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Author Topic: Preview Weekend In Review - From Mark J  (Read 75118 times)
amiable
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Reply #35 on: August 27, 2008, 04:04:49 AM


EDIT: Of course the truly frightening thing from my perspective is that CE beta couldn't start/NDA couldn't be lifted until there was a miracle patch, but then the miracle patch seemed to break a lot of stuff (the mob pathing was HORRENDOUS) and not really fix the critical things (CTD anyone?).  Now there is going to be a new miracle patch to fix all these newly broken things that will go relatively untested (I assume "open" beta will be about 4-5 days, considering then they have to get things ready for the pre-release keys and then release). 

DOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!
cevik
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Reply #36 on: August 27, 2008, 05:13:58 AM

Also, mob pathing was fine until the Preview Weekend patch. Also, the patch did a LOT to fix the CTD issues. Before the preview weekend I was CTD about once every 10 to 20 minutes. During the preview weekend I think I had maybe 2 all weekend, and I played quite a lot.

From seeing how much stuff gets fixed each patch, I have faith that if they say they are working on them, then a real fix will come soon. Unlike AoC patches that have to rank up there with the worst dev confidence ever.

Mob pathing was fine, until they did the last miracle patch and broke it.

Now they are going to do an untested miracle patch to fix mob pathing.  Good luck with that. ;)

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cevik
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Reply #37 on: August 27, 2008, 05:14:26 AM

DOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Marking this so I can quote it in the "WHAT WENT RONG!!?!?!" thread.

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amiable
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Reply #38 on: August 27, 2008, 05:51:59 AM

DOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Marking this so I can quote it in the "WHAT WENT RONG!!?!?!" thread.

This is like the third time you have said something similar to this.  We get it, this game is not your bag and you think it is going to flop.  Time will tell if you are right, and if you are feel free to gloat (if thats important to you, and apparently it is).

I think you are too grumpy about this, and need a hug. why so serious?
Abelian75
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Reply #39 on: August 27, 2008, 07:17:18 AM

I REALLY think we're abusing the term "miracle patch" here.  A patch to fix mob pathing is not a miracle patch, that's just a patch.
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Reply #40 on: August 27, 2008, 07:20:15 AM

Any patches that fixes something shortly before release that MUST BE FIXED BEFORE RELEASE - in other words, a patch with a HARD DEADLINE - is a miracle patch.
tazelbain
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Reply #41 on: August 27, 2008, 07:33:03 AM

The "miracle" is not making the deadline.  It's turning a shit game to good just in time for release.  YMMV on whether WAR is a shit game.

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Mrbloodworth
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Reply #42 on: August 27, 2008, 07:34:00 AM

I REALLY think we're abusing the term "miracle patch" here.  A patch to fix mob pathing is not a miracle patch, that's just a patch.

I agree.

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cevik
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Reply #43 on: August 27, 2008, 07:52:06 AM

The "miracle" is not making the deadline.  It's turning a shit game to good just in time for release.  YMMV on whether WAR is a shit game.

Well, a game where you can level just by standing still and nuking any mob you want at range until it's dead with no risk qualifies as pretty shitty in my book.  And we're not talking about some "sooper sekrit" exploit to do it, it happens with any mob.

But the true miracle will be turning the animations from total crap to something decent in 3 weeks, I'll believe it when I see it.

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amiable
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Reply #44 on: August 27, 2008, 08:15:02 AM

The "miracle" is not making the deadline.  It's turning a shit game to good just in time for release.  YMMV on whether WAR is a shit game.

Well, a game where you can level just by standing still and nuking any mob you want at range until it's dead with no risk qualifies as pretty shitty in my book.  And we're not talking about some "sooper sekrit" exploit to do it, it happens with any mob.


...and they know the problem, it didn't exist in earlier patches, and they are going to fix it. 

Whatever is said or done, I think Mythic needs to get a little credit for at least acknowledging the problems before the game is released and doing their level best to be honest with the community about the source of the problems and the solution.  PvE mob issues may be an enormous concern to some, but almost everyone I talked to are primarily in this game for the PvP, and rushing to max level via PvE kinda misses the point and really won't put you that far ahead of everyone else anyway. 

