Why are BW lying in the patch notes?

[spudbynight]

How is it okay to say you fixed the bug when you haven't even touched it?

 

Bioware lie - House would like them.

[Skerry]

Sure, but you can't deny that there are people who can be classified as nothing other than a fanboy, when you point out obvious flaws in their precious game and they refuse to accept it and call you a WoW fanboy.

 

Problem is, a lot that is getting argued about are not in fact FLAWS, but opinions.

 

 

Problem is, those get all lumped together as well.

 

It is a never ending cycle of stupid.

[LizardSF]

I work in the software industry(Not games), but its the same crap.

 

While i did read your little blog post there, and customers ARE idiots a lot of the time, there is still what I would consider acceptable and unacceptable bugs/problems.

 

 

And some of these bugs are just.. amateur stuff really.

 

Not because of the complexity of fixing them so much. I UNDERSTAND that. I KNOW, I've had to deal with stuff that would make your head spin.

 

More so because some of these bugs have been reported on and been around for almost a YEAR. And some of them are not only glaringly obvious, but major bugs.

 

Try turning on the vendor filter to show only what you can USE. Doesn't work. And its something everyone uses EVERY day.

 

There is a thing most companies do called triage. And from what I've seen over a year of beta/launch is that their triage priority is incredibly messed up at times.

 

I'm not just talking the last two launch patches.

 

I'm talking looking back and beta and client updates for over a year. It blew my mind what they fixed and what they let slide to fix AFTER release.

 

Just disappointing really.

 

I don't dispute this, but...

 

a)"They didn't fix this bug" isn't the same as "They LIED about fixing this bug!". "Lied" is a very strong word. It means deliberate intent to deceive, and, contrary to myth, very few corporations, especially publicly traded corporations, lie. Leave things out? Sure. Weasel words? Sure. Exaggerate or downplay as needed? Sure. Out-and-out LIE? Not often.

 

b)I agree that, from an outsider's perspective, the issues fixed/not fixed look ridiculous and trivial. I also have the experience -- and I guess you do to -- to know that sometimes the simplest things can be the most complex, and a seemingly sensible design decision made three years ago causes an otherwise trivial bug to be a nightmare. For example, "usable by me" filter[1]. Yeah, I noticed that was broken, big-time. I don't know why; it might be a five second fix if anyone gets five seconds. It might also, due to a poor decision about how to structure the database, be something that adds a ridiculous time cost to queries against the GTN, to the point where implementing it would slow all transactions to a crawl. It might have a bug which would take five minutes to fix.. if the guy who wrote that part of the code hadn't quit six months ago and now no one but him understands it.[2] Of course, this is pure speculation. We don't know. We won't be told. I am willing, though, to allow for SOME possibility that because I am acting on incomplete information, there may be complexities I'm not aware of. Ultimately, either game-breaking issues are fixed... or players don't resub. The idea that the developers, CS reps, etc, are somehow unaware of these issues, and that all that needs to be done is to shout about them more, though, is extremely foolish. It can be safely assumed that they DO know about the issues, and they've made decisions on how to allocate their resources based on the best information THEY have available, which is more information than WE have, so, second-guessing them strikes me as unproductive.

 

[1]Perfect world, "Usable by my active companion" filter would exist as well.

[2]Go on, TELL me you've never had to maintain, or worse, DOCUMENT, someone else's "job security code".

[Oddzball]

I don't dispute this, but...

 

a)"They didn't fix this bug" isn't the same as "They LIED about fixing this bug!". "Lied" is a very strong word. It means deliberate intent to deceive, and, contrary to myth, very few corporations, especially publicly traded corporations, lie. Leave things out? Sure. Weasel words? Sure. Exaggerate or downplay as needed? Sure. Out-and-out LIE? Not often.

 

b)I agree that, from an outsider's perspective, the issues fixed/not fixed look ridiculous and trivial. I also have the experience -- and I guess you do to -- to know that sometimes the simplest things can be the most complex, and a seemingly sensible design decision made three years ago causes an otherwise trivial bug to be a nightmare. For example, "usable by me" filter[1]. Yeah, I noticed that was broken, big-time. I don't know why; it might be a five second fix if anyone gets five seconds. It might also, due to a poor decision about how to structure the database, be something that adds a ridiculous time cost to queries against the GTN, to the point where implementing it would slow all transactions to a crawl. It might have a bug which would take five minutes to fix.. if the guy who wrote that part of the code hadn't quit six months ago and now no one but him understands it.[2] Of course, this is pure speculation. We don't know. We won't be told. I am willing, though, to allow for SOME possibility that because I am acting on incomplete information, there may be complexities I'm not aware of. Ultimately, either game-breaking issues are fixed... or players don't resub. The idea that the developers, CS reps, etc, are somehow unaware of these issues, and that all that needs to be done is to shout about them more, though, is extremely foolish. It can be safely assumed that they DO know about the issues, and they've made decisions on how to allocate their resources based on the best information THEY have available, which is more information than WE have, so, second-guessing them strikes me as unproductive.

