Turbine, aren't you running a bit too fast?

[thebeast1985]

I remember the old times when updates took ages to come, at least 2 months, if it was a little one, they where buggy? yes but not like this.

I know that only the (was it 5% or 10%) of the player base of this game use this forum tool you gave us, but have you really ever considere what WE really want?

I think you have someone to read all the forum (or at least a big part of it) so you are not completely unespecting this, but i may have a little suggestion for you.

Make a poll, an ingame poll and ask to all Players (all means all, not on the forum, not as a "can i have a minute of your time" but a simple check on a page before logging in (or after) game.

The question to me is this:

Do you prefer to have the game quality restored to old times (and with this we agree to the fact that there will not be an update every week BUT we will have higher quality less (i'm not a fool i know that's impossible to be bug free) funnyer and quest we can really enjoy)

OR

continue the way it's now.

THIS should give:
A) a choice to us to have what we really want and like (democracy rules of coursel, majority wins)
B) a complete vision of your player base target, giving you a better way to keep the greater player base.

[Nospheratus]

I believe the thing is, most players don't even notice most bugs, unless it prevents them from completing a quest, makes them lose an item, etc.

If a 3% doublestrike bonus from a destiny isn't applying properly, 95% of all those that use such an ability will never notice.

I believe that is why Turbine doesn't appear to give much priority to a lot of the bugs, because they aren't exactly game-breaking.

It's a "PR" thing. Fix only what most people can see...

[thebeast1985]

very sad to say but i think you are right, still i hope that us (the % of the playerbase that cares about this game really) will be heared and why not helped out to sort the game we like and we like to "fight" for?
Considering this is still a game so, i will fight for it but it's not a life or death situation

But maybe.. if a Dev could throw an eye on it... *crossfingers*

[Loriac]

My guess is that the increasing bugs are engine related and linked to the growth in complexity from new functionality. If this is true, it could be a lot of work for Turbine to fix things in an elegant way.

Ideally, you'd create an initial framework that could be easily expanded with new features as/when they were developed. However, no matter how good your starting point, things will tend to get more fragmented and complex over time. Bearing in mind that DDO has been live for over 6 years, and the initial designs probably are 8+ years old, its remarkable how well its coping. Particularly when you consider how core systems have been redesigned during that time (e.g. enhancements, the plethora of different bonus types, PREs, pets, shapechanging, epic destinies).

Ironically, content is probably far easier to develop now than it was in the past as the developers are familiar with the tools and have more experience of designing and implementing content.

So we end up where we are now: new content comes out more and more quickly, but bugs seem to grow with each new release of features (as opposed to just new quest content).

I would guess that Turbine design architects are already reviewing what their ideal framework would be given everything they know now (based not just on DDO but also on their other games). The real question is whether its possible (or even makes sense commercially) to transition existing games across to a next generation engine. My gut feeling is that its doubtful that would make much sense, so we're more likely to see DDO 2 than a full rebuild of the existing DDO platform.

However, having said all that, its still possible to continue to add layers onto the existing platform for a while. There will be new bugs, but provided Turbine can manage them on a triage basis, the experience for most users should be fine.

I think what happens is that we see a lot of griping from players on the forums, but if you never read them and just played the game in the way the majority of their players do, you wouldn't necessarily experience lots of lots of bugs all the time. Certainly the game feels quite stable to me now (especially compared to a few years ago), with the bugs that do crop up being inconvenient but not show-stopping. A classic example of this would be bugs with the new ED features; whilst its irritating if some of these don't work, the truth is that you can survive without the new features anyway so its not going to stop you playing.

[Ryiah]

The real question is whether its possible (or even makes sense commercially) to transition existing games across to a next generation engine. My gut feeling is that its doubtful that would make much sense, so we're more likely to see DDO 2 than a full rebuild of the existing DDO platform.

Another question to ask is, would it sell? I'm not even certain a second expansion for DDO will sell as well as the first expansion. The first expansion drew a lot of people largely because of Druid and Forgotten Realms. Turbine would have to introduce something fantastic to get even a second expansion to sell.

I think what happens is that we see a lot of griping from players on the forums, but if you never read them and just played the game in the way the majority of their players do, you wouldn't necessarily experience lots of lots of bugs all the time.

Sometimes I really do wonder how many people visit the forums. Turbine claims that only a small percentage of their player base "uses" the forums but that likely simply translates to "logs into the forums".

