A broken game

jciz75

There are currently a number of quests that are broken for one reason or another. As a paying subscriber, I would like to know what exactly is being done to address these problems and when the fixes will be in place.

At this point, the problem with broken quests is causing serious issues related to character progression as some of the issues are main quest line related.

Another game breaking issue is when the game suddenly hangs and crashes, resulting in a required restart. This is also game breaking.

While not game breaking, the issue with characters suddenly dismounting from their horses should also be addressed, but not before the critical issues mentioned above.

I would like to recommend this game to my many friends and family that play MMORPG's, but cannot do so when the game is in such a broken state.

I would like to end this with a request that each and every person who experiences game hindering issues submit in game bug reports. If we flood the developers with these, they will have no choice but to address the issues.

Samoset

They are aware of the bugs. Think of it this way: it's not that bad of a launch compared to most MMOs. Along with that, posting in the forums about broken quests with no specifics isn't going to help them, and will just add to the flood of other people saying/screaming the same things.

What we really need from ESO is an official response and ETA of a patch fixing game breakers and preorder/ie item problems. I have scoured the internet and they haven't said anything helpful since yesterday morning really.

Frankly, I think most of the people complaining about stability issues are really complaining about user issues, or issues with their own rigs/computers.

But I will say, the bugs are annoying and ruin alot of it. That being said, the game is still fun, it's still possible to level up, and it's still possible to progress. Just not in the fashion that we necessarily desire.

Lonn87b16_ESO

They have been aware of these issues for over 4 months and they haven't done a thing about them since they first got wind of them, I'd love an explanation as well actually.

Kyosji

Also, this is one of the 'smart' reasons to hold a 'early access'. The game is not technically out, so in some form you are still in a mini beta. It gives them more time to fix most of the starter area bugs before the true launch.

Samoset

I'm trying to not be critical of their timing, seeing as the game is insanely massive. But yes, they need an official statement and ETA. Preferably before true launch, before their problems get even bigger.

Samoset

Should have just placed a vendor at the start of the game that you can return to. Would have avoided all of this.

elfindreams

RE: Crash and Hang. I played 18h yesterday and only suffered two crashes. The first was due to raid frames and an incompatible beta addon I had loaded (If you are having frequent crashes, first thing to try is disabling all addons.) The second was due to having about 50 or so people all try to enter a dungeon at the same time in Cyrodil. So not really a surprise. Other than that I had 0 crashes the whole day. I would suggest trying a few diagnostic steps to see if it is a problem with the game or an incompatability with your system... the normal steps of disabling addons or other software running in the background, updating drivers and the like.

RE: broken quests. There are a couple of these for sure. Surprisingly few for a launch tho. I am sure they will address them. At least one of them could be solved by logging out and back in to re-instance (the help the north priestess one) provided people weren't just milling around the area hoping for something new to happen.

I am starting to wonder if the horses thing is actually a bug. It seems to dismount if sprinting over uneven ground. If you go slower over uneven ground it seems to keep you on the horse just fine. Near the end while wandering around Cyrodil to pick up skyshards, I got to the point where I was never getting dismounted because when I started going over rocks or up inclines and the like, I simply stopped spurring the horse on. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense as if you ride a horse hard over uneven surfaces you are asking to get thrown and possibly end up injuring or killing the horse and/or yourself. I think part of the problem is the feedback for this is not ... clear. I.E. it is hard to tell if it is intentional or as people assume a bug. Maybe a distress sound when the horse dismounts you due to "injury" would solve a lot of the problem.

Samoset

Horse bug: when they added NPC collision, this was a side effect from what I hear. They are working on it apparently as well

Blackhorne

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jciz75 wrote: »

I would like to end this with a request that each and every person who experiences game hindering issues submit in game bug reports.

I think you'll find that every ZOS developer would request exactly the same thing.
They need the in-game bug reports and the submissions from the crash reporting tool, because those provide much more detailed information than a forum post or support request. Why do you think they built the in-game bug report feature?

