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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: [comp00] compiling happy.inf
Message-ID: <G31sEE.Bsx@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 17:25:26 GMT
References: <G2yH17.Et7@world.std.com> <972530894.557972@rexx.com> <G31JEC.H75@world.std.com> <972572322.479508@rexx.com>
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:57957

Andrew Plotkin  <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
>Sean T Barrett <buzzard@world.std.com> wrote:
>> Then again, perhaps it's for the best that debug is left on
>> in some shipping games, to offset the possibility that they
>> have bugs.  Ultima 7 included a secret "cheat mode" which allowed
>> you to do things like create a new object of any type; some people
>> who had their games messed up due to bugs were able to correct
>> their problems by cheating [...]
>
>Not so applicable in our case -- the cost to build a new release and
>distribute it to players is much lower than for a CD-in-a-box game.

Except in the case of a comp game (where the "cost" is
effectively infinite since it's NOT ALLOWED).  And in
practice that doesn't stop commerical games from getting
patches.  The part of the scenario that I really meant
translates between the two is supporting existing
players with save games, since the patched version of
the game will often be incompatible with saves.  But
I think this wanders pretty far into the land of
pointlessly silly debate.

SeanB
