Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Mortal is rapidly losing momentum
Moreplex
Member Posts: 472
Pretty good thread from a person I consider to be the most non biased in the official forums. Enjoy it before the hammer falls.
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/65098-mortal-rapidly-losing-momentum.html
Member  Join Date: Nov 2009 Rep Power: 2  |
 Mortal is rapidly losing momentumThe dawn expansion saw a massive increase in population, followed by a rapid decrease due to countless bugs. It was obvious to the community that the expansion had not been tested properly. Henrik has suggested since that he would listen to us and have community testing of patches prior to release... so far this has been a false promise. Despite all the bugs, we have found a way to generate fights in game and actually have some fun: threat of asset destruction. Now this has been taken away from the community. Forget that the same issues were in place through 3 previous keep sieges. Starvault did not disable the mechanic for those, so why did they do it now? The bottom line is that the population is decreasing once again, and people are finding very little reason to bother logging in. Starvault is showing its typical lack of leadership that we have all come to expect. Time is running out for SV, and the few diehard fans left will not be enough to pay the bills. It's time to implement the community patch testing program, and prioritize on getting broken systems back up and working. __________________  |
 |
Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Rep Power: 2 |
Quote:
This is a good point... Why would we bother sending black opal a ticket? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the bug tracker, only with the people in the (missing) QA department. My thought is that they are running out of money, are nearly bankrupt, and can't afford a QA person to confirm the bugs. Black Opal if you are out there... we're not going to send you bugs that we can see no community feedback on, and can see no progress on. It's a waste of our time. |
I agree why would you send a CM a ticket about a bug did all the QA people leave??
Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Rep Power: 2 |
Quote:
Please don't compare Darkfall to Mortal - there is no comparison. .There were nowhere near the amount of bugs in Darkfall that there are in Mortal, and once fixed, the Darkfall developers did not reintroduce the same bugs each patch. Sandbox players are patient when things get fixed and STAY fixed. Bugs don't stay fixed in Mortal, they always come back to haunt. The point I made earlier was that the same bugs were present in all the previous sieges and that didn't stop SV. Now all they did was take away the only fun thing left in the game. It was a terrible business decision, now they have lost more players from atrophy than they would have lost from a buggy game system. __________________ |
Comments
Starting? How does one lose something that it never had?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
My favorite part is this part of Black Opal's response:
Yeah, it's totally our fault MO is so broken that if Henrik ever stumbles into the IRC he gets inundated with bugfix requests...
Black Opal is good at placing guilt on the customer base, that's for sure. Don't think he can do much more than that, though. Seems SV devs think they're above criticism and act like divas.
Black Opal
Community Manager
Join Date: Mar 2011
Rep Power: 15
That's another issue; I have had a lot of people contact me and offer their help in testing on the private server. However this runs so many problems that we simply can't find viable solutions for. Anything we implement into something like this would have to require a low workload on the existing staff; otherwise you are asking people to pull more overtime.
The testing server will likely degenerate into factions scrambling to quickly find all of the best materials, and it would be very hard to control what people are doing in this regard. To expect that people behave is out of the question; since we have so much trouble with people attempting to find loopholes in game mechanics and rules, that Discord and myself always have to be on our toes with you guys.
However, in this regard (Public Access to Test Server) I am on the side of the community, I am trying to find a way in which all concerns can be addressed, and you guys can access the test server. However, again there are simply too many problems in the way for something of the sort.
The developers do listen, FAILED has been bumped way up in the list as a response to the war; archery was fixed in less than a week with community backing the feedback, and the Developers were advised of the economy with the feedback from you guys. However I keep saying this; but there is only so much work that can be done at once, and the To-Do List is huge.
__________________
Share MO with others
I guess games that have public test servers do not work.....
couch EVE cough
Opal is a walking joke by now. This is by far not the first time he blames the community for SV's failures, the last time he did that is still in the first ten threads on the first page here. Oh actually I remember. That was when they got rid off the bugtracker.
This is better than my daily soap.
Mortal Online - WATCH YOUR ATTITUDE!