If we flood the developers with these, they will have no choice but to address the issues.

They have no choice but to address these issues anyway: that's their job. The difference isn't whether they'll address the issues; the difference is whether they'll know what issues to address and how to address them.

The in-game bug reports aren't a way to annoy the developers into action; the developers built the reporting tool in hopes that we would use it. So yes, use it, not to force them to act but to provide them with the information they desperately want us to provide to them.

Blackhorne

Lonn87b16_ESO wrote: »

They have been aware of these issues for over 4 months and they haven't done a thing about them since they first got wind of them, I'd love an explanation as well actually.

As someone who participated in the beta, I have a long list of issues I encountered, reported, and can attest that that they did, indeed, fix. This list is much, much, much longer than the list of issues they have not fixed yet.

You are still seeing issues, but not because they "haven't done a thing"; there are still issues because all of the things they've done have solved every single possible issue.

This is why in-game bug reports are so important -- they include details about the specific circumstances under which you encounter the bug which help point the developers to the bugs they haven't found yet.

taho22b14_ESO

Whichever way you look at it, some statement, response, or acknowledgement from ZOS needs to be made. The lack of dev feedback is disheartening. My guess is that they don't have a solution.

Samoset

Blackhorne wrote: »

Lonn87b16_ESO wrote: »

They have been aware of these issues for over 4 months and they haven't done a thing about them since they first got wind of them, I'd love an explanation as well actually.

As someone who participated in the beta, I have a long list of issues I encountered, reported, and can attest that that they did, indeed, fix. This list is much, much, much longer than the list of issues they have not fixed yet.

You are still seeing issues, but not because they "haven't done a thing"; there are still issues because all of the things they've done have solved every single possible issue.

This is why in-game bug reports are so important -- they include details about the specific circumstances under which you encounter the bug which help point the developers to the bugs they haven't found yet.

So true. Thank you. Lol.

Blackhorne

taho22b14_ESO wrote: »

Whichever way you look at it, some statement, response, or acknowledgement from ZOS needs to be made. The lack of dev feedback is disheartening.

I agree, but as someone who's worked in software development and support, I know that sometimes the choice is between fixing bugs or communicating about fixing bugs. This is often the case in alpha and beta testing.

I'm hoping that communication will become better as the backlog becomes smaller, and I'd really like to see a patch on 4/2 which addresses many of the remaining bugs.

There should be some communication mechanism for known issues --I'd love to see a "Known Issues" section on the forum or in the support KnowledgeBase.

Bansheedragon

Kyosji wrote: »

Also, this is one of the 'smart' reasons to hold a 'early access'. The game is not technically out, so in some form you are still in a mini beta. It gives them more time to fix most of the starter area bugs before the true launch.

I supposed it depends on your point of view whether or not Early Access is to be considered another beta or part of the launch.

But semantics aside, if they cannot fix the bugs that have been reported to them over the last 4 months, before the game launches, then they should have delayed the launch until they were fixed.

When you buy a car, you expect it to be in fully working order.
You dont have things like the lights not working and the car either not starting at all or only occasionally, and then have the seller tell you something like "Come back in a month, and we will have a fix ready for you".

A game is no different, it should be working when they release it.
Sure it cannot be in 100% working order, but when you have major game and progression breaking bugs like in this game then its simply not ready for release.

Over the past decade this is something that has become gradually more common, to the point where people are saying "its to be expected" and " they will fix it eventually".
I didnt pay to play a half finished game, I paid to play a fully functional and working game.
Minor and occasional glitches and bugs I can accept and live with, but this is not minor, this is only a half finished job.
Many people cannot log in at all, and those that can get in, are met with major and game-breaking bugs that prevents them from progressing.

Sakiri

The broken quests worked as recently as the last build.

Almost makes me wonder if they rolled that back or something.

elfindreams

eq2imora_ESO wrote: »

The broken quests worked as recently as the last build.

