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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:01:00 -
[1]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:49:44
[ IMPORTANT NOTE TO RESPONDERS : Please keep this thread civil, free of flames and as constructive as possible - our aim should be to improve, not to break down ! ]
I would like to voice my concerns on recent patches that were introduced, and specifically yesterdays 1722 release.
I have trouble to understand how multiple important fixes that are listed in the patchlog are either working incorrectly or not working at all, and how very obvious bugs slip in that get noticed within minutes after installing a patch by even the most avid user.
I understand that writing / fixing the code, compiling, distributing all take a lot of time, and that they might be on a tight schedule each month to release the patch in a timely fashion - but one must also assume that CCP tests the build they are going to release, most notably test the features they have changed or implemented, and test generally to see if the changes they have made affected other parts of the code / game behaviour.
This testing might take a day or perhaps several days, but should be essential prior to releasing anything new to the public. This saves hotfixes, downtime, a lot of frustrated or at least unsettled customers, and generally makes people regard the company (CCP) as more professional.
Let me give some examples (I have only spent a couple of hours after the patch ingame, but this is what I've come up with up to now) :
Changes in the 1722 patch from 1618 :
1) Facilities now consider the demand for their facilities (offices, factories and lab slots)
** Factories did not work properly as known. Changes are made to the factory/office/labslot code, hence basic testing of either of these (renting, creation, usage) should be done prior to using the code in a public patch.
2) Additional secondary bonuses have been added to all cruisers.
** One of the secondary bonuses was a 10% missile speed increase on the caracal. One assumes that all secondary bonuses were tested using the patch released to the public. Two obvious things should strike any tester running a client based on 1722 code :
a) Missile damage was incorrectly calculated, implementations of non-finalised code sneaked into the current build (May I remind you this is the second time this happend in a month - code from chaos/other test server sneaking into Tranquility public patches)
b) Missile bonus for caracal was not applied - no 10% speed increase was visible, missiles still had 45km reach @ 1200m/sec. Again this would have come up with the most basic of testing - something that I assume is being done by either volunteers (bughunters) and the programmers after changing code and considering release to public.
3) "Ghost ship after jump" issue.
** This is almost too obvious to overlook. The ghostship problem was present in the 1618 patch, CCP knows of it, we know of it - and one must assume they at least glanced at the jumping code to locate or get rid of this problem. Changes were made either on purpose or accidentially (e.g. for another another issue, affecting this on the side).
Any simple testing of the final patch would have quickly revealed stuck ships after jumps, the frequency of occurance is reaching statistics nearing three digits. Again this makes me wonder to what extent the 1722 patch was tested, and how much attention is being given by devs themselves to verify their changes in specific code do not create unwanted side effects.
4) Removed wallet journal export again. It was not supposed to be in the patch.
** Although I applaud the honesty displayed here on CCP's part, I still cannot understand how several things end up in patches each time, that were not supposed to be there in the first place. Code is being changed, a log is kept by the programmer which modules or parts of code he changes, and that should be the end of it. A casual mistake I can understand, but this happens too frequently. I am not sure to what extent I can look at the "testers" of 1722 patch for this, because if there was no mentioning from dev's that there were any changes near / at the wallet journal part of the code, I find it understandeable that the code is not being looked at as thoroughly as other [changed] parts of the client/server.
[ Message continued below ]
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:01:00 -
[2]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:49:44
[ IMPORTANT NOTE TO RESPONDERS : Please keep this thread civil, free of flames and as constructive as possible - our aim should be to improve, not to break down ! ]
I would like to voice my concerns on recent patches that were introduced, and specifically yesterdays 1722 release.
I have trouble to understand how multiple important fixes that are listed in the patchlog are either working incorrectly or not working at all, and how very obvious bugs slip in that get noticed within minutes after installing a patch by even the most avid user.
I understand that writing / fixing the code, compiling, distributing all take a lot of time, and that they might be on a tight schedule each month to release the patch in a timely fashion - but one must also assume that CCP tests the build they are going to release, most notably test the features they have changed or implemented, and test generally to see if the changes they have made affected other parts of the code / game behaviour.
