[1.3.5 Patch] BUG - Colonel Vorgath

[jersyiii]

Ive been playing mmos for over 8 years now. I have seen worse bugs than this, many times. Ive seen bugs that made games completely unplayable for days. I think you all are being overdramatic and need to hit the decaf...this is not the end of the world, you have alot of time to finish Denova this week, and for those of you complaining that this is the only thing to do in the game, at least you will have something to do tomorrow.

 

so because other games has bug, evryone should be fine with this and have a good laugh?

screw that!

if u patch something, u test it before it goes live ... if u cant do that, then u deserve that ur community is mad

this is not the single thing happening to the end game content, that content is bugged for months, not days

this debacle is just another tipping point for end game players to say screw this ****

Edited August 8, 2012 by jersyiii

[vandana_]

Ive been playing mmos for over 8 years now. I have seen worse bugs than this, many times. Ive seen bugs that made games completely unplayable for days. I think you all are being overdramatic and need to hit the decaf...this is not the end of the world, you have alot of time to finish Denova this week, and for those of you complaining that this is the only thing to do in the game, at least you will have something to do tomorrow.

 

if you are happy with games being unplayable for days be my guest. But tell me why Bioware can't use that 8 years experience to learn how to prevent such gamebreaking bugs? The point here is not that it's a bug we can't live with, but that it's a bug that would be spotted if there was a single test run through the operation. But the priority for Bioware is adjusting low level legacy perks in preparation for free-to-play. The decrease in quality of content because of free-to-play is already happening right here, right now and it's sad that there are people like you who advocate washing that off.

Edited August 8, 2012 by vandana_

[Shouei]

if you are happy with games being unplayable for days be my guest. But tell me why Bioware can't use that 8 years experience to learn how to prevent such gamebreaking bugs? The point here is not that it's a bug we can't live with, but that it's a bug that would be spotted if there was a single test run through the operation. But the priority for Bioware is adjusting low level legacy perks in preparation for free-to-play. The decrease in quality of content because of free-to-play is already happening right here, right now and it's sad that there are people like you who advocate washing that off.

 

well said its unfortunate as my raiding team can only get together once maybe twice a week bc of real life stuff i hope they fix this before Thursday .

[Ruskaeth]

I am starting to wonder if there are some genuine problems in BW's chain of command and if the higher ups understand how online gaming communities work. I find it weird that someone in the chain of command couldn't tell the customer support faction that they should communicate that this will be fixed as a priority and give it a time table so that guilds could plan their raiding with real life -assuming they want progress or farming this week. This kind of a mistake, not a bug, but a mistake should be acknowledged and then decided upon like in every other business. We have a problem, it's going to turn into a PR problem if we do not communicate directly with our customers.

 

Worse case scenario: It just seems that someone "higher up" is being whipped by even higher ups, all of the staff who understand the importance of these "little things" must be tearing their hair off -if they have any left. My condolences to BW staff. It must feel like a mess there. I am pretty sure our customer service at forums and elsewhere would be more than happy to say when it's going to be fixed and give answers, but they can't because the "higher tier" seems to be a mess. Even if it's not the "policy", they should make an exception whenever it's "epic fail" of this proportion to announce they fixed something obviously not in high priority of fixes, break it worse and halt everyone running the operation. And no, saying there are other operations is not a valid point in conversation because we've had them for a long time already and to be frank: A lot of people are just plain bored with EV and KP.

 

BW is lagging behind the schedule what they have implied about new content. If you can't give a date, don't mumble something incoherent and give false hope for players. I think that is one of the reasons people are not satisfied with how this game is proceeding as an mmorpg. Set actual dates (which are goals to finish something for the developer team) and work like a modern day customer service business does.

 

Come on deciding personnel of BW, grow ballz to make lives of customer service staff easier.

[JamieM]

I am starting to wonder if there are some genuine problems in BW's chain of command and if the higher ups understand how online gaming communities work. I find it weird that someone in the chain of command couldn't tell the customer support faction that they should communicate that this will be fixed as a priority and give it a time table so that guilds could plan their raiding with real life -assuming they want progress or farming this week. This kind of a mistake, not a bug, but a mistake should be acknowledged and then decided upon like in every other business. We have a problem, it's going to turn into a PR problem if we do not communicate directly with our customers.

