General bugs situation

[Zeklijan]

I have only a few points to make, but I consider each of them to be essential.

Managers need to understand that bug fixing is just as important as developping new content, the amount of things not working at the moment is really high. (Patch 14.1 helped, but IMO some of these bugs were critical and should have been handled immediately.)

Such as the bugged epic levels in game bug reporting, the fortification/item effect loss glitch and other reincarnation glitches that caused permanent losses to some players.

Why not just spend 1 week, just to fix bugs and whatnot, u15 would be delayed 1 week, so what? the game would be THAT much more enjoyable if there was only 1/3rd of the bugs the game currently has. And I'm sure players would be much happier to have a delayed update with a more bug-free game.

Nothing else to be said

[Kadran]

As I love playing with my guildies as much potential this game as, it's incredibly irrating to play a game that every single quest you do, something does not work somewhere. In every, single quest, without exception.

Exaggerating is not going to solve anything, in fact it's counter productive to your case. I agree there are a lot of bugs that sap the fun right out of the game, but to say that not a single quest works post u14? Completely fictitious. even the elite trap damage bug doesn't appear in every quest as they don't all have traps in them. Plus, what about normal and hard difficulties.

Unless your only character uses ranged combat. Then you're hosed. =P

[Ausdoerrt]

Sad but true: new content earns money, bug-fixing doesn't.

[squishwizzy]

Developpers need to understand that bug fixing is just as important as developping new content, the amount of things not working at the moment is beyond disapointing.


While I wholeheartedly agree with you about priorities, generally speaking developers don't set what gets released on what schedule. Usually, a project manager or someone along those lines sets those priorities.

And those priorities generally get dictated to the project manager from higher-up.

Remember, all s**t rolls downhill...

[squishwizzy]

Sad but true: new content earns money, bug-fixing doesn't.

Yes.

But if that new content can't be played becase of a bug somewhere in the system, you end up losing money on developing new content.

Because new content costs much more than maintaining and refining old content. Much more.

Generally speaking, I have a full-blown tantrum if someone asks me to put in a whole slew of new content while there are still critical bugs to be attended to. You build your house on a faulty foundation, at one point or another that house is going to collapse. It takes far less time and resources to make sure that the foundation is sound before you go adding a ton of stuff on top of it.

It had gotten me the reputation of being "difficult" to work with. It has also gotten me the reputation of being really, really good at what I do.

[HAL]

...but to say that not a single quest works post u14?

Bugs in every single quest does not = "not a single quest works".

[darksol23]

I have only a few points to make, but I consider each of them to be essential.

Developpers need to understand that bug fixing is just as important as developping new content, the amount of things not working at the moment is beyond disapointing.

As I love playing with my guildies as much potential this game as, it's incredibly irrating to play a game that every single quest you do, something does not work somewhere. In every, single quest, without exception.

This as gone over the edge, I know of many people who are on the verge of quitting the game, including myself ( and some of my best friends in game already has because of the situation)

Why not just spend 1 week, just to fix bugs and whatnot, u15 would be delayed 1 week, so what? the game would be THAT much more enjoyable if there was only 1/3rd of the bugs the game currently has.

Nothing else to be said

Players need to understand that we are nothing more then a credit card and revenue stream to Turbine management. Pushing unfinished bug-filled content out the door as soon as possible generates income. Fixing bugs doesn't. Until enough people actually vote with their wallets and leave, instead of just saying they will, nothing will change. We, the players, have proven time and time again we'll happlily buy the latest pile of dung with a grin on our faces. Managment are the ones you need to complain to, they're they ones that set deadlines and priorities.

[Narmolanya]

Sad but true: new content earns money, bug-fixing doesn't.

In short term this is true. Players will buy new content and cash flow will come.

In the long run if you chase away your players with bugged content no one will buy your new content let alone touch the old.

[Ausdoerrt]

In short term this is true. Players will buy new content and cash flow will come.

In the long run if you chase away your players with bugged content no one will buy your new content let alone touch the old.

Common sense would dictate you're right, but somehow DDO seems exempt. People simply keep throwing money at the game, despite every update being a huge bugfest. We're complaining about U14 bugs while U13 bugs are still around.

Either that, or they're trying to cash in one last time befor half the player base flees to NWO.

[350zguy]

It's just a simple math problem.

How much does it cost us in lost sales for these bugs, how much does it cost us to fix the bugs.

I'd say that they is at least a 3 month before the fallout of these "bugs" really hits.

Fortunately, I have enough classes, and enough characters, that I can play things that work, while waiting for the things that don't work to be fixed.

[Zeklijan]

As I love playing with my guildies as much potential this game as, it's incredibly irrating to play a game that every single quest you do, something does not work somewhere. In every, single quest, without exception.

Exaggerating is not going to solve anything, in fact it's counter productive to your case. I agree there are a lot of bugs that sap the fun right out of the game, but to say that not a single quest works post u14? Completely fictitious. even the elite trap damage bug doesn't appear in every quest as they don't all have traps in them. Plus, what about normal and hard difficulties.

Unless your only character uses ranged combat. Then you're hosed. =P

You were right in a point that I was counter productive, because when I wrote this post I wrote it under the effects of frustration and more or less recklessly. (Hence why I edited first post). However we should read, something does not work somewhere, not every quest is bugged. Whereas it could be anything, and yes I am not exagerating be it losing my warfoged racial immunities, or spell power, item switch lag..

