W/O breaking the PTS licence agreement I will say this,
The weekend beta is build 1.21.
The PTS server build is 1.81
it is well over 3 builds past what EVERYONE IS PLAYING NOW.
Please shut the fuck up already, pre-order... wait a month or move on.
These posts make me rage the rage of 1000 tiny school girls.
This doesn't sound right at all. Why would you beta test an old client right before release? They must know it's full of bugs and such. It seems they would want the best word of mouth possible this close to launch especially since there is no NDA. Bad word of mouth can massacre a game launch. It doesn't make sense to me.
Have to admit this beta round/stage has put me well and truly off the game. Bugs galore, a lot of things broken or not working as intended. Last time I encountered this was with Vanguard and vanguard was with its launch, ok this is beta, less than a month before release. Had doubts already with the price of the game (too expensive), place a monthly sub on it as well and then have the game just mediocre (other established online games out that are better), something is just missing from this game, its not the graphics, they a nice, sounds could be better (well it keeps going very silent then normal pitch then complete loss of sound) its not my comp as its been happening with a lot of others.
Will hold off on this see how things turn out, not going to waste money then see it move to F2P model in 6 mths time. I reckon the cost of the game will dramatically drop in that time.
it has now become the industry standard to release games in a buggy, dysfunctional state and take forever to fix longstanding bugs. The reason for that is obvious. Whenever a developer pulls this crap, the response from the hallelujah chorus is always:
"Name a game that hasn't released with bugs" as if the fact other developers have released bug-ridden games somehow justifies the practice.
I wish for once gamers en masse would call BS and ask for their money back and punish developers that do this. Any major bug discovered in Beta should be squashed before launch. The only bugs you should be seeing are those that didn't surface until after the game was launched or other changes were made. If this game launches with broken Mainline quests or quests that can be bugged out by having trolls standing around the spawn point dancing naked (as I saw this weekened) then that's grounds for some serious flak being fired their way, not more fawning adulation.
Can't agree more.Amen
If my cancelling pre-order would change the industry I would do so in a heartbeat. But it won't. And since it won't and I really am liking the game other than the bugs, I'm staying with the 30th start.
You don't know what will happen until you try it. If all you people who thought about cancelling your pre-order actually DID IT, it would make a statement and change everything. You guys sound like people who get raped or oppressed and are afraid to speak up against the rapist for the same reasons. Then, one person finally speaks up and the rest start to follow. How many revolutions have we seen in countries in the past 3 years? Change doesn't happen unless you force it to change, if you sit on your ass and allow it to happen, guess what? It's going to to continue to happen.
You don't know what will happen until you try it. If all you people who thought about cancelling your pre-order actually DID IT, it would make a statement and change everything. You guys sound like people who get raped or oppressed and are afraid to speak up against the rapist for the same reasons. Then, one person finally speaks up and the rest start to follow. How many revolutions have we seen in countries in the past 3 years? Change doesn't happen unless you force it to change, if you sit on your ass and allow it to happen, guess what? It's going to to continue to happen.
Well.. I'm totally with you when it comes to important things like a oppressing regime for example. But we're talking about video games.. it's a hobby and therefor a rather minor factor in my life. The only question I'm asking myself is "Will it be worth it?". And if my answer is yes then I can overlook some bad decisions (i.e. pay-gates & cash shop) or flaws (phasing & many bugs). Who knows how long you'll be playing ESO at all? Maybe just the first month.. maybe a year. Nobody can say how Zenimax will improve or even downgrade it. Even it's just fun for a month.. you still got the chance to unsubscribe and move on.
I'm politically active so I'm the first who screams "don't let them do it to you.. fight back". There always will be enough people who are buying crappy products.. and yes, if we all would resist in buying them that case could possibly change. But come on.. how do you want to achieve that.. change the behavior of thousands / millions of people? At the end of the day it's just a video game. And therefor not worth all the trouble.. in my opinion.
