no one is bug testing the game *I* play

so i've been watching livestreams for a year, and the only answer to all questions is : 'we're working on it' so... what is the point of a livestream if that's the only answer? "working on it" for 3 years every livestream. time better spent debugging... or is it?

screen lock, working on it. skill exploits? working on it. economy issues? we know... we;re working on it. optimisation? we are NOT working on it, go buy more memory. More than any other game made, more memory needed than games starting development after sota...

here's a telling response "we are not experiencing this internally.," WTF? try bug testing the game I am playing, the external one, the one i reported the bug on. MAYBE we can get somewhere. Maybe some of these things can get fixed.

it took over two years to implement inventory stacking. How many more years to get simple bugs like crafting weapons turning to fire when skinning fixed? or the stupid looking immersion breaking rubber banding? or archery targeting getting fixed so it's not overpowered? or crafting reporting the correct state of our tool? or the amount of items left to craft?? or any quest that isn't A to B to back to A, like EVERY game on rails out there? like every promise made that this game wouldn't be that. Yet turns into that every release. Like an exclamation point over quest givers.

Can we just give money to a Whale, who will complain on our behalf, and get major things broke for years fixed quicker? like cloaks showing up thru avatar bodies?

really - just tell us who we have to suck up to to get the game WE play fixed....it'll save so many people's time. Because the money we are giving is apparently going to deco. useless deco. repeatedly.

Am I overreacting? no. The dev's JUST got around to being forced (they didnt just initiate it on thier own) to playing the game to level 40 as a new player without dev tool assists. On the game WE play (i hope - there is still some doubt they are on our game and not a perfect dev internal version) We've been at it for 4 years. What took so long?

THE HENDOMAN

 

Well, you haven't been paying attention, because a lot of the stuff they were working on has been implemented.

 

Starman - I love your posts and value your opinion.. and i am a little drunk and hasty. Yet...

i get a little bummed when bugs I submit are still around months later. After deco telethons.

AND i get a reply like 'we arent seeing this internally" so i don't get to play internally, why is the bug testing reported by us useful when it is external? See what i mean?

Whale input is still a viable and real thing. We've seen this again and again. and we will STIL see it until the Portalarium offices blasts off into space with our money for 'PR'

We're playing PLENTY of kickstarted games in development right now. so... ?

and NO this game ISNT much different than 1.5 years ago. Maybe you meant 4.5 years ago? to which i'll say 'oh, chickens in a basement? well... yeah. MUCH different. duh, it's 10.5+ millions later'

but 1.5 years ago? since that payday? not much difference

THE HENDOMAN

 

Whatcha drinkin? Hopefully sours. Sours changed my life, thems some good beers

 

@Barugon which? crafting fire? screen lock? linear quests? crafting items left? which have been dealt with that I mentioned in my post? rubber banding? i'm not seeing what was fixed that you said i talked about.Yes, they flushed out over 600 ALT accounts set up to bot.... but what I mentioned today? and for years with others? hmmm...

THE HENDOMAN

 

It's hard for them to fix a bug that you say you see if you don't give them enough detail to reproduce the bug. You can't debug a situation that you can't reproduce. It's not enough to say "this is broke", you need to find out how to repeatedly make it broke so the devs can break it too. Also, they may know about a problem, but there are hundreds of other problems that are of higher priority. It's not magic to fix them, it's hard work, and some things may not even be properly fixable until other things are fixed.

 

come on @Elwyn ... did /bug report, copied the clipboard to the report, did the reporting, did the repeating, over a year now...so.....things are fixable if you attach a priority to them. Right now, the priority is crafting/deco telethons which is useless imho.... The main game needs work.

THE HENDOMAN

 

So you didn't read the second part? Where they have hundreds of things to fix, many of which are not blockers for release?

 

I get it, it's an unwinnable arguement... Define 'blocker' it's different for each player. Does the majority want deco instead of gameplay? I doubt it. Hundreds of things to fix? Yep. Rightfully so... so GET TO THEM instead of pushing telethons for 'unique' pixels painted differently. EVERY bug relating to gameplay is a BLOCKER to a normal gamer. and deserves priority. Not deco. there are 6 unique maps. Every other instance is a placeholder. There are 5 monster types. For years now. Granted, they have only had the stupid looking rubber band effect for about 8 months now. 7 months too long, I think.

the whole point is, let's start bug testing the game I am playing instead of the internal one that bugs apparently don't show up on. It'll save EVERYONE some time on this planet.

THE HENDOMAN

 

Yes.

You're right of course that there are tons of things that need fixed/implemented. But it's a small team, and it's an ambitious goal "making a great game".

