Developer Blog: Busting Bugs and Fixing Exploits

[Adwynyth]

Why is it that people always complain about things like these..

 

Because in today's culture, "it's all about MEEEE". People have been told they're special and they're all that matters, and they're the most important person so many times that they actually start to believe it. The fact that the MMO world just accentuates this makes it worse.

 

That, and smarting off on the Internet doesn't bring the same penalties (getting your *** kicked) that smarting off the same way in person does.

 

Oh, and TV's tendency to celebrate stupidity and bad behavior--and then emulate it in real life--doesn't help, either. When I was a kid (about the time the original Star Wars came out, BTW), something like the current crop of "reality TV" (i.e., people becoming famous for acting like *******es) would have been laughed off of TV and meant the end of a network.

 

TL;DR: I don't do TL;DRs...grow some damn patience and read the whole thing or don't bother replying.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Adwynyth

[DarthVadis]

Because in today's culture, "it's all about MEEEE". People have been told they're special and they're all that matters, and they're the most important person so many times that they actually start to believe it. The fact that the MMO world just accentuates this makes it worse.

 

That, and smarting off on the Internet doesn't bring the same penalties (getting your *** kicked) that smarting off the same way in person does.

 

Oh, and TV's tendency to celebrate stupidity and bad behavior--and then emulate it in real life--doesn't help, either. When I was a kid (about the time the original Star Wars came out, BTW), something like the current crop of "reality TV" (i.e., people becoming famous for acting like *******es) would have been laughed off of TV and meant the end of a network.

 

TL;DR: I don't do TL;DRs...grow some damn patience and read the whole thing or don't bother replying.

 

True..

 

Humanity still thinks they're the center of the universe,

 

[pinealogik]

yea ok, except that your "Quality Assurance, or QA team" is filled with incompetent

[Pattotwo]

Yeah come to think of it i have not seen 1 single bug. Mostly just game mechanics that fail. Like class balancing and what not. But i havent actually seen a single game breaking bug at all.

 

Here's Just one but I could go on for awhile with a list

Jedi Sentinel is crazy buggy most abilities you have double or tripple click the ability and watch it start then just stop, part of the reason I and many others rerolled and that patch never helped.

[Bloodynightmare]

I started reading this thread and it reminded me exactly why I don't read the forums. I just don't understand this attitude at all. Some people are telling them to stop creating new content and "fix" the game. lol seriously? A MMO will never be completely "fixed" until all pc companies join together and make just one computer with the same hardware. Also, the problem with that(previous statement) is the guys that create the content are not the same people that stomp out the bugs. So try harder at telling a company how to do their jobs.

 

Others call Bioware stupid or "clowns" claiming people are leaving in droves lol. Again seriously? What are those guys waiting for GW2? pfft.. Every MMO release is the same now. People can't wait for a release but about roughly 30% only join for the first month anyway. Fact is the first month never determines your solid player base to begin with. Most population levels are on standard(maybe light on earlier weekdays) almost around the clock so where is the problem? Are there people that actually miss the two hour long queue times? Getting content finished with groups is still easy as ever. The game is far from empty and if anything Bioware made too many worlds to satisfy a bunch of MMO hoppers.

 

P.S. The MMO is still a baby and had the SMOOTHEST launch in MMO history. So if you kids can't handle that fact get out of my beloved genre please. It used to have a great community

until WoW invited so many immature people(and yes It used to be a niche genre until WoW bloomed).

Edited February 1, 2012 by Bloodynightmare

[Malastare]

stop new content and fix the game. All your resources need to be put into fixing the game that exists now!!!

 

Yes!!!

 

Put those artists to work fixing network code! They're being too lazy with their pencils and drawing tablets. Tell them to stop wasting their time with models and textures and start figuring out why network routing occasionally experiences high latency, or at the very least force them to write code to be able to recover from multiple dropped packets.

 

And the writers, too. Really, what's the difference between writing dialogue and writing code. They're both 'writing'. You use a keyboard for both of them. Tell them to stop working on writing up new storylines until they've optimized the texture streaming code to handle high-resolution textures.

