It's not the bugs that are killing it for me, it's the lack of urgency to fix them.

[gormanster]

Alright, since I'm at work and can't play, I figured I'd just write out my frustrations . This is going to be long, so be forewarned.

 

I completely understand every mmo at launch is going to have bugs / issues / lack of functionality. I hate to say it, but everyone wants every mmo to function like WoW does today. Most however, do not realize that WoW has been seven years in the making. When it launched, there were many things that sucked about it too. It was only over the last x years did the bugs / enhancements get worked out. I get this part, it takes time to polish – however, many of the bugs that exist in the game are truly “game breaking” and are not simply nice “to have” things.

 

This is the part I don’t understand.

 

Every ticket I put in, feels like it’s just completely written off and sent to die somewhere. Everything feels like an automated response that doesn’t get read; regardless of how much time I spend writing up “the bug”.

“Good evening, this is protocol droid c2-az2. We have received you’re transmission and really don’t care about the bug you submitted. We’re busy at work fixing emoting during vehicle travel. Your bug has been sent to our compactor, and will be purged from the system within 30 minutes.”

 

While I understand there are probably many people writing about the similar bugs/issues, it would be nice to get a little customized sentence here and there stating this has been noted already and is being worked on – an acknowledgement that it was read; hell, many times I get a response telling me to go to SWTOR.com because it has a lot of great class and item information. What? So I reported a bug and you tell me to go to swtor.com to look stuff up about my class? Uhh, ok. I’ll get right on that.

 

The biggest problem I see however is just the COMPLETE lack of urgency to get anything fixed. Yes, the game is new. I get that. But the game has been out for 20 days now, and it seems like none of the critical bugs have been fixed. The UI still freezes (requiring you to CNTRL U twice), I still get stuck often times not being able to heal/buff anyone but myself regardless of them being targeted unless I change zones (diff than the UI bug), tons of tweaked out textures (READ: Seizure inducing areas), ridiculous ability delay, companions returning from missions completely just jacks ANYTHING you are doing most of the times, etc. The list goes on and on. While most have work arounds currently, A LOT completely cripple gameplay in critical situations.

 

Another good example of lack of any sort of urgency would be yesterday, when my server (port nowhere) had ilum bugged out so no one could do the PVP dailies there – which was reported as a bug since the server came back up yesterday morning. Ok, i know there are other things to do than the PVP daily in Ilum, but this is a big part of many people’s day. Nothing was done about it all day – no server restarts, no response to countless tickets, nothing. How can nothing be done to try to fix the situation? How can you just not care that you are completely limiting the game play of a big part of the players on the server (not everyone has 5 hours to spend doing instances/warzones all night)? Hopefully by tonight, things will be fixed but we'll see....

 

And this all goes without saying we lack some of the basic MMO functionality – such as a effing combat log. Really? Is this something that is THAT hard to implement? Or how about an actual customizable UI? I absolutely HATE that I am forced to leave my chatbox in the top left because that’s the only damn thing that moves. Why only have one item on the ENTIRE UI that is moveable; pointless for healers who need to see party windows.

 

While I don’t work directly in the video game industry, I DO work in software based one. We have big releases once every few months. If we find there are critical issues that prevent customers from doing BASE functionality after we release, it’s all hands on deck and we schedule multiple patches/hotfixes over the next week to make sure it’s done and functioning the right way. We don’t wait a month or have zero communication before something gets done.

 

I do realize there has already been two semi-patches that fixed a few smaller things (SUCH AS EMOTES WHILE RIDING VEHICLES), the effort is way way way too little. I read on the dev tracker that while minor things like the emoting aren’t necessarily critical items, they might have been started in the past and just were able to get squeezed in to the patch. I’m sorry, but that is such a ridiculous statement. Those minor things need to just get COMPLETELY shelved (as in, stop ALL work on them immediately no matter how far in to the “development” the programmer is) until the more critical issues are tackled – ZERO resources should be spent on it; at least that’s how we do it. I know not every company is like us, but it just seems like making sure someone can process a credit card is a bit more important than getting a font changed on a banner.