[Nospheratus]

What boggles my mind is, how can one quest difficulty on some(?) quests be bugged in an update that "simply" added a few quests, one challenge and fixed some unrelated bugs. I speak of this only as an example, but there are lots of other things that bug when apparently they aren't even touched on a certain patch or update.

Personaly I would say this is caused by one of two things:
1- For each update, Turbine just randomly picks a different version of each file, puts it together and builds it - voilá! Instant patch/update;
2- On each update, there are considerable reworks of the base framework in which the game is built upon.

Obviously, it's nr 2.


Another extremely annoying thing is, how can you post release notes saying something is fixed, when it is not?
Surelly every bug has a few steps for reproducing said bug. To validate it's correction there are two things that can be done, not exclusively, but complementing each other. One is, create a test for said code that replicates this bug and run it after the fix. The other is validating it in-game with the said steps to reproduce it.

When these two steps aren't enough, then there is something wrong about the whole thing. Something that is deeper and probably far more complicated to solve.


Regardless, it's still annyoing having all these bugs! And it's especially annoying when they break your character or make you lose difficult to acquire items, as with some recent cases of LRing or the past shared bank bug (I'm talking about losing ingredients bags)...


And they will never rebuild DDO. It's an illusion to think that "now we'll make it right". Especially because the original devs are probably not in the team anymore and it would be extemely hard for the current team to learn from the previous team's mistakes, in many things. So, the same mistakes would be made. Even with the original team, new mistakes would be made... That's how it is with such huge and complex systems...


In any case, and regardless of the many bugs, I think DDO is a pretty stable and up to date game. Never crashes on my machine, for example. Can't say that about all games...


So, for Turbine developers, keep working on this! I'm sure it's not easy having your work bashed like sometimes people do on these forums, but be assured it's appreciated by many people!

[gaffneyks]

They are not different from any software company. They have no incentive to fix the bugs, they do have a financial incentive to produce new content that they can market.

Also all MMOs have a shelf life, this one has to be getting near its after 7 years, I can see no logical reason for them to spend the money to fix the bugs, I can see a reason for them to try to churn as much money out of this as they can before it dies.

That is most likely what they are doing, which is fine, but some of the other **** like all the BTC stuff in the new content, taking away epics tokens, the challenge nerf. Those things I really wonder about as it just ****es people off and makes them move on to another game quicker.

oh well, It is just a game.

[thebeast1985]

They are not different from any software company. They have no incentive to fix the bugs, they do have a financial incentive to produce new content that they can market.

Also all MMOs have a shelf life, this one has to be getting near its after 7 years, I can see no logical reason for them to spend the money to fix the bugs, I can see a reason for them to try to churn as much money out of this as they can before it dies.

That is most likely what they are doing, which is fine, but some of the other **** like all the BTC stuff in the new content, taking away epics tokens, the challenge nerf. Those things I really wonder about as it just ****es people off and makes them move on to another game quicker.

oh well, It is just a game.

You are quite right, i see your point (and it's true that all games have a shelf life) but imo this game have a static player base that *should* stay till the server's up, i'll explain myself better making an example: Ultima Online, this game is quite the same for a reason: D&D. we Play this game not beacause of it's grafic, we play this game not for his game rules, but for the love we share for D&D (at least, as i told this is my point)

As you can see WoW has still the best player base ever (and will stay, the answer? why? they know what they player wants, they know that they want more challange, new contents, and that's what they give them) there is also another player base that plays it beacause it's Blizzard who made it, there are others that plays it beacause it's Warcraft setting, so.. to be clear, this game shoul be able to get some players for many more years to come, and i'm sure that Turbine does know this (we all know that there is a new game with NWN settings that is coming out but... have you seen it? and most of all.. it's cryptic, i played (and payed) for 2 of theyr games, trust me, i will NEVER do this mistake again.

So the main question for me is this: WHY?

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

So the main question for me is this: WHY?

I don't know that answer, but I know another which might help: 42.

Carry on.

[Maatogaeoth]

If they can't afford to pay folks to fix things and not get paid for it, they should join the crowd of people with a Kickstarter and fund the fixes already.

[Ausdoerrt]

(we all know that there is a new game with NWN settings that is coming out but... have you seen it? and most of all.. it's cryptic, i played (and payed) for 2 of theyr games, trust me, i will NEVER do this mistake again.

Off-topic but yes, I've seen it, it looks absolutely amazing, the devs really nailed the lore and the atmosphere, and it will likely have twice the content of DDO in the first few months thanks to user-made quests. PWE/Cryptic combo is rather iffy, but from what I've seen about the game in the recent weeks, it's worth any DnD fan's attention.

