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breaking things and neglecting to fix them
uhglok
Member Posts: 20 Arc User
i find it sad that they break things and neglect to fix them i mean look at all the bugs in the random queues we do that they have known of for some time yet nothing is done about them. instead they force folks to experience the frustration and aggravation of dealing with them on a continual basis to me it is very poor customer service and a lack of concern for the peoples playing experience they bestow upon us. we get excuses or lies but never fixes. anyways i just find it disheartening 
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I get your point is that the game is "free", but a game is never "free" even though you might not pay actual dollars. For someone who claims to know the industry, your post is pretty ignorant.
As customers you have the right to complain about the product (rotten apples, unfixed bugs). Why these issues are present is none of the customers' concern. That's for the company to figure out. There are always reasons why tickets get left behind, but again, why should the players care? This is not some sort of voluntary beta test, it's a finished product and business.
2nd yes customers can complain regardless but if your going to be ignorant to the reason why they may have trouble fixing every bug and glitch than don't be surprised that your complaints fall on deaf ears, or that you don't get regular updates on how things are going as you wouldn't care regardless as you pretty much stated.
3rd customers should care because you will get better communication from the developer if you don't just sound like a ignorant baby throwing their toys out the pram. Show a level of understanding and not only will you be more likely to recieve updates but you will spend alot less time wasting in forums being angry at the devs.
But ofcourse again its your perogative to be ignorant or not. But it only says more about the customer who choices ignorance than it does the free to play game that you choosing to play.
Yes ofcourse they are going to try to persuade you to buy things as that's the only way they make money however there is no pay wall you can't pass simply by playing the game, even their premium currency can be earned by other players taking advantage of other players desire to spend their money vs time.
2. 'Free to play' does not mean the company does not earn any revenue from the game to properly maintain the game like any 'not free to play' game.
3. Having bug is common (I agree) does not mean the bugs should not be fixed in timely manner. Keyword: timely.
4. Nobody said it would be bug free. All program has bug. The so call 'bug free' one is just the program's bugs have not been discovered yet.
5. This game is not freeware. 'Free to play' is not freeware. 'Free to play' is a business model to earn money.
6. It is "Cryptic does not maintain the game properly". It is not "because it is 'free-to-play'. Hence, Cryptic does not maintain the game properly".
It is their business model. It is up to them to decide what is best for them. i.e. their bottom line. It is up to us to expect certain thing.
It is up to them to decide if they can fulfil what the players want and expect.
It is up to the players to complain and decide if they should walk away (I am not saying Cryptic cares about it).
By the way, after years of "training", I seldom complain anymore because I have lowered my expectation years ago. I don't expect they can fix bug in timely manner or at all. If they actually do (months or years later), I will just be surprised. However, this does not mean I consider it is okay. I consider complaining is indifferent, pointless and waste of time. Take it or leave it.
Yes it is upto them to decide what they can and can't do and it's up to them to decide what is a 'timely' fix as they are in the position to know what the code looks like, but that's another thing they are always dealing with deadlines that are probably not reasonable if you actually are the people sitting there straining your eyes a going round in loops of quite possibly very messy and out dated coding, all this you can have an idea about if other people look into the job. Instead of just complaining from ignorance.
But now here's another thing if you would agree with me that complaining for the most part is a waste of time than why are you here defending them just curious, I mean to a degree i agree complaining is mostly useless, constructive criticism on the over hand can be useful. Which is another reason i consider recommending gamers get a taste of game development so not only do they know what it takes to fix bugs but also what it takes to create new content as well, might open alot of people's eyes not only to the hardships but also to what is easy or becoming easy so people don't waste £40 on a diablo 4 skin after pay £70-90 for the game (sorry going off on a tangent and unrelated game there)
For me I know bugs are going to always occur, but they will come and go, I know that alot of the developer team who actually doing most of the heavy lifting for cryptic are doing the best they can with the tools they have to work with, from ready their own employee reviews most of the people are good people but often inexperienced, dealing with some pretty junky engines, yes its cryptic need to hire more experienced people and maybe even consider updating alot of there underlying engines, but still no good throwing everyone under the bus. If a bug occurs il report it and maybe discuss it in the forums a bit but I'm not going to whine about and insult all the people working hard to make a pretty good game in my opinion its got its flaws what game doesn't after all.
For the bug part, it is not about new bug from new feature. It is about making bug to the area that was working all along and not in the new area. I am in software development for 40 years. I had my development team and I still do coding. Yes, I fix bug all the time and still do. Cryptic's bug management/testing process is not "common".
I consider complaining is waste of time but it is just my opinion. My opinion is not fact. If others have the energy and time to complain, I defend their action as long as their complaint is valid.
You can give all the excuse to defend Cryptic. As a business, there is no excuse.
Note that: the keyword is Cryptic, the company. To the extent, the management, not the developers, the foot solders.