 

Again, I completely understand not fixing every bug at once or making tons of enhancements immediately; but this is just ridiculous. At this point I feel like there needs to be multiple weekly patches and hotfixes (obviously during non-peak hours), which just isn’t happening. Hell, there aren’t even any big patches on the horizon. Each of these last two patches have just been completely lack-luster. I legitimately feel like they are taking a “get to it when we get to it approach”, and not really caring at all what the community is saying. Take a lesson from FFXIV’s failed mmo. You’re going to lose a lot of your community if this stuff doesn’t start getting fixed soon.

 

That being said, I’m not going to QQ off here and cancel my sub or anything; at least not yet. However, I am noticing myself getting more and more fed up on a daily basis with bug after bug after bug – IE: going in to a battleground as a healer, and not being able to heal ANYONE but myself halfway is an awesome waste of 15 minutes. Overall I think the game is fairly polished, but honestly I’m way less impressed now than I initially was with it -- at least stability wise.

Edited January 4, 2012 by gormanster

[Nathanking]

I'm too tired from reading everyone else's walls of text complaining about Bugs and this conspiracy theory they seem to have to fully read yours, sorry. As has been said many times before, Bugs take time to fix, and the bigger the bug, the longer it takes to fix. You don't want the fix to mess any other part of the game up. Patience... Edited January 4, 2012 by Nathanking

[Daeborn]

You wrote all that because you think Bioware doesn't want to fix bugs?

 

I can guarantee you they are working the bugs. You need to stop accusing.

[Areka]

SWTOR only has 4 lines of code of no more than 2,500 characters each. Those lines are totally independent of those other lines so changes in one have no consequences whatsoever in the others.

 

True story.

[gormanster]

I'm too tired from reading everyone else's walls of text complaining about Bugs and this conspiracy theory they seem to have to fully read yours, sorry. As has been said many times before, Bugs take time to fix, and the bigger the bug, the longer it takes to fix. You don't want the fix to mess any other part of the game up. Patience...

 

They take time to fix yes, but over a month to do ANYTHING worthwhile? I'm sorry, being a programmer, we tend to vastly over-estimate the time needed to fix things. If something is a big enough issue, it can be fixed within a matter of hours, or at the very most, a few days at best. The excuse of "take time to fix" is a ridiculous one. As I stated, i know not EVERYTHING is going to be fixed at once, but to my point -- it seems like NOTHING is getting fixed.

[Fraxture]

Urgency, you live the lifespan of a fly?

It's not even been one month since release.

 

And things take time.

 

Hell I am working on an active-sync issue with my Exchange server and I have been at it for 15 mins trying to catch the culprit (running a diag ATM) and I have people ************ and moaning that it's taking to long.. Really?!?!

 

I think the problem is that we live in a world where 30 seconds in the microwave is considered too long now.

 

They have been applying a fix weekly.

And if they had to fix the problems as fast as you would want them fixed, then they would need to take the servers down for a couple of weeks and keep them down.

 

Test servers only go so far and can only do so much for testing.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Fraxture

[gormanster]

Urgency, you live the lifespan of a fly?

It's not even been one month since release.

 

And things take time.

 

Hell I am working on an active-sync issue with my Exchange server and I have been at it for 15 mins trying to catch the culprit (running a diag ATM) and I have people ************ and moaning that it's taking to long.. Really?!?!

 

I think the problem is that we live in a world where 30 seconds in the microwave is considered too long now.

 

They have been applying a fix weekly.

And if they had to fix the problems as fast as you would want them fixed, then they would need to take the servers down for a couple of weeks and keep them down.

 

Test servers only go so far and can only do so much for testing.

 

It's been 20 days since launch; and that's not considering the bugs that have existed since however far back in BETA.

[lowizi]

The bugs shouldnt have been there in the first place. They had seven years to copy paste all that stuff!

And now we have to wait AGAIN?! >.>

[sdream]

They take time to fix yes, but over a month to do ANYTHING worthwhile? I'm sorry, being a programmer, we tend to vastly over-estimate the time needed to fix things. If something is a big enough issue, it can be fixed within a matter of hours, or at the very most, a few days at best. The excuse of "take time to fix" is a ridiculous one. As I stated, i know not EVERYTHING is going to be fixed at once, but to my point -- it seems like NOTHING is getting fixed.

 

I think this has to do a lot with the release date. I mean, does your company ever release a product around holidays, when your devs most likely want to take time off? Probably not. The release date makes sense from marketing point of view but not engineering. It also narrows the window of opportunity to fix major issues before the end of the first month. If there's no major patch before January 21st, I believe they'll lose large chunk of subscribers.

