Earning the smedbucks, SOE to forgo the Superbowl

John Smedley ‏@j_smedley
Team is being called in to fix the vanguard and prowler and other issues.
8:16 AM - 3 Feb 13 · Details

If I were called in today, I would come in for the OT but likely break 3 things for every bug I fix.

Passive Aggressive FTW

And that differs how? We are kind of experiencing this now are we not?

That's what got them into this in the first place, clearly the work process is very poor at SOE and forcing people to come on Sunday to fix something that probably resulted from poor-planning, haste and pressure to meet deadlines will result in more of the same, i.e. broken game.

Ha! Overtime, that's a good one. I will lay hard cash they don't get overtime, don't get paid for working extra hours at all as is the norm in games development. Another reason why releasing such a big patch at the weekend was a tad selfish.

Normal.

28/01/2013 :
boss : "Guys, can you make a patch without to many bugs ?"
devs : "Yeah sure ! We'll need some more time !"
boss : "a'right !"

02/02/2013 :
"Ok, it's saturday but it's nothing our patch is ready to be deploy !"

Few hours after :
"Ok it's good, it's done, we hope you'll enjoy our great work !"


03/02/2013 :
boss : "Guys. Come back at job. NOW !"
dev : "Did we'll get an extra-paiement for this ?"
boss : "Of course. But I wont pay you this week of 'work'. Cause... your work was to make this patch without to much bug, you epicly failed and ****** a week-end of playing for our customers; nothing personal".

I would like to see this....
It's not I dont like devs but... holy ****... you're dev, not a ******* broadcaster, get to work and stop making video / event when your jobs is clearly not over yet. I'ts pretty cool to get feedback from you guys. But... it's not the firts thing we want. We not your friends, we are you customers.

I rarelly pay when I got a broken buyed thing and make it remplace where i've buy it.

So... it's not on game devellopement. It's normal.

Salaried position most likely so overtime not going to happen.

Patch was fine at first, only FPS stutter, going from high to low instantly. Turrets, Tanks works fine. The hotfix screwed it up, and didn't fix graphic stutter at all.

The issue here is not poor work ethic or whatever, bugs happen. They probably should not be changing things last minute, but the forum community can look into a mirror made of ******** to see who to blame for that.

Its fundamentally that the inhouse test beds as a QA system for the alpha and beta-ing of patch content, are simply a failed protocol. It's failed twice now.

We need to have a test server of somekind, where new patch content is incrementally uploaded to a new build and can be playtested to **** by 100's if not 1000's of people on ever machine under the sun.

That will stop this in the future.

I can appreciate they don't want competitors able to run around the engine and look under the hood, but one more 'MEGA 4.4 REMAKE THE GAME' thats just a plethora of game-breaking bugs is going to earn the game quite a reputation.

Its time for a change of tack SoE, thats my roadmap.

I see no good in overtime, they already ****** up so it's time to stop, think, and make things steady so don't make things worse.

Your mention of a test server is exactly what PS2 should have, which is surprising since that's how online games figure out what's going to go wrong with their next patch first before releasing it.

I'd like to see a public apology from Smed over these bugs, those of us who buy SC are contemplating not buying anymore.

Step
1. Create test server
2. Fire all testers
3. Let players test for free
4. Profit

I'd rather have a change of strategy than an act of contrition.

I don't think this should turn into a witch hunt.

Fundamentally.

1) with a limited range of machines, only so much you can really spot. Even if we are talking 50 machines, still not going to be representative of the gaming market, it is afterall a hodbepodge of diffrent components in each case. THere is no 'standard' machine.
2) Internal testing can't really show things like server load, unless you hire a small town to do it.

Its not so much 'anyones fault' its, a decision I imagine was taken consciously in the hope they could keep their engine's inner workers fire-walled somewhat.

But... its not worked.

I dont know if they got real tester or if it's just devs & classic personnel at soe. Cuz if it's real tester as you say GImofoJoe; they need to be fired.

This! Given the sheer volume of client variations of hardware/software the testers cannot fathom getting the play-testing data that a test server would accomplish.

Testing at SOE is a contracted position,

Game developers usually look at the game like their baby. So it's not going to happen.

I know some game developers, and have spent thousands of hours modding (taught myself C++ to do so). For all the issues with this patch, I can say with confidence the problems aren't caused by intentions or lack of effort.

Why hire testers when players gladly do it for free??? Makes no sense... Lots of MMO have test servers for players to test and bug report.

Hiring testers cost money, they will just play and chill, not a lot of reporting/working. They might be there just to earn a buck.

Use testers for small changes and hotfix, use test server & players for big patch like this.