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

[Fograw]

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.

 

What exactly do you program for?

 

I program for stuff vastly similar to an MMO environment. A retail server environment. Granted it's not in the scope of having millions of users concurrently connected, but the similarities are there.

 

Now, since you "know" so much about coding in such an environment, we actually can fix code in mere minutes to mere hours. Moving the code to a production environment though, takes around 2-3 months. Why? Because we have to first plan the changes and what effects they might have on other things. Then we actually implement the changes in a development environment (again, this takes minutes to a couple hours). Then there is about 6 weeks of regression testing. 3 weeks of user testing. THEN it gets pushed to production.

 

You are seeing these "simple" fixes, because they are, in all regards, simple fixes that have no bearing on anything else within the game. They have limited SCOPE. The fixes you want, obviously do NOT have this limited scope. In fact, the scope overlays over numerous things most likely in everything you listed.

 

You will not see these major bugs fixed for another month or two, and that is the reality of the situation. If your patience is not there to keep a sub, then look elsewhere. Every other MMO is given time to fix these kind of bugs, why this game has to be an exception now is beyond me.

[Saurakk]

Yes, there are a lot of bugs.

 

Are most of them game breaking? I have not come across that honestly has detracted from my enjoyment of playing.

 

Oh no..hit ctrl U!?!?!

 

Oh no...cannot harvest this one node?!?!

 

Oh no...the old item I inspected is hovering below the new item I inspected in a pop up window?!

 

Annoying and strange...yeah...game breaking...not even close.

 

It is amazing how many people who play MMO's and spew all over the forums make like they have never bought any other MMO and played at start up.

 

It is like some weird case of Deja Vu where people seem to forget that this stuff happens in every game like this since they have come out.

 

Be patient...work through them....or complain with the only way that REALLY works...quit the game and move on if you cannot play without giving yourself some sort of aneurism.

[Leggomy]

I also love the people who sit and blindly defend Bioware even tho the bugs still exist in game after the patch that was said to fix them i.e unharvestable nodes............but hey at least we can wave while in a taxi!

 

I am not blindly defending anyone I am stating facts. We have had 2 major patches since this game came out. So their "fix" for the unlootable containers didnt work so what. I run across them very very rarely who really cares about that. So you cant loot one move on to the next one big whoop. The whole point of this thread was that Bioware is not fixing bugs. I point out that we have had 2 patches so far with big fixes and you say I am blindly defending them.

[Qoojo]

Urgency, you live the lifespan of a fly?

It's not even been one month since release.

 

And things take time.

 

 

Not only that, but it's over the holiday season lol

 

People amaze me

[Nidien]

Or it could be people are just willing to lay down and take it, they said things were fixed in patches they weren't and those things they DID say they fixed (that they didn't) were such small things of no importance (mounted emotes anyone?).

 

Laying down and taking what? Again, if people are playing, enjoying their time spent in game, find a small annoyance, report it and move on..that's not laying down and taking it.

 

"Laying down and taking it" is what the middle class does every day out here in the real world. Laying down and taking it..is not playing a video game that they are enjoying because they've "laid down and took it" 8-16 hours a day for the last X number of years of their life.

 

By your terms though, in the gaming world...Laying down and taking it is what happened to all the people who fed into Bill Ropers Hellgate:London life-time sub module. Actually Laying down and taking it would be buying into anything Bill Roper is involved in, and BW isn't anywhere CLOSE to that masterpiece.

 

Either way, like I said you have two options to not "lay down and take it" anymore.

1) unsub

2) Go to school, become a game developer, apply to BW, fix the game.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Nidien

[RycheMykola]

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...

Bugs in the end game raids (I just have done eternity vault so far) are unexcusable.

 

This are things that should have been tested during beta. Bosses getting stuck in Enrage after a wipe.

Zoning back in after a wipe and everyone just dies.

 

Sure, some things can get buggy.......................but stuff like that, no.

[Skerry]

I think BW is in over their heads. I don't know what's wrong but something is... "normal this is not!"