 

I don't know how you do things at Bioware, but in my experience, the one thing that really helps a team work faster is flooding them with a bunch of untrained, unqualified and unmotivated "helpers". So, figure it out, and reassign all of your UI designers to fix server bugs. That'll ensure that the code quality drastically increases.

 

[/sarcasm]

[MutantGnome]

We do care about new content. Game is not as "broken" as some forum posters say.

 

Ive been playing since Dec. 18th and havent run into 1 gamebreaking bug. I have run into a few regular bugs. I submit my report, and continue having fun. I dont run to the forums and say the sky is falling we're all doomed!!

 

Excellent article. Thank you for letting us in on the process. I was actually curious as to how you guys handled these things.

 

 

i would call not being able to login for the last 3 hours because the login service is unavalable, game breaking, the sniper act 1 final qst where you cant attack the boss because you cant "see" him as game breaking, the constant micro freezes for 20 - 40 seconds at a time since the last patch to "fix" something as game breaking... maybe they should fix those first before posting stuff about future content, or atleast fix it and not just say they did like the companion gfx that goes missing in conversation screens. i love this game, but i must admit the last 2 patches is making the love change to hate very fast.

[ManOSteal]

Sure, I'd need to go a crash course in basic programming, but I'm pretty damn sure I could handle the coding, management and thinking a hell lot better than these guys.

 

actually having earned a degree in computer science here I'm going to go ahead and say this is the most offensive thing I have seen on the forums so far today. It is early, but this right here is most likely going to go on through the day eating my soul and replacing it with anger and hate.

 

Do you even know how hard it is to get a job as a QA engineer at a AAA company, or how hard you have to work to keep that job. I'm just starting to work towards this career path and I'm going to be working for at least three to five years at an educational company before I can even get an entry level job at a AAA game development company.

 

The code these people have to deal with most likely runs in the millions of lines. The fact that there has been a marked improvement in performance this close to launch is amazing, and even more impressive that a lot of the improvements have been made in a reactionary nature. Coming from both a coding and QA outlook alone the number of and scope of the improvements and fixes issued thus far is a sign that these people are working hard. Thank you for that Bioware.

[jizazi]

Sure glad you are here to clear this up.

 

Because in today's culture, "it's all about MEEEE". People have been told they're special and they're all that matters, and they're the most important person so many times that they actually start to believe it. The fact that the MMO world just accentuates this makes it worse.

 

That, and smarting off on the Internet doesn't bring the same penalties (getting your *** kicked) that smarting off the same way in person does.

 

Oh, and TV's tendency to celebrate stupidity and bad behavior--and then emulate it in real life--doesn't help, either. When I was a kid (about the time the original Star Wars came out, BTW), something like the current crop of "reality TV" (i.e., people becoming famous for acting like *******es) would have been laughed off of TV and meant the end of a network.

 

TL;DR: I don't do TL;DRs...grow some damn patience and read the whole thing or don't bother replying.

[SorrowOVtheNight]

I started reading this thread and it reminded me exactly why I don't read the forums. I just don't understand this attitude at all. Some people are telling them to stop creating new content and "fix" the game. lol seriously? A MMO will never be completely "fixed" until all pc companies join together and make just one computer with the same hardware. Also, the problem with that(previous statement) is the guys that create the content are not the same people that stomp out the bugs. So try harder at telling a company how to do their jobs.

 

Others call Bioware stupid or "clowns" claiming people are leaving in droves lol. Again seriously? What are those guys waiting for GW2? pfft.. Every MMO release is the same now. People can't wait for a release but about roughly 30% only join for the first month anyway. Fact is the first month never determines your solid player base to begin with. Most population levels are on standard(maybe light on earlier weekdays) almost around the clock so where is the problem? Are there people that actually miss the two hour long queue times? Getting content finished with groups is still easy as ever. The game is far from empty and if anything Bioware made too many worlds to satisfy a bunch of MMO hoppers.

 

P.S. The MMO is still a baby and had the SMOOTHEST launch in MMO history. So if you kids can't handle that fact get out of my beloved genre please. It used to have a great community

until WoW invited so many immature people(and yes It used to be a niche genre until WoW bloomed).

 

^ This.

