I've about had enough. I've paid out my $70 to play your beta and successfully been shilled into padding your bottom line so your investors don't cancel your project.
We'll call that "TRIBBLE me once". I bought the buggy software. That's a risk you take sometimes, and I can only hope that you have some sense of both integrity and shame and will continue to work to fix the many and potentially fatal flaws this product has. At this point, I'm still unsold as to whether it would be worth it, but I'm *just* barely curious enough still to see what is coming that I *might* subscribe for a month just to see what comes and whether or not I get bored when I get to Admiral - this last is seeming more and more unlikely every day.
What I'm definitely not going to do, on the other hand, is continue to pay you on a monthly basis for a game I can't play, all because of your inability to hire people who:
1.) Can write decent code out of the gate and then ensure it is tested properly and thoroughly prior to implementation, nor do enough critical thinking to determine if the product they are developing is consistent with and appropriate to the intellectual property it is being applied to.
2.) Understand and can implement server administration, management and maintenance best practices as is appropriate for a mission-critical high-availability global computing environment. If you scoff at the wording of this statement, you don't understand the implications of it: anyone who has ever been a firewall engineer for a major telecom or a network administrator in a steel mill or hospital, however, knows exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm not going to harp on the code. I work in IT, I've been involved in game development, and yes more than just 8-bit or flash or java games. I get that writing a game this complex is hard, and code evolves. However if you can't manage to write code that isn't flawed, learn to test it better. If you can't even test it better than you do, we come to point 2:
Without a doubt, TRIBBLE me twice. Not only twice, but more or less daily.
I get home from work and am sitting down at my computer to game around 0800 UTC. This means I can basically do one mission, maybe two if I bust my chops, before you down the server pretty much daily, all because you can't write or test code properly - and this assumes the server is even up at all, or if it is, it presumes that I can connect to it because the game launcher is a stinking webpage and your website is down.
I'm not going to lecture you on best management practices nor server load balancing and how to adequately design and build a zero-downtime computing cluster: I get paid for that and at this point you haven't given me enough content or enjoyment for me to volunteer any of my expertise. I WILL guarantee you, however, that unless you move to a single, at most weekly, update for anything that isn't going to crash the server AND at the very least start rotating the maintenance window so you're not TRIBBLE me over every time I get a chance to play, I won't be paying you any more money - at this point I don't even know how much use I'd have if you offered me a free month, because as it stands I'd be lucky if i got to play for 20 hours over the course of that month - I expect rather more from any recurring gaming expenditure, regardless of how inconsequential the total expenditure might seem.
I'm simply not going to pay you any more money for a game you keep kicking me off of on a daily basis all because you can't get your act together. I don't want to hear any TRIBBLE about it being a new game or barely out of beta (it IS a beta, no argument to the contrary will be accepted), or how MMO's are hard: if you don't make MMO's for a living I guarantee I know more about it than you do, and if you do make MMO's for a living, you should both know and expect better. I don't want any excuses about how managing servers is hard. I want you to get your act together and at least let me play game I purchased during the free month I was offered with it and you're not delivering: what is to make me think next month will be any different. You're terribly uncommunicative to and unresponsive with your community and its needs thus far and as of now I have no reason to believe you will do anything other than continue to deliver what is not only a sub-par product, but one I can't even access half the time because you apparently aren't content until you've managed to fail in every possible way. The other areas you've failed in that have already been discussed extensively on these forums are all bad enough, and in and of themselves made me question whether I wanted to subscribe for the first month. The fact that I've had tickets open for days that still show as new (I have 30 minutes to action any ticket that comes up in my departments queue) shows a distressing lack of concern on your part. The fact that the one ticket I actually got a reply to was a flat refusal on your part to fix or make up for another failure on your part was just insulting. Being kicked off the server every time I get a chance to play is like being kicked in the groin and then teabagged.
