I guess my question would be what bugs are so game breakng that you dont want to play? Besides the lag problems of late, there is nothing that makes me be like "i hate this game", for the most part i dont have issues at all really..
they need more manpower,period . Fact of the matter is they should know by now- given te amount of bug reports sent in - what's causing it, but they simply don't have enough folks to test stuff .
That's a matter of priority - and goes right to the management - priority number one should now be to fix these bugs ...let me be clear : I'm not spending another dime on this game until it's reasonably playable and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone .
That message has to get through to management . You can add all the content you want,but if folks can't play it , they won't spend the cash you need .
I don't see it as much about "shutting down" as setting the priority of fixes to override allocation of resources to anything else. Would this result or have to result in the servers being taken offline for extended periods, perhaps for patching or re-patching? I don't know, maybe not, as there is tribble and redshirt for that.
I do think it's PWE who is ultimately responsible for failing to expand their engineering department, and/or failing to allow them to work on game fixes instead of continuous expansions and new features piled on top of broken systems.
PWE probably only responds to income and metrics. If those are reduced despite the addition of nice new things, perhaps they will get a clue and begin to realize a growing majority of players who can't play PvE STFs due to ongoing lag that lasts for months, who are fed up with broken systems that last years (console click lag), artificially low FPS due to UI lag and excessive use of particle counts (some Delta quadrant missions), graphics driver crashes, random game crashes to desktop, the inability of some or many users to launch the game, long-standing and random mission bugs, etc., and only then they might decide to properly fund and outsource it to someone who is able to take the necessary time to resolve these issues at reasonable time frames.
So to directly answer the OPs question, if it needs to be taken down often, or for extended periods, or as I've mentioned if it were as easy as having every non-computer engineer stop doing what they do to release new things and go help out the engineers at such fixes, then I'd be more than happy to see more maintenance going on. In the meantime, there's plenty of other things to do and MMOs to try despite sadly not being Star Trek.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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@ all those who have answered the OP with an actual timeframe, I have a question for you; What is broken that actually prevents you from playing (and enjoying) the game? Please be as specific and as detailed as possible. I am really curious.
It appears that for some folks, certain aspects of the game are all there is to it, and if those aspects aren't working to their satisfaction, that means "the whole game is completely unplayable!" (That's not hyperbole; that's an actual claim I tried to refute last week. Needless to say, the person posting that opinion refused to acknowledge that there was more to STO than elite STFs.)
I don't see it as much about "shutting down" as setting the priority of fixes to override allocation of resources to anything else. Would this result or have to result in the servers being taken offline for extended periods, perhaps for patching or re-patching? I don't know, maybe not, as there is tribble and redshirt for that.
I do think it's PWE who is ultimately responsible for failing to expand their engineering department, and/or failing to allow them to work on game fixes instead of continuous expansions and new features piled on top of broken systems.
PWE probably only responds to income and metrics. If those are reduced despite the addition of nice new things, perhaps they will get a clue and begin to realize a growing majority of players who can't play PvE STFs due to ongoing lag that lasts for months, who are fed up with broken systems that last years (console click lag), artificially low FPS due to UI lag and excessive use of particle counts (some Delta quadrant missions), graphics driver crashes, random game crashes to desktop, the inability of some or many users to launch the game, long-standing and random mission bugs, etc., and only then they might decide to properly fund and outsource it to someone who is able to take the necessary time to resolve these issues at reasonable time frames.
So to directly answer the OPs question, if it needs to be taken down often, or for extended periods, or as I've mentioned if it were as easy as having every non-computer engineer stop doing what they do to release new things and go help out the engineers at such fixes, then I'd be more than happy to see more maintenance going on. In the meantime, there's plenty of other things to do and MMOs to try despite sadly not being Star Trek.
Exactly : it's PWE management which sets priorities ( it's nonsense to blaim Cryptic , for example , let alone the community manager ...)
