I have played Vanguard since beta and yes it was bad at release but now it's nothing like it was.Thier are still minor problems when entering cities like Khal but it's very minor. I two box in Vanguard of one PC, yeah that's right i have two vanguard clients running of my one pc with everything maxed except VC( CLOUDS).
I have also played LOTRO with everything maxed in DX10 and never had any lag or stutter. I can say the same for AOC which i play now along side Vanguard and have had no lag or stutters.
You really think that WOW is a good example knowing how inferior their graphic engine is ,it was built for low end PC. Many gamer just haven't got the right set up but rather than fix it they blame the devs or the game.
Check out this recent VID of Vanguard which was made on a five year old system, with a AMD Athlon X2 4800, 2GB RAM, and NVIDIA 7900GTX 512MB Video Card with Rendering Quality on High, Textures on Medium-High, and Shadows on High.
Perhaps it's you who needs to sort their set up out,their are many people who play Vanguard with very few non game breaking problems.
A. My system is like twice as good as his.
B. Are you purposefully ignoring the plethera of hitches and stutters as that guy flies around, or is it some sort of mass psychosis in the gaming community? Go to like 2:30 and you'll see it's like barely watchable.
If anything I would post your video as a prime example of what I'm talking about, except he has a pretty bad system so people are likely to chalk it up to that instead of the coder's fault.
I'm playing Allods at the moment and it's pretty buggy.
But Allods is very polished for a free to play and I program a little so I'm forgiving.
Vanguard Saga of Heros was a hoot. It was subscriber based and full of bugs.
I had a bear shammy, probably the most overpowered class ever created. Imagine a WoW priest that had a hunter tank pet. Anyway, when in a group the bear would go apeshit and attack party members.
I would say, 'stfu, i'm a healer, just let him chew on you.'
In raids like onyxia or sartharion(oh who can forget dalaran) I can get HORRIBLE fps, I can go from 200 to 20, and let me tell you, I am not the only one.
I can forgive performance issues if there's a crapload of people jammed into a small area. I will not forgive performance issues when it's just me and maybe one other person and I'm just running along or riding a mount.
someone told me the issue is our upload speed!mine is 640kb/second but i got 10mb/sec
i would gladely drop my download speed to 5 mb/sec if it mena i would get 2.5 mb/sec upload speed!
any could confirm if upload speed affect mmo smoothness!(or is this another urban legend)
My upload is 4.33 mb while running Utorrent, so no, it's not that. But please, everyone, stop looking for excuses or buying into the hype that it's something wrong with your setup.
If nothing else, MMORPG's are products (and comparitvely expensive products when you factor in subs), and they should simply work as intended when we pay for them if our systems meet the recommended specs. For the record, my system easily passes the recommended specs on Vanguard and yet cannot play it with everything turned all the way down to the point where it looks way worse than WoW even, not to mention I had consistant crashes while adjusting the settings which is a strong sign of some seriously amateurish coding.
Agreed, seen same thing in Star Wars Galaxies yesterday also. Seen it in Vanguard, WAR and a bunch of more mmo. Only that I seen that can have a large number of players with a good combat stearing is WoW. Even Aion had same issues.
OP: Not that I disagree with your assesment, but it would be nice to know what qualifications you have to judge poor code (just interested, being a programmer myself.) Also, I've found that capable programmers tend to stay away from the Gaming Industry. Its long hours, hard work, and low pay (when considering what you can make programming other things). The only reason most programmers even enter the gaming industry is for the love of games (note: most of them lose that when the industry crushes them with unmeetable expectations and grueling work ethic - which they don't typically have.) Additionally, its not up to the coders when a game releases. I know I've had milestones that were flat out not meetable, and we had to release something not completely ready.
Having established that talented programmers tend to stay away from the gaming industry, I would like to add that games are some of the most complex programs to make. MMORPGs are at the top of complex games, from a code viewpoint. In the end, you have (in general, I know some very talentad programmers heading into this industry) untalented coders working on some of the hardest code. FAIL.
someone told me the issue is our upload speed!mine is 640kb/second but i got 10mb/sec
i would gladely drop my download speed to 5 mb/sec if it mena i would get 2.5 mb/sec upload speed!
any could confirm if upload speed affect mmo smoothness!(or is this another urban legend)
Somewhat of an urban legend.
The algorithms for sending and recieving data need to be optimized. The speed of packets out and in is minor compared with how the packets are catalogued once received by the respective end.