 

What is sad - yes, this is extremely normal for MMO's.

 

Everything about it is extremely normal.

 

I used to kick off every MMO for over a decade with a scavenger hunt of Forum Topics that show up in every MMO release.

 

 

There is absolutely nothing new, different, out of the ordinary, strange, unusual, off, or amazing about the SWTOR forums.

 

There is absolutely nothing new , different, out of the ordinary, strange, unusal, off or amazing about BioWare how they are handling the game and how the playerbase is perceiving them and the great divide regarding such preceptions.

 

They are like every other MMO's forums at launch; hell some I would swear were cut and pasted from previous ones.

[gormanster]

Yes, there are a lot of bugs.

 

Are most of them game breaking? I have not come across that honestly has detracted from my enjoyment of playing.

 

Oh no..hit ctrl U!?!?!

 

Oh no...cannot harvest this one node?!?!

 

Oh no...the old item I inspected is hovering below the new item I inspected in a pop up window?!

 

Annoying and strange...yeah...game breaking...not even close.

 

It is amazing how many people who play MMO's and spew all over the forums make like they have never bought any other MMO and played at start up.

 

It is like some weird case of Deja Vu where people seem to forget that this stuff happens in every game like this since they have come out.

 

Be patient...work through them....or complain with the only way that REALLY works...quit the game and move on if you cannot play without giving yourself some sort of aneurism.

 

When does something become game breaking to you then? When you literally can't log in the character select screen? Notice, i say character select screen because technically you could sit there and star are your character, twirling it around and that constitutes "playing" still.

 

Having 400 big bugs that prevents you from doing base functionality, constitutes game breaking.

[gormanster]

What exactly do you program for?

 

I program for stuff vastly similar to an MMO environment. A retail server environment. Granted it's not in the scope of having millions of users concurrently connected, but the similarities are there.

 

Now, since you "know" so much about coding in such an environment, we actually can fix code in mere minutes to mere hours. Moving the code to a production environment though, takes around 2-3 months. Why? Because we have to first plan the changes and what effects they might have on other things. Then we actually implement the changes in a development environment (again, this takes minutes to a couple hours). Then there is about 6 weeks of regression testing. 3 weeks of user testing. THEN it gets pushed to production.

 

You are seeing these "simple" fixes, because they are, in all regards, simple fixes that have no bearing on anything else within the game. They have limited SCOPE. The fixes you want, obviously do NOT have this limited scope. In fact, the scope overlays over numerous things most likely in everything you listed.

 

You will not see these major bugs fixed for another month or two, and that is the reality of the situation. If your patience is not there to keep a sub, then look elsewhere. Every other MMO is given time to fix these kind of bugs, why this game has to be an exception now is beyond me.

 

 

I get the typical development lifecycle. In fact, that "typically" is on par with how we run things. Few weeks of development, then internal testing as it moves from environment to environment (dev, alpha, beta, then prod). Eventually user acceptance testing, then live.

 

However, when critical issues arise, this whole lifecycle can be sped up and drastically and CAN be crammed in a few days. Sure, testing sometimes suffers, but most times with a good testing team, the outcome of the pushed patch/bug/hotfix greatly outweighs the bad. Not to mention, no matter how much testing is done, there will always always always be some new bug, something that got missed, or whatever else. It's inevitable. Hence why alot of companies are moving to Sprint (scrum) development methodology.

 

My company had a release on the 15th with a TON of big enhancements. We found a few big bugs, so the next week we ended up having two hot fixes two days a part. This means that bugs were fixed, tested, and moved through each environment in a matter of a day or two.

 

In the end, it's not ideal, but it's very very doable.

[ArmchairMagpie]

I'm loving it. Every time there is a release of a game shining with bugs all the self-proclaimed expert developers are crawling out of their basements with experiences ranging from writing a small VBScript for Excel in 2005 to working for another company doing some mysterious big projects.