You don't know what will happen until you try it. If all you people who thought about cancelling your pre-order actually DID IT, it would make a statement and change everything. You guys sound like people who get raped or oppressed and are afraid to speak up against the rapist for the same reasons. Then, one person finally speaks up and the rest start to follow. How many revolutions have we seen in countries in the past 3 years? Change doesn't happen unless you force it to change, if you sit on your ass and allow it to happen, guess what? It's going to to continue to happen.
Well.. I'm totally with you when it comes to important things like a oppressing regime for example. But we're talking about video games.. it's a hobby and therefor a rather minor factor in my life. The only question I'm asking myself is "Will it be worth it?". And if my answer is yes then I can overlook some bad decisions (i.e. pay-gates & cash shop) or flaws (phasing & many bugs). Who knows how long you'll be playing ESO at all? Maybe just the first month.. maybe a year. Nobody can say how Zenimax will improve or even downgrade it. Even it's just fun for a month.. you still got the chance to unsubscribe and move on.
I'm politically active so I'm the first who screams "don't let them do it to you.. fight back". There always will be enough people who are buying crappy products.. and yes, if we all would resist in buying them that case could possibly change. But come on.. how do you want to achieve that.. change the behavior of thousands / millions of people? At the end of the day it's just a video game. And therefor not worth all the trouble.. in my opinion.
I remember the other day I was trying out one of those Xfinity wifi hotspots at a Subway and couldn't connect. I called customer service and it was so horrible and embarassing (noone knew what service I was talking about and overall didn't know what they were doing). I found the email of Comcast's CTO (Chief Technology Officer), the highest guy that controls the entire technological side of Comcast and emailed him directly. Guess what? He answered back withing 20 minutes, followed up and hooked me up with his personal executive support. The executive helped me with the issue and said he was launching an investigation into the customer support centers because of the obvious communication disparage between corporate and the guys on the ground.
You never know whats going to happen until you try it. Most people in that situation would've just said "forget it" and given up, letting Comcast get over on them. Now as to what pans out of the investigation, we'll see, but I'll be happy if it leads to reforms of Comcast's customer service and improvements on the technology they offer. And it didn't really take any effort, just one email.
And as someone said before, it's not "just a video-game". For the developers and publishers it is a multi-million dollar, investment that they put a lot of hours of manpower into that can forever change their lives. For us this is something we have to spend our hard earned cash on and could take up a lot of our time as well along with for some of us, potentially change our lives.
I've just deleted ESO from my ssd. I am so disappointed i just cancelled my preorder also. Sorry for bethesda/ zenimax as i enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim. But i remember my last exp with a preorder ( swotor someone? ) and it seems this will be as bad as that.
My biggest concern is/ are the 'clunky' ( this word! ) and uncomfortable game mechanics and ui. Its not the money tough; I just want a fluid game play and not fiddle and work around with the game. Especially the MMO part is important ( should i mention that? ) but as flawed and hardly working as in ESO - NO Thx.
It has to work - without the core things of fun ( different for different people I know ) I don't see me sold on that.
Launch is going to be rough anyway, as all those who creates toons but did not get the name they wanted, as it was already taken, are going to hit the servers hard a launch to try to get the name they want. I am guess the log in servers will be crashing a lot.
If they add to the cash shop a 'name reserve' option, I wonder how much extra money they will make
I am seeing a few bugged quests but not as many as before, and this is my 4th beta weekend. I also no longer have lag spikes where the game locks up and I am not longer seeing any DCs at all.
I agree, I'm not sure why but this beta weekend has actually been worse than the previous few. I'm seeing more bugs and so many are gamebreaking and insanely frustrating. The thing that worries me is that the quests that are bugging (around level 8-12 from my experience) have been bugged for months and yet they still have yet to be fixed. When is "Restoring the Guardians" going to work? It makes it so hard to enjoy the game and level through smoothly without becoming increasingly frustrated.
