Doesn't mean the rF2 guys program in a manner that is conducive to hotfixes. By all appearances they do not.
You don't really have a way to program in a manner that is conductive to hotfix or not. Hotfixes mean just you push a fix as soon as available to the customer installs. That imply to have an huge, deep but quick testing phase to be 100% sure you didn't introduce something bad when you fixed the problem. When they fix something in the rF2 main core they could push the executable as a "hotfix". They just choose to wait to have more development made for a build and have a main testing phase before releasing a build. Hotfix mean more people for the testing phase, always available, and engineers available to create something you can release. I personally prefer the way they choose until now (and that's a good choice with a small team believe me), having something more consistent which take several weeks instead of tiny little things each weeks/days. Off course, they should also be able to react ASAP when something important happen and prevent people to play
Tim, I think the topic has turned more generic (at least in my mind!). One, but hardly the only good example was the broken mirror operation on the historic open wheelers. How many months passed before that bug was fixed? It was well over a year and many builds if I recall. In the meantime, a glaring and embarrassing bug continued to tarnish the reputation of rF2 and give the impression of sloppiness. Should have been fixed a day or two after it was initially reported by users. That's even under the standard download a new mod system. Of course, an auto-update hotfix would make it less annoying to customers, which is what is being discussed here. Didn't prevent anyone from using rF2, but that's not the point. The point is to present the best possible "face" to the buying public and to cause the least amount of annoyance to users once a bug is identified--the type of annoyance that occurs when a known bug remains glaringly unresolved for an inordinate amount of time. Especially small and seemingly easy-fix bugs. The flickering texture along the bottom of the NSX tail lights would be a current example.
You may want to call me a fanboy, but I am much happier today than I was when this first began a few years ago. Clearly this is still the best race simulator on the planet. I am still amazed at the quality of the product both in physics and gameplay. Thanks ISSI fantastic job.
I am a little surprised at the lack of bug fix updates. When most other software is released (even after heavy testing), there are bug fix releases that follow shortly after. Albeit ISI tends to do a pretty good job with the testing, but every once in a while small bugs creep in that I think, warrant a re-release.
