A broken game

just__jack_2006prb18_ESO

Yeah it irritates me that these bugs which have been known for months and months are still present. In fact every single quest that was broken in the January, February and March beta events is still broken in exactly the same places except now relogging isn't even fixing them Examples? The Brothers of Strife quest line and killing Blaze. Some stupid issue. I quote a line from their AMA Q&A

"We are very aware of the blockers experienced in the last beta. We did find three underlying issues that affected a large number of quests that are exposed when many people are in the same area. We have fixed all three of those underlying issues."

Maybe, just maybe if you had done more than 10-12 days of beta testing in the last 4 months you would have found some more "underlying issues"

I did go ahead and collect Skyshards and find other quests to do but I'm not leaving Stonefalls until the main story is complete which means I will not play the game again until the fixes are in which means if quests are not fixed entirely by the end of the first month I will not subscribe.

alewis478b14_ESO

I haven't crashed yet but I do freeze up for 2-3 seconds every couple minutes. Just like I've been reporting since December.

I'm really just surprised that the game is such a step back compared to the rest of the industry. No Auction house? What *** guilds have you been in that you charge guild mates frequently enough to need your own auction house?

Grouping with phases is a pain.

At lower levels it cost far more to craft an item than you can sell it for. (even if there was an auction house.) Take out the style materials. Or lower their cost.

Name plates? There's option for them, but they don't seem to work.

You can't even make a decent forum.

ludvig.gustavssonb16_ESO

yeah this is pretty much a broken game, did you guys fix ANYTHING from the beta?

Shinozuka

Anyone can /bug a bug and /feedback anything you want to tell the developers that doesn't count as a bug. Like "Hey Devs you should totally add this..."
If you see a gold seller you can right click their name in the chat box and hit report. And even send a screen shot of the chat box showing the offending spam

Reignskream

Allot of people say allot of bugs are still present, but that is clearly not the case for me in beta, at all. So please do not speak for everybody when you have issues alone.

I dont think it has to do with them blatantly ignoring these bug fixes like people think they're. Its a server to user kind of issue, while im not well informed on how well it all works, this is how an MMO launch goes guys, we were well informed if you would have read the terms of service you accepted before creating your account/playing the game.

I sincerely hope everybody finds fixes to there issues soon so that you may get in game and enjoy your time.

Publius_Scipio

Reignskream wrote: »

Allot of people say allot of bugs are still present, but that is clearly not the case for me in beta, at all. So please do not speak for everybody when you have issues alone.

I dont think it has to do with them blatantly ignoring these bug fixes like people think they're. Its a server to user kind of issue, while im not well informed on how well it all works, this is how an MMO launch goes guys, we were well informed if you would have read the terms of service you accepted before creating your account/playing the game.

I sincerely hope everybody finds fixes to there issues soon so that you may get in game and enjoy your time.

Can't even login at the moment with the strange "login info incorrect" issue arising today.

Saerydoth

Disappearingone wrote: »

"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.

Because of the lawsuit-happy culture in the US, they HAVE to say this. It is absolutely a requirement to put this in. Every single MMO that exists has a similar clause in the terms of use.

Bansheedragon

Ojustaboo wrote: »

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

I understand what you are saying, and I see your point, but I think you make have missed part of my point.

When it comes to the car analogy I suppose you are right there, but it dont change the fact that many publishers are basically forcing the developers to rush the job and get the game out by a given time so they can get the best possible return on their investment in the shortest time possible.

Do I need to mention the BF4 debacle, and the lawsuit surrounding it as an example?

Which as I said in my previous post is something that has become gradually worse, to the point that people think that this is how thing should be.
I remember a time when games was released when they were ready for release and not in a half finished or beta state with fixes to glaringly obvious and gamebreaking bugs not being released for months up to a year after official release.

Dont get me wrong, I understand there are bugs and this is to be expected at launch, but when you have bugs that was reported months ago and are still bugged, despite claims that they had been fixed then I start wondering what is going on.

Either they did some damned sloppy work with, either with the design of the game or with the bug fixes.
Or they are telling us they have fixed it when they have not, hoping we will either not notice, or grow tired of waiting and "complaining" about it and then fix it whenever they feel for.