[ManOSteal]

i would call not being able to login for the last 3 hours because the login service is unavalable, game breaking, the sniper act 1 final qst where you cant attack the boss because you cant "see" him as game breaking, the constant micro freezes for 20 - 40 seconds at a time since the last patch to "fix" something as game breaking... maybe they should fix those first before posting stuff about future content, or atleast fix it and not just say they did like the companion gfx that goes missing in conversation screens. i love this game, but i must admit the last 2 patches is making the love change to hate very fast.

 

Not sure what your problem is. I have not had any of the problems you have and the companion gfx fix has been working perfectly for me. Possibly check your own settings both in game and out of game. It may be your computers hardware.

[DarthVadis]

actually having earned a degree in computer science here I'm going to go ahead and say this is the most offensive thing I have seen on the forums so far today. It is early, but this right here is most likely going to go on through the day eating my soul and replacing it with anger and hate.

 

Do you even know how hard it is to get a job as a QA engineer at a AAA company, or how hard you have to work to keep that job. I'm just starting to work towards this career path and I'm going to be working for at least three to five years at an educational company before I can even get an entry level job at a AAA game development company.

 

The code these people have to deal with most likely runs in the millions of lines. The fact that there has been a marked improvement in performance this close to launch is amazing, and even more impressive that a lot of the improvements have been made in a reactionary nature. Coming from both a coding and QA outlook alone the number of and scope of the improvements and fixes issued thus far is a sign that these people are working hard. Thank you for that Bioware.

 

This is the response I'm waiting for.. THANK YOU!

[JackSmoke]

I kind of agree with most people here, I don't really care about the new content.

I'd like the game engine to be fixed instead.

 

We ran a few tests with about 41 people and came up with the result, that the game uses only 2 cores efficiently, any cores above that are not threaded accordingly.

 

The graphic cards are challenged as well, yet the big issues like the extreme FPS drops in warzones and the fleet are caused by the cores / CPUs

Our data showed, that on either high / medium / low or tweaked settings, the biggest issues are multiple players on screen or in range, which causes the CPU to go crazy.

And due to the cores not beeing used to their full potential (results have shown that only 43% of a six core are used on these sticky situations and the graphic card is not involved at all), the whole thing gets way out of hand.

 

So instead of the expertise stacking bugs, hackers or smaller bugs, I hereby ask you, Bioware, a company that was once really good, to fix your faulty engine first.

[Jooji]

Is it just me or was that whole article Bioware making excuses for why they're fixing nothing?

 

It's starting to become pretty obvious Bioware wasn't ready for an MMO. You can't treat an MMO like other games, that set it and forget it mentality. If you want any prayer of competing with WoW you need to get the ball rolling and fix the very blaring problems, and I'm not talking about the engine, but balance, bugs, etc.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Jooji

[well]

I really like to just use my skills.That would be nice.Just makes the game more interesting.Funny how that works.At least put in a toggle where we can pick up a rock and throw it.

[Lordgeneral]

If anyone here has ever dealt with code in gaming then you should realise how freaking terrible it is, and why we get more bugs, it's not BW's fault and tbh when dealing with code problems, they are fixing things AS FAST AS THEY CAN beleive it or not. People need to have patience, or look up 'games designing', you might learn something...

 

@ joojie, please read what the other dude posted about code, and my post before starting the chain reaction of FIX BUGS!!!, please. thx

Edited February 1, 2012 by Lordgeneral

[Cynistra]

I gotta say - reading a dev blog about fixing bugs on a day when a patch gets implemented to fix a bug (warzone wins not counting) and doesn't actually work is a bit funny.

 

That is actually EPIC. Keep up the good work Bioware, keep "fixing" them bugs. LOL!

[Jooji]

it's not BW's fault and tbh when dealing with code problems, they are fixing things AS FAST AS THEY CAN

 

So if it isn't BW's fault whose fault is it?

 

That's what I thought. Are they fixing things as fast as they can? Do you have an insider on one of their dev teams? They've fixed nothing. The game has been out 5 weeks and here's what they've done:

 

A) one balance fix

B) broken illum worse than it was before

C) fixed a couple extremely broken planets

D) released new content(lol)

E) released a blog making excuses for their lack of competency

 

Give me a million-dollar team and I'm sure I can make more progress in 5 weeks. Shoot, the group I work for has built a house in 5 weeks. You're telling me they can't fix some code in 5 weeks?