Only if revenue starts to drop might this change - or they could simly decide to pull the plug : distinct risk for that to happen as well .But you don't need extended maintennce for this kind of stuff . Testing not only takes place on Tribble - for all to see- but also behind closed doors ( that's how they reproduce bugs , we never see that) .But you need enough folks for that and Cryptic simply doesn't have that luxury , as a result of PWE management decisions .
Personally, I would sacrifice being able to play the game for a week, if it meant being able to correct Every. Single. Bug. in the game and especially if we all got some sort of special reward for the privilege!
At the moment, between lag, missions not completing, getting stuck and all the other errors, it's hardly playable anyway, so why not just shut it down until it is?
And oh, can we please have the organized events back, because I do still dearly miss being able to play "Mine Trap".
Zero time. Why? Because there's no need to bring down the game while bugs are fixed. They fix bugs as they can; and bringing down the game won't assist in that endeavour AT ALL.
What you SHOULD be asking is:
"Would the playerbase in general be willing to forego ANY new content additions and give the Dev and programming team time to focus 100% on bugfixing - and to push out those fixes as they are done?"
^^^
the problem with that is - PWE/Cryptic is a business and if they forego all new content (which would include C-Store content like ships and new Lockboxes) <-- which is where they make the majority of their income; PWE shareholders, marketing folks and management would be VERY upset.
Bottom line: Closing off player access to STO isn't going to help the Dev/Programming team fix bugs any faster as they don't work on the Live actually running version we play when doing so. Also, they may not actually have fixes for every bug, but are satisfied either with a workaround and be willing to 'live' with said bug until a fix is found (if ever.0
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Apparently people think that this cant happen, its an mmo blah blah...ff14 did just fine shutting down and is currently in the top 5 highest rated mmos at mmorpg.com when before it wasnt...
Valid point is they dont have the staff to do it here though. Nor financial keeping like square enix managed.
1.) Isn't that what Tribble is for?
2.) Why is Cryptic so special (or pathetic) that they'd need significantly extra time to shut down to fix STO? Other games have downtime for half a day or so just like STO has every week.
imo, STO is doomed programming. Nothing major is going to be fixed w/o such an overhaul it might as well be called STO2. Something like THIS, enjoy the ride as you can, but it's heading to a bad end.
Server Lag and Disconnects are not Bugs, they're connection issues. What you've linked, I suspect, is a play on words. Bugs, to me at least, are things within a game that make it unplayable. Nobody has yet to post any.
Personally, I would sacrifice being able to play the game for a week, if it meant being able to correct Every. Single. Bug. in the game and especially if we all got some sort of special reward for the privilege!
At the moment, between lag, missions not completing, getting stuck and all the other errors, it's hardly playable anyway, so why not just shut it down until it is?
And oh, can we please have the organized events back, because I do still dearly miss being able to play "Mine Trap".
There is a big difference between LAG and a BUG. Here it is in laymans explanation...
Lag is usually hardware driven. Which means the computers hardware is having trouble with something the software(programming) is tell it to do. There could be too many variables for the server or your computer to process too.
Lag can also be trouble between two computers trying to talk to each other. For instance to get to Cryptic my computer has to go through Chicago or around it sometimes. It doesn't always follow the same route, so time can be a difference. While the time it takes is in millionths of a second...for a computer it would be like you and me talking on the phone where one of us in on Mars and there is minutes delay between responses.
Now the only lag that Cryptic can deal with really is what is one their end.
Bugs are usually software driven. This is something that is missing in the program from completing in some way. Like you need to take the turbo-lift to the bridge but it doesn't go there when you click on it. There is a missing or wrong variable. and so you cannot finish the story. This is an MMO which means this game has milliions of variables. Each player and npc is a variable containing hudreds if not thousands of variables. Finding that one bug in that can be very very hard, if not sometimes impossible.
This is why MMO's patch. They shut down for a few hours to update the game. These are the bugs they found and can fix.
The only other solution would be to do the new season and stuff on tribble/test server for a whole year. Then they would actually be running two different games and that is just way too much work, which is why much of STO's new content is just added to the holoserver.
