In Defense of Zenimax

one_eye

Ojustaboo wrote: »

I absolutely love this game, but my guilds conclusion which I agree with entirely is that someone at Zenimax lacks total common sense.

Why on earth did they decide to do a major patch at the end of the week, common sense says do it at the beginning while you have all your staff in the office for the rest of the week to fix any urgent issues.

I dont knoe about the rest of the planet, but the UK has a long weekend including Monday, not a goid time to find loads of game breaking issues.

We have planned a huge pvp day starting tomorrow at 10am until midnight, we expect to be drunk by the end of it, and we expect our guild to have great fun.

This had been planned for this Saturday for a couple of weeks. Now some cant play for very long due to mem leaks, others cant take stuff ouf of the bank, and Zenimax have said they wil, be applying a patch tomortow, which could mean our pvp session many of us were looking forwards to, will be canceled or severely intrupted.

When the update was announced on ign on Wednesday, our guild leader saic "thats our weeksnd ruined then"

We understand things go wrong, but common sense says you dont do this at the end of the week, and if you do it on one server and major issues arise, you hold off doing it on the othet untilyou have a fix.

I adore this game as do most of my guild (guild plays various mmos), I have never seen such anger about this game from my guild as I have seen tonight.

This I completely agree with. I definitely don't defend them on a major update before a long holiday weekend.

Apricot

SirJesto wrote: »

Right, the technology is better and therefore more difficult to code. Thanks for realizing this.

Maybe they should have used the old and crummy code that RIFT and GW2 used.

Alpha_Protocol

one_eye wrote: »

Very true, and I'm in the same boat. So therein lies the real question: what's going on within Zenimax? The forum makes Zenimax appear to be nothing more than a thousand monkeys clacking away on a thousand keyboards.

Maybe people did get fired because of the 1.1.2 patch. Maybe they're bringing some new, top devs in to help sort the problems out. I don't know, nor for that matter, do any us, the inner workings of Zenimax. But it doesn't help when players just assume that EVERYONE at Zenimax is a complete moron.

The morons on these forums eclipse any of their cohort at ZOS by a thousand fold.

Elgin

one_eye wrote: »

Elgin wrote: »

I agree ESO will get better, but accepting a step back when you are paying for a service is not a good.

Well, my friend, welcome to the world of reality. Give me an example of a service - any industry, anywhere in the world, that is not wrought with periodic problems and setbacks.

I pay for high speed internet. Sometimes the internet goes down (issue or maintenance). I pay for cable TV - sometimes that goes out, too.

We pay for lots of things that don't go swimmingly each and every time. That's life, dude!

OP, clearly with your first post and your reply to mine you are ok with a substandard service. I am not, if my internet goes down I ring the service provider and they either tell me they are working on it, or they will get working on it but at least I know it's being fixed. My TV service provider (DSTV in this country) don't seem to just 'go out' but if they did I'd not be happy at that either.

Where I work, and have done for the last 12 years we offer a 99.95% uptime, and if we do not provide we actively give our customers one WHOLE month free, this does not include planned downtime, but any emergency down time, or crash we end up paying heavily for after 0.05% of a months time so we make sure they don't happen.

Stop accepting sub standard service and expect what you pay for.

Kalann_Pander

one_eye wrote: »

Everyone knows the bots and gold farmers are a big issue, just like any MMO. Historically speaking, there's no way to ever be 100% spam/bot/farmer free.

In fact, that's patently false.
There is a way - disable trade.

Of course, that ain't gonna happen

... Enough playful banter, on to serious things.

The negative feedback - from both froth-raging brats and level-headed but seriously disappointed people - seems to have exploded in the last 24 hours ... there is some real substance to the complaints.

For myself, I'm not severely impacted (in fact, I'm still very much enjoying myself) - but some people are, and there seems to be some issues which impact their gameplay above a tolerable threshold.

There is of course the question of how much forum feedback really represents the views of the playerbase as a whole. I'm still inclined to think that in the current situation, the feedback is somewhat representative of a significant fraction of the playerbase, and that the complaints do have substance, in that the service paid for - access to a fun gaming experience - is not being delivered to that fraction.

I'm not in ZoS' boots, but it's safe to say - at this point - that between their communication, development priorities, and balance choices, the result is sub-optimal.

What I find most disturbing are allegations of a certain number of bugs reported to ZoS during the Beta, or from the PTS (including from the latest patch), and which where still allowed to go live.