Despite all of this, the PvP for me was really holding my interest. I haven't had this much fun in PvP in ages. Well, at least that's how I felt two weeks ago. Now I'm not so sure as it has becoming very buggy and at times, unplayable. Keeps disappearing, being constantly dismounted (which is terrible thanks to the long run distances), jittery players and map bugs galore. I really enjoy the game, if everything worked smoothly, I'd be crazy excited but now I'm just apprehensive about release. I don't want to cancel my pre-order but I can't imagine these issues being fixed in two weeks (or maybe the game getting even worse in two weeks). Let's hope this is not the case, I'm tired of getting burned by promising MMOs.
You just wrote everything I would have wrote, to the letter, accept you left out the last part that is floating around in my mind.
"Is this all a ruse? Are they selling air based on the Bethesda Skyrim name just to screw us over? Will this release and die in a few short months with nothing but horrible bugs that only get worse with each new build?"
I smell a 2nd rate team who's crew is not only inexperienced, but half of them don't show up for work. Maybe the management is bad, maybe the project managers are lame, maybe the dev's are fucking retarded. Maybe it's all those things. Any way you slice it,. I've been ripped off by so many games this last few years it's an automatic reaction.
I am wondering if I am being ripped off. I am sincerely worried that I'll have to 86 the company that just created my favorite game of all time "Skyrim".
Ultimately, I am going to stick it out and trust Bethesda to stand behind their product. If they fix all the bugs even as is it will be well worth the money.
I agree, I'm not sure why but this beta weekend has actually been worse than the previous few. I'm seeing more bugs and so many are gamebreaking and insanely frustrating. The thing that worries me is that the quests that are bugging (around level 8-12 from my experience) have been bugged for months and yet they still have yet to be fixed. When is "Restoring the Guardians" going to work? It makes it so hard to enjoy the game and level through smoothly without becoming increasingly frustrated.
Despite all of this, the PvP for me was really holding my interest. I haven't had this much fun in PvP in ages. Well, at least that's how I felt two weeks ago. Now I'm not so sure as it has becoming very buggy and at times, unplayable. Keeps disappearing, being constantly dismounted (which is terrible thanks to the long run distances), jittery players and map bugs galore. I really enjoy the game, if everything worked smoothly, I'd be crazy excited but now I'm just apprehensive about release. I don't want to cancel my pre-order but I can't imagine these issues being fixed in two weeks (or maybe the game getting even worse in two weeks). Let's hope this is not the case, I'm tired of getting burned by promising MMOs.
You just wrote everything I would have wrote, to the letter, accept you left out the last part that is floating around in my mind.
"Is this all a ruse? Are they selling air based on the Bethesda Skyrim name just to screw us over? Will this release and die in a few short months with nothing but horrible bugs that only get worse with each new build?"
I smell a 2nd rate team who's crew is not only inexperienced, but half of them don't show up for work. Maybe the management is bad, maybe the project managers are lame, maybe the dev's are fucking retarded. Maybe it's all those things. Any way you slice it,. I've been ripped off by so many games this last few years it's an automatic reaction.
I am wondering if I am being ripped off. I am sincerely worried that I'll have to 86 the company that just created my favorite game of all time "Skyrim".
Ultimately, I am going to stick it out and trust Bethesda to stand behind their product. If they fix all the bugs even as is it will be well worth the money.
While they're under the same company. This isn't the same team that created the Elder Scrolls series games. You can pretty much call them the "B" team.
Not defending ESO at all, but some people have no idea how the actual industry works when it comes to bugs, etc. So i see uneducated people complaining about bugs during a closed beta, open beta, last beta before release, etc. I will try to shine some light into this for you.