On a tangent: Every MMO has some leveling exploit that folks discover the first few weeks of the game that results in someone hitting levle cap far before they should.  I rmemebr WoW had a terrain exploit near the Dwarf zone that let you get into an unfinshed area where you could one shot high levle mobs that had only 1 hit point.  It was fixed, but it took a couple of weeks.
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Reply #45 on: August 27, 2008, 08:27:47 AM

Can they keep the game from constantly crashing whenever I'm in the Chaos starting zone? That would be super.

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Khaldun
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Reply #46 on: August 27, 2008, 08:28:50 AM

The mob pathing was so broken, though, it wasn't even consistently borked in a single way. I was playing a Chosen during the weekend, so sometimes I'd lob an axe at something and it would run to the edge of the map in the opposite direction. Ok, sez me, be that way, and I'd go to work on something else. Five minutes later, it's my runner friend, suddenly hot to fight. Kind of makes management of pulls a wee bit difficult. Now if the runners also aggroed shit they ran next to (as frankly they ought to, as this is pretty crucial to PvE design) we have us a very bad situation. This is definitely not one of those things where you can say, "Ok, fix it when you can, every MMOG has its bugs at launch". They have to fix it before live.

One thing I'm getting really fucking sick of, btw, with this MMOG and every other one, is the conversation between people who say a game is Robot Jesus and people who say it's the worst ever. Particularly because weak-minded live management teams (or bosses of those teams who have a reason to cover up and deny) tend to listen to the sycophants and imagine that every single critic is a nerdrage idiot, until suddenly one day all the fanbois log on and it's just them and the cricket sounds on the server. Warhammer's in reasonably good shape, it's playable, it has potential to offer some fun you can't get in WoW or other competitor's titles, but it's got not just the generic flaws of Diku-style MMOGs but a few special challenges and issues of its own that Mythic had better figure out how to handle the right way.
Venkman
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Reply #47 on: August 27, 2008, 08:53:51 AM

Quote
The next best thing to a queue is?
Why do we need the next best thing? Is it impossible to add a queue at all? Just impossible before launch? Or something they don't want to do at all for some esoteric reason? It's not like we're talking insta-hit precasting here. And I suspect this is one of those it's-expected features.

Otherwise, nice to see the feedback returned to the players, particularly in this more informal format. Kudos for that. I do see some extended crunch time though. Good luck to the team!
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Reply #48 on: August 27, 2008, 08:55:00 AM

Meh, assuming the pathing was working fine in an earlier patch, it shouldn't be a miracle to get it working again.  That is certainly an assumption though.

Overall I didn't see anything whatsoever technically speaking that seems like it would require a miracle patch to fix.  I never crashed, and the game's performance was uniformly perfect.  I have heard relatively few complaints technical issues as well, although they do exist, I think that they are on solid ground technically speaking.

Mythic's real problem is making sure their game mechanics work out like they think they are going to.  I'm worried that PQs will be impossible because they will be a ghost town (there's just too many of them, and the world is too big for this community based game play), scenarios will have long waits, and thus you'll basically have to grind to level.  That's where I ended up at the end of preview weekend.  Populations were down and people were making alts, so my level 13 witch hunter was more lonely than usual, but I think the concern is still valid.

When the game is working as planned it's a shitton of fun.
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Reply #49 on: August 27, 2008, 09:00:38 AM

I'm not so worried about ghost town PQs because they're an opportunity for smallish groups of well-coordinated players. I was in that Barony city with the Elector, I forget the name, Schweitzengruben or whatever, and there's a Chaos PQ that involves destroying 50 bundles of supplies in the first stage, several tough bosses in the second, and a very tough firecaster and his buddies in the last. We just had three tanks and two healers. We made it to the last stage with a lot of fairly careful play and then some douchbag orc who wasn't in our group kept fucking up the last part by training the firecasters onto us before we could get set up after a wipe (rally point is a long ways away). I don't think it's going to be a popular PQ because it's a long slog, but that could make it a fun challenge for a smallish guild to go tackle it.

However, they're going to need to tweak the way PQ rewards are allocated. I completely understand why they don't want to overweight contribution, because that will cause people to quit who aren't topping the damage or healing charts. (Does damage taken help with your contribution score? Otherwise tanks are kind of fucked.) But they need to disqualify people who contribute marginally or not at all from a shot at loot--I got loot in two cases simply because I was doing other quests in a PQ area but did nothing to help with the PQ itself.
cevik
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Reply #50 on: August 27, 2008, 09:03:39 AM

The "miracle" is not making the deadline.  It's turning a shit game to good just in time for release.  YMMV on whether WAR is a shit game.

