Could this be whats best for the game

[Nanglez]

They could spend a month or two working on a bugfix/slight improvement on quality of life patch for this game.

 

All i'm saying is, if we just simply said 'Okay BW.. Take a breather on the story/content/new wz's/ops/fp's for a bit' and just focus on fixing whats currently there.

 

 

Adding layer after layer after layer to the game, without smoothing out the creases in between is resulting in threads going all up an too 100+ pages over various and diverse issues, such as cartel purchases, in game crashes, the notorious 'memory leak' and so on.

 

 

I can live without content such as a new planet and so on for a few months longer, if it means easing the frustration of what appears to now be thousands of users. All negative posts from various people aside, take a step back and look at the view count/post count of the threads that are considered more serious issues.

 

 

If this is acceptable to you as a subscriber, to have BW still dedicated to bringing us Makeb in the near future, but in the NEARER future, focus on whats already there and how it can be improved on/fixed/or repaired, then please state so here. Maybe if we can show that we as a community can come to a consensus on this, they might hear us..

 

 

 

As for cartel updates, I don't see why they couldn't be continued whilst this patch is cooked up, I mean BW has stated they're a separate team so as to not pull resources away from other teams, but if they could help with a patch like this in anyway, simply fixing the broken purchase system would generate more profit for you anyway, so please, take a breather from new content, we have space/tfb hm/nim ec/alts/opposite faction alts/credits to save for cartel items so we don't have to pay real money for them/TONS of stuff to do for now.

 

Pretty please BW ?

 

It'd be nice if people didn't come here to argue and make snide comments about Bioware, the idea is to be constructive in your criticism if you want change.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Nanglez

[Vandicus]

You start with quality of life but then begin to mention bug issues.

 

Are you asking for a quality of life and bug fix patch? Or just one of those two?

 

Quality of life is typically taken to mean convenience features in MMOs.

[Nanglez]

You start with quality of life but then begin to mention bug issues.

 

Are you asking for a quality of life and bug fix patch? Or just one of those two?

 

Quality of life is typically taken to mean convenience features in MMOs.

 

Oh sorry, i meant bug fixes/repairing existing features/improving upon them if its viable.

[Anakis]

I would love to see update 1.7 or 1.8 be all bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Far too many bugs have been in for too long.

[Nanglez]

I would love to see update 1.7 or 1.8 be all bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Far too many bugs have been in for too long.

 

Just added a bit to the end of the OP, just wanted to say it's not directed at either of you, more of just an appeal to future readers to... you know.. maybe not troll/hate/flame for a change.

 

If the community wants something done then they should try to focus on going about it the right way. These threads always turn in to a 'YEH BW SUCKS' thread, and that's not the intention here.

 

The content that exists currently is quite superb, it just need's to have the [many] kinks ironed out.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Nanglez

[CosmicKat]

Having played PC games since the days of the C64 I can list all the bug-free games I have ever played....

 

End of List.

 

Bugs, glitches, "features", will always exist, they will never get rid of all them. TOR, in comparison to most games and MMO's in particular is and always has been relatively smooth and glitch-free.

[Vandicus]

I could live with that. I'm currently at a point where my rate of content consumption is fairly slow so a less buggy game experience would be more valuable to me than content that will take me a while to reach.

[Kilikaa]

If the devs announced that the next patch, or the one after, was nothing but fixes and that everything was being pushed back a bit I would have ZERO problem with that. Too many people on these forums claim the devs do not care about their own game because they aren't fixing things. These same people also complain because new content is not arriving fast enough or it isn't the content they want immediately. A entire patch dedicated to fixes would suit me just fine.

 

Read this thread, devs. Believe it or not most of us would welcome this kind of patch. Just make sure you tell us you are doing it beforehand.

[TUXs]

Sure...right after they bring back the new and improved Ilum.

[Foambreaker]

The management seems to focused on time, they push stuff out with bugs.

 

This is of course because the top execs only track the time of the release, they are not aware ofthe poor quality, so the mangers push it out because they can get away with it and it makes them look good.

[Andryah]

Having played PC games since the days of the C64 I can list all the bug-free games I have ever played....

 

End of List.

 

Bugs, glitches, "features", will always exist, they will never get rid of all them. TOR, in comparison to most games and MMO's in particular is and always has been relatively smooth and glitch-free.

 

I agree with CosmicKat.

[TUXs]

The management seems to focused on time, they push stuff out with bugs.

Hmmm...I disagree. If they were focused on "time", I think we'd see a little sense of urgency from them...something I don't feel they have EVER exhibited, except when taking holiday breaks. They simply seem incapable of doing <proper> testing. I see the bugs as a reflection of <poor testing standards>, not as a result of trying to improve the game quickly.