When a build is released to internal testers (build .46 or 1.97, etc), the testers play the game, and look for bugs. Bug reports are submitted to the developers, and they try to fix these bugs as quickly as possible. Some of these bugs are alot harder to fix programming wise than you might think. lets say they change some quests, and allow you to skip certain zones. The internal testers maybe have a set amount of time to test that one specific build, submit as many bugs as possible, before a new build is sent. some bugs get fixed, some fixes create new bugs.
Most bugs are kept in an online database so you can easily search to see if the bug was reported. Making duplicates of the same bug just wastes time. Bugs are ranked based on how sever they are. Minor bugs probably wont be fixed as quickly as game breaking bugs. Then you have beta testers (different from the internal testing team) posting bugs on the beta forums. Each claim is checked to see if it has been reported by an internal tester, and is in the data base. If not, a new bug report is written for it. This is only after an internal tester has been able to reproduce the bug following the steps thats provided by the person who posted the bug on the forums.
But this is the part that confuses most people. Lets say the release build .80 as the open beta client, the private server beta testers ( the ones who can play more than just weekends) are on build .81, the internal testers are on build .82, the next build that will be released to the internal testers is build .83, and some bugs that were reported in build .78, .79, .80 have already been fixed, but they wont be seen until build .85.
You probably thinking "If the bug is fixed now, why not add it to this build!?". That's because the fix needs to be verified first. Since fixes go in batches, which make builds, and fixes have a priority, some get finished before others. Its not like a bug is fixed, then its just added to the game right away. its added with a bunch of other changes to the game. Then the entire process repeats over and over again. Thats why when a bug report is created, they ask what build were you playing that you first saw the bug. You might see a bug in .80, its fixed in .81, but happens again in .82. This is just the way it happens sometimes. Or your bug is already fixed in a future build, but since they are maybe changing a quest, or adding more stuff to it, getting rid of the quest, changing the zone, etc.., thats why its not fixed right away.
So those of you who complain about the bugs that are present during open (final beta's), have every right to complain, as its the internet, but at least try to find out how things work first. This is not just to defend ESO! This is to defend all games where players whine and cry about how buggy a beta is, or say things like "How dare the open beta be this buggy? They are supposed to be showing us their best! I dont think this will be fixed by release, so im canceling my preorder. How dare they release a buggy game!"
For those of you that are complaining, i have a question. What beta did you play where there were game breaking bugs (lets avoid class imbalances for PVP because this can be opinionated more often than not.), and they were not fixed by release, or within a week after release. What was the bug? How long did it take to fix?
PS. Even an open beta is still a beta test. Testing servers, gathering demographics, looking for reports of bugs that they missed, or only happen when a massive amount of people converge in an single area. ITS STILL A BETA. Once you buy the game, the first free 30 days is your actual real demo of the game in a P2P mmo. If you like it, sub, If you dont, quit. If you feel its too many game breaking bugs, then just wait till they get fixed, and try it again.
But bashing a game, saying you wont play because of the bugs you experienced during a beta, is just ignorant. If you say you dont like it because of content, or the way it plays or models, etc etc, alright. I can understand that as each person likes different games. But to cry about bugs as the reason you wont play a game, when its not even released officially yet........
Certain people are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I've played the past 3 betas, and it's not THAT bad. The biggest problem I've seen was in PvE with a few broken quest lines and grouping issues. But I wouldn't imagine it would be that difficult to fix those. I saw absolutely zero problems with PvP. People keep complaining about lag, but I haven't seen it yet.
But bashing a game, saying you wont play because of the bugs you experienced during a beta, is just ignorant. If you say you dont like it because of content, or the way it plays or models, etc etc, alright. I can understand that as each person likes different games. But to cry about bugs as the reason you wont play a game, when its not even released officially yet........
Well, let me take your reasoning further then.
If you are paid $75,000+ a year to "market" a game, and it is your job to sell it as well as possible, and this game costs (say) 100+ Millions dollars...
Now, don't you think that part of your role would be perhaps knowing your "demographics", your "target market"? Knowing how they would react to various events/payments models/bugs?
