340 réponses à ce sujet

[BomimoDK]

Abriael_CG wrote...

Feraele wrote...
I just want to contradict the OP on this one item in his OP.
Bug fixing. After 15 years of online gaming (MMOs) ...I have never yet seen a bug fixed "right the next day". Some MMOs take MUCH longer as ..long as up to 6 months to get around to fixing certain bugs that interfere with..balance, pvp gameplay etc. I cite LOTRO as an example here. Wow also had some bugs right from the get-go just after release..those took a while to get fixed too. They have to track them down, and it all depends how well the feedback from players, describes the bug or bugs..so that the Devs, code monkeys whatever the title is, can actually find them and..then figure what needs fixing.
Game like Vanguard...chock full of bugs, bad pathing..etc. Mobs hitting you from inside stone walls, ceilings. Beta testers reported these bugs for months on end, product was STILL released with those very same bugs still existing.
All depends if the QA dept is doing their job, if the bug reporting gives some factual information, and then finding and resolving said bug or bugs.
So right the next day...never happens..

And obviously our resident rabid fangirl comes to the defense. Unfortunately for you, your post is spoken like a  true fangirl, but utterly (and i suspect intentionally) false.

There are several instances in which major bugs in major MMORPGs are corrected the very next day, or at the very least in very few days. Warhammer online, for all it's faults and despite the fact that had their QA team maimed by layoffs, had bugs fixed in a day or so quite often. The same happens often in WoW, and in several other MMOs.

Why? Because MMOs live on subscriptions, and if people encounter gamebreaking bugs that don't get solved promptly, they quit.

Bioware has seriously become one of the lousiest software houses around in fixing the miryad of bugs that plague their games, expecially dragon age, now that the priority seems to have shifted elsewhere. Even Relic, that has a very bad track record in their QA, managed to patch the problems in the expansion of DOW2, and even did a major rebalancing much faster than what Bioware is taking to patch Awakenings.
And mind you, the "but we have to wait certification Waaaaah!" excuse doesn't work. Relic has to wait for Microsoft's certification as well due to Games for Windows Live.

Honestly, one really needs to be a rabid and delusional fanboy to defend Bioware in this issue. Only fanboys of the most delusional kinda defend a company that's damaging their own enjoyment alomngside that of everyone else that bought the game.

i would argue that one would need to be just as rabid to jump their throats as if they just shot your kid through the stomack... relax people, it's just a game. in the 90s no one would bother complaining, this will be over and done with in a year anyway, what's the rush?

[zorp]

 Aeropostle, basically I agree with you. At least in general.

The Gaming industry is unique in the way that it sells one of the few product that you can't return even if the product is faulty.

I think we all have bought games that where more or less unplayable with tons of CTD's at the launch and where it took a couple of months before the game was patched so it was enjoyable.
For any other product you could (and would) return the product directly. Here you can't. And that is the big difference between games and all other products, here “vote with your feet” actually doesn't work.

Because you can't return a faulty product.

And of cause the gaming industry have learned from this. They know that they can launch a game that is only 95% ready, and that to keep unbugging the game to 100% takes too much time and costs too much.

So the formula is “Sell and fix”. Launch it and patch it later.

And with enough hype and good reviews the customers will still buy the next game. And come on, that's 1-2 years in to the future and gamers are so hungry for new games that they will buy anything from the big developers.

I actually think that BioWare has been one of the good guys, having relatively good quality and relatively few bugs compared to other companies. But the short time between DA:O and DA:A (and patch 1.03) has effected the product badly and you do get worried that BioWare is getting forced in to the “Sell and fix” formula by EA.

So in general I agree with you. Due to the fact that we can't return a faulty product the “consumer power” has been taken away from us and many companies are taking advantage of that. There is still a lot of developers that do their best to launch a “perfect” game, but unfortunately some guys (EA, SEGA etc.) have learned how to exploit us.


And that is frustrating.

[TheMadCat]

Jeli wrote...

TheMadCat wrote...