Inefficient looping and triage results in poor response times. Hardware upgrades like dl/ul capabilities are standard across any game you play- it's how the games themselves make use of said hardware.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
To put all the blame on bad coding is just wrong and shows that you really do not know a lot about game development in general.
Building a game is like building a house. There are dozens of different people that know how to do different parts of the job to get the house finished. Each one of them people have there own style / way of doing the job. (Just like in real life no two people do the same thing the exact same way.) The same applies to programming. No two programmers write code exactly the same way, since no two programmers think the exact same way. There are an infinite number of ways to approach any coding issue and the same for solving said issue.
If a game was made by 1 coder, 1 modeler, 1 designer, 1 sfx, and 1 music guy. Then yeah there would more then likely be ALOT less bugs and issues across the board. But its going to take them about 100x as long to make that game as opposed to say a team of 100 people working together.
The best programmer in the world can not make a poorly designed / modeled model look great, run faster, ect.
The issue is that everyone is human. Regradless if your the smartest person in the world, we as humans, make mistakes and approach things differently.
I highly doubt we will ever see the day where a game releases without any bugs, runs perfectly on every hardware, and everyone finds the game amazing.
OP: Not that I disagree with your assesment, but it would be nice to know what qualifications you have to judge poor code (just interested, being a programmer myself.) Also, I've found that capable programmers tend to stay away from the Gaming Industry. Its long hours, hard work, and low pay (when considering what you can make programming other things). The only reason most programmers even enter the gaming industry is for the love of games (note: most of them lose that when the industry crushes them with unmeetable expectations and grueling work ethic - which they don't typically have.) Additionally, its not up to the coders when a game releases. I know I've had milestones that were flat out not meetable, and we had to release something not completely ready.
Having established that talented programmers tend to stay away from the gaming industry, I would like to add that games are some of the most complex programs to make. MMORPGs are at the top of complex games, from a code viewpoint. In the end, you have (in general, I know some very talentad programmers heading into this industry) untalented coders working on some of the hardest code. FAIL.
I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't. I can't tell you how many hours I spent tweeking God-knows what when I played Warhammer trying to get it to work without hiccups, because I bought into the hype that the problem is on my end. Also, I'm qualified because I've played a crapload ton of games over the past couple of years by this point I can tell when something is coded well and when something is coded poorly.
However, your response is enlightening as far as "why" the problem exists, because I was having trouble figuring out why any producer in their right mind would hire subpar talent when it's obvious, to me at least, how directly quality coding and profit tie together. Artificial deadlines are also a problem- STO is a prime example of this.
But understanding "why" it happens is still not a reason to accept that it happens. The sooner the mmorpg community wakes up and refuses to pay for subpar products, the sooner producers will spend some extra money on better coders and allow them some extra time to at least release a complete product.
I highly doubt we will ever see the day where a game releases without any bugs, runs perfectly on every hardware, and everyone finds the game amazing.
That's an absurdist argument. I'm not asking for that. I'm simply asking for mmorpgs to work without stutters if a system meets the recommended specs. It is NOT too much to ask for a product you pay for to work properly.
To put all the blame on bad coding is just wrong and shows that you really do not know a lot about game development in general.
Building a game is like building a house. There are dozens of different people that know how to do different parts of the job to get the house finished. Each one of them people have there own style / way of doing the job. (Just like in real life no two people do the same thing the exact same way.) The same applies to programming. No two programmers write code exactly the same way,
Sloppy code, combined with poor commenting so others can't understand what you were trying to do in the first place. Programming is a science, not an art. If engineers were 'artists' - bridges, skyscrapers, and aircraft would be crashing to the ground every day.
since no two programmers think the exact same way. There are an infinite number of ways to approach any coding issue and the same for solving said issue.
Not even close. That is a gross exaggeration.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Originally posted by Yimmarans OP: Not that I disagree with your assesment, but it would be nice to know what qualifications you have to judge poor code (just interested, being a programmer myself.) Also, I've found that capable programmers tend to stay away from the Gaming Industry. Its long hours, hard work, and low pay (when considering what you can make programming other things). The only reason most programmers even enter the gaming industry is for the love of games (note: most of them lose that when the industry crushes them with unmeetable expectations and grueling work ethic - which they don't typically have.) Additionally, its not up to the coders when a game releases. I know I've had milestones that were flat out not meetable, and we had to release something not completely ready. Having established that talented programmers tend to stay away from the gaming industry, I would like to add that games are some of the most complex programs to make. MMORPGs are at the top of complex games, from a code viewpoint. In the end, you have (in general, I know some very talentad programmers heading into this industry) untalented coders working on some of the hardest code. FAIL.
