Mubrak Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 I give them kudos for accomplishing some of the things that the original devs said were impossible...I am sure by messing with this and that and finding a way through tinkering. For folks that are fairly intuitive there is always a way to make things happen...you just have to find it. Of course, doing so can break things. And this is usually what distinguishes amateurs from professionals. Be it engineering or programming, the amateurs are tinkering until the things they're aiming for work, and are so proud of their accomplishment that they present it without even noticing that they broke exactly those things whose risk of being broken made the professionals drop the idea in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timthegem Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 This thread sure has brought out the Stockholm Syndrome in some players. If the ability lag makes it impossible to complete tasks in the game, that makes it "unplayable". If it's possible but a royal pain in the ***, that makes it "not fun". It's not that hard to admit. If you haven't personally experienced it, good for you...no need to come here and argue with those of us who are frustrated. The valiant defenders are every bit as bad as the constant whiners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 This right here is definitely not far from the truth. lol It's one of those 'you have to do it to understand' types of things. Yep. I'm not good at math so I never really got too deep into programming, but I took a lot of basic programming classes in hs/college - BASIC, TurboPascal and such - and a lot of the time was spent fixing stuff until it more or less worked then I just kept my hands off it even if I didn't quite understand *why* it worked this time. With a living program like this you don't have the luxury of leaving it alone, and every fix will break something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grayseven Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 My knowledge of coding is limited (very limited) to CNC machining and robotics which are, surprisingly, much MUCH less complex than what I can only imagine goes into a MMO. What I do know is Quality and Quality Assurance programs and I couldn't imagine leaving a quality issue alone for four weeks regardless of whether or not a major holiday fell during that time period. And if that quality issue were impacting our direct customers (and they almost always do) we would be in communication with them until the issue was resolved. Even if it is something as simple as a quick email status update, we let the customer know directly that we are still working on the issue...most often on a daily basis. Of course, our quality issues can cost our customers money instead of just frustrating them, so it's probably a bit different in that regard... I'm not saying that EA/BW should be updating us daily on this, but some assurance on a weekly basis that there are still people working on it would be nice. Unfortunately, the lack of communication over the holiday period points to the fact that the holiday had priority over customers...from the customers view anyway. For all I know they had tech wizards working non-stop over the holidays and it is a bigger problem than we could even imagine...but we have no way of knowing that. Absent information, we can only assume the worst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reno_Tarshil Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 My knowledge of coding is limited (very limited) to CNC machining and robotics which are, surprisingly, much MUCH less complex than what I can only imagine goes into a MMO. What I do know is Quality and Quality Assurance programs and I couldn't imagine leaving a quality issue alone for four weeks regardless of whether or not a major holiday fell during that time period. And if that quality issue were impacting our direct customers (and they almost always do) we would be in communication with them until the issue was resolved. Even if it is something as simple as a quick email status update, we let the customer know directly that we are still working on the issue...most often on a daily basis. Of course, our quality issues can cost our customers money instead of just frustrating them, so it's probably a bit different in that regard... I'm not saying that EA/BW should be updating us daily on this, but some assurance on a weekly basis that there are still people working on it would be nice. Unfortunately, the lack of communication over the holiday period points to the fact that the holiday had priority over customers...from the customers view anyway. For all I know they had tech wizards working non-stop over the holidays and it is a bigger problem than we could even imagine...but we have no way of knowing that. Absent information, we can only assume the worst. Well Eric is hoping for Friday at the latest for an update, so prolly would be best to relax a bit and wait. I mean I know people are frustrated, but their is a timeline to look too atm for an update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grayseven Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Well Eric is hoping for Friday at the latest for an update, so prolly would be best to relax a bit and wait. I mean I know people are frustrated, but their is a timeline to look too atm for an update. Yep. I'm hoping it clears the air but once again I'll bring up the "closing the barn door after the cows got out". The window of opportunity for the expansion to retain new and returning players is closing (and already has for some). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I can't speak to the coding process in this game. All I can say is that we do some coding work in the office. I will not get into more detail, because I would rather avoid my bosses boot. We deal with code from other companies, and often that company is unfamiliar because the code was written by a prior team. So we have to run around like a rhino in a glass shop. You change one thing, break something else. Lots of colorful language from the code side of the office....luckily I am a mesh mechanic. I don't have to deal with any of that. So, it could be that they are dealing with code that the prior dev team set down. I know they mentioned they had problems with calculating DPS, if I remember right, and had to do it manually since they had no internal mechanic. That sounds like code mystery to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 So, it could be that they are dealing with code that the prior dev team set down. I know they mentioned they had problems with calculating DPS, if I remember right, and had to do it manually since they had no internal mechanic. That sounds like code mystery to me. Yup, I know just enough about the subject to realize that anyone who says things like this are quick or easy to fix doesn't know what they're talking about. If it hasn't been fixed yet it's not because they aren't trying, it's because it hasn't been fixed yet despite them trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitblade Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Whatever is causing this problem, I will not blame the Dev's, they are doing what they can. But I will absolutely blame all their upper management for the whole mismanagement this game has suffered since year 1. There are reasons that this game dropped over 30% of it's subscribers in the first few months and had to go to panic mode and switch to F2P. And more then a few of those can be attributed to the buggy mess that was highly modified early Beta version of Hero Engine. Took them near a year to get it to a well playable point. And now they release a Paid, underwhelming, early beta expansion. Though I enjoyed the storyline, it is much too short and maps are too few, too little. (at least Makeb gave us a lot more ground and story then this) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Whatever is causing this problem, I will not blame the Dev's, they are doing what they can. But I will absolutely blame all their upper management for the whole mismanagement this game has suffered since year 1. I agree, I was here at launch and while it was never a terrible game, it was never a great one either. It seems to be a combination of inexperience and overconfidence - BW staff know SP games very well but this was their first MMO. I think they expected the Star Wars name to draw in players. It did, but the game wasn't enough to keep most of them, so after the free month ended the numbers started dropping. They spent too much money on things that don't matter as much in an MMO - the SW license, of course, has got to be a huge part of the budget. Multiple storylines, the voice acted cutscenes, are great for a SP game but traditional MMO players are focused on the destination, not the journey. So most of the money was spent on things a large part of the player base ignores. And because of their inexperience with designing MMOs, they didn't put in enough "MMO stuff" to make up for it. So you have ex-WoW players and such rushing through the story to get to the good stuff, when they don't realize that they are rushing through "the good stuff" in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arunav Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 (edited) I agree, I was here at launch and while it was never a terrible game, it was never a great one either. It seems to be a combination of inexperience and overconfidence - BW staff know SP games very well but this was their first MMO. I think they expected the Star Wars name to draw in players. It did, but the game wasn't enough to keep most of them, so after the free month ended the numbers started dropping. They spent too much money on things that don't matter as much in an MMO - the SW license, of course, has got to be a huge part of the budget. Multiple storylines, the voice acted cutscenes, are great for a SP game but traditional MMO players are focused on the destination, not the journey. So most of the money was spent on things a large part of the player base ignores. And because of their inexperience with designing MMOs, they didn't put in enough "MMO stuff" to make up for it. So you have ex-WoW players and such rushing through the story to get to the good stuff, when they don't realize that they are rushing through "the good stuff" in the first place. That might all be true, but of said players in your second paragraph, can we not simply point out they lack the ability to recognize something of value? BW made a risky game, proposing that these players would prefer a real story to the empty non-sense you see in typical (and even popular) MMO games. They lost that bet, and would have even with a group finder and better server management at launch. And that is on players, not BW. Edited January 8, 2015 by arunav Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sakica Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Thursday and still no announcement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 (edited) Swtor stumbled after launch for a whole host of reasons. Some outside Bioware's control, others very much their fault. I can name a few in which Bioware shoulders the blame. But there are many more of course.... 1) Arrogance and stubbornness of old dev staff. Poor PR and poor treatment of players, especially at public events. 2) Poor quality of game at launch, specifically in game cinematic sequences and silly visual bugs. 3) Poor implementation of expected modern MMO features, while others were completely missing from the product. 4) Visual progression and the refusal to consider housing, appearance, minigames and a market as they were counter to the original design vision for the game. 5) Poor visual and mechanical performance of the game compared to other games on the market. Had this game been designed and launched by the current dev team I feel it would fared much better in the market...but then again this dev team would have been more likely to actually listen to the playerbase. Despite some obvious missteps I think this dev team is doing a pretty good to great job, depending on which game improvement you look at. I call GSF a general bust, but certainly an improvement over the abysmal PVE space shooter, and Strongholds probably their best update yet (despite it's shortcomings). This is a small bump in the road IMO. That is just my view of course....now if this carries on for another two to three weeks then even I am going to get a bit impatient. I certainly do not think that the timing of this bug is in any