Honestly, I'd rather we miss a release day than whatever this was

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by that_shawn_guy, Mar 26, 2020.

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  1. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    It's like watching an elephant fall down the stairs in super slow motion. Every hit is a cringe moment. But, who can look away.

    Please stop throwing elephants down the stair.
     
  2. Scoffer

    Scoffer Avatar

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    You may have to quantify this with which release. Last one was just as bad.
     
  3. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    I mean, past the "update was terribly broken beyond playing", What was in this release, once again? Re-Used cosmetics in the vault, Re-used scene on the new continent, Re-used seasonal boss, Patched in during previous release stuff, and an ornate out-house... Why is this even considered a release? what did you release?!

    I feel like in the past 6 months (or since the acquisition of Shroud of the Avatar by CatNip Games), "Releases" have been either pretty much empty, or just nerf fests. The only updates that have gotten people excited was double exp and increased attenuation limit... When the ONLY thing that makes people happy about your "Monthly Release" is a change in experience numbers, which actually makes players grind more worth it, there is a huge issue with your work. When I saw the 2020 vision, I was somewhat excited, but still told myself to hold off on too much excitement because I doubted how much could ACTUALLY be deliverable, and right now, I see NOTHING to be noted in the past few months... The only reason I and others played more was simply because the EXP got boosted, that is it, there hasn't been exciting stuff! I understand the bard skills aren't working, but the work on them feels slow! When are the 2 extra skills per tree coming? because that is something that would get people excited too, but no! When are ACTUALLY new scenes coming? Because that is on the backburner as well (I saw that new dungeon, but I am expecting over-inflated mob stats that means if you aren't in the top 5% you wont enjoy it, and anyways there will probably be nothing to make it actually worth going to once you have seen how it works once, because loot=poop, and exp rates are PROBABLY gonna be trash compared to any control point or Tartarus)...

    So yeah, I would be fine with skipping a release from time to time if it could mean getting some actual content in.
     
  4. Sulaene Moon

    Sulaene Moon Avatar

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    Hence the Outhouse theme.
     
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  5. Tazar

    Tazar Avatar

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    Considering that the bulk of the issues appear to be a corruption during upload, and it was fixed quickly, I am not concerned about it. I'm having fun with friends and that's what's important to me. And there was a lot more working in with Ep2 lands... town placements, etc. going on as well. I like the progress for such a small team. No - it's not perfect and I am sure everyone would like to see more - but it is still progress.
     
  6. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    I'm always impressed with the progress. Heck, I'd be impressed with this much progress with a team twice the size. Also, every game's release day is primed for issues.

    However, it is difficult to watch new players, that are unaware that it is release day, try to connect and see that the servers are down with no clear indication as to why. To see them wait an hour after the community tells them it is release day. Then to download the patch, bring up the game, and things are so broken they can't even get started with their game time.

    Bad builds happen. Servers mangle stuff. Every game's been there. In this case, their was a "down to the wire" client patch that was still being upload after the servers were already down.

    How much harm would it have down to delay by one day to have time to test on QA?

    Are the "optics" worse when missing a release by a few hours or a day than an unplayable release that takes hours to fix?
     
  7. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    Until some form of basic QA control is implemented, this will continue to happen.
     
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  8. Lained

    Lained Avatar

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    This but make lock down a day earlier and have time for testing the release version on QA first.
     
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  9. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    @that_shawn_guy

    Isn't there a login message that explains why the servers are down? Its been a while since I paid attention to that.

    What was wrong with the release, btw, I didn't notice
     
  10. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    I must have missed all the fun because everything seems to be working for me.
     
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  11. Doc Farnsworth

    Doc Farnsworth Avatar

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    Today was a bad Internet day all around, so its just not the servers of this game. Many sites were suffering today.
     
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  12. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    You couldn’t loot creatures, use crafting stations, use ferries or harvest anything (this was what I was unable to do).

    Then a new patch was released thankfully, that addressed all that.
     
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  13. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    Since no release number is important anyway because there is no PR team, and thus aren't broadcast beyond MassivelyOP, and they don't care about the number....

    and since you keep missing the important Anniversaries and Launch Anniversaries because of focusing on the number, squandering opportunities for PR for a number no one cares about anymore....

    and since the game is launched and has moved to a cash shop in game and thus the purposes of the monthly release (Crowd funding, look at our progress we will be a game some day + fund raising) basically gone anyway...

    and since the players had a rather long thread about the release cycle being counter productive...

    You have everyone's permission to throw out the monthly release.