Funny story, I too did my research for a game I was eagerly waiting for. So the two weeks prior to Awakening's launch I checked out a few forums and a few sites, read this and that. A couple of folks here on the forum managed to get the game early and kindly shared their experiences, they mentioned the instability and various bugs such as the Silvertine mines and the approval bugs as well as a few other aspects that turned me off. A few game reviews that came out a couple of days prior to the launch also made note of the bugs. So now that I'm all edumacated and such I made the decision to not purchase the expansion I was eagerly awaiting until the price dropped and the issues corrected because it fell short of what I'm expecting from BioWare. Hilarious, isn't it? 

Funny story -- I read about 4  different reviews of the game from major sites (like Eurogamer, IGN, etc.) and none of them mentioned any serious bugs.  

So apparently I have to trawl through forums to satisfy my burden of due diligence.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

[Memmaatre]

"Funny story -- I read about 4  different reviews of the game from major sites (like Eurogamer, IGN, etc.) and none of them mentioned any serious bugs.  "

I actually checked this in... Sweden and its strange that our reviewers  also seem to have "missed" all the bugs. The game "landed" at an average of 80% with no mention of any bugs what so ever in any paper. This is perhaps something for conspiracy theorists to trigger on.... I let them do that.

The thing at stake here is a developers reputation and it relates to two things:

1) Quality of product released
2) How they handle customer relations when part 1) fails

Sadly in my humble opinion DA A failed in both. However I wouldn´t call for any government non government action (that is way to much) However I will for the first time ever be a bit unsure about BioWares upcoming titels for a while... and that is enough for me (and so will my friends & colleauges that also play video games... cause they have the same thoughts on DA A). So I have to vote for Mad Cat on this one(!)

And leave with a direct question to BioWare: How come you haven´t responded in a clear way to this mess? Why wait until threads like this starts on message board - that seems in my opinion to be - customer relation - wrong and ignorant.

The thing that actually irritates me the most is part 2) - customer relations since it seems a lot of the big companies (most of them! )don´t seem to care at all and this really differs from independent/small developers.

My hope is that those that are active in the creative process will start protesting internally within the companies because it´s their creative work that seems to have less importance than .... making money. Creative department should bring this up at the next meeting with financial - in case they do have.... meetings at all.

Perhaps as a few others have been "touching" this is a thing between BioWare and EA. They should bring it up on their next meeting

Modifié par Memmaatre, 19 avril 2010 - 01:31 .

[SarEnyaDor]

I wonder if the BBB will do anything about the fact I bought this book that was highly recommended but I found it cliche and boring, or if they will do anything about the fact that I wasted 12 bucks to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D but there were like a handful of 3-D effects, I'm thinking no, since they couldn't even do anything about an actual business complaint of a home manufacturer that was taking people's deposits while knowing they were declaring bankruptcy and couldn't possibly fulfill people's orders..... I'm thinking if several hundred defrauded home purchasers can't get the BBB to do anything about a legitimate act of fraud that you'll have very little luck with them because you are less entertained and more frustrated with your leisure time purchase.

[CybAnt1]

Also Q&A teams do not find all the bugs. 

I agree, it's still unclear to everybody at this point what triggers the Silverite mines bug, is it just having one "wrong" Origins item, several "wrong" items, one "wrong" item & a DlC item ... dunno ... but it IS triggering for a lot of people. I can see how they might miss something like that. 

However, I ask this again: how could they miss Power of Blood not working? It is not working for all PC gamers. Unless they only tested on console or sans DlC. How could they miss the wrong setting for Legion of the Dead heraldry? The only logical answer is no one ever applied it. 

BTW: why is there nothing in the game (hell, not even anything anywhere, really) that tells you heraldry is supposed to give a stat bonus? I get the feeling of yet another thing rushed into the game with little or no documentation/description. 

[Realmzmaster]

You hit the nail on the head CybAnt1! Most Q&A teams are composed of humans like us who tend to play in a certain way. Most companies try to get a wide range of alpha and beta testers. The companies try to get the Q&A teams to test the product in every imaginable way using all the equipment, spells etc. The bottom line is people in the Q&A teams play a certain way. even the intenal Q&A teams.

You are right about the Power of the Blood Abilities. I do not think that Awakenings was tested properly with imported characters. The created warden would not have the Power of Blood abilities. I believe the expansion was developed around a created character (and a character without the Power of Blood abilities would have no problem). Warden's Keep simply mucks up the product. In terms of DLC Warden's Keep presented problems for the expansion. All of the stuff in Warden's Keep is basically borked in Awakenings.

