I'm not sure if they'll pay attention to this or not, but considering how severely bugged important parts of the game are now (PvE queues, for example), it may be necessary in order to get all the bugs resolved in a more timely fashion.
I say "Yes".
No. The game is playable for the most part, missions are playable and beatable, (although a case could DEFINITELY be made to make Defense of New Romulus more fun and less of a chore) any lag issues are quickly dealt with, with minimal downtime. It doesn't need a week offline and that'd never happen anyway, Cryptic would never take the game offline for more than 8-10 hours at a time, where's the profit in it?
Yeah, this would be a terrible idea. They'd lose the ability to gather data, we'd lose the ability to play. It would make repairs less efficient and our lives less enjoyable.
Yeah, this would be a terrible idea. They'd lose the ability to gather data, we'd lose the ability to play. It would make repairs less efficient and our lives less enjoyable.
Why would you even THINK this was a good idea?
I think you are missing the point here. If the question were rephrased "Would you like to see whatever steps are neccessary to fix current bugs? [even if it meant some downtime]", would you still reply 'no'?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
I'm not sure if they'll pay attention to this or not, but considering how severely bugged important parts of the game are now (PvE queues, for example), it may be necessary in order to get all the bugs resolved in a more timely fashion.
I say "Yes".
Heck YES...take two weeks and make it an even better game rather than having those utterly DO NOTHING fixes.:D
The game doesn't need to be offline for them to fix bugs. That's what local, in-house testing and builds are for. What they should be doing is spending a week+ on banging out multiple issues at a time, and fixing many of them in one fell swoop during regularly scheduled maintenance, like every other MMO does.
I think you are missing the point here. If the question were rephrased "Would you like to see whatever steps are neccessary to fix current bugs? [even if it meant some downtime]", would you still reply 'no'?
Not really. The game's working fairly well as it is - yes, there's downtime, but that's not abnormal in the genre. I'd like to be able to play through fixes, even if that means it takes longer.
Which it doesn't, because, as has been said before in this thread, the best thing for their efforts at fixing the bugs is data about the bugs, and people playing the game generates that data.
I think they need to do whatever it takes to fix everything that's broke, and been broken from the so called "Fix" patches ... I've just cancelled my account temporarily until things are fixed ... Can't see a point to paying for the game when i'm being kicked from PVE missions constantly ... i can't delete mail, and even things like having to re-arrange my hud abilities every singly time i warp to another sector block ... I use to love the game but i'm rapidly loosing all interest in it .. so YES ... take it down and fix it
im not trying to be insulting but if yall think PWE or cryptic going to shut this game down for even a full day yall are delusional they are not going to do it for they will lose money
Not really. The game's working fairly well as it is - yes, there's downtime, but that's not abnormal in the genre. I'd like to be able to play through fixes, even if that means it takes longer.
Read my signature. Your sandwich does not keep me full. I have a problem so serious with the mail issue (both the not deleting and 100 item cap) that I'm hardly even playing because anything I want to do is now much more time consuming or downright impractical. The real fear is whether these will get added to the list of things that NEVER get fixed. I consider the lifetime subscription sale an utter joke until they take care of issues like these. I CAN say I am not and WILL NOT be buying that or anymore Zen until the game is made playable again in EVERY aspect.
I think they need to do whatever it takes to fix everything that's broke, and been broken from the so called "Fix" patches ... I've just cancelled my account temporarily until things are fixed ... Can't see a point to paying for the game when i'm being kicked from PVE missions constantly ... i can't delete mail, and even things like having to re-arrange my hud abilities every singly time i warp to another sector block ... I use to love the game but i'm rapidly loosing all interest in it .. so YES ... take it down and fix it
See? This guy is one of 100's that just don't bother posting their "goodbyes" here. Tell me how this is a good thing?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
im not trying to be insulting but if yall think PWE or cryptic going to shut this game down for even a full day yall are delusional they are not going to do it for they will lose money
They are also losing money by not addressing the 100 item mail cap & by not fixing the delete mail. [Don't even get me started on other, older bugs.] It's just not as immediate or evident, but pissing off your customers then ignoring them is far more costly in the long run.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
The game doesn't need to be offline for them to fix bugs. That's what local, in-house testing and builds are for. What they should be doing is spending a week+ on banging out multiple issues at a time, and fixing many of them in one fell swoop during regularly scheduled maintenance, like every other MMO does.