[Mandrax]

It's been 20 days since launch; and that's not considering the bugs that have existed since however far back in BETA.

 

WoW is 7 years old and still has the same bugs it had in beta. It is not uncommon.

[Puremallace]

This is EA cash cow. They will not let Bioware let it sit. Also

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php

 

^ That is pretty active

[Sanicek]

The worst thing is that many of these bugs were reported and known since beta. They had many months to try to fix them, yet it did not happen. This speaks volumes about the capability to fix anything in reasonable amount of time.

I'll be watching carefully what happens in next few weeks, but if some of the game breaking bugs and missing functionality isn't implemented soon.... well, bye SWTOR, hello D3 and GW2. The clock is ticking.

[Leggomy]

Ya I mean wow they havent made this game perfect in the less than 3 weeks its been out. What are they thinking. Once you find a bug dont you know you can instantly fix that bug? Also why bother testing your fix just put it out there I mean whats the worst that could happen right? Oh and then make sure you take the servers down 4-5 times a week and fix every bug as you get to it instead of fixing them, testing them on the public test server and then patching them into the game.

 

Honestly Ive never seen a more spoiled group than the ones on these forums. Like a bunch of 5 yr olds throwing a fit stomping your feet crying you want this NOW. Please grow up or quit.

[Darkhosis]

You know nothing of Bioware or their internal workings... Much less their time schedule or prioritization of bugs.

 

Why get worked up over things you have no clue about nor control over?

[Fraxture]

It's been 20 days since launch; and that's not considering the bugs that have existed since however far back in BETA.

 

So what can you, or a team of you resolve in 20 days?

Don't forget the holidays. They deserve the right to be with friends and family just as much as you.

 

I am sure your employer could find an excuse to want you to work the holidays, but that doesn't mean he can force you to.

 

But you are correct, 20 days, your issues still remain. So scrap SW:TOR..and WOW..and Rift..and all the other MMOs.

Because I can still see issues in them that have been around for months, and years.

 

And why not post your issues in tech support, and follow them there?

Rather then come here and throw a tantrum about it.

 

 

That was my point, they want this to succeed. And will address issues that they can get resolved in a timely manner.

 

But would you rather they wait until they have all the major fixes ironed out before they apply any fix at all?

 

I apply the small patches and fixes in spurts. I don't apply them all with the big patch.

Because that becomes a nightmare to resolve any issue that may arise during that cluster of a patching process.

 

They are working on those HUGE issues. But it doesn't mean they should have the team working on the small issues not apply their fixes when they become available.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Fraxture

[gormanster]

I think this has to do a lot with the release date. I mean, does your company ever release a product around holidays, when your devs most likely want to take time off? Probably not. The release date makes sense from marketing point of view but not engineering. It also narrows the window of opportunity to fix major issues before the end of the first month. If there's no major patch before January 21st, I believe they'll lose large chunk of subscribers.

 

Uhh yes we did. Our BIGGEST release goes every December; since our clients want functionality to be up and running by the beggining on the next year. Do you think we just did the release and said "See you guys in a few weeks, company is on vacation. Deal with the issues until then."?

 

This year it was on December 15th. We released two hotfixes the week after to fix issues.

[Barracudastr]

Lets put this into perspective to all you that are flaming the op.

 

I am a coder myself I write code for plugin's for major 3d software like 3dsmax, vray, modo, etc etc.

 

I code in python. My code is about 200,000 lines. When I release a new version and theres a bug I can generally fix it in an hour or two by myself. And if im stumped I get on the beta forums and ask some of the other coders what the problem might be at the latest its a 24 hour fix.

 

When a new version of the software comes out changing core code, I have a new product updated and out the door in 24 hours or less, often times in under an hour.

 

Theres a difference between complicated code and bad coding.

 

Bad coding its hard to track down bugs and fix, Good coding you see the error you know the general area that the code is in and can narrow it down to a single file very quickly then just debug that one area.

And most of the time it will not break everything else thats a misconception people make that do not code nor know anything about it.

 

Now that aside, how does a company that just made hundreds of millions in sales not able to afford the man power to fix core issues that should really never have made it past beta?