This testing might take a day or perhaps several days, but should be essential prior to releasing anything new to the public. This saves hotfixes, downtime, a lot of frustrated or at least unsettled customers, and generally makes people regard the company (CCP) as more professional.
Let me give some examples (I have only spent a couple of hours after the patch ingame, but this is what I've come up with up to now) :
Changes in the 1722 patch from 1618 :
1) Facilities now consider the demand for their facilities (offices, factories and lab slots)
** Factories did not work properly as known. Changes are made to the factory/office/labslot code, hence basic testing of either of these (renting, creation, usage) should be done prior to using the code in a public patch.
2) Additional secondary bonuses have been added to all cruisers.
** One of the secondary bonuses was a 10% missile speed increase on the caracal. One assumes that all secondary bonuses were tested using the patch released to the public. Two obvious things should strike any tester running a client based on 1722 code :
a) Missile damage was incorrectly calculated, implementations of non-finalised code sneaked into the current build (May I remind you this is the second time this happend in a month - code from chaos/other test server sneaking into Tranquility public patches)
b) Missile bonus for caracal was not applied - no 10% speed increase was visible, missiles still had 45km reach @ 1200m/sec. Again this would have come up with the most basic of testing - something that I assume is being done by either volunteers (bughunters) and the programmers after changing code and considering release to public.
3) "Ghost ship after jump" issue.
** This is almost too obvious to overlook. The ghostship problem was present in the 1618 patch, CCP knows of it, we know of it - and one must assume they at least glanced at the jumping code to locate or get rid of this problem. Changes were made either on purpose or accidentially (e.g. for another another issue, affecting this on the side).
Any simple testing of the final patch would have quickly revealed stuck ships after jumps, the frequency of occurance is reaching statistics nearing three digits. Again this makes me wonder to what extent the 1722 patch was tested, and how much attention is being given by devs themselves to verify their changes in specific code do not create unwanted side effects.
4) Removed wallet journal export again. It was not supposed to be in the patch.
** Although I applaud the honesty displayed here on CCP's part, I still cannot understand how several things end up in patches each time, that were not supposed to be there in the first place. Code is being changed, a log is kept by the programmer which modules or parts of code he changes, and that should be the end of it. A casual mistake I can understand, but this happens too frequently. I am not sure to what extent I can look at the "testers" of 1722 patch for this, because if there was no mentioning from dev's that there were any changes near / at the wallet journal part of the code, I find it understandeable that the code is not being looked at as thoroughly as other [changed] parts of the client/server.
[ Message continued below ]
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:17:00 -
[3]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:31:14
[ Maximum Message limit, sorry !]
5) Previously, the autoscanner would not update properly. This has been resolved.
** Several minutes of playing indicated to me that the autoscanner bug is still present in its old form. I am unsure again how this can be overlooked - a couple of jumps from anywhere to anywhere with some entities in the neighbourhood would show to any user that the autoscanner still has "stuck" items from before a jump listed. Again I wonder how a fix mentioned specifically in the changelog of 1722 can still exist - one must assume that either the code was changed and a dev expected the changes to be sufficient [ without testing it "live" ] or there were simply no changes made [ or at the least not ported from the dev's code to the final patch ] . Besides that, this very annoying and unmisseable bug slipped through any testing we must assume has been done by testers, both volunteers and CCP people alike.
The examples above are just that - examples -. By far they are not unique, and I have only been playing EVE for two months, returning from being an alpha and beta tester for CCP/EVE about 1.5 years ago. I write this message because I am worried about the amount of "slips" made, and feel that voicing my concerns in a proper and clear way might raise awareness within CCP or the patchtesters that there should be a change or at least improvement in the way new code is being tested/verified/marked ready for release.
Although I understand that any user can file burgreports, I also know by experience that avid users often cannot discern between a real bug, or just improper unstanding of client/server behaviour (not to mention client-side hardware and driver issues). The bugreportsite gets flooded with a lot of reports, and the real issues might get snowed under. Again, giving higher priority to a decidated group of testers that go through all changed game aspects and at the least test common behaviour of the ready-for-release client both in groups and individually should prevent any of the serious mistakes/bugs as occured in the last few patches, and the 1722 patch specifically.
