Why make excuses For MMO's at launch?

[Raventhorpe]

I m a hater, but you have a hole in your argument. Some of the critical changes that are requested might change the current gameplay for the people who like it the way it is. For example raids being nerfed or not.

 

I agree with you partly, but goes both ways, people criticising should try to see the changes they want from another side as well.

 

Which I do not think should apply to bugs, since fixing those should be supported by both fanboys and haters in theory, but its not for some reason on this forum lol.

 

All agreed. just want to put it out there I understand the current game is flawed and needs fixing. I approve of the current release version as it means there is an income with which to pay for fixes. too, it states people are willing to play that game it's financially viable and worth fixing.

[Barathos]

Tronics the amount of "now correctly" this and that that is in those patch notes makes me scared lol.

 

Every MMO says "Now Correctly".

 

EQ2.

 

WoW... etc.

[Kunra]

Then provide one gaming name that had zero bugs. In all your "research" you most certainly can provide that now can't you?

 

0 Bugs? No.

 

Better tested, less bug ridden, more balanced, less lag, more seamless(0 load screens)?:

 

Fallen Earth...EvE..GW's, AoC...wait, sorry, mind fart, AoC had serious stabiltiy problems at release worse then SWToR.

[Loekii]

Interesting use of common interest. I would not suggest someone is interested if they are hanging about posting on the forums til they can no longer. Failr implied this in an earlier post and then did not deny it when I commented on it.

 

Brings me back to unless you are invested long term it is quite pointless as you are not hanging about til the issue you have is resolved.

I disagree.

 

In STO, I hung around giving negative feedback until I left.

 

I now see some of the feedback has appeared in patch changes to the game.

 

I certainly do not think that it was only my feedback that spirited the changes, but I do feel that my feedback was another log on the fire that ultimately inspired the developers to make the change.

 

Additionally, there is the entertainment value in discussing games, regardless if one is planning on staying with the game for months, or they are on their way out the door. I might not care about a particular football team, but I will still participate in a discussion about their performance in last sunday's game, simply for the 'entertainment' of the discussion.

 

So, imo, there are levels where a discussion like this is not 'pointless'.

[Raventhorpe]

Ability delay is still ingame, and it has been out for over a month, can you really still call this launch? Or when does the launch phase end? A year after?

 

i would suggest 6 months. Finding the issue, correcting, testing and then releasing a proper fix.

[MikeMonger]

Its caused by different reasons, and I am a software developer myself, which I don't even know if its worth mentioning on this forum lol, but you r right in part.

 

And if you were actually a software developer you'd know that the larger and more complex the application, and the more users you dump onto that application, the more bugs you're going to find. You'd know it was inevitable, regardless of how much in house and beta testing you've done.

 

I too am a software developer.

 

You never seen hardware related CTD crashes have you?

 

Me personally? No. Because I've never had hardware fail on me *knock wood*.

 

Does it happen? Sure. Is it the EXCEPTION, and not the rule? Yup.

 

Crash can be caused by both software and hardware fault.

 

And again, if you were REALLY a software developer, you'd know that crashes are caused by SOFTWARE 99.9% of the time.

 

As for rift having "crashes", I ve seen a couple downtimes in SWTOR that had no warning as well,

 

Oh really? And when was this?

 

Because I've been playing pretty consistently since early access, and the only thing I can think of that comes close to an unplanned outage was when they extended scheduled maintenance by a couple of hours.

 

Which...simply isn't the same thing.

 

Look, I get it. You want the game to suck because of bugs. Then quit. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play. But DON'T try to pretend that ALL MMO's don't have EXTENSIVE issues in the months following launch. Because you're simply wrong.

Edited January 22, 2012 by MikeMonger

[failr]

AoC had serious stabiltiy problems at release worse then SWToR.

 

I think it was about the same, first zone was awesome everything after it pretty broken. Simillar to SWTOR, first 25 lvls good, after that you see issues.

[jarjarloves]

0 Bugs? No.

 

Better tested, less bug ridden, more balanced, less lag, more seamless(0 load screens)?:

 

Fallen Earth...EvE..GW's, AoC...wait, sorry, mind fart, AoC had serious stabiltiy problems at release worse then SWToR.

 

rofl Fallen Earth???? EvE was severily lacking balance and content. Not to mention it had some serious bugs at launch.