Server Lag and Disconnects are not Bugs, they're connection issues. What you've linked, I suspect, is a play on words. Bugs, to me at least, are things within a game that make it unplayable. Nobody has yet to post any.
... see I understand where you're coming from, but it has been talked about by the devs that the current lag issues are not a single problem , but a combination of problems , that include Cryptic software, as the above link states ...
Now THAT is a question I cannot really answer on, I mean, how far would these fixes go?
If you mean fix every bug possible... hell, even up to a month, PROVIDING I get my Life Time Zen for that month.
It all depends how far you want to stretch it.
Rewards for such?
Are you kidding, the fixes are reward enough.
ALTHOUGH, I would like to see some love for the KDF/Rom and Borg.
Ships, outfits (specifically for the Borg), Borg cosmetic upgrades for ships, Borg tech released for other species (LT only I guess), Seven's tech released for both genders, all races, ...
Now THAT is a question I cannot really answer on, I mean, how far would these fixes go?
If you mean fix every bug possible... hell, even up to a month, PROVIDING I get my Life Time Zen for that month.
But it's not really a meaningful deal.
It's like offering to stop watching Science Fiction for a decade if that means ending world hunger. Its a nice offer, but it doesn't help ending world hunger, and actually working at ending world hunger will probably take more than 10 years!
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I have to say that is the most TRIBBLE/apologist/trollish comment I've read this week. Let's see if anyone can top that .
I have to say that from reading your comments, you don't seem all that educated. Your apparent need to bring up my apparent trolling [twice - here and here] would subsequently make you the troll around here.
... see I understand where you're coming from, but it has been talked about by the devs that the current lag issues are not a single problem , but a combination of problems , that include Cryptic software, as the above link states ...
I guess I have a different definition to what a bug actually is.
In my mind, a bug is something generic, that directly imposes on ones ability to play the game. Such bugs would be encountered by every single player. These connection issues, as bad as they may be, aren't being encountered by everyone. Now whether that's down to the software being used by Cryptic, the hardware being used by various ISP's, or the system of the home user is another matter, but I don't define those as bugs in the traditional sense.
Connection issues aside though, I've still yet to see anyone post any actual game breaking bugs. These are the things that I'm looking for. If people can't provide them, then there is nothing for Cryptic to fix.
A "bug" is a software error, usually (but not always) one that causes the software to crash. The term was coined by Col. Grace Hopper, the inventor of COBOL, after an incident in which a computer error was caused by a moth that made it into the room-sized computer in use at the time, then got itself electrocuted at the base of a vacuum tube, interrupting the current to that tube and throwing off the calculations. She compared that incident to software flaws.
There is precisely one source of "lag" that is attributable to a bug. That would be the one that affects (or possibly affected - can't say, as I haven't played them) STFs where more than one player attempts to use Command abilities. The graphics clash, apparently causing some form of overflow error. That's the one thing that Cryptic can do something about, and in fact they are.
More frequently, "lag" is caused by the data packets between your computer and Cryptic's lone server farm being diverted or reprioritized en route. One of the more famous examples of this is the (still-ongoing) conflict between Cogent Communications and Level 3, in which Cogent wants L3 to pay a premium to have data passing between L3 nodes and Cogent nodes given a normal priority. As a negotiating tactic, Cogent has taken to throttling data throughput when the data comes from an L3 node. (This is part of the driving force behind Net Neutrality regulations in the US; Cogent in fact was cited by the FCC as one of the two main reasons the regulations are necessary. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats are still writing the regs, after which a public commentary period begins, and only after that can the regulations be published and take effect.)
My desktop is also experiencing another common source of lag - its connection with my wireless network runs slowly in the evening, probably due to all the neighbors using their cell phones and introducing RF interference. I only know that it's an issue relating to that computer in particular because I also have a laptop closer to the router which does not experience this issue.
And I have no idea what you think you've "proved" with your irrelevant linkage, deo, but you've failed utterly.
Unfortunately due to teh nature of MMO's, there is no answer that doesn't equal total permanent shutdown. Think about it. MMOs are basically living, evolving code. Every time they fix one thing, something else might break due to new code not working with old code.
