What is wrong with Zenimax? Is the current situation out of their control?

navystylz_ESO

ThatArgonianGuy wrote: »

I feel bad for the brilliant creative team of this game (story, art direction).

Same. No one would intentionally sabotage their livelihood. That and all the years that went into this game... I know they are vested in this and it just makes me feel bad for them that it just seemed to blow apart and nothing just feels right.

Honestly can't fathom what is going on with the company they keep making these decisions.

Apricot

Gaudrath wrote: »

So you miss your typo, push it to live and people go berserk because "how could they be so stupid!".

So your excuse for this inexcusable mess of a game is that it's coded by a bunch of bad typers?

ZakyUchiha

fiachsidhe wrote: »

b92303008rwb17_ESO wrote: »

fiachsidhe wrote: »

It isn't just the nightblades either. Its the entirety of their ignorance, lack of foresight, the constant avoidable mistakes, the never learning from their mistakes, the lack of communication, ignoring their players and testers, their messed up priorities, the incompetence of their fixes, lack of effort in dealing with bots, bugs that last for months, endless bad ideas/designs.

Considering all the numerous issues at present, I think there is a bigger problem than incompetency. I don't know if anyone has noticed that but when I saw the credits I couldn't help but thought "that is a really long list". And I just don't believe that there is short of talented people. With the issues coming from ALL aspects of the game, I can't think of any explanation better than "there is something wrong on the management level". Provided that Zenimax Media probably wouldn't let this franchise die and their investment gone fast and ugly like this, I guess or hope they will look into this soon.

I have no doubts that this is a management problem. Usually the actual programmers aren't at fault. Many game companies are run on nepotism and cronyism. I'm pretty sure Zenimax is no different. No matter how good your programmers, they can't do a thing with inept leads/managers.

Reading their glassdoor page doesn't do a thing to curb this theory.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ZeniMax-Media-Reviews-E134492.htm

"Horrible IT systems. Management paralyzed by bad data, fear of keeping their jobs and general incompetence. Some of the employees in HR are unethical, senior management cannot be trusted, and micro managers are really annoying. Employee benefits are not competitive, time off is extremely limited (10 days), no sick days, and work hours are greater than nine hours a day. Personalities and egos keep others from doing their job in a healthy and productive matter."

- No room for growth and development. Employees have been in the same role for over 3 years. Each person has their own process and territorial about their work.
- Several office personnel lack office etiquette (rude and confrontational). Be prepared to defend yourself or get thrown under the bus for doing your job or being you. The bad apples make it bad for the good ones.
- No structure. Clear disconnect between senior level management and regular staff. Senior management in old boys and gals club. "Do your time mentality"
- No work life / balance . Benefits do not consummate for extra time worked
- Stringent vacation policy. Employees are given 10 days off. No rollovers allowed. You only get 10 days.
- No sick days so you have to use from your 10 day balance. Most of the staff come to work sick so they don't have to use their 10 day personal time off. They spread their illness to other employees.
- Rapidly growing company with MANY growing pains.
- Cliquey groups. Take a look in the lunch room.
- Outdated office space.
- Company spends money in questionable places.
- Senior management lacks interpersonal skills and not approachable
- No development plan for employees. You are on your own.

– Managers with over inflated egos
Brown nose system for moving up
High level management live in a bubble-no knowledge of manager ego and oppression of staff
Those with weight issues need not apply.
Company offers no sick leave. You must use your vacation leave when you are sick.

Thanks for showing us this, it's very insightful.
I read through all of the reviews and it seems Zenimax mostly have problems with the Senior Management (and management in general), which makes me question if they are thinking "modern" and looking for new ways and possibilities instead of being ego-powerdriven outdated idiots.

MichaelD

It took Blizzard at least 10 years to fix WoW to be constantly stable kinda ballanced and bug-free-ish. I can understand that everyone who pays needs the product to be "ready for everything!" but that cannot be done, it needs patience and your money... From a developer perspective I can surely say that they are trying, just give them a break for once... lay-back... go for a coffee... and the patch will be ready... all in good time

penguinlaraub17_ESO

Phantax wrote: »

Although I mainly agree with your points, most MMO companies haven't sunk nearly a quarter of a billion into developing their MMOs !

