My main problem is that it is readily apparent that they aren't trying, at
least as far as testing is concerned. Nearly every change they put in does
not work the first time. This would not happen if they test half as much as
they claim to. Heck 1/10th as much as they claim to. I'd actually feel
better if they just said, well we don't do much testing we don't have time.
What really gets my butt burning is that they have the arrogance to lie and
say they do test thoroughly, when it is blazingly apparent upon a single
glance that they don't test hardly anything even the one time it takes to go
fire it up. That's the inexcusable part. Not that there are bugs or
problems, but that they can't bear to be truthful as to why the bugs get
onto the live servers in the first place. If GZ is even remotely accurate
when he says, "you should see the ones we do catch", then the ones they do
catch must crash the entire game because they sure can't seem to notice when
changes they put in just flat out do nothing.
Kit
-----Original Message-----
From: Blitz Krieg [mailto:
blitz_krieg@...]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 3:38 PM
To:
eqbards@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [eqbards] Re: Archmage Answers
From: "Blitz Krieg" <
blitz_krieg@...>
On the other hand, here's how I saw it:
I logged in and immediately tested clouding. After finding out it didn't
work, I wrote it off to another snafu and still am happy they decided to put
the change in. This doesn't mean we WON'T get it. It just means it'll be
next patch or the one after. Big deal. After a year of playing this game,
an improvement like this isn't going to kill me coming in a week or 2 late.
I don't plan on quitting the game any time soon, so in 4 months from now I
won't even remember "that week or 2 I 'should' have had the see invis
component and didn't."
I couldn't imagine being in a job where EVERY thing I did was questioned,
analyzed, reanalyzed, condemned and 2nd guessed at least 140,000 times.
Where you do something you see as positive and a section of people will
always think it sucks. How many changes went into the patch? 1 or 2 things
they missed for whatever reason doesn't account for much. Especially when
they WILL be fixed sooner rather than later. Shit does happen and I'm glad
someone (or 170,000 someone's) isn't there nitpicking at every move I make.
To compare an ever-evolving game with this large of a player base to a
single player game isn't fair. And I can think of numerous "professionally
released" pieces of software that are released buggy. Oftentimes with a
patch that does a worse job of explaining any fix if a fix even comes. I'll
name Windows 98 as a prime example. I feel Verant is doing as good a job
with what they're working with as ANY group could. With them, at least we
know they ARE trying. They may f*ckup, but they will keep trying. And one
day another game will come out that we'll all love to play more. But, they
obviously are doing something right, right now, or we all wouldn't be
playing or be so passionate about it.
Darkfox Reven'tsol
Xegony
> I try not to rant. I really do. I try to provide a working-man's,
> non-statistical insight into being a bard when I can.
>
> But I give up.
>
> I just simply give up.
>
> After logging in last night and seeing that Clouding's see-invis
improvement
> did not work, nor did the SLN improvement, I just threw up my hands and
said
> "Fuck it." I have no intentions of enthusiastically reading any more
> "Archmage Answers", patch messages or Abashi posts regarding, well,
> *anything*.
>
> I can think of no other professionally released piece of software used by
so
> many people that is regression tested as poorly as EverQuest. As a
> professional software developer myself, I find it truly staggering. As
> we've all observed on occassion when discussing Verant, people make
> mistakes, it's only natural. But to allow so many mistakes to get through
> to the customer? I just can't get over it. Verant does not seem to
realize
> the importance of their testing. Their market is computer gamers, a
> notoriously fickle crowd who have thousands of other titles to chose from
on
> a whim, with more hitting the shelves weekly. Giving those customers no
> reason to purchase and play another game should be their VERY HIGHEST
> priority. They seriously undermine their customer confidence when they
time
> and time again insist that something works a certain way and are proven
> wrong, or say that something has been fixed and instantly corrected by a
> huge number of their customers. Testing Clouding's see-invis aspect is so
> mind-numbingly trivial that for it not to have happened is inexcusable.
>
> [45 Bard] Crier (Half Elf) <Seekers of Norrath> ZONE: work
--------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ----------------------------
Shop for your Valentine at eGroups.
<a href="
http://clickme.onelist.com/ad/SparksValentine6 ">Click Here</a>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please send submissions for the eqbards newsletter to
lol@...
with the subject submissions.