test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

The amount of bugs that slipped through in 1.1: How to avoid a recurrence

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
The Issue with Bugs getting through in Season 1.1

So, apparently a lot of bugs slipped through in this patch. I have only found one so far, in which my scanning beam is pointed in the wrong direction, but I have heard of several others including a report of someone getting stuck in an empty PvP game with no way out for over an hour due to the recently disabled beam/warp out feature.

Now a lot of blame is being thrown around. Many think the QA team at Cryptic is inept, though I personally disagree. The QA team seems to be quite good, the problem isn't the quality of the QA team, it's the quantity. As many of you know, Cryptic has a far smaller dev team than the average MMO. Many teams have over 300 devs, but Cryptic has around 60 if I remember correctly. Now some may blame Cryptic for not hiring more staff, but you can't really blame them. This game is funded by Atari, so it is quite obvious that Atari didn't give Cryptic enough funds to hire a larger staff. Now due to the small size of the QA team, they added a way for us to help into the game, the Tribble server. The server is a great way to test these builds before they go live to holodeck, and is a great asset to the QA team. Now some are going to argue that players shouldn't have to pay a subscription fee to help combat bugs. You may be right, but lets face it, if you don't help the QA team, the bugs are going to just keep coming. Try to be a part of the solution, instead of a part of the problem.

I got on to test the new build last night and only found 1 or 2 others testing. It's not your duty to test builds on Tribble, but come on, if you don't want to see bugs, then help out. Atari isn't going to just magically give the devs enough money to hire a larger QA team. The only way we are going to see less bugs is to help out more.

How this can be avoided in future builds


Me and several other warned Cryptic that since this build was so important, it needed extensive testing on Tribble before it was released. It was suggested that the devs do another tribble weekend in order to insure this build received proper testing. Despite the fact that the campaign gained considerable support, the devs ignored the proposal and this is the end result. This could have all been avoided if the devs had done another Tribble weekend. So, this is what I suggest:

A tribble weekend with prizes for every major build that goes to tribble (all the .0's, .1's, .2's, etc.). Some improvements would need to be made to the previous tribble weekend, such as a way to determine who is just sitting there running out an hour on the clock in order to get the prize and who is actually testing the content. Simple prizes would suffice for smaller builds, a new tribble type here, a new aesthetic pet there. For larger builds, such as Season 2, which will be filled with more content than any other patch before it, something more extensive would need to be done. A better prize could be given, like a new playable species or ship variant, and the amount of time players would need to log would need to go up considerably, in order to better insure players are actually testing content instead of sitting around waiting.

More tribble weekends are the key to ensuring a patch this buggy never slips through again.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    The Issue with Bugs getting through in Season 1.1

    So, apparently a lot of bugs slipped through in this patch. I have only found one so far, in which my scanning beam is pointed in the wrong direction,

    This was a known bug. This was so well-known that people actually analyzed exactly what was happening (the scanner beam always points to the (0,0,0) point in the instance).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    This was a known bug. This was so well-known that people actually analyzed exactly what was happening (the scanner beam always points to the (0,0,0) point in the instance).

    I honestly don't know. The first time I saw it was when I tested the new tribble build last night. It wasn't in the first Season 1.1 build on tribble. Most have appeared in one of the middle builds that I didn't get to test.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    I honestly don't know. The first time I saw it was when I tested the new tribble build last night. It wasn't in the first Season 1.1 build on tribble. Most have appeared in one of the middle builds that I didn't get to test.

    The first mention in the Tribble bug forum I found with a cursory glance was from 4/17, and that thread has extensive analysis and a visit from DScotty.

    I'm sure there were bugs that escaped notice, but the glaring ones that I've seen people WTFing at on Holodeck were called out on Tribble too. In this case the failure wasn't testing, but getting things fixed by the deadline. I think they were really up against a wall on this one because of the unexpected scaling bugs that don't seem to have an easy pattern to divine (I kept thinking 'well maybe it's X' and then I or someone else had an experience that was counter to X) and the avalanche of demand for changes to the DP system design.
Sign In or Register to comment.