340 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

To reiterate:



Some bugs are platform dependent.

Some seem dependent on quest order.

There is some bizarre stochastic variable in the Silverite bug, but it is occurring.

The crashes are probably being influenced by variables in peoples' hardware configurations, but their hardware was the same both pre and post-1.03, ergo the dependent variable is some change in the software of the patch itself, which must be the ultimate cause.

Graphical glitches clearly appear to be based on whether you have the WK DlC or not.



And last but not least, some are there for everyone in the universe to experience regardless of platform/etc., and I've pointed out what some of them are. Just because people aren't noticing, realizing, encountering, or caring, doesn't mean they're not there.







I believe trap detection is borked for the main PC of *every* player in Awakening. It's just that few until now have been noticing. Because there's so few traps.



I really don't care that they fix this IN Awakening. I care that they fix it before whatever comes next, which could have more traps, and could be a bigger PITA.

[AlanC9]

MOTpoetryION wrote...

alenc9 no i play the games i just have a fast screenshot finger. And also was tired of the fanboi's insistance that there was/is nothing wrong. So i started taking screenshots of it all .

"Fast screenshot finger"? You mean these things are only there for an instant? Is that why I don't remember seeing them?

 Bioware was so lazy they just scripted us to a copy of the town .

It's not laziness, silly. The engine doesn't support dynamic lighting, so a duplicate area is the only way to have the battle at night. I guess they could have made the battle happen in the daytime or the prep happen at night, but they didn't.

Or are you accusing the engine programmers of laziness? I guess you can make a case there.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 avril 2010 - 03:27 .

[Realmzmaster]

It is not only a few people not experiencing bugs. There are many of us on the forum who have stated they did not have the bugs that everyone else had. It does not mean the bugs are not there, but we (and not just a few) did not experience them.

Also stating that you do not believe something is not saying the other person is lying , but putting the burden of proof back on the person. The screenshots showed graphic glitches, he did not state that they affected his ability to finish the game or that the bugs were game stopping.

[CybAnt1]

Ihe did not state that they affected his ability to finish the game or that the bugs were game stopping.

The game contains no bug whatsoever that prevents the player from finishing. I know, I've finished it twice. 

Even a CTD is not a gamestopper; but it can get real annoying if your last save was hours or days ago. Yes, I know, save early and often, people. 

I think we have different threshold criteria; a bug can be annoying and irritating to your game experience, even if it doesn't prevent you from finishing the game. 

And you might just shrug and say
"well LoD heraldry gives +20 bonus; so what, just don't wear it" to which I say
"WTF is such an obvious and easy to catch and fix glitch there in the first place? That's sloppy QA." 

And we're both right. 

[AlanC9]

CybAnt1 wrote...
 Just because people aren't noticing, realizing, encountering, or caring, doesn't mean they're not there.

No, but those things do have a pretty big impact on how seriously to take the bugs.

[CybAnt1]

Alan: go get the Legion of Dead heraldry. Put it on your shield.



Tell me whether or not all your abilities go up by 20 points.



Incidentally, everyone & anyone can go try the same thing: that bug's there for everybody.



So now, perhaps, the argument can move to whether or not one cares, not whether or not that exists.



Also, tell me how well your main PC rogues are at finding traps. Go look for them without a rogue NPC in your party. Tell me your success rate. I'll wait. I predict you will have a zero success rate.



When you do, will you acknowledge that bug?

[Abriael_CG]

Realmzmaster wrote...

It is not only a few people not experiencing bugs. There are many of us on the forum who have stated they did not have the bugs that everyone else had. It does not mean the bugs are not there, but we (and not just a few) did not experience them.
Also stating that you do not believe something is not saying the other person is lying , but putting the burden of proof back on the person. The screenshots showed graphic glitches, he did not state that they affected his ability to finish the game or that the bugs were game stopping.