Keep in mind this is all you do every day from 9am to 5pm, and this is all you have been doing for the last 3 years - basically make the launch as smooth as possible.
Now if any forum dweller (me, you) with no formal training and no salary, in just a few minutes here, can see this happening, and could even have predicted this would happen, what does that tell you?
Yep, people are just being people, but ZO are just being [insert kind word here] if they allowed this to happen. The only thing they can control is "their game", complaining about the people is just useless.
Knowing this, they should have attempted to deliver an experience as flawless as possible (I wouldn't be surprised if the suits were to blame, on a side note - but they pay the salaries so they listen to them).
Originally posted by Satarious Certain people are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I've played the past 3 betas, and it's not THAT bad. The biggest problem I've seen was in PvE with a few broken quest lines and grouping issues. But I wouldn't imagine it would be that difficult to fix those. I saw absolutely zero problems with PvP. People keep complaining about lag, but I haven't seen it yet.
But world doesnt revolve around you. only because you had zero lag and didnt come across major bugs doesnt mean others had same experince.
Originally posted by Leiros Here's hoping that people are actually reporting these bugs instead of just rage-quitting and then bashing the game... but somehow I doubt it.
From my experience, given the timeline until launch it isn't going to matter much either way. This game will need one hell of a zero day patch that's going to cost coders some serious man hours. They might be able to get some of the stuff ironed out, but not this much.
Two weeks before launch I have never seen a game as buggy as this in my lifetime.
You haven't seen much of Online games then mate. There where much more Games with much more Bugs back then. Compared to them, TESO is Online Gamer's Heaven.
But bashing a game, saying you wont play because of the bugs you experienced during a beta, is just ignorant. If you say you dont like it because of content, or the way it plays or models, etc etc, alright. I can understand that as each person likes different games. But to cry about bugs as the reason you wont play a game, when its not even released officially yet........
Well, let me take your reasoning further then.
If you are paid $75,000+ a year to "market" a game, and it is your job to sell it as well as possible, and this game costs (say) 100+ Millions dollars...
Now, don't you think that part of your role would be perhaps knowing your "demographics", your "target market"? Knowing how they would react to various events/payments models/bugs?
Keep in mind this is all you do every day from 9am to 5pm, and this is all you have been doing for the last 3 years - basically make the launch as smooth as possible.
Now if any forum dweller (me, you) with no formal training and no salary, in just a few minutes here, can see this happening, and could even have predicted this would happen, what does that tell you?
Yep, people are just being people, but ZO are just being [insert kind word here] if they allowed this to happen. The only thing they can control is "their game", complaining about the people is just useless.
Knowing this, they should have attempted to deliver an experience as flawless as possible (I wouldn't be surprised if the suits were to blame, on a side note - but they pay the salaries so they listen to them).
Thats just it. We have no training in the area. Sure we can make predictions, but our predictions are worthless because our words carry no weight. Only thing i know about is the testing area since i have worked in that area before. Also marketing has little to do with actual builds. They can say "We should have our final beta on this build because its more polished than this build", But if the devs are trying to push out new content to the players to test, and its not in a more polished build, then they will push the new content. Why? Because it has to be tested! Also as a marketing, you know how fickle gamers are on the forums. I have seen people cry about how they wont play a game beacause they cant jump, or dive underwater, etc. Marketing's job is demographics, and trying to get as much information about the game to as many people as possible. no influence on builds. Community manager has more influence when it comes to builds than marketing...
So according to your logic, you would have rathered them save the content till release, and release buggy content, than have them release the buggy content during the final beta? Am i understanding this correctly?
Originally posted by Leiros Here's hoping that people are actually reporting these bugs instead of just rage-quitting and then bashing the game... but somehow I doubt it.
Comments
This doesn't sound right at all. Why would you beta test an old client right before release? They must know it's full of bugs and such. It seems they would want the best word of mouth possible this close to launch especially since there is no NDA. Bad word of mouth can massacre a game launch. It doesn't make sense to me.