All true. But would it really kill them if they, O, actually tested stuff before releasing it?! Aka, be less greed-driven, and more focussed on quality. That means they would have released, say, Command ships two weeks later. Would that really have meant the end of the world!?
While any new code will inevitably introduce new bugs, that doesn't mean they can't work on minimizing their occurances.
Comments
I don't see it as much about "shutting down" as setting the priority of fixes to override allocation of resources to anything else. Would this result or have to result in the servers being taken offline for extended periods, perhaps for patching or re-patching? I don't know, maybe not, as there is tribble and redshirt for that.
I do think it's PWE who is ultimately responsible for failing to expand their engineering department, and/or failing to allow them to work on game fixes instead of continuous expansions and new features piled on top of broken systems.
PWE probably only responds to income and metrics. If those are reduced despite the addition of nice new things, perhaps they will get a clue and begin to realize a growing majority of players who can't play PvE STFs due to ongoing lag that lasts for months, who are fed up with broken systems that last years (console click lag), artificially low FPS due to UI lag and excessive use of particle counts (some Delta quadrant missions), graphics driver crashes, random game crashes to desktop, the inability of some or many users to launch the game, long-standing and random mission bugs, etc., and only then they might decide to properly fund and outsource it to someone who is able to take the necessary time to resolve these issues at reasonable time frames.
So to directly answer the OPs question, if it needs to be taken down often, or for extended periods, or as I've mentioned if it were as easy as having every non-computer engineer stop doing what they do to release new things and go help out the engineers at such fixes, then I'd be more than happy to see more maintenance going on. In the meantime, there's plenty of other things to do and MMOs to try despite sadly not being Star Trek.
Heh, I quite believe it.
Exactly : it's PWE management which sets priorities ( it's nonsense to blaim Cryptic , for example , let alone the community manager ...)
Only if revenue starts to drop might this change - or they could simly decide to pull the plug : distinct risk for that to happen as well .But you don't need extended maintennce for this kind of stuff . Testing not only takes place on Tribble - for all to see- but also behind closed doors ( that's how they reproduce bugs , we never see that) .But you need enough folks for that and Cryptic simply doesn't have that luxury , as a result of PWE management decisions .
Zero time. Why? Because there's no need to bring down the game while bugs are fixed. They fix bugs as they can; and bringing down the game won't assist in that endeavour AT ALL.
What you SHOULD be asking is:
"Would the playerbase in general be willing to forego ANY new content additions and give the Dev and programming team time to focus 100% on bugfixing - and to push out those fixes as they are done?"
^^^
the problem with that is - PWE/Cryptic is a business and if they forego all new content (which would include C-Store content like ships and new Lockboxes) <-- which is where they make the majority of their income; PWE shareholders, marketing folks and management would be VERY upset.
Bottom line: Closing off player access to STO isn't going to help the Dev/Programming team fix bugs any faster as they don't work on the Live actually running version we play when doing so. Also, they may not actually have fixes for every bug, but are satisfied either with a workaround and be willing to 'live' with said bug until a fix is found (if ever.0
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Valid point is they dont have the staff to do it here though. Nor financial keeping like square enix managed.
Really ... ?
Wait for it ... .
... Go ...
2.) Why is Cryptic so special (or pathetic) that they'd need significantly extra time to shut down to fix STO? Other games have downtime for half a day or so just like STO has every week.
imo, STO is doomed programming. Nothing major is going to be fixed w/o such an overhaul it might as well be called STO2. Something like THIS, enjoy the ride as you can, but it's heading to a bad end.
There is a big difference between LAG and a BUG. Here it is in laymans explanation...
Lag is usually hardware driven. Which means the computers hardware is having trouble with something the software(programming) is tell it to do. There could be too many variables for the server or your computer to process too.
Lag can also be trouble between two computers trying to talk to each other. For instance to get to Cryptic my computer has to go through Chicago or around it sometimes. It doesn't always follow the same route, so time can be a difference. While the time it takes is in millionths of a second...for a computer it would be like you and me talking on the phone where one of us in on Mars and there is minutes delay between responses.