Edited December 14, 2012 by TUXs
too harsh

[Fornix]

The number of bugs is rather limited, however solving them may take quite a bit of time as they're not things which simply throw out a compiler error. In other words, it's like having a 500 page book, and searching for that one line which doesn't fit it.

 

What people fail to understand is that that's not something which you can simply set on the to-do list to fix, unless you have a genuine idea on what the issue is. For some of the bugs, that'll be easy to spot and they also get patched out during the weekly patches and such. However, for certain types of bugs it's a whole different story as things are less logical, or even worse, things are hardware/driver dependent.

 

Especially in the latter case, it's like going through that 500 page book, just to figure out there's like 9 different editions of that book.

 

So even though a '1.7: Fix to all bugs' would be nice, it's non-logical.

 

Improved features and such however would be a different story, and personally I'd be all fine with that. However, as we've seen in the past with the introduction of for example the group finder and all, there's plenty of people who disagree with that and as such the introduction of 1.3 with group finder, legacy perks, augment slots and numer class balance changes and bug fixes, recieved a lot of negative attention for not introducing any new content.

 

So no, I don't think the community will accept a patch without any actual content released into it, as history is bound to repeat itself.

[Andryah]

They simply seem incapable of doing testing. I see the bugs as a reflection of the work ethic of the current Bioware, sloppy and lazy, not as a result of trying to improve the game quickly.

 

TUXs, I think that statement is harsh and perjorative. Did you really mean to be that blunt and accusatory?

 

While I agree that there is not sufficient testing on patch content, to say they are incapable of doing testing and have a questionable work ethic is extreme and implies they never test anything. It also is contrary to the very things you criticize others for in this forum.

 

I'm sure they test. It's just that, for reasons none of us can directly see with our own eyes, testing is not adequate for the patch releases at this time and does need to be improved.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Andryah

[TUXs]

TUXs, I think that statement is harsh and perjorative. Did you really want to be that blunt and accusatory?

 

While I agree that there is not sufficient testing on patch content, to say they are incapable of doing testing and have a questionable work ethic is extreme and implies they never test anything. It also is contrary to the very things you criticize others for in this forum.

 

I'm sure they test, it's just that for reasons none of us can directly see with our own eyes, testing is not adequate for the patch releases at this time and does need to be improved.

 

You're correct. I've edited it. I didn't mean to be so harsh. What I should have said is:

 

I feel it would benefit both Bioware and their players if they were to set up better standards for testing new releases. Whatever system they seem to have in place now, seems to miss many recurring or basic issues that I think should be included in their standardized testing.

Edited December 14, 2012 by TUXs

[Andryah]

I feel it would benefit both Bioware and their players if they were to set up better standards for testing new releases. Whatever system they seem to have in place now, seems to miss many recurring or basic issues that I think should be included in their standardized testing.

 

100% agree with you.

[kamed]

I do hope that some of you guys know that there is a team that fix bugs, a team to develop new stuff, a team for pvp, a team for story, a team for Ops, a team Cartel Market and so on. They don't have 1 team working on everything, it would simply be poor management on their end if they did that and no one in the industry ever does that unless they are indie games.

 

But I can agree with you, fixing bugs are always the top on the list, then adding new stuff. That's always the message game developers keep saying, and I'm not so sure why people question this over and over again. And as someone pointed out, there are always bugs in every PC game. Especially in MMOs because unlike consoles, every subscriber has a different machine and spec, thereby bug fixing may help one person, but cause problems for another.

[Thoop]

if they wanted better testing they could give us better character gear to play with over on test. I find it hard to get excited about testing new stuff, like a new warzone for example when my test character is in full recruit gear, just wait for live bugs and all.

[TUXs]

100% agree with you.

 

Bah...now I need to edit it again (kidding)

[Fornix]

TUXs, I think that statement is harsh and perjorative. Did you really mean to be that blunt and accusatory?

 

While I agree that there is not sufficient testing on patch content, to say they are incapable of doing testing and have a questionable work ethic is extreme and implies they never test anything. It also is contrary to the very things you criticize others for in this forum.

 

I'm sure they test. It's just that, for reasons none of us can directly see with our own eyes, testing is not adequate for the patch releases at this time and does need to be improved.

 

I think the problem is primarily just time limitations.

 

If you have 100 developers working on something, you cant spare all of them to test. You'll have a team for QA to test, probably around 20 or so by now. However, in a couple of weeks only, they'll not find what tens of thousands find within a few days obviously. Many of the bugs reported here for example, is stuff I for one never encounter.