Awakenings should have been held back and tested better with the DLC. Most of the problems could have been found, noted and corrected. If not corrected at least noted.

Even mission critical software has had bugs in it to the point that computers on space missions have to be corrected and rebooted. It is unfortunately the nature of the beast.

!00% error free software will never happen as long as humans write it. No machine is going to produce 100% error free code, because humans have to write the software that enables the computer to write software.

Programs are only getting more complex not less. Hundreds of thousand if not millions of lines of code is going to have errors somewhere. You just hope that the errors are just minor annoyances and not game breaking.

Game breaking bugs should be immediately corrected. But bugs like the Silverite bug is simply hard to find, since it does not happen to everyone, and it happens with different equipment equipped.

Bugs like the heraldry and runes are oversights which should be corrected. I did not even know about the bug until I read the forum, because I play a rogue party with a mage or 2 hander.

If I was on the beta test team I would have missed it.

Each member of the Q&A team should be required to try different combinations of party makeup. The truth is that the members of the intenal Q&A team should run as many combinations of party makeup with different equipment and spells as feasible possible.

But you will still get errors.

[CybAnt1]

You are right about the Power of the Blood Abilities. I do not think that Awakenings was tested properly with imported characters. The created warden would not have the Power of Blood abilities. I believe the expansion was developed around a created character (and a character without the Power of Blood abilities would have no problem). Warden's Keep simply mucks up the product. In terms of DLC Warden's Keep presented problems for the expansion. All of the stuff in Warden's Keep is basically borked in Awakenings.

I think this is the mystery to me regarding this issue. Once they announced that WK items wouldn't carry over, I just assumed that meant PoB wouldn't either. And BTW I would have been fine with that announcement; it would be consistent. 

But then they posted that they had solved the issue for the PoB abilities, although not for the items. However, their 'solution' apparently only worked on console, not PC (not exactly sure why). 

In a way, I would have felt better if they had simply taken them out, rather than put them on my talent sheet, with no description, and non-functional. 

EDIT: my feeling was, many aspects of the game were tested only for an Orlesian warden, that's why imported chars & items from O created problems. 

However, even that can't explain why we have merchants who are stuck in endless loops, or people who when killed zombie-return to try and kill you again in the "conspiracy". That's just sloppiness -- period.

Modifié par CybAnt1, 19 avril 2010 - 04:45 .

[otis0310]

I never had game breaking bugs expect one. That is the famous one in the mines when you can not get your stuff back from the experimental subject and it is gone for good. This notably happens to arcane warriors. Personally I forgive this one bug, only because it is the ONLY bug I had. But it should have never gotten past the beta testers, or quality assurance people.



Ohter than that, my char. had a romance with alistair, who died killing the dragon. And the epilogue said they skipped off somewhere despite him being dead.



On the whole I agree with this statement though. I bought the Sims 3 World Adventures a few months ago, and I have never seen a worst case of bugs in my life. There is no possible way that game should have hit the shelves. Your sim could randomly become the parent of some child without ever meeting the other parent, you could not collect money from investments, objects dissapeared randomly from lots, entire lots could become empty instantly. Not to mention a common savegame error which would not only stop you from saving the game, but could only be cleared by restarting the program, meaning you lost all your progress, and will probably destroy the file which means you have to start all over. And numerous, frequent ctd errors. It was highly unstable and completely unplayable.



They only managed to fix most of the problems after about a month. The rest was fixed a few months after that. Except for the savegame error, which although very rare, still persists. Good thing I keep several backups of those games.



If I were to blame anybody for this, I would not blame Bioware. I would fixate on it's parent company EA. They push things out the door before they are ready. They have been known to fix unrealistic release dates, that the programmers often can't meet. Then we get upset and blame the programmers. Well, we should punish marketing and the executives. They fix unrealistic release dates and the programmers scramble to meet them and end up missing things. That was the case for World Adventures, this is a case of sloppy Quality Assurance, that mines bug should never have gone unnoticed.

[Aeropostle]

SarEnyaDor wrote...

