Just Being Fair

wardog250

It has come to my attention over the last few years that a lot of people feel this need to go soft on gaming developers in hopes that they will produce something better if they wait around long enough. When it comes to the competitive world of entertainment, there is no room for "being fair". It's harsh criticism that forces companies to turn out better quality content, not people who sit around making up excuses for every thing they get wrong. If you dispute that fact, then you clearly have no grasp on economics. People are only going to buy what they need or consider worth their money. Rewarding a company for producing crap content when there are others out there who are doing far better is the core reason so many MMORPGs are failing to attract large player basis.

If you really gave a damn about something you were making; you would take the time to make it absolutely perfect. From all of the complaints I have seen on the STO forums and on here, I can tell you they are in a damn hurry to throw this out on the market, finished or not. When you take the time to develop something that you really care about, it's going to bring you more profit as apposed to how most of these companies operate now. They throw something together in a year or two and push it out on the market as fast as they can to get an immediate profit. It's like they are in that same mind set as all the major console gaming developers. They are looking for a instant results from something they devoted very little time or creativity in making.

If you are willing to sit around making excuses for every defect you find, then you are only setting everyone up for failure. Because if one company can get away with being slack ass, then slowly they all will move toward the trend. If you haven't noticed it, a lot are already going that direction. Cheap products and terrible customer service. It's the future if people don't stop making excuses for terrible craftsmanship.

Cephus404

It's not just STO, it's all games.  There are very few games that ever come out that are actually complete.  I don't mean content-wise, they're always going to add that, but the basic features are not polished, the gameplay is often inherently broken, it's clear that it hasn't been sufficiently playtested, and these games keep getting played and that's what makes the next generation of broken, unpolished turds want to come out even faster.

The fact that MMO players keep playing broken MMOs is what ensures more broken MMOs are going to come out.  If people don't like broken MMOs, they need to STOP PLAYING THEM!

GTwander

The main reason MMO's are... unpolished (starting to loathe the word), is because the testing cycle of an MMO is way different of that for console/PC games in general. As a QA dude, I can attest to this. Working in-house (that means paid) allows you to have *direct* lines back and forth from departments to get the team working on specific things in the most efficient manner. You have all the bug reports go to a guy who scolds you for not checking the database for duplicates, and there are *serious* people testing it.

For MMOs you send all the reports to a guy that has to file them all, weed out the hundreds of duplicates, and nobody is running test cases in specific areas - it's just a random pile of "it's broken". Also, how many people do MMO betas to actually *test* them? I did voluntarily for AoC (bolster portfolio any way I can), but tons of other players just wanted a free taste and did nothing to help. A single-player game generally gets people with genuine interest to be productive, and because of the monay.

Hope that makes sense.

I will add that the MMO beta scene would be greatly improved if they just went ahead and assigned accounts some directives. People just play from beginning to end without really testing the functions, whatever they happen to notice is what gets reported. They need to tell a select group "check the reliability on these weapon stats" and tell another "scour the zone for stretched textures and f-o-t-w". Nobody but an accomplished tester is even going to think of this stuff.

DarLorkar

Originally posted by GTwander


The main reason MMO's are... unpolished (starting to loathe the word), is because the testing cycle of an MMO is way different of that for console/PC games in general. As a QA dude, I can attest to this. Working in-house (that means paid) allows you to have *direct* lines back and forth from departments to get the team working on specific things in the most efficient manner. You have all the bug reports go to a guy who scolds you for not checking the database for duplicates, and there are *serious* people testing it.
For MMOs you send all the reports to a guy that has to file them all, weed out the hundreds of duplicates, and nobody is running test cases in specific areas - it's just a random pile of "it's broken". Also, how many people do MMO betas to actually *test* them? I did voluntarily for AoC (bolster portfolio any way I can), but tons of other players just wanted a free taste and did nothing to help. A single-player game generally gets people with genuine interest to be productive, and because of the monay.
Hope that makes sense.
I will add that the MMO beta scene would be greatly improved if they just went ahead and assigned accounts some directives. People just play from beginning to end without really testing the functions, whatever they happen to notice is what gets reported. They need to tell a select group "check the reliability on these weapon stats" and tell another "scour the zone for stretched textures and f-o-t-w". Nobody but an accomplished tester is even going to think of this stuff.

 

Ahh bull?:)

No, the only difference between the 2 are that the MMO companies do not care to produce good, quality  games. MMO or console, makes no difference. The devs control how beta is set up, how they direct the testing, and who they let in.

Do not blame the customers.

Do not blame the testers.

Blame the dev's that put their names and reputations on the line by allowing games to go out when they are in bad shape.

And the publishing companies that hold the dev's over a barrel to meet schedules even if there are problems.

All the rest are just excuses. 

 

GTwander

Ok, then the only answer is that MMO's need in-house - paid - testing that roughly covers 250k over a matter of months. There is a reason they have the public do it (funding), and besides, what would you people do if there were no more betas to get into? No more freebie tastes, or maybe even that chance to have a part of doing something to change the game for the better. Most crappy moves in beta are made because the testers don't have a clue what they are talking about, much like those post-launch that couldn't recognize balance on a scale. So maybe the only route would be to strip beta from the public, still don't know how anyone will afford it, let alone how the public might take it with the current expectations.

~and yes I blame the customers. They devs listen to them, do what they wanted, and break it because players are not about balance - they are about advantages.

~yes I blame the testers. The companies give you a bit of trust in exchange for your help and the majority do nothing but spread the news about how bad a game in the testing phase is. Most of them don't even know what to look for even if they wanted to help.

 

You have no idea how structured in-house QA really is, I mean it's a tight ship depending where you are. You go into it knowing what your job for the day is, and others have their own, in the end you get a lot done - but it costs a lot of money. I worked during crunchtime for 12 hours shifts on a 5 day week, I got paid more than some people on salary there did monthly.

AIMonster

Obviously unpaid beta testing from a large group is not equal to decent QA.  Bad QA isn't the only reason a game might be poor quality.  Pestering from publishers to release a game at a specific date whether it's ready or not can contribute to the problem.  Game Designers having a case of "feature creep" especially when they publicly announce it's feature before it's implemented might be another.  Game Designers lack of good mathematical's knowledge might be another problem especially with class balancing.  Poor programming causing technical issues... etc.

A good QA team is important for catching issues, but it's impossible for a QA team to catch everything.  If you have bad designers, programmers, and/or publishers it's going to hurt game development more than bad QA.

GTwander

I admit that incompetence, general lack of ability and tech limitations fall into it somewhere, but the difference of what can be done in thanks to an organized effort of in-house QA to public beta is on a scale of 4 to 1. A console game takes 6 months of testing on average and comes out as you expect, giving a public beta the same amount of time simply does not fly. Better lines of communications are a big part of this, because it would take a day to sort through a day's worth of bug reports in a public beta when it's prepped, precise and theres no *duplicates* when in-house.