way fortuitous. To have this hit right after the release of the expansion and just as they were going on vacation was bad timing indeed. And every day it persists is likely another day we lose folks that have returned after a long hiatus. So I would make fixing this a top priority. Edited January 8, 2015 by LordArtemis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grayseven Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 That might all be true, but of said players in your second paragraph, can we not simply point out they lack the ability to recognize something of value? BW made a risky game, proposing that these players would prefer a real story to the empty non-sense you see in typical (and even popular) MMO games. They lost that bet, and would have even with a group finder and better server management at launch. And that is on players, not BW. You can't blame players for the decisions of game management. Players come in all shapes and sizes but when it comes to MMO's there are a few things that can be guaranteed. There will always be players who feel the destination is the best part of a game and do as much as possible to minimize the travel to get there, and EA/BW failed to recognize this at launch. They erroneously thought that their story leveling system would keep players occupied for far far longer than it really did and had to scramble to try to retain the end game players. And that was just the first of many mistakes. That was on EA/BW, not the players. You design a product for the customers, you can not define your customers for a product. In EA/BW defense they managed to get ahead of that issue and have made many choices and changes that have benefited the player base over the years, but there are still these mistakes that seem to always come at the worst possible time. When you have the possibility of growing and retaining players, you have to ensure that nothing interferes and having a frustrating bug (and a heck of an exploit) linger for so long...well, it seems to define "bad timing". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Thursday and still no announcement.they made an announcement before the dec 16 patch too and fixed nothing. bah well, my sub runs out on sunday. assuming they fix it soon i'll resub. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quantez Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 They should threaten people with bans who have exploited other peoples ability delay while fighting them;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grombrinda Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 They should threaten people with bans who have exploited other peoples ability delay while fighting them;) hahahaha +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 They should threaten people with bans who have exploited other peoples ability delay while fighting them;) Nice lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joesixxpack Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 (edited) They should threaten people with bans who have exploited other peoples ability delay while fighting them;) ^ This. I've wasted so many GCDs while stealth ganking daily and mat farmers on Yavin 4... Serve up some justice pls BW. Edited January 8, 2015 by Joesixxpack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWentz Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Whats the point in them trying to fix the ability lag now? Us gamers are a breed of not very forgiving people, and they have really taken the mick of us all, i expect to hear numbers, sales and over all profit drop very soon which in turn will see this game prob canned! What gamer would come back to a game where they take our money but give us crap in return? They have not even said that little special word "Sorry" "Heres what i can tell you" does not cut it! Simple fact is when its sorted, all preorder people, subs and even late expansion buyers wont get anything for the hellish gameplay we have had to put up with. Now im not going to be all dramatic and say i'll unsub, but i only play this game right now for crafting, thats not the point in this game, im just looking forward to hearing the next load of sackings that should be heading there way, sound cruel but them leaving us almost gameplayless is cruel! This game needs new staff or it wont survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDymond Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Whats the point in them trying to fix the ability lag now? Us gamers are a breed of not very forgiving people, and they have really taken the mick of us all, i expect to hear numbers, sales and over all profit drop very soon which in turn will see this game prob canned! What gamer would come back to a game where they take our money but give us crap in return? They have not even said that little special word "Sorry" "Heres what i can tell you" does not cut it! Simple fact is when its sorted, all preorder people, subs and even late expansion buyers wont get anything for the hellish gameplay we have had to put up with. Now im not going to be all dramatic and say i'll unsub, but i only play this game right now for crafting, thats not the point in this game, im just looking forward to hearing the next load of sackings that should be heading there way, sound cruel but them leaving us almost gameplayless is cruel! This game needs new staff or it wont survive. One of these things is not like the others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWentz Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 One of these things is not like the others... It was kinda a bit dramatic weren't it? lol Ack seems gentle at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 It was kinda a bit dramatic weren't it? lol Ack seems gentle at the time. The end is nigh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sakica Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Eric didnt specify what friday:D. Maybe next month, next year, maybe never. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavajo Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Belsavis was borderline unplayable last night. Rocking the 90 ms ping, but constant 2-10 second lagouts during fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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