General: Jennings: The Truth Behind Bugs

Stradden

Scott Jennings is the latest addition to our all-star MMORPG.com columnist roster. This veteran game designer has worked for Mythic, NCsoft and others. He also pioneered video game blogging with his infamous Lum the Mad website.

Every Wednesday, Scott will go "inside the sausage factory" to give us a behind the scenes look at how MMO companies really work. Today, he focuses his column this week on the actual process behind bug in MMORPGs, having experience with the issue both as a player and as a developer.

“Why doesn’t someone just fix these bugs already?”

This is a common complaint of anyone who plays MMORPGs Every game has bugs, great and small – the better ones only have ones that inconvenience you or perhaps block you from completing a quest unless you wait in line for a GM to fix it manually. The worse ones prevent you from playing the game entirely – anywhere from servers going offline and staying there to the client simply “crashing to desktop” and refusing to run at all. Probably the worst MMORPG bug in my memory was when during Anarchy Online’s beta, a patch actually wrecked the operating system. Crashing your own game is bad enough but when you trash Windows on the way out the door, there's some issues.

Read Jennings: The Truth Behind Bugs.

Czargio

 I like how you say we shouldn't reward failure. The MMO business is the only one that can release unfinished products and not be crucified for it. 

Gabby-air

I like this guy, nice article as always. By the way wasn't today Dana's day to post?

Player_420

Good article....

I think theres a big difference between people who played UO (when released) and people who played WoW as their first MMO. WoW was pretty buggy at end levels, but Blizz kept such a good live team rolling, they satisfied the hardcore players; and stomped out bugs fairly well.

However those of us who were there for UO got so many insane bugs and crazy shit that none of us take it as offensively as some others.

biofellis

.

Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.
Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).
No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.
Right?
The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).
And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.
The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

tro44_1

So what MMORPG out there handles their Bugs the BEST in your Opinion?

Frobner

Originally posted by tro44_1


So what MMORPG out there handles their Bugs the BEST in your Opinion?

 

WOW without a doubt.  You do not see a patch come out from them that has very much to fix after.  Compare that to WAR for example.  Last patch that supposedly was good acording to Mythic brought out one class(Choosen)  that had totally broken core aura system (took 6 days to fix)  - a scenario map that froze when you put down flag at the bridge (took 2 weeks to fix) and a lion that ran with you through the air when you flew away from Altdorf  (dont know if its fixed yet).  This is just to name few...

eric_w66

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.
Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).
No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.
Right?
The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).
And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.
The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

 

You've never made a mistake? Amazing. "There are no excuses for bugs. Never".

Obviously written by a person who's never coded more than a "Hello, World" program, and maybe not even that.

Heck, just NOW at my work, I'm being hit by a "bug" in software I maintain that is crashing whenever a report is being run or a query being made on the database... yet it works in hundreds if not thousands of other places just fine. Why? Because the place where the crash is happening has people who have no idea how to use or manage a computer network, and the network crashed, and they couldn't figure out how to reconnect to it on one of their machines. Is it a bug in my code? Nope, but it is my code that is crashing because of their (bad) system configuration. So I get to work on a "bug" that isn't my "bug" at all.

 

Matata

 Interesting article, it was a nice read....

 

But seriously, branding a game nowdays as an MMO is becaming synonymous to 'incomplete', 'Under construction' and whatnot. Somehow it has become the norm to release games that are either incomplete or full of bugs or both, like AoC or WAR to name just a couple.

Sorry, but I am with   biofellis and the rest on this. Frankly I do not care what a company has to do to fix this issues and release a decent product. Maybe not pay millions of dollars for marketing/hyping a product 4 years before release and employ more people instead?... just a thought

ThomasN7

I worked in the computer operations field for 18 years and reporting/fixing bugs was an everyday task. I think as long as there are no "game breaking" bugs people can live with that temporarily because nothing is perfect. There still is no excuse for not fixing anything at all though. How many games have we played over the years that is has taken developers over 6 months to fix simple issues. Some developers care about how their game plays while the majority do not as long as you keep paying that monthly fee.

Fobok

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

 

• Many early surgeons used only strong alcoholic beverages as the only form of anesthetic and believed pus was good. A lack of any knowledge of the existence of bacteria led to most surgery patients dying of infection. Surgery was happening for nearly 2000 years before they figured it out, and mistakes still happen on the table.
• Airplane maintenance wasn't very successful in the early years either. Look at the myth of gremlins, which were invented by pilots to explain the strange mechanical failures in aircraft which we now know could have been avoided with proper maintenance.
• Yet, innocent people end up in jail quite regularly. There was an example just last month of someone being released after spending over a decade in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

So, I think the point in the article stands. We shouldn't accept bugs without complaints, just like we wouldn't accept any of the examples above without complaints. But given the MMO technology is so new, just like the early airplane technology mentioned above, bugs will happen in even the most professional of companies.