Have to admit this beta round/stage has put me well and truly off the game. Bugs galore, a lot of things broken or not working as intended. Last time I encountered this was with Vanguard and vanguard was with its launch, ok this is beta, less than a month before release. Had doubts already with the price of the game (too expensive), place a monthly sub on it as well and then have the game just mediocre (other established online games out that are better), something is just missing from this game, its not the graphics, they a nice, sounds could be better (well it keeps going very silent then normal pitch then complete loss of sound) its not my comp as its been happening with a lot of others.
Will hold off on this see how things turn out, not going to waste money then see it move to F2P model in 6 mths time. I reckon the cost of the game will dramatically drop in that time.
The weekend beta is build 0.80, the PTS is 0.81. They are basically the exact same build - stop spreading misinformation.
You don't know what will happen until you try it. If all you people who thought about cancelling your pre-order actually DID IT, it would make a statement and change everything. You guys sound like people who get raped or oppressed and are afraid to speak up against the rapist for the same reasons. Then, one person finally speaks up and the rest start to follow. How many revolutions have we seen in countries in the past 3 years? Change doesn't happen unless you force it to change, if you sit on your ass and allow it to happen, guess what? It's going to to continue to happen.
Well.. I'm totally with you when it comes to important things like a oppressing regime for example. But we're talking about video games.. it's a hobby and therefor a rather minor factor in my life. The only question I'm asking myself is "Will it be worth it?". And if my answer is yes then I can overlook some bad decisions (i.e. pay-gates & cash shop) or flaws (phasing & many bugs). Who knows how long you'll be playing ESO at all? Maybe just the first month.. maybe a year. Nobody can say how Zenimax will improve or even downgrade it. Even it's just fun for a month.. you still got the chance to unsubscribe and move on.
I'm politically active so I'm the first who screams "don't let them do it to you.. fight back". There always will be enough people who are buying crappy products.. and yes, if we all would resist in buying them that case could possibly change. But come on.. how do you want to achieve that.. change the behavior of thousands / millions of people? At the end of the day it's just a video game. And therefor not worth all the trouble.. in my opinion.
Elite: Dangerous - Space Exploration & Trading.
I remember the other day I was trying out one of those Xfinity wifi hotspots at a Subway and couldn't connect. I called customer service and it was so horrible and embarassing (noone knew what service I was talking about and overall didn't know what they were doing). I found the email of Comcast's CTO (Chief Technology Officer), the highest guy that controls the entire technological side of Comcast and emailed him directly. Guess what? He answered back withing 20 minutes, followed up and hooked me up with his personal executive support. The executive helped me with the issue and said he was launching an investigation into the customer support centers because of the obvious communication disparage between corporate and the guys on the ground.
You never know whats going to happen until you try it. Most people in that situation would've just said "forget it" and given up, letting Comcast get over on them. Now as to what pans out of the investigation, we'll see, but I'll be happy if it leads to reforms of Comcast's customer service and improvements on the technology they offer. And it didn't really take any effort, just one email.
And as someone said before, it's not "just a video-game". For the developers and publishers it is a multi-million dollar, investment that they put a lot of hours of manpower into that can forever change their lives. For us this is something we have to spend our hard earned cash on and could take up a lot of our time as well along with for some of us, potentially change our lives.
I've just deleted ESO from my ssd. I am so disappointed i just cancelled my preorder also. Sorry for bethesda/ zenimax as i enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim. But i remember my last exp with a preorder ( swotor someone? ) and it seems this will be as bad as that.
My biggest concern is/ are the 'clunky' ( this word! ) and uncomfortable game mechanics and ui. Its not the money tough; I just want a fluid game play and not fiddle and work around with the game. Especially the MMO part is important ( should i mention that? ) but as flawed and hardly working as in ESO - NO Thx.
