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

[Carkolda]

As noted in many of the numerous variations of this tired thread topic, the team that fixes bugs is not the same as the team that designs new content. Having the latter stop working will do absolutely nothing to speed up the former.

Actually, that's most-likely incorrect. Here's why. If the new content team keeps churning out buggy code and broken items, they create more work for the bug fix team. Piling more work on to an already-huge list is going to hurt the overall process, because those bug-fixers will need to re-organize and re-prioritize what gets fixed when. To be honest, I would be utterly stoked if the programmers released U16 with nothing but bug fixes. I would pay money to have that.

Little things like when a RS2 tries to pop an aura, but says "invalid target" until after you mouse over something? Or possibly having to de-select undead to pop a burst after getting a message "invalid target"? Stuff like that gets annoying as hell. Do things like that take a high priority? Of course not. Things like quests not completing trump that annoying factors. Broken ladders are another one.

So when the bug-fix team already has a huge list to process, stacking more broken code on top of that list just means the "annoying" things take longer to get done, if they ever get done.

[Dysmetria]

Ok but what i was tryng to say is this: do make new content, i don't want a static game, but at least take your time to release a good (or decent) product, all this rushing in changing exp from challanges (in some, particular cases it's correct on many other it wasn't needed)
The only thing they should do (as always stated by me) is take more time to test it on Lamania.
When we where on closed beta for the U14, someone started a thread that sounded like this "isn't a bit too soon to release it?"
was he wrong? i think not, if you consider the point brought by GrampaBill it could be not but if you look at all the mess that created releasing it at that stage... up to them, i'm not Turbine company, i'm a farmer i do the things the slow and good way... so... no questions.

Alternately, the people that want Turbine to hold off releasing new content with bugs can opt to not purchase that content, (or play it if they are VIPs,) until they have waited as long as they want Turbine to hold off releasing it and/or until enough of the bugs from it are fixed.

Doing so would give them the delay in exchange for a less buggy product they want, while still allowing the rest of the playerbase that would rather have the content released on time to still play it if they want.

Win/Win and Turbine doesn't have to do any useless polls or make any silly changes.

[thebeast1985]

Alternately, the people that want Turbine to hold off releasing new content with bugs can opt to not purchase that content, (or play it if they are VIPs,) until they have waited as long as they want Turbine to hold off releasing it and/or until enough of the bugs from it are fixed.

Doing so would give them the delay in exchange for a less buggy product they want, while still allowing the rest of the playerbase that would rather have the content released on time to still play it if they want.

Win/Win and Turbine doesn't have to do any useless polls or make any silly changes.

Ok, i see your point but i don't agree, i'll explain myself telling you why.
(i'm a ViP and that could already tell you why i don't agree)

I'll make an example:
Assuming you are buyng a new car, you see it, you like it, you buy it.

It works, not perfectly but hey, it's ok.. you like it... (you already payed for)

The retailer contacts you and tells you that you have to go back and swap with another car, same model but.. better! (and you can't refuse)

When it gives you the key for the new car it tells you: "hey pal, remember that the engine could leave you in the middle of a trip, but you can try to restart it, remember that radio works only sometimes and volume goes up and down, remember that sometimes the doors simply don't open but there will be a new model coming soon and we will give it to you for free!"

So just to make it clear, i'm ok with bugs, it's normal that a game have bugs, hell i've played Blizzard games.... and i will not add anything else.

But why you have to release something that is so broken (at this point i have to admit this, i did all the new quests with NO problems in solo, i started the first one with a friend of mine and got broken in the end)

I have found some bugs annoyng, i find that the Challange solution is unfair (total solution, there could have been a correct fix for some but their choice was to nerf all the challanges and this is very... how to say... wrong)

So going back to what you say.
No, i pay for it, when it's released i would like it running.
That's why i say no, even if i have to wait for some time, "nice and slow" some where used to say.

[trespasser]

Alternately, the people that want Turbine to hold off releasing new content with bugs can opt to not purchase that content, (or play it if they are VIPs,) until they have waited as long as they want Turbine to hold off releasing it and/or until enough of the bugs from it are fixed.