 

Frobner

Originally posted by eric_w66

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.
Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).
No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.
Right?
The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).
And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.
The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

 

You've never made a mistake? Amazing. "There are no excuses for bugs. Never".

Obviously written by a person who's never coded more than a "Hello, World" program, and maybe not even that.

Heck, just NOW at my work, I'm being hit by a "bug" in software I maintain that is crashing whenever a report is being run or a query being made on the database... yet it works in hundreds if not thousands of other places just fine. Why? Because the place where the crash is happening has people who have no idea how to use or manage a computer network, and the network crashed, and they couldn't figure out how to reconnect to it on one of their machines. Is it a bug in my code? Nope, but it is my code that is crashing because of their (bad) system configuration. So I get to work on a "bug" that isn't my "bug" at all.

 

 

Mistakes are made ofc... thats why you have tests - after tests after tests.

I dont care what kind of crappy software you are using.  Obviously its a bad one - or your a bad coder that cant create a structured system to work with.

Compare single player RPGs and MMOs.  Would a single player rpg that doesnt play for more than 5 mins without closing because of memory leak  be considered acceptable at release ?   No ofc not - you would ask yourself who was actually testing that game before it was released. 

If 1000 ppl all made mistakes that leads to a bug that is causing game to crash - then something is very wrong.  It has nothing to do with mistakes.  Nothing....

And explain to me why Games like WAR and AOC seem to have alot more of those "bugs" that are based on the user's (bad) configuration - compared to ... lets say ... WOW ? 

You know it and I know it.  It has nothing to do with mistakes... it has to do with quality control.

Why hasn't WOW released more battlegrounds ?  Because creating a flawless map with minimised chance of expoiding is massive task.  And they accept nothing else than "flawless".

Unknown

Decent article...but no mention of EVE's infamous deleting of the boot.ini file? That's the most calamitous one I remember.

biofellis

.

erictlewis

Very good article.  I been working in IT systems for 24 years.  I can say not only games have bugs but code for regular bussines ssystems does too. However it was my job as well as the other programmers job to go about fixing these when they did crop up.  I know that a lot of game companies dont have the staff after a huge push, but fixing bugs should be a priority when it causes a total stop to the gameplay of lots of players.

Some bugs are easy to live with, other bugs are not.   I don't mind bugs unless they totally mess up game play and are so bad that it affecs every playrs ability to do the task.

For instance in LOTRO you had the spiders, that went invisible at for book 7.  You also had a hole in the landscape that cause players to be stuck for hours on end in Rotten cellar. You had the entrance to Carn Dum Cassle that manullly required a gm to fix it.  Otherwise you would wait for hours.  It took months on end about 6 of them to fix most of these.  However the spiders in dolen veiw instance are still invisable, it is still a playble instance but is not that fun.  Instead of fixing these bugs, they went on a crucade to fix the bugs that were benifiting players instead of fixing the bugs that were causing players a hard time.

Like I said I don't mind bugs its how a company goes about fixing them.  I cant only complain about LOTRO, one of the worst violators is SOE as well. I could write pages about the bugs that existed in SWG before it went to the NGE. 

 

biofellis

.

Frobner

Originally posted by erictlewis


Very good article.  I been working in IT systems for 24 years.  I can say not only games have bugs but code for regular bussines ssystems does too. However it was my job as well as the other programmers job to go about fixing these when they did crop up.  I know that a lot of game companies dont have the staff after a huge push, but fixing bugs should be a priority when it causes a total stop to the gameplay of lots of players.
Some bugs are easy to live with, other bugs are not.   I don't mind bugs unless they totally mess up game play and are so bad that it affecs every playrs ability to do the task.
For instance in LOTRO you had the spiders, that went invisible at for book 7.  You also had a hole in the landscape that cause players to be stuck for hours on end in Rotten cellar. You had the entrance to Carn Dum Cassle that manullly required a gm to fix it.  Otherwise you would wait for hours.  It took months on end about 6 of them to fix most of these.  However the spiders in dolen veiw instance are still invisable, it is still a playble instance but is not that fun.  Instead of fixing these bugs, they went on a crucade to fix the bugs that were benifiting players instead of fixing the bugs that were causing players a hard time.
Like I said I don't mind bugs its how a company goes about fixing them.  I cant only complain about LOTRO, one of the worst violators is SOE as well. I could write pages about the bugs that existed in SWG before it went to the NGE. 
 