I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't. I can't tell you how many hours I spent tweeking God-knows what when I played Warhammer trying to get it to work without hiccups, because I bought into the hype that the problem is on my end. Also, I'm qualified because I've played a crapload ton of games over the past couple of years by this point I can tell when something is coded well and when something is coded poorly. However, your response is enlightening as far as "why" the problem exists, becuase I was having trouble figuring out why any producer in their right mind would hire subpar talent when it's obvious, to me at least, how directly quality coding and profit tie together. Artificial deadlines are also a problem- STO is a prime example of this. But understanding "why" it happens is still not a reason to accept that it happens. The sooner the mmorpg community wakes up and refuses to pay for subpar products, the sooner producers will spend some extra money on better coders and allow them some extra time to at least release a complete product.
And you don't find it odd that thousands of other players have little to no issues of what you are experiencing? Every game you listed I never had a problem, face it, it is your hardware. You can have the greatest shit in the world but if you don't understand what works with what and have no knowledge on computer hardware and just start plugging shit in you are going to have a PC that just sucks. There is more to it then just pieces of a puzzle, the type of shit you put in it is a huge difference. I can't tell you how many times I've had people come to me and want me to fix their home made PC only to open it up and find out the shit they were using wasn't working with the voltage they have.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
OP: Not that I disagree with your assesment, but it would be nice to know what qualifications you have to judge poor code (just interested, being a programmer myself.) Also, I've found that capable programmers tend to stay away from the Gaming Industry. Its long hours, hard work, and low pay (when considering what you can make programming other things). The only reason most programmers even enter the gaming industry is for the love of games (note: most of them lose that when the industry crushes them with unmeetable expectations and grueling work ethic - which they don't typically have.) Additionally, its not up to the coders when a game releases. I know I've had milestones that were flat out not meetable, and we had to release something not completely ready.
Having established that talented programmers tend to stay away from the gaming industry, I would like to add that games are some of the most complex programs to make. MMORPGs are at the top of complex games, from a code viewpoint. In the end, you have (in general, I know some very talentad programmers heading into this industry) untalented coders working on some of the hardest code. FAIL.
I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't. I can't tell you how many hours I spent tweeking God-knows what when I played Warhammer trying to get it to work without hiccups, because I bought into the hype that the problem is on my end. Also, I'm qualified because I've played a crapload ton of games over the past couple of years by this point I can tell when something is coded well and when something is coded poorly.
However, your response is enlightening as far as "why" the problem exists, becuase I was having trouble figuring out why any producer in their right mind would hire subpar talent when it's obvious, to me at least, how directly quality coding and profit tie together. Artificial deadlines are also a problem- STO is a prime example of this.
But understanding "why" it happens is still not a reason to accept that it happens. The sooner the mmorpg community wakes up and refuses to pay for subpar products, the sooner producers will spend some extra money on better coders and allow them some extra time to at least release a complete product.
And you don't find it odd that thousands of other players have little to no issues of what you are experiencing? Every game you listed I never had a problem, face it, it is your hardware. You can have the greatest shit in the world but if you don't understand what works with what and have no knowledge on computer hardware and just start plugging shit in you are going to have a PC that just sucks. There is more to it then just pieces of a puzzle, the type of shit you put in it is a huge difference. I can't tell you how many times I've had people come to me and want me to fix their home made PC only to open it up and find out the shit they were using wasn't working with the voltage they have.
Again this argument...
A. I spent a decent amount of money on a good 600w power supply when I bought my 8800 gt.
B. No, I don't find it odd. Consider the video that was posted earlier with the countless hiccups (watch the whole thing if you can't see one early on). People have gotten used to the stutters because so many games have them. My theory is that because the brain naturally filters out unusful stimuli, many people just filter out the stutters or think "it's not that bad." I myself played LOTRO for about 7 months with the stuttering and filtered it out mostly, but it was still annoying and unnessessary.
Also, I'm not sure exactly where you're getting this idea of "thousands of people" having no problems. If you're just talking sub numbers, then refer to the previous paragraph and even posts in this thread from people saying they are willing to put up with it.