 

I'm not saying the game should be perfect. That would be ridiculous. But at this rate anyone who isn't a Star Wars fanatic is going to quit because nobody wants to play a broken game.

 

This game should have "WoW" responsiveness. If you don't know what I'm talking about go play the demo. This game feels so clunky.

 

1) ability delay

2) jumping slows momentum

3) overall character movement is sluggish

4) lots of graphics lag(I run WoW high settings perfect, this game low settings and my comp struggles)

5) There's a smoothness to WoW that's been there since Vanilla. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I don't feel like I have full control of my character in SWTOR and it's frustrating.

 

I'm not even going to mention the lack of combat log, mods, UI, macros, dual spec, etc. Oh wait, I did.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Jooji

[darthoomy]

biowear you rushed this game out and im sure those bastards EA are down to that, you cannot expect ppl to be happy PAYING FOR a half finished game and even more so the so called fixes in the patches never work, this game should be free to play or at least shut down till you sort it, if you valued your customers do you think it is fair that WE HAVE TO PAY for this, please no fanboys telling me to go away, i can play any other game on ultra settings and get perfect fps/ quality now on swtor i should be getting 100+fps but instead on ilum i get 10-15, so biowear devs if u needed change from £50 and you gave your £50 to someone and they gave you £10 back and said like it now piss off would you be happy to? NO you wouldnt. at least DAILY notifications of what bugs you are working on would be very good and keep me and many others happy to AT LEAST KNOW you are thinking of us and letting us now whats happning. Edited February 1, 2012 by darthoomy

[ManOSteal]

I kind of agree with most people here, I don't really care about the new content.

I'd like the game engine to be fixed instead.

 

We ran a few tests with about 41 people and came up with the result, that the game uses only 2 cores efficiently, any cores above that are not threaded accordingly.

 

The graphic cards are challenged as well, yet the big issues like the extreme FPS drops in warzones and the fleet are caused by the cores / CPUs

Our data showed, that on either high / medium / low or tweaked settings, the biggest issues are multiple players on screen or in range, which causes the CPU to go crazy.

And due to the cores not beeing used to their full potential (results have shown that only 43% of a six core are used on these sticky situations and the graphic card is not involved at all), the whole thing gets way out of hand.

 

So instead of the expertise stacking bugs, hackers or smaller bugs, I hereby ask you, Bioware, a company that was once really good, to fix your faulty engine first.

 

posts like this are also useless from a management standpoint as well. Here is a funny little thing about managing developers. There is a point where adding developers to a project actually makes the project take longer. This is the reason developers work in small groups. Yes some of those groups are working on bugs. Chances are a lot of developers are working on bugs, but at the same time many are working on new content. This is how developing things works. Heck, for fixing a section of code the chances are fairly high that unless it is a complete re-implementation there is a maximum of two people working to fix the bug. You can't really have 10 people looking for the same bugged lines in the same section of code. That is inefficient and wastes the time of 9 people. After the first person finds and fixes the problem the other 9 people have done nothing but waste time they could have spent on fixing other defects. Yet again a re-implementation can have a larger group. A group of about 6-8 developers for a complete re-implementation defect fix is likely. Also the chances are high that each feature or section of the code has it's own little team built just for it. This is the best way to do things because then when an issue arises the 9 people familiar with that feature or section of code that is now bugged know exactly where to look to get things done quickly. Tossing more people into that group on the development end is basically useless.

 

TL;DR: go back and read it.

 

P.S. sorry for the terrible grammar I'm trying to write this post quickly while at work.

[Lordgeneral]

So if it isn't BW's fault whose fault is it?

 

That's what I thought. Are they fixing things as fast as they can? Do you have an insider on one of their dev teams? They've fixed nothing. The game has been out 5 weeks and here's what they've done:

 

A) one balance fix

B) broken illum worse than it was before

C) fixed a couple extremely broken planets

D) released new content(lol)

E) released a blog making excuses for their lack of competency

 

Give me a million-dollar team and I'm sure I can make more progress in 5 weeks. Shoot, the group I work for has built a house in 5 weeks. You're telling me they can't fix some code in 5 weeks?