 

The exact same thing happens to some mobs in WAR.  They dissapear.  Is it acceptable ?  Compared to getting stuck for 5 hours it is yes.. but compared to a good solid released game  - it is not.   Is it acceptable because there are 10 tons of bigger bugs that got skipped before the game was released ?  Ofc its not.

I dont know if you have heard of the missing boy quest in AOC.  It was a quest soon after lvl 20 (not in Tortage) where you were supposed to find a missing boy.  The thing was... early in beta this boy was really missing - he was underneath the terrain.  And he was still there 2 months after release.   Still the game was launched...   How many missing boys are there in Dragon age ?  Or how many dissapearing Mobs ? 

Even WOW has bugs - and some of them were really annoying.  Lets take the famous Anub'Rekhan bug for example.  First boss in vanilla Nax - easy one but had a nasty habbit of reseting when at the door.   It took quite some time to fix cause it needed extensive work on the map itself.  The game mecanics were actually working as intented.  There was an anti cheat code in the game that prevented you to be able to kill a mob when you were out of reach area.    NOw.. again - lets compare that to AOC.  I spent most of the time in the game exploiding the content - getting out of reach of the mobs and then killing them while they were not able to get to me.  In WOW - that mob would have automaticly reset.  In AOC... there was no basic structured code or even basic THINKING of a code to prevent the entire content to be expoided with out of reach trick.  But then.. maybe it had to do with the fact that Funcom was changing the ability of characters to move through terrain all the time.  Again... if you start with crap - u end up with crap.    Get the basics right and build from there. 

This is where MMO devs think they are able to fool pretty much everyone. They start with something half thought out and then they try to change it later when they see it doesn't work or when none likes it and they are loosing subs.  If you actually create something good to start with - then there is less to fix. 

Get it ? 

nekollx

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by eric_w66

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.
Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).
No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.
Right?
The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).
And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.
The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

 

You've never made a mistake? Amazing. "There are no excuses for bugs. Never".

Obviously written by a person who's never coded more than a "Hello, World" program, and maybe not even that.

Heck, just NOW at my work, I'm being hit by a "bug" in software I maintain that is crashing whenever a report is being run or a query being made on the database... yet it works in hundreds if not thousands of other places just fine. Why? Because the place where the crash is happening has people who have no idea how to use or manage a computer network, and the network crashed, and they couldn't figure out how to reconnect to it on one of their machines. Is it a bug in my code? Nope, but it is my code that is crashing because of their (bad) system configuration. So I get to work on a "bug" that isn't my "bug" at all.

 

 

Mistakes are made ofc... thats why you have tests - after tests after tests.

I dont care what kind of crappy software you are using.  Obviously its a bad one - or your a bad coder that cant create a structured system to work with.

Compare single player RPGs and MMOs.  Would a single player rpg that doesnt play for more than 5 mins without closing because of memory leak  be considered acceptable at release ?   No ofc not - you would ask yourself who was actually testing that game before it was released. 

If 1000 ppl all made mistakes that leads to a bug that is causing game to crash - then something is very wrong.  It has nothing to do with mistakes.  Nothing....

And explain to me why Games like WAR and AOC seem to have alot more of those "bugs" that are based on the user's (bad) configuration - compared to ... lets say ... WOW ? 

You know it and I know it.  It has nothing to do with mistakes... it has to do with quality control.

Why hasn't WOW released more battlegrounds ?  Because creating a flawless map with minimised chance of expoiding is massive task.  And they accept nothing else than "flawless".

 

so you would rather a product never, ever release.

They will be bug, and they take time to fix. Hell i have a bug in one of my projects, ive iritated a thousand times, all the numbers spit back right, the tables and rows in the DB are created, but only 1/3 of the data posts into the row. Even though all the data is being saved locally it's not posting out to the db from the browser.

Yet i can edit the same entry and fix the problem fine its only inital creation that is flawed.

 

Bugs happen. Don't play high and mighty until you have to fix them yourself.

Frobner

Originally posted by nekollx

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by eric_w66

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis


(sigh)

Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.
Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).
No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.
Right?
The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).
And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.
The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

 

You've never made a mistake? Amazing. "There are no excuses for bugs. Never".

Obviously written by a person who's never coded more than a "Hello, World" program, and maybe not even that.