Doing so would give them the delay in exchange for a less buggy product they want, while still allowing the rest of the playerbase that would rather have the content released on time to still play it if they want.

Win/Win and Turbine doesn't have to do any useless polls or make any silly changes.

That sounds reasonable, except....

The new stuff they dish out regularly breaks the old stuff we want to run. Recent examples are quite evident - NPCs not triggering in old content (ToD, Sins). I can pretend that the new stuff doesn't exist only if they stop breaking old content.

[Dragavon]

If true, many of the posters here have no one to blame but themselves.

I know after reading a thousand posts saying that the game is "unplayable" and 50% broken, I'd probably start discounting the forums as well. The noise-to-signal ratio is very high here.

If I was a dev, there are about 10 posters I'd monitor... Ones that give good focused feedback with suggestions how to fix things.

Agreed. You and Todd Akin right?

[Vormaerin]

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.

I think you are underestimating what is touched in each patch. For example, a current problem seems to be that some mobs spawn late or don't spawn at all. In some U14 quests, some of the 'reaction spawns' in epic quests were spawning in using the pre U14 epic values instead of the correct ones.

So, its possible an attempt to fix that resulted in some different problem with spawning of such mobs that affected spawnable mobs in a different way.

QA would have difficulty ever getting anything done if a dev comment of "I fixed the spawns in epic Blah" meant "play every quest in the game several times to see if it borked any other spawns."

[thebeast1985]

I think you are underestimating what is touched in each patch. For example, a current problem seems to be that some mobs spawn late or don't spawn at all. In some U14 quests, some of the 'reaction spawns' in epic quests were spawning in using the pre U14 epic values instead of the correct ones.

So, its possible an attempt to fix that resulted in some different problem with spawning of such mobs that affected spawnable mobs in a different way.

QA would have difficulty ever getting anything done if a dev comment of "I fixed the spawns in epic Blah" meant "play every quest in the game several times to see if it borked any other spawns."

Not considering that we got... 300? 350? quests or so? how many now? so a test on ALL quests is quite an impressive job even for a large comunity and loads testers, even if they where less even if there was only 100 quests it's an humongous job

[Kylstrem]

Not considering that we got... 300? 350? quests or so? how many now? so a test on ALL quests is quite an impressive job even for a large comunity and loads testers, even if they where less even if there was only 100 quests it's an humongous job

Oh, and some of these spawn issues are only occurring on specific difficulty levels.

So, it's play all quests on all 4 difficulty levels... and then the ones that have Epic, play it on those 4 epic levels as well.

Of course, I would think the main issue is probably the big bowl of spaghetti the code resides in after 6 years of many different different devs adding their own recipes into it.

[knockcocker]

Not considering that we got... 300? 350? quests or so? how many now? so a test on ALL quests is quite an impressive job even for a large comunity and loads testers, even if they where less even if there was only 100 quests it's an humongous job

Except the brand new ones don't work. They were told when U15 was posted to Lammania - within hours - that the
new ones don't work (Overgrowth). They still pushed it out though...

[Arkat]

If I was a dev, there are about 10 posters I'd monitor... Ones that give good focused feedback with suggestions how to fix things.

Shouldn't this be in the Achievements forum?

[Juduss]

Not a programmer of any sort here, but it seems there are few that keep up on this thread. After reading through, it seems there is only two options: fast & full of issues or slow with relatively few. Any reason why there's no middle ground? I'm not one who expects a completely bug free game, but I tend to believe that if quality of play continues to downslide people WILL take there money someplace where they get a better return on investment. If I go to a movie and don't enjoy it, movies from the same people are less likely to receive my money in the future. I feel the same about the games I play. So back to my question: is there some reason why there can't be a schedule balance between the speed of content release and it's quality?

[Horrorscope]

I all for more content and change. The old days weren't all that either. There have been "OMG BUGS" since day one by listening to posters all these years. So I'll take the content and the bugs vs the same ole content and the bugs. And in their case can you make money on selling Adv Packs or bug fixes? Hmmm...

Was it Carlin that said this about the schools and stadiums? If a city needs a stadium, the city says it will hurt the schools. He used the following logic, building the stadium or not ensured the same things about the schools, they would suck either way, so build the stadium.