There's not going to be a third time. Unless you give me a real reason believe you're getting your act together, as well as some compensation for the service I was sold and have never received, when my month is up, I'm out - I can find other games to play that don't want my money on a monthly basis or will at least deliver on their service promises. Maybe I'll resubscribe to EVE for the first time in 2 or 3 years, or play CitiesXL, which while also an amazing failure whose online component has summarily been disabled, at least I can play it whenever I want and not at the whim of someones incompetence. If this is your play to keep me from getting to Admiral too fast and getting bored, you've failed - it's looking less and less likely that I'll ever even make it to Admiral in the first place because I can't even play.
does the environment you work in, for you to "understand computing clusters" and MMO code have a full scale test set up, of the exact same size and capability as the live systems, on which you can simulate the amount of connections and random events that the live systems may experience?
because if you do, you're the exception rather than the rule.
if you work with this kind of technology you should know better. you should know that no matter how much you test you cant replicate what could happen on the live systems. you cant predict what several thousand users may do perfectly, you cant predict with 100% certainty what might happen when you scale up the code from the smaller test rigs to the larger live systems. all you can do is smooth out the ones you do find and deal with the ones that crop up.
you say you get 30 minutes in which to respond to any ticket that appears on your queue. how large is this department? is your userbase in the thousands? have you just launched an entirely new product to those thousands of users? how many of your tickets are something simple that doesnt really need your intervention, but you have to acknowledge it anyway because its been submitted? how much of your time does that take up when it happens?
i'm not trivialising your complaints here. you expected a level of service and your not seeing that level. its your right to decide if you wish to carry on paying for something when you feel you should be treated better than you feel you are.
all i'm saying is you cant compare your own personal situation to this one directly, which is what you appear to be doing. Unless your a cryptic employee working on this game.. (which would be utterly bizarre to be honest!)
so while i dont dispute your feelings, or your feeling of anger at your perception of how things are going, all i am saying is there's another side to this which you seem to be completely ignoring.
Ah, so Cryptic's server maintenance conflicts with this guys available play time...
Why the **** did it take a novel sized post to say that?
hahahah.
Yeah i can Sympathize with the OP and hope cryptic hear the plea and its ok saying its maintainence go do sumit else but if its daily an always in the time you have free to play it would get you mad too.
Non-emergency server downtimes should be staggered to not TRIBBLE over any time zone constantly.
Emergency downtimes obviously can't be.
They look at the time when the least people are playing and do the maintenance then. The stagger plan has the potential to **** off tons more people then it currently does.
They look at the time when the least people are playing and do the maintenance then. The stagger plan has the potential to **** off tons more people then it currently does.
But less frequently, which was my goal. I don't personally want a 7PM downtime for the eastern US, but if it was once every two months I could live with it.
TL;DR version: Game is buggy, Servers are laggy and he doesn't want to pay his subscription as a result.
As for non-ermergency time zones, as I've demonstrated in a pervious post, you can get a two hour down time that fits in with all time zones on all but weekends. Taken down at 11 p.m. (U.S.) PST, comming back up at 8 p.m. EST (Australia).
But less frequently, which was my goal. I don't personally want a 7PM downtime for the eastern US, but if it was once every two months I could live with it.
Oh, well yeah, the frequency will go down. At least I hope.
Look, here's what you do. You stick your head in side a box with a big disco globe of flashing colors and then get out your keyboard and hit the spacebar over and over eleventy billion times.
I fear thee may arouse the wrath of the Q. Fear his coming for he shall make thee wear a pink too-too and green tights while showing your plumbers crack to the world as you dance around doing your best impression of the nut-cracker prince while being chased by a midget in drag on a tri-cycle with a cattle prod.
Look, here's what you do. You stick your head in side a box with a big disco globe of flashing colors and then get out your keyboard and hit the spacebar over and over eleventy billion times.
You'll get the same experience.
It's only the same experience if you get someone to whine at you about something unrelated whenever you talk.
They look at the time when the least people are playing and do the maintenance then. The stagger plan has the potential to **** off tons more people then it currently does.
well no **** sherlock ... if the servers are done at roughly the same time most days its only natural that less people play during that period
Regardless of the impact the maintenance has to the number of players online the simple fact is that most players are not available to play at that time. That being said it makes perfect sense to do maintenance at that time due to the lower number of players affected by the down time. And I do appreciate the effort put forth by the sto dev team to lessen the overall down time by trying to turn lemons to lemonade and doing the scheduled maintenance during the server crashes we have experienced.
well no **** sherlock ... if the servers are done at roughly the same time most days its only natural that less people play during that period
Let me clarify. They look at trends before planning a time to move forward with ongoing scheduled maintenance. They look for the time with the least players and say "hey, going forward lets plan this time for our scheduled maintenance so we can tick off the fewest people".
I wasn't saying fewer people are playing during down time as IT IS DOWN TIME.
Considering that scheduled maintenance is only 2 hours, that leaves about another 166 hours during the week to find some time to play. You'll never see staggered maintenance since they do it now at the time the least number of players are on.