Heck, just NOW at my work, I'm being hit by a "bug" in software I maintain that is crashing whenever a report is being run or a query being made on the database... yet it works in hundreds if not thousands of other places just fine. Why? Because the place where the crash is happening has people who have no idea how to use or manage a computer network, and the network crashed, and they couldn't figure out how to reconnect to it on one of their machines. Is it a bug in my code? Nope, but it is my code that is crashing because of their (bad) system configuration. So I get to work on a "bug" that isn't my "bug" at all.

 

 

Mistakes are made ofc... thats why you have tests - after tests after tests.

I dont care what kind of crappy software you are using.  Obviously its a bad one - or your a bad coder that cant create a structured system to work with.

Compare single player RPGs and MMOs.  Would a single player rpg that doesnt play for more than 5 mins without closing because of memory leak  be considered acceptable at release ?   No ofc not - you would ask yourself who was actually testing that game before it was released. 

If 1000 ppl all made mistakes that leads to a bug that is causing game to crash - then something is very wrong.  It has nothing to do with mistakes.  Nothing....

And explain to me why Games like WAR and AOC seem to have alot more of those "bugs" that are based on the user's (bad) configuration - compared to ... lets say ... WOW ? 

You know it and I know it.  It has nothing to do with mistakes... it has to do with quality control.

Why hasn't WOW released more battlegrounds ?  Because creating a flawless map with minimised chance of expoiding is massive task.  And they accept nothing else than "flawless".

 

so you would rather a product never, ever release.

They will be bug, and they take time to fix. Hell i have a bug in one of my projects, ive iritated a thousand times, all the numbers spit back right, the tables and rows in the DB are created, but only 1/3 of the data posts into the row. Even though all the data is being saved locally it's not posting out to the db from the browser.

Yet i can edit the same entry and fix the problem fine its only inital creation that is flawed.

 

Bugs happen. Don't play high and mighty until you have to fix them yourself.

 

Would you charge me for using that buggy projects of yours without fixing it first ?  

see... there is the diffrence... You make the choise of what is acceptable when it comes to bugs.   If you knew about it - didn't fix it and still charge full for it... then you are the perfect MMO dev.  I bet Mythic and FUncom could use you !! 

oh wait... Mythic just sacked 80 ppl....

 

nekollx

Originally posted by Frobner 
Would you charge me for using that buggy projects of yours without fixing it first ?  
see... there is the diffrence... You make the choise of what is acceptable when it comes to bugs.   If you knew about it - didn't fix it and still charge full for it... then you are the perfect MMO dev.  I bet Mythic and FUncom could use you !! 
oh wait... Mythic just sacked 80 ppl....
 

kinda sorta, it's admins tools so i'm paid to design the system so other admins can manage workflow. It sort of like a mmo as the needs of the project are constantly evolving and new systems have to be added on the spot

pojung

A solid article, albeit fairly obvious I would assume.

The main reason why an MMO isn't going to ever release sans bugs is because of the vast operating systems that run rampant in the home computing marketplace. While you can label your product as being compatible with XP/Vista/Win7, you know some fool somewhere is going to manage via 3 workarounds to install on his aging Win2k OS. You can't forsee how his presence will influence the server-client, regardless of forethought and testing. On these issues, I can understand a need to 'catch up' to consumers after a launch.

Things like NPCs not interacting properly, not resetting, disappearing, camera angles, fatal errors with client, etc are all things that are really inexcusable. I have done enough MatLab programming to understand when things are truly beyond my control and where I just plain goofed.

Given the immensity of a project like an MMO, there are vast programming teams involved. I think the issue we see isn't an issue of bugs appearing due to lack of foresight, or testing, or coding, but due to poor programming team management. It's how each team interfaces with each other and takes steps in stride that prevent these sorts of occurrences.

Obviously, employing a proactive team of programmers who monitor the game constantly and patch bugs on arrival is going to be the biggest selling point in terms of 'bug termination'.

Wizardry

Originally posted by tro44_1


So what MMORPG out there handles their Bugs the BEST in your Opinion?

Not MMORPG but developer and it is w/o question Square Enix.

There games are virtually bug free.There has been some exploits by RMT but not exploits as you might think,just flaws in the design that allowed for making more gil than intended.Example making new players over and over to do the same quests over and over.The other exploits were done strictly by utilizing warp/pos cheats,pretty hard for a game to stay on top of that.

IN what 5+ years of FFXI or any of the other FF games ,i have never had a bug or problem prevent me from doing something in the game,i doubt any other developer can say the same thing.Sqaure is now utilizing a brand new game engine and i bet FFXIV will be released bug free,Square Enix is just that good at their work.They also claim they are armed and ready to stop RMT,most developers don't even care or bother until the player base is in an uproar.