I do agree that there's often a disconnect between the developers communication and the day to day reality of the game we're playing. I have a huge list of bugs I've reported multiple times only to be told "it's by design", "we can't reproduce it" or something else. Then years later it's "fixed" and it turns out it wasn't by design, the QA team didn't understand the bug report, or something else.

But the reality of where this game is doesn't change, can't change, and won't change because you're tired of waiting for things to get fixed. They're doing the best they can with competing priorities (read: if they fix your bug they are not fixing someone else's) and the lack of time, money, and resources that a large publisher/development studio would have.

So yes, you're completely 100% totally overreacting. I hear you though, and the devs hear you too. It just doesn't change the way the world works.

 

grumble. Thanks for talking me down, @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos . You're right. I often forget how much fun i have with what's there.... it is what it is, and it IS fun to boot.... Thank you. I just WANT that damned screen lock.... and some way to play that doesn't involve 20 fingers and three arms , 2 mouses, and no keyboard max keystroke buffer.

THE HENDOMAN

 

you are right - rude on my part. i hereby withdraw

 

@The Hendoman I dread to think how many bugs are in the bug list, and how many are not fixed, how many come from internal, and how many from us, they do a fair bit of internal testing, but not to the same level of us (sad) people who sit down and have their prize gear, their hard earnt $ on an item, cos of course in theory if you work on the game Im sure you can "poof" your self up a whatever...

is it infuriating when you're fighting a mob and it decides its too far from where it starts and naffs off back to where it was, rapidly regenerating while you .. of course do not? yes.
Is it annoying that there are bugs that you run into due to maybe your gear, setup, choices, whatever?? of course it is

I only have 3 wishes.

1. I had heard about the game sooner and had gotten in sooner, so some of the things I want would be available
2. to find as many bugs as I can..
3. come release day, that i can sit here proudly thinking. I helped make this game all it is.. even if I choose to delete my toon and start again so I can capture all the stuff how it should be from the start...

I also secretly hope that on release QA is lauched as a second server, with all that goes with being a QA server... I played on test for QA for like 15 or 16 years.. as my main server.. id love to do that here.

 

I may not agree with all your points, but I don't find your comments rude either. If you withdraw I'll be very sad.

 

There's different people on the team doing the graphics work and the gameplay and bugfix work, so I don't think this is is a right complaint.

The most frustrating thing for me in reporting bugs in the past has not just been that I've seen the bugs still there after several releases, but I didn't even know if the devs had taken note and had the bugs ticketed, so wasn't sure my bug reporting was of any use. Its helpful now though that @Lexie now is giving us our bug report ticket numbers. I still kind of wish players were better tied into the bug report system. I've done beta testing in the past for companies like Microsoft and the testers all had access to bug report forms which showed dev progress on the issues you reported.

 

Because, internally, they can't afford to buy the infinite variety of hardware they would need to make sure they've replicated your exact environment in their testing. If a problem is unique to you then it's going to take more effort from you to get to the bottom of it.

It's a blocker if it stops you from playing the game. It's not a blocker if it doesn't.

Did you read what you pasted? It's a form, you're also supposed to fill it out, not merely copy and paste it. After 'Steps to Reproduce:' is where you're supposed to put the steps to reproduce, for instance.

 

I for one am glad the OP made his frustrations known. It has been rough personally to keep my cool about my own pet peeves around here. And cudos to OP for tempering his outburst. We are all in this together and should try to understand the frustrations out there and hope for the best. I am convinced the team is upset with the complexity and the sheer volume of bug tickets being generated. I hope they can get a handle on it all and don't compromise at the last minute.

 

I give a lot of latitude when it comes to bugs, simply because I know the team size is limited and each person wears several hats. They're eating the elephant one bite at a time, and somethings are bound to get on the backlog. This is likely even more the case when specific people are required to address the issues, yet already have their plates full with higher priority items or areas of dependency which need to be addressed first.

I think a true launch is a long ways out, but I'm willing to wait. I'd rather have them do it right and not cut corners. I can understand when people get frustrated, but for me, I assume I don't have the whole picture. I do other things while I wait.

One thing I do know is that this isn't their first rodeo, and I trust they're managing their time efficiently.

 

I think the bug #s help for a few reasons...if someone wants to check up on the status I'd prefer it if someone privately msged me and said 'hey what about this bug #? That is, if it was in a prior release and they can't see the form thread to tag me in it any longer.

That can clear up a lot of misunderstandings hella fast. While I'm not going to be able to share every single bit of information I may have as an employee (obvious) status updates are easy to do. As long as I'm not doing it all day and I can get more bugs submitted and ultimately closed Ultimately, the patch notes are gonna be the 'this issue is now closed' indicator.

 

Try playing on a laptop with a small screen at 5fps. At least I'm no longer getting carpal tunnel pain from having to right-click-drag to move the camera.