 

The question also isn't so much, what did they miss. But rather what did they fish out? It's just like the news. Plenty of crap to report about, however all of the good stuff on the ever end, never sees the light of day.

[TUXs]

I do hope that some of you guys know that there is a team that fix bugs, a team to develop new stuff, a team for pvp, a team for story, a team for Ops, a team Cartel Market and so on. They don't have 1 team working on everything, it would simply be poor management on their end if they did that and no one in the industry ever does that unless they are indie games.

While I'm sure that's mostly accurate, we aren't aware of much of the internal organization of Bioware...so I think you're making some big assumptions.

[kamed]

While I'm sure that's mostly accurate, we aren't aware of much of the internal organization of Bioware...so I think you're making some big assumptions.

 

I am making a lot of assumptions here, but I work at a corporate level in fortune 500 company and know how the organizations of that size are set up, but my company is more geared to industrial manufacturing. Yeah they are different, but they are similar in a way that they both have R&D, QC, Marketing, Communications, Internal Audits, Accounting, Finance and a whole bunch more. Anyway the problem with most large companies is that communication on that scale is very difficult and a long process.

 

Then you also have board members who control majority of shareholder power that need to drive a consensus to changes within the game as well. So basically, the game developers can and would develop more content so long as the directors allocated the budget for it. So yeah... I'm ranting off lol.

 

Bugs are bad, fix them first =P

[Katsuragisama]

Having played PC games since the days of the C64 I can list all the bug-free games I have ever played....

 

End of List.

 

Bugs, glitches, "features", will always exist, they will never get rid of all them. TOR, in comparison to most games and MMO's in particular is and always has been relatively smooth and glitch-free.

 

Not in my experience. Compared to other MMO's SWTOR has been the most buggy one out of all of. Sure, bugs exist. But that doesnt mean we should just ignore them like BioWare does. The more bugs, gamebreaking or not, brings down the overall quality of the game. They've finally acknowledged the memory leak. Let's not forget the other bugs that have persisted for a while.

 

I would love to see update 1.7 or 1.8 be all bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Far too many bugs have been in for too long.

 

I agree with Anakis.

 

Hmmm...I disagree. If they were focused on "time", I think we'd see a little sense of urgency from them...something I don't feel they have EVER exhibited, except when taking holiday breaks. They simply seem incapable of doing <proper> testing. I see the bugs as a reflection of <poor testing standards>, not as a result of trying to improve the game quickly.

 

And as much as Andryah disagrees that saying they are lazy is wrong, I will have to agree with TUXs original, that they do have poor testing standards. Remember the bug that prevented you from completing a FP/OP, I forget which one, that occurred all of the time? All they could have done was a quick run through and make sure nothing broke. Instead, we had an OP that could not be completed, and had to have emergency maintenance that Thursday.

 

It's one thing if it randomly occurred. But to occur everytime, proves they dont have the time or standards, to even check for bugs before pushing it straight to live servers.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Katsuragisama

[Fornix]

And as much as Andryah disagrees that saying they are lazy is wrong, I will have to agree with TUXs original, that they do have poor testing standards. Remember the bug that prevented you from completing a FP/OP, I forget which one, that occurred all of the time? All they could have done was a quick run through and make sure nothing broke. Instead, we had an OP that could not be completed, and had to have emergency maintenance that Thursday.

 

It's one thing if it randomly occurred. But to occur everytime, proves they dont have the time or standards, to even check for bugs before pushing it straight to live servers.

 

It was TFB (HM) if I recall right.

 

Thing is, ops and such are difficult to check all the time. And patch phases are phases being worked on. So they may have checked it 5 days prior to release of the patch, and it worked fine. However after that something changed, and it bugged out. We simply do not know.

 

It's nigh impossible to check them every day, as it takes a lot of time from a lot of QA personel to do it effectly. As they can't just run through it god mode, considering as to how some bugs may be missed in that case.

 

For that kind of testing, you essentially need bigger numbers. And that's something the PTS currently doesn't have, as there's no character transfers available. However, even with character transfers, it's to be seen how many people will actually take the time to raid there to make sure that till the day prior to release, raids still continue working.

 

Especially considering as to how some trivial bugs which are missed right now, also aren't reported by players on the PTS. So nothing is indicative for character transfers to help that much in it yet.

[Nanglez]

This isn't a thread so much for the standard of testing, which we can only hope improves anyway, but instead a thread about whether or not you'd be okay with temporarily foregoing new content, to have the current content polished up.