C. If my specs which I mentioned earlier are not good enough to run a game like Vanguard, then they need to adjust the recommended specs to reflect that. As I mentioned, my system blows the recommended specs out of the water. If it really takes a top line video card, a 3.5 ghz dual core processor and 8 g of ram running on a 64 bit OS, then the recommended specs should say that. They don't. They say it should run on a 3.0gz single core, 2g of ram, and a sub 8800gt video card with 258 memory.
That is false advertising and it doesn't help anybody, not to mention I am not sure it would even run without hiccups on that kind of mega system I just mentioned. I've looked up videos of people with good systems running it on high, and there are the tell-tale hiccups I'm talking about (not to mention that the graphics in Vanguard are not nearly good enough to justify requiring a mega system to run it). That also is not to mention that my system runs Just Cause 2 flawlessly and Just Cause 2 has seriously higher "minimum specs" than the "recommended specs" for Vanguard. If there really was something fundamentally wrong with my computer like you're suggesting, like a power supply problem or something really dumb, I certainly couldn't play Just Cause 2 or Batman Arkham Asylum or even WoW or ffxi flawlessly, and I can and do, so you're just climbing up the wrong flagpole with that one.
Besides, though, it's a moot point because it would be dumb to release an MMORPG that requires a top end system and couldn't scale downwards at all. You'd only be imposing an artificial limit on your potential subs and killing your own game.
I highly doubt we will ever see the day where a game releases without any bugs, runs perfectly on every hardware, and everyone finds the game amazing.
That's an absurdist argument. I'm not asking for that. I'm simply asking for mmorpgs to work without stutters if a system meets the recommended specs. It is NOT too much to ask for a product you pay for to work properly.
Then I hate to say it but you are in the wrong market. You should be playing console games where the hardware and requirements are fixed and do not change within the console.
The very nature of the PC means that even if you meet the recommended specs you can still have issues from just general hardware related issues.
PC gaming has always been this way ever since customers could be components to improve there computer. Thats not going to change anytime soon, so the issues are not going to change anytime soon. I play Lotro without any issues at a fairly consistent 50-60 fps. Yet you say you have nothing but issues with it.
Now I'm not saying the coding for games could improve. There is and always will be room for improvement in everything. I'm just saying that putting all the blame on one part is not the right thing to do nor is it going to solve the underlying issue.
Originally posted by holdenhamlet I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't.
So you know nothing about programming, you are just correct by default?
I may be splitting hairs but you mistake bad code for reliability. The code itself could be a nasty ball of mud and still be reliable from your perpective as the user. You may even have the perception that such games are easy to maintain and expand while in the back ground is a group of developers that know this nasty code inside and out and make it work. It's interesting that for some of the games you have called out from other user perspectives are, to them, reliable. It is also the case that very well structured code may not reliable. One way this can happen is if there is too much error checking. You, as the user could experience this as your connection frequently dropping out. You are will to trade off reliablity for other things you desire as you sighted in the case of LOTRO and DF. Other users will have their own threshold of what they will except. The game companies will try and balance all this, try and appeal to a large or large enough group of users and still make money. They will sacrifice something,(you indicated you do not expect the software to be 100% bug free) otherwise they would never have a product. In the end mmo gamers are already doing what the title of this post says. Their experiences and thresholds of what is acceptable to them is just different from yours. Enjoy!
Originally posted by holdenhamlet I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't.
So you know nothing about programming, you are just correct by default?
So, by the same token, someone buying a Toyota can't complain about faulty gas pedals because he's not an engineer, huh? I'm a consumer, and far too many consumers of mmorpg products are not demanding enough quality, IMO. Besides, to make the point I'm making, I don't need to know how something works, just if it does or does not. Some games work as intended, others do not.
I've only played two mmorpgs that do not have any kind of stutter (except in really crowded areas), and they are wow and ffxi (and it should be noted that the coders at squareenix are smart enough to compensate for issues like crowded areas and dramatically decrease the amount of people visable- in all the games I've played from them they are constantly doing clever and inventive things- like in Just Cause 2, when you turn fast there is a blur effect, but it is lower quality than what you normally see, so that there is no stutter at all no matter how fast you turn or quickly you go from one area to another, and you can move very fast in the game in a car or especially using the grappling hook).
I have however played many single player games that also work flawlessly on my system, such as Just Cause 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Crysis, Bioshock 1 and 2 and Fallout 3. And by the same token I have played many that do not work well and it's clear to anyone who has played a lot of games that the problem is with the coding.
I play Lotro without any issues at a fairly consistent 50-60 fps. Yet you say you have nothing but issues with it.