I guess you have no idea how many people are banned from Eve's test server each week for ganking outside the dedicated pvp zones (that's right open pvp is not allowed on test server) or for trying to find new loop holes in code to exploit in live instead of reporting them.
My Colour Is Vomit green, I puke on the tards with stupid colour sigs. My symbol is ,,!, O ,!,, My enemies are any prat with a colour sig, a meaningless personality test, or a pointless list of games and classes.
Regards Hexcaliber
Standing Ovation
#25 (permalink)
psychobilly
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Rep Power: 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Black Opal
It was my decision to remove the bug tracker, it was not being used by Starvault as they have their own internal private tracker. At the same time the bug tracker acted like an Education Ground for exploiters and griefers. There is absolutely no reason to have a bug tracker for a released game be public. The only thing you accomplish is educate griefers. Should this have been an open source game, then that would have made sense; Mortal Online is not.
It was a terrible decision. First of all, if you knew anything about the way the bug tracker worked in the past, you would know that any critical exploits that were posted there were always censored by an active QA person. Show me one fucking example of the bug tracker being used as an education ground for exploiters. None of the 13+ pages of bugs in the post-dawn bug tracker contained any critical exploits or griefer-helping posts. You are simply talking out your ass about something you do not know.
Second, having a public bug tracker may not be what everyone does, but it was a great idea. It was fantastic to feedback to other players about the bugs and how to replicate them, how to avoid them, what the workaround is, etc. Now that information won't be available to players and the community will suffer for it.
If you think your new black hole bug submission platform will work... you are wrong. Less people will submit bugs because they will not see any positive or negative confirmation from the community. Bugs will be discussed in open forums rather than being submitted because people will want to see if the problem is unique to them or if it is a universal issue. And after every bug post in the forums, we will have to sit through another dbag response from the community manager asking people to 'please submit to the bug tracker'. Well let me tell you, that's already really annoying so just knock it the fuck off and let us discuss bugs in public like we want to.
Bad company leadership, bad community manager. I'd fire you if I could.
lol loosing momentum??? MO never had momentum, it never had anything but bugs and unprofessional amateur game modders that had a dream.
It will be interesting to see how SV handles this. Billy basically called the CM an incompetant liar and point blank said he should be fired...
I don't think thats gonna sit well.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
That doesn't change the fact that Eve's test server allows to test for bugs and its usage results in a usually non-pretty but functional product for the live server in the end.
At least someone in Eve can find exploitable code on the test server. Who cares who gets banned on it? Not even the banned people care.
Btw I bet all Opal gets for taking the blame for the decision of a real SV employee is continued free gametime. I wonder how long he'll still do it cause 20,000 lines per month are pretty tough for 15 bucks. Was it 15? I forgot.
And now he's supposed to be the bug tracker. XD
He doesn't even know what he accepted there. Not only is he lacking the competence to verify bugs, he's also lacking the tools to properly keep track of them and communicate about them, unless he really wants to pin down a million bugs with PMs. His PM folder probably allows 200 messages and I doubt anyone at SV knows how to change that, so.. uh..
And now they let him explain that decision? How many of you believe that the community manager has the power to cancel the bug tracker? That's nonsense. I bet he's the next one to step down actually, because nobody can stand that pressure for so little reward. I sincerely doubt they pay him.
That's another vet down. The mods are lurking for opportunities like this one. XD
Did it ever had any momentum?
Well, even though SV needs the help (apparently) in finding bugs, since they're unable to release bug-free patches, this is one thign where SV is probably right...
A week after allowing public test servers:
Public Test Server peak population: 50
Live Server peak pop: 10
lolol actually public test servers do work, provided they are used by selected people/groups to test stuff and the staff put enough effort in to the server to give direction to the testers to test out select bugs or find bugs they need to fix asap...
claiming they dont work is, BS it only fails to work when you do not provide direction or enough staff to support the testers in their testing.
if people go on to it just to find XX item or such they arent testers so you remove them.. its that simple..
same with the bug tracker, if the staff dont know X bug is still broken how will they fix it?? what happens if that dude goes away on a holiday? or breaks a bone and cant check his inbox for bug reports??? lolololol
You know, ever since Russian released his video's MO went sliding down hill and the communirty became very hostile towards SV. plus to add all these bugs, I blame Russian lol and SV for this buggy game, It seems Sv will be selling soon
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
heheh, someone's feeling a second wind.
