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Daily Downtime / ~135MB Patches
stelakkh
Member Posts: 185 Arc User
When considering the things that downtime can do, I think it's important, from a marketing perspective, to understand the minds of your customers.
Now, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm willing to bet there are others who have similar thoughts about what I'm about to say, and both Cryptic and PWE should know it.
The big caveat here is that I am very much a Star Trek fan, and have been so since the original series first aired (yes, I'm among the aged group of players), and why that's important is because of the impact of the downtime.
Even though I'm a big fan of the show, the constant downtimes when I go to play STO have led me to do two things:
1: Go find another game go buy, download and play and give up on STO.
2: Write this e-mail post while the other game downloads.
Given the constant stream of downtime and updates since the launch of LoR (meaning more frequent than the normal constant stream of downtimes with STO, planned or otherwise), I've come to regard the game as something I will play if I have nothing better to do - even though I'm a huge fan of Star Trek.
And the point is that it'd make sense for you guys at Cryptic (and certainly for you money counters at PWE) to get your acts together and fix STO properly.
If it was only down one day, I could see giving that day a miss and then coming back. But people have been complaining for days about the daily "emergency maintenance" and daily ~135MB patches. And, when STO is simply not there every time I'm ready to play, I'll just go find something else - which is exactly what I've done (and you can be it's not Neverwinter - since it has the same developer and publisher, I have no reason to believe it won't face the same problems).
Note that this is not an "I quit" post. This is a "You are driving your customers away, and you need to know that" post. This is a, "You need to realize that the Star Trek name will only help you so far before people start walking away, and you need to seriously address that" post.
My suggestion? If things bug on Tribble, don't release until they're fixed. Consider the quality of the game and customer satisfaction with it over a deadline.
Finding bugs and dealing with them before a patch goes live is what Tribble is for, isn't it?
Fix things before you go live. The issue of patrol missions not progressing? That was bugged on Tribble before LoR released - and yet you let it go live. That's the kind of thing that should be handled on Tribble and not let go to Holodeck - because every time you have "emergency maintenance," you run the risk of driving yet another customer to someone else's game. It's certainly driven me to another company's game.
I thought you should know that's happening because of the daily downtime and/or patching, in case you weren't already aware.
Now, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm willing to bet there are others who have similar thoughts about what I'm about to say, and both Cryptic and PWE should know it.
The big caveat here is that I am very much a Star Trek fan, and have been so since the original series first aired (yes, I'm among the aged group of players), and why that's important is because of the impact of the downtime.
Even though I'm a big fan of the show, the constant downtimes when I go to play STO have led me to do two things:
1: Go find another game go buy, download and play and give up on STO.
2: Write this e-mail post while the other game downloads.
Given the constant stream of downtime and updates since the launch of LoR (meaning more frequent than the normal constant stream of downtimes with STO, planned or otherwise), I've come to regard the game as something I will play if I have nothing better to do - even though I'm a huge fan of Star Trek.
And the point is that it'd make sense for you guys at Cryptic (and certainly for you money counters at PWE) to get your acts together and fix STO properly.
If it was only down one day, I could see giving that day a miss and then coming back. But people have been complaining for days about the daily "emergency maintenance" and daily ~135MB patches. And, when STO is simply not there every time I'm ready to play, I'll just go find something else - which is exactly what I've done (and you can be it's not Neverwinter - since it has the same developer and publisher, I have no reason to believe it won't face the same problems).
Note that this is not an "I quit" post. This is a "You are driving your customers away, and you need to know that" post. This is a, "You need to realize that the Star Trek name will only help you so far before people start walking away, and you need to seriously address that" post.
My suggestion? If things bug on Tribble, don't release until they're fixed. Consider the quality of the game and customer satisfaction with it over a deadline.
Finding bugs and dealing with them before a patch goes live is what Tribble is for, isn't it?
