4466 réponses à ce sujet

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

Trouble is MprezdNZ, the community has already said we're fed up with the 'generic' updates, so what else can they do?

They are basically damned if they do and damned if they don't

Edit@Silensfurtim grrr... hate that line from Bodahn

Modifié par Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien, 16 janvier 2010 - 02:39 .

[Abriael_CG]

MprezdNZ wrote...

While I generally agree with your sentiments, I still believe MS are behind this.

Even if it might be true (at this stage, it's very probable) that an agreement with Microsoft is what's causing Bioware to withold PC release, they're still not blameless.

First of all, if such an agreement existed, they'd still be open to blame for actually accepting such an agreement when they clearly stated several times that the console release would have never influenced the PC one. Two-faced much?
I'm quite sure that, if this is the case, Microsoft didn't hold them at gun point to force them to accept it.

Secondly, with their aborted release, Microsoft already breached any simultaneous release contract they might have had. Now, it'd take some balls, but I'm pretty sure that in the case of the other party breaching the contract first, Bioware could have released the PC version anyway. But this is very secondary.
The point is that if you sell your soul to the devil, you're the only one to be blamed for it.

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Trouble is MprezdNZ, the community has already said we're fed up with the 'generic' updates, so what else can they do?
They are basically damned if they do and damned if they don't

What they can do is giving actually informative updates, because I'm sorry if I seem adamant, but no one is going to persuade me that they told us all they know or even a small part of it. Given that they told us nothing, it'd mean that they're completely clueless about the status of their own product. I doubt i'm the only one that sees this case highly unlikely.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 16 janvier 2010 - 02:40 .

[MprezdNZ]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Trouble is MprezdNZ, the community has already said we're fed up with the 'generic' updates, so what else can they do?

They are basically damned if they do and damned if they don't

Edit@Silensfurtim grrr... hate that line from Bodahn

but if they came out and said, look guys we have gone through 20% of the code so far. We have found 2 or 3 things that could be causing it but we won't know for certain until we get all the way through the code. No DLC this week for sure.

People in general would be MUCH happier than nothing or the generic 'we are working on it'

[cygnata]

Or, they don't want to promise more than they can deliver. NDAs are also powerful things. Have patience. They're probably as frustrated by all this as you are.

[JaegerBane]

Abriael_CG wrote...
Ooooh how much i love people that whine about people that complain.

And I love it how the second any of your sob stories are challenged it instantly gets branded as whining. As I said, you can almost hear the chorus of violins in your original post.

First release window: Holiday season -> Missed.
Second release date: January the 5th -> Missed
Third release date: "Later today" on January the 13th -> Missed

I don't see any "lack of ETA" there.

That's because you're looking at already missed deadlines. When I said lack of ETA (on a random day) I was referring to the fact that there is no current ETA, and therefore whining about how it isn't delivered today is pointless, as there was no indication it would be.

And hell, one of the 'ETAs' above isn't even a real date. The only solid one was 05/01/10. Holiday season could mean anything and the whole 'later today' business - no offence, but as can be seen by the discussions at the time, that didn't sound particularly solid.

I don't know what your "reality" is, or what field you work in (if you even work), but I can most definitely assure you that in most professional fields failing to meet three deadlines in a row topped by lack of proper communication with the customer would result in people losing their jobs and/or contracts. So yes, like it or not, "extremely poor performance" is a quite mild way to define this debacle.

If most professional fields ran on such an absurdly absolutist strategy then contracts and jobs would spend more time unhandled/unfilled then they would being worked on. I have to confess I know little of contractual handlings outside of the software and hardware industry, but if you honestly think that any piece of software that goes through three missed deadlines must mean sackings and lost contracts, I suggest you sprint back inside your house and barricade the door, lest reality give you a heart attack. I've known projects go through *months* of deadline extensions.

In that context, trying to call a delay of a few weeks in delivery of  some game micro-expansion as 'extremely poor' then I can only wonder just how far underground you've been living for the last few years. I mean, when did you start playing games, exactly? How have you managed to miss all the colossal delays that we've seen not just in the gaming industry, but the software industry as a whole? Look at Daikatana. *That* was extremely poor. It was delayed by years.

If you think that, after three missed release dates and misleading communication that promped people to buy the points without having anything to show for it, is "infuriating sense of entitlement", then I'm afraid that you get "infuriated" very, very easily.