    Good businesses pivot with the times. Everything about Shroud changed last year, pivot with it. Become the best you can be with what you have right now. Analyze your delivery, format, production, PR, all of it. Pretend you're coming in fresh.

    My opinion is a single "Anniversary" and "Launch Anniversary" PR event is worth more than 12 routine releases.
     
  14. Numa

    Numa Avatar

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  15. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Ranting aside: maybe we should slow down the release circle in general? Like evey two month instead of every month? Or the classic, every quater?
    Pretty sure nobody would complain about it. Well almost nobody of course because we are the SotA community ^^
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2020
  16. Sulaene Moon

    Sulaene Moon Avatar

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    That will never happen. Like most other things that have been proposed, for example fixing the basic mechanics rather than releasing Ep2 stuff, yet Sannio is busy with new scenes.

    This release doesn't even mention that it's an anniversary release, how sad is that?
     
  17. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    Let's not forget Sannio does artwork, wont help much with crafting, or fishing, or (most of) combat, or farming, or any other bugs, so I don't mind seeing Sannio working on a dungeon, as long as that dungeon is actually playable and enjoyable.

    The ones I wonder about are Bzus, and literally anyone else who could possibly be doing some coding, because apart from Chris, I don't know what this team is doing. For me the team is 5 people : Chris, who tries to do everything, so nothing is ever completed because he goes in too many directions at once. Sannio and List, they do world building, that is cool and important. After that, its Elgarion, who answers our wishlist requests and streams for short periods (less than before, so he is doing even less publicity for the game, but at least wishlist is answered now). And then Ravalox, who sometimes answers bug reports. If anyone wants to tell me there is someone else on the CatNip team, I doubt I'll believe them, sure, they might be on the payroll, but I think they are being paid to work on other projects, they just dont give a damn about this game, because they dont do anything for it. If it ain't chris, it ain't happening.


    Perfect example, crafting mastery. We heard talks of crafting mastery (or spec) for MONTHS. When did we actually see anything get done? When chris jumped in and did something, and we went from crafting spec with new effects, to crafting mastery which only gives rerolls...

    I just think Chris should stop having "meetings " with his multiple personalities (he must actually change chairs every time he changes personality) and just work on the game while everyone else is just freeloading...
     
  18. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    Guys, Agree 100%. Sorry but this was a comedy of errors, some our own making but with a heavy helping of bad luck on top of it. Too much stuff was "Almost done but not quite" on Tuesday so we delayed the build until Wednesday. Then Wednesday Unity crashed and corrupted the library which meant a full delete and reimport which takes 12 hours. The problem is there is another Unity bug that we hadn't identified yet. Though the project got a completely clean sync of the code and data and should have been good, on a clean open, Unity stomps one file in the local project even though it is read only when it imports one particular DLL. We had seen this happen before but weren't quite sure of the cause until this nightmare. I worked from 3AM Wednesday until the release on Thursday and got the build done and published 10AM BUT because of the lateness, I didn't have time to download the player version as I usually do to do a 2 client test. Usually someone from the team helps with this but for whatever reason, everyone else on the team seemed to sleep in late.

    I normally do a decent test but I was so slammed and I had thoroughly tested the exact same code and data on another branch so I just kept rolling. Problem is, the reimport made it so the Live branch was actually different than the other branches but just on the Windows version and just locally on the build machine. So even though it should have been identical, it wasn't. I did login and do my super quick test of load, zone, use some skills, jump and all worked fine solo.

    So going forward we're making some changes:
    • Gold candidate builds are going to be done Tuesday at the latest. If people don't have their stuff done, it goes into patch one not the GC build
    • We now know about the reimport issue and the damage it causes and will watch out for that
    • The rest of the team will Be away no later than 9AM to help me test and will test the gold build Tuesday as well
    • No morning of builds. Period. Just too many risks and honestly bad for my health. :(
    • We're going to stop being obsessed with the whole "We never ship late!" bull crap. I think that is just something we prided ourselves on but, like many of those old mantras we had, the reality is it is just damaging to the project.

    Super sorry for the frustration guys. We'll do better.
     
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  19. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    Thanks @Chris. I could not have asked for a better response!!!

    This project needs the team to be healthy and sane. Well, as health and sane as possible for a game devs. :)
     
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  20. Tazar

    Tazar Avatar

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    There are others... for example - you might want to click on the "Developer Tracker" at the top of any forum page. If you do it right now, you'll see that Wizardsmoke (Engineer) has 10 posts on the front page picking up bugs to work on, etc. Just because you miss seeing them doesn't mean you don't see their work and the results of it.
     
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