 

Worse case scenario: It just seems that someone "higher up" is being whipped by even higher ups, all of the staff who understand the importance of these "little things" must be tearing their hair off -if they have any left. My condolences to BW staff. It must feel like a mess there. I am pretty sure our customer service at forums and elsewhere would be more than happy to say when it's going to be fixed and give answers, but they can't because the "higher tier" seems to be a mess. Even if it's not the "policy", they should make an exception whenever it's "epic fail" of this proportion to announce they fixed something obviously not in high priority of fixes, break it worse and halt everyone running the operation. And no, saying there are other operations is not a valid point in conversation because we've had them for a long time already and to be frank: A lot of people are just plain bored with EV and KP.

 

BW is lagging behind the schedule what they have implied about new content. If you can't give a date, don't mumble something incoherent and give false hope for players. I think that is one of the reasons people are not satisfied with how this game is proceeding as an mmorpg. Set actual dates (which are goals to finish something for the developer team) and work like a modern day customer service business does.

 

Come on deciding personnel of BW, grow ballz to make lives of customer service staff easier.

 

They are not saying anything because they're not sure what the problem is or they're not sure how to fix it. Once they work that out then they will give a timeframe. They don't want to be in a position where they promise something when they're not 100% sure it will work - I mean look at the raging over just this, can you imagine how some hysterics would respond if they delayed the patch or the patch didn't fix the problem.

 

I do agree though that it seems very unprofessional that patches are not thoroughly tested before going live, especially ones that don't seem needed in the first place. But I am not an MMO developer (thank god), merely a paying customer, so what do I know?

Edited August 8, 2012 by JamieM

[EcrirTwyLar]

Their patches have been pretty good overall. This is an exception. For a game where patches break everything, give EverQuest a try.

 

Please don't use another fail company as an excuse for this one.

[Will_Bringlight]

Quit the MMO Developer garbage already. It's development. Period.

 

Some applications are harder, some are easier. But they all share the same principles...code fails. It WILL fail. No matter how many times you read it over, it has a bug. That's why QA exists, that's why EVERY piece of software on the world is tested BEFORE reaching the users hands. And even then it has bugs.

 

The big big problem here is that this is not a hard to see bug. You don't have to spend 2 hours doing weird things with 1 million users simultaneously to have this bug appear. You just have to try to run EC...one time.

 

It is completely unacceptable that this has happened. MMO or a simple Web Page, in this case, is the same.

 

Think of it this way: What would happen to you if your fix of an issue rendered a functionality of your system/machine/whatever useless?.

[recsa]

near future ........

 

'near future' sounds worrying

 

I'm trying hard but can't really understand how something like this passed QA testing.

[Maestrodomus]

This sucks, but some people are clearly overreacting or have never played another MMO. So far they've had a pretty phenomenal record with patches outside of the 1.2 roll back.

[EcrirTwyLar]

From what ive read online in some articles they basically blame the players for the state the game is in now.

 

Mainly: http://blogs.bettor.com/Anonymous-Bioware-Insider-blames-fans-for-SWTOR-Video-Games-Update-a173317

 

If you have not read that article I would suggest giving it a read. Pretty funny really. The game would be doing better if they actually TESTED patches before releasing them. Or if the dev team was more active within the community. Or for that matter if any of the devs actually played the freaking game

 

That article reminds me of SWG claiming how the NGE came about because "focus groups" wanted it.

[Invulon]

I have been waiting for SWTOR for a very long time and honestly I always admired biowares early works, It used to be a very good studio that showed quality in their games.I never bothered getting a collector edition of any game before but i had pretty high expectations about this so I got it for this game alone.

 

Now I pretty played almost all of the MMOs out there, been there in their best and worst days. There has been a lot of bugs, a lot of screw ups in many of the other MMOs. And sadly there wasnt much out there before so people didnt complain about killing same things for 9 to12 months.