Nope, never said that. I played on very high settings at around 50 fps and could play at ultra high for about 28 fps or so, but there was always an annoying stutter. Like I said, I put up with it because I enjoyed the graphics, sound, story and gameplay, but I'm at the point now where I will not put up with it anymore, even if it is a very good mmorpg like LOTRO is.
Do me a favor in case you feel like backing up your argument and fraps a 1 minute video of you on a mount riding in a straight line and post in on youtube. If there is no stutter, then you'll have a point. Don't turn the camera please though when you do it because it can confuse the issue.
So, instead of me constantly having to justify what I'm saying in this thread, how about one of you naysayers putting your fraps where your mouth is.
@Muntz: Yay! Someone who knows how code works! Also, someone can write fantastic code that is very readable/maintainable and runs perfectly on a local machine with a smaller data set, but when its out there and the masses are on it they might have misjudged (or simply don't know how to calculate) the run time of algorithms and functions that make the game work. That's what beta's are supposed to be for (and catching misc. bugs).
@OP: Being the consumer gives you the right to be pissed at a buggy/faulty product, but don't go after the worker bees: Its not always their fault. More often than not, its manager decisions and pressure.
code error happens all the time !check battle of immortal just came out of closed beta
just came from there player 6 hour in one map there are these flying fish you can see one big line on each fish its streak like from the sun to the fish yes they might find the trouble but its not game breaking
it was there in closed beta and its still there in open beta but now we got nice readable fon ,wasd,tab targetting !
Isn't it just as likely you computer may not have been made/put together properly? The same reasons you give for bad coding could be said for the guy who put your comp together.
And you said that as the consumer that qualifies you to judge these games, i'm a customer too and I never had hiccups in DAoC or EQ, i had lag in EQ because my modem sucked.
Then I hate to say it but you are in the wrong market. You should be playing console games where the hardware and requirements are fixed and do not change within the console.
The very nature of the PC means that even if you meet the recommended specs you can still have issues from just general hardware related issues.
PC gaming has always been this way ever since customers could be components to improve there computer. Thats not going to change anytime soon, so the issues are not going to change anytime soon. I play Lotro without any issues at a fairly consistent 50-60 fps. Yet you say you have nothing but issues with it.
Now I'm not saying the coding for games could improve. There is and always will be room for improvement in everything. I'm just saying that putting all the blame on one part is not the right thing to do nor is it going to solve the underlying issue.
You know what he means... When you played games like Diablo or Half life you had very little issues like the rest of us. Guildwars also have excellent coding. But MMOs generally are not that well coded.
Yes, the difference in hardware will make some problems for the devs but it is often MMO companies releases a patch with very little testing or ignore big problems in the beta.
This isn't unique for MMOs but MMOs are the worst here. If the devs just think they can patch in any issues later, if they just are lazy or if other genres attract better programmers can be discussed but the MMO companies really should be better to test their code before even thinking about putting it on a live server.
15 years ago were patching a game something that was really odd, the games were tested a lot better before they went gold. Of course MMOs are a different matter but that doesn't mean that you should hope everything works and release something that creates a load of issues.
Nothing is ever perfect but we are not talking about perfect here.
Isn't it just as likely you computer may not have been made/put together properly? The same reasons you give for bad coding could be said for the guy who put your comp together.
And you said that as the consumer that qualifies you to judge these games, i'm a customer too and I never had hiccups in DAoC or EQ, i had lag in EQ because my modem sucked.
When a few games messes while most works fine it is usually coding. If all games messes then it is the computer.
Dunno about EQ but EQ2 have it's share of bad coding, they finally fixed Neriak a few months ago, before that any computer no matter how well done would start to lagg like crazy. Bad coding exist.
Comments
A. My system is like twice as good as his.
B. Are you purposefully ignoring the plethera of hitches and stutters as that guy flies around, or is it some sort of mass psychosis in the gaming community? Go to like 2:30 and you'll see it's like barely watchable.
If anything I would post your video as a prime example of what I'm talking about, except he has a pretty bad system so people are likely to chalk it up to that instead of the coder's fault.
I'm playing Allods at the moment and it's pretty buggy.
But Allods is very polished for a free to play and I program a little so I'm forgiving.
Vanguard Saga of Heros was a hoot. It was subscriber based and full of bugs.
I had a bear shammy, probably the most overpowered class ever created. Imagine a WoW priest that had a hunter tank pet. Anyway, when in a group the bear would go apeshit and attack party members.
I would say, 'stfu, i'm a healer, just let him chew on you.'