Almost makes me wonder if they rolled that back or something.

I suspect it is more complicated than a rollback. I suspect it has to do with multiple participants and exit conditions. For example there is a quest on AD side where you have to protect a priestess. If you leave the area the priestess starts to cringe and the quest fails. It is having problems I think in part because if someone starts the quest and someone else fails it in the same instance the priestess stands there cringing until everyone leaves the area (and there always seems to be people who want to just stand there in the hope it will get better).

It is possible the problem didn't come up last build in beta when you ran it because the "fail condition" wasn't getting triggered when you did it.

But that is all conjecture on my part.

SirPwyll

My observations through the beta and yesterday suggest that there is a common issue related to the broken quests. They all appear to be similar in that the next step of the quest, be it an object or NPC, doesn't spawn. I think this is related to how they are handling open instancing, where each player experiences what is appropriate for them given the stage of the quest they're on. I think that the servers aren't always responding with the correct next step and this is probably made worse by heavy server loads. A lot of people on the same quest step and the server is still trying to process a request in the queue well before yours. The quest processing thread (assuming there is such a thing) may not be at a high enough priority to get through all of the requests.

Samoset

^Makes good sense. I've noticed that they are all similar as well, and seem to act almost like a lag or processing delay of some sort.

jciz75

I understand that TESO is brand new game and is going to have problems at launch. All I ask is that they take time to acknowledge that the issue exists and give us an idea on when it will be addressed. I really do like the game and don't want to see if fail due to a bad release. While PC players will understand these issues, many console players will not.

Reignskream

jciz75 wrote: »

I understand that TESO is brand new game and is going to have problems at launch. All I ask is that they take time to acknowledge that the issue exists and give us an idea on when it will be addressed. I really do like the game and don't want to see if fail due to a bad release. While PC players will understand these issues, many console players will not.

They would have been more/well informed then if they would have read what they accepted as far as the terms of service go.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

jciz75 wrote: »

There are currently a number of quests that are broken for one reason or another. As a paying subscriber, I would like to know what exactly is being done to address these problems and when the fixes will be in place.

At this point, the problem with broken quests is causing serious issues related to character progression as some of the issues are main quest line related.

Another game breaking issue is when the game suddenly hangs and crashes, resulting in a required restart. This is also game breaking.

While not game breaking, the issue with characters suddenly dismounting from their horses should also be addressed, but not before the critical issues mentioned above.

I would like to recommend this game to my many friends and family that play MMORPG's, but cannot do so when the game is in such a broken state.

I would like to end this with a request that each and every person who experiences game hindering issues submit in game bug reports. If we flood the developers with these, they will have no choice but to address the issues.

99% of the time a quest is "broken" it is because too many players are doing it and screwing each other off (anyone remember TSW's launch?). The horses have an unseen stamina bar when empty it bucks you.

Ojustaboo

Bansheedragon wrote: »

Kyosji wrote: »

Also, this is one of the 'smart' reasons to hold a 'early access'. The game is not technically out, so in some form you are still in a mini beta. It gives them more time to fix most of the starter area bugs before the true launch.

I supposed it depends on your point of view whether or not Early Access is to be considered another beta or part of the launch.

But semantics aside, if they cannot fix the bugs that have been reported to them over the last 4 months, before the game launches, then they should have delayed the launch until they were fixed.

When you buy a car, you expect it to be in fully working order.
You dont have things like the lights not working and the car either not starting at all or only occasionally, and then have the seller tell you something like "Come back in a month, and we will have a fix ready for you".

A game is no different, it should be working when they release it.
Sure it cannot be in 100% working order, but when you have major game and progression breaking bugs like in this game then its simply not ready for release.

Over the past decade this is something that has become gradually more common, to the point where people are saying "its to be expected" and " they will fix it eventually".
I didnt pay to play a half finished game, I paid to play a fully functional and working game.
Minor and occasional glitches and bugs I can accept and live with, but this is not minor, this is only a half finished job.
Many people cannot log in at all, and those that can get in, are met with major and game-breaking bugs that prevents them from progressing.