I wonder if the BBB will do anything about the fact I bought this book that was highly recommended but I found it cliche and boring, or if they will do anything about the fact that I wasted 12 bucks to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D but there were like a handful of 3-D effects, I'm thinking no, since they couldn't even do anything about an actual business complaint of a home manufacturer that was taking people's deposits while knowing they were declaring bankruptcy and couldn't possibly fulfill people's orders..... I'm thinking if several hundred defrauded home purchasers can't get the BBB to do anything about a legitimate act of fraud that you'll have very little luck with them because you are less entertained and more frustrated with your leisure time purchase.

I already stated the BBB can do nothing but record your complaint if it is found to be unresolved.  They do not record resolved complaints.  If this gets fixed, I will let the BBB know it is resolved.

Your argument, however, misses my point.  Opinion is one thing.  I don't expect to get my money back if I didn't like something.  Tough ta-ta's on that one.  But think about your argument in terms of your book missing pages, or your 3-D movie skipping in spots or going blank for a time, or missing sound in many parts.  Those would be refundable, no questions asked.  Have a game, however, that is  riddled with bugs - some of them major...this is not an opinion, it is a broken product.  This should be refundable as well.

[Aeropostle]

TheMadCat wrote...

Jeli wrote...

TheMadCat wrote...

Funny story, I too did my research for a game I was eagerly waiting for. So the two weeks prior to Awakening's launch I checked out a few forums and a few sites, read this and that. A couple of folks here on the forum managed to get the game early and kindly shared their experiences, they mentioned the instability and various bugs such as the Silvertine mines and the approval bugs as well as a few other aspects that turned me off. A few game reviews that came out a couple of days prior to the launch also made note of the bugs. So now that I'm all edumacated and such I made the decision to not purchase the expansion I was eagerly awaiting until the price dropped and the issues corrected because it fell short of what I'm expecting from BioWare. Hilarious, isn't it? 

Funny story -- I read about 4  different reviews of the game from major sites (like Eurogamer, IGN, etc.) and none of them mentioned any serious bugs.  

So apparently I have to trawl through forums to satisfy my burden of due diligence.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Unfortunately, we do agree on that point.  With games, it definitely is buyer beware.  I happen to disagree that this should be accepted as the norm.  A few minor bugs are to be expected with all the different platforms games have to work on now.  The days of PC-only games are just about over, sad to say.  There were fewer bugs back then and much better customer service.  Now that the EA's of the world have taken over, it's tough doo-doo for the customer.  Oh well, I guess in the end, it keeps PC gaming alive - a platform that lost its ability somehow, to make a profit when the gaming systems became so popular.  However, this game has more than just a few boo-boos, which you and I both agree upon.

[Aeropostle]

Abriael_CG wrote...

Feraele wrote...
I just want to contradict the OP on this one item in his OP.
Bug fixing. After 15 years of online gaming (MMOs) ...I have never yet seen a bug fixed "right the next day". Some MMOs take MUCH longer as ..long as up to 6 months to get around to fixing certain bugs that interfere with..balance, pvp gameplay etc. I cite LOTRO as an example here. Wow also had some bugs right from the get-go just after release..those took a while to get fixed too. They have to track them down, and it all depends how well the feedback from players, describes the bug or bugs..so that the Devs, code monkeys whatever the title is, can actually find them and..then figure what needs fixing.
Game like Vanguard...chock full of bugs, bad pathing..etc. Mobs hitting you from inside stone walls, ceilings. Beta testers reported these bugs for months on end, product was STILL released with those very same bugs still existing.
All depends if the QA dept is doing their job, if the bug reporting gives some factual information, and then finding and resolving said bug or bugs.
So right the next day...never happens..

There are several instances in which major bugs in major MMORPGs are corrected the very next day, or at the very least in very few days. Warhammer online, for all it's faults and despite the fact that had their QA team maimed by layoffs, had bugs fixed in a day or so quite often. The same happens often in WoW, and in several other MMOs.

Why? Because MMOs live on subscriptions, and if people encounter gamebreaking bugs that don't get solved promptly, they quit.

Exactly.  When they don't already have your money in their hands, you bet they're quick to fix things in order to win your continued dollars.  It's called incentive and accountability.  The mmo's that have been to slow to fix their issues or haven't fixed them at all are dead or dying.  I play Lotro - yes, there have been major issues, but they've been fixed as soon as humanly possible.  Many times the same day, the next day.