 

[1]Perfect world, "Usable by my active companion" filter would exist as well.

[2]Go on, TELL me you've never had to maintain, or worse, DOCUMENT, someone else's "job security code".

 

All the time man, all the time. I cover so many peoples butts every day it isn't funny.

 

Frankly I HAVE "job security tasks" that I KNOW nobody else can do. We all do in the industry.

 

HOWEVER it WOULD be my back side that got grilled endlessly until those things got taken care of. I got ZERO vacation time (Other then federally MANDATED holidays) this X-mas/new years because a new software version was released and i was one of the only people that really understood it. I cant imagine them letting me get away with not fixing something for a year, let alone a month or two.

 

I never said they lied though. I'm just wondering what the hell is going on internally that some of these bugs even exist or haven't been fixed yet.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Oddzball

[LizardSF]

Problem is, a lot that is getting argued about are not in fact FLAWS, but opinions.

 

 

Problem is, those get all lumped together as well.

 

It is a never ending cycle of stupid.

 

Well, it's a mix.

 

High res textures don't work. That's not an opinion, that's a bug, a documented and acknowledged one. Period.

 

"ZOMG Biowear theeves lyers skum want mony bak lying scum warkraft u all suk" is an opinion.

 

It's rather unfortunate a lot of today's overprivileged brats have been told all their life that reality is subjective and that they're special precious snowflakes and that it's better to let someone be wrong than to hurt their self-esteem by correcting them. This has created a generation which can't tell the difference between opinions and facts, and which fails to understand that the validity of an opinion is linked to the facts upon which it is based -- and it's possible for an opinion to wrong.

 

To go further:

"Bioware should focus all possible effort on fixing the texture bug." This is an opinion, but it's one which can be defended and is based on facts, such as player perception of quality, the value of gameplay for the money invested, and so on.

 

"Bioware is ignoring the bug!" or "Bioware LIED about the bug!" are both also opinions, but they are pretending to be facts, and they're fairly self-evidently incorrect.

[Mannic]

We just got done with 2 holidays....2 major ones. 1 of them where people frequently travel long distances. Do you not think it possible that the patches that were pushed to us were pushed through QA before Christmas so that people could take their holiday vacations to go see family?

 

 

Family > us. At least I hope that statement is true for bioware.

 

They shouldn't have released the game right before the holidays then.

 

When are you guys going to stop with the knee-jerk defense of Bioware's bad decisions. You can't release a game and then have half your staff bolt off on holiday. That's just STUPID.

 

Everything about this game would have been better if Bioware had delayed release another three months. I can't believe they released the game in its current state.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Mannic

[Leggomy]

They shouldn't have released the game right before the holidays then.

 

When are you guys going to stop with the knee-jerk defense of Bioware's bad decisions. You can't release a game and then have half your staff bolt off on holiday. That's just STUPID.

 

No whats stupid is expecting everything to be fixed in a couple of weeks. Also noone said anyone from Bioware got any extra time off at Christmas so thats an ASSumption.

[Oddzball]

They shouldn't have released the game right before the holidays then.

 

When are you guys going to stop with the knee-jerk defense of Bioware's bad decisions. You can't release a game and then have half your staff bolt off on holiday. That's just STUPID.

 

 

I doubt its because of the holidays. In the professional world you don't get that much time off for holidays.

 

 

I would BET that the texture issue is so deep and complex that they have no idea how to fix it right now.

 

You ever do something that you KNOW should fix X problem and it doesn't work?

 

What do you do then? You sit around and have to go through everything to figure out where that tiny mistake is that you made.

 

They probably have no idea. They might have left it till right before launch to fix. Then tried to fix it, and found out it was way more complex a bug then they initially thought, and now they are sunk so deep in the mud they are gonna be stuck for months.

 

I would blame management for not recognizing how difficult the task might have been and not assigning enough priority on it. That's what happens most of the time.

[LizardSF]

HOWEVER it WOULD be my back side that got grilled endlessly until those things got taken care of. I got ZERO vacation time (Other then federally MANDATED holidays) this X-mas/new years because a new software version was released and i was one of the only people that really understood it. I cant imagine them letting me get away with not fixing something for a year, let alone a month or two.

 

I never said they lied though. I'm just wondering what the hell is going on internally that some of these bugs even exist or haven't been fixed yet.

 

We could have a lot of fun swapping horror stories.