This is correct. They have the ability to run their own copies of the game internally. Though they may sometimes need to examine logs written by the live servers, debugging should mostly take place on the dev's own computers.
Fair point. Though I have to wonder if part of the reason they haven't fixed the bugs has something to do with them simply trying to keep the servers up and focusing more on trying to fix the server stability issues as opposed to the bugs that most of us are more concerned about.
To be completely honest, I think they need to completely re-write/compile the game, as odds are pretty damn good that the majority of the issues come from typos and conflicting code...though, as I know nothing about coding, I could be way off...
I agree. The shinies are nice and all, but I'd rather have a game that functions properly.
The most frequent source of bugs is inconsistencies between the code written by different programmers. Two programmers have to write pieces of code that interface with each other, but they have different interpretations of the specifications.
My guess as to why they haven't pushed a code patch yet is that they don't want to change any behavior while they isolate the cause of the server stability issues.
They are also losing money by not addressing the 100 item mail cap & by not fixing the delete mail. [Don't even get me started on other, older bugs.] It's just not as immediate or evident, but pissing off your customers then ignoring them is far more costly in the long run.
hey I agree on bugs like mail and stuff but this is cryptic there are still bug going all the way back to open beta and not talking about LoR open beta
they need to fix billings, and need a better secured site to protect clients, and some bugs.
I don't see any disconnection often, but when zoning I get booted off.
I have 2 weeks left before my account sub becoming unaccessable, I tried calling them, they hung up with recording messages.
recording said please wait for next operator, and suddenly they hung up.
I feel it is time for congress to take action and to investigate, they did with Sony.
redirects and errors is keeping me away to repair my premium account and want to upgrade to lifetime, and not able to buy zen.
my bank said it is clear to go.
I would like to try Neverwinter Nights, but heard it been TRIBBLE and accounts exposed.
They would snooze away most of it and rush at the very end to do the repairs they should have been doing all week at the last minute.
You have to know coders. Unless you chain them to a toilet in their cube they will be wondering about doing their best to avoid working.
Better to hire an angry Manager to scream at them and get them to work during the "normal (daily)" maintenance.
Yelling at them won't help if they don't know what's wrong. Technical problems cannot be solved by words alone; nature can't be negotiated with.
I do think that quality control is lacking at Cryptic. Players often find bugs that should have been caught by QA. Many bugs were reported on Tribble (particularly, regarding the new trait system) that should have been fixed before Legacy of Romulus was released. I think the problem is institutional and distributed throughout the company. Programmers don't test their work (or don't test it enough) before they check it in; the QA department doesn't test as thoroughly as it should; and management doesn't enforce policies that require bugs be fixed and quality checks passed before release.
Why does the game have to be shutdown? They have access to all the data and their own test environment + Tribble. They should be able to identify each and every problem. I am okay with an extended take down just to apply patch ... even 2 of them. But not 1 day and certainly not a whole week just to fix bugs.
I doubt it would help anyways.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
the game is screwed and often unplayable with bugs. Truth is bringing it down for a week wont help.
What they need to do is invent a time machine and send back a message to delay go live for LoR till many of the game breaking bugs are fixed, like they should have done anyway.
No . . . they patch when I am asleep, so all is well.
Okay . . . okay . . . trolling aside, yeah I think I could play Neverwinter for a week whilst waiting for issues to be fixed if that's what it took. However not everyone will agree to that. So the cool thing is . . . let them fix while the servers stay live. Those who do not like it can play other games and then come back, thus the downtime does not effect you and you still have fun. No one is forcing anyone to log on, and you do not have to log on just because the server is live. On the other side of the coin, those that absolutely want to play even with the issues and bugs will be happy as well.
No I am NOT defending Cryptic - the server instability annoys me as well. I'm just saying that we can always play other games and just read the patch notes as they come out. If the patch notes read well and we see the issues that bother us have been fixed, then our next step is to check the forums . . . are players ALSO reporting observations that the issues have been fixed? Yes? Then it's time to log on and play. No? Back to slaying some spider-worshiping Drow wench that reminds me too much of one of my ex wives . . .
I'm not sure if they'll pay attention to this or not, but considering how severely bugged important parts of the game are now (PvE queues, for example), it may be necessary in order to get all the bugs resolved in a more timely fashion.
I say "Yes".
I would say Yes for a week's downtime if it fixed all the major bugs we have been seeing.