Really that much? So how much was wasted on voice actors? Because it seems they only used 3 for all 3 factions.

DragonMother

Gaudrath wrote: »

Ok so @DragonMother‌ and @Garetth‌

In your experience, and please let's be honest here, can you name an MMO which had a smooth launch and was bug free from the start (or even, ever)? Some MMOs crash their servers for a month after launch, others are full of bugs.

This MMO is a little more than a month old. What we have here is typical launch problems. Every single MMO out there had them. No exceptions. We're talking about incredibly complex systems here that are supposed to cater to a huge number of players and people wonder at the bugs and the crashes... you can't test for that kind of thing.

Six months down the road, if the game is still plagued with game breaking bugs like the VR difficulty scaling, then we can start talking about incompetence (although it looks to me like someone entered a wrong multiplier into a wrong field in the toolset, which just is bad, come on ZOS at least do your bugs professionally).

But right now it's just so much drama for something that is to be expected. And MMO veterans should know this.

@Phantax covered what I was about to say quite eloquently. Every mmo has it's launch issues, but this one has been by far the worst I've seen in my gaming history. It started out as small minor things, but when the bots started hitting the game hard with all the backend loopholes the devs left open? That's when things really started getting crazy. Zenimax really needs to buckle down on those exploits they left open, and patch up the remaining issues, even if it's incrimental jobs. The problem with Zenimax is that they have a history of not being very thorough. Their past game development history with Bethesda isn't exactly a glowing record and this game could have cleared that up easily if they had just paid closer attention to what was being implimented, and what conflicts code-wise could occure on their end. Instead, they throw a half-baked patch to QA, whom is only given a short notice push to finish testing asap, and QA gives it a once over, before throwing it onto the server with the green light. All hades breaks loose and look what we have now? A giant mess, and no one to blame but the company and their poor development ethics.

@fiachsidhe Rift brings back fond memories, that was the smoothest launch I was ever part of the testing group for. GW2 was pretty well done as well. In fact, I still play Rift every great now and then.

Gaudrath

Apricot wrote: »

Gaudrath wrote: »

So you miss your typo, push it to live and people go berserk because "how could they be so stupid!".

So your excuse for this inexcusable mess of a game is that it's coded by a bunch of bad typers?

Nope. You are obviously not a programmer. It has nothing to do with bad typing. It has everything to do with the sheer volume of code and the inherent sensitivity of complex systems to minute errors.

Errors are small and easy to make, consequences are big and obvious once the system is placed under pressure. Which only occurs on live.

Stratti

This whole thread is laughable.
A whole lot of rubbish and spewing venom - you guys either come up with something specific to complain about or dont bother complaining.

You are beginning to sound like a plant from Wildstar/WoW or whatever

DragonMother

Gaudrath wrote: »

Apricot wrote: »

Gaudrath wrote: »

So you miss your typo, push it to live and people go berserk because "how could they be so stupid!".

So your excuse for this inexcusable mess of a game is that it's coded by a bunch of bad typers?

Nope. You are obviously not a programmer. It has nothing to do with bad typing. It has everything to do with the sheer volume of code and the inherent sensitivity of complex systems to minute errors.

Errors are small and easy to make, consequences are big and obvious once the system is placed under pressure. Which only occurs on live.

Which is one very vital reason why QA and testing is so important.

You know what makes me laugh? Some of these little kids coming in and pointing fingers without really reading the full context of the discussion and getting the idea that we're here deliberately breaking down the game. We're simply discussing the development course and how they are handling the matters of the mass bug reports, and larger issues internally within the company from what reviews we've seen.

DragonMother

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

This whole thread is laughable.
A whole lot of rubbish and spewing venom - you guys either come up with something specific to complain about or dont bother complaining.