 

 

Lanthir

Originally posted by tro44_1


So what MMORPG out there handles their Bugs the BEST in your Opinion?

 

well alot depends on whol you ask.  Blizzard does a ncie job ofcourse.  Myself, dare I say it, i  have found SOE with eq eqII to do a nice job.  Now that might be because from personal pratice I always send in as detailed a bug report as i can  and usually would get follow up questions from the devs.  A recent example of reports and workign with devs although not a MMO is bioware and DAO.  I along with a few others players spend two days with two of the devs going back and forth to fix the dagger/dex bug.  And when i say back and forth it was litterialy that  posting in a thread getting a dev response 5 minutes latter back and forth then a fix  beign posted we would try it out report back  then get a new fix and so forth untill they had one that worked.

I would agree with the OP that one of the problems is the tone plus lack of detail in bug reporting by players.  If you can give time date location what happen your system and such it makes it much easier for them to try to work on it.  Just think how much effort is saved if you provide the time  then can  locate logs much easier than if you tell them  heh a boss mob poofed BRD on me today. ( don't laugh i have seen reports that contained just that not even the name of the mob let alone when it happen)

Gyrus

On reporting bugs:

Developers - make it easy.  Put a bug report function in your UI and leave it there.

Wizard 101 did this brilliantly in Beta - there was a little "Bug" button and you reported right there - no fuss.

Post release however - this function disappeared - and unless you are a subscriber I don't think you can post on their boards?



The Chronicles of Spellborn - if bugs could be reported in game (and reports stored in a Database) I am sure the new Devs would have a valuable resource when they take over.



PotBS had/has a reporting system that many people lost faith in.  48 hours after the report it seemed standard to get a generic  "please test again and let us know..." - yeah - and how do I repeat the quest dumbasses?

Then, when you didn't reply, "we will therefor assume the matter is resolved...closed."  So many bugs are never fixed.

WWIIoL does a good job with the simple ".report" - reporting who, and the position in the gameworld plaus maybe some other stuff?

 

On not rewarding failure:

The US needs to go further.  It is my understanding that US Consumers can return any (faulty) product for a refund...except software?

That needs to change.

Many other countries have laws which allow the return of software.

In Australia, this comes under 'purpose of use'.  That is, any product that does not meet it's purpose of use {when used as directed} may be retuned for a full refund.

Driv3r comes to mind here - so many copies were returned to EB they pulled it from the shelves.

 

Some people may claim this would make it impossible to release a game here?

Well, no.  A minor bug that causes a graphical error or maybe stops a player completing a (non critical) quest would not violate purpose of use.  A bug that prevents a client running or prevents a player completing a game would.

Dungeon Keeper 2 for example shipped with a bug preventing the player completing one of the later missions and stopped the player finishin the game.  That is a purpose of use issue.

I-War 2:Edge of Chaos shipped with a bug preventing the completion of a side quest - but the player could still complete the main plot and finish the game - not purpose of use.

The US needs similar laws - it would really force many companies to sharpen up their act.



 

Lanthir

Originally posted by pojung


A solid article, albeit fairly obvious I would assume.
The main reason why an MMO isn't going to ever release sans bugs is because of the vast operating systems that run rampant in the home computing marketplace. While you can label your product as being compatible with XP/Vista/Win7, you know some fool somewhere is going to manage via 3 workarounds to install on his aging Win2k OS. You can't forsee how his presence will influence the server-client, regardless of forethought and testing. On these issues, I can understand a need to 'catch up' to consumers after a launch.
Things like NPCs not interacting properly, not resetting, disappearing, camera angles, fatal errors with client, etc are all things that are really inexcusable. I have done enough MatLab programming to understand when things are truly beyond my control and where I just plain goofed.
Given the immensity of a project like an MMO, there are vast programming teams involved. I think the issue we see isn't an issue of bugs appearing due to lack of foresight, or testing, or coding, but due to poor programming team management. It's how each team interfaces with each other and takes steps in stride that prevent these sorts of occurrences.
Obviously, employing a proactive team of programmers who monitor the game constantly and patch bugs on arrival is going to be the biggest selling point in terms of 'bug termination'.

 

good point  i know when POTBS  was comming out all of a sudden after a patch a  group of the people had graphics problems  it got narrowed down to 1 set of drivers Nvedia had out  for an older series of cards. Two days latter Nvedia posted new drivers for that series all was well.