There are other games I can play in the meantime and it would mean my favorite MMO right now would be back to it's old self.
Why would the game have to be offline for a week+ to have all the bugs fixed?
They should be spending more time,effort and resources on fixing bugs the game has.
It has been over a week and serious bugs like being knocked out of mission within 5 seconds of entering still have not been fixed. Taking the game down should have no effect on fixing bugs at all.
Do you really think they are not trying to solve these issues? At least the more relevant/common ones? I suppose they spend their time reading the forum, laughing at each posting of a problem...
The best way for the problems to be solved is to keep playing. The game needs to run, and people need to play. In order to look at logs, logs have to be written. They can take it down for a month, and have 1000 people test all they can think of. When they brought it back up and thousands of people start doing whatever they do, other issues would arise. User feedback is extremely relevant.
If you find issues keep reporting them, that's the way to go. And the more data one can provide, the better, so they can find patterns/similarities.
Is that a serious question? Because you take it down and you keep it down until the problem is located, fixed and tested to ensure it has been fixed. Then you put the server back up. This is how an mmo company normally responds to these kinds of problems.
If one thing is clear, it's that a lot of these issues don't show up until the live server is running the latest code.
The servers were unstable weeks before anything new was released. At this point its clearly a network issue
The amount of revenue they would lose in that week could make them lose Star Trek Online as a whole, let alone the number of people who just wouldn't come back/wouldn't join due to the server being down.
BS. If you want to talk about losing revenue you can start with the bad word of mouth cryptic is getting and the players it will lose if it keeps going on like this. There is no chance whatsoever of losing STO as a whole because of being shut down for a week for critical fixes.
Half the process of fixing software, is keeping it running so you can gather data... Shutting it down for two weeks solves nothing.
Its called closed internal testing
The game doesn't need to be offline for them to fix bugs. That's what local, in-house testing and builds are for.
We aren't talking about bugs we're talking about network stability problems.
No... servers don't run source code... so what would be the benefit in taking anything down?
What? That sentence makes no sense whatsoever. To say nothing of the fact we are talking about NETWORK PROBLEMS. Everything else is secondary
The game MUST be running with full load to find the real problems
No. Learn something about networking before you say something like that again
Not really. The game's working fairly well as it is - yes, there's downtime, but that's not abnormal in the genre.
Neither of those statements are true and the second is a blatant lie. NO mmo handles things in this manner. They take it down, fix it and then bring the server back up.
im not trying to be insulting but if yall think PWE or cryptic going to shut this game down for even a full day yall are delusional they are not going to do it for they will lose money
The only one thats delusional is you if you believe this. Any other company would have done so already at this point. They will lose FAR more money by not doing so, if this continues the way its been going
I dont know about anyone else but I can play the game just fine. Yes there are some bugs but nothing thats killing my gaming and i get a couple of hours downtime a day. That no major problem to me. how is taking it down for a week any better.
its not going to fix the problems any faster either. bugs will get fixed at the exact same speed, and the engineers will gather more data by the shard being up, than by being down.
If it magically fixed everything then we can talk, but it wont fix anything faster, and chances are will actually slow down isolating the different problems.
Is that a serious question? Because you take it down and you keep it down until the problem is located, fixed and tested to ensure it has been fixed. Then you put the server back up. This is how an mmo company normally responds to these kinds of problems.
It's obious you have no idea what you are talking about. Code runs on your PC not on the server. Taking the server down does not fix the code.
As for the rest of your self important diatribe, the server problems are down to sheer numbers, that much is obvious given that the number of people attempting to log in has jumped hugely.
Again taking the servers down does nothing, replacing the servers, upgrading the servers maybe, taking them down? No.
P.S: Hijacking the thread and telling everyone its about 'network stability' when its clear the OP is talking about bugs, shows you have not actually taken the time to read what is being said.
A lot of the down time has NOTHING to do with game bugs. Like the previous maintainence was purely on the back end. Yes we re downloaded the same patch that we have been over and over again. But they stated there are no changes and most people don't realize this.
Most of the current down time being not about software end fixes they would likely fix no more than they would in the current fashion they are carrying about now. Yes dealing with certain network issues is done better with the system down while others can only be done with the system up.
I also think the Neverwinter people would have something to say about it but since I don't play who knows.