Your thoughts, both from users and CCP/Volunteer people, are highly valued in this matter, since I can only feel that being open about this issue and saying it where it stands would benefit the future quality of gameplay, through the means of 'near perfect' patches and good communication both from and to CCP.
- Michael.
p.s. on a sidenote I would like to also notify CCP of the fact that the missile velocity bonus for the caracal is still not implemented [ After testing this a few minutes ago ] despite the 1724 hotfix and me and several others voicing the appearent disfunctionality of the new caracal missile speed bonus in several threads, including but not limited to the "1722 current patch bug list" thread which I assume is regularly read by CCP or volunteers. |
obscuroditus
|
Posted - 2004.08.11 15:17:00 -
[4]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:31:14
[ Maximum Message limit, sorry !]
5) Previously, the autoscanner would not update properly. This has been resolved.
** Several minutes of playing indicated to me that the autoscanner bug is still present in its old form. I am unsure again how this can be overlooked - a couple of jumps from anywhere to anywhere with some entities in the neighbourhood would show to any user that the autoscanner still has "stuck" items from before a jump listed. Again I wonder how a fix mentioned specifically in the changelog of 1722 can still exist - one must assume that either the code was changed and a dev expected the changes to be sufficient [ without testing it "live" ] or there were simply no changes made [ or at the least not ported from the dev's code to the final patch ] . Besides that, this very annoying and unmisseable bug slipped through any testing we must assume has been done by testers, both volunteers and CCP people alike.
The examples above are just that - examples -. By far they are not unique, and I have only been playing EVE for two months, returning from being an alpha and beta tester for CCP/EVE about 1.5 years ago. I write this message because I am worried about the amount of "slips" made, and feel that voicing my concerns in a proper and clear way might raise awareness within CCP or the patchtesters that there should be a change or at least improvement in the way new code is being tested/verified/marked ready for release.
Although I understand that any user can file burgreports, I also know by experience that avid users often cannot discern between a real bug, or just improper unstanding of client/server behaviour (not to mention client-side hardware and driver issues). The bugreportsite gets flooded with a lot of reports, and the real issues might get snowed under. Again, giving higher priority to a decidated group of testers that go through all changed game aspects and at the least test common behaviour of the ready-for-release client both in groups and individually should prevent any of the serious mistakes/bugs as occured in the last few patches, and the 1722 patch specifically.
Your thoughts, both from users and CCP/Volunteer people, are highly valued in this matter, since I can only feel that being open about this issue and saying it where it stands would benefit the future quality of gameplay, through the means of 'near perfect' patches and good communication both from and to CCP.
- Michael.
p.s. on a sidenote I would like to also notify CCP of the fact that the missile velocity bonus for the caracal is still not implemented [ After testing this a few minutes ago ] despite the 1724 hotfix and me and several others voicing the appearent disfunctionality of the new caracal missile speed bonus in several threads, including but not limited to the "1722 current patch bug list" thread which I assume is regularly read by CCP or volunteers. |
Jacob Vought
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:19:00 -
[5]
I fly a Caracal doing lvl3 security agent missions. While I have been playing since patch I've noticed that my Scourge heavy missiles fall short of the promised range increase. I should get 1,200m/s x1.3 (cal cruiser lvl3) for 40 seconds yeilding 62,400km range. I have not fired my missiles at a longer range than 58km, yet even with the enemies always chasing me, the first one or 2 salvos sometimes don't hit. And with the cursed price increase for Scourges this is just annoying. I will continue checking this as I do missions a lot.
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Jacob Vought
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:19:00 -
[6]
I fly a Caracal doing lvl3 security agent missions. While I have been playing since patch I've noticed that my Scourge heavy missiles fall short of the promised range increase. I should get 1,200m/s x1.3 (cal cruiser lvl3) for 40 seconds yeilding 62,400km range. I have not fired my missiles at a longer range than 58km, yet even with the enemies always chasing me, the first one or 2 salvos sometimes don't hit. And with the cursed price increase for Scourges this is just annoying. I will continue checking this as I do missions a lot.
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Kelly O'Connor
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:20:00 -
[7]
Edited by: Kelly O'Connor on 11/08/2004 15:22:06
In my time playing eve, I have come to one conclusion about patches:
Eve has apparently very VERY bad QA/BH.
