And to be frank, people's arguments that it "sometimes happens" and it's just the way it IS: no sorry, these things don't just happen and it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe in 1995, yeah, maybe it had to be that way and maybe if you used out-of-the box solutions, then sure, it HAD to be that way. But custom built systems with good testing and quality control. In 2015? Well, other than a huge denial of service or catastrophic power failure, sorry, from where I stand, there's little real excuse.
I think you're failing to understand the cost factors behind what you are asking. Could they operate an exact duplicate of the live server environment for testing purposes? Yes. Would testing things there provide a far less likelihood of problems on patch day? Yes.
However, that would require twice as much testing time (Tribble + Holodeck 2 vs. just Tribble) meaning twice as much in QA salary costs. Plus, that would require twice as much live infrastructure costs (hardware + electricity + maintenance personnel costs). Are you and every player in this game willing to spend nearly twice as much as you are now in order to achieve this level of perfection? I'd bet not.
People are willing to pay for a certain level of perfection, if you want more you need to pay a lot more. There's a reason that surgeons get paid so much and that is the patient is willing to pay that much for surgery to receive perfection (which includes not only the surgeon, but a staff of OR professionals and a medical review board, plus the medical insurance that compensates when things do go wrong).
Not to mention that patches and new content would take a lot longer to actually reach the player base.
Please, stop hiding behind excuses. We may expect that we are dealing with professionals (devs) or they supposed to be professionals. A guy that screws it up in any large production, gets the blame. If he does it several times, he is being fired. A surgyn has only one shot to do it correct, and his proffession is far more complicated then IT. Yet, it's always this IT sector, especially the gaming branch of it, that is hiding their own TRIBBLE ups behind excuses like: "Stuff happens, Bugs are a part of software, It's common to software, No user-system is the same, blah blah blah, nag nag nag ...". Grow a pair, get a spine and pick up your responsibility and get some pride out of your work.
Have you considered that they are telling the truth? Have you ever done what they do? Computer code is a very sensitive system.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
For one time i'd like to see a reasonable and plausible explanation of how a prepared, checked and quality tested patch on your internal server turns into an ant farm when you release it to the Holodeck almost every time there's a maintenance. Unless it's none of the above -.-
For one I'd like to see a reasonable and plausible explanation of how people can think they know how something works but clearly doesn't. Have you ever worked on any large production of any kind? Stuff happens...
We haven't had an extended maintenance in months...
Please, stop hiding behind excuses. We may expect that we are dealing with professionals (devs) or they supposed to be professionals. A guy that screws it up in any large production, gets the blame. If he does it several times, he is being fired. A surgyn has only one shot to do it correct, and his proffession is far more complicated then IT. Yet, it's always this IT sector, especially the gaming branch of it, that is hiding their own TRIBBLE ups behind excuses like: "Stuff happens, Bugs are a part of software, It's common to software, No user-system is the same, blah blah blah, nag nag nag ...". Grow a pair, get a spine and pick up your responsibility and get some pride out of your work.
Well, they are software professionals, and the life and work of software professionals is not the same of a cabinetmaker or a charwoman. In the work of software development, you don't get fired just because there is a problem during release, unless there are really extraordinary circumstances, like gross negligence or malice. You get asked to fix the problem ASAP, learn your lesson so this problem doesn't pop up ever again. And it usually doesn't. But there are so many other things to go wrong that you will never cover them all, and the skill required of you is to deal with it the moment it pops up swiftly, efficiently and effectively - as the problem allows.
And let's not even talk about big real world non-software projects that get delayed for months or years...
Mustrum "Berlin Airport" Ridcully
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Wie dit leest is gek en kan nederlands of google:p
lol
Nou serious. Als eerst zeggen ze dat het tot half 6 en nu duurt dat tot half 11. Dan lig ik al lang in bed omdat ik morgen weer moet werken
waar en ik moet morgen weer naar school en heb daar al zoizo geen zin in dus ik dacht kom laat ik star trek online spelen maar nee TRIBBLE er is maarweer een nieuwere versie en dan gaat er ook nog iets mis ook
Thanks for the update, @pwlaughingtrendy . Send the release team some coffee for us, to fuel the frantic scramble. Better a delay now than broken maps all week.
Wie dit leest is gek en kan nederlands of google:p
lol
Nou serious. Als eerst zeggen ze dat het tot half 6 en nu duurt dat tot half 11. Dan lig ik al lang in bed omdat ik morgen weer moet werken
waar en ik moet morgen weer naar school en heb daar al zoizo geen zin in dus ik dacht kom laat ik star trek online spelen maar nee TRIBBLE er is maarweer een nieuwere versie en dan gaat er ook nog iets mis ook
Naja. Dat had ik in de gaten.
ok in ieder geval als de server niet optijd is met opstarten wens ik je al fast veel geluk met je werk morgen
For one I'd like to see a reasonable and plausible explanation of how people can think they know how something works but clearly doesn't. Have you ever worked on any large production of any kind? Stuff happens...