Well, a game where you can level just by standing still and nuking any mob you want at range until it's dead with no risk qualifies as pretty shitty in my book.  And we're not talking about some "sooper sekrit" exploit to do it, it happens with any mob.


...and they know the problem, it didn't exist in earlier patches, and they are going to fix it. 

Whatever is said or done, I think Mythic needs to get a little credit for at least acknowledging the problems before the game is released and doing their level best to be honest with the community about the source of the problems and the solution.  PvE mob issues may be an enormous concern to some, but almost everyone I talked to are primarily in this game for the PvP, and rushing to max level via PvE kinda misses the point and really won't put you that far ahead of everyone else anyway. 

On a tangent: Every MMO has some leveling exploit that folks discover the first few weeks of the game that results in someone hitting levle cap far before they should.  I rmemebr WoW had a terrain exploit near the Dwarf zone that let you get into an unfinshed area where you could one shot high levle mobs that had only 1 hit point.  It was fixed, but it took a couple of weeks.

This is like the third time you have said something similar to this.  We get it, this game is your bag and you think it is going to rock.

On a serious note:  This isn't a leveling exploit that was found by a select few and exploited.  This was literally every mob anyone fought in the game, big difference.

And the big giant thing that you are glossing over:  Mythic said "Hey, we have something we are going to fix in a patch and we won't let anyone talk about the game until that thing is fixed."  Then they "fixed" those things and (partially) lifted the NDA.  Only the fix apparently caused these new bugs that are pretty freaking major.  Now Mythic is saying "ohh we know we have these problems, but we're going to fix them with a patch."  Somehow I'm supposed to believe that the new patch will be issue free, when the last patch CAUSED the issues we're seeing today.  Somehow this next patch is going to be magically better than the last patch, but this one will have less testing.  THAT is why I think it's a miracle patch, because the very last patch (supposedly) caused all these problems yet the next one is going to miraculously be issue free.

What new and unforeseen problems is the next patch going to cause?

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amiable
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Reply #51 on: August 27, 2008, 09:11:48 AM

What new and unforeseen problems is the next patch going to cause?

Who knows?  But I tend to be a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy, at least when the game itself is enjoyable.  I don't think it is fair to extrapolate that because they made an error on this patch that they are entirely incompetent and every patch is going to be riddled with brokenness.  I'm not saying that they won't make new mistakes, but I am at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

As for the CTD problems, in an earlier (non-elder) iteration of the Beta I rarely CTD, then the 3.3 patch came out and the gaem was practically unplayable, but over the past 3 weeks it has steadily gotten more stable.  My CTD's went from 1 every ten minutes to 1 an evening.  Still not perfect but markedly improved.
Khaldun
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Reply #52 on: August 27, 2008, 09:20:59 AM

There is some reason to worry when a big patch aimed at one problem causes another and different big problem that is not easily hotfixed. With early-live SWG, this happened all the time, and after a while, it was clear that it was happening for two reasons: 1) the underlying design had some incompatible features and ideas whose code pulled the game in opposite directions or put very big strains on their DB, etc., and so when they pulled on one thread they almost inevitably unravelled something else and 2) the live management team wasn't working as a well-coordinated unit.

So this sort of thing can happen a few times in isolation, but if you start to see it a lot (big bugfix disables or borks some other feature or function that is substantially unconnected to the problem being fixed) it really does add up to a serious problem on the development end. Not the least of which is that the more this happens, the more than some serious problems will simply be left alone both because the live management team doesn't have the resources to deal with them or because they're scared of the unpredictable effects of implementing a fix.
Abelian75
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Reply #53 on: August 27, 2008, 09:31:08 AM

Oh for god's sake guys, this is getting ridiculous.  The latest WOTLK beta patch broke paladin judgements entirely.  The previous one broke mounting in cities.  Does this mean WoW is and always will be a buggy pile of crap?  Come on, this is just silly.