Fix things before you go live. The issue of patrol missions not progressing? That was bugged on Tribble before LoR released - and yet you let it go live. That's the kind of thing that should be handled on Tribble and not let go to Holodeck - because every time you have "emergency maintenance," you run the risk of driving yet another customer to someone else's game. It's certainly driven me to another company's game.
I thought you should know that's happening because of the daily downtime and/or patching, in case you weren't already aware.
![http://uileag.com/STO/STODeath.jpg[/SIGPIC]](http://uileag.com/STO/STODeath.jpg[/SIGPIC]){kind=link}
Actual Join Date: August, 2008
Post edited by stelakkh on
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It's been that way since Open Beta, even though it's never been officially stated. And that means it's been that way for 3 years...
I do agree with your post on some level, but it's not likely to happen
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Despite my "join date" due to forum resets, my original join date is August, 2008. Believe me, I know what it's been like, because I've been around since Beta, too.
It's time Crytpic got its act together because they're driving customers away - and PWE (more than Cryptic) ought to know that. That's pretty much my only point.
And back to Tribble - Tribble was for bugs. Redshirt was for bugs. Does it matter which one was for game-breakers? They had not one but two test servers at one point, and STILL couldn't get it right.
And you're right. It's not likely to happen - unless someone at PWE wakes up and makes Cryptic step up to the plate as developers. That, sadly, is not likely to happen, either.
Pre Pakled Worlds take over most bugs pointed out on Tribble were fixed before release so there was less problems when a season launched. Since PWE it's been push anything out the door faster then hell to meet demand and don't worry we'll try to fix it later... Guess which worked better???
On top of that, I'm not on unlimited data, that's a rare thing in my country so I am on a data cap and to download patch after patch after patch ever day with no bug fixes?? I would rather s... got fixed and download a patch then nothing getting fixed and the same broken stuff continuing with patch after patch after patch...
***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
My internet sucks, and it takes me on average about 30 minutes for this small patch. And i have to do this daily?? funny how there are no release notes saying what this mysterious patch is all about. C'mon cryptic.. there has to be a better way.
It's apparent that they just don't care at Cryptic (I mean, let's be honest - that's been apparent since Beta).
My guess would be that they have successfully identified what part of the game is malfunctioning, but are not certain as how to fix, and the daily patches are their process of elimination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpfbJLLbczs
Although I understand the need for working on back-end problems (server maintenance/improvements) before game-play issues, the fact is, most of this should have been done by now.
They knew there would be an influx of people, it happens with every major episode/release. They should have been prepared for it, but in fact they were less than prepared due to resource drain by NW. Horrible decision, or amateur mistake, take your pick...neither looks favorably on the boys upstairs.
As for the bugs, most of them were reported many weeks ago on Tribble, and obviously ignored to rush the dateline. Perhaps they should have postponed the lockbox and focused a bit more for the may21st content. Not to mention test the migration a little better to catch the many many new bugs that popped up when it was applied to Holodeck. Again, amateurish decision.
Then add on top of that the Mail limit issue, which they tried to sneak in under the radar, and giggled about it later. Not to mention anything else they are sneaking in to the game in these mysterious non-patch patches. Seriously, do you think your customer base are idiots? Did you think for a second we won't find this stuff out? Do you think we will gripe less after the fact than at a pre-enforced notice? No, it makes it worse. The only thing this shows is that A> you have completely ceased in taking player input in making large scale game decisions, and B> you have no grasp on actual gameplay. That much is obvious, and that's a horrible combination to have as a developer.
The Players are telling you what's wrong. Hell, sometimes, they tell you how to fix it.
The Players are ignored, and quite frankly, feeling a bit abused.
The Players are leaving, and spreading the word.
The Star Trek franchise name is being degraded faster by you than Abrams can do it.
And no, another cash grab for something shiny isn't working this time.
For Cryptic, it's Atari, then PWE... and I imagine we could find more examples in our business lives. They [Cryptic] can only do so much with the situation. That's been my opinion since Open Beta, and it hasn't changed now
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Thanks.
perhaps you are barking up the wrong tree perhaps you should be firing off e mails to PWE