 

But that does not excuse the behavior of bioware lately. Certain things need to be hotfixed, Your only endgame operation is currently broken. Should have been fixed right away and so far i dont see any quick patch or anyfix.

 

Should be fixed within today so people can do their operations without getting stuck on a boss due to screw up bugs that comes along with every small patch

[DonJuansen]

It would be professional to provide us with at least an update on the subject. Either telling us you found the issue and are working out a way to resolve it or that you haven't identified the problem yet and apologize for the inconvenience.

You can't fix a problem that you haven't discovered yet, just let us know where you (and we) stand.

 

Also, explain to us how this was not discovered during the testing phase of the patch. I am assuming you are testing whether your implementations work right? So you should also be able to see if the patch does the complete opposite?

If you don't test your patches, admit that too. It's time Bioware grows up and shows its customers some maturity and honesty.

[Kaonis]

Quit the MMO Developer garbage already. It's development. Period.

 

Some applications are harder, some are easier. But they all share the same principles...code fails. It WILL fail. No matter how many times you read it over, it has a bug. That's why QA exists, that's why EVERY piece of software on the world is tested BEFORE reaching the users hands. And even then it has bugs.

 

The big big problem here is that this is not a hard to see bug. You don't have to spend 2 hours doing weird things with 1 million users simultaneously to have this bug appear. You just have to try to run EC...one time.

 

It is completely unacceptable that this has happened. MMO or a simple Web Page, in this case, is the same.

 

Think of it this way: What would happen to you if your fix of an issue rendered a functionality of your system/machine/whatever useless?.

 

Listen, BW has had these kinds of bug issues FOR MONTHS. This isn't some isolated incidence, this is just another tally in the long list of things BW messes up. Bugs happen, sure, but that's what QA is for, to hammer out the bugs before the patches go live. Considering there is a new bug just about every week, and many still unaddressed bugs, it's beyond obvious at this point that BW either has no idea what they are doing, or simply don't care. I played FFXI for over 7 years and in all that time I could count the number of bugs I encountered on 1 hand, because that dev team actually did QA to make sure things worked before they did it. So please explain to me how BW should get a pass for making more and more bugs by the day and hammering out almost none, with speedy crap patches that break things worse, and yet there are companies out there that are capable of releasing patches with no bugs on a consistent basis.

[FuulishOne]

It would be professional to provide us with at least an update on the subject. Either telling us you found the issue and are working out a way to resolve it or that you haven't identified the problem yet and apologize for the inconvenience.

You can't fix a problem that you haven't discovered yet, just let us know where you (and we) stand.

 

Also, explain to us how this was not discovered during the testing phase of the patch. I am assuming you are testing whether your implementations work right? So you should also be able to see if the patch does the complete opposite?

If you don't test your patches, admit that too. It's time Bioware grows up and shows its customers some maturity and honesty.

 

There was a minor update with no real meat in a different thread about 15 minutes ago.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=517232&page=2#post4998773

[oredith]

There was a minor update with no real meat in a different thread about 15 minutes ago.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=517232&page=2#post4998773

wouldn't it be easier for them to simply roll back the code from last week - you know, when they DIDN'T break the exact thing that they were trying to fix?

 

"i don't always test codes, but when i do, i like to do it on live servers"

[kaydo_]

wouldn't it be easier for them to simply roll back the code from last week - you know, when they DIDN'T break the exact thing that they were trying to fix?

 

"i don't always test codes, but when i do, i like to do it on live servers"

 

Agreed, roll back the effing patch! People could care less if you snip their newfound free legacy perks for a few days. People go nuts when you prevent them from playing the part of the game they schedule their entire weeks around.

 

I've been a happy camper and I could care less about nerfs and F2P, this one really bugs me, no pun intended. okay pun intended but i'm still pissed!

[FuulishOne]

The only possible problem with rolling back the patch that I could see are the loyalty packages with the bh comms and pet.

 

I think BioWare needs to simply issue more, smaller patches on a weekly schedule rather than these bigger ones that roll multiple changes in at the same time. They seem to have a real problem tying in code changes across different development groups.