This is really the only point of merit I've seen you bring up here - the whole idea of not being able to refund points was a poor one. There is the argument that ou shouldn't have purchased any until you knew it was released, but ultimately, I believe that is the big weak link in Bioware's DLC strategy. But this wouldn't be the first I've said on this, and it is another discussion.

And on a slight digression, who is dictating? Are you even aware of the meaning of the verb "dictate"? They're entirely free to do whatever they want, and we're are entirely free to consider them professional or not based on the decisions they take. That, in my dictionary, has to do with opinion, not dictation.

Oh, here we go, the rant has reached the 'do you even have a dictionary stage'. You know very well what I was getting at, and it has nothing to with the meanings of particular verbs. The point is that I was responding to the blisteringly arrogant assertion that it's somehow 'normal' if things don;t get delivered people should do overtime to get it done.

There are few companies I've had dealings with that would consider themselves so important that they would demand overtime, and invaribly these are companies producing software of *vital* importance in contracts costing upwards of millions of £££s.

The assertion that it's somehow 'normal' by some loudmouth on the internet would be almost laughable if it weren't so rude. I'm sure that whatever you work in, you;re always the first to step forward to do overtime if there's been a delivery problem.

First of alll, the one you consider "uncontrolled", was the third release date, not the second. Secondy, they still came to us telling "hey, it's gonna be out later today". This means that they were sure that the content was ready. That, or they panicked, neither of which is commendable.

I would guess they were trying to make the best of a bad situation and they didn't realise how bad it actually was until they were knee-deep in it. Not ideal, true, but whether or not what they did is 'commendable' isn't really relevant. A bad situation is still a bad situation.

Given how you consider yourself fit to judge disgruntled customers asking at the very least for informative communication in a case of extremely poor performance, you still seem to have quite a colossal opinion of yourself.

I happen to be one of those disgruntled customers, thank you very much. I do find it rather hilarious that amidst bashing out demands and rants like you're the Queen of bloomin' Sheba, you find time to accuse me of having a large ego.

I can't really see this going anywhere good so I would suggest that for the sake of the thread, we agree to disagree.

Modifié par JaegerBane, 16 janvier 2010 - 02:46 .

[MprezdNZ]

Abriael_CG wrote...

MprezdNZ wrote...

While I generally agree with your sentiments, I still believe MS are behind this.

Even if it might be true (at this stage, it's very probable) that an agreement with Microsoft is what's causing Bioware to withold PC release, they're still not blameless.

First of all, if such an agreement existed, they'd still be open to blame for actually accepting such an agreement when they clearly stated several times that the console release would have never influenced the PC one. Two-faced much?
I'm quite sure that, if this is the case, Microsoft didn't hold them at gun point to force them to accept it.

Secondly, with their aborted release, Microsoft already breached any simultaneous release contract they might have had. Now, it'd take some balls, but I'm pretty sure that in the case of the other party breaching the contract first, Bioware could have released the PC version anyway. But this is very secondary.
The point is that if you sell your soul to the devil, you're the only one to be blamed for it.

Oh I don't think they are blameless. However, given EA's close ties to MS perhaps it is an agreement they are bound by - not something they actually accepted themselves? Again, I don't know. But it is entirely possible. And yes, it will mean hell to pay if hat is the case because they told us (no promised us pc users) that the consoles wouldn't affect us. 

I would like to see them use that argument on breach by MS first, but there was probably no intention to release it - so it was an honest mistake rather than a breach. 

[Abriael_CG]

cygnata wrote...

Or, they don't want to promise more than they can deliver. NDAs are also powerful things. Have patience. They're probably as frustrated by all this as you are.

This is a backwards way to see it.
If you fail to deliver on your set release dates, the problem isn't that you set deadlines, but that you fail to meet them.
This means that your planning ability is poor, and needs to be improved, expecially if it happens multiple times in a row.
The "not giving release dates anymore" may seem the easy way out, but it's most definitely not the professional way out, expecially when you have a system like "bioware points" in place, and misleading web pages that prompt and encourage users to pay for the product beforehand.
When you take people's money in advance, giving reasonable release dates and doing whatever it takes to meet them is not something you can consider optional.

MprezdNZ wrote...
Oh I don't think they are blameless.
However, given EA's close ties to MS perhaps it is an agreement they
are bound by - not something they actually accepted themselves?

