[color:"orange"]I don't play tons of computer games, but when I do, I always look for the latest patches. I've seen 1.01, even as high as 1.08, but 1.47?!?[/color]
I'm sure you realize there were not 47 patches (the PatchLog.txt file lists all the patches and what was fixed or changed/added). The English version of the game was released at v1.1, then came the 1.2 and 1.3 patches. The second digit was added for smaller updates that were generally released quit soon after the previous patch (the latest version could have been written 1.04.7, which doesn't look nearly as 'bad').
[color:"orange"]And there are still glitches?!?!? Did BD just need a few more months of work?[/color]
Another month or two probably would have helped (as with most games), but release dates are set based on estimations which are notoriously had to predict for large software programs. For example, the BF took more time than originally planned for, and at one point the Larians stated that the BF quests might not make it into the final game. In this case the publisher agreed to extend the release to re-do the voices and incorporate other feedback from the demo, but this didn't really add much extra time for other things.
Even with unlimited time, however, a reasonable number of beta testers can not find every problem. There is always going to be some combination of things or out of order sequence that nobody thought to try. Also, the testing is done on a limited number of computers with a limited combination of drivers and background programs, so it is impossible to find all potential conflicts and system related technical problems.
Any change has the potential to directly or indirectly cause unexpected problems somewhere else. In the case of a cosmetic problem, such as the BF fog of war sometimes being reset, the amount of work that would be required to fix the problem may not be worth the effort. The issue may require significant changes or changes to a lot of places, which would require testing. These changes may cause other problems, or break code that was not touched, which would then need to be fixed and everything tested again. Even for more serious but uncommon problems, there comes a point when the benefits of fixing the bug are outweighed by the potential to cause other critical or more widespread issues.