As for my mention of longer beta, my thought was not that they should hold a month long beta period.
The way they did it with the beta weekends was much better as it gave them time in between to work on fixing those bugs rather than have to divide their attention between the players complaining and fixing things.

The only thing I thought they should have done was to have postponed the game a month or two and hold another 2-3 beta weekends, to make sure things was working as intended instead of all the issues we have now.

Aoeurass

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.

yes my whole questline is broken too its almost impossible to progress w/o a you tube walk thru which is annoying for a supposedly "finished" game

its a very nice game id love to actually be able to play it...but if these main storyline & quest bugs arent fixed im cancelling & playing any other game w/o these major problems.

KracsNZ

The biggest issue for me is the fact that I'm experiencing the same bugs I reported through several betas.

That said I'm really enjoying the game, and though I've had several quests bug and a few dungeon runs where quests don't update or mobs don't spawn, I currently have only 1 quest stuck in my quest log (2 mobs won't spawn, multi-relogs, check a few times a day etc...). All the other bugged quests eventually resolve. To me that isn't bad for day 1 of a new MMO.

natters69

ive been involved in quite a number of mmo launches and so far for me this has been pretty stable, as i browse through these forums 90% of what im reading looks like words to my eyes but sounds akin to the sweedish chef in my head.
alot of whinging over what?? there is still many many many bugs in alot of much older mmo's some dating back to release im not going to list them because that brings me to you mobs level, its just how it goes.

steveb16_ESO46

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.

Not true. They wrote 'we fixed them' in patch notes. Unfortunately they didn't actually test the fix. Lucky they have all us paying beta testers to help out.

Feels to me like there is something fundamentally wrong with the basic technology. These bugs have been endlessly reported, fixed, reported and fixed and reported.

When things work this game is amazingly good and I'm going to be subbing but it cannot go on like this without taking a huge sales hit. Hitting quest walls or having to repeatedly perform absurd workarounds isn't the way to attract long term subscribers.

Whatever 'fix' there is should have been tested and the game not released until it was actually fixed.

Valn

These guys seem to know a lot about MMOs. Maybe you should make your own one where you can make everything the way you want?

steveb16_ESO46

Valn wrote: »

These guys seem to know a lot about MMOs. Maybe you should make your own one where you can make everything the way you want?

No one needs to be a game developer to know you actually need to test fixes under the conditions that cause the problems and that it is not appropriate to treat paying customers as beta testers.

AngryNord

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

Valn wrote: »

These guys seem to know a lot about MMOs. Maybe you should make your own one where you can make everything the way you want?

No one needs to be a game developer to know you actually need to test fixes under the conditions that cause the problems and that it is not appropriate to treat paying customers as beta testers.

Don't feed the trolls.
(This forum needs an /ignore function though...)

Darzil

I've certainly seen some issues that aren't fixed, some that are (final quest out of Bleakrock now works without a relog, I had to /reloadui after crafting a LOT less than penultimate beta). Some are going to be hard to fix (the client seems to handle the packetshaping that many ISPs use very badly, not sure what the fix was for other MMOs, maybe negotiating them to packetshape only the downloads, not the game traffic), and there are certainly some unusual problems as a result of some of the unusual design decisions (showing login id as your main handle - you don't even get forums where that happens, only getting promotional items on one character due to having chosen to have shared mail, lack of controls customisation due to 'centre of screen is god', only one menu open at a time (SWTOR was the same, it's horrible - I hate it most doing /bug reports, where you have to write down the information before you start or memorise it), information available in API for modders that isn't in the game (a balance nightmare), thousands of trading guilds needed - I'm hoping this is just until they add DAoC style instanced housing/merchants), or lack of dev time (eg crafting it's hard to see which recipes you've learned, or which ingredients you lack etc, I understand because it was a recent re-write). Still, it's an MMO, and improvement over time is expected, and always needed.

It's not the smoothest launch for me (that was SWTOR), but it's far from the worst for me so far (LOTRO had frequent issues for the first couple of weeks where the handoff between physical servers wasn't working correctly, so you would get stuck at area boundaries and be unable to move outside a small area).

fantor_ESO

Game lock-ups are really bad..:-(