You are beginning to sound like a plant from Wildstar/WoW or whatever

Personally I don't like either of those games, so your point? If you don't like taking the time to read the actual content that's on context to the thread, then don't read it at all.

Stratti

DragonMother wrote: »

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

This whole thread is laughable.
A whole lot of rubbish and spewing venom - you guys either come up with something specific to complain about or dont bother complaining.

You are beginning to sound like a plant from Wildstar/WoW or whatever

Personally I don't like either of those games, so your point? If you don't like taking the time to read the actual content that's on context to the thread, then don't read it at all.

You dont like those games?

Honestly point to one thing that they have done wrong that isnt part and parcel of MMO.

Something specific

I stopped reading after the first page - sorry if in all those posts you have said nothing of value do not expect people to continue.

Bottom line : If you complain about the odd bug here and there look at other games like WoW which was buggy 6 months in - server instability constant crashes etc.

If you complain about nerf well - my children complain when I take their toy away for playing with it wrongly (see the similarity)

As far as that goes I cannot see anything else . Beta was smooth - a few bugs with quests but nothing too bad.

I give them 8/10
Billing issues 5/10

Completely new game with a new action based model including crash and so much more

Get over it or get out it is that simple

I am sick of the venom already

Gaudrath

fiachsidhe wrote: »

Rift, TERA, and Neverwinter, to name a few. GW2 had a pretty smooth launch.

You mean that GW2 with invisible zergs running around and people exploiting render lag to hell and back? That GW2?

Or Rift which got a ton of flak for server instability?

Here's a question for you, in recent memory can you name an mmorpg that has had as bad of a launch?

Launch has been very smooth. I played since first day of early access, and with the amount of content I covered since then I'm pretty happy. Maybe <10% of the game was affected.

Of course, they had a streak of big ones lately. Vampire ultimate spamming. Now VR rank scaling. And caltrops bug.

You're right, its been an ENTIRE month. ZoS should be churning out daily hotfixes. Instead they are doing jack *** for weeks at a stretch only to break even more of the game.

You are obviously not a programmer either. You have no idea how complicated it is to push through a patch. It's not like some dude is sitting in the corner typing away with Firor peeking over his shoulder telling him what to do. You have dozens of people. Any one of them can make a small mistake that breaks something. You have multiple interdependent systems, all sensitive to changes made within any of them.

You have to go through version control, and with dozens of people working on the same code you spend a lot of time keeping track of who did what and why.

Daily hotfixes. No such thing. Just like bug-free coding. Can't be done.

Stratti

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Someone with some sense - are you lost???
-

KerinKor

Phantax wrote: »

I'm not sure how much say Bethesda have over ESO/Zenimax but this whole fiasco is badly damaging the Elder Scrolls franchise. They (somebody) needs to step in, prioritise, kick some butt and sort things out before permanent damage is done ! ! !

Bethesda have no say, they're a subsidiary of Zenimax like ZOS are, nothing more.

AngryNord

fiachsidhe wrote: »

Here's a question for you, in recent memory can you name an mmorpg that has had as bad of a launch?

I'd think that the original launch of FFXIV would qualify as 'even worse'?

Gaudrath

DragonMother wrote: »

Which is one very vital reason why QA and testing is so important.

It is important, what I'm telling you is that there is no such thing as fool-proof QA. Internal QA is done by a few people systematically checking the changes. They do not have the time, nor the actual means, to reproduce every single possible permutation that might go wrong.

Sometimes, changes that are made to one system inadvertently affect something else - some other system which internal QA doesn't even check because it was unexpected, someone forgot to add it to footnotes etc. Dumb office stuff which happens all the time.

As for PTS, most PT servers don't even come close to live load. Which means fewer possible permutations of circumstances are tested. Many PTS players don't even bother to submit bugs, and instead keep quiet about them hoping to can exploit them later if they hit live.

Players are also not professional testers. Many submit vague or downright useless bug reports. They say stuff like "quest X is broken." Period. Didn't say what they were doing when it broke, what exactly did not work etc.

