BackStabeth wrote: »Then I’m absolutely dreading the console release
Any other console players think that ZoS should suspend the release until
They can nail it?
They only allow for so many labor hours to test code, once that time is up, it's up and they spit it out. They are not interested in making solid code, they are interested in making a game that people will pay money for.
I was a WAN admin, responsible for 167 remote locations, all the retail code that went into the POS systems, etc. If I produced code, or allowed bad code to be distributed I would have been fired and would never have been able to get any other job in the computer industry.
If ZoS distributes bad code, nothing ever happens to anyone. And from what I can tell, it's been bad code all the way down the line, bad decisions driving by profitability and not reliability, over monetization without any regard to customer satisfaction. It's to be expecting from corporations that have grown so big and make so much money that they no longer have to care about individuals so long as they have everyone else willing to shell out money.
ZoS will never fix issues with ESO unless people stop paying and playing, a significant number of people. If we all went on strike, well then maybe they would get it in their heads they needed to treat their customers with more respect. But that's not going to happen.
The people making the real decisions live in a bubble world and have no idea, no clue of the frustrations of Players. They do not care so long as each quarter they show an increase in profit. And if they see they are not going to before quarterly earnings are reported, they cut the number of labor hours spent on testing code before it's released. They cut corners to show profitability because lets face it, the corporation really doesn't care about anything but showing their investors they are making money.
Long_Distance wrote: »Long_Distance wrote: »Then I’m absolutely dreading the console release
Any other console players think that ZoS should suspend the release until
They can nail it?
To me it seems they only test on internal servers. If they would've tested this " fix " on random pcs world wide they would've known how busted it is.
@TheFM Not the case. The PTS was up for several weeks for PC to test. So Zos does test on "random" PCs. Much of it is so few players test anything on the PTS and that server never gets the load we have on live. This testing is done worldwide as both PC/EU and PC/NA have access to the PTS the entire time. If their characters are not there they can use the templates to create a character.
So the big question is how many hours did you spend testing on the PTS this past cycle.
Many people did and so did I, none of these issues popped up. Even with the same pop OR LESS at the early hours of thed ay there are more issues than in the PTS, so it is clearly NOT an issue of how many were testing, but an issue of how they are testing the fixes to the patch.
Glad you participated. Since you did spend time on the PTS then you are fully aware that the population was extremely small compared to live. As a result, it should be very obvious that issues that present themselves with load and the greater variability of server stress are not and cannot be tested on the PTS due to the low population. So say what you wish but it should be plainly obvious the low PTS population would mean much can be missed and anything dealing with stress cannot properly be tested.
There's a couple of ways to mitigate the risks when you move from a test to a live environment with a major change:
1) You can do the changes incrementally and not deliver everything in one go.
2) You can encapsulate the changes so that you can have a back up plan to go back to a former state whithout pulling back new content.
3) You can preemptively lease new hardware ressources.
4) You can manage the user's expectations by pro-active communication.
5) You can mitigate user dissatisfaction with prompt reactions to feedback
6) You can have a dev team on alert to fast fix the most obvious and game breaking bugs.
...
Apparently non of this has been done.
1. Zos does do incremental patches Even their ”performance improvement” plan is being stepped out over several updates.
2. Pretty sure could roll back this last update if that was the smart way to go.
3. You are assuming the issue is with hardware resources.
4. I agree Zos could so a better job with communication.
5. This is the same as 4.
6. If you read Gina’s ”known issue” thread they were in it quickly. That doesn't mean it fixed quickly as the root of the problem and solutions are not immediately obvious.
You are clearly making assumptions about what was done.
Edit: I'm not suggesting Zos is run in an effective or efficient manner. I have cast blame for the issues on ESO where they belong and that's with Matt Firor. I have long believed he is over his head running the company and game and is the source is issues like the poor launch and the game getting to it's current state.
1. They merge a content release with a "performance" release. Could have been in two steps.
Then I’m absolutely dreading the console release
Any other console players think that ZoS should suspend the release until
They can nail it?
To me it seems they only test on internal servers. If they would've tested this " fix " on random pcs world wide they would've known how busted it is.
@TheFM Not the case. The PTS was up for several weeks for PC to test. So Zos does test on "random" PCs. Much of it is so few players test anything on the PTS and that server never gets the load we have on live. This testing is done worldwide as both PC/EU and PC/NA have access to the PTS the entire time. If their characters are not there they can use the templates to create a character.
So the big question is how many hours did you spend testing on the PTS this past cycle.
Many people did and so did I, none of these issues popped up. Even with the same pop OR LESS at the early hours of thed ay there are more issues than in the PTS, so it is clearly NOT an issue of how many were testing, but an issue of how they are testing the fixes to the patch.
Then I’m absolutely dreading the console release
Any other console players think that ZoS should suspend the release until
They can nail it?
To me it seems they only test on internal servers. If they would've tested this " fix " on random pcs world wide they would've known how busted it is.
@TheFM Not the case. The PTS was up for several weeks for PC to test. So Zos does test on "random" PCs. Much of it is so few players test anything on the PTS and that server never gets the load we have on live. This testing is done worldwide as both PC/EU and PC/NA have access to the PTS the entire time. If their characters are not there they can use the templates to create a character.
So the big question is how many hours did you spend testing on the PTS this past cycle.
Many people did and so did I, none of these issues popped up. Even with the same pop OR LESS at the early hours of thed ay there are more issues than in the PTS, so it is clearly NOT an issue of how many were testing, but an issue of how they are testing the fixes to the patch.
The blocking has been a problem all PTS and was stated. And instead of holding the patch and waiting until it was acceptable they pushed it and we are in the position we are in
Honestly there are several reasons that patching/fixing is not all that easy.(I will talk /address the pc side of the game only) Testing is generalized which does find the common bugs,which they do fix, however they can not "test" every possible combination of hardware in the pc eco system. Drivers have a major impact on any games performance /stability... thing is drivers can cause issues dependant on the hardware configuration supporting the card ie motherboard and its supporting chipsets ( north bridge/southbridge) networking chipset cpu and the rest all feed into the potental compatability issues or "bugs" problems one player may have but another player wont have. Easiest way to think of it in reality is that every piece of hardware on your pc talks its own language and has its own translator it uses to talk to other hardware bits the translators may get along perfectly well with some hardware sets but some times have intermittant issues with others. That is why its so important for us as users to give them our configs when reporting problems. Honestly the problem /bug could not a game issue but a coding error on some hardware/driver in a specific computer. In my now several decades long gaming history I can say i have had to install/remove install may drivers/versions due to incompatability. it not always the game coding to blame .