While I understand and to a point agree with you, the simple fact is that if we want to play these types of games, we do have to put up with it.

The car anology is very different as it's an entirely different thing with high tech factories churning out identical products one after another (and even then there's been some huge recalls over the years).

A multi player online PC game has to deal with a mind numbing different selection of hardware, then many people connect in different ways, then there's the kit the various isps use etc etc etc.

They can beta test until they are blue in the face but until they go live, they will never be able to tweak the servers properly, which is why so many of us say it's to be expected or its the norm.

If they ran a huge open beta lasting about a month, too many people would have completed too much of the early part of the game which means come launch, many more players rush through the early content and that can cause problems such as getting to end game much quicker than was anticipated for the average player. And come the actual launch many non beta players would join, find problems with their PC etc (and zenimax would find unforseen problems their end), and still say the games not ready.

So we don't have any choice if we want to play these types of games.

Where zenimax and others screw up is with their wording.

They should offer us our pre order bonuses and put a note in saying something like
" we are letting all people who pre order, on to our game 5 days before the official launch date, this early start is in addition to and not part of your pre order bonus. During this early start you may experience a few issues as we put the final tweaks onto our megaservers"

Trouble is, if any company did that, the games press would have a field day spinning what was said to imply the games not finished etc. So the games companies are damed if they do, and damed if they don't.

Personally I have been pleasantly surprised as to how many bugs I experienced last beta now seem fixed.

As to the argument that we are subbing, I'm sure that if the game is unplayable for any day during the month (normal maintenance aside) , we will get that time credited and I'm also sure that if any player is unlucky enough to take a week before zenimax can sort out why that player can't log in etc, again I would be very surprised if zenimax didnt credit that player with any lost days.

So yes I would love games to release virtually bug free but given the choice, I would put up with the bugs until they are fixed, than not have the games at all

Poxs

Samoset wrote: »

They are aware of the bugs. Think of it this way: it's not that bad of a launch compared to most MMOs. Along with that, posting in the forums about broken quests with no specifics isn't going to help them, and will just add to the flood of other people saying/screaming the same things.

What we really need from ESO is an official response and ETA of a patch fixing game breakers and preorder/ie item problems. I have scoured the internet and they haven't said anything helpful since yesterday morning really.

Frankly, I think most of the people complaining about stability issues are really complaining about user issues, or issues with their own rigs/computers.

But I will say, the bugs are annoying and ruin alot of it. That being said, the game is still fun, it's still possible to level up, and it's still possible to progress. Just not in the fashion that we necessarily desire.

Most MMO's do launch with Bugs but NONE that I have played have had the bugs in the MAIN storyline, making the bug a show-stopper. I have played a LOT of MMO's.
Even Tabula Rasa that was bashed for the number of bugs in it at launch had NO show-stoppers. They were addressed and fixed in Beta.
I do not consider the Horse bug a show stopper but when you can not collect orbs to charge the staff (1 bug) or if you do actually get the staff charged and then can not use it because one of the three mobs that you need to summon is a no-show (2nd Bug in same quest) IS a show-stopper.
Show-stopping bugs should NEVER make it to the consumer.

wllstrt75b14_ESO

Same bugs now after four betas, the quest issue seems to be related to server load, the longer they go and the heavier the load the more quests get jacked up. By the end of the weekend betas if they did not restart more then 50% of the quests could not be finished.
I can not believe they have yet to comment on this or solve this issue. As predicted this will be very much an issues more people play the game. IMO that just *** terrible support and service, and really questions the integrity of the company.

Lamprey

"Ojustaboo wrote: »

While I understand and to a point agree with you, the simple fact is that if we want to play these types of games, we do have to put up with it.

I really want to bust you down for saying that in a very unkind way. But, I'll try to be nice.. It is NOT ok. We, as consumers, need to let the companies that make these games know that is unacceptable to "release" a game in this condition.