That's why we get bugs, even with QA and PT servers. I'm not saying it is never the developers fault, but players can be the most unreasonable, ill-informed bunch I can think of. It's not a simple case of "duh, stoopid devs".

morashtakb16_ESO

Again we have white knights riding to the rescue with old excuses of "Well... 'that' game didn't do that well either!", etc.

Let's turn that around and ask; If the history of what not to do is there to learn from why is ZOS making all the same mistakes?

Reevster

fiachsidhe wrote: »

Its like they want the game to fail at this point. Its like this entire game was an experiment in what gamers will put up with, and its getting more and more cartoonish.

Not fail but go FTP . I tend to agree that they are putting out "patches" that just dont seem to be refined/tested enough and some things like VR mobs being harder makes no sense unless they just didn't test it at all.

Here is an interesting article.

Gamers should want all MMOs to be free-to-play, says EverQuest dev
Franchise director David Georgeson says the controversial business model encourages developers to make good games.

"We're effectively street performers: we go out there and sing and dance and if we do a good job, people throw coins into the hat," he explained. "And I think that's the way games should be, because paying $60 up front to take a gamble on whether the game is good or not? You don’t get that money back."

"So if you buy a turkey, you've just wasted your money. With free-to-play you get to go in, take a look at it, and find out," he added. "It's entirely our responsibility to make sure you're entertained. That's the way things should be in my opinion with free-to-play."

[url="http://"] http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamers-should-want-all-mmos-to-be-free-to-play-says-everquest-dev/1100-6418740/ [/url]


I personally perfer SUBs...but if the future of SUB MMOs are going to be like this one then I may have to rethink the SUB vers FTP.

ESO made a bunch of money selling the game which was launched full of bug's, and not a few bugs, alot of bug's , some are to be expected but this many?

Seems like they were pressured to release it , I guess the investors wanted to start getting paid......

Pewpie

Silverion wrote: »

After i read a http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ZeniMax-Media-Reviews-E134492.htm i fully understand what is going on here, i was suspecting a BAD MANAGEMENT i have seen similar situation in companies, management kill people wish to help company product/image and people working there just do minimum to get paycheck and not risk to lose a job by advancing ides that are against BAD decisions that someone higher in chain decided.

I'm really sad that game with so good potential finished in such hands, after reading all this i can only hope for some DRASTIC and DECISIVE change that will favor creativity and quality over nepotism and position safeguarding!

Lol was fun reading.

Like:

worked at ZeniMax Media full-time for more than a year
Pros – Good experience. Chance to work on some awesome games
Cons – No sick days. Terrible management, ego-filled leads and sub-par pay.
Advice to Senior Management – Come down from your high heavens and actually realize the ego-situation going on down here.

Seems they have some really ego-situations going on in that company...

Gaudrath

morashtakb16_ESO wrote: »

Again we have white knights riding to the rescue with old excuses of "Well... 'that' game didn't do that well either!", etc.

Let's turn that around and ask; If the history of what not to do is there to learn from why is ZOS making all the same mistakes?

When it comes to coding, why is anyone? Because there is no way to avoid them.

When it comes to bad design decisions, because they have bad designers in charge.

Personally I think the company bit off more than they could chew. They scrapped their flagship idea, the megaserver technology, that should tell you something.

Still, it's a good game. Haven't had this much fun in a long time. Could be much, much better though.

Swampster

Gaudrath wrote: »

Or Rift which got a ton of flak for server instability?

Did they bring 2 versions of Rift out then? As the one I played I don't remember EVER getting a ton of flak for server instability... in fact Rift and Tera we about the smoothest launches I've had the pleasure of being involved with. Sure there were bugs, there always are but I don't recall anything game breaking with either.

The biggest problem with Rift was the server queues on launch day, and Trion's over reaction at opening server after server to compensate, meaning after the first month many servers were vastly underpopulated.