Lol. Do you seriously believe that that kind of sophistries fly? If you tell someone "I don't believe what you say", that equates to "you lie", It doesn't take an academic grasp of the english language to understand that, and there simply is no justification for such a trollish way of posting.

The bugs are there, or there wouldn't be so many people complaining. "Game stopping?" The game doesn't need to go blank and completely crash your system for a bug to be gamebreaking. When the AI fails and some mosters decide just to stand there and watch while you slaughter them (or simply move past), sure, you can proceed into the game, but the bug is clearly gamebreaking, because you aren't prompted to do one of the main selling points of the game (IE: fighting).
Since such bugs exist, claiming that you didn't experience any is irrelevant, because the sole fact that many people DO experience them makes Dragon Age: Awakening a poorly coded and optimized game. There's no amount of "but *I* don't see the bugs!" screaming that will change that.
It's just a fanboyish attempt to defend a lack of professionalism that can't and shouldn't be defended.
Let's not even go into the fact that Bioware failed to adress any of such bugs in more than a month and didn't give us even a slight idea of the timeframe in which the bugs will be fixed, thing that they promised to do when things were getting dire and they needed a way to get us to spend more money on the expansion despite the fact that they just had a big debacle with RTO.

Bottomline:
They sent on the shelves a flawed product. They got our money more than a month ago. The game still isn't in a decent state of playability for many of us. They are behaving like the problems don't exist and leaving us in the dark. This alone should be enough  to advise wannabe apologist to shut the hell up, because they not only don't make things better, they make them worse.

And mind you, I'm a Bioware fan, I've always been since they started working in this market (and probably before most of the rabid fanboys here even learned of their existance or  played their first videogame), and that's exactly why I'm very cross at them for having thrown any kind of professionality into the recycle bin.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 22 avril 2010 - 03:53 .

[KCFender]

I'm repeating myself here, but...



The Dexterity stat does not work right on the consoles. ANY OF THEM. On any version, on any console hardware - there is an undeniable game-altering bug that leads people to waste their time on building characters that are quite simply broken.

This bug has been known since day ONE. It's also known to require only a simple fix, and yet 6 months later, the consoles still haven't had this necessary patch.



I can't believe we need paragraphs and pages of arguments on this subject. BioWare's technical support is absolutely HOT GARBAGE. There is no arguing it, unless you're delusional.

[Abriael_CG]

Oh, let us not forget that Return to Ostagar was ultimately delayed (or at least they said so) out of a cloudy promise from Bioware about making their QA procedures more solid. Hell, if this is the results of them trying to make things better, I can't even imagine what would happen if they didn't try. No developer managed yet to get my computer to explode in my face and then strangle me with the cables. Maybe at Bioware they want to be the first....

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 22 avril 2010 - 04:38 .

[Gnaeus.Silvanus]

Don't start with the uber deniability of the technical support people here. They just don't exist at all. They keep on repeating themselves, "please specify the specific problem so we can specifically put a specific fix", duh. The game crashes all the time and this isn't a specific problem? The game's intermittent slowdown and massive fps deterioration is not a specific problem? Its like you are talking to a technical support representative over at Timbuktu who yes by the way don't have the slightest idea how to even fix the problematic game! Because the people that developed the game also don't have the slightest idea what goes around in their game engine. Did you really actually developed the game or is it Made in China? Because the announcements and patches takes time to arrive at your HQ and still needs to be translated? Great, just great Bioware!

[Realmzmaster]

Abriael_CG wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

It is not only a few people not experiencing bugs. There are many of us on the forum who have stated they did not have the bugs that everyone else had. It does not mean the bugs are not there, but we (and not just a few) did not experience them.
Also stating that you do not believe something is not saying the other person is lying , but putting the burden of proof back on the person. The screenshots showed graphic glitches, he did not state that they affected his ability to finish the game or that the bugs were game stopping.

Lol. Do you seriously believe that that kind of sophistries fly? If you tell someone "I don't believe what you say", that equates to "you lie", It doesn't take an academic grasp of the english language to understand that, and there simply is no justification for such a trollish way of posting.

