to play the game soon-ish. I've participated in the beta a few times, it was good fun. The gunplay sort of lacks the oomph and impact compared to say Battlefield and CoD, but I like the maps they've showcased so far and the TTK feels good.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

UBISOFT continues to sink.

 

[Hudo]

based Sony and Microsoft saving their users from a shit game.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

How did Redfall get past Xbox QA?

Again, read the post. The check they mention has nothing to do with game performance.

 

[Bernoulli]

Bernoulli
Call of duty killer is doing fantastic for starter.

only COD can kill COD

cod is all about nostalgia that's why it will never die until kids that grew up with COD die too

 

[SJRB]

It's cool that they're so open about it, and it's cool to learn more about how a cert process actually works instead of going "HERP DERP GAME BAD LMAO"