The only real stability issue was on their first BIG event.. when they effectively jammed the entire population of the server onto the top of the Citadel in Stillmoor for the launch of the first raid zone. There were literally thousands of people cramming into the one area.. and when push came to shove, a triggered event that meant everyone of those people all fired off skills at the 'bad guy' all at the same time the server just keeled over. They postponed the event for a week, and when it made it's reappearance it was a mere shadow of it's former self.. they watered it down tremendously.

However up until that point there had been no problems, in fact they were a defacto model of scalable stability... the zone wide plane invasions, with the huge giant bosses had hundreds of people all participating at one time, something that would have killed off server on practically any game I'd previously played.

navystylz_ESO

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

DragonMother wrote: »

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

This whole thread is laughable.
A whole lot of rubbish and spewing venom - you guys either come up with something specific to complain about or dont bother complaining.

You are beginning to sound like a plant from Wildstar/WoW or whatever

Personally I don't like either of those games, so your point? If you don't like taking the time to read the actual content that's on context to the thread, then don't read it at all.

You dont like those games?

Honestly point to one thing that they have done wrong that isnt part and parcel of MMO.

Something specific

I stopped reading after the first page - sorry if in all those posts you have said nothing of value do not expect people to continue.

Bottom line : If you complain about the odd bug here and there look at other games like WoW which was buggy 6 months in - server instability constant crashes etc.

If you complain about nerf well - my children complain when I take their toy away for playing with it wrongly (see the similarity)

As far as that goes I cannot see anything else . Beta was smooth - a few bugs with quests but nothing too bad.

I give them 8/10
Billing issues 5/10

Completely new game with a new action based model including crash and so much more

Get over it or get out it is that simple

I am sick of the venom already

The odd bug? You're clearly trolling us or not playing the same game.

Swampster

AngryNord wrote: »

fiachsidhe wrote: »

Here's a question for you, in recent memory can you name an mmorpg that has had as bad of a launch?

I'd think that the original launch of FFXIV would qualify as 'even worse'?

Well that's kinda debateable... ok maybe not

The thing about FFXIV (v1) is that it wasn't about it being a bug ridden mess, because it wasn't. It was more about the general pish poor design of.. well just about everything in the game, bad UI, no AH, non regional servers, cut and paste assets, (which all sound rather familiar to these forums).. however FFXIV had basically no viable content either that would help to prop it up, a few guild leves a day just werent going to cut it!

kajirab14_ESO

AngryNord wrote: »

fiachsidhe wrote: »

Here's a question for you, in recent memory can you name an mmorpg that has had as bad of a launch?

I'd think that the original launch of FFXIV would qualify as 'even worse'?

I just can't possibly agree more. lol

isengrimb16_ESO

Lovely wrote: »

I believed it was lack of experience at first. Now I'm not sure sure anymore, since it seemed to be done on purpose. Must be something I am not aware of.

For example - I'm thinking of Uwe Boll (movie director / producer). Due to German Tax Laws at the time, he was allowed to write off 100% of investment as a tax deduction; the investor was then only required to pay taxes on the profits made by the movie; if the movie lost money, the investor would get a tax writeoff. So he made a crapton of bad movies based on game franchises.

I suspect something is being done here as well. They are seemingly doing everything in their power to displease and close this game fast.

/tinfoil hat off

Huh. The reason Canadian movies were so bad from the 1960s throughout, oh, well, we still don't make very good movies, really - was because Canada had a similar thing going in order to try to encourage more Canadians to make home-grown theatrical films. Of course, it backfired, so that's why we wound up with stuff like "The Bay Boy". Want decent Canadian films? Look for stuff done by the National FIlm Board, not private film-makers; and anyone with talent just kept going south.

I'm just kind of surprised to see another country was that stupid.

The USA, however, doesn't operate like that, they don't need to do anything to promote their culture to themselves (or internationally). I can't see anyone starting to do something in 2007, in order to make it fail 7 years later for tax purposes, anyway. That kind of stuff is usually done quick, for a write-off on the next tax form, isn't it?

Blackwidow

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

I am sick of the venom already

Lies.

If you were sick of it, you leave the thread.