So the main question for me is this: WHY?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcYlytyuKsc

[sebastianosmith]

I would guess that Turbine design architects are already reviewing what their ideal framework would be given everything they know now (based not just on DDO but also on their other games).

Have you ever met a coder who didn't want to rewrite everything from the ground up after reviewing an existing code base?

[Nospheratus]

Off-topic but yes, I've seen it, it looks absolutely amazing, the devs really nailed the lore and the atmosphere, and it will likely have twice the content of DDO in the first few months thanks to user-made quests. PWE/Cryptic combo is rather iffy, but from what I've seen about the game in the recent weeks, it's worth any DnD fan's attention.

Thing is, the game looks like an asian MMO, absolutely nothing else. That doesn't deserve even a trial, for me.

About having twice the content of DDO, I don't believe that. I bet they have HUGE areas to go from 1 kill-N-rats-and-bring-tails quest to another. The gameplay itself looks really cheap, in the same way Dragon Age 2 was to the original Dragon Age - a waste of space/time!...

That MMO will be extremely low quality compared to DDO.

[Galeria]

The devs feel that the whiners come to the forums, while everyone else is happy playing the game so they discount the posts here as "noise."

[Spoonwelder]

I play the game about 5-6 hours a day and 99% of the bugs i don't even notice. I play all ranges of the game so it's not that i am not seeing any specific content.

If I had been hit by the exclusive bug (I was told about it early in the day yesterday) then I would be ****ed today but other than that there isn't alot in game that as another poster said is game breaking.

Irritating at times yes....but nothing that would stop me playing......(note I don't play my monk much anymore which could be saving me alot of trouble).

I also don't jump into new content right away (just like I rarely buy any software until the first patch is out). I am not the bleeding edge (which by definition is a small percent of the population) and I am okay with that. I thank those of you out on the edge for finding the problems and bringing them to light - but we can all tone down the doom threads a tonne ok.

[Doomcrew]

I remember the old times when updates took ages to come, at least 2 months.

....... 2 months? ....... ages?

thats funny .....

[Captain_Wizbang]

....... 2 months? ....... ages?

thats funny .....

How about 1.5 years!!!!

[Ausdoerrt]

Thing is, the game looks like an asian MMO, absolutely nothing else. That doesn't deserve even a trial, for me.

About having twice the content of DDO, I don't believe that. I bet they have HUGE areas to go from 1 kill-N-rats-and-bring-tails quest to another. The gameplay itself looks really cheap, in the same way Dragon Age 2 was to the original Dragon Age - a waste of space/time!...

That MMO will be extremely low quality compared to DDO.

Well, it's not DDO2, that much is clear. The rest of your post looks like an uninformed, emotional response to a potential DDO competitor. But, I'm not going to advertize that competitor on the forums here, since that's just bad form. If you do care to learn more, feel free to PM me for more info.


To keep this on-topic, yes I do think the content is being constantly rushed lately, though I can't tell if it's actually "running too fast" as the OP claims, or it's just the poor technical performance of recent releases that creates that impression.

[thebeast1985]

I play the game about 5-6 hours a day and 99% of the bugs i don't even notice. I play all ranges of the game so it's not that i am not seeing any specific content.

If I had been hit by the exclusive bug (I was told about it early in the day yesterday) then I would be ****ed today but other than that there isn't alot in game that as another poster said is game breaking.

Irritating at times yes....but nothing that would stop me playing......(note I don't play my monk much anymore which could be saving me alot of trouble).

I also don't jump into new content right away (just like I rarely buy any software until the first patch is out). I am not the bleeding edge (which by definition is a small percent of the population) and I am okay with that. I thank those of you out on the edge for finding the problems and bringing them to light - but we can all tone down the doom threads a tonne ok.

i play a lot too, trust me, and i understand what you mean... but why letting out something bugged when you have players eager to play a test server (as far as i know not many games have a good test server as we do) i think it would not be a great effort to wait a week or 2 instead of jumping out an relasing.

Just to be clear, i've run 3 new quests and... no bugs at all (i ran 1 with my irl friend, it's a barb, and we get the quest bugged)

the annoyng part (for me) are:
hirelings that act VERY STUPIDLY lately.
Some bugs on EDs (like the autodebuff -5 fort with magister)
Exp and Drop rate on Challanges (it's not a bug but endeed it's annoyng)

that's all, and as you told,
this bugs won't stop me from playng this game that i still like, a lot.

[Purkilius]

Exp and Drop rate on Challanges (it's not a bug but endeed it's annoyng)

This ^^