(yes, these are only forum-posted allegations, which makes this 3rd hand info, however I've seen enough of them from several sources to believe that there is some substance to them. You know the saying, where there's smoke ...)

To me, this points to a sloppy decision-making process, and/or uncoordinated teamwork. Sadly, that does not bode well for the future if they don't up their game.

kirnmalidus wrote: »

Because we don't hate ESO, we love it. We hate how Zenimax's mismanagement of updates is driving it into the ground.

This.
This is the real danger - killing off the fan base, a fan base cultivated over 20 years.

The perception, the image, of ESO at the moment is not good - and believe it or not, that is a very real problem because the game will die if enough people believe it to suck - whatever the game's very real qualities.

Damage control should be a priority, restoring confidence should be a priority, and I'm not just talking about the memory-leak bug.

(they've had a fairly good reaction on that, although I will agree that if the issue was known for the NA server before the EU server was patched, they should not have patched it before the memory leak bug was fixed, which apparently will be done very soon)

ZoS ... please, try to stop shooting yourself in the foot.

kirnmalidus

SirJesto wrote: »

kirnmalidus wrote: »

one_eye wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

one_eye wrote: »

Don't be ridiculous. They do pay attention to feedback and bugs. They do pay attention to trends on the forums. They are listening to the players as best they can. But they can't address every single issue in one fix.

At the moment i think a lot of us would settle for them not breaking more stuff with each 'fix'.

I know nothing about game development. I do web and app development, and the same thing happens in my world. You take a complex system - something breaks - you fix it, but ended up creating another problem unintentionally. I agree it is frustrating, but it's only temporary.

I lead a team that builds websites as well. If my team pushed an update that broke this much stuff on a client's website I would be discussing firing the people responsible for testing the updates and I would expect the client to fire us as their agency for breaking their site.

Yeah because your website is just as complicated as this game and it's servers and infrastructure....nice comparison bud.

Not sure how that's relevant. When people fail to do the job they have been hired to do (test updates) they should be replaced by people who can competently perform that job role. Scale isn't a factor.

one_eye

Elgin wrote: »

OP, clearly with your first post and your reply to mine you are ok with a substandard service. I am not, if my internet goes down I ring the service provider and they either tell me they are working on it, or they will get working on it but at least I know it's being fixed. My TV service provider (DSTV in this country) don't seem to just 'go out' but if they did I'd not be happy at that either.

Where I work, and have done for the last 12 years we offer a 99.95% uptime, and if we do not provide we actively give our customers one WHOLE month free, this does not include planned downtime, but any emergency down time, or crash we end up paying heavily for after 0.05% of a months time so we make sure they don't happen.

Stop accepting sub standard service and expect what you pay for.

You know why people "guarantee" products and services? Because they don't have confidence in their own product and service, and need a hook to sell the customer.

I think it's great, and I mean this, that your company can run so smoothly and offer such a great incentive. Not all services are that efficient.

ciannait

one_eye wrote: »

alexandru987eb17_ESO wrote: »

So please mister hired PR representative.... lie more...

Most developers in 2000 had to make their own engine, they could not just buy one... i could go on but you get my point.

Oh! Here's another super sleuth who believes that us "fanboys" must be hired PR people.

Congrats, 007! YOU WIN THE PRIZE!

People might take you more seriously if you weren't such a jerk when people disagree with you.

kirnmalidus

one_eye wrote: »

kirnmalidus wrote: »

Because we don't hate ESO, we love it. We hate how Zenimax's mismanagement of updates is driving it into the ground.

And I totally get that. Provide good feedback, report bugs, report spammers - that's how everyone can help.

Incessantly bashing Zenimax, threatening to cancel, etc. - that doesn't help.

Some people have done this. I have not. My consistent comment today has been that someone in QA messed up here. I'm not bashing all of Zenimax, but I think they need to seriously look at both the QA processes in place and the specific QA testers who were responsible for testing this patch need to justify why the testing they did some did not catch this massive amount of bugs.

Or, there is the possibility that QA did catch these bugs and they decided to roll it out with them in there anyway. In that case, whoever made that decision needs to be called into a C-suite office and asked to justify it.

one_eye

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

People might take you more seriously if you weren't such a jerk when people disagree with you.