 

I have been programmer/developer for over two decades myself, been working on a web-based MMO as lead dev in early 2000s when those things were popular, and my company doing business with big partners worldwide also has serious standards in terms of quality. However:

I'd be the last one to arrogantly claim to know the development structure of Bioware and the last thing I would do is armchair-consulting them, telling them what's good for them and what they are doing wrong. I am pretty sure the OP would be pretty much annoyed if someone told his company how to run things.

 

Last but not least in regards of bugs, I am pretty sure BW knows which bugs are urgent and which are not but not every fix of them can be done within a few weeks' timespan. Some need extensive testing, iterations, re-testing until the solution can be deployed. It goes without saying that most game developers these days aim at stable builds before bug-free builds.

Edited January 4, 2012 by ArmchairMagpie

[Nidien]

When does something become game breaking to you then? When you literally can't log in the character select screen? Notice, i say character select screen because technically you could sit there and star are your character, twirling it around and that constitutes "playing" still.

 

Having 400 big bugs that prevents you from doing base functionality, constitutes game breaking.

 

Here again though. It's not game breaking to him/her but game breaking to you just like his/her post says . *** for tat, tomato or tomata. I for one, have run into...a couple bugged nodes, a couple graphical glitches, and a couple coversation screens that overlap each other on a rare occasion.

 

I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY doubt any one person can sit here and say they have run into every single bug in the game, and if they have...yeah it hasn't happened, but people will surely jump on the bug train and ride that mofo out of town like they have.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Nidien

[Saurakk]

Game breaking to me is not being able to play. Not having visual or slight UI glitches that come up every once in a blue moon.

 

Its not that difficult to understand.

[Fograw]

I get the typical development lifecycle. In fact, that "typically" is on par with how we run things. Few weeks of development, then internal testing as it moves from environment to environment (dev, alpha, beta, then prod). Eventually user acceptance testing, then live.

 

However, when critical issues arise, this whole lifecycle can be sped up and drastically and CAN be crammed in a few days. Sure, testing sometimes suffers, but most times with a good testing team, the outcome of the pushed patch/bug/hotfix greatly outweighs the bad. Not to mention, no matter how much testing is done, there will always always always be some new bug, something that got missed, or whatever else. It's inevitable. Hence why alot of companies are moving to Sprint (scrum) development methodology.

 

My company had a release on the 15th with a TON of big enhancements. We found a few big bugs, so the next week we ended up having two hot fixes two days a part. This means that bugs were fixed, tested, and moved through each environment in a matter of a day or two.

 

In the end, it's not ideal, but it's very very doable.

 

We do exactly the same thing, we usually have a week to stabilize a release, and a release has a ton of enhancements as well. So we push hotfixes usually the same day or next in that week.

 

Keep in mind, an MMO probably requires server restarts and the like to apply fixes...Like, for example, a restart was probably needed to purge dead resource nodes on these servers before the resource node fix was implemented. Bioware might just find the weekly maintenance the best time to push out fixes. Also, keep in mind, some of the UI stuff you stated has a much larger scope over other things...then, say, the sith corruption fix they just implemented.

 

I would see something like those items you mentioned implemented in a much larger patch...most likely a "release" in bioware's development realm, that contains enhancements and content all at once. Then, you'll see the weekly "hot fix" small potato fixes.

[Amdarius]

It is comical watching all the people defend Bioware's delay in release game-fixing patches. Be patient. Be patient. Always from people not experiencing the issues. Sometimes I wonder if BW doesn't pay people to come here and post "patience" ad nauseum. Perhaps it's the devs.

[Amethyriel]

I'm loving it. Every time there is a release of a game shining with bugs all the self-proclaimed expert developers are crawling out of their basements with experiences ranging from writing a small VBScript for Excel in 2005 to working for another company doing some mysterious big projects.

 

I have been programmer/developer for over two decades myself, been working on a web-based MMO as lead dev in early 2000s when those things were popular, and my company doing business with big partners worldwide also has serious standards in terms of quality. However:

I'd be the last one to arrogantly claim to know the development structure of Bioware and the last thing I would do is armchair-consulting them, telling them what's good for them and what they are doing wrong. I am pretty sure the OP would be pretty much annoyed if someone told his company how to run things.