The bugs are there, or there wouldn't be so many people complaining. "Game stopping?" The game doesn't need to go blank and completely crash your system for a bug to be gamebreaking. When the AI fails and some mosters decide just to stand there and watch while you slaughter them (or simply move past), sure, you can proceed into the game, but the bug is clearly gamebreaking, because you aren't prompted to do one of the main selling points of the game (IE: fighting).
Since such bugs exist, claiming that you didn't experience any is irrelevant, because the sole fact that many people DO experience them makes Dragon Age: Awakening a poorly coded and optimized game. There's no amount of "but *I* don't see the bugs!" screaming that will change that.
It's just a fanboyish attempt to defend a lack of professionalism that can't and shouldn't be defended.
Let's not even go into the fact that Bioware failed to adress any of such bugs in more than a month and didn't give us even a slight idea of the timeframe in which the bugs will be fixed, thing that they promised to do when things were getting dire and they needed a way to get us to spend more money on the expansion despite the fact that they just had a big debacle with RTO.

Bottomline:
They sent on the shelves a flawed product. They got our money more than a month ago. The game still isn't in a decent state of playability for many of us. They are behaving like the problems don't exist and leaving us in the dark. This alone should be enough  to advise wannabe apologist to shut the hell up, because they not only don't make things better, they make them worse.

And mind you, I'm a Bioware fan, I've always been since they started working in this market (and probably before most of the rabid fanboys here even learned of their existance or  played their first videogame), and that's exactly why I'm very cross at them for having thrown any kind of professionality into the recycle bin.

You must have missed that part of my post  where I said that the game had bugs and that other people were experiencing those bugs. I simply stated that I had not experienced those bugs. That is a fact and my experience. What part of my posts did you not understand when I said that BioWare has bad customer service and poor communication? Or did you just skip over those parts and latched on to the parts you want to comment on or the parts you do not agree with.

Also you failed to note that the beginning of this post had nothing to due with the complaints themselves but what action could be taken to get BIoWare/EA to address those points.
How far legally you could push the issue? Whether it would be legally and financially possible to pursue a legal course of action and whether the BBB could do anything.

If you want to call me a fanboy, or troll so be it. But , I paid my money for the games, registered said games and will be giving my opinion in a civil manner as long as I wish or until the forum goes down. Now if you have a problem with that too bad. Do not read my posts.

[CybAnt1]

BTW, I'm going to bring up this breaking news story. You may consider if Off Topic because it has nothing to do with Dragon Age. True. But it has something to do with the subject of the thread.

Millions of Computers Shut Down All Over the Globe As McAfee's Anti-Virus Program Goes Berserk
http://www.dailymail...-shut-down.html

There are computers all over the world shutting down & going berserk because McAfee's antivirus program "believes" a crucial Windows system file is actually a virus.

Some of those computers were "mission critical" ones in hospitals and government agencies.

I'm bringing this up because I can't WAIT until the legality of the EULA for the product gets brought up. Is McAfee going to hide behind their EULA?

Or will software makers - and game developers are just one type of software maker - going to be held accountable for when their programs fail?

OP, this could be one moment like you were discussing that might force a change in the practices of the industry.

Modifié par CybAnt1, 22 avril 2010 - 12:45 .

[Pandaman102]

Abriael_CG wrote...
Do you seriously believe that that kind of sophistries fly? If you tell someone "I don't believe what you say", that equates to "you lie", It doesn't take an academic grasp of the english language to understand that, and there simply is no justification for such a trollish way of posting.

Honestly, after looking at the posts that spawned this argument and the back and forth between you two, I think you're more "trollish" than anyone involved; "I simply don't think that's true" can just as easily mean "I believe you're mistaken", and while AlanC9 may have been out of line with his backhanded comment about MOTpoetryION's habit of screenshotting glitches, you are the one who came in swinging by implying he was an idiot, that his experience (or lack thereof) with those specific errors is invalid because of luck and/or ignorance, and insisting he's calling someone a liar because he disagrees it was luck that he didn't encounter them.