 

They lack dedication to the community is the simple answer. I see no dedication what so ever from bioware in these forums. I see alot of copy and pasted responses that are pretty much just bs responses.

 

They have no urgency to fix things that were broken months and months before launch.

[Nathanking]

They take time to fix yes, but over a month to do ANYTHING worthwhile? I'm sorry, being a programmer, we tend to vastly over-estimate the time needed to fix things. If something is a big enough issue, it can be fixed within a matter of hours, or at the very most, a few days at best. The excuse of "take time to fix" is a ridiculous one. As I stated, i know not EVERYTHING is going to be fixed at once, but to my point -- it seems like NOTHING is getting fixed.

 

I don't care if you're a programmer. Prove to me that you have participated in a game release that caters to 1 million + people. You haven't? Then your experience has no merit.

[davkei]

Everyone that is whining about bugs and fixes i guess you are highly skilled programers that can write any code in high speed and you are sitting on the solution? No thats what i thought.

[Jalden]

I did not expect a post like this from someone working with Software development. You must work either on really small projects or with über elite mutant developers.

[Leggomy]

I don't care if you're a programmer. Prove to me that you have participated in a game release that caters to 1 million + people. You haven't? Then your experience has no merit.

 

Also I love how he says nothing is being fixed yet we have had a patch already with a lot of fixes. Nevermind the public test server which I am sure he never uses to help provide feedback on these bugs. These self entitled kids just like to sit around talk about how they could program a 300 million dollar MMO while eating hot pockets in mom's basement.

[Hellyeah_Rook]

Bioware has been releasing weekly fixes since launch, which tells me they're being very proactive, and fixing bugs. They don't have the staff that Blizzard is able to employ due to the success of WoW. Give it a bit, and they will. Just like with WoW, Blizzard was slow at first until they hired more people, and worked out the kinks in the system.

 

I'm really impressed that Bioware has effectively dealt with the queue. I think they should get more praise, and less flames.

[gormanster]

So what can you, or a team of you resolve in 20 days?

Don't forget the holidays. They deserve the right to be with friends and family just as much as you.

 

I am sure your employer could find an excuse to want you to work the holidays, but that doesn't mean he can force you to.

 

But you are correct, 20 days, your issues still remain. So scrap SW:TOR..and WOW..and Rift..and all the other MMOs.

Because I can still see issues in them that have been around for months, and years.

 

And why not post your issues in tech support, and follow them there?

Rather then come here and throw a tantrum about it.

 

 

That was my point, they want this to succeed. And will address issues that they can get resolved in a timely manner.

 

But would you rather they wait until they have all the major fixes ironed out before they apply any fix at all?

 

I apply the small patches and fixes in spurts. I don't apply them all with the big patch.

Because that becomes a nightmare to resolve any issue that may arise during that cluster of a patching process.

 

They are working on those HUGE issues. But it doesn't mean they should have the team working on the small issues not apply their fixes when they become available.

 

Is that a joke? A TON can be done in 20 days -- hotfixes, patches, a ridiculous amount of bug fixes (most times you aren't completely rewriting code to fix bugs, its things here and there that need tweaking).

 

I'm not throwing a tantrum; i'm just stating their customer service / lack of urgency / communication completely just sucks.

[Typhares]

Lol on you and your company fixing everything in a matter of hours.

Even in software development which is 100x time simpler than video games dev you sometimes get bugs that can elude developers for a long time.

[Mandrax]

The worst thing is that many of these bugs were reported and known since beta. They had many months to try to fix them, yet it did not happen. This speaks volumes about the capability to fix anything in reasonable amount of time.

I'll be watching carefully what happens in next few weeks, but if some of the game breaking bugs and missing functionality isn't implemented soon.... well, bye SWTOR, hello D3 and GW2. The clock is ticking.

 

As I've already said, some bugs are not just easy fixes. Let's take Rogues in WoW as an example. For literally YEARS (from beta until some time during WotLK) the ability 'Vanish' was bugged to hell. The devs stated that they could not get it to work 100% of the time and rogues were being pulled out of stealth from damage that hit them AFTER vanish had been used. The problem was that the devs could not actually pin down the issue to where the actual coding was at fault, and as a result, they couldn't fix it.

 

These things happen. They aren't as simple as everybody thinks.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Mandrax