That's not to say it is bad, just it appears to be terrible with the amount of things sneaking into patches.
Originally by: White Fang
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
You are the whiner, obscuroditus backs up his points, doesnt attack anyone, but you reply attacking him and his posts.
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Kelly O'Connor
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:20:00 -
[8]
Edited by: Kelly O'Connor on 11/08/2004 15:22:06
In my time playing eve, I have come to one conclusion about patches:
Eve has apparently very VERY bad QA/BH.
That's not to say it is bad, just it appears to be terrible with the amount of things sneaking into patches.
Originally by: White Fang
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
You are the whiner, obscuroditus backs up his points, doesnt attack anyone, but you reply attacking him and his posts.
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White Fang
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:20:00 -
[9]
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
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White Fang
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:20:00 -
[10]
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:24:00 -
[11]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:33:50
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:28:20
Originally by: White Fang
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
Where do I say it is not allowed to make mistakes? Having experience as a beta/alpha tester of eve (and other games) I think I know when things can be prevented, and in my view there is room for improvement.
It is not about the mistakes made implementing, I can fully understand them occuring with a complex game like this.
However, you might note that I am not saying the mistakes should not be made in the first place, but that I feel that they can be prevented from ending up in the public patch by testing the changes made, and a bit of testing in general. How can a bug be listed as fixed, while the bug is not fixed at all - that is essentially what I have been saying. I pay for this game and so do tens of thousands of others, and this means we can raise our expectations. It's not free, its not shareware, it's not opensource. There is not much we can do ourselves from this end to resolve the issues, so voicing our concerns, or writing down valid and well described criticism is a sane way of hopfully decreasing frequency of things like this occuring in the future - benefitting both the end user as wel as CCP as a whole.
White Fang : On a sidenote, regarding my occupations in real life :
I work and have worked for large companies in the support sector, and have enough experience in dealing with both end user as well as in-company support for both finalised and alpha/beta software, drivers and hardware to validate my plea made in the starting posts as more then merely ranting or unfunded criticism. Thank you.
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:24:00 -
[12]
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:33:50
Edited by: obscuroditus on 11/08/2004 15:28:20
Originally by: White Fang
Obscuroditus, Jesus, man stop whining! I don't know where you work in real life, but it's definately not computers. I am a computer programmer myself and I believe I am in a better position to judge the quality of work of CCP devs. When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee. This is industry-wide and if you want to be a consumer of this industry you have to live with it. Criticizing is always easy, but you obviously have no clue what is involved in working on such big projects like EvE, so cut the crap.
Where do I say it is not allowed to make mistakes? Having experience as a beta/alpha tester of eve (and other games) I think I know when things can be prevented, and in my view there is room for improvement.
It is not about the mistakes made implementing, I can fully understand them occuring with a complex game like this.
However, you might note that I am not saying the mistakes should not be made in the first place, but that I feel that they can be prevented from ending up in the public patch by testing the changes made, and a bit of testing in general. How can a bug be listed as fixed, while the bug is not fixed at all - that is essentially what I have been saying. I pay for this game and so do tens of thousands of others, and this means we can raise our expectations. It's not free, its not shareware, it's not opensource. There is not much we can do ourselves from this end to resolve the issues, so voicing our concerns, or writing down valid and well described criticism is a sane way of hopfully decreasing frequency of things like this occuring in the future - benefitting both the end user as wel as CCP as a whole.
White Fang : On a sidenote, regarding my occupations in real life :
I work and have worked for large companies in the support sector, and have enough experience in dealing with both end user as well as in-company support for both finalised and alpha/beta software, drivers and hardware to validate my plea made in the starting posts as more then merely ranting or unfunded criticism. Thank you.
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Trogoon
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:31:00 -
[13]
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:33:44
Well, what we have here is not really a whining post, but merely a players concern about patch testing etc.
The debate shouldn't really concern this patch, but more CCPs way of patching. Do we want to wait 2 extra weeks per patch before it was completely bugless ("completely") or do we want to see it implemented and fixed after a day. I'll have to say on my part I really feel like the Devs here actually listen to the crowd (Crowd Control Produtions :) and the testing is a player/dev thing, instead of inhouse patching. Lets take DaOC for example, alot of the changes there were much worse than this, hugely outbalancing a class, and in the next patch they'd do the exact opposite, so you ended with poles etc.
