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![]() ![]() I disagree with you that it's useful once the game's made it past QA, but I certainly don't feel hurt by it, as you implied. Third, I wasn't complaining about the overabundance of initalization information. Since Wolfenstein was one of those old load-on-boot Apple ][ games, there's no way it could be 'accidentally' left on. Second, the specific example I cited, CW, displays not debug info but an command to turn off monitor echo of input and output from the disk drives, unnecessarily so since the option is defaulted off. Are you seriously suggesting that most technical support staff for the end user is going to be familiar with specific function calls? Take a deep breath and say that again with a straight face. a couple of remarks.įirst, the startup information displayed in most of these sorts of games is in fact completely irrelevant to both the end user and to technical support. The console window is only there for a second or two anyway.Īpologies for the flame, but it was meant as education.Īpologies for the flame, but it was meant as education.Hmm. It doesn't hurt the player in any way, since all they've got to do is ignore it (like they do anyway). Needless to say, I think it's a damn good idea to display troubleshooting info during startup. Especially since many nastier crashes won't even give the program the chance to display an error.īelieve me, if the game was displaying all its debug info, that box would be scrolling at a rate of several hundred lines per second. It's a damn sight simpler (and more efficient) to display certain key startup info in a short-lived console window via 'printf' than it is to detect exactly which error (out of about a thousand) had occurred then call the Windows MessageBox function to display a message. Then you may ask "why doesn't RtCW just display an error if it fails to load, then?" If you had any idea how complex the startup process of a game engine like that actually is, you wouldn't even bother to ask. ![]() if the game failed to load, and there was absolutely no information on why, exactly what would you be able to tell Tech Support to help them fix the problem? Oh yes, System Shock 2 frequently WON'T give an error if it bombs out, but is that good design? ![]() You mean the 'debug' info as it starts up? ![]()
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