Something that DOES warrant some worry is that a system as big and potentially exploitable as the auction house is going in so late.  That's not necessarily a sign of doom or anything, but it seems a little risky.  A pathfinding bug popping up in one patch?  Come on, big deal.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2008, 09:32:43 AM by Abelian75 »
Khaldun
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Reply #54 on: August 27, 2008, 09:31:41 AM

November and Sept. 18 = not the same deadline.
Mrbloodworth
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Reply #55 on: August 27, 2008, 09:34:43 AM

Seems like there is a double standard with patches breaking shitt and the cry of incompetence.

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Khaldun
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Reply #56 on: August 27, 2008, 09:45:13 AM

Nope. You can break shit when you're still months from live. You can break shit even when you're in live. But it's more consequential when you're breaking major shit right before live, and it's more consequential if you've got a track record of breaking shit while fixing shit on a regular basis. It's also more consequential if you have a long track record of breaking shit and  stonewalling about it.

Mythic only has the first problem right now (breaking shit just before going live). By and large, with DAOC, they did a reasonable job of fixing major problems in the early history of live. Funcom and SOE, on the other hand, have bad track records in this regard.

Blizzard, whatever else you might say about them, has done a pretty good job of fixing significant bugs and running a tight development ship. They also seem to know pretty well, maybe too well, how all parts of their design interconnect and mesh. So knowing that they've got issues in a beta that's got two + months left to run is not particularly a concern of any kind.
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Reply #57 on: August 27, 2008, 09:47:34 AM

Quote
The next best thing to a queue is?
Why do we need the next best thing? Is it impossible to add a queue at all? Just impossible before launch? Or something they don't want to do at all for some esoteric reason? It's not like we're talking insta-hit precasting here. And I suspect this is one of those it's-expected features.

Otherwise, nice to see the feedback returned to the players, particularly in this more informal format. Kudos for that. I do see some extended crunch time though. Good luck to the team!
I don't think it's impossible as much as it's unappealing, mostly because of the downtime a true queue allows for. Watching a queue is something like waiting for the *next* attack rather than seeing the *current* attack happen. Having a direct relation between button press and character action feels more streamlined even if the teoretical outcome is the same as with a queue.

That said, I'd rather have a real queue. Queueing bothered me at first but once I got used to it, I don't really want to go back to not having it. Getting more done with less effort by having one, in general.

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Abelian75
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Reply #58 on: August 27, 2008, 09:51:59 AM

I think the fact that everyone's obsessing over this pathing bug indicates just how few bugs of this kind the game has compared to most MMO releases other than WoW.  Just like how with WoW everyone who wants to pretend the game was buggy as hell at launch always mentions loot lag.

And no, I don't think the game is robot jesus, but I think it would be difficult to argue that it isn't one of the more solid, polished MMOs so far, even if you find the underlying game boring or just plain bad.
cevik
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Reply #59 on: August 27, 2008, 10:16:25 AM

I think the fact that everyone's obsessing over this pathing bug indicates just how few bugs of this kind the game has compared to most MMO releases other than WoW. 

No, we're talking about pathing because it was Horizons level of broken over the weekend.

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cevik
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Reply #60 on: August 27, 2008, 10:21:17 AM

Who knows?  But I tend to be a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy, at least when the game itself is enjoyable.  I don't think it is fair to extrapolate that because they made an error on this patch that they are entirely incompetent and every patch is going to be riddled with brokenness.  I'm not saying that they won't make new mistakes, but I am at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

As for the CTD problems, in an earlier (non-elder) iteration of the Beta I rarely CTD, then the 3.3 patch came out and the gaem was practically unplayable, but over the past 3 weeks it has steadily gotten more stable.  My CTD's went from 1 every ten minutes to 1 an evening.  Still not perfect but markedly improved.

So what you are saying is that Mythic has a history of patches with this game that cause problems so bad that it makes the game unplayable, but you believe this next patch is going to be perfect because you are an optimist?

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amiable
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Reply #61 on: August 27, 2008, 10:25:24 AM

Who knows?  But I tend to be a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy, at least when the game itself is enjoyable.  I don't think it is fair to extrapolate that because they made an error on this patch that they are entirely incompetent and every patch is going to be riddled with brokenness.  I'm not saying that they won't make new mistakes, but I am at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

As for the CTD problems, in an earlier (non-elder) iteration of the Beta I rarely CTD, then the 3.3 patch came out and the gaem was practically unplayable, but over the past 3 weeks it has steadily gotten more stable.  My CTD's went from 1 every ten minutes to 1 an evening.  Still not perfect but markedly improved.

