59 replies to this topic

[Black Templar]

i tend to have mixed feelings about patch days. on one hand i am pumped to see the game evolve and get loaded with mechs and new features to try out, but on the other hand patches have been (and certainly will be) a huge mess for me. there is no telling if my framerate will get hammered in two weeks from now on or not. i feel the guys who get consistent lag and fps drops on patch day, because it happended to me almost every single time. i am utterly surprised my system was not affected this time.

yes this is beta. yes i am part of the beta testing team, but i have every right on earth to voice my frustration about how broken my beloved game got using this forum. insulting people and thread-locking won't change a thing about that.

[Vassa]

After every major patch, un-install the game. Defrag your hard drive, re-download using the latest installer (http://patcher.mwome...rriorOnline.exe) and defrag your hard drive when done.

That has caused me the least amount of grief on patch days.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I'd be more willing to put up with crappy patch bugs if they'd address player concerns, communicate about what they are trying to accomplish short-term and long-term, add meaningful content/fixes alongside the money grabs and just generally stop being dicks towards us.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 03 April 2013 - 04:45 AM.

[tuokaerf]

I really wish people would stop bringing up that $5mil from founders. While that's a nice chunk of change, it will barely float the salaries for a team of 50-60 people + facilities for a year after assumed payouts to the publisher.

Also, no one is getting gouged. You choose if you want to pay a dime, you don't have to and can still enjoy 100% of the game.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

tuokaerf, on 03 April 2013 - 05:30 AM, said:

I really wish people would stop bringing up that $5mil from founders. While that's a nice chunk of change, it will barely float the salaries for a team of 50-60 people + facilities for a year after assumed payouts to the publisher.

Also, no one is getting gouged. You choose if you want to pay a dime, you don't have to and can still enjoy 100% of the game.

Yeah but you have to understand. They were already an established company. It would be one thing if they were nothing, then the 5 million brought them into existence.

But they were already doing things.

So the 5 million was STRICTLY to develop MW:O.

But it sounds like they spent that all on overpriced maps and mechs.

[Noobzorz]

Cascal, on 02 April 2013 - 10:17 PM, said:

Before too many people start going on about how "it's a beta", riddle me this: Isn't the point of beta to get rid of bugs, not introduce more? Some people seem to get personally offended everytime someone critisizes PGI (and the way they do things) on these forums.

For a beta patch intended to get the game closer to a 1.0 state, this patch was 100% unacceptable, there is no way around it.

I think in most studios this would be considered an open alpha (but it's harder to make that call with a rolling content model).

Certainly this latest patch was an abomination, introducing a bevvy of visual bugs and ping-independent rubberbanding.

[Shaddock]

As of 2 patches ago I am now in the community of people that fears patches more than I used to look forward to them.

And call it Beta if you want to fine, but regardless of its official release state once they have accepted money from me I expect a certain minimum level of quality on a product. I believe at one point we may have had a reasonable state of development for the development time but it does feel more and more like PGI is spinning their wheels instead of making forward progress.

I have yet to even activate my founders premium time due to the constant one step forward, one step back development cycle. When basic things are taken away like collision damage and dont come back for months, but yet they manage to add new MC products it does feel like PGIs products are off. If PGI wants to stick with the its a Beta excuse, shouldn't stability be focused on before monetization of the game?

[MrPenguin]

Valdez Raptor, on 02 April 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

I am no computer programmer, and won't claim to be

Yet you're going to try to educate actual programmers on how to make there patch's not buggy?

Look, the last patch has made the game unplayable for me. So I'm not happy with it at all. But this is just amusing.

[Viper69]

Ter Ushaka, on 02 April 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

Thread over. Shut up.

First: the fact you liked your own thread speaks volumes. Second: you dont need to be well versed in computer science to know a flawed system when you are using it.

OP i agree their in house testers are so hot to trot on testing the new stuff they are either over looking the obvious bugs or PGI is letting the bugs through and categorizing them as known issues to patch the update. Their own schedule is what is dooming their updates. They rush content through while not filtering the detritus out of it. I personally blame PGI because the bugs are obvious and glaring and I have a hard time believing they dis not know prior to releasing the update.

