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rapierwhip
Posts: 125 Arc User
Ok, this really has gone just a WEEEE bit too far. I think the Cryptic team as a whole needs to put all new development on the back burner for about a month, maybe two and iron out many of the bugs. Yes, every department, because there's not a single area of this game including art that doesn't have multiple bugs that need to be fixed. I don't think I need to go into depth on all of them, most of them have been outlined here on the forums and I'm fairly certain all of them would have been reported through the in-game bug report system... if that weren't bugged as well.
Stop and put your house in order. Stop developing new systems (like the vehicles, yes, I want them as much as anyone but STOP!) until you get the existing systems at the very least operating moderately well. Do a little cleaning up and call in an exterminator because the bugs are taking over.
Stop and put your house in order. Stop developing new systems (like the vehicles, yes, I want them as much as anyone but STOP!) until you get the existing systems at the very least operating moderately well. Do a little cleaning up and call in an exterminator because the bugs are taking over.
The Forumite formerly known as Galeforce.
If you want my money, there is a fairly simple way to get it since I am fairly free with how I spend it. First, produce something I consider to be worth buying. Second, offer it up for sale. Don't lock it behind a gambling scam. If I want something, I am perfectly happy to pay for it. But I will not purchase a CHANCE to get it, When I pay money, I have a perfectly logical right to expect to get what I want.
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The problem is that cryptics goal isn't fun. It's Money.
But it's okay because they are a company.
GASP
can it be?!
someone speaking some sense!
Also, more sense:
The people who fix the bugs are not the same people who make systems or art or any of the new content.
The people that fix the bugs just fix the bugs.
And believe it or not, the development team can work on more than just one thing at a time. Why, while the art team is working on new assets, the bug fixers can also be going down their lists of glitches to fix, while at the same time a team is also making a new set of UI's.
Madness, isn't it, that a company made up of several different people can coordinate their efforts to get multiple things done at the same time.
All sarcasm aside, the entire development team does not need to stop what their doing just to fix bugs. That's not everyone's job. And don't say something trite like, "Well it should be", because that's not how things work. And frankly, the bug team has been working like crazy to get everything fixed. This is why we have so many frequent updates, each on trying to make things a little better (despite oft times breaking other things unexpectedly).
This is just how games like this work. Be patient, keep playing, and report any new oddities whenever you come across them.
Just like the janitor at a high school can't fill in for the physics teacher when he/she falls behind simply because they work for the same school a Costume Artist or Environmental Artist can't just fill in for a QA team member to get them caught up either.
That's not to say that CO can't use more QA members on its team, but the hiring of such people is based on the budget and income - and most of CO's income comes from C-Store items created by, well you know: the people some want to stop and work on the QA team.
Have any of you played any MMOs without bugs in them? I know I haven't. I've played Allods Online, Ragnarok Online, World of ******** and many other MMOs. There will always be bugs because everytime something is patch, two more are discovered. It's not like normal games, especially since MMOs have to keep pumping out more content to bring in more costumers.
More content = more money.
More money = the guys who do fix the bugs getting paid.
The bugs are just more noticeable in free to play MMOs because their not large companies like Blizzard is.
So you think that the people who create the Vehicle and Nighthawk Stuff just can do whatever
they want and don't have to care if they totally screw up the whole game, and after that
they just say : Hey Bug Guy .. i've just created 1000 bugs ... no go fix it ?
Especially since its always harder to hunt down bugs in code that other people made than
in your own code, its a little hard to believe for me. But reality of course shows that it
maybe works that way here, and Bug Guy is on vacation :rolleyes:
Just wanted to chime in with something that I have recently discovered about this game(still finding out new things after almost 4 years with it. Gotta love it!)
The game suffers from the same weakness as the Windows OS: Namely Bloat and Computer Rot. The code has been patched, altered and updated SOOO often that it just needs to be cleaned out occasionally as part of your regular CO housekeeping.
1)Backup your Screenshots folder
2)Delete the Live Folder
3)Log back into the game
4)You will download the ENTIRE game fresh from the servers
I did this two days ago when my game had become a completely unplayable mess of glitches, lags, rubber-banding, and CDT's.
After cleaning house about 90% of those problems were solved and have not recurred since.
This is far from a perfect solution and will not help everyone, but it is another option for those who have tried everything else and are not getting a response to their bug tickets.
Hope this helps.
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'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.' Terry Pratchet The Thief Of Time
Oh, and that "bug team"... The "bug team" is actually just responsible for finding and identifying bugs, which then get sent back to the appropriate development team for correction because the development team which made the system in the first place would know much more about fixing it than someone who was not in on the design phase. And in a crew this small, the "bug team" is often one or two people. So, sorry, but the whole team needs to be in on this bug pass.
The Forumite formerly known as Galeforce.
If you want my money, there is a fairly simple way to get it since I am fairly free with how I spend it. First, produce something I consider to be worth buying. Second, offer it up for sale. Don't lock it behind a gambling scam. If I want something, I am perfectly happy to pay for it. But I will not purchase a CHANCE to get it, When I pay money, I have a perfectly logical right to expect to get what I want.
