Again with the waiting from SE >_>

[Omni]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

We cant even get the government to give full disclosure on where our tax dollars go to or their intentions in iraq. What makes you think a private company will do the same over their proprietary product?

I think many people have a skewed sense of reality here. Yes, you pay your 15 some odd dollars a month but that doesnt entitle you to anything but using the service (ie: playing the game, connecting to the servers, enjoying new content).

its not like they havent done -anything- new in a long time, its like slightly behind schedule (if you can even call it behind) and people are already up in arms.
patience, ya?

[Toksyuryel]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

You, like so many others, are just jumping the gun and blowing this way out of proportion- I honestly don't believe the common sentiment here is "hurry it up!" but rather "at least SAY something once in a while". They could spend five full months working on this update, and I wouldn't care- but I would like them to tell me what they are doing and why it's going to take five months for them to do it.

[Eohmer]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

Oh noes, Woe is me! Vana'diel is going to die!

::throws arms in the air and runs around frantically::

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

why it's going to take five months for them to do it.

Oh! Oh! I can make a few wild guesses!

1. Debugging takes time. Older the system, the more likely new code will introduce new bugs, and longer it takes to figure out how to get rid of the bugs. How old is FFXI, again?

2. Telling users what's in the new update is bad, because each "update" is actually compose of several dozens if not hundreds of attempts at additions, changes, tweaks, bug fixes, and recoding/removal of ")#()@#$! What on earth is this?!" code they find. There are probably a dozen programmers and two to three times as many QA, each looking at different subset of this "update".

And, each little addition/whatever is not necessarily compatible with all others--or even any other.

As they try to add one thing, it can very well induce problem with one another--so, there are usually some last minute scramble to prune features/modules/etc. which are likely to cause problems or even modules which simply fell behind schedule and not fully finished or tested.

Often, they'd end up looking like dummies when they promise things like "Chocobo Racing! Soon!" and end up not able to deliver.

The less you announce, the less you're likely to disappoint.


3. Programming can be tedious, QA-Dev cycles to find and correct bugs are time consuming, but ensuring game balance? Now, that's a black art.

Any time they alter the game play--adding new merit ability, for example, it has to go through not just extensive testing--but extraordinary testing--to make sure it doesn't screw up the impossible to define precisely "game balance". (I'd guess it's one reason they limit job specific merits to Lv.75 only, so they only have to test uncapped stuff.)

It's not just limited to battles, either; adding Whitegate and Al Zahbi caused so many people congregate at those zones at first that many servers for them overloaded. (Imagine the poor, bewildered QA/Dev being blamed for not anticipating a feature being "too popular". )

Since "game balance" is not easily defined or anticipated, it's probably easy to dump loads of time into that category and still come out with something which make us users grumble.

[Omni]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

I would like them to tell me what they are doing and why it's going to take five months for them to do it.

Sorry, i dont want to sound rude but, who are you? the dev team is there making new content for YOU. the dev team is there trying to make this game as enjoyable as possible for YOU. they dont need to tell you what, when why and how. its completely unnecessary.

again, they will give you information when they feel that they are close to release. whats the use of giving info in the middle of development? things change a lot during development. they will say something when they have something to say.

and why does it take them a long time? because developing isnt easy. testing isnt easy. debugging isnt easy. that's all theres to it. unless you understand how it is to develop and push a product out into production, you wont know understand why it takes so long.

production means, hey look at my work. its finished. if production is crap, it reflects bad on the dev team and also makes a nightmare to patch. do you want even more emergency maintainences and downtime? no you dont. thats why they try to get it right the first time as best as they can. even then, they still make emergency patches.

so really, patience.

[Malacite]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

Actually Tok hit the nail right on the head tyvm.


Not trying to ring any "alarm bells" here. SE's silence does lend itself towards speculation though, but that's open to interpretation.



EDIT: Not that they actually have to, but it really would be nice if SE would make some kind of tiny post saying "Everything's going okay, don't worry the update is comming." or something to that effect. Anything, really. As tok said, I could care less how long it takes them, so long as I know it's coming along and we should look forward to it.

It's my opinion that SE is quite possibly the most notorious developer in the industry for keeping every little detail a secret that's either going to be revealed later on, or is left for us to discover. Some times it's cute, like how to take down AV. Other times it's annoying, such as the aforementioned change to the spawn windows of the Fei Yin Shadow NMs.

[Illuen]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

It's my opinion that SE is quite possibly the most notorious developer in the industry for keeping every little detail a secret that's either going to be revealed later on, or is left for us to discover. Some times it's cute, like how to take down AV. Other times it's annoying, such as the aforementioned change to the spawn windows of the Fei Yin Shadow NMs.

Personally, I like this. I'd be rather disappointed if they explained the things you mention completely. It gives the game a sense of still being new, and uncharted territory that gives people wiggle room to experiment and find out what works instead of knowing from the get go "Ok, this thing is perfect for Mana/Arrow/Astral/Fist/TP Burn"

[Malacite]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

I do too, when it's something new they've just added. But when they make changes to something that's already there without telling us, it's kind of irritating.

[Toksyuryel]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

They could say "The conditions for certain Notorious Monsters to appear in Fei'Yin have been adjusted." without giving ANYTHING away. It's really not difficult to say you made a change without going into too many details, and it's not difficult to say "hey, we're still working on such and such and haven't forgotten you our paying customers, it's simply taking longer because x" without spoiling anything either.

[eticket109]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

You'll find few companies that officially announce delays of any kind. I think it would be cool to get more regular updates though from a development standpoint. I don't feel they have any obligation to do so though. I just think it would be neat to see an inside view of things.

[Malacite]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

This all goes back to SE's utter joke of customer service >_>

I'm sorry, but the GMs are an eternal testament to this. SE can make a damn good, seemingly perfect game, but they just plain fail on the service side of things. That's it, that's all. I'd like to avoid a GM flame war or anything to that extent if at all possible.


Other companies like Blizzard on the other hand, have for the most part pretty good CS from what I'm told. But then WoW isn't supported by SCEO... *cough*

[Anaki]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

aren't the GMs the NA talk to subcontracted from sony to what i know so they dont actually work under SE directly

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

Oh, look, SE posted an announcement regarding the upcoming update. The thread worked!

Now, lets all go back to being happy little citizens of Vana'diel.

[Omni]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

again, patience.

[Malacite]

Re: Again with the waiting from SE >_>

@ .@ I knew it! The update's a month behind. Oh well, at least SE finally came out and said something. That's all I wanted ^_ ^ sounds like it'll be great too (nothing mentioned about job adjustments though... there better be some ;