 

 

Can't say about GW never played it.

[Tronics]

End of the day mate they are trying to fix things as quick as possible. I enjoy playing swtor, that doesn't mean I like how games are released, just I won't spend time posting about it, that also doesn't mean I'm allowing any game firm to get away with things, it just means I'm not visably vocal about it, I find it better just to report bugs then shout about them if you know what I mean:D

 

Tronics the amount of "now correctly" this and that that is in those patch notes makes me scared lol.

[Raventhorpe]

I disagree.

 

In STO, I hung around giving negative feedback until I left.

 

I now see some of the feedback has appeared in patch changes to the game.

 

I certainly do not think that it was only my feedback that spirited the changes, but I do feel that my feedback was another log on the fire that ultimately inspired the developers to make the change.

 

Additionally, there is the entertainment value in discussing games, regardless if one is planning on staying with the game for months, or they are on their way out the door. I might not care about a particular football team, but I will still participate in a discussion about their performance in last sunday's game, simply for the 'entertainment' of the discussion.

 

So, imo, there are levels where a discussion like this is not 'pointless'.

 

I see your point and agree. Apparently it is possible for people to come to a resolution to something, which is also encouraging. Both our opinions are valid to an extent.

[Kunra]

I think it was about the same, first zone was awesome everything after it pretty broken. Simillar to SWTOR, first 25 lvls good, after that you see issues.

 

Yeah, I can agree, the Starter areas in AoC had the largest amount of Testing and Dev time invested, beyond that, Horrible.

[failr]

And if you were actually a software developer you'd know that the larger and more complex the application, and the more users you dump onto that application, the more bugs you're going to find. You'd know it was inevitable, regardless of how much in house and beta testing you've done.

 

I too am a software developer.

 

 

 

Me personally? No. Because I've never had hardware fail on me *knock wood*.

 

Does it happen? Sure. Is it the EXCEPTION, and not the rule? Yup.

 

 

 

And again, if you were REALLY a software developer, you'd know that crashes are caused by SOFTWARE 99.9% of the time.

 

 

 

Oh really? And when was this?

 

Because I've been playing pretty consistently since early access, and the only thing I can think of that comes close to an unplanned outage was when they extended scheduled maintenance by a couple of hours.

 

Which...simply isn't the same thing.

 

Look, I get it. You want the game to suck because of bugs. Then quit. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play. But DON'T try to pretend that ALL MMO's have EXTENSIVE issues in the months following launch. Because you're simply wrong.

 

Except it is not just bugs that concern me about SWTOR, the bugs are just cream. The poor design choices are the problem.

 

Hardware is more stable now, now even though 99.9% is an exxageration software related crashes are more prevalent obviously. In 2004 that wasn't the case, they were about the same for the server based applications, which was my point.

 

You get what you want to get, you want to think that all I say is bad without reading into it, it is your choice, I do not blame you. A little less bias would help me respect you as a worthwhile person to argue with though.

 

As for me not being a software developer you can say what you want, I am not going to even attempt to try to prove my irl job existence on this forum, I just pointed it out for kicks, unless you provide me some tangible way in which to prove it, same goes for you btw.

 

And our play times must differ.

Edited January 22, 2012 by failr

[Kunra]

rofl Fallen Earth???? EvE was severily lacking balance and content. Not to mention it had some serious bugs at launch.

 

 

Can't say about GW never played it.

 

Yes, Fallen Earth, its FTP now, give it a try.

 

We also had Tiggs as head of CS in Fallen Earth, definite plus.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Kunra

[Brosephiine]

I agree, People make far too many excuses for game companies that put out PC games now a days period.

 

It's like the companies simply go:

 

"oh, well we can just patch that 3, 6, even 12 months down the road! no worries!" and they slap a QA sticker on it and shove it out the door ready to be shipped.

 

Out of curiosity, do you know how to develop a game? Do you know how to test a game? Do you know what QA even does? Because a lot of the people complaining don't seem to know any of these things and expect everything to be done perfectly at launch when in reality it is impossible to do so. Literally impossible. This is not console gaming. We're talking millions of people suddenly pushing every button combination you can think of. QA doesn't have those numbers. They can try their best, but bugs will get through.

 

In no other industry on the planet can the same be said!