You come here, see what it is about and post instead of leaving.

isengrimb16_ESO

Gaudrath wrote: »

Apricot wrote: »

Gaudrath wrote: »

So you miss your typo, push it to live and people go berserk because "how could they be so stupid!".

So your excuse for this inexcusable mess of a game is that it's coded by a bunch of bad typers?

Nope. You are obviously not a programmer. It has nothing to do with bad typing. It has everything to do with the sheer volume of code and the inherent sensitivity of complex systems to minute errors.

Errors are small and easy to make, consequences are big and obvious once the system is placed under pressure. Which only occurs on live.

I can see weirder and weirder side effects (emergent properties) happening the more complex the code gets and the more powerful computers get. No, not Skynet, just .... really bizarre, totally unpredictable "bugs" even in theoretically perfect software.

I like to peruse the Cracked site from time to time, and they have several articles showing video game glitches from various eras. Some of the modern ones are downright frightening to behold.

Gaudrath

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

Gaudrath wrote: »

Apricot wrote: »

Gaudrath wrote: »

So you miss your typo, push it to live and people go berserk because "how could they be so stupid!".

So your excuse for this inexcusable mess of a game is that it's coded by a bunch of bad typers?

Nope. You are obviously not a programmer. It has nothing to do with bad typing. It has everything to do with the sheer volume of code and the inherent sensitivity of complex systems to minute errors.

Errors are small and easy to make, consequences are big and obvious once the system is placed under pressure. Which only occurs on live.

I can see weirder and weirder side effects (emergent properties) happening the more complex the code gets and the more powerful computers get. No, not Skynet, just .... really bizarre, totally unpredictable "bugs" even in theoretically perfect software.

I like to peruse the Cracked site from time to time, and they have several articles showing video game glitches from various eras. Some of the modern ones are downright frightening to behold.

Of course. I design and code web apps. Those are relatively simple programs - usually a couple thousand lines of code. Sometimes just hundreds.

So I speak from experience when I claim that errors are easy to make and not because the programmer is lazy or sloppy. One wrong key press at a wrong time and in the wrong place and you have yourself a bug. Sometimes they're easy to spot, and sometimes really really hard. Until it goes live, then it's immediately complained about.

And the more complex the systems get, the worse this problem gets. Especially when you have whole teams of programmers working on something.

Then throw in the sheer volume of configurations people have at home... designing a web app can be a pain sometimes what with all the different browsers, devices and screen sizes, but that's NOTHING compared to writing code that's supposed to run well on a PC... millions of PCs with different operating systems, different hardware, software... gah.

And while nobody will admit it, you always start off with perfect code... I like to keep it "perfect" for as long as possible, like a neat swiss watch, ticking away. But as soon as problems and unexpected issues start cropping up, then the workarounds begin. Patches. Plugs. Rewrites.

Sooner or later you end up with something that runs, but nobody really knows how.

Singular

Blackwidow wrote: »

ss.ioannidisnrb18_ESO wrote: »

I am sick of the venom already

Lies.

If you were sick of it, you leave the thread.

You come here, see what it is about and post instead of leaving.

I'm enjoying this thread because I love drama.

Thanks

I disagree with all you naysayers, though. I think that you, by chance or focus, happened to have a very buggy experience. Uhm...mine wasn't so bad and I started out as a NB. Yeah, bugged passives (I never really noticed). Yeah, sometimes couldn't do anything in combat - they pushed through a fix in the patch, so great. A quest or two couldn't complete.

My biggest gripe would be the poor grouping tool.

So anyways, how did this patch hurt your builds specifically? Were you a shield-basher?

DragonMother

I play mainly an NB. I was stuck on the final quest into vetting my main due to a bug in the last enter coldharbour quest chain. I got so fed up with throwing myself into the solo attempts to clear it, that I rolled four other toons and got them to level 10 before this patch dropped.

Most of us are simply discussing the development matters and some of the issues with the reviews we've seen from former employee's of the company. *shrugs* Naysay? Nah, just a discussion that people seem to be taking out of context.