[codynyc]

The only reason I activated my premium time is so I feel like I got my moneys worth . Once its gone I might be also

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Ter Ushaka, on 02 April 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

Thread over. Shut up.

Reported as Troll

Ryvucz, on 02 April 2013 - 10:19 PM, said:

Once they get the hang of things with the CRYengine, it should be smoother.

LOL, you have no idea how funny this was to me!! Thank you for the laugh!

[DFA Ozymandias]

Ok, here's the facts the way I see it. PGI is trying to do all things for all people and they have over extended themselves. People complain about bugs, they spend an iteration fixing those. Then people ***** about not getting anything new in a patch so they divide their teams and some do patches and some work on new stuff but now neither can be quite as effective because of under staffing. This is actually a well known problem with agile code development methodologies. The code can and almost always does move faster than any of the support teams can test/support it.

To manage this better what needs to be done is:

• Add some more QA personnel. They are clearly a little short handed in regression/QA at the moment as just a few too many bugs that are entirely too alpha are making it to the beta testers. Or firm controls that if code isn't thoroughly tested, it doesn't go to CUSTOMERS. Fact is, PGI, we are PAYING customers regardless of beta testing status.
  
• Alternate iterations. 1 iteration should be patching. Nothing new added, period. The other can be focused on new content.
  
• Seriously gear up automated testing. This can sometimes be as big if not bigger than production depending on the product needing testing.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Roadbuster, on 02 April 2013 - 10:24 PM, said:

Yes, this might be beta. But how can it be we get so many new bugs with each patch.
It's not that these would be rare bugs that happen once in a while.
I played 2 matches after patch and experienced 3 bugs in that time before I quit to wait for hotfix.

I guess I'll no longer wait for patchday but for the hotfix-for-the-patch-day in the future.

Because on hiccup, one mistake in one line of code, one thing that was missed in stable build (if they are doing stable build) in millions of line of code and it can brake stuff that has nothing to do with what you were working on. I've seen it with MWLL, add one code for a minor change and suddenly one thrown block of C8 crashes the game, make a change in the a weapons fire rate and now the weapon is firing double it's range, make an adjustment so Battle Armor don't instagib when they run between the legs of a mech and now you have crazy legs mech running around the field. Truly most of you have no idea how touchy this stuff is.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

N0MAD, on 02 April 2013 - 10:43 PM, said:

I played MW for so many years and was happy, missed it and yearned for it for so many years and was sad, cheered and paid for MWO and was happy, then I got this, I am sad..

Stop your crying, we aren't even at a finished release yet and bugs will come with every patch. Personally I'm disappointed with the stability and constant reoccurring issues, but over all I can't fault them for the work when you consider how f'd up Cryengine is. I'd be more mad over being forced to pay for anything with this game, when and if that happens.

[Dazzar]

This has been the worst patch they have released so far for me. Black screens delaying game start (to the point I am destroyed as I join game!!!!), mini map bugged out, played a 4 v 8 match before, server "freezing" at the end of rounds and not seeing the scoreboard/end of round, global chat intermittently working, ELO is still crap. I agree there appears to be little or no internal testing before patches are released. The game may be getting more complex true, but the patches are getting more buggy. PGI cant seem to get much right atm sadly. But we live in hope!

[Elder Thorn]

tuokaerf, on 02 April 2013 - 10:22 PM, said:

Add in variables like different computer hardware configurations, it's almost impossible for them to catch everything.

yeah well. There are some problems in the current patch, which are allmost impossible to miss if you are just launchin a single match. If there are bugs, that are hard to catch, all the community is more than happy to help with it, i am sure about that, but the number of crashes we have here indicates they haven't launched a single match on their own with this patch.

Yeah, maybe it is due to so many different system configurations, but in that case they probably should have tried more than that single one in their test lab (no, i dont REALLY think they only have 1 system there... [just to be sure])

[Sug]

Werewolf486, on 03 April 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

Stop your crying, we aren't even at a finished release yet and bugs will come with every patch.