Yeah, it sucks when someone comes in with an uninformative "lol I had no problems at all, what are you guys talking about" post, but in this case AlanC9 was neither asserting the bugs are nonexistent nor was he accusing anybody of fabricating screenshots; in fact he rightfully suggested it could be a hardware/driver issue, because it's clearly not a scripting error that affects 100% of players (like how 1.03's scripting error breaks pickpocketing random items or a typo with the Legion of the Dead heraldry gives +20 to all stats). Carrying on for multiple posts with false accusations doesn't make it any better.

[Realmzmaster]

It is not just MOTpoetryION's habit of sceenshotting glitches, he has also been known to use the console to achieve certain effects by running the scripts. He did it in a thread I started back two months ago. It can be seen here:



http://social.biowar...index/1109684/1



The keep Lothering alive challenge. He interjects discussion that has nothing to do with the topic and has been showing the same screenshots of bugs already known. This why AlanC9 is unimpressed, because MOTpoetryION has used the console to get certain results.I knew I had seen the name before and that he hijacked the thread. It took me some time to go back and find it.

[Realmzmaster]

All this has done is taken the discussion away from the OP's original intent.

[soteria]

@Realmzmaster: the bugs obviously exist, or people would not complain. Accusing people of lying with statements like "I simply don't think it's true" is a fanboyish statement. It's that simple.



Going to a thread where people complain about bugs they ARE experiencing, and poor customer support just to write "you must all be hallucinating! *I* have no issue!" adds nothing to the thread, and therefore is just a fanboyish attempt to defend the software house.

Abriael: This is a logical fallacy. Basically you're saying, "If A is false, then B is true. Always." Really, C and even D are also possibilities. Believe it or not, it's possible to defend a company or person without being a fanboy. It's possible to disagree with a person as charming as yourself without being a troll.



In the case of AlanC9's comments, I share some of his feelings. I think it's pretty obvious that MOTpoetry's system disagrees with DA:O, and I think he knows it, too. No, he's not just "quick on the screenshot finger," which implies that those of us that don't report bugs are just slow or unobservant.



And no, the rest of us aren't just "lucky." My system runs the game consistently without graphical bugs. His system runs the game consistently with them. That's not luck, that's a systematic error. His system has problems, and hopefully he has reported them along with his system specs. Did you notice that he bought Awakening despite noticing numerous graphical bugs with Origins? Apparently he thought it was worth the money, despite having every expectation that the expansion would share the same issues. Who's the fanboi? I wouldn't buy an expansion if the original game ran that poorly on my machine, not unless I knew it had been patched.



I agree with the above poster. I have a fair amount of respect for what Realmzmaster and AlanC9 say because in general, they state their views largely without resorting to insults or flippant dismissals, unlike you. Neither are fanboys or trolls, and honestly, you should probably apologize for jumping to that conclusion. As a "classy gamer." Not seeing a lot of class, here.

[Realmzmaster]

CybAnt1 is correct! You can now have the affected groups ban together in a class action lawsuit or a firm with deep pockets can sue. If harm (financial or otherwise) can be shown then a case can proceed. The problem is that McAfee could settle any claims out of court, in which case the EULA will not come under examination.



If it does go to court the decision can be far reaching for the software industry. It will still bring into issue what type of accountability.

Will the accountability be based on how many are infected, the amount of financial damage or are mission critical processses affected?

Will the ruling designate how many bugs are allowable like the food industry. A certain amount of insect and rat bits are allowed in certain food operations especially canning.

Or will a very serious error spark a higher level of accountability?

Those are interesting questions.

But it still may put entertainment software lower on any scale of accountability. But some accountability would be better than no accountability.