The cruiser changes is a good way of showing this, the input on the nerf to Thorax made the decision obsolete, and was changed back. This was not due to the huge outcry, but due to players coming back with objective and well thought critics (Some were, I despise the "OMG DONT NERF IT"). We are the players after all and it is perhaps easier for us to test all ships than it is for a limited amount of patch testers.
They give us good time with a warning of patch day and says "train a long skill" I do that, and generally see how the patch is during the evening after it has been implemented. I'd like to take the opposite approach to the poster and say "Good Job!" on the patching day, especially as you sorted your critical problem so fast yesterday.
As said in the post, its not about whining, its about Osb being concerned for the CCP and their reputation. I like their way of doing it, he is entitled to his opinion, now lets hear some more well thought critics or agreement to the post :)
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Trogoon
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:31:00 -
[14]
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:33:44
Well, what we have here is not really a whining post, but merely a players concern about patch testing etc.
The debate shouldn't really concern this patch, but more CCPs way of patching. Do we want to wait 2 extra weeks per patch before it was completely bugless ("completely") or do we want to see it implemented and fixed after a day. I'll have to say on my part I really feel like the Devs here actually listen to the crowd (Crowd Control Produtions :) and the testing is a player/dev thing, instead of inhouse patching. Lets take DaOC for example, alot of the changes there were much worse than this, hugely outbalancing a class, and in the next patch they'd do the exact opposite, so you ended with poles etc.
The cruiser changes is a good way of showing this, the input on the nerf to Thorax made the decision obsolete, and was changed back. This was not due to the huge outcry, but due to players coming back with objective and well thought critics (Some were, I despise the "OMG DONT NERF IT"). We are the players after all and it is perhaps easier for us to test all ships than it is for a limited amount of patch testers.
They give us good time with a warning of patch day and says "train a long skill" I do that, and generally see how the patch is during the evening after it has been implemented. I'd like to take the opposite approach to the poster and say "Good Job!" on the patching day, especially as you sorted your critical problem so fast yesterday.
As said in the post, its not about whining, its about Osb being concerned for the CCP and their reputation. I like their way of doing it, he is entitled to his opinion, now lets hear some more well thought critics or agreement to the post :)
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Lain Maraquine
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:34:00 -
[15]
I think you are wrong to critizice obscuroditus, White Fang. He is perfectly correct in pointing these things out explicitly and he has done so in a very well-constructed post.
My job is as a computer programmer as well, and I'm sure dozens or other Eve players are full-time programmers. I can't believe you would excuse this kind of low quality patch testing. These bugs are very obvious and major. Minutes of testing would have revealed that the problems still existed or were worse than before.
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
My own opinion is that the development group for EVE would do good by actively participating in the forums. They would realize that many of their game adjustments are unwanted or not implemented the way users would like. They would see other major issues that should be addressed.
Many people have spent large amounts of time writing up their suggestions for changes to improve the game and others have spent long hours debating and finetuning the suggestions. The EVE developers very very rarely comment - I've never seen one at any rate. The discussion forums seem to exist in a vacuum, where the dev group doesn't actually listen to the players. This is the major problem with EVE right now - The developers aren't listening to the players.
And thank you, obscuroditus, for starting this thread with a good post.
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Lain Maraquine
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:34:00 -
[16]
I think you are wrong to critizice obscuroditus, White Fang. He is perfectly correct in pointing these things out explicitly and he has done so in a very well-constructed post.
My job is as a computer programmer as well, and I'm sure dozens or other Eve players are full-time programmers. I can't believe you would excuse this kind of low quality patch testing. These bugs are very obvious and major. Minutes of testing would have revealed that the problems still existed or were worse than before.
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
My own opinion is that the development group for EVE would do good by actively participating in the forums. They would realize that many of their game adjustments are unwanted or not implemented the way users would like. They would see other major issues that should be addressed.