But why? Sorry but after 18 years of computer gaming I've formed the opinion that patches are normally a positive thing. Why do I need to dread Patch Tuesdays now?

http://pcsupport.abo...g/patch-fix.htm


Definition: A patch is a small piece of software that is used to correct a problem with a software program or an operating system. Patches are often called "fixes." Service packs usually contain many different patches.


Yeah it's Beta but when you keep releasing patches full of bugs with no notice your community begins to assume you're just incompetent.

If PGI called it 'Experimental Content' instead of a "Patch" there would be less animosity towards them.

Edited by Sug, 03 April 2013 - 09:11 AM.

[DFA Ozymandias]

Sug, on 03 April 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

If PGI called it 'Experimental Content' instead of a "Patch" there would be less animosity towards them.

But on that note, if you're going to be pushing out "experimental content" it shouldn't be going to beta testers, let alone paying ones. Experimental is for Alpha. Beta is for when it is a nearly completed product to work out any remaining MINOR bugs. There's a reason I don't and won't buy Valve games any more and this is pretty much why. I'm here to play a fun game and help with minor bug fixes but that line is badly being crossed.

I've worked as a system engineer in development environments for over 10 years and I can honestly say that this is probably the worse case of "push out code at all costs" I've ever seen. The hell of it is, I'm sure it isn't the people with the hands on the code. Mistakes happen when you're pushing the limit but that's the point of regression testing and QA, to catch those mistakes before it becomes impactful to the customer. Management is just trying to reach their goals at all costs including at the cost of a quality product and that's always a recipe for disaster... always. I'd just really hate to see this game die before it comes out of beta almost to the point that I would be willing to help out part time with some of this.

[Imp Mcsmackens]

All my goodwill towards this product has been spent. If friends ask I will not be recommending they sign up, even as a free to play game. Do you understand how bad that is? I will not recommend they try a game that is literally free because I see no progress. We're months in and all we get are bugs that persist patch after patch or arbitrarily crop up again after a brief hiatus. Someone at pgi has to be responsible for this. Either they are very bad at it or not getting the resources they need to do it properly. Don't tell me you have some chocolate cake for me, then crap in my hands and act surprised when I'm upset. On top of the bugs the lack of real content progress is galling. Sure, you want something that will cost mc like a mech, they will take care of that for you. You want more maps/modes or any sort of team matchmaking? NOPE! The only two maps we've gotten are lackluster. Alpine should never have been unleashed in the current system and tormaline is acceptably meh except that I got it shoved down my throat 90% of the time for a week so now I still hate it. No built in voice chat? It's 2013! A team based 8 v 8 game with no way to communicate in game. Are you guys an indie team working out of your basement? These bugs are not "Man we're working as hard as we can but sometimes things slip" They are "If anyone at all tried to actually run this even casually in our building before we pushed it live they would have told us to hold it back!". Thermal just turns itself off. It simply says "I need a little rest!" and shuts itself off. It's not a rare once in a million on specific hardware issue. Don't sit there and tell me anyone at all tested this. I don't believe in mythological creatures, santa, easter bunny, pgi QA dept. You know why that is? Because I see no evidence any of those things exist. If you'e a professional and getting paid to do what you do as a job would indicate you are then this level of "quality" should be personally unacceptable. More to the point it's not something I would pay for, but I already have

I would be less upset if I didn't care. Don't you guys get it? You have a franchise near and dear to me, all you have to do is make it not terrible and i'll throw money at you. I want to love you, why won't you let me? Every time I launch and get some hud bug or a third of my team disconnected or elo has somehow decided to jam 8 assaults on one team and 8 commandos on the other team I care less. You're rapidly getting to the point where I won't care at all. Ask blizzard how much they managed to milk out of me with their awesome plan to monetize D3. If you make a good game people will play and you'll make your money, right now as a player I don't see a whole lot of proof that the game is first and foremost.