Edited August 8, 2012 by FuulishOne

[oredith]

I think BioWare needs to simply issue more, smaller patches on a weekly schedule rather than these bigger ones that roll multiple changes in at the same time. They seem to have a real problem tying in code changes across different development groups.

that, OR, they can actually play test their patch?

 

it's one thing when you fix problem-A, and you inadvertently cause problem-B.

 

it's something else entirely, when you set out to fix problem-A, and COMPLETELY FAIL to fix it, and not only that, break it even more.

 

the only explanation for that is that it was never tested - and that's really just unacceptable in a MMO, where once a patch goes live, it effects a lot (well, i'd say millions, but there aren't millions playing) of people.

[macumba]

that, OR, they can actually play test their patch?

 

it's one thing when you fix problem-A, and you inadvertently cause problem-B.

 

it's something else entirely, when you set out to fix problem-A, and COMPLETELY FAIL to fix it, and not only that, break it even more.

 

the only explanation for that is that it was never tested - and that's really just unacceptable in a MMO, where once a patch goes live, it effects a lot (well, i'd say millions, but there aren't millions playing) of people.

 

that is exactly the point. bugs happen, but they should not happen like this. one denova run by QA would have shown this patch is not ready to deploy, what makes it worse, they would not even have to test the whole of denova, just skip to the part that was supposedly fixed and see if its fixed (5 minutes lol)

Edited August 8, 2012 by macumba

[FuulishOne]

that, OR, they can actually play test their patch?

 

it's one thing when you fix problem-A, and you inadvertently cause problem-B.

 

it's something else entirely, when you set out to fix problem-A, and COMPLETELY FAIL to fix it, and not only that, break it even more.

 

the only explanation for that is that it was never tested - and that's really just unacceptable in a MMO, where once a patch goes live, it effects a lot (well, i'd say millions, but there aren't millions playing) of people.

 

I agree with you... I find it very hard to believe that it wasn't tested. I just wonder how similar to the live environment (in terms of load, # of instances, etc.) their internal servers are? I doubt they have enough "load" on their internal servers to cause instance spawning, or even any lag stress on their internal dbs, which would explain a lot of the post-patch lag related issues. They simply can't recreate/test that scenario internally.

 

I'm not making excuses, I think it's poor software development practices, just saying that I can kind of understand what may be happening. And if indeed this is the case, I sincerely hope they get their act together and fix it. The alternative (where they didn't even test the patch) is utterly unthinkable.

[Screaming_Ziva]

There is a difference between reporting a bug and whining and complaining and making ignorant statements like "QA needs to be fired" without knowing the whole story..

What exactly could the "whole story" be? They made a change, obviously did NOT test it at all, pushed it live, and now it doesn't work.

 

Like previous posters said, ONE run to that boss to test their change would have uncovered the bug. It's obvious nobody even bothered to test this change.

[jersyiii]

comon they dont even have to do the run

just warp there (dont tell me they cant do that)

start the fight and 15 seconds after the fight u would see that it's broken

 

=> takes MAX 1 min to test ...

[Screaming_Ziva]

comon they dont even have to do the run

just warp there (dont tell me they cant do that)

start the fight and 15 seconds after the fight u would see that it's broken

 

=> takes MAX 1 min to test ...

I would guess they can't just warp there but they should have been able to set themselves to just after Stormcaller. That would give them only 5 or 6 groups of trash to get through to get there.

[broknpieces]

comon they dont even have to do the run

just warp there (dont tell me they cant do that)

start the fight and 15 seconds after the fight u would see that it's broken

 

=> takes MAX 1 min to test ...

 

This. Devs have the tools to basically make them selves invulnerable for testing purposes. (or they do in every other game, maybe not these devs...). it would have taken 2 people 5 minutes tops. hell, they said they were fixing it, so i would assume they would at least test this specific encounter to see if it was actually fixed.

 

Or did they just write the code, tell eachother how awesome they are at coding, and push it live?

Edited August 8, 2012 by broknpieces

[jersyiii]

Or did they just write the code, tell eachother how awesome they are at coding, and push it live?

 

^^

 

we have a winner