 

The assumption that someone, or several someones, AREN'T being raked over the coals over the bug(s) is one I can't make without knowing more. It would be grossly unprofessional for BioWare to say, "The broken texture code was due to Joe Shmoe, and we told him he either fixes it next week or he's fired." I'm sure you agree... even if that's exactly what's happening internally. A corporation which doesn't at least put on the public front of "We stand by our family of highly skilled professional workers blah blah blah" will find itself losing workers, and very possibly, targeted by lawsuits, especially in California.

 

If you, or anyone, can present evidence BioWare considers this bug trivial or is not dedicating all *useful* resources to it, I am open minded enough to consider it. The fact other bugs are being fixed tells us nothing about how many people are assigned to getting textures working or how hard those people are working. I strongly doubt anyone at BioWare, other than maybe the admin staff, is working only 40 hours a week now, or has for the last six months. (When I was in the game business, at GameTek, back in the mid-90s, we got a company meeting because the boss didn't see enough people working on Sunday... never mind the 12-14 hour days, minimum, we pulled Monday through Saturday.)

[Morosi]

But I came across some broken nodes yesturday. Bioware stated in the patch notes that the problem was fixed.

[imtrick]

Everything about this game would have been better if Bioware had delayed release another three months. I can't believe they released the game in its current state.

 

I see the date on your account, so I'm sure you're aware of how many people were screaming for a release. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

 

I get a chuckle when I remember all the posts from before the release date was announced shouting that "Bioware should just release now. If it's not ready now, it never will be."

 

There was no way they could win this.

[imtrick]

But I came across some broken nodes yesturday. Bioware stated in the patch notes that the problem was fixed.

 

It's definitely better than it was, but yeah, some are still bugged. Though they may be bugged in a different way now; I don't know.

[Jimer_Lins]

Just like last week when they told us the harvesting nodes were fixed. I'm sure the fanboys will lap it up though.

 

Yes, everyone who has an opinion that is nuanced or differs from your blind hatred is a "fanboy". That's exactly how it works.

 

Of course, those of us who live in what I like to call "reality" know that sometimes a bug can have more than one cause. I've seen a few unharvestable nodes since the patch, but far, far fewer than before.

[Oddzball]

We could have a lot of fun swapping horror stories.

 

The assumption that someone, or several someones, AREN'T being raked over the coals over the bug(s) is one I can't make without knowing more. It would be grossly unprofessional for BioWare to say, "The broken texture code was due to Joe Shmoe, and we told him he either fixes it next week or he's fired." I'm sure you agree... even if that's exactly what's happening internally. A corporation which doesn't at least put on the public front of "We stand by our family of highly skilled professional workers blah blah blah" will find itself losing workers, and very possibly, targeted by lawsuits, especially in California.

 

If you, or anyone, can present evidence BioWare considers this bug trivial or is not dedicating all *useful* resources to it, I am open minded enough to consider it. The fact other bugs are being fixed tells us nothing about how many people are assigned to getting textures working or how hard those people are working. I strongly doubt anyone at BioWare, other than maybe the admin staff, is working only 40 hours a week now, or has for the last six months. (When I was in the game business, at GameTek, back in the mid-90s, we got a company meeting because the boss didn't see enough people working on Sunday... never mind the 12-14 hour days, minimum, we pulled Monday through Saturday.)

 

Read my next above post. It highlights what i honestly think.

 

But yeah, we will most likely never know, those those of us with experience can pretty much assume that my above post is the probable scenario.

[LizardSF]

You ever do something that you KNOW should fix X problem and it doesn't work?

 

What do you do then? You sit around and have to go through everything to figure out where that tiny mistake is that you made.

 

They probably have no idea. They might have left it till right before launch to fix. Then tried to fix it, and found out it was way more complex a bug then they initially thought, and now they are sunk so deep in the mud they are gonna be stuck for months.

 

I would blame management for not recognizing how difficult the task might have been and not assigning enough priority on it. That's what happens most of the time.

 

You just described last week. Without boring you with a lot of technical details, I was doing something on the lines of "I=5; Print I; I=4; Print I", and getting "5" both times. After an amazing amount of pursuing blind alleys, I conclusively proved there was a bug in a third party library, built an exhaustive set of test cases to prove it, and sent it off to their tech support... who hit me with "It works on our machine!". Eventually, they sent us a new library which solved the problem, but they never formally acknowledged the bug, which I found in three older versions of their code, as well.

 

That's the reality of it. I have never done anything with the type of code needed to handle texture mapping, so I can't even imagine hypotheticals like I can with DB issues, but I can imagine it's complex.

[Kugruk]

No, you misunderstood. The patch note clearly refers to the problem where the option for High Textures does nothing and they stay at Medium quality. It was broken before the patch, and it still is broken.

 

You clearly dont know how to read, and misunderstand the problem they fixed.