If it's guaranteed to fix the damned server, then yeah, I'm all for it. These consecutive, daily downtimes aren't fun for anybody; not the players, and (I'd imagine) not cryptic either.
Comments
No. The game is playable for the most part, missions are playable and beatable, (although a case could DEFINITELY be made to make Defense of New Romulus more fun and less of a chore) any lag issues are quickly dealt with, with minimal downtime. It doesn't need a week offline and that'd never happen anyway, Cryptic would never take the game offline for more than 8-10 hours at a time, where's the profit in it?
Why would you even THINK this was a good idea?
I think you are missing the point here. If the question were rephrased "Would you like to see whatever steps are neccessary to fix current bugs? [even if it meant some downtime]", would you still reply 'no'?
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
Heck YES...take two weeks and make it an even better game rather than having those utterly DO NOTHING fixes.:D
Not really. The game's working fairly well as it is - yes, there's downtime, but that's not abnormal in the genre. I'd like to be able to play through fixes, even if that means it takes longer.
Which it doesn't, because, as has been said before in this thread, the best thing for their efforts at fixing the bugs is data about the bugs, and people playing the game generates that data.
system Lord Baal is dead
Read my signature. Your sandwich does not keep me full. I have a problem so serious with the mail issue (both the not deleting and 100 item cap) that I'm hardly even playing because anything I want to do is now much more time consuming or downright impractical. The real fear is whether these will get added to the list of things that NEVER get fixed. I consider the lifetime subscription sale an utter joke until they take care of issues like these. I CAN say I am not and WILL NOT be buying that or anymore Zen until the game is made playable again in EVERY aspect.
See? This guy is one of 100's that just don't bother posting their "goodbyes" here. Tell me how this is a good thing?
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
They are also losing money by not addressing the 100 item mail cap & by not fixing the delete mail. [Don't even get me started on other, older bugs.] It's just not as immediate or evident, but pissing off your customers then ignoring them is far more costly in the long run.
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
This is correct. They have the ability to run their own copies of the game internally. Though they may sometimes need to examine logs written by the live servers, debugging should mostly take place on the dev's own computers.
The most frequent source of bugs is inconsistencies between the code written by different programmers. Two programmers have to write pieces of code that interface with each other, but they have different interpretations of the specifications.
My guess as to why they haven't pushed a code patch yet is that they don't want to change any behavior while they isolate the cause of the server stability issues.
hey I agree on bugs like mail and stuff but this is cryptic there are still bug going all the way back to open beta and not talking about LoR open beta
system Lord Baal is dead
they need to fix billings, and need a better secured site to protect clients, and some bugs.
I don't see any disconnection often, but when zoning I get booted off.
I have 2 weeks left before my account sub becoming unaccessable, I tried calling them, they hung up with recording messages.
recording said please wait for next operator, and suddenly they hung up.
I feel it is time for congress to take action and to investigate, they did with Sony.
redirects and errors is keeping me away to repair my premium account and want to upgrade to lifetime, and not able to buy zen.
my bank said it is clear to go.
I would like to try Neverwinter Nights, but heard it been TRIBBLE and accounts exposed.
Yelling at them won't help if they don't know what's wrong. Technical problems cannot be solved by words alone; nature can't be negotiated with.
I do think that quality control is lacking at Cryptic. Players often find bugs that should have been caught by QA. Many bugs were reported on Tribble (particularly, regarding the new trait system) that should have been fixed before Legacy of Romulus was released. I think the problem is institutional and distributed throughout the company. Programmers don't test their work (or don't test it enough) before they check it in; the QA department doesn't test as thoroughly as it should; and management doesn't enforce policies that require bugs be fixed and quality checks passed before release.
NWN is 11 years old and completely abandoned. I'm pretty sure you're safe.
I assume you mean Neverwinter, though, in which case you're no safer here.
Aid in leading the Romulan Star Empire back to its former greatness.
Join the Romulan Praetorian Guard and teach those epohh loving hippies what it means to be a true Romulan!
I doubt it would help anyways.
- Judge Aaron Satie
1. The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.
What they need to do is invent a time machine and send back a message to delay go live for LoR till many of the game breaking bugs are fixed, like they should have done anyway.
this is just crazy.