It has to work - without the core things of fun ( different for different people I know ) I don't see me sold on that.
Maybe the game is like my English...bat
Trying hard to become human as it should be.
The jaded who have been here before take a pragmatic view: this close to launch what you see is, pretty much, what you get.
So we buy the game expecting bugs - or we wait and see how things go.
We don't expect magic bullets and hidden builds.
Launch is going to be rough anyway, as all those who creates toons but did not get the name they wanted, as it was already taken, are going to hit the servers hard a launch to try to get the name they want. I am guess the log in servers will be crashing a lot.
If they add to the cash shop a 'name reserve' option, I wonder how much extra money they will make
You just wrote everything I would have wrote, to the letter, accept you left out the last part that is floating around in my mind.
"Is this all a ruse? Are they selling air based on the Bethesda Skyrim name just to screw us over? Will this release and die in a few short months with nothing but horrible bugs that only get worse with each new build?"
I smell a 2nd rate team who's crew is not only inexperienced, but half of them don't show up for work. Maybe the management is bad, maybe the project managers are lame, maybe the dev's are fucking retarded. Maybe it's all those things. Any way you slice it,. I've been ripped off by so many games this last few years it's an automatic reaction.
I am wondering if I am being ripped off. I am sincerely worried that I'll have to 86 the company that just created my favorite game of all time "Skyrim".
Ultimately, I am going to stick it out and trust Bethesda to stand behind their product. If they fix all the bugs even as is it will be well worth the money.
It's an mmorpg. It's bound to have a rough launch.
Moreover, mmorpg is always evolving, you don't change an mmorpg with just a DLC.
While they're under the same company. This isn't the same team that created the Elder Scrolls series games. You can pretty much call them the "B" team.
I cancelled my pre-order.
Two weeks before launch I have never seen a game as buggy as this in my lifetime.
Not defending ESO at all, but some people have no idea how the actual industry works when it comes to bugs, etc. So i see uneducated people complaining about bugs during a closed beta, open beta, last beta before release, etc. I will try to shine some light into this for you.
When a build is released to internal testers (build .46 or 1.97, etc), the testers play the game, and look for bugs. Bug reports are submitted to the developers, and they try to fix these bugs as quickly as possible. Some of these bugs are alot harder to fix programming wise than you might think. lets say they change some quests, and allow you to skip certain zones. The internal testers maybe have a set amount of time to test that one specific build, submit as many bugs as possible, before a new build is sent. some bugs get fixed, some fixes create new bugs.
Most bugs are kept in an online database so you can easily search to see if the bug was reported. Making duplicates of the same bug just wastes time. Bugs are ranked based on how sever they are. Minor bugs probably wont be fixed as quickly as game breaking bugs. Then you have beta testers (different from the internal testing team) posting bugs on the beta forums. Each claim is checked to see if it has been reported by an internal tester, and is in the data base. If not, a new bug report is written for it. This is only after an internal tester has been able to reproduce the bug following the steps thats provided by the person who posted the bug on the forums.
But this is the part that confuses most people. Lets say the release build .80 as the open beta client, the private server beta testers ( the ones who can play more than just weekends) are on build .81, the internal testers are on build .82, the next build that will be released to the internal testers is build .83, and some bugs that were reported in build .78, .79, .80 have already been fixed, but they wont be seen until build .85.
You probably thinking "If the bug is fixed now, why not add it to this build!?". That's because the fix needs to be verified first. Since fixes go in batches, which make builds, and fixes have a priority, some get finished before others. Its not like a bug is fixed, then its just added to the game right away. its added with a bunch of other changes to the game. Then the entire process repeats over and over again. Thats why when a bug report is created, they ask what build were you playing that you first saw the bug. You might see a bug in .80, its fixed in .81, but happens again in .82. This is just the way it happens sometimes. Or your bug is already fixed in a future build, but since they are maybe changing a quest, or adding more stuff to it, getting rid of the quest, changing the zone, etc.., thats why its not fixed right away.