[Oddzball]

You just described last week. Without boring you with a lot of technical details, I was doing something on the lines of "I=5; Print I; I=4; Print I", and getting "5" both times. After an amazing amount of pursuing blind alleys, I conclusively proved there was a bug in a third party library, built an exhaustive set of test cases to prove it, and sent it off to their tech support... who hit me with "It works on our machine!". Eventually, they sent us a new library which solved the problem, but they never formally acknowledged the bug, which I found in three older versions of their code, as well.

 

That's the reality of it. I have never done anything with the type of code needed to handle texture mapping, so I can't even imagine hypotheticals like I can with DB issues, but I can imagine it's complex.

 

Thats the problem with using an engine you didn't create form scratch. There could be a bug in the HERO engine that BioWare has zero control over. And no doubt they have heavily modified their version for this game, so that makes any issues even more complexe because they have no baseline to go off anymore.

[HavenAE]

Just like last week when they told us the harvesting nodes were fixed. I'm sure the fanboys will lap it up though.

 

Many harvesting nodes were fixed. They never said ALL harvesting nodes were fixed.

 

I have to say I haven't ran into a single non-harvestable node since the patch last week. But I know some do still exist.

[Oddzball]

Speak of BS problems. OFF I GO. *Sigh* Work calls fellow SWTOR players. Seeya all ingame.

[HavenAE]

why does everyone feel the need to call others a fanboy or hater to justify an argument? it just makes yourself look silly and immature.

 

Because they just don't understand how someone could disagree with them and have that argument still be valid. Their intelligence level just can't process that kind of information.

 

Fanboy, hateboy they're all just fallacies in most cases really. There ARE some people blinded by devotion to a company or IP who refuse to see anything wrong, but the big problem is idiots are quick to throw the term around just because someone disagrees with their argument.

 

Basically if you like the game and they don't you must be a fanboy because their OPINION is right. Doesn't matter that you agree there are problems that need fixing. Question is if they hate the game so much, why are they still here posting day in and day out.

 

 

 

The funny thing about these forums is pretty much everything that needs to be fixed has already been said. Repeating it does no more good than squeezing a turnip and trying to get blood out of it.

 

 

People who want to throw around the term fanboy need to realize one thing.

 

There are those of us who agree that there are things that need to be fixed, we also understand that those things take time to fix. ************ about them won't get them fixed any faster than Bioware is able to fix them, trust me they want more than anyone for this game to be successful.

 

Having patience is not the same as being a fanboy. If we were fanboys we wouldn't be capable of seeing problems with the game. It's just some problems have been blown way out of proportion and a lot of very impatient people need to just sit on their hands for a good while and stay away from the forums.

Edited January 4, 2012 by HavenAE

[Mannic]

No whats stupid is expecting everything to be fixed in a couple of weeks. Also noone said anyone from Bioware got any extra time off at Christmas so thats an ASSumption.

 

Almost ALL of the issues that are pending right now have been well-known since the early months of beta. So no, people aren't expecting this things to be fixed "in a couple weeks." It's not like skill delay, poor graphics performance, and about 1000 of these smaller bugs were just discovered since launch. You'll note I don't particularly complain about buggy Operations and other end-game problems because most of end-game wasn't implemented until very late and hasn't been thoroughly tested. In that case I do think it's unreasonable to expect everything to be fixed already.

 

But most of the issues that affect the game pre-50 have been known about for a long time.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Mannic

[Journeyer]

Did they apply the patch?

 

I saw the patch notes, and saw the post in the Test Server forum saying that the patch would be applied to the Test Server this morning at 2 am.

 

I don't play on the Test Server. I didn't expect to see a patch applied.

[HavenAE]

Almost ALL of the issues that are pending right now have been well-known since the early months of beta. So no, people aren't expecting this things to be fixed "in a couple weeks." It's not like skill delay, poor graphics performance, and about 1000 of these smaller bugs were just discovered since launch.

 

You realize about every MMO at launch has hold over bugs that were brought to attention in beta and not fixed yes?

 

Developers have a lot on their plate during all phases of the game pre-launch.

 

If you're better at it, why not apply to Bioware and show them how quickly everything can get done at once?

Edited January 4, 2012 by HavenAE

[VicSkimmr]

Many harvesting nodes were fixed. They never said ALL harvesting nodes were fixed.

 

I have to say I haven't ran into a single non-harvestable node since the patch last week. But I know some do still exist.

 

I've found quite a few bugged ones for archaeology, but I haven't found any for scavenging.

[HavenAE]

I've found quite a few bugged ones for archaeology, but I haven't found any for scavenging.

 

I do archaeology, I haven't seen a single one yet in mid-higher range zones. My understanding was most of the ones that are still bugged are in lower level areas, but that's an assumption I made since most people I've seen complaining about it in guild are lower level.