Now a few months back I got a job at a place I can't tell you where, because of an NDA. You see they think folks will contact me for info pertaining to products, of which I can't and will not discuss. It's annoying because I cannot tell you stuff I may or may not have seen. Even if it was awesome. Really, really awesome.

It makes me wish there was some company endorsed way that people they employ could discuss matters and future products from said non-disclosed corporation. Maybe if they had an official blog on their website that was written by a select group of folks in the industry. Obviously the big-wigs would have final say on what goes out but it would be cool if there was a place for people to get the odd tidbit of inside info.

Yes i said tidbit.

Capcom have a blog running that's been cataloging the development of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and it's been a great thing to read. The odd shot of a character sprite has generated a load of interest in their game. Maybe other companies should think about employing an approach like this. It would also help to displell rumours about certain jobs in the industry.

When I go on forums and see folks complaining about various aspects of a game be they online issues, an exploitable bug or maybe Chun Li's thighs not being fat enough it can kinda anger me. Well not anger cos I'm so laid back my head scrapes along the floor when I walk. It's the idea that fixing something in a game is simple and devs could do it easily. A lot of times when one bug is fixed it can cause knock on issues. When a slight change is made to a game it can tear another feature apart wholey by accident.

No game is made perfect. they will all have bugs whether you notice them or not. What folks need to realise is just how many bugs a game has from it's first build to it's last and just how much work that takes for the devs to work through. A lot of bugs.

The recent troubles with xbox live is what sparked me to write my first blog entry for 4 months. The reason I haven't been writing any is obvious to those that didn't skip the first paragraph. I basically just wanted to get across that fixing a piece of software like xbox live isn't a case of switching the server off for 30 seconds and rebooting. It isn't even a case of writing a quick bit of code. It's a case of a lot of bvery talented guys working ludicrous hours (and they really do work ludicrous hours) to try to identify, repair and test every issue. According to "e" over at MS there wasn't just one issue. there was a whole cataclysm of issues with most of them having knock on effects causing other issues.

Imagine that a fully working service is a number, any number, and in order to get the service working you have to work out the correct equation to reach that number. Trouble is there's about 5 million other numbers needed to make that answer and if one get's changed it can have a massive effect on the answer. Coding is math, math at it's most insanely complex.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be annoyed that the service is down but saying they aren't doing anything about it or calling for Majornelsons head on a pike isn't gonna help. Nothing you can do will help. Just sit back and let them do their very complicated and tiring job.

They cannot tell you what has gone wrong for much the same reason I cannot tell you what I do. It's all about the NDAs. Just accept that stuff hit the fan and MS are working like crazy to fix it.

Sorry for the long read and nag. Peace out yo!