Return to Ostagar delayed again
To improve Dragon Age testing procedures.
BioWare has updated its test procedures across all formats following the release and retraction of a dodgy title update for Dragon Age on Xbox 360 last week.
The developer has also said that DLC Return to Ostagar will be delayed again in order to allow for these more stringent processes.
"[Dragon Age] is an incredibly large, very deep and complex game, making it virtually impossible to test every system and permutation possible for each update/DLC," BioWare's Fernando Melo wrote on the official forum, offering "sincere apologies" to those affected by last week's release.
"When testing any large endeavour like that, we depend on selectively targeting systems related to the changes being made, prioritised by order of perceived risk.
"Unfortunately we did not foresee the changes being made to impact the systems it did, which is how something seemingly so visible still managed to avoid the dev team, and multiple test cycles of seasoned QA all through our internal teams, and EA and MS cert teams, and ultimately ended up out to the public.
"To help us avoid similar problems in the future, we're updating all our test plans across all platforms to take additional edge cases into account, as well as committing to more detailed test passes that will also prevent something like this happening again."
According to BioWare's Chris Priestly, writing last week, the title update introduced "a previously undetected issue that causes specialisation classes to not work correctly". This resulted in the patch being withdrawn along with the Return to Ostagar DLC it was designed to facilitate.
"Short term," Melo continued, "this means another delay across all platforms for the immediate console patches and Return to Ostagar DLC releases as this is a substantial increase in test coverage, and that time is needed to do so and ensure there are no other knock on issues with either the main game, the updates or the DLC."
On the plus side, wrote Melo, "a fix is already in test for the 360 issue and looking very good" and while there's no timeframe for release, the developer has promised to keep watching fans informed via the forum.