I actually do work and build large production environments of various kinds and my server farm(s) and underlying infrastructure work well because if they failed so often i'd be out on my xyz and homeless, but it looks like I have a lot of time to play STO and other stuff, so I must be doing something right.
Well, is their infrastructure actually having problems? I received the usual software patch, for example, and I got he notice that the game server is not running in my launcher. Seems to work just fine. How is Neverwinter and Champions doing right now?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Thanks for the update, @pwlaughingtrendy . Send the release team some coffee for us, to fuel the frantic scramble. Better a delay now than broken maps all week.
coffee? send them some speed... or a cattleprod...
For one time i'd like to see a reasonable and plausible explanation of how a prepared, checked and quality tested patch on your internal server turns into an ant farm when you release it to the Holodeck almost every time there's a maintenance. Unless it's none of the above -.-
For one I'd like to see a reasonable and plausible explanation of how people can think they know how something works but clearly doesn't. Have you ever worked on any large production of any kind? Stuff happens...
We haven't had an extended maintenance in months...
Please, stop hiding behind excuses. We may expect that we are dealing with professionals (devs) or they supposed to be professionals. A guy that screws it up in any large production, gets the blame. If he does it several times, he is being fired. A surgyn has only one shot to do it correct, and his proffession is far more complicated then IT. Yet, it's always this IT sector, especially the gaming branch of it, that is hiding their own TRIBBLE ups behind excuses like: "Stuff happens, Bugs are a part of software, It's common to software, No user-system is the same, blah blah blah, nag nag nag ...". Grow a pair, get a spine and pick up your responsibility and get some pride out of your work.
Hi,
When a word is underlined, it generally indicates that a word is spelled incorrectly. (surgyn,proffession)
I don't wanna be the spelling police or anything, but usually you're not on the highest ground here when you criticize another's performance given your's is especially lacking.
You extend the downtime till 20:30 CET? Seriously?
Is it asking for too much, for you to utilize more than one braincell, when setting times for maintainance?
Whoever is responsible for the timing is really synonymous for "terrible". Epic fail.
The team is extending our maintenance window to 11:30 as we test out a new fix for the map issue.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! realy my day of freedom is olmoost gone and i dont like this boel pizza AND I WANNE PLAY srry for the caps but I JUST WANNE PLAY
Thanks for the update, @pwlaughingtrendy . Send the release team some coffee for us, to fuel the frantic scramble. Better a delay now than broken maps all week.
coffee? send them some speed... or a cattleprod...
LOL! Yeah, that's definitely an option, but what kind of bug fix do you get when the dev's on speed? Or worse yet jerking around madly?
i really wish u guys moved up the maint times by 6h or so, so u wouldnt affect the majority of the european players.
It has been said time and time again. The time chosen for maintenance is the quietest time for the game in terms of population. No matter what time they chose, someone is going to be unhappy, hence they chose this time!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Comments
I think you're failing to understand the cost factors behind what you are asking. Could they operate an exact duplicate of the live server environment for testing purposes? Yes. Would testing things there provide a far less likelihood of problems on patch day? Yes.
However, that would require twice as much testing time (Tribble + Holodeck 2 vs. just Tribble) meaning twice as much in QA salary costs. Plus, that would require twice as much live infrastructure costs (hardware + electricity + maintenance personnel costs). Are you and every player in this game willing to spend nearly twice as much as you are now in order to achieve this level of perfection? I'd bet not.
People are willing to pay for a certain level of perfection, if you want more you need to pay a lot more. There's a reason that surgeons get paid so much and that is the patient is willing to pay that much for surgery to receive perfection (which includes not only the surgeon, but a staff of OR professionals and a medical review board, plus the medical insurance that compensates when things do go wrong).
Not to mention that patches and new content would take a lot longer to actually reach the player base.
EDIT: removed extra quote tag to fix formatting
Have you considered that they are telling the truth? Have you ever done what they do? Computer code is a very sensitive system.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
And let's not even talk about big real world non-software projects that get delayed for months or years...
Mustrum "Berlin Airport" Ridcully
but then it would affect all of a different timezone's players.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Naja. Dat had ik in de gaten.
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/12778507/#Comment_12778507
Trendy, can they blow up the concerned map to solve the problem or is this a planet in the "don't blow it up, ever" list?
ok in ieder geval als de server niet optijd is met opstarten wens ik je al fast veel geluk met je werk morgen
...#LLAP...
Man... that blows
The players in GMT+2-> are losing one day to get the mirror event filled, are you going to extend it by one day to compensate for that?
Hi,
When a word is underlined, it generally indicates that a word is spelled incorrectly. (surgyn,proffession)
I don't wanna be the spelling police or anything, but usually you're not on the highest ground here when you criticize another's performance given your's is especially lacking.
Is it asking for too much, for you to utilize more than one braincell, when setting times for maintainance?
Whoever is responsible for the timing is really synonymous for "terrible". Epic fail.
It has been said time and time again. The time chosen for maintenance is the quietest time for the game in terms of population. No matter what time they chose, someone is going to be unhappy, hence they chose this time!
Maintenance comes every week, 52 weeks a year. Why is there always someone who is surprised by this?
--Red Annorax