Many people have spent large amounts of time writing up their suggestions for changes to improve the game and others have spent long hours debating and finetuning the suggestions. The EVE developers very very rarely comment - I've never seen one at any rate. The discussion forums seem to exist in a vacuum, where the dev group doesn't actually listen to the players. This is the major problem with EVE right now - The developers aren't listening to the players.
And thank you, obscuroditus, for starting this thread with a good post.
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:37:00 -
[17]
Originally by: Trogoon
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:33:44
Well, what we have here is not really a whining post, but merely a players concern about patch testing etc.
The debate shouldn't really concern this patch, but more CCPs way of patching. Do we want to wait 2 extra weeks per patch before it was completely bugless ("completely") or do we want to see it implemented and fixed after a day. I'll have to say on my part I really feel like the Devs here actually listen to the crowd (Crowd Control Produtions :) and the testing is a player/dev thing, instead of inhouse patching. Lets take DaOC for example, alot of the changes there were much worse than this, hugely outbalancing a class, and in the next patch they'd do the exact opposite, so you ended with poles etc.
The cruiser changes is a good way of showing this, the input on the nerf to Thorax made the decision obsolete, and was changed back. This was not due to the huge outcry, but due to players coming back with objective and well thought critics (Some were, I despise the "OMG DONT NERF IT"). We are the players after all and it is perhaps easier for us to test all ships than it is for a limited amount of patch testers.
They give us good time with a warning of patch day and says "train a long skill" I do that, and generally see how the patch is during the evening after it has been implemented. I'd like to take the opposite approach to the poster and say "Good Job!" on the patching day, especially as you sorted your critical problem so fast yesterday.
As said in the post, its not about whining, its about Osb being concerned for the CCP and their reputation. I like their way of doing it, he is entitled to his opinion, now lets hear some more well thought critics or agreement to the post :)
Yes, I agree with you that the way CCP [ Dev's ] respond to, and work with members of the community is improving dramatically from what I have seen from it when I recently joined, or what seemed to be the situation half a year back. I can only applaud CCP for this, and hope their tendency to improve upon end-user relations will be with us for as long as the game lasts.
This is however a different matter, and hopefully I did not create the impression in my posts that I was concerned about the attitude towards end-users, since I was trying to create an open discussion both about and with CCP about improvements that could perhaps be made to prevent issues like we had with the previous and current patch from happening as good as humanly possible in the future.
Thank you for your well voiced response, much appreciated.
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obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:37:00 -
[18]
Originally by: Trogoon
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:33:44
Well, what we have here is not really a whining post, but merely a players concern about patch testing etc.
The debate shouldn't really concern this patch, but more CCPs way of patching. Do we want to wait 2 extra weeks per patch before it was completely bugless ("completely") or do we want to see it implemented and fixed after a day. I'll have to say on my part I really feel like the Devs here actually listen to the crowd (Crowd Control Produtions :) and the testing is a player/dev thing, instead of inhouse patching. Lets take DaOC for example, alot of the changes there were much worse than this, hugely outbalancing a class, and in the next patch they'd do the exact opposite, so you ended with poles etc.
The cruiser changes is a good way of showing this, the input on the nerf to Thorax made the decision obsolete, and was changed back. This was not due to the huge outcry, but due to players coming back with objective and well thought critics (Some were, I despise the "OMG DONT NERF IT"). We are the players after all and it is perhaps easier for us to test all ships than it is for a limited amount of patch testers.
They give us good time with a warning of patch day and says "train a long skill" I do that, and generally see how the patch is during the evening after it has been implemented. I'd like to take the opposite approach to the poster and say "Good Job!" on the patching day, especially as you sorted your critical problem so fast yesterday.
As said in the post, its not about whining, its about Osb being concerned for the CCP and their reputation. I like their way of doing it, he is entitled to his opinion, now lets hear some more well thought critics or agreement to the post :)
Yes, I agree with you that the way CCP [ Dev's ] respond to, and work with members of the community is improving dramatically from what I have seen from it when I recently joined, or what seemed to be the situation half a year back. I can only applaud CCP for this, and hope their tendency to improve upon end-user relations will be with us for as long as the game lasts.