You're right, genius. I'm a jerk. Because when Zenimax hired me to infiltrate the ESO forums, they clearly instructed me to act like a jerk so I wouldn't expose my true nature as a Zenimax employee.

ciannait

one_eye wrote: »

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

People might take you more seriously if you weren't such a jerk when people disagree with you.

You're right, genius. I'm a jerk. Because when Zenimax hired me to infiltrate the ESO forums, they clearly instructed me to act like a jerk so I wouldn't expose my true nature as a Zenimax employee.

Thanks for proving my point. You made a long post, people have said they disagree with you, and you go straight for the ad hominem attacks every time you reply.

ttomaxneb18_ESO

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

kirnmalidus

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

kirnmalidus wrote: »

Because we don't hate ESO, we love it. We hate how Zenimax's mismanagement of updates is driving it into the ground.

This.
This is the real danger - killing off the fan base, a fan base cultivated over 20 years.

The perception, the image, of ESO at the moment is not good - and believe it or not, that is a very real problem because the game will die if enough people believe it to suck - whatever the game's very real qualities.

Damage control should be a priority, restoring confidence should be a priority, and I'm not just talking about the memory-leak bug.

This. Exactly. I posted this and sent the email to Bethesda today.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/101593/issues-with-the-latest-patch-and-zenimax-development

muze_ESO

Meh I quit the game as of today due to overall VR endgame. You play a single player game through level 1-50 and wins. No need to keep on paying for quest grind gaming that you die every other minute. Good Luck all that stay with the game.

one_eye

ttomaxneb18_ESO wrote: »

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

You know what I love? I love lots and lots of question marks and exclamation points.

Someday, I will be a VR9. And it's gonna be SWEEEET!

ZurinArctus

^ I concur your excellency.

Lord_Draevan

ttomaxneb18_ESO wrote: »

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

ZOS has said Veteran difficulty will be returned to pre-Craglorn difficulty in about 24 hours. This is a bug, not what they intended.

one_eye

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

ttomaxneb18_ESO wrote: »

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

ZOS has said Veteran difficulty will be returned to pre-Craglorn difficulty in about 24 hours. This is a bug, not what they intended.

Boom. And there you have it.

Kalann_Pander

one_eye wrote: »

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

People might take you more seriously if you weren't such a jerk when people disagree with you.

You're right, genius. I'm a jerk. Because when Zenimax hired me to infiltrate the ESO forums, they clearly instructed me to act like a jerk so I wouldn't expose my true nature as a Zenimax employee.

I never wrote that, ciannait did.

Please be kind to edit your post, you messed up your copy/paste.

Lord_Draevan

Source:
"ZOS_GinaBruno
Hey guys,
This change was not intended, though some VR content and monsters are indeed more difficult after yesterday’s patch. We are working on a fix now to revert the difficulty back to what you were familiar with prior to patch 1.1.2, and plan to have this rolled out in the next 24 hours. Thanks so much for your patience!"

kirnmalidus

one_eye wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

ttomaxneb18_ESO wrote: »

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

ZOS has said Veteran difficulty will be returned to pre-Craglorn difficulty in about 24 hours. This is a bug, not what they intended.

Boom. And there you have it.

Yes you have proof that this was a bug which should have been caught by QA and fixed before roll-out, which is all I have been saying today.

Kungfu

Slash8915 wrote: »

... After the trainwreck that was "official launch", you'd think they would have learned not to release things until they are fully tested.

You think the launch was a train wreck?
hahahaha

I submit that you have zero historical experience with MMO releases.

one_eye

kirnmalidus wrote: »

one_eye wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

ttomaxneb18_ESO wrote: »

What a hell do you talking about????Its not hard its Impossible!!!!!I got 1 hit kill from single mob on Vet9,im on full heavy armor and im templar tank!!! 1500-2800hit not from boss,from a single mob...What do you want defend????I played over 300H for Vet9,and now i can pull my caracter down in the toilette.... all my friend screwed up,cause not able kill 3 single mobs ... Defend what you wantr ,but dont forget you gonna be one time vet9 as well,and i hope they not gonna change nothing,or make more harder...enjoy!!!

ZOS has said Veteran difficulty will be returned to pre-Craglorn difficulty in about 24 hours. This is a bug, not what they intended.

Boom. And there you have it.

Yes you have proof that this was a bug which should have been caught by QA and fixed before roll-out, which is all I have been saying today.

You're right. They missed the bug. And it has been 48 hours of sheer hell on earth.