 

Last but not least in regards of bugs, I am pretty sure BW knows which bugs are urgent and which are not but not every fix of them can be done within a few weeks' timespan. Some need extensive testing, iterations, re-testing until the solution can be deployed. It goes without saying that most game developers these days aim at stable builds before bug-free builds.

 

great post

[Fograw]

It is comical watching all the people defend Bioware's delay in release game-fixing patches. Be patient. Be patient. Always from people not experiencing the issues. Sometimes I wonder if BW doesn't pay people to come here and post "patience" ad nauseum. Perhaps it's the devs.

 

I think you are mistaken, I've experienced the same issues, but I wouldn't deem them as "game breaking". Skyrim has more game breaking bugs than this game, for me.

 

Furthermore, bugs are a norm, and in due time they usually get fixed. I have honestly never seen an MMO fix all of it's main bugs 2 weeks in. People can dream though.

[imaslapu]

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”.

 

Yeah, it must be an awful realization that the whole world that you thought revolved around you...just doesn't.

 

Sidenote: if I were your manager and even caught a whiff of you posting your manifesto of moan on some game forums while on the clock, you'd be so fired you wouldn't know what hit you.

[Sunsoar]

Nice post OP. I agree with you. Notice how dev tracker has no action going on? They took vacation after the game released.

[Sunsoar]

Yeah, it must be an awful realization that the whole world that you thought revolved around you...just doesn't.

 

Sidenote: if I were your manager and even caught a whiff of you posting your manifesto of moan on some game forums while on the clock, you'd be so fired you wouldn't know what hit you.

 

Piss poor manager in the making you are.

[msales]

You and all these QQ'ers are INFURIATING. If you are a better coder than Bioware, why are you not working for them or another equally large company? This game is big - bigger than anything you have ever done probably, 300 million $s and 1 million subs big. Unless you fully understand the work that goes in to managing a game this large, your opinion walks a thin line full of questionable merit.

 

But that isn't what bugs me most!

 

No, it's you people, who think you know what you're talking about, and provide opinions as fact, when they AREN'T. Either play the game or don't. This thread is pointless and Bioware doesn't care, and neither do I. Kthxbai.

 

Some of the current bugs were highlighted in beta, the game was released with these known bugs, some are still present. It’s one thing to defend emergent bugs. It’s another to defend the the known ones. Before anyone says that other games/software is released with known bugs. I know, it still doesn’t make it good practice.

[Saurakk]

I am just curious...for those that have worked on programming a MMO for a major company...how long does it take to fix bugs on average?

 

What is the process from identification, to reproduction, to repair, to approve the repair, and then to move live?

 

Unless you actually have programmed a MMO for a major company...your opinion is worthless...so please let the experts answer.

[Appletaz]

Probably the biggest problem regarding the OP is that there is no customer service. There is no response from BW. There is no indication from them that the acknowledge and received the information and find it useful or useless and have no intention of fixing it.

 

Customer Service will save the day. Ignoring bug reports and things of that ilk will just garner poor will from your customers. That is all.

[Zeppelin]

The game hasn't even been out a month and already there are numerous fixes, lol

[gormanster]

Piss poor manager in the making you are.

 

I can't agree more with that statement. Not trying to derail here, but any job above a peon level position such as retail comes with the luxery of "buffer" time employees can spend doing whatever they do each day. As long as my employees are getting their stuff done and doing their work, i don't mind them doing whatever (within the realm of work policies). Adopting the attitude of "you're fired if you do anything non-work related" will make every single employee that works for you despise you, even if it's not blatantly obvious.

[gormanster]

The game hasn't even been out a month and already there are numerous fixes, lol

 

Numerous, small, very arguably insignificant fixes.

 

The first few months of a MMO typically make or break it; and is the most critical time to address the playerbase issues and make it very clear they are doing everything they can to COMMUNICATE and make it seem like they are avidly trying to fix everything they can. I just dont feel that with this game is all.