This is however a different matter, and hopefully I did not create the impression in my posts that I was concerned about the attitude towards end-users, since I was trying to create an open discussion both about and with CCP about improvements that could perhaps be made to prevent issues like we had with the previous and current patch from happening as good as humanly possible in the future.
Thank you for your well voiced response, much appreciated.
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Trogoon
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:39:00 -
[19]
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:41:08
Perhaps Lain, but still if you go to www.eve-i.com and look at Dev post Finder, you'll be able to see where they respond. That way you can see where the devs attention are at, and write a constructive comment. This is not a flame, merely a hint to see where they are ;)
As for the patch you're for the bugless slow release, fair enough.
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Trogoon
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:39:00 -
[20]
Edited by: Trogoon on 11/08/2004 15:41:08
Perhaps Lain, but still if you go to www.eve-i.com and look at Dev post Finder, you'll be able to see where they respond. That way you can see where the devs attention are at, and write a constructive comment. This is not a flame, merely a hint to see where they are ;)
As for the patch you're for the bugless slow release, fair enough.
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Synex
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:41:00 -
[21]
Ok - right now we have 2 test servers (that are available to the public) - Entropy and Chaos.
I've been on both, and spend a lot of time on Chaos testing things.
Chaos always has the cutting edge of development (not including Shiva stuff - seperate server) and therefore, not everything on Chaos gets through to Tranquility.
However, i'd like to see new patches (for TQ) being released onto Entropy a week before they are due to be released onto TQ. This would allow us to log on a take a look, do a bit of testing and get rid of the really really obvious bugs before it hits the main server where things really matter.
This patch-to-Entropy would happen after the feature-freeze for each patch, giving the devs ample time to go "Oops, this wasn't meant to be in here" before the majority of the EVE population go to task on it.
That's the way I'd do it at least...
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Synex
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:41:00 -
[22]
Ok - right now we have 2 test servers (that are available to the public) - Entropy and Chaos.
I've been on both, and spend a lot of time on Chaos testing things.
Chaos always has the cutting edge of development (not including Shiva stuff - seperate server) and therefore, not everything on Chaos gets through to Tranquility.
However, i'd like to see new patches (for TQ) being released onto Entropy a week before they are due to be released onto TQ. This would allow us to log on a take a look, do a bit of testing and get rid of the really really obvious bugs before it hits the main server where things really matter.
This patch-to-Entropy would happen after the feature-freeze for each patch, giving the devs ample time to go "Oops, this wasn't meant to be in here" before the majority of the EVE population go to task on it.
That's the way I'd do it at least...
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Anatolius
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:42:00 -
[23]
I agree totally!
CCP, please raise the monthly fee to $300 USD or so, that you might hire enough testing personnel to mimic the environment of the live game in order to do proper testing before each patch.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Read the following carefully, it's the most sensical thing you'll ever see on these forums:
Originally by: White Fang
When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
They would realize that many of their game adjustments are unwanted or not implemented the way users would like.
You mean, unwanted or not implemented the way the vocal minority would like? The majority of EVE's playerbase is not represented on these forums.
---
Having recently acquired a lab slot (thank you, rental bug), I wholeheartily concur, there's absolutely no problem with lab slots! |
Anatolius
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:42:00 -
[24]
I agree totally!
CCP, please raise the monthly fee to $300 USD or so, that you might hire enough testing personnel to mimic the environment of the live game in order to do proper testing before each patch.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Read the following carefully, it's the most sensical thing you'll ever see on these forums:
Originally by: White Fang
When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
They would realize that many of their game adjustments are unwanted or not implemented the way users would like.
You mean, unwanted or not implemented the way the vocal minority would like? The majority of EVE's playerbase is not represented on these forums.
---
Having recently acquired a lab slot (thank you, rental bug), I wholeheartily concur, there's absolutely no problem with lab slots! |
obscuroditus
|
Posted - 2004.08.11 15:47:00 -
[25]
Originally by: Anatolius
I agree totally!
You mean, unwanted or not implemented the way the vocal minority would like? The majority of EVE's playerbase is not represented on these forums.
I think I can speak for the majority of the EVE community (both actively participating on these forums, passively reading and purely in-game persona) that everyone would benefit from a game that is as free of bugs and non-inentional changes as is technically possible.