 

I'm not saying the game should be perfect. That would be ridiculous. But at this rate anyone who isn't a Star Wars fanatic is going to quit because nobody wants to play a broken game.

 

Any person with intellect can build a mud hut in 5 weeks (minecraft doesn't count), coding is completely different. The whole coding system in fact as as difficult for bioware as it is for bill gates or any other computer genius to deal with. It is not a simple process of A-B, there's are thousands upon thousands of lines to deal with and on a game this size to identify one problem, you think it's simple and their devs are the problem? what you smoking?.

 

 

Example image of a small game: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=game+coding&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&tbnid=JhhGQj9KaNA2wM:&imgrefurl=http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/code/&docid=7eMpCxEBU8-HJM&imgurl=http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/code/gameoflife-uml.png&w=1071&h=1111&ei=6FopT7rUKIXQsgayhK2wAQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=183&vpy=324&dur=1283&hovh=229&hovw=220&tx=147&ty=136&sig=116361297268191937850&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=141&start=0&ndsp=46&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

Edited February 1, 2012 by Lordgeneral

[Malastare]

Is it just me or was that whole article Bioware making excuses for why they're fixing nothing?

 

Well, I'm sure you're not the only one who didn't have a clue how development works.

 

Seriously, this blog post was boring, but not because it failed to stroke the complainers the way they wanted it to. It's boring because he just described how 80% of all large software development occurs. As other posters have noted, this is pretty much a carbon copy of my development process, and I don't work for a game company. So I read it and just think to myself: "Yeah, okay... so you're saying you work just like everyone else does. I kinda assumed that."

 

The reason this blog post was needed was because the vast majority of gamers are utterly --and occasionally embarrassingly-- clueless about how their games are actually made and maintained. Unfortunately, while its informative, it's going to make people upset (like the above poster) because it doesn't fit their naive expectations and just ends up sounding like someone saying its harder than they "know" it is.

 

If you think that this isn't the same process that Microsoft or Oracle or Blizzard or any other large development house works then you just don't understand the industry well enough to really join in on a serious discussion.

[darthoomy]

Any person with intellect can build a mud hut in 5 weeks (minecraft doesn't count), coding is completely different. The whole coding system in fact as as difficult for bioware as it is for bill gates or any other computer genius to deal with. It is not a simple process of A-B, there's are thousands upon thousands of lines to deal with and on a game this size to identify one problem, you think it's simple and their devs are the problem? what you smoking?.

 

 

Example image of a small game: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=game+coding&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&tbnid=JhhGQj9KaNA2wM:&imgrefurl=http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/code/&docid=7eMpCxEBU8-HJM&imgurl=http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/code/gameoflife-uml.png&w=1071&h=1111&ei=6FopT7rUKIXQsgayhK2wAQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=183&vpy=324&dur=1283&hovh=229&hovw=220&tx=147&ty=136&sig=116361297268191937850&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=141&start=0&ndsp=46&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

 

and you think it is also fair we pay good money for a broken game that at least the pvp community cannot play due to crap engine and numerous bugs? what you smoking??

Edited February 1, 2012 by darthoomy

[Proto]

Hello everyone! We’ve posted a new blog from Richard Vogel that talks about busting bugs and fixing exploits. Click here to read the blog!

 

Sorry, its too little, too late at this point. Plus, I've heard enough 'talk' from Bioware to fill a book, with little action. I've lost total confidence in your development team and lead game producer.

[ManOSteal]

Well, I'm sure you're not the only one who didn't have a clue how development works.

 

Seriously, this blog post was boring, but not because it failed to stroke the complainers the way they wanted it to. It's boring because he just described how 80% of all large software development occurs. As other posters have noted, this is pretty much a carbon copy of my development process, and I don't work for a game company. So I read it and just think to myself: "Yeah, okay... so you're saying you work just like everyone else does. I kinda assumed that."

 

Yeah, same thing here, I got about half-way through this article before I started skimming because they are basically describing how the QA process works and I do that every day.