This game is supposed to be heroic monster killing type, not 'know and learn how to prevent the game from messing up' *cough* Caught in the Web *Cough*

Bugs happen, and that's normal. Releasing a whole non ready expansion full of bugs shouldn't
Mistakes happen, not fixing bugs that date of months ago, shouldn't
A bugged epic levels in game bug reporting happens, leaving it that way for nearly a month, shouldn't

That's my opinion, you're given to do what you want with it,
I'm not asking the impossible, because many games out there have done it, those flaws affect the game quality and everyone's opinion of it

I'm definitly not trying to please everyone, Turbine has done some great things, and some bad things. This post is for the bad

[Todkaninchen]

Has anyone ever actually wrote and had to debug a computer program?

I mean, really...

This program is an entire game world with a huge number of player options, interactions with the game world, and preferences. It is a very complex entity that is strung together with probably thousands or millions lines of code. Changing one or several in a complex program can have effects in other places you wouldn't expect.

So, just the fact it's running almost all the time, is playable, almost all the time, in spite of however many players there are trying to powergame the whole thing is a pretty incredible thing at all.

As for the "bugs", it's one thing to know there's a bug in the first place, another to track down the reason for it, another to identify what a solution might be, and yet another to ensure that the solution both solves the problem and doesn't create a worse one. Factor in that fact to a program that's 98% functional and you have to ask yourself whether the quick, untested solution to get to 99% is worth risking some other problem dropping your functionality to 0.

So, be patient and know that upgrading a program like this is always going to reveal unforeseen interactions that can be buggy, even if the changes are intentional.

That said, I'm still wondering why my Iron Defender didn't follow me out of most quests yesterday...

[Ranncore]

Bugs don't make the game unplayable, they make it not worth playing. Right now my friends and I play DDO - at this rate, it's not going to stay that way for much longer. We're all premium now, and looking for something to spend money on. It won't be any new Turbine content.

[Charononus]

So, just the fact it's running almost all the time, is playable, almost all the time, in spite of however many players there are trying to powergame the whole thing is a pretty incredible thing at all.



Yes technology is incredible and that's what an mmo is. That said, the complexity of it does not excuse having so many things broken, no info of "we are working on fixing this" even with power gamers meta-gaming everything. Every mmo has meta-gamers, meta-gamers don't create bugs they tend to just find the fastest way to do objective x. Lets take a few examples:

Combat archery nice new ranged feat to increase ranged damage by 1[w]. It does nothing, no dev comment of hey this is a known issue we're working on it.

Caught in the web it's down till 14p2 to fix bugs, the bugs are still there.

Abbott need I say more

Healer's Friend

Here's the kicker, the gate in delera's part 2. I feel I don't even need to say more after this one.

No mmo will ever be bug free but there are a lot of bugs that aren't addressed and haven't been for a long time.

[Flavilandile]

I have only a few points to make, but I consider each of them to be essential.

Managers need to understand that bug fixing is just as important as developping new content, the amount of things not working at the moment is really high.

Managers are only interested in Quarterly CAPEX and OPEX... eventually they are interested in Quarterly Income and how it relates to CAPEX and OPEX... They are not interested in customer satisfaction or survival of their company in the long time.

As long as some twisted elements of the Market rules how industrial ventures are supposed to work, bugged and semi-working stuff will be sold.

[JarnOcelatus]

If you have worked in a software company of any size, you would have a better idea of what it takes to release a new version of software. 2 Weeks is about the minimum time it takes to clear a batch of bugs, do unit testing, do validation testing, get paperwork signed off and get the release onto the production machines.

Can it be done quicker? Sure, but then you start having problems where things
are fixed one release, but because it wasn't put through the right channels it
reverts to broken next release.

That said, the number of bugs in the new patch indicates that they aren't going through
the quality assurance processes probably because they are being rushed to fix bug
just like people want.

[Ew_vastano]

comon how many people are gonna be suckered in to pre purchasing content again? no-one
more and more people are getting seriosly annoyed at turbine and there lack of help,

transparency turbine promised lol how many sneak nerfs have been added since U14

if turbine continue to roll out new content on this already very close to being unplayable game it wont generate more cash it will generate a larger playerbase for GW2 or NWO

[Ew_vastano]

If you have worked in a software company of any size, you would have a better idea of what it takes to release a new version of software. 2 Weeks is about the minimum time it takes to clear a batch of bugs, do unit testing, do validation testing, get paperwork signed off and get the release onto the production machines.

Can it be done quicker? Sure, but then you start having problems where things
are fixed one release, but because it wasn't put through the right channels it
reverts to broken next release.

That said, the number of bugs in the new patch indicates that they aren't going through
the quality assurance processes probably because they are being rushed to fix bug
just like people want.

er it has been a month now and for some major bugs closer to 2 years and since when do turbine qa acualt test things?

i dont work in software true but if i broke something and didnt fix it in well over a month i would be looking for a new job

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Program code can be insanely complicated, especially when a) done by people who left the company at one point, b) not commented (what does what) precisely.

When I was a beginner at learning Java, I was wasting almost a week on finding out how to capture mouse clicks when a so-called "glass pane" is involved. i just couldn't understand where the result of he "click" event went to, because it was like giving an egg through 10 hands or so - and finall losing track of it, because it wasn't visible to me who had taken it and passed it to whom.
In the end, I had to give up.

And this is just an example of how complicated things can be.

And it can be easy to find bugs through testing, but not the source, by the way. Or did you know where the infamous flying manhole covers come from ?

But on a general note I agree that a program is like an old car : It needs to be inspected every now and then (we have the TÜV for that here in Germany, an requirement to let it be checked every few years or else there'll be a fine), because otherwise you might for example strand with the car in the middle of nowhre because there was a leak somewhere and you lost gas or oil and never noticed, or the battery isn't replenished anymore (my father had one car that had it ! And I actually DID strand "in the the middle of nowhere" with it one day ! And only THEN we found out about this issue !).

Bugs add up to a pile in the course of time. Hence the need for reviews. Or it will become something like the infamous Stables Of Augeas.