99 replies to this topic

[KitK]

Recall - Garth isn't a coder.

Also recall - Hot fixes cost the people working on them more or less 1 day of development time. So, if something you were hoping for next patch doesn't make it, dont....forget they made it so you can play with the rest of us, who aren't having problems, between now and then.

[mechbane]

hoping the hotfix has some impact on the FPS drops everyone has, its the FPS drops that has caused a lot of "unable to play" posts

[jay35]

MasterGoa, on 03 April 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Garth, I appreciate you reaching out to us and giving us updates.

However, I would suggest that, when you give details, use a minimum
of 4 sentences to describe the issue and what you are doing.

Regards.

I don't care how many sentences it takes, just communicate well.

[Dimitry Matveyev]

Hmm.. I don't know, if they had done anything yet, but the game seems to be ok. No lag, like yesterday, no crashes. Maybe I'm lucky )

UPD: have been to optimistic, most of rounds are fine, but some has lag and fps drop. Also had no HUD in some battles.

Edited by Dimitry Matveyev, 03 April 2013 - 02:05 PM.

[S3dition]

MasterGoa, on 03 April 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Garth, I appreciate you reaching out to us and giving us updates.

However, I would suggest that, when you give details, use a minimum
of 4 sentences to describe the issue and what you are doing.

Regards.

Garth isn't doing anything. He's a community manager, not a developer. He's just passing on information that they told him to.

[KableGuy]

mechbane, on 03 April 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

hoping the hotfix has some impact on the FPS drops everyone has, its the FPS drops that has caused a lot of "unable to play" posts

reinstall of the game fixed that for me.

[BlackBeltJones]

Hotfix for added consumables.

[Esplodin]

BlackBeltJones, on 03 April 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Hotfix for added consumables.

Honestly I'm surprised they haven't released a towel that you can put where the faction flags go with the initials QQ embroidered on it.

Patch to fix bugs is good. Don't be a jerk, since hot fixes screw with the feature release timeline and put a major bunch of stress on the whole team. I'll be the first to call out when something is shady, but c'mon. You are pistol whipping people trying to help you play a FREE game for crying out loud.

Edited by Esplodin, 03 April 2013 - 12:23 PM.

[warp103]

Esplodin, on 03 April 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Honestly I'm surprised they haven't released a towel that you can put where the faction flags go with the initials QQ embroidered on it.

Patch to fix bugs is good. Don't be a jerk, since hot fixes screw with the feature release timeline and put a major bunch of stress on the whole team. I'll be the first to call out when something is shady, but c'mon. You are pistol whipping people trying to help you play a FREE game for crying out loud.

No it more of a issue of wait we report it support says it your issue or i Quote "by
Ninjai This is misleading, the bug is strictly a graphic bug. The crash some of you might be experiencing is nothing else than the old crashes you use to have.

Please update your drivers to fix the graphic bug, we've mostly seen it with 311.xx but also with other older drivers.

Wait i do not have nvidia, wait my drivers are up todate

Or support Saying sorry but it a issue with your system.

KitK, on 03 April 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

Recall - Garth isn't a coder.

Also recall - Hot fixes cost the people working on them more or less 1 day of development time. So, if something you were hoping for next patch doesn't make it, dont....forget they made it so you can play with the rest of us, who aren't having problems, between now and then.

Wait stop lol you are killing me. If this patch was done right the first time you would not have '1 day of development time' issue.

[Buehgler]

I would presume that they are trying to fix the "game fails to end/unlock my mech" problem. However, it would have been nice if they actually took 2 minutes to type a message that actually said that.

My presumption is based on the further assumption that the server (the code they run that synchronizes action among all the players, keeps score, etc.) has been frequently crashing at the end of the game, and that is why we can not chat, get a scoreboard, get our mechs back or get XP/Cbill. If my conjecture is correct then fixing this seems like it should be a high priority. What I can not figure out is why PGI appears to have released significant unreported changes to the mechanics of how players join the game at this point, and why/how they did that without more significant QA. It has been my experience that each time I get "stuck" in game (i.e. the server crashes) some player has apparently joined the game, but their mech type was never filled in on the player list (certainly it was not filled in before the game "started"). I would offer the conjecture that this is part of an effort to enable some future "join in progress" or "rejoin" features. However, there is no real evidence to support this, other than the fact that something seems to have changed (based on my observation of pregame behavior) in this portion of the code.

[BlackBeltJones]

Esplodin, on 03 April 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Honestly I'm surprised they haven't released a towel that you can put where the faction flags go with the initials QQ embroidered on it.

Patch to fix bugs is good. Don't be a jerk, since hot fixes screw with the feature release timeline and put a major bunch of stress on the whole team. I'll be the first to call out when something is shady, but c'mon. You are pistol whipping people trying to help you play a FREE game for crying out loud.

Well I can see you're not terribly lighthearted, since there was no expression of what was being addressed, resolved, or fixed it seemed appropriate to fill the information void with some humor.
I will go back to pistol whipping people and being a jerk - EAD.

