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Rift reputation for the "best devs in the industry": fact or fiction?
At launch (and I was there), Rift had this stellar reputation that many in the industry wanted to put their developers on a pedestal because their beta was smoother than most anyone had seen before in recent memory.
This claim quickly spread and to this day, Rift's main claim had seemed to be they had the most competent developers in the business according to their fans and push out content smoother than anyone else.
1.5 released 9/28 (two weeks ago) and this week Rift devs posted this thread regarding it:
Frequent Crashes Introduced with Hot Fix #4
Hi everyone,
We are aware that some players are experiencing a frequent crash issue following this morning's update. We are already in the process of fixing it, however, it may take a few hours before we can release a new update.
We apologize for this inconvenience, obviously it's our top priority to get this issue corrected as soon as possible and we'll keep you updated on our progress in this thread.
Appreciate your patience in the meantime and thanks, as always, for your cooperation!
Update - 11AM PDT: The crash appears to be related to equipping/un-equipping items. A fix is already in progress but has several steps it needs to go through before being ready for release. We'll keep you posted!
Update - 2PM PDT: The update has passed testing and is in its final stages pending release. We'll put a new downtime notice up in the News & Announcement forums once its cleared for launch, I'll have another update in 60 minutes if not sooner.
Update - 3:30PM PDT: We are deploying an immediate update at 4PM PDT to resolve this issue: http://community.riftgame.com/?p=452
Update - 4:15PM PDT: The Hot Fix is complete and this issue should now be resolved. Thanks again to everyone for your patience, have fun!
so fast forward to four days after this post, and the end of the thread has many people still claiming crashes and unplayability.
The question is: Based on this do you still think Rift has the best developers in the industry or the problems they have show they aren't any more special than any other game's developers?
Do you think they test their patches/content any better now than other games or this is simply something that was a Launch Day focus?
Comments
Well, I've said they've added lots of content but that content is usually pretty easy or light in comparision to another game's "complete" patch.
Meaning, Rift will tend to push out lots of little things like 1.5 etc but if you add them all up they'd make what other MMOs usually do in one major update.
I think their devs are fine, but I don't think they are anything more special from other games when even the light content pushed out has major problems as they've had since after launch.
Launch was great but it's after launch as the best way to determine how good a team is when they have to do things on the fly and are "on the clock", so to speak.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I tried to play Rift today after the patch. It is still the same boreing, empty game. 10% of the server at best is raiding, the rest are just running around, killing time for SWTOR and Diablo 3.
The best devs are at Blizzard. Always have been, always will be. They pay for the best and they get them.
Yes, in my experience Rift has the best developers in the industry. Coming from EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Aion, VG, AoC .. rarely would you even see a step by step update like this for one.. in other MMO's usually a player is left in the dark until they are frustrated and beyond with no "status updates" or even acknowledgements of the problem until -in some cases- a day or perhaps two later.
Personally I have played daily since 1.5 patch and had 1 instance on the day of the patch where I disconnected unexpectedly. I have been in two 20man raids since (Fri and Sat) and have not seen any problems within our raid of players disconnecting.
Beyond this our Devs are constantly asking for player input or feedback, and are very quick to respond to valid concerns. Oftentimes items in a patch (or not in a patch) are a reflection of player feedback on the Public Test Shard. They are doing a great job of listening to the playerbase, especially considering how broad-in-views it can be.
Also with respects to their CS team (not saying they are the best in the industry here, but are at least what I would expect) I have to extend kudos as well. In working with Customer Service both in game and over the phone they have always been quick to respond and resolve my issues.
The best devs are at petroglyph and always will be, ex westwood devs. And End of nations will prove how good they are too.
A few of my friends still playing from old guilds are pretty steamed about now (most went from six month subs to month/month subs now). Some of them are posters in that 34 page rebuttal to that link in the OP regarding crashes.
34 pages of posts since four days ago shows there are plenty of people having that issue so consider yourself one of the lucky ones.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I don t think so. Any devs that bring out literally the same boring "Live Events" and call them different isn t. I m sure alot of the content they re releasing at a qucik pace was already planned and just didn t make it in for release. Hell I m sure alot was ready, and it coming ut so fast is a direct result of it just sitting there ready to be released. It s an ok game, but I found it boring as hell after 30 levels, and well uninspiring. Until they have some thought process going into their game, other then a different variation of rifts, and different tokens to collect for their so called live events, then I say no they re not.
To be fair... pages 1-31 are before they did the hotfix (that same day)
Then you need to account for the random posters that are offtopic and/or just replying to other's comments. I count 20-25 valid posts within three days after the hotfix was complete.
Red5 Studios (http://www.red5studios.com/) has the best devs,
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Ex Westwood? Okay, now I'm excited for End of Nations.
Playing: LoL x3
Played: RS, WoW, SWG, TR, Aion, AoC, EVE, SWTOR
Watching: FireFall, GW2
On MANY instances during beta they would respond to me bug reports within minutes sometimes immediately bringing down the server and having it patched and back up within 10 minutes.
On one of thier events there was a title you could get " Lord of Madness ", I was kinda uphappy how the female players are always overlooked with things like titles so I petitioned, later that same evening they pushed a quick 2 minute update, when I logged back in I had the title " Mistress of Madness " .
Are they the best developers ever? by 1000000000000 % , they care about thier players, they keep us informed, and they actually address the little crap others never would take a second look at.