Actually EA in itself has been faily equidistant between Microsoft and Sony lately, so I wouldn't know how close their ties with MS are. On the contrary, in the last few months I've seen them lean a little bit more towards Sony. Now, I don't know if that's because Sony is penetrating the market at a very good pace with the price drop and the release of a new sku, or because of a few a tad overly aggressive moves on microsoft's part towards EA, that the gaming community at large had very little mention of.
Still, I'm surprised to see EA (that certanly doesn't need Microsoft's pocket change) bow to them this way

@JaegerBane: All I will say, is that you seem to work in an extremely forgiving environment. I can't say I ever worked in a single environment in which three missed deadlines AND lack of proper customer communication would not lead to very serious problems, both employment-wise and legal. So yes, I would definitely define this debacle an extremely poor performance. And I don't think this is "sense of entitlement", but simple pragmatism. When you screw up, you do whatever you can to make it up. That includes overtime, public apologies (normally from the project leader or even the company CEO), and very detailed communication. Unfortunately I don't see that happening, thus, I'm disappointed.

Since you talk about sense of entitlement, Be careful not to nurture developers' sense of entitlement of missing release dates and witholding communication. That's a quite damaging trend.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 16 janvier 2010 - 03:06 .

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

Seriously you two (Abriael and Jaeger), can you take it to a PM or something? If you want to have mini argument with each other, the rest of us don't need to hear it. Both of your comments are reminding me of this song, constantly rechurning the same old stuff over and over.

MprezdNZ, I totally agree that would have been the logical thing to do, specially yesterday, but we don't know what information they are allowed to give do we?

People make mistakes and I know they've made three already, but it ain't the end of the world as we know it, or is it?

Modifié par Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien, 16 janvier 2010 - 02:53 .

[Eowien Thiele]

Abriael_CG wrote...

JaegerBane wrote...
Well that depends on what you consider 'extremely poor performance'. Not releasing an app on a random day despite a lack of ETA at all is not really considered 'extremely poor performance' by anyone in reality. It's a shame you feel that way, but ultimately, it shouldn't be a surprise that such an extreme interpretation has resulted in you getting annoyed. That's what tends to happen with this infuriating sense of entitlement that seems to pervade these kinds of forums.

Ooooh how much i love people that whine about people that complain.

First release window: Holiday season -> Missed.
Second release date: January the 5th -> Missed
Third release date: "Later today" on January the 13th -> Missed

I don't see any "lack of ETA" there.
I don't know what your "reality" is, or what field you work in (if you even work), but I can most definitely assure you that in most professional fields failing to meet three deadlines in a row topped by lack of proper communication with the customer would result in people losing their jobs and/or contracts. So yes, like it or not, "extremely poor performance" is a quite mild way to define this debacle.

If you think that, after three missed release dates and misleading communication that promped people to buy the points without having anything to show for it, is "infuriating sense of entitlement", then I'm afraid that you get "infuriated" very, very easily.

And on a slight digression, dictating to staff in a company you have no
involvement with what days they should or shouldn't be doing is an act
of unbelievable arrogance.

And on a slight digression, who is dictating? Are you even aware of the meaning of the verb "dictate"? They're entirely free to do whatever they want, and we're are entirely free to consider them professional or not based on the decisions they take. That, in my dictionary, has to do with opinion, not dictation.

Look, deciding to cherry pick what you like to make your point is a waste of time. I could just as easily point out you have forgotten to mention that the 'second' release date was clearly not a controlled release, not to mention that you seem to consider a DLC and a game to be no different in release complexity, or even the fact that none of us actually know who was responsible for releasing it on 360 in the first place.

First of alll, the one you consider "uncontrolled", was the third release date, not the second. Secondy, they still came to us telling "hey, it's gonna be out later today". This means that they were sure that the content was ready. That, or they panicked, neither of which is commendable.

And frankly, I don't have such a colossal opinion of myself that I consider myself fit to judge the running of a project when I have little more than a few posts to go on.

Given how you consider yourself fit to judge disgruntled customers asking at the very least for informative communication in a case of extremely poor performance, you still seem to have quite a colossal opinion of yourself.

Whoo hoo!  Thank you for the most pointed and succinct summary of the source of frustration felt by many owners of Dragon Age on any platform.  The pervading sense of entitlement that has been expressed so far is quantitatively skewed towards the entitlement of "the company" to repeatedly fail in its performance without any accountability for those failures.  For those of you who have fun with this sort of thing - not to mention time- you might want to create a "Wordle" of the whole thread and see what pops up.