I listened to all the people on the forums and in the game in beta tell me that very possible bug had been fixed months ago and that beta was just a stress test. I certainly believed that beta was a stress test. But, no company in there right mind would beta something so flawed. It painted the company and the game in a very bad light. Unfortunately, for those of us that purchased the game, that light is shinning rather brightly.

I'm not going to tout my MMO credentials, because who cares? But, this is one of the worst launches I've seen.

Poxs and wllstrt75b14_ESO get it. You simply cannot have show stopper bugs of this magnitude at launch (yes I know "launch" isn't until Friday, but this isn't supposed to be beta anymore).

atwon23

My problem with some peoples mindset is they keep saying wait until the 4th. Like somehow all the bugs that made it through months and months of beta testing will get patched in the next 4 days.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The team is hard at work fixing issues with quests and systems, to name a few, and we hope to have those fixes out for you soon. In the meantime, we certainly encourage you to use /bug in-game if you come across something that appears to be working incorrectly. Thanks again for your help!

morourkejthsnub18_ESO

To those who are saying this game is completely broken, the launch is terrible, or any of a variety of criticisms, I would like to point something out: I have had one quest bug, zero crashes, across about 15 hours of game play.

I don't mean this in a "look how lucky I am" sort of way. I mean this in a "the problems are really complex" sort of way. Because the game works fine on my computer, and, for some reason, it doesn't work as well on others. This alone shows that the problems are difficult and complex, and perhaps shouldn't be taken as a total launch failure.

Because, while the game may not work for you (and you have my sympathies), it works great for others. My question then becomes: which is more frequent? The completely broken experience, the sort-of-buggy-but-totally-playable experience, or my own pretty-damn-good experience. Only on answering that question can we actually determine the quality of the launch. Without that data, it is all conjecture based on anecdotal evidence.

Disappearingone

"ZeniMax has no obligation to make available any patches, updates or modifications or correct any errors or defects in the Services."

I'm sure they will, but this is a scary thing to say in EUA.

Valwardon

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The team is hard at work fixing issues with quests and systems, to name a few, and we hope to have those fixes out for you soon. In the meantime, we certainly encourage you to use /bug in-game if you come across something that appears to be working incorrectly. Thanks again for your help!

I am not in game right now. However I did not know about the /bug command. I keep falling through and getting stuck inside of things like steps. I fall through bridges as well. I often question how does a solid pass through something more dense then itself. I believe ESO gave me my answer. You can climb stairs and fall through the stairs to be stuck there till you spend the 50 gold to get out of jail.

Publius_Scipio

morourkejthsnub18_ESO wrote: »

To those who are saying this game is completely broken, the launch is terrible, or any of a variety of criticisms, I would like to point something out: I have had one quest bug, zero crashes, across about 15 hours of game play.

I don't mean this in a "look how lucky I am" sort of way. I mean this in a "the problems are really complex" sort of way. Because the game works fine on my computer, and, for some reason, it doesn't work as well on others. This alone shows that the problems are difficult and complex, and perhaps shouldn't be taken as a total launch failure.

Because, while the game may not work for you (and you have my sympathies), it works great for others. My question then becomes: which is more frequent? The completely broken experience, the sort-of-buggy-but-totally-playable experience, or my own pretty-damn-good experience. Only on answering that question can we actually determine the quality of the launch. Without that data, it is all conjecture based on anecdotal evidence.

Well you definitely are lucky, many of us would like to be in your boat. And a portion of your luck definitely comes from the random chance you were in a properly working instance of the game. There are some quests I know of that a log out and back in changes your instance and the quest can begin to function properly.

Early access honestly feels like another beta session to me, and lots of the bugs we are all discussing are ones from the last few beta sessions that the patch notes said were squared away.

We all paid a premium to get some pre-order perks, one being early access to the game. Beta is beta but right now we are in time we paid for.