 

You wouldn't buy a car that was missing 3 tires and half the engine block

Nor would you buy a house with no walls

 

or any other completely ridiculous analogy you care to pose.

Some people would do both, actually. Though to address your point... The gaming industry is unlike any other industry in the world, so to compare the development process of a game to that of a car or house is ludicrous.

 

Yet, time and time again people blindly accept PC game companies practice of releasing horribly flawed titles to the public, and it has only gotten worse with time.

This I will actually agree with, though perhaps not in the same way as you. And this goes for games as a whole. However, the gaming industry is limited to current technology. Unless you can provide a brilliant new idea that's cost effective and will market to the public, what's out there is pretty much what you get. And game ideas are quickly getting worse and worse.

 

On the bright side, there are new generations of gamers who grew up playing games. The industry founders are getting older and retiring and perhaps we'll get some fresh new ideas out there soon.

 

Games need far more rigorous testing phases. Less of this "sign up for a free testing key and maybe if your feeling nice tell us what is horribly broken in our game" and more ...

 

"here is a few bucks an hour to come and test our product and tell us what is wrong with it"

 

 

I think if more companies opened up paid testing for their products - the games would be vastly improved at launch.

 

...

 

They need to be rolling out bug fixes / patches far faster than they currently are. Even their first major patch was missing LOADS of stuff that should have been fixed ages ago, and had very little in the way of new content.

I actually just playtested a game at Blizzard. Being the only female that showed up at all for the day I was scheduled, I pretty much spoke for women as a whole when discussing their product (which I signed a Non Disclosure Agreement for, so no asking what it was.) Honestly, my group consisted of eight people and there was probably room for more. I think more people need to get involved in this process. I was disappointed to find so few people there to test. They even pay you $100!

 

And by the way, VG Market is the market research firm I went through to do this playtest. I wonder how many people even know about this company? I personally signed up to be informed about any and all playtests in my area. It's open to the general public, go ahead and sign up for it.

 

What I CAN tell you is that when I tested Blizzard's game, we covered some very important gaming qualities including functionality. Having majored in Game Art & Design, I made sure to look at this game very critically and argue for and against multiple points made by myself and others. I made sure I got my point across correctly so the developers could clearly understand what I thought needed to be improved upon. The entire session was video taped.

 

Gaming companies take these things very seriously. Creating these games takes years of hard work with employees working 12-13 sometimes 15 hour work days. They are tested, retested, and re-retested over and over and over again before they even think of doing a closed testing. Then they do even MORE tests after that because they had to fix things after all those tests. Once something is tested, a bug found, and then fixed... You have to retest all over again to make sure the changes didn't create another bug.

 

To say the least, you should do some serious research into what exactly goes in to fixing bugs in an MMO and just how much testing goes into a game pre-launch before you start criticizing the process. I can easily tell by the way you talk about the process that you don't actually know what it entails. And by the way? QA never rests. Each bug you report means they keep testing and testing and testing.I wasn't joking. When you report a bug, QA must test for this bug, programmers must fix this bug, that fix must be tested and if it's faulty, another fix goes in and that fix gets tested and so on. It's a painstaking process and not one that can be done quickly. If you want these bugs fixed, you'd best be patient.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Brosephiine

[failr]

Out of curiosity, do you know how to develop a game? Do you know how to test a game? Do you know what QA even does? Because a lot of the people complaining don't seem to know any of these things and expect everything to be done perfectly at launch when in reality it is impossible to do so. Literally impossible. This is not console gaming. We're talking millions of people suddenly pushing every button combination you can think of. QA doesn't have those numbers. They can try their best, but bugs will get through.

 

I don't even want to get into the whole irl job thing, but yes I have some QA experience, albeit not for gaming software.

 

You know that Bioware outsourced SWTOR QA to India right? That is what I dislike.

[MikeMonger]

Except it is not just bugs that concern me about SWTOR, the bugs are just cream. The poor design choices are the problem.

 

Then make THAT argument instead of pretending that you know the first thing about large scale application development.

 

Because the fact is, the game DOES contain several poorly designed aspects. Crafting is idiotic. Space is pointless.

 

Hardware is more stable now, now even though 99.9% is an exxageration software related crashes are more prevalent obviously.

 

No, it really isn't. A poor developer will blame hardware if he writes bad calls, but that doesn't make it hardware failure.