[Aeropostle]

Feraele wrote...

CybAnt1 wrote...

Ferale: many of these are not hard to find, and are not hard to fix.

Somebody mistakenly set the rune type of masterpiece and paragon silverite and cold iron runes to armor runes -- a mistake that makes them nonfunctional. It's no secret how they screwed up (they checked the wrong flag/set the wrong bit), it's no secret how to fix it, and yes there's a modfix for the issue already at DA Nexus.... so PC users can solve the problem themselves.

Somebody mistakenly set the ability bonus of Legion of the Dead Heraldry to +20 instead of +2. Now it's obvious how they screwed that up; they just typed an extra 0, it's a bloody typo. This issue is not platform, configuration, etc. specific; every DA:A player on Earth can take this heraldry, apply it, and enjoy a powergamer wet dream of +20 bonus to all their stats. It's a screwup that's there for *everybody*. I know how it happened, it's easy to fix, too, it's just a bloody typo that causes a glitch.

There is a merchant you get at Warden's Keep (Lilith) who you speak to, and then she says she's leaving and walks out in a cutscene, and then she reappears again. You speak to her, she says she's leaving, and then she reappears again. **Stuck in an endless loop**. This is the oldest error in programming, 10 DO THIS 20 GOTO 10.

I'm sorry. I look at this stuff and I have just one burning question: "HOW THE F**K DID IT GET PAST QA?!?!" UNLESS THEY DIDN'T DO ANY.

Hmm only thing Lilith does in mine is she thanks me for saving her, walks off..then goes back to her post.   Weird.   Other npc you get from Silverite mines...he talks but you can't access him.  Not sure if that is supposed to be like that or not.

As for Quality Assurance,  I am starting to think..that perhaps it was a cursory thing ..passed by the team to make the release date.

The forthcoming patch 1.04........is that for true or just rumour?  If its true, then I would hope they would encompass these things, sounds like there's a ton of stuff, mostly console that needs fixing badly. 

And after the RTO debacle, where everything was delayed, delayed and delayed again due to some bug that caused corrupted save files for console users.......and all the hoops they have to jump through with Sony and Microsoft just to get certification for "anything" that has to pass MS and Sony testing, its a wonder anything gets produced at all.

I dunno...I see the big hand of EA in all this..sorry to say.   And I think its going to downgrade the Bioware experience overall......in the end.

Thank you for pointing this out, and for continuing with civil debate.  I have also filed a grievance against EA to the BBB.  I know, I know, it probably won't matter, but at least I can say I did something.  I get a little grumpy when I feel we, the consumers, are getting pushed around by large companies just because they don't think anyone will ever do anything about it.  The BBB is just the start, mind you.  I will research some possible effective ways to tackle this issue as a whole regarding the gaming industry.  It's just about all gaming publishers and devs now, not just EA/Bioware.  Awakenings just happens to be the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back.  It really is the lousiest game in terms of being polished I have played in some time, and there seems to be no customer support.  And, of course, no means to get your money back.

[Abriael_CG]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Interesting! Are we saying that everyone who comes to BioWare's defense because they did not have a problem with DA:O or DA:A is a fanboy or fangirl? Are the so-called fanboy or fangirl suppose to sit idlely in the corner and let evryone on the forum believe that everyone is having a problem? What the so-called fanboy or fangirl do not get to voice their opinion? Feraele is not the resident rabid fangirl.

LOL. She posts endless defenses every time Bioware is criticized over anything. I'd be hard pressed to define her anything else.

But anyway, I'm sorry to have to burst your bubble, the fact that YOU didn't experience bugs (os simply didn't care about them) doesn't mean that such bugs don't exist or that they aren't serious/gamebreaking.
The fact that so many people complain should tell you quite clearly that they do exist. Bioware not only didn't patch, but left us more than a month without a precise piece of info on when and how the game will finally be patched to the status a game that hit the shelves should have (and at the moment it doesn't). This is unacceptable and one of the worst cases in the current industry. Anyone that defends such a behavioir can't be defined anything else than a fanboy/girl.