[SithLordExarKun]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

 Both of your comments are reminding me of this song, constantly rechurning the same old stuff over and over.

Some ones been watching too much meatspin. But the song is awesome.

[MAD BAD DAVE]

The DLC works fine, frankly I think the 'bug' excuse is a smoke screen. I downloaded it and everything works fine, no problems with classes, level ups..nothing.

[AndersB]

MAD BAD DAVE wrote...

The DLC works fine, frankly I think the 'bug' excuse is a smoke screen. I downloaded it and everything works fine, no problems with classes, level ups..nothing.

Which DLC?

[AlaskanHusky]

Silensfurtim wrote...

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

My faith.

It is slowly ebbing away.

dont...

it will still be released...



















this holiday season..

My Friend. You learn fast my young padawan.


This Holiday Season my Friends. This Holiday season.

[MAD BAD DAVE]

RTO I got it on the 13th when it was up on LIVE for a few hours before being mysteriously pulled again..it's ok, won't give any spoilers here..but certainly not broken, or causing any problems with the rest of the game..check my profile...you'll see I do actually have it..and the solitary achievement! lol

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

SithLordExarKun wrote...

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

 Both of your comments are reminding me of this song, constantly rechurning the same old stuff over and over.

Some ones been watching too much meatspin. But the song is awesome.

I actually didn't know what that meant till I googled it... now I actually think it fits them both even more specially with my comment bout them taking it to PMs

[AlaskanHusky]

AndersB wrote...

MAD BAD DAVE wrote...

The DLC works fine, frankly I think the 'bug' excuse is a smoke screen. I downloaded it and everything works fine, no problems with classes, level ups..nothing.

Which DLC?

Pinnacle station. He's hungover from the last DLC debacle ;P

[MAD BAD DAVE]

Is it only me that remembers that this is a discussion about the return to Ostagar dlc?? As for Mass Effect, never had a problem with any of the DLC as far as I am aware..other than 'there wasn't much of it'.

[rinks]

Hi guys, first-time poster here. I appreciate you're all keen to get RtO, and I know discussion on forums can get heated, so I'm not going to get in the way of that.



I'm a 360 user who was unfortunate enough to innocently download the title update, and carry on with my game, unaware there was any problem. I've come to this thread hoping to find information, but at 100+ pages, I can't wade through it all, so I apologise if the information I am looking for has already been covered.



Am I right in thinking that the bug introduced by the title update works like this?: any specialisations my characters already have will still be in place, but any that I've unlocked but not yet applied will now be re-locked. (I'm on my first play through, by the way.)



I've got a save from about three hours playing-time ago, so if the worst comes to the worst and they can't create a fix to re-unlock the specs, I guess I could at least go back to that.



What I really need to know is if carrying on with the game is a waste of time, until there's a fix.

[MAD BAD DAVE]

Dude..read my post..there's nothing wrong with the DLC. I have it too, it's a makey up story to excuse the fact that the dlc was pulled because Someone put it out too early..the game's not broken, and nobody who's got the DLC has reported any issues on any forums,also..how likely is it that within 2 hours of making it available to download..they had enough complaints about the DLC that they decided to withdraw it?? Hell..they don't fix stuff that's really broken that quickly..this is a smoke screen I tell ya! Call Mulder and ScullY!!

[halfempty77]

i can't believe that people are still arguing over this debacle. it isn't going to make it go away any sooner. play another game, watch a movie or even, gasp, read a book! grow up

[MAD BAD DAVE]

Lol...what Debacle?? it's simple..microsoft bunged it out early..Bioware got pissed..Microsoft took it back off..Bioware agreed to help them save face by saying it was 'busted'. It clearly isn't busted. Either way..it's not really 'epic' dlc..45 mins extra playtime at best, some armour..a sword..and little else.

[Eowyn77]

I just recently finished my second play-through on the game. I am really looking forward to the new DLC and am starting to get impatient. I keep checking everyday from work and when I get home to see if it is available. I think I will have to start my 3rd character today as I have become hopelessly addicted to this game.

[MAD BAD DAVE]

Don't get too excited Eowyn77....it will end in tears.

[rinks]

Thanks for the "blue Bioware tag" tip, Feraele. That's going to be very useful.



MAD BAD DAVE, I haven't downloaded the new DLC, just the title update, which is where the bug is supposed to be. I haven't seen any problems yet, but I guess I wouldn't, until I next level up and see that my unlocked specs have disappeared (if I understand the nature of the bug).