 

You get what you want to get, you want to think that all I say is bad without reading into it, it is your choice, I do not blame you. A little less bias would help me respect you as a worthwhile person to argue with though.

 

Bias? I'm not the trying to make the patently false argument that hardware is responsible for any kind of significant server downtime, for the sole purpose of denying due credit to an application I'm badmouthing.

 

As for me not being a software developer you can say what you want, I am not going to even attempt to try to prove my irl job existence on this forum, I just pointed it out for kicks, unless you provide me some tangible way in which to prove it, same goes for you btw.

 

Fine, don't prove it. Know what you could do? Provide some dates when these unexpected server outages that you claim were so prevalent in this game. Because the fact is with the sheer number if irrational haters here, there would STILL be threads being made about them, if they were real.

[Skoobie]

I agree. It doesn't apply to 'all criticism'. My bad for not making that more clear.

 

 

However, imo, we have seen the issue where criticism that even BW is now adding to their patches, were met with vitriol and name calling by fans of the game.

 

 

Basically, it is about pointing out there is too much blanket attacks on critics, and that this seems to result in Developers releasing games of lessor quality (patching up after launch).

 

 

Imo, it would be a lot better if we had seen TOR launch with say patch 3.0 (future patches, less obvious content), as a result of a more united front presented by the 'future customers', and less in fighting between fans and critics.

 

 

Now look closer.

 

What you'll actually usually see is someone coming to the forums complaining, usually in a very angry way.

 

Then a bunch of people jump in on the band wagon.

 

Then someone pipes in and says something like "They are working on it". or..like the title of this thread "The game just launched"

 

All of a sudden, the second person is the enemy, names like "fanboi" start getting thrown around, and hatred ensues.

 

I think the blanket attacks are on those who enjoy the game and have a different opinion, not on those who make complaints. Heck, look how many times a complaint thread is started, and the first post after is "In before the Bioware Defense Force".

Edited January 22, 2012 by Skoobie

[Monoth]

Well what i keep reading in these threads is mostly people making excuses for MMO's at launch, In my understanding MMO means Massivly Multiplayer Online. Soo why do people make excuses for MMO's at launch?

 

When we buy an MMO game, we do not buy it for constant bugs and things not working as they should. People make too many excuses for these companies and developers of these games.

 

Does not matter what excuses are going to be said in this thread. I bought this game for fun and it should not matter if i buy this game at launch, or 6 months after launch i should get the same experience there is no excuse for that.

 

What is the point of BETA for soo long if launch is not going to be perfect (or at least close)

 

People giving theses companies the excuse of ''ALL MMO'S ARE THE SAME AT LAUNCH'' is not the answer. Giving them this excuse lets them bring out MMO's before they are actually ready giving profit from a game that is still in BETA stages.

 

SWTOR BETA TESTING

 

I have read muliple threads about BW not fixing bugs that were reported in BETA and the bugs are still in game, I blame mostly the '' ALL MMO'S ARE THE SAME AT LAUNCH EXCUSES'' without these the companies and developers would work harder to get the MMO up to scratch before launch.

 

Ok soo i know i am going to get people hating my opinions and soo on but who agrees with me and why ????????

 

Thanks for your time and patiance this was bigger than i thought i would have been

 

may the force be with u all

 

 

Every MMO is this way, you know that I know that, so the real question should be "Why did you buy this game knowing that?"

 

For most MMO players there willing to put up with the bugs for the first few months as they sort them out.... Hell months before the game came out there were tons of posts of people wanting the game released bugs and all, now these same people qq about it...

 

And this is not just a MMO Issue, pretty much all games single player or multi-player have tons of bugs a release, it's even affecting console games which used to be rather solid, but now they have patches also...

 

Want to make a stand? Then don't buy games until you know they are perfectly polished..... btw good luck with that, odds are you'll never play another game again...

[Tronics]

Problems with bugs is even when reported, if they can't re-create the same bug then they can't fix it, every bug that is reported has to be re-created by the people fixing them, that in it's self can take time.

[Brosephiine]

I don't even want to get into the whole irl job thing, but yes I have some QA experience, albeit not for gaming software.

 

You know that Bioware outsourced SWTOR QA to India right? That is what I dislike.