otis0310 wrote...
If I were to blame anybody for this, I would
not blame Bioware. I would fixate on it's parent company EA. They
push things out the door before they are ready. They have been known to
fix unrealistic release dates, that the programmers often can't meet.
Then we get upset and blame the programmers. Well, we should punish
marketing and the executives. They fix unrealistic release dates and
the programmers scramble to meet them and end up missing things. That
was the case for World Adventures, this is a case of sloppy Quality
Assurance, that mines bug should never have gone unnoticed.

if they perform so badly under EA (that actually releases polished games quite often, So i wouldn't watch in that direction at all, while Bioware has a long, long history of buggy games, dating well before the time in which they joined EA), I wonder what'd happen if they were under Activision.
Ultimately, though, this would still be bioware's fault. No one held them at a gunpoint to sell out to EA. They willingly decided to, knowing full well how EA is (and probably better than most of the people here, since they're industry insiders) so anything that comes from that decision in the end falls under Bioware's responsibility. If they decided to sell to EA, it means they were ok with working under their conditions.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 19 avril 2010 - 06:18 .

[traversc]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Also Q&A teams do not find all the bugs. 

I agree, it's still unclear to everybody at this point what triggers the Silverite mines bug, is it just having one "wrong" Origins item, several "wrong" items, one "wrong" item & a DlC item ... dunno ... but it IS triggering for a lot of people. I can see how they might miss something like that. 

However, I ask this again: how could they miss Power of Blood not working? It is not working for all PC gamers. Unless they only tested on console or sans DlC. How could they miss the wrong setting for Legion of the Dead heraldry? The only logical answer is no one ever applied it. 

BTW: why is there nothing in the game (hell, not even anything anywhere, really) that tells you heraldry is supposed to give a stat bonus? I get the feeling of yet another thing rushed into the game with little or no documentation/description.

Silverite mines bug... and various engine crash bugs, are the only two things I can think of that are not immediately obvious.  And even if they aren't obvious to us, how do you know that they aren't obvious to programmers at BW?  I'd be willing to bet that they are.  

Even still, every other bug can be attributed to incorrect flags or incorrect resource pointers or something else very simple.  Literally.  Every.  How is it acceptable to keep bugs that have been in the game for OVER 7
MONTHS when they have been complained about
time and time and time again?  How is it acceptable that a 25% of talents are bugged in some way?  How is it even just ethical to specifically address PoB in the pre-release FAQ, only to have it not even working AT ALL?  Is it not painfully obvious that they didn't even test the game with DLCs?  

I don't expect Q&A teams to catch everything, no. But if there even is a Q&A team they need to be fired. 

[mutantspicy]

TheMadCat wrote...

Hehe, Better Business Bureau, one of the most useless organizations in the world.

Anyways, just so you're aware there is a very powerful group out there already policing developers and publishers, they're called the consumers. You see, without these consumers on your side you make no money, and as a company if you're not making money you either need to change or you go down with your dignity. And that is all the industry needs, a shoddy product is in no way physically or mentally harmful, there is no risk for any longterm damage. The consumer base is arguably the most powerful entity in the business sector, there is no reason anyone or anything needs to be holding our hand. If you choose to blindly purchase a product without waiting for input from other players and various sites than the only one who can truly be blamed is you. Educate yourself, you have the tools and resources to do so right at your finger tips. There is no reason to lay blame on BioWare or any other company because of your ignorance.

And if you want to get the media involved, you've got to come up with a better story than consumer fraud. This is 2010 man, get with the times we want "real" stories. You want to lay it into BioWare call up Fox News and tell them Dragon Age has homosexual poronography in it or something, that'll get the ball rolling.

Actually the Better Business Bureau is a valuable organization.  Though, I don't think game companies really care about getting a better business endorsement.  But if you're a local construction company, utility company, phone company, etc.  They take their BBB endorsements seriously.  I've gotten thru a bunch of hastles simply by asking the question, "so which chapter of the BBB do I need to report this to."  Phone companies and electric companies are really responsive to these threats.  You know the wind knocked down a line, and they take their sweet time getting to your neighborhood, threaten em with the BBB thing, they're out there the next day.  It could be a michigan thing, but it works here.  But to your point, calling the BBB for a video game or any media disappointment is a ridiculous waste of time.  Thats not what they deal with.  And also, I agree with your viewpoint.  There's IGN, Gamespot, every game has forums, the distribution companies have forums, there's more than enough ways to find out what the deal is with any particular release these days.  For instance, one of my favorite games in the past 5 years was Assasins Creed, I've been eagerly waiting for part 2, it's been out for about 2 months and I still haven't pulled the trigger due to the all the issues with their online DRM strategy.  If you're gonna do that fine, but make sure your servers can handle it.  Anyway, because I checked it out first, I'm not gonna pull the string on that one until their server timeout issues are resolved. 