Yes, bugs should come and go. No, it is not the case in here. I have bugs reported through all channels including support for years. And, multiple responds from dev, etc. No, they were not fixed. No, I don't expect they will be anymore because they have been under the rugs for years and years to come. By the way, they closed the tickets even though they knew and admitted they were not fixed. That was one of the reasons I gave up asking Cryptic to fix them but to inform fellow players ("this is the way it is, tough.") when they encounter them.
By the way, who in this thread said dev are lazy and are liars? I must be missing something.
You stand by players who will complain from a point of ignorance just because you have your own complaints about the company and they don't live up to your personal expectations, claim you don't see the point of complaining but are here complaining aswell I mean I'm sure your not a bad dude but I just don't see how people can complain from a point of ignorance about a free to play game I don't see how if you have worked in coding that you think the company only means the management, I see how much hard work has gone into this game yes there are things I would like fixed yes i understand that the pipeline probably means alot of people are working with certain degrees of hands tied behind backs, I'm not going to start attacking the whole company because a few bugs have been a little more persistent than I'd like, I'm going to ask for things to be fixed, but I would do it constructively as many times as it takes for a good dialogue to be created and without just attacking the company from a point of ignorance. Not say your personally ignorant but again there are players in this thread who clearly are and yes maybe Il point them out tomorrow or maybe il just focus on them as we are clearly at an impass with this discussion.
I did that for years before I gave up. I know I am not worthy by now.
I knew many who were invited to Cryptic inner circle and had direct communication but they also gave up and leave. I think they must be not worthy too.
Many here including myself joined their "brain storming" forum and contributed. We are just not worthy.
- Do you need to be a politician to vote?
- Do you need to know how things are wired to complain to your cable company?
- Do you need to know how to drive a train to sit in one?
You always judge from your perspective and how things affect yourself. There surely are some folks that are more constructive and understanding, but that's always a bonus to a company, never a requirement. Developers constantly hinting at constructive feedback only show that they are overwhelmed with the task at hand. With decent management, you can always extract relevant information and ignore the rest, no matter how bug reports or complaints are phrased. It's a matter of company culture and maturity. I'm not saying community management and support is an easy task, it's not. It requires a thick skin and being able to crawl through the HAMSTER and extract the necessary information to relay to the ticket system.
What developpers consider to be a priority to fix may differ from their hierachy's opinion (which will prevail), and both may also have a very different point of view from what any player may consider to be, usually a bit egoistically, the priority.
I mean, some of us may think a purely decorative object slightly clipping into the ground during the 2 weeks yearly event it appears, or how tall is a companion compared to the "displayed" one in front of the Emporium, are very important things to fix in all haste and before everything else, and go very vocals about it. Others will say the top priority should be fix the yellow HP we get in ToNG that should wear off after we kill Orcus as it was intended and worked originally, because keep it after tends to trivialize the rest of the dungeon. And me who would argue they should do something right now about the "error 36 a file was locked that could not be open for writing" I get even after killing NWN tasks, rebooting the computer, execute NWN.exe as administrator and uninstalled/reinstalled the game.
One of the problem, as gamers, is we don't really know what is top priority for Cryptic (beside fixing crashes and issues linked to Zen Market) and what is not. I wish we had an up-to-date known bug list made public by Cryptic communication, with indication on what they are focusing on for the next batch of fixes (or a list divided in critical/major/minor). But I guess it would be a way too long number of lines :P.
Obvioulsy, having no idea of what is a priority shouldn't prevent us from reporting bugs (critical ones or the most begnin ones) and speaking about the issues those bugs are provoking, but complaining aggressively/menacingly/mock the devs are not really good ways to do that... at all, unless you want to become the Karens of gaming forums :P.
Fwiw I don't think the worst issue is lack of constructive criticism, it's bad reports (OP being a good example here as well not linking or properly describing the issues they are referring to). You need solid repro steps and as much information as possible such as OS version, hardware and account information. Obviously, people are rarely willing to put out this information in the open so what I'd do is a mask / survey for bug reports that gathers the required information for internal purposes but not in the actual forum post. The companies have all the power to give players ways of contributing in a meaningful way.
P.S. I'm not even addressing the fact that people usually feel the need to pay real money to keep up with others in the game and for most of the playerbase, free-to-play does not apply because they're paying customers. We have often said over the years that yes, it is technically correct that it's free-to-play, however you can discuss for days and even weeks on all the reasons it usually isn't a free-to-play model in real terms. Free-to-play is the selling point they use to get people to start playing, but once they do start, they soon find out it's not going to give them a very good game experience. There are outliers to this, some people who swear black and blue they never spent one cent on the game over many years, that's great for them if true, but overall you need to spend to keep up with everyone else and be competitive.
There are pay "customers'. If it does not earn enough money, Gearbox would not spend money to buy the company. The game is no different comparing with any other games in the market. They all have bugs. They all have upset customers. Some games do better and doing things in timely manner. Some games do not. Some games are somewhere in between.