Torem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.
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De wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Ram liber tempor *** soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Torem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.
Luis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
De wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Ram liber tempor *** soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Latin? or at least that's what few words I remember from school way back when are telling me, I can pick out something about time, individual works and not working and a few other things- consequences...
It was a response to the OP in the same vein as the OP; read the first letter of each paragraph. ^_^
The "latin" is called Lorum Ipsum text, its commonly used as filler text to take up space... the words mean stuff individually, but there may or may not be any coherent sentences in that gibberish.
It was a response to the OP in the same vein as the OP; read the first letter of each paragraph. ^_^
The "latin" is called Lorum Ipsum text, its commonly used as filler text to take up space... the words mean stuff individually, but there may or may not be any coherent sentences in that gibberish.
Bleh, you were a lot cooler when I thought you had laid out some smackdown in Latin:D:D:D
Comments
Sound about right?
I mean, there's a ton of other things you ranted at random about in there, but, essentially, that's it?
And yeah it seems it's about maintainance more or less.
Why the **** did it take a novel sized post to say that?
because if you do, you're the exception rather than the rule.
if you work with this kind of technology you should know better. you should know that no matter how much you test you cant replicate what could happen on the live systems. you cant predict what several thousand users may do perfectly, you cant predict with 100% certainty what might happen when you scale up the code from the smaller test rigs to the larger live systems. all you can do is smooth out the ones you do find and deal with the ones that crop up.
you say you get 30 minutes in which to respond to any ticket that appears on your queue. how large is this department? is your userbase in the thousands? have you just launched an entirely new product to those thousands of users? how many of your tickets are something simple that doesnt really need your intervention, but you have to acknowledge it anyway because its been submitted? how much of your time does that take up when it happens?
i'm not trivialising your complaints here. you expected a level of service and your not seeing that level. its your right to decide if you wish to carry on paying for something when you feel you should be treated better than you feel you are.
all i'm saying is you cant compare your own personal situation to this one directly, which is what you appear to be doing. Unless your a cryptic employee working on this game.. (which would be utterly bizarre to be honest!)
so while i dont dispute your feelings, or your feeling of anger at your perception of how things are going, all i am saying is there's another side to this which you seem to be completely ignoring.
fairly sure the butler did it in the wardroom with a candlestick..................
hahahah.
Yeah i can Sympathize with the OP and hope cryptic hear the plea and its ok saying its maintainence go do sumit else but if its daily an always in the time you have free to play it would get you mad too.
Emergency downtimes obviously can't be.
They look at the time when the least people are playing and do the maintenance then. The stagger plan has the potential to **** off tons more people then it currently does.
But less frequently, which was my goal. I don't personally want a 7PM downtime for the eastern US, but if it was once every two months I could live with it.
As for non-ermergency time zones, as I've demonstrated in a pervious post, you can get a two hour down time that fits in with all time zones on all but weekends. Taken down at 11 p.m. (U.S.) PST, comming back up at 8 p.m. EST (Australia).
Oh, well yeah, the frequency will go down. At least I hope.
You'll get the same experience.
A couple hours of downtime here and there is understandable. And I have seen worse after major patches in WoW, especially since WotLK.
Or you could just delete the thread yourself.
It's only the same experience if you get someone to whine at you about something unrelated whenever you talk.
well no **** sherlock ... if the servers are done at roughly the same time most days its only natural that less people play during that period
Let me clarify. They look at trends before planning a time to move forward with ongoing scheduled maintenance. They look for the time with the least players and say "hey, going forward lets plan this time for our scheduled maintenance so we can tick off the fewest people".
I wasn't saying fewer people are playing during down time as IT IS DOWN TIME.
Luis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
De wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Ram liber tempor *** soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Latin? or at least that's what few words I remember from school way back when are telling me, I can pick out something about time, individual works and not working and a few other things- consequences...
The "latin" is called Lorum Ipsum text, its commonly used as filler text to take up space... the words mean stuff individually, but there may or may not be any coherent sentences in that gibberish.
It's used as placeholder by people laying out text for publication, so they can have a general idea of what the page is going to look like.
And yes, it's taken from Cicero.
Take a closer look at the bolded and italicized letters to get a deeper meaning to that post.
[edit] Bah, that's what I get for stopping to double check my spelling.
-np
If it helps, I post the reply, typos and all and then reread it and edit it.
Aww... Im not still cool for knowing what Lorum Ipsum is and using it in such a way? lol