And it stinks:) You meant smelling right?
I find it unbeliveable that a Cro Magnon would have had such a response to an overwhelming voluntary effort from their fan base to assist in enhanching their product.
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
Maybe when the devs get back from thier 3 week vacatioin they can fix this shit storm. What company goes on a huge vaca after a huge patch??? Oh wait SV does and they have been doing it since beta.
Christmas combat patch then vacation.
Release then took a 3 day weekend,.
EPIC patch then took a 4 day weekend.
Dawn then took a 2 week plus vaca.
This can't be true. Any business will stagger vacation/holidays so as to ensure that their business continues to function . Are you saying that the entire staff leaves at the same time in a 24 hrs. online MMO?
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
Swedes usually take a ~month long break around this time of year, I think. I am pretty sure all the devs have been on vacation for at least a couple of weeks
So you are actually itelling me that the entire staff is on vacation, in a 24 hrs. online mmo? Do worldwide customers have to suffer thru their vacation?
If so then this game should have been marketed to those countries that adhere to that type of regulations.
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
The community manager has made a few posts in that thread to try and calm the players but they seem to have FINALLY reached their breaking point and are shouting him down. This post, while a wall of text, is just filled with epic win:
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/65098-mortal-rapidly-losing-momentum-2.html#post1186546
Here's a gem from the middle:
Game is unplayable. There was no PVE from the beginning and now theres no pvp aswell. Instead of fixing things you are breaking things. Not long ago you pushed Dawn 2-3 times back and you where making promises that it will be very close to bug free and smooth. Guess what it wasn’t. That simple fact makes me wonder if the case is that your devs are simply incompetent to make MO working or its only a matter of low sources or even if the engine is a total fail and cant support a game like MO. But tbh and since I m a customer i t woudnt do any difference even if I was 100% certain that the case was 1 of the above 3. I m paying my money to play a game and I don’t have a game. Not too long ago in one of those parody type interviews with you throwing some convenient questions to Henrik he was saying some BS about finaly being able after 1 year to make the game stable and from that time you would be able to focus on content. And I m asking you: wheres the stability? I ve played 1 million times smoother closed Beta games and way more bugfree than MO now almost 1,5 years after release.
Here's the last part:
1) Most of your customers are fed up with how patches/ expansions are going live. It’s a fact that no one can deny. So my question is do you have any plans in the near future (by near future I m giving you a timeline not a day more than 3 months) to avoid that and if you cant avoid that (not asking the reasons and couldn’t care less) do you have any plans for sweeping the bugs in a logical period like 1-2 weeks (since the patch is going live) and not months and months with recreating older and new bugs, breaking the game in general and disabling serious game features instead?
2) Do you have any plans or if you prefer are you open minded concerning investing in your own game (whatever that means to you like getting more employees and as we see it from our end simply get the things done unlike you did so far) , change your company’s policies being more customer friendly and giving us lets say weekly feedback concerning ingame changes? –to prove us at least that MO is not a dead project to you and you keep on working on it and supporting it. Don’t get me wrong here not gonna try to goship in any case and I m not asking you what plans do you have, I simply ask if you have any plans at all and what do you expect to change towards the best for the game.
3) Concerning today’s shape of the game which is terrible: give us a sincere timeline to expect when the game will be playable again, when the major bugs will be driven away once and for all (lets not fool eachother here with votes, polls and other mambo jumbo crap on about which are the major bugs- we all know that all bugs old and new should be eradicated but those gamebreaking ones like failed should be fixed not tomorrow but yesterday) and finaly when all game features will be back up and running?
Honesty would be appreciated. Sometimes when we simply cant do something is way better to admit that we cannot rather that do it and screw all things concerning the project and all persons involved.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018