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
In raids like onyxia or sartharion(oh who can forget dalaran) I can get HORRIBLE fps, I can go from 200 to 20, and let me tell you, I am not the only one.
I can forgive performance issues if there's a crapload of people jammed into a small area. I will not forgive performance issues when it's just me and maybe one other person and I'm just running along or riding a mount.
someone told me the issue is our upload speed!mine is 640kb/second but i got 10mb/sec
i would gladely drop my download speed to 5 mb/sec if it mena i would get 2.5 mb/sec upload speed!
any could confirm if upload speed affect mmo smoothness!(or is this another urban legend)
My upload is 4.33 mb while running Utorrent, so no, it's not that. But please, everyone, stop looking for excuses or buying into the hype that it's something wrong with your setup.
If nothing else, MMORPG's are products (and comparitvely expensive products when you factor in subs), and they should simply work as intended when we pay for them if our systems meet the recommended specs. For the record, my system easily passes the recommended specs on Vanguard and yet cannot play it with everything turned all the way down to the point where it looks way worse than WoW even, not to mention I had consistant crashes while adjusting the settings which is a strong sign of some seriously amateurish coding.
Agreed, seen same thing in Star Wars Galaxies yesterday also. Seen it in Vanguard, WAR and a bunch of more mmo. Only that I seen that can have a large number of players with a good combat stearing is WoW. Even Aion had same issues.
Its a pain in the ass to say the least...
OP: Not that I disagree with your assesment, but it would be nice to know what qualifications you have to judge poor code (just interested, being a programmer myself.) Also, I've found that capable programmers tend to stay away from the Gaming Industry. Its long hours, hard work, and low pay (when considering what you can make programming other things). The only reason most programmers even enter the gaming industry is for the love of games (note: most of them lose that when the industry crushes them with unmeetable expectations and grueling work ethic - which they don't typically have.) Additionally, its not up to the coders when a game releases. I know I've had milestones that were flat out not meetable, and we had to release something not completely ready.
Having established that talented programmers tend to stay away from the gaming industry, I would like to add that games are some of the most complex programs to make. MMORPGs are at the top of complex games, from a code viewpoint. In the end, you have (in general, I know some very talentad programmers heading into this industry) untalented coders working on some of the hardest code. FAIL.
Somewhat of an urban legend.
The algorithms for sending and recieving data need to be optimized. The speed of packets out and in is minor compared with how the packets are catalogued once received by the respective end.
Inefficient looping and triage results in poor response times. Hardware upgrades like dl/ul capabilities are standard across any game you play- it's how the games themselves make use of said hardware.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
To put all the blame on bad coding is just wrong and shows that you really do not know a lot about game development in general.
Building a game is like building a house. There are dozens of different people that know how to do different parts of the job to get the house finished. Each one of them people have there own style / way of doing the job. (Just like in real life no two people do the same thing the exact same way.) The same applies to programming. No two programmers write code exactly the same way, since no two programmers think the exact same way. There are an infinite number of ways to approach any coding issue and the same for solving said issue.
If a game was made by 1 coder, 1 modeler, 1 designer, 1 sfx, and 1 music guy. Then yeah there would more then likely be ALOT less bugs and issues across the board. But its going to take them about 100x as long to make that game as opposed to say a team of 100 people working together.
The best programmer in the world can not make a poorly designed / modeled model look great, run faster, ect.
The issue is that everyone is human. Regradless if your the smartest person in the world, we as humans, make mistakes and approach things differently.
I highly doubt we will ever see the day where a game releases without any bugs, runs perfectly on every hardware, and everyone finds the game amazing.
I am qualified to judge because I'm the customer, the customer is always right, and I know by now what works and what doesn't. I can't tell you how many hours I spent tweeking God-knows what when I played Warhammer trying to get it to work without hiccups, because I bought into the hype that the problem is on my end. Also, I'm qualified because I've played a crapload ton of games over the past couple of years by this point I can tell when something is coded well and when something is coded poorly.
However, your response is enlightening as far as "why" the problem exists, because I was having trouble figuring out why any producer in their right mind would hire subpar talent when it's obvious, to me at least, how directly quality coding and profit tie together. Artificial deadlines are also a problem- STO is a prime example of this.
But understanding "why" it happens is still not a reason to accept that it happens. The sooner the mmorpg community wakes up and refuses to pay for subpar products, the sooner producers will spend some extra money on better coders and allow them some extra time to at least release a complete product.