Do you see my point?

Lord_Draevan

paulhbowmanb14_ESO wrote: »

Slash8915 wrote: »

... After the trainwreck that was "official launch", you'd think they would have learned not to release things until they are fully tested.

You think the launch was a train wreck?
hahahaha

I submit that you have zero historical experience with MMO releases.

^This. If you think ESO had a bad launch... you would have died with most other MMOs on launch day.

kirnmalidus

one_eye wrote: »

You're right. They missed the bug. And it has been 48 hours of sheer hell on earth.

Do you see my point?

Sure maybe people are over-reacting to this specific bug. But that's because we aren't reacting to just this one bug. I think most people are smart enough to realize that this bug making it to the live server is a clear symptom of a larger problem that won't be resolved when the bug is fixed, whether it was/is fixed quickly or not.

You can treat symptoms or you can treat diseases. All we are hearing about is the treating of symptoms. As you have noted, it is possible they are also treating the disease internally as well. Only time will tell with that, but if the disease isn't fixed and the next major update they roll out introduces bugs like this one does…

Actually, on that point, the fact that they are willing to push a fix for this bug so quickly (and probably not thoroughly test it as a result), leads me to believe the underlying disease isn't being treated at all but rather is being encouraged to progress.

Kungfu

roflcopter wrote: »

Slash8915 wrote: »

one_eye wrote: »

Slash8915 wrote: »

The main issue is, this is no longer "launch". This was a big patch that ZoS supposedly spent a lot of time on. After the trainwreck that was "official launch", you'd think they would have learned not to release things until they are fully tested.

This would probably be acceptable if ESO were a F2P or even B2P game. But it's not. We made the initial investment of purchasing the game, then we have to pay an additional charge on a monthly basis. We expect a AAA game to be run by a AAA team.

That's a valid point. But it's still been less than 2 months. I've heard stories about major World of Warcraft issues that were going on years after that game came out. I think we differ on our expectations, is all.

Keep in mind, WoW came out in what? 2004? This is 2014.

I can remember old Nintendo / Atari / Sega games that are more refined than today's buggy console games. Every console game now needs patches / updates / bugs and fixes. Nothing in 2014 is ever a finished product where back in the 80s it was what it was, finished and polished.

Funny to think about things in the 80s being more polished and finished than they are now.

whats your point?

@roflcopter Yeah... cuz programming 64k 8-bit, barely interactive material full of all 20 hours of played content is totally equivalent to coding a semi-worldwide 64-bit, dynamic & instanced online world, human-to-human interactive game. That's a great argument.
Tell me when you win ESO too, please. I'd like to know where it stops -- cuz it must if it's like those original console games, right? Say... if I save the princess in Ebonheart, does it know I did it in AD?

@Slash8915 All 10 years has done in the development world is that it has sped up the learning curve and increased (exponentially) the amount of possible avenues a game can take as well as customer expectations. Using the excuse that WoW came out ten years ago as though it is reason enough for ESO to be absolutely bug-free in less than 2 months of live time is ridiculous and unrealistic.


@one_eye‌ I don't care what the coding-ignorant, self-centric ones suggest, I think you're on target. I experienced go-lives for UO, EQ, Shadowbane, SWG, WoW, EQ2, etc. (some I beta'd, some I was there for on day 1, and some I was a month late) but I actually think this go-live was smooth as silk. I also like how open this company is being about the work they are doing. It's about time we had a company who understands the importance of transparency.

...it's just too bad they haven't been rewarded with a customer base who can respect it.

Blackwidow

tordr86b16_ESO wrote: »

one_eye wrote: »

This is a video game. That's all. Just a game to play for fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boh92DrYEWs

Beta footage of ESO everybody!

CTraveler

Not even reading the comments just so I can say, I agree 100% with the opening post.

Saparok

I can't even try 1.1.2 yet. I'm looking at a launcher that is forcing me to download the entire game again from scratch, or at least 26GB worth of patch. That's not a "patch".

Scowler

ZOS is trying. So very trying.

I firmly believe ZOS is working their buns off trying to solve problems. A lot of money has been invested in ESO; no company will intentionally risk a substantial investment over launch bugs. Admittedly, it confounds me that a company with as much development experience as Zenimax would produce such a debacle as ZOS/ESO. I expect that ZOS will do their best to repair ESO... and if they are very fast, they'll still have some customers to enjoy the finished product.