[soteria]

If we do that, are we going to also mandate the maximum number of typos and grammatical errors are allowed in novels, and how many plot holes and other errors are allowed in film? Short of causing loss of life, physical harm, or serious financial damage, is the entertainment industry in general regulated at all, particularly in regards to quality? Should it be? If something like the above happens, are we eventually going to be hearing of comedians getting sued for not being funny enough?



As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, consumers who pay a monthly fee do have the advantage of typically faster bug fixes. I would hope that DLC sales would accomplish the same thing... developer releases buggy or crappy game, people complain, nothing is fixed, DLC is released and flops because no one wants to pay for it.

[CybAnt1]

If we do that, are we going to also mandate the maximum number of typos and grammatical errors are allowed in novels, and how many plot holes and other errors are allowed in film? Short of causing loss of life, physical harm, or serious financial damage, is the entertainment industry in general regulated at all, particularly in regards to quality? Should it be? I

That's interesting food for thought. BTW, you can return most books for a refund. Even if the reason was that they were trite and cliche and boring. However, I would hope, especially, if the books were missing pages, had pages out of order, had funny colored splotches all over the pages, had pages in different fonts, had the chapters out of order, or had pages in the wrong language. I mean, don't you think a publisher ought to be embarrassed to release a book with quality like that? 

I was in a theater one time where the film we were watching melted 20 minutes before the end. I mean literally, melted. It was impossible to watch the film to the end. The theatre gave us free passes to come back and see the film again, or even a different one, later on at the same theatre. Don't you think you owe the consumers something if their experience is incomplete? BTW, if you were watching a film, and you found that entire 5 minute segments out of the film were upside down, or looked like they were filmed through a muddy glass, wouldn't you want your money back? (Again, that's something different from finding the film to be more boring, trite, cliche, etc. than you expected.) 

BTW, I don't think you can regulate on the basis of quality, when it comes to taste. Peoples' tastes vary way too much. However, is it too much to suggest that material defects, that have nothing to do with taste, per se, and affect your experience, are something that should not be there? 

Please note there are things that people have complained about (including me) that we feel are wrong by design. I.e. Runecrafting, even if you subtract the bugs. Shapeshifting. Certain NPCs dying at very bad, tasteless moments. Please note I have no earthly expectation of the developer and the community always agreeing on matters of design & taste. It's their game, and ours to play. I have zero expectation of a refund because such things are not to my taste. If we want things designed differently, that's what mods are for. 

But I view bugs as being like missing pages out of a book (not just one word typos), films having entire segments splotched over with a purple haze, a day at the amusement park when most of the rides have an "out of order" sign hanging outside. Wouldn't there be moments you'd ask for a refund in those situations? 

Now -- given that we know it's virtually impossible to return & get a refund on software -- what else can we do? Keep asking for them to fix it. And that's what we're doing. 

[Realmzmaster]

Those are interesting and thought provoking questions, soteria. One would hope that companies would see putting out a quality product, good communication and good customer service as paramount to customer satisfaction.



But I see a lot of companies cutting corners to cutdown on expense and increase their profit margins. Fortunately, with most products consumers have recourse. But sometimes the consumer gets stuck footing the bill. (The Chinese drywall incidents in Flordia and other states come to mind.) Hopefully BioWare/EA will see the light and start investing in customer service.



Even though I have not experienced the bugs that have been noted. I fully understand they exist. What frustrates most of the gamers on the forum is the absolute lack of communication about patches. A simple acknowledgement can go along way to easing frustration.

I understand people's anger. I simply seek a civil discussion of both sides of any issue.

[AlanC9]

Moving along from that earlier unpleasantness (but thanks, guys), I'm with soteria. What kind of damages can be proven for an entertainment product? If it refuses to function at all that's one thing, but what if it's just not as much fun as it otherwise might have been? And who makes the determination of "fun" -- we don't even agree on how important the bugs are when we see them.

Edit: I'm only talking legally here. But I suppose nonfunctionality would include not being able to reach the ending at all, like CybAnt1's burned film.