Now the only lag that Cryptic can deal with really is what is one their end.
Bugs are usually software driven. This is something that is missing in the program from completing in some way. Like you need to take the turbo-lift to the bridge but it doesn't go there when you click on it. There is a missing or wrong variable. and so you cannot finish the story. This is an MMO which means this game has milliions of variables. Each player and npc is a variable containing hudreds if not thousands of variables. Finding that one bug in that can be very very hard, if not sometimes impossible.
This is why MMO's patch. They shut down for a few hours to update the game. These are the bugs they found and can fix.
The only other solution would be to do the new season and stuff on tribble/test server for a whole year. Then they would actually be running two different games and that is just way too much work, which is why much of STO's new content is just added to the holoserver.
Ok , how about this :
Star Trek Online: Release Notes: May 14, 2015 -- Resolved an issue which was causing the Inspiration mechanic to heavily impact server performance.
... see I understand where you're coming from, but it has been talked about by the devs that the current lag issues are not a single problem , but a combination of problems , that include Cryptic software, as the above link states ...
If you mean fix every bug possible... hell, even up to a month, PROVIDING I get my Life Time Zen for that month.
It all depends how far you want to stretch it.
Rewards for such?
Are you kidding, the fixes are reward enough.
ALTHOUGH, I would like to see some love for the KDF/Rom and Borg.
Ships, outfits (specifically for the Borg), Borg cosmetic upgrades for ships, Borg tech released for other species (LT only I guess), Seven's tech released for both genders, all races, ...
It's like offering to stop watching Science Fiction for a decade if that means ending world hunger. Its a nice offer, but it doesn't help ending world hunger, and actually working at ending world hunger will probably take more than 10 years!
I guess I have a different definition to what a bug actually is.
In my mind, a bug is something generic, that directly imposes on ones ability to play the game. Such bugs would be encountered by every single player. These connection issues, as bad as they may be, aren't being encountered by everyone. Now whether that's down to the software being used by Cryptic, the hardware being used by various ISP's, or the system of the home user is another matter, but I don't define those as bugs in the traditional sense.
Connection issues aside though, I've still yet to see anyone post any actual game breaking bugs. These are the things that I'm looking for. If people can't provide them, then there is nothing for Cryptic to fix.
There is precisely one source of "lag" that is attributable to a bug. That would be the one that affects (or possibly affected - can't say, as I haven't played them) STFs where more than one player attempts to use Command abilities. The graphics clash, apparently causing some form of overflow error. That's the one thing that Cryptic can do something about, and in fact they are.
More frequently, "lag" is caused by the data packets between your computer and Cryptic's lone server farm being diverted or reprioritized en route. One of the more famous examples of this is the (still-ongoing) conflict between Cogent Communications and Level 3, in which Cogent wants L3 to pay a premium to have data passing between L3 nodes and Cogent nodes given a normal priority. As a negotiating tactic, Cogent has taken to throttling data throughput when the data comes from an L3 node. (This is part of the driving force behind Net Neutrality regulations in the US; Cogent in fact was cited by the FCC as one of the two main reasons the regulations are necessary. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats are still writing the regs, after which a public commentary period begins, and only after that can the regulations be published and take effect.)
My desktop is also experiencing another common source of lag - its connection with my wireless network runs slowly in the evening, probably due to all the neighbors using their cell phones and introducing RF interference. I only know that it's an issue relating to that computer in particular because I also have a laptop closer to the router which does not experience this issue.
And I have no idea what you think you've "proved" with your irrelevant linkage, deo, but you've failed utterly.
Oooooh
Harsh, I like you. :rolleyes:
All true. But would it really kill them if they, O, actually tested stuff before releasing it?! Aka, be less greed-driven, and more focussed on quality. That means they would have released, say, Command ships two weeks later. Would that really have meant the end of the world!?
While any new code will inevitably introduce new bugs, that doesn't mean they can't work on minimizing their occurances.