[KitK]

warp103, on 03 April 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

Wait stop lol you are killing me.

I do what I can for the community. If only I could do better...

warp103, on 03 April 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

If this patch was done right the first time...

That's kind of misleading. If you've kept up on you dev posts (Garth's from earlier today iirc) you should know that it worked internally, but it broke externally. i.e. if they could have found it internally they would have fixed it first. Unfortunately they couldn't, and unfortunately this is a common pattern. It is also likely why PGI insists that MWO is still in beta in spite of dissenting points of view. Let's face it, no one likes to do things twice, no one likes the public relations nightmare, and these things cost money to fix. So, it's not like they are doing shoddy work and then just doing damage control. They just can't get the test data they need until after it blows up on the live servers. You think its frustrating that you can't play a game? Try having 2 weeks worth of work fall apart and have a million people walk by screaming at you.

TLDR: I'm calling BS on your comment.

Edited by KitK, 03 April 2013 - 01:09 PM.

[Esplodin]

warp103, on 03 April 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

No it more of a issue of wait we report it support says it your issue or i Quote "by
Ninjai This is misleading, the bug is strictly a graphic bug. The crash some of you might be experiencing is nothing else than the old crashes you use to have.


Please update your drivers to fix the graphic bug, we've mostly seen it with 311.xx but also with other older drivers.

Wait i do not have nvidia, wait my drivers are up todate

Or support Saying sorry but it a issue with your system.

Just imagine the volume of support requests they get. Part of what I do is run a helpdesk, and the guy answering the phone is NOT the guy that fixes stuff, nor has perfect information. For system issues it takes time to identify the trend. One person's issue gets small attention, sometimes even several. When there are a lot reporting the same problem, then it gets kicked upstairs. Most people STILL don't know how to reboot windows to fix random issues, but still feel wrongly entitled enough that their problems are the most important in the company. Those people remind me of this movie scene:

Spoiler

THEN the real work begins at reproducing the bug in QA, from the generally horrible trouble reports that don't include even basic info. Once the bug is confirmed, you pull Devs off of their projects to fix it, causing lost time and deadlines on their other projects - something not done lightly.

BlackBeltJones, on 03 April 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

Well I can see you're not terribly lighthearted, since there was no expression of what was being addressed, resolved, or fixed it seemed appropriate to fill the information void with some humor.
I will go back to pistol whipping people and being a jerk - EAD.

I find no humor dragging P2W baggage into a post that gives us some positive information. Poor taste. Don't insult the person that is giving you information in the thread for it. Encourage communication when it happens and it might happen more. Vent your grievances in appropriate places such as patch feedback or suggestions.

[Deathlike]

MadPanda, on 03 April 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

Which one? The black screen stuck crash or end of game stuck crash?

This is the end-of-game, no XP/C-bills rewards bug. I doubt it's the black screen stuck one although it appears to me by the patch feedback thread that this is definitely a top priority.

The hanging black screen drop bug is probably related to some video or code that's "hanging" and ping only exacerbates this issue.

[JayKay17]

Thx Garth for the information, that Piranhas are eating away at the bugs (feeding frenzy, no bug stands a chance).
A little more explicit information which bug is targeted first would have been appreciated, dedicated server crash as description seems for me to be a little sophisticated.

Heads up and Thumbs up, keep on squishing bugs.

[Sprouticus]

I believe there is an outstanding bug where the serve instance running the game crahes, and all player's are DC'd. I have it happen to unit-mates last night. Everyone got Dc'd and the mechs were not released for some period of time after they restarted their clients.

[Deathlike]

FYI, when the game crashes while in a match, you are still oddly sending data to/from the servers. Something doesn't quite end properly when the game crashes... which the server may be interpreting as "no input" and thinks you are still playing.

This has happened prior to the patch, but is possibly being caused by a different issue to make this so obvious.

If you crash out of game, you will see packets continued to be send to/from the PGI master server for a while. You'd have to reboot or manage to stop the connection so the game "disconnects" you from the game.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 April 2013 - 01:30 PM.

[BINDLETORC]

Thank you for the update Garth. I along with a bunch of other people have sent in support requests and those folks have done an amazing job compiling the provided info so a pattern can be seen and addressed.

As for the person above who said this is a FREE game. Pffffft. Most expensive game I have ever played. I expect top notch service when I pay this much and I get it here. The level of communication, the ability to keep the game fresh and the great community of players make it worth the money and time.

[Heer]

Garth Erlam, on 03 April 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Server-side hotfix is rolling out shortly.
<snip>

• Fixed an issue where people with high latency would experience a black screen after loaded into the game.

Thank you.

This has impacted us Oceanic players the most.

[MadPanda]

Heer, on 03 April 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

Thank you.

This has impacted us Oceanic players the most.

It also impacted europeans. For some odd reason a lot of us (me included) have massive ping (like 1000+) when we load into the game, and it goes down really fast after that.