I highly doubt we will ever see the day where a game releases without any bugs, runs perfectly on every hardware, and everyone finds the game amazing.
That's an absurdist argument. I'm not asking for that. I'm simply asking for mmorpgs to work without stutters if a system meets the recommended specs. It is NOT too much to ask for a product you pay for to work properly.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
And you don't find it odd that thousands of other players have little to no issues of what you are experiencing? Every game you listed I never had a problem, face it, it is your hardware. You can have the greatest shit in the world but if you don't understand what works with what and have no knowledge on computer hardware and just start plugging shit in you are going to have a PC that just sucks. There is more to it then just pieces of a puzzle, the type of shit you put in it is a huge difference. I can't tell you how many times I've had people come to me and want me to fix their home made PC only to open it up and find out the shit they were using wasn't working with the voltage they have.
Again this argument...
A. I spent a decent amount of money on a good 600w power supply when I bought my 8800 gt.
B. No, I don't find it odd. Consider the video that was posted earlier with the countless hiccups (watch the whole thing if you can't see one early on). People have gotten used to the stutters because so many games have them. My theory is that because the brain naturally filters out unusful stimuli, many people just filter out the stutters or think "it's not that bad." I myself played LOTRO for about 7 months with the stuttering and filtered it out mostly, but it was still annoying and unnessessary.
Also, I'm not sure exactly where you're getting this idea of "thousands of people" having no problems. If you're just talking sub numbers, then refer to the previous paragraph and even posts in this thread from people saying they are willing to put up with it.
C. If my specs which I mentioned earlier are not good enough to run a game like Vanguard, then they need to adjust the recommended specs to reflect that. As I mentioned, my system blows the recommended specs out of the water. If it really takes a top line video card, a 3.5 ghz dual core processor and 8 g of ram running on a 64 bit OS, then the recommended specs should say that. They don't. They say it should run on a 3.0gz single core, 2g of ram, and a sub 8800gt video card with 258 memory.
That is false advertising and it doesn't help anybody, not to mention I am not sure it would even run without hiccups on that kind of mega system I just mentioned. I've looked up videos of people with good systems running it on high, and there are the tell-tale hiccups I'm talking about (not to mention that the graphics in Vanguard are not nearly good enough to justify requiring a mega system to run it). That also is not to mention that my system runs Just Cause 2 flawlessly and Just Cause 2 has seriously higher "minimum specs" than the "recommended specs" for Vanguard. If there really was something fundamentally wrong with my computer like you're suggesting, like a power supply problem or something really dumb, I certainly couldn't play Just Cause 2 or Batman Arkham Asylum or even WoW or ffxi flawlessly, and I can and do, so you're just climbing up the wrong flagpole with that one.
Besides, though, it's a moot point because it would be dumb to release an MMORPG that requires a top end system and couldn't scale downwards at all. You'd only be imposing an artificial limit on your potential subs and killing your own game.
Then I hate to say it but you are in the wrong market. You should be playing console games where the hardware and requirements are fixed and do not change within the console.
The very nature of the PC means that even if you meet the recommended specs you can still have issues from just general hardware related issues.
PC gaming has always been this way ever since customers could be components to improve there computer. Thats not going to change anytime soon, so the issues are not going to change anytime soon. I play Lotro without any issues at a fairly consistent 50-60 fps. Yet you say you have nothing but issues with it.
Now I'm not saying the coding for games could improve. There is and always will be room for improvement in everything. I'm just saying that putting all the blame on one part is not the right thing to do nor is it going to solve the underlying issue.
doublepost!
So you know nothing about programming, you are just correct by default?
I may be splitting hairs but you mistake bad code for reliability. The code itself could be a nasty ball of mud and still be reliable from your perpective as the user. You may even have the perception that such games are easy to maintain and expand while in the back ground is a group of developers that know this nasty code inside and out and make it work. It's interesting that for some of the games you have called out from other user perspectives are, to them, reliable. It is also the case that very well structured code may not reliable. One way this can happen is if there is too much error checking. You, as the user could experience this as your connection frequently dropping out. You are will to trade off reliablity for other things you desire as you sighted in the case of LOTRO and DF. Other users will have their own threshold of what they will except. The game companies will try and balance all this, try and appeal to a large or large enough group of users and still make money. They will sacrifice something,(you indicated you do not expect the software to be 100% bug free) otherwise they would never have a product. In the end mmo gamers are already doing what the title of this post says. Their experiences and thresholds of what is acceptable to them is just different from yours. Enjoy!