It's not about reducing the number of occurences such as I describe in my initial posting to absolute zero, but to try to minimalise the frequency of issues like this to levels that are barely noticeable and absolutely acceptable. |
obscuroditus
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:47:00 -
[26]
Originally by: Anatolius
I agree totally!
You mean, unwanted or not implemented the way the vocal minority would like? The majority of EVE's playerbase is not represented on these forums.
I think I can speak for the majority of the EVE community (both actively participating on these forums, passively reading and purely in-game persona) that everyone would benefit from a game that is as free of bugs and non-inentional changes as is technically possible.
It's not about reducing the number of occurences such as I describe in my initial posting to absolute zero, but to try to minimalise the frequency of issues like this to levels that are barely noticeable and absolutely acceptable. |
Kelly O'Connor
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:51:00 -
[27]
Edited by: Kelly O'Connor on 11/08/2004 15:52:22
Originally by: Anatolius
I agree totally!
CCP, please raise the monthly fee to $300 USD or so, that you might hire enough testing personnel to mimic the environment of the live game in order to do proper testing before each patch.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Read the following carefully, it's the most sensical thing you'll ever see on these forums:
Originally by: White Fang
When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee.
The fact you think you need 10000 testers to test a patch for 10000 players, sums up why you probably shouldnt post on this thread any longer.
ty
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Kelly O'Connor
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:51:00 -
[28]
Edited by: Kelly O'Connor on 11/08/2004 15:52:22
Originally by: Anatolius
I agree totally!
CCP, please raise the monthly fee to $300 USD or so, that you might hire enough testing personnel to mimic the environment of the live game in order to do proper testing before each patch.
Originally by: Lain Maraquaine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Read the following carefully, it's the most sensical thing you'll ever see on these forums:
Originally by: White Fang
When you introudce a new piece of software, especially when it is transferred to another environment, one it wasn't developped in originally, you can end up with all kinds of surpises, a lot of the time things you can't even foresee.
The fact you think you need 10000 testers to test a patch for 10000 players, sums up why you probably shouldnt post on this thread any longer.
ty
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White Fang
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:57:00 -
[29]
I will take Kelly's point and will keep my calm :). obscuroditus, I did not mean any disrespect.
Originally by: obscuroditus
I feel that they can be prevented from ending up in the public patch by testing the changes made, and a bit of testing in general.
There is probably a million things to consider when releasing a patch and it is often little details that go unnoticed, this is a classic scenario. As far as preventing bugs in a public patch is concerned, well, if you have EvE you run on Windows, ever see public bugs in that, many of them quite surprising, but again this is industry-wide. However, unlike Microsoft, they fixed what slipped out of their attention immediately as Trogoon points out, so me too, I'd like to say "Good job" to them.
Originally by: Lain Maraquine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Definately, that's what probably happened at CCP as well, but that's what managers are paid to do. Objectively, though, they may not be perfect at avoiding bugs in their patches, just like any other software company for that matter, but they are good at fixing what goes wrong quickly and that you can't take away from them.
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White Fang
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Posted - 2004.08.11 15:57:00 -
[30]
I will take Kelly's point and will keep my calm :). obscuroditus, I did not mean any disrespect.
Originally by: obscuroditus
I feel that they can be prevented from ending up in the public patch by testing the changes made, and a bit of testing in general.
There is probably a million things to consider when releasing a patch and it is often little details that go unnoticed, this is a classic scenario. As far as preventing bugs in a public patch is concerned, well, if you have EvE you run on Windows, ever see public bugs in that, many of them quite surprising, but again this is industry-wide. However, unlike Microsoft, they fixed what slipped out of their attention immediately as Trogoon points out, so me too, I'd like to say "Good job" to them.
Originally by: Lain Maraquine
If a dev group at my company released a patch that created bugs even 1/10 as obvious or major as these there would be a serious Come to Jesus meeting from upper management and the manager in charge would get his tail singed a bit.
Definately, that's what probably happened at CCP as well, but that's what managers are paid to do. Objectively, though, they may not be perfect at avoiding bugs in their patches, just like any other software company for that matter, but they are good at fixing what goes wrong quickly and that you can't take away from them.
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