So those of you who complain about the bugs that are present during open (final beta's), have every right to complain, as its the internet, but at least try to find out how things work first. This is not just to defend ESO! This is to defend all games where players whine and cry about how buggy a beta is, or say things like "How dare the open beta be this buggy? They are supposed to be showing us their best! I dont think this will be fixed by release, so im canceling my preorder. How dare they release a buggy game!"
For those of you that are complaining, i have a question. What beta did you play where there were game breaking bugs (lets avoid class imbalances for PVP because this can be opinionated more often than not.), and they were not fixed by release, or within a week after release. What was the bug? How long did it take to fix?
PS. Even an open beta is still a beta test. Testing servers, gathering demographics, looking for reports of bugs that they missed, or only happen when a massive amount of people converge in an single area. ITS STILL A BETA. Once you buy the game, the first free 30 days is your actual real demo of the game in a P2P mmo. If you like it, sub, If you dont, quit. If you feel its too many game breaking bugs, then just wait till they get fixed, and try it again.
But bashing a game, saying you wont play because of the bugs you experienced during a beta, is just ignorant. If you say you dont like it because of content, or the way it plays or models, etc etc, alright. I can understand that as each person likes different games. But to cry about bugs as the reason you wont play a game, when its not even released officially yet........
Well, let me take your reasoning further then.
If you are paid $75,000+ a year to "market" a game, and it is your job to sell it as well as possible, and this game costs (say) 100+ Millions dollars...
Now, don't you think that part of your role would be perhaps knowing your "demographics", your "target market"? Knowing how they would react to various events/payments models/bugs?
Keep in mind this is all you do every day from 9am to 5pm, and this is all you have been doing for the last 3 years - basically make the launch as smooth as possible.
Now if any forum dweller (me, you) with no formal training and no salary, in just a few minutes here, can see this happening, and could even have predicted this would happen, what does that tell you?
Yep, people are just being people, but ZO are just being [insert kind word here] if they allowed this to happen. The only thing they can control is "their game", complaining about the people is just useless.
Knowing this, they should have attempted to deliver an experience as flawless as possible (I wouldn't be surprised if the suits were to blame, on a side note - but they pay the salaries so they listen to them).
But world doesnt revolve around you. only because you had zero lag and didnt come across major bugs doesnt mean others had same experince.
From my experience, given the timeline until launch it isn't going to matter much either way. This game will need one hell of a zero day patch that's going to cost coders some serious man hours. They might be able to get some of the stuff ironed out, but not this much.
You haven't seen much of Online games then mate. There where much more Games with much more Bugs back then. Compared to them, TESO is Online Gamer's Heaven.
Aerowyn's Video Compilation of ALL things Guild Wars 2
Thats just it. We have no training in the area. Sure we can make predictions, but our predictions are worthless because our words carry no weight. Only thing i know about is the testing area since i have worked in that area before. Also marketing has little to do with actual builds. They can say "We should have our final beta on this build because its more polished than this build", But if the devs are trying to push out new content to the players to test, and its not in a more polished build, then they will push the new content. Why? Because it has to be tested! Also as a marketing, you know how fickle gamers are on the forums. I have seen people cry about how they wont play a game beacause they cant jump, or dive underwater, etc. Marketing's job is demographics, and trying to get as much information about the game to as many people as possible. no influence on builds. Community manager has more influence when it comes to builds than marketing...
So according to your logic, you would have rathered them save the content till release, and release buggy content, than have them release the buggy content during the final beta? Am i understanding this correctly?
The way I figure it, PC launch is just a test-run for consoles. Assuming the TES numbers apply to TESO.
I think it will be the best MMORPG that ZOS has ever done. (stop and think a second before yelling at me please)
They would if /bug wasn't bugged...
I'm not making that up either.