That said,  I've always thought of Bioware as one of the BEST in terms of patching and bug fixing.  They have been a bit slow on this game, but atleast they are updating it.  There are many if not most companies that simply don't ever release a patch.  I am disappointed with the toolset.  That thing really needs to be updated and tweaked.  But the game itself, imo was one of most stable releases I've seen in a long time.  But this is one of the few companies on the planet that listens to its user base, and implements some of the stuff the community is asking for. 

IMO people, you all like myself set Bioware to a higher standard, and when they are slow to release fixes we all get our panties in a bunch because we've come to expect speedier results from them.  But the is truth is most game companies couldn't give a **** about our issues, and desires.

Modifié par mutantspicy, 19 avril 2010 - 08:27 .

[JACKtheR1PP3R189]

Yes the bugs make the expansion much less enjoyable than it should be. Should they have caught them before releasing it? Yes. Are they going to fix it? Yes. Keep your shirts on and wait for the patch. Games are hardly the only examples of software being put out at less than fully polished. I want them to patch as much as possible and get it right, rather than a quickly fixed half-measure.

[Realmzmaster]

The problem with being able to return software is what's to stop gamers from copying the game, returning it and saying that the entire game was an unplayable bug ridden mess?

The movie theater anology is flawed because if the movie misplays it immediately affects everyone watching that movie. Easy to get a refund. The same thing with any physical product if it malfunctions you have proof. If the discs the software is on is cracked you have physical proof you need a replacement.

Software unfortunately also relies on the hardware it is being ran on especially the PC. The sheer combination of equipment that can be cobbled together to run a game is incredible.

Also minimum requirements to run a game means just that it will run. It makes no guarantee on how well it will run at that level. But gamers will try to play the game at the minimum requirements and then moan about how badly it plays, how slow it plays or any number of complaints. Which is why some companies have gone to placing recommended requirements for a well running game.

I truly believe the recommended requirements should be the minimum requirements. But then some gamer will say that he/she ran the game on lower requirements and that the company was not telling the truth about the requirements. Also publishers of games tend to get upset if the requirements exclude a section of their audience needlessly. (in their opinion).

As i have stated in other threads good customer service should be the cornerstone of any business. Communication should be the key word. Bioware should fix the bugs, and keep gamers informed.

Lack of communication is what starts a great deal of frustration. I am not going to blame EA for the bugs, because EA has produce some games that were relatively bug free. But for a game that has been in development for roughly five years you need to get it out the door at some point. If you do not give people a deadline they will not get that sense of urgency.

You cannot keep pouring money into a project with no return. EA has to answer to it stakeholders some of whom happen to be us. Those stakeholders want to see a return on their investment. (No, I have no stake in EA, but some of you out there may).

Now it may be in the best interest to hold a product from the market until it is ready, but then again if the product takes to long in development it may get the plug pulled on it.

I believe that is what happened with Awakening. Money needed to be made to satiisfy other interests. It got pushed out the door without proper testing for imported characters and the story also go shorten.

Awakenings came out at $40 and gamers bought it based on the strength of Origins. It made a certain amount of money at $40 then the complaints started coming in. EA made the decision two weeks after launch to drop the price to $20 to catch the remaining gamers sitting on the fence about buying.

Awakenings prove to be the success BioWare/EA wanted as far as expansions go. Expansions rarely ever match the sales of the original game. In fact at best make a fraction of the sales.



Now what consumers can do in the future is be wary of buying BioWare products. I will not to this day buy any product that has Monte Cristo (Silverfall) associated with it. I am also very wary with anything that has Dreamcatcher on it.

But YMMV.

[Dubidox]

Realmzmaster wrote...