So what you are saying is that Mythic has a history of patches with this game that cause problems so bad that it makes the game unplayable, but you believe this next patch is going to be perfect because you are an optimist?

No... What I am saying is I have seen them work diligently to correct problems that appear in their patches, thus I have no reason to doubt they will not correct the problem in this case.  I never said the game was going to be "perfect," just that I was willing to forgive some things if the gameplay was enjoyable.  And my optimism is a general character trait that is unrelated to my feelings about MMORPGs Mr. Sunshine.  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?
kaid
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Reply #62 on: August 27, 2008, 11:16:57 AM

I still had a lot of fun this weekend but ya their pathing over this weekend was clearly not working correctly. It made pet classes pretty useless.

The global cool down thing was annoying me a bit but I am just to used to how wow does it so that may just be a getting used to it thing I can live with it and if they improve it great.

My biggest gripe was you cannot adjust gamma correction currently. That is highly annoying as my room gets very bright at certain times of the day and some of the game areas are VERY dark which made it a PITA to see wtf was going on.

The RVR stuff was fun and I was enjoying that a good bit its very sweet that you can just queue for a scenario while leveling up and when you get in you just get slorped up and when you are done you are dropped back off where you were. It really dosn't get that much more userfriendly than that. Hell I could have wound up skipping a lot of quests in the 1-10 level range because I got 3 levels in pvp and a couple doing PQ's. So if you are not a questy person and just want to pvp thats an option and between pvp and PQ's I got plenty of gear.
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Reply #63 on: August 27, 2008, 01:17:39 PM

Eh, to be fair this isn't really miracle patch material, pretty much just bug fixes and polish.  It's already a pretty solid game, imho.  Performance is good, classes are all fairly fun, plenty of content, etc.

I'd have to agree.  There isn't that many major issues that would require a miracle to fix.  A lot of it is like Abelian said, polish and bug fixes, and those bugs arn't game breaking.
fuser
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Reply #64 on: August 27, 2008, 01:49:57 PM

Had a lot with a work PC with CTD's with 1gb of ram. Was kinda cool:

play for 30mins -> CTD -> play for 15mins -> CTD -> play for 7mins -> CTD -> select a char -> CTD

Reboot and it was all good, 2gb extended the times!

I had one CTD on my home machine (64bit 4gb ram) and the game wouldn't authenticate any more (stopped at server listing box with no list) after passing the patcher window. Took a freaking reboot to resolve it.

Pathing made me mad, along with the targeting
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Reply #65 on: August 27, 2008, 04:19:25 PM

But I tend to be a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy

Wise man once said: Glass may be half full but it's half full of urine.
Tarami
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Reply #66 on: August 27, 2008, 04:22:26 PM

But I tend to be a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy

Wise man once said: Glass may be half full but it's half full of urine.
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Reply #67 on: August 27, 2008, 04:26:49 PM

I think the fact that everyone's obsessing over this pathing bug indicates just how few bugs of this kind the game has compared to most MMO releases other than WoW. 

No, we're talking about pathing because it was Horizons level of broken over the weekend.

And everyone has said it was working fine before the code got messed up. The devs have admitted it was a "woops" moment, and it will be fixed in the next patch. So far every time they have said that, they have produced. I will give them the benefit of the doubt because so far they have done what they said they are going to do, unlike AoC where they are still trying to figure out the swing speed problem that they wouldnt even admit existed for over a month.

They said they where attempting to reduce CTD, they did in a big big way. They said they where going to improve performance in RVR, and they did it. So when they say they have a fix for the pathing issues, I will believe them for now. Thats what happens when someone is honest and gives it to your straight, and then follows through.
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Reply #68 on: August 27, 2008, 09:45:01 PM

Quote

Regarding population imbalance.  The discussion was in the other thread but oh well.  Looks like they will have queues for the overpopulated realm and bonuses for the underpopulated realm/loser realm to deal with population imbalance.  Sucks to be the overpopulated side.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2008, 09:53:16 PM by trias_e »
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Reply #69 on: August 27, 2008, 11:25:40 PM

This is why Bat Country needs to find an underpopulated order server. >_>
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