So, by the same token, someone buying a Toyota can't complain about faulty gas pedals because he's not an engineer, huh? I'm a consumer, and far too many consumers of mmorpg products are not demanding enough quality, IMO. Besides, to make the point I'm making, I don't need to know how something works, just if it does or does not. Some games work as intended, others do not.
I've only played two mmorpgs that do not have any kind of stutter (except in really crowded areas), and they are wow and ffxi (and it should be noted that the coders at squareenix are smart enough to compensate for issues like crowded areas and dramatically decrease the amount of people visable- in all the games I've played from them they are constantly doing clever and inventive things- like in Just Cause 2, when you turn fast there is a blur effect, but it is lower quality than what you normally see, so that there is no stutter at all no matter how fast you turn or quickly you go from one area to another, and you can move very fast in the game in a car or especially using the grappling hook).
I have however played many single player games that also work flawlessly on my system, such as Just Cause 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Crysis, Bioshock 1 and 2 and Fallout 3. And by the same token I have played many that do not work well and it's clear to anyone who has played a lot of games that the problem is with the coding.
I play Lotro without any issues at a fairly consistent 50-60 fps. Yet you say you have nothing but issues with it.
Nope, never said that. I played on very high settings at around 50 fps and could play at ultra high for about 28 fps or so, but there was always an annoying stutter. Like I said, I put up with it because I enjoyed the graphics, sound, story and gameplay, but I'm at the point now where I will not put up with it anymore, even if it is a very good mmorpg like LOTRO is.
Do me a favor in case you feel like backing up your argument and fraps a 1 minute video of you on a mount riding in a straight line and post in on youtube. If there is no stutter, then you'll have a point. Don't turn the camera please though when you do it because it can confuse the issue.
So, instead of me constantly having to justify what I'm saying in this thread, how about one of you naysayers putting your fraps where your mouth is.
@Muntz: Yay! Someone who knows how code works! Also, someone can write fantastic code that is very readable/maintainable and runs perfectly on a local machine with a smaller data set, but when its out there and the masses are on it they might have misjudged (or simply don't know how to calculate) the run time of algorithms and functions that make the game work. That's what beta's are supposed to be for (and catching misc. bugs).
@OP: Being the consumer gives you the right to be pissed at a buggy/faulty product, but don't go after the worker bees: Its not always their fault. More often than not, its manager decisions and pressure.
code error happens all the time !check battle of immortal just came out of closed beta
just came from there player 6 hour in one map there are these flying fish you can see one big line on each fish its streak like from the sun to the fish yes they might find the trouble but its not game breaking
it was there in closed beta and its still there in open beta but now we got nice readable fon ,wasd,tab targetting !
Isn't it just as likely you computer may not have been made/put together properly? The same reasons you give for bad coding could be said for the guy who put your comp together.
And you said that as the consumer that qualifies you to judge these games, i'm a customer too and I never had hiccups in DAoC or EQ, i had lag in EQ because my modem sucked.
Laugh.. OP said BC2 is horrible, and Just Cause 2 is amazing..
Stopped reading after that, since they are completely different genres, not to mention play styles..
Wow runs great cause it has like, no system requirements and even at release the graphics were dated.
You can't really play PC games without being willing to shell out cash to keep your system current gen.
Easy fix is go buy a console.. imagining that all your problems are cause of "bad coding" is just dumb.
But anywho, thx for the laughs , some great replies in there
You know what he means... When you played games like Diablo or Half life you had very little issues like the rest of us. Guildwars also have excellent coding. But MMOs generally are not that well coded.
Yes, the difference in hardware will make some problems for the devs but it is often MMO companies releases a patch with very little testing or ignore big problems in the beta.
This isn't unique for MMOs but MMOs are the worst here. If the devs just think they can patch in any issues later, if they just are lazy or if other genres attract better programmers can be discussed but the MMO companies really should be better to test their code before even thinking about putting it on a live server.
15 years ago were patching a game something that was really odd, the games were tested a lot better before they went gold. Of course MMOs are a different matter but that doesn't mean that you should hope everything works and release something that creates a load of issues.
Nothing is ever perfect but we are not talking about perfect here.
When a few games messes while most works fine it is usually coding. If all games messes then it is the computer.
Dunno about EQ but EQ2 have it's share of bad coding, they finally fixed Neriak a few months ago, before that any computer no matter how well done would start to lagg like crazy. Bad coding exist.