...
Awakenings came out at $40 and gamers bought it based on the strength of Origins. It made a certain amount of money at $40 then the complaints started coming in. EA made the decision two weeks after launch to drop the price to $20 to catch the remaining gamers sitting on the fence about buying.
...

Wait what?!? When was Awakening $20? I still keep seeing $39.99 everywhere I check...

[CybAnt1]

Silverite mines bug... and various engine crash bugs, are the only two things I can think of that are not immediately obvious.  And even if they aren't obvious to us, how do you know that they aren't obvious to programmers at BW? I'd be willing to bet that they are.  

The current theory is that the 4th experimental doesn't spawn because it doesn't have enough stats to use the gear that transfers. However, I don't know why that doesn't affect experimentals 1-3, or why the end result wouldn't be a 4th experimental without your gear, as opposed to no experimental. All I know is I know enough about programming and scripting (which isn't much) to know that the script is supposed to spawn experimental #4, and it borks before doing so. 

As far as crashes, as you might guess, that's the hardest problem in the world for a programmer to isolate. It could be caused by anything in the code. For example, I had a game for a while that was crashing because something in it couldn't "handle" dual processors, you actually had to switch off one core to use it (until that got fixed). However, one thing I also know: although some had crashes before, their frequency (for some) seemed to increase post-1.03. I've even had a handful myself, but not enough to complain about. It's very infrequent -- but btw I think I saw almost none pre-1.03. 

So what we do know is whatever increased the frequency of the problem, was contained in patch 1.03 itself. My guess is that whatever they did to fix memory leaks in 1.03, was a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease. 

[Aeropostle]

Good points, Realzmaster. It is indeed, buyer beware for games. Doesn't mean it's right, nor does it mean we are going to like it. But for now, that's the way it is. Too bad there's no short-term recourse for the consumers of this shame of a release. That's what I think is wrong, and is the point of my OP. What actions, other than waiting for everyone else to buy it first and report how badly they got ripped off, are there to hold gaming companies accountable? There should be a better way, and we should seek it. For me, DAO was acceptable in terms of polish. So enthused was I to play the expansion I bought it as almost soon as it came out, expecting the same quality. Nnng! I guess that was my fault for being stupid enough to buy a game that was supposed to be relatively polished. How silly does that sound? I'm stupid for buying a cruddy game because I didn't wait long enough for the bad reviews to come out for a game EA/Bioware marketed as a finished, polished product. How does EA/Bioware get out of hot water on this? This is not their fault for putting out a shoddy product? Rather, it's the fault of the consumer for buying it? How twisted is that?

Modifié par Aeropostle, 19 avril 2010 - 09:36 .

[TheMadCat]

Dubidox wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...
Awakenings came out at $40 and gamers bought it based on the strength of Origins. It made a certain amount of money at $40 then the complaints started coming in. EA made the decision two weeks after launch to drop the price to $20 to catch the remaining gamers sitting on the fence about buying.
...

Wait what?!? When was Awakening $20? I still keep seeing $39.99 everywhere I check...

It's never been $20, EA had a promo though a few weeks ago where you could get $20 off any game over $30 at the EA Store or something like that. 

[Realmzmaster]

Dubidox wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...
Awakenings came out at $40 and gamers bought it based on the strength of Origins. It made a certain amount of money at $40 then the complaints started coming in. EA made the decision two weeks after launch to drop the price to $20 to catch the remaining gamers sitting on the fence about buying.
...

Wait what?!? When was Awakening $20? I still keep seeing $39.99 everywhere I check...

It was on sale at the EA online store for $20.00 with a coupon code. It was available on all platforms. Now it is back to its list price.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 19 avril 2010 - 10:03 .

[TJSolo]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Dubidox wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

...
Awakenings came out at $40 and gamers bought it based on the strength of Origins. It made a certain amount of money at $40 then the complaints started coming in. EA made the decision two weeks after launch to drop the price to $20 to catch the remaining gamers sitting on the fence about buying.
...

Wait what?!? When was Awakening $20? I still keep seeing $39.99 everywhere I check...

It was on sale at the EA online store for $20.00 with a coupon code. It was available on all platforms. Now it is back to its list price.

That would be a sale. Not them making it 20 bucks.
It wasn't even an Awakening sale event, it was 20 bucks off any EA purchase of 39.99 or more.