I was once at a screening of Wajda's film Man of Marble. I hadn't read any detailed reviews, and for the first half I thought the director was doing some sort of time-sifting within the film. Kinda like Lost does. But it turned out that the film reels had been mislabeled somehow and they were being run in random order. I guess I should have asked for a refund, but I actually thought it was a pretty entertaining way to watch the film. Unfortunately, few bugs are as entertaining.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 avril 2010 - 09:58 .

[Haexpane]

Realmzmaster wrote...

It is not just MOTpoetryION's habit of sceenshotting glitches, he has also been known to use the console to achieve certain effects by running the scripts. He did it in a thread I started back two months ago. It can be seen here:

http://social.biowar...index/1109684/1

The keep Lothering alive challenge. He interjects discussion that has nothing to do with the topic and has been showing the same screenshots of bugs already known. This why AlanC9 is unimpressed, because MOTpoetryION has used the console to get certain results.I knew I had seen the name before and that he hijacked the thread. It took me some time to go back and find it.

Exacltly, that disqualifies everything he complains about, he is not playing vanilla DAO therefore his baseline is completely invalid

[Haexpane]

Realmzmaster wrote...
 

Even though I have not experienced the bugs that have been noted. I fully understand they exist. What frustrates most of the gamers on the forum is the absolute lack of communication about patches. A simple acknowledgement can go along way to easing frustration.
 

Bioware DOES comment on bugs, just not every post, every day.  The sheer volume of posts frustrates people.

But remember, this is EA's board, EA's game.  Bioware MUST follow EA's community management rules.

Considering how it's done w/ Madden, the rules are, acknowledge the most serious bugs after confimation, then go silent.

Ask users to report bugs, tell them you are reading the boards, but don't specifically reply to every bug thread.

[Realmzmaster]

Trying to define bug ridden software in legal terms can be a very slippery slope. I could vote the original Dungeon Lords as an example of software rushed to the market in pre-alpha form. Awakening runs like a dream compared to this disaster.
I give D.W. Bradley some props that he and his company (Heuristic Park) continued to patch the game to make it playable (even after patch 1.4 it still had numerous bugs). This is an example of a publisher (DreamCatcher) trying to recoup some investment, by sending out some really half baked (no half baked is too kind , raw is better) software.
Then DreamCatacher to add insult to injury released the Collector's Edition that contained patch 1.5. The owners of the original would have to purchase the new collector's edition with the new content and patch 1.5. Patch 1.5 was not release separately.
A new low in customer service. But companies seem to trying to aim lower.

The laws allow the software industry to get away with this silliness. Let's face it the average lawyer or judge (unless they are gamers) unless the game crashes to the desktop may not notice the bugs.
Your Honor, the game clearly has a dexterity bug error. Plaintiff's lawyer please show me this error I am unfamilar with the concept.
The software companies know this and can tie up a case in court for years or get it thrown out.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 22 avril 2010 - 11:10 .

[Realmzmaster]

Haexpane wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...
 

Even though I have not experienced the bugs that have been noted. I fully understand they exist. What frustrates most of the gamers on the forum is the absolute lack of communication about patches. A simple acknowledgement can go along way to easing frustration.
 

Bioware DOES comment on bugs, just not every post, every day.  The sheer volume of posts frustrates people.

But remember, this is EA's board, EA's game.  Bioware MUST follow EA's community management rules.

Considering how it's done w/ Madden, the rules are, acknowledge the most serious bugs after confimation, then go silent.

Ask users to report bugs, tell them you are reading the boards, but don't specifically reply to every bug thread.

Unfortuantely, quite true. But that is why the frustration mounts. I am not saying respond to every bug thread, but a general announcement that the problems are being corrected and what progress is being made say once a month. It would help their PR and lower the frustration level somewhat. Progress reports every now and then would be nice. Simply say all the fixes will be made at one time in patch 1.4.