/signed
Flare's guide to hosting and judging costume contests!
(link under construction)
But unfortunately, if that's how they think, that 'lets push broken shinies for immediate sales' attitude, that's what goes down regardless of whether it's a spiraling disaster or not. Not saying it is, but not saying it isn't either. But then while the game keeps rolling, the benefit of the doubt is technically on the 'isn't' side. Which is the benefit of an optimist in this situation: no one can really prove them wrong until it all goes to complete shizzies.
Doesn't matter - short-term thinking is the world standard and it rarely changes even temporarily. But you never know...
I suppose all the gear and role changes was a huuuuuge long-term decision that probably cost a lot in the temporary. I remember how dead and mopey it was right before. 'What does it matter with what's going on in the PTS', basically. But it seems that it was a decision for improved quality, regardless of whether they succeeded or not...
They seem to have permeated all aspects of this game. For instance, I'm doing this levelling competition thing at the moment:
I haven't been able to level crafting into the 20's (I mean in skill points - i.e. 20/400) and due to time constraints that doesn't look like changing soon. Reason? Nodes don't grant skill ups. Fusions don't always grant skillups.
Lemuria is apparently bugged so I'm going to have to skip that zone, which despite its' quirks, was still a good place to quickly get three or so levels.
The Nemesis system! Damn, this is one of the dot points of the game, one of the things you mention when you are trying to pull in fresh blood. But it's had bugs since March, and on top of that a whole load of new ones since the patch last week.
Costume creator still has some bugs but this must be one of the areas being focused on as it's not as glaringly apparent.
Seems like the most efficient way to level is grind on orange and red mobs while waiting for some of the Smash alerts with non-bugged bosses. That can't be by design, surely?
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
Or start a kickstarter to pay off the bug-chaser team.
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
Lemuria itself, or just the Crisis ? I never ever did the Crisis since it was always buggy but
at least you can simply skip it.
Honestly, there are so many bugs that, individually, do not qualify as "game breaking" but when looked at as part of a whole should.
The Forumite formerly known as Galeforce.
If you want my money, there is a fairly simple way to get it since I am fairly free with how I spend it. First, produce something I consider to be worth buying. Second, offer it up for sale. Don't lock it behind a gambling scam. If I want something, I am perfectly happy to pay for it. But I will not purchase a CHANCE to get it, When I pay money, I have a perfectly logical right to expect to get what I want.
Depends on the company, and how their process works.
QA people don't need to be developers. They do need a lot of technical knowledge, but equally (or more) important is their ability to locate and analyze problems. If the QA peeps are developers, then they can look at the code and point out where the problems are, but they shouldn't be the ones fixing things.
There should be clear separation of responsibilities. One group of folks writes it (whether it's new code or code fixes), a different group of folks tests the heck out of it, sending problems back to the first group to be fixed as necessary, before it gets put onto the PTS or even the live servers.
You can rotate responsibilities, keep everyone fresh and interested in the job.
If the development team(s) and the art team(s) are pumping out crap and creating problems much faster than the bug fixing team(s) can address them, then there's a huge problem. It means the development process is broken.
A broken development process leads to revenue loss and revenue loss leads to having no development process at all because there's not enough business to support the job.
So new development needs to stop while they get their house in order. Getting the house in order involves massive and rapid work to fix what's out there to retain current customers.
There is no patience when it comes to this market. The only folks that will be patient are the die hard fans, but the die hard fans aren't necessarily going to be a large enough group to pay the bills and keep things going during the bad times. There are enough other games (in general) around that players won't stick with a product that is buggy. Players also read message boards, so word of mouth for the problems with a game not only spread fast, this bad new lingers since whatever is posted to the internet is there forever. So the best solution is a quick response and bug smash, which means all hands on deck to make things better to minimize the damage.
Once the house is in order, then the new content can start rolling again. If the new content isn't bug filled madness, then peeps will start to regain confidence in the company again. More/new peeps will come to the game, and stay, and the revenues will increase because current word of mouth will actually be good. However, the growth will be slow, since folks will be leery of a company that was bad previously.
In the game, I'm @Knickknacks.
I have friends and family working at various high end companies working in computing in various ways.
Some groups in some companies have a distinct, separate QA group with testing processes, other groups in some companies just throw it all together -- you QA your stuff when you have time, or rotate within the group.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
CobaltWolf | ReaX (US East)
The game was certainly not bulletproof. Sure, many of the problems were scripting issues that restarting a mission/instance or changing zones took care of, but there were persistent things like the hiker's horror (before it was moved into the cave instance) and Undead on Arrival that either never worked, or kept breaking.
That said, there wasn't the huge litany of problems/bugs and peeps had more confidence that they were not only trying to address the issues, but that the issues would be resolved. Currently, with two patches that introduced a lot of problems, and other issues that haven't been addressed for months, the feeling isn't there. Even seemingly simple things, like certain costumes introduced with On Alert not being account wide, are left to linger and erode customer confidence.
In the game, I'm @Knickknacks.