smartroad wrote:To be fair though modern games are significantly more complex than the games of my youth (circa 85-95). I could imagine the amount of code for the original Super Mario Bros. pales to insignificance to the amount of code needed to run a game like Elite. Also most modern games have to use underlying software (DirectX, OpenGL, device drivers etc etc) which can introduce bugs as well and interact in different ways on different machines. This is all before we get on to the near infinite different PC specs there are out there. Also the different combinations of things that can be done within the game and bugs that can be created from those internal interactions.
This doesn't mean that bugs are acceptable, nor that a customer service dept not knowing the basic spec for the software is either. But given the shear amount of code, the thousands of ways that code can interact with itself and has to play nice with other peoples code, I am sometimes surprised that any game works at all

Couldn't agree more, but the platform specs are a lot tighter than they were thirty years ago (although M$ frequently falls over its own feet) and all the problems you mention are part of the same playing field other producers use. Many of the so-called bugs are down to networking problems and there is a lot of repetition in the bug lists, so yes, not all FD's fault.
When I say FD isn't in control of its own software I'm referring to the numerous little niggling bugs that can't be put down to hardware problems: the BGS; the data mismatch between the Galactic Map and the System Maps (and the HUD displays); the structure of Power Play (so I understand); the BGS; the illogical missions; the BGS; the CQC problems (as I read it); the BGS; the black text on a black background . . .
The BGS still has many little problems that get in the way of total escapsm.
I'm not going to commit to Horizons until things are a lot better in the main game - I don't think I could cope with a whole new set of bugs and disappointments. Perhaps later.
And did I mention the problems with the BGS?