 

Oh now that's just sad. Trying to save money I see. But QA really just sits there and presses buttons over and over or runs a character into a wall fifteen thousand times. I'm just worried about the communication from QA to the developers now.

[krinaman]

I disagree.

 

In STO, I hung around giving negative feedback until I left.

 

I now see some of the feedback has appeared in patch changes to the game.

 

I certainly do not think that it was only my feedback that spirited the changes, but I do feel that my feedback was another log on the fire that ultimately inspired the developers to make the change.

 

Additionally, there is the entertainment value in discussing games, regardless if one is planning on staying with the game for months, or they are on their way out the door. I might not care about a particular football team, but I will still participate in a discussion about their performance in last sunday's game, simply for the 'entertainment' of the discussion.

 

So, imo, there are levels where a discussion like this is not 'pointless'.

 

The thing is most Devs won't even read the forums.

 

But even the ones that do aren't going to read the rants. Meaningful, constructive feedback absolutely helps. ****, thiis is the worst game evah, fix it noaw, I'm unsubbing because there is a bug, I'm holding my breath till my face turns blue, waa waa, QQ doesn't accomplish a thing.

[failr]

Then make THAT argument instead of pretending that you know the first thing about large scale application development.

 

Because the fact is, the game DOES contain several poorly designed aspects. Crafting is idiotic. Space is pointless.

 

 

 

No, it really isn't. A poor developer will blame hardware if he writes bad calls, but that doesn't make it hardware failure.

 

 

 

Bias? I'm not the trying to make the patently false argument that hardware is responsible for any kind of significant server downtime, for the sole purpose of denying due credit to an application I'm badmouthing.

 

 

 

Fine, don't prove it. Know what you could do? Provide some dates when these unexpected server outages that you claim were so prevalent in this game. Because the fact is with the sheer number if irrational haters here, there would STILL be threads being made about them, if they were real.

 

And that's the argument I made, multiple times actually, there is a limit to bugs however, at some point you can have too many or too serious bugs. Is ability delay a bug or a design choice? It could be either, doesn't change the fact that it being there is a problem and a very serious one.

 

You don't remember the pre virtual memory days when we had to write programs knowing how much ram a machine would have, things in all aspects are getting easier for programmers hardware wise. You can't deny that.

 

And I didn't make any claim that poor hardware was responsible for SWTORs downtimes, I stated that mmos of the past 2004 and earlier which this game is usually being compared to for some unexplainable reason, could ve had or had those issues.

 

As for dates, heck if I remember, was prolly in the morning some day, like I said they might ve made a post on the forum about it being a downtime afterwards as well. But I do recall seeing one or two downtimes with no warnings, were they crashes? No idea, but they could ve been.

Edited January 22, 2012 by failr

[Tronics]

Guess thats because consoles now have access to the internet, were as one stage they didn't.

 

Every MMO is this way, you know that I know that, so the real question should be "Why did you buy this game knowing that?"

 

For most MMO players there willing to put up with the bugs for the first few months as they sort them out.... Hell months before the game came out there were tons of posts of people wanting the game released bugs and all, now these same people qq about it...

 

And this is not just a MMO Issue, pretty much all games single player or multi-player have tons of bugs a release, it's even affecting console games which used to be rather solid, but now they have patches also...

 

Want to make a stand? Then don't buy games until you know they are perfectly polished..... btw good luck with that, odds are you'll never play another game again...

[Loekii]

Out of curiosity, do you know how to develop a game?

I have never been a waiter, but I can tell you the difference between great service and when to call the manager/owner.

 

I do not know how to be a head chef at a 5 star restaurant, but I do know what to expect for the price of a 5 star restaurant.

 

I do not have an MD, but I do know when I am not receiving the best medical treatment I can afford.

 

 

Customers do not need to 'know how to do better', to evaluate the quality of a product, or a service. We see it all the time in the real world.

 

 

So no, someone does not need to know how to develope an MMORPG before they are allowed to criticize it.

[Loekii]

The thing is most Devs won't even read the forums.

 

But even the ones that do aren't going to read the rants.

 

I have seen Devs respond to 'rants' in forums before.

 

I have also seen some 'squeeky wheel' threads/posts, also get developer responses.

 

I do not believe there is any rule to which posts Devs respond to, and which ones they do not. It is more a lottery, than a formula.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Loekii