Okay . . . okay . . . trolling aside, yeah I think I could play Neverwinter for a week whilst waiting for issues to be fixed if that's what it took. However not everyone will agree to that. So the cool thing is . . . let them fix while the servers stay live. Those who do not like it can play other games and then come back, thus the downtime does not effect you and you still have fun. No one is forcing anyone to log on, and you do not have to log on just because the server is live. On the other side of the coin, those that absolutely want to play even with the issues and bugs will be happy as well.
No I am NOT defending Cryptic - the server instability annoys me as well. I'm just saying that we can always play other games and just read the patch notes as they come out. If the patch notes read well and we see the issues that bother us have been fixed, then our next step is to check the forums . . . are players ALSO reporting observations that the issues have been fixed? Yes? Then it's time to log on and play. No? Back to slaying some spider-worshiping Drow wench that reminds me too much of one of my ex wives . . .
EDIT: I forgot to capitalize Drow. My apologies.
I would say Yes for a week's downtime if it fixed all the major bugs we have been seeing.
There are other games I can play in the meantime and it would mean my favorite MMO right now would be back to it's old self.
They should be spending more time,effort and resources on fixing bugs the game has.
It has been over a week and serious bugs like being knocked out of mission within 5 seconds of entering still have not been fixed. Taking the game down should have no effect on fixing bugs at all.
Do you really think they are not trying to solve these issues? At least the more relevant/common ones? I suppose they spend their time reading the forum, laughing at each posting of a problem...
The best way for the problems to be solved is to keep playing. The game needs to run, and people need to play. In order to look at logs, logs have to be written. They can take it down for a month, and have 1000 people test all they can think of. When they brought it back up and thousands of people start doing whatever they do, other issues would arise. User feedback is extremely relevant.
If you find issues keep reporting them, that's the way to go. And the more data one can provide, the better, so they can find patterns/similarities.
Is that a serious question? Because you take it down and you keep it down until the problem is located, fixed and tested to ensure it has been fixed. Then you put the server back up. This is how an mmo company normally responds to these kinds of problems.
The servers were unstable weeks before anything new was released. At this point its clearly a network issue
BS. If you want to talk about losing revenue you can start with the bad word of mouth cryptic is getting and the players it will lose if it keeps going on like this. There is no chance whatsoever of losing STO as a whole because of being shut down for a week for critical fixes.
Its called closed internal testing
We aren't talking about bugs we're talking about network stability problems.
What? That sentence makes no sense whatsoever. To say nothing of the fact we are talking about NETWORK PROBLEMS. Everything else is secondary
No. Learn something about networking before you say something like that again
Neither of those statements are true and the second is a blatant lie. NO mmo handles things in this manner. They take it down, fix it and then bring the server back up.
The only one thats delusional is you if you believe this. Any other company would have done so already at this point. They will lose FAR more money by not doing so, if this continues the way its been going
I dont know about anyone else but I can play the game just fine. Yes there are some bugs but nothing thats killing my gaming and i get a couple of hours downtime a day. That no major problem to me. how is taking it down for a week any better.
its not going to fix the problems any faster either. bugs will get fixed at the exact same speed, and the engineers will gather more data by the shard being up, than by being down.
If it magically fixed everything then we can talk, but it wont fix anything faster, and chances are will actually slow down isolating the different problems.
Except the OP thread title says bugs and is talking about bugs.
It's obious you have no idea what you are talking about. Code runs on your PC not on the server. Taking the server down does not fix the code.
As for the rest of your self important diatribe, the server problems are down to sheer numbers, that much is obvious given that the number of people attempting to log in has jumped hugely.
Again taking the servers down does nothing, replacing the servers, upgrading the servers maybe, taking them down? No.
P.S: Hijacking the thread and telling everyone its about 'network stability' when its clear the OP is talking about bugs, shows you have not actually taken the time to read what is being said.
ITS IN THE ACTUAL TITLE OF THE THREAD
Just incase you missed it.
A lot of the down time has NOTHING to do with game bugs. Like the previous maintainence was purely on the back end. Yes we re downloaded the same patch that we have been over and over again. But they stated there are no changes and most people don't realize this.
Most of the current down time being not about software end fixes they would likely fix no more than they would in the current fashion they are carrying about now. Yes dealing with certain network issues is done better with the system down while others can only be done with the system up.
I also think the Neverwinter people would have something to say about it but since I don't play who knows.
Never. Not in a million years. Absolutely not. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Nyet. Negatori. Mm-mm. Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. And of course, my own personal favorite of all time, man falling off of a cliff. Noooooooooo!