Guild Wars 2

Remember all the Tequatl bugs?
Here’s why (copy and paste the link, the forum breaks the link):
http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

Chris Whiteside

Playing that, I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works.

I’m ok with his opinion that they don’t need to kill it to know how balanced it is, but they do need to kill it to see whether it is killable.

TLDR constructive feedback: Don’t skip testing.

I failed to kill tequatl only 3 times in past 2 months while doing it every single day.
And fails were based on noobs on turrets or during defense of Batteries and Megalaser.

Even if Tequatl will bug and disappear, he’s even more easier to kill.

Now tell me, how Tequatl is hard to kill so I can laugh more.

Tao.5096:

I failed to kill tequatl only 3 times in past 2 months while doing it every single day.
And fails were based on noobs on turrets or during defense of Batteries and Megalaser.

Even if Tequatl will bug and disappear, he’s even more easier to kill.

Now tell me, how Tequatl is hard to kill so I can laugh more.

Don’t think OP mentioned anything about Teq being hard to kill…?

I am trying to think back when Teq was new and I don’t remeber any parts where Teq had any bugs becouse they didn’t test to kill it. Most annoying thing is the Turret part though and that could be becouse they didn’t test to kill it… but I don’t think that would have made any difference… And is the Turret greifing fixed now?

The player-on-turret-afk’ing bug was fixed months ago. It was one of the biggest issues with the Teq-griefing at the time.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Tao.5096:

I failed to kill tequatl only 3 times in past 2 months while doing it every single day.
And fails were based on noobs on turrets or during defense of Batteries and Megalaser.

Even if Tequatl will bug and disappear, he’s even more easier to kill.

Now tell me, how Tequatl is hard to kill so I can laugh more.

Don’t think OP mentioned anything about Teq being hard to kill…?

I am trying to think back when Teq was new and I don’t remeber any parts where Teq had any bugs becouse they didn’t test to kill it. Most annoying thing is the Turret part though and that could be becouse they didn’t test to kill it… but I don’t think that would have made any difference… And is the Turret greifing fixed now?

“they do need to kill it to see whether it is killable” – in my opinion it is implying that he’s difficult to kill.
Turret afk part isn’t an issue, because you get kicked out from it after 15 sec or so while doing nothing and holding it.

Therefore I honestly see no point in discussing Tequatl, since it has one bug which happens sometimes and yet it’s not an issue at all.
I’ll even say it’s even more convenient that way to succeed to kill it

No, this thread is about their attitude on testing their content in regards to bugs on their content before it’s released to the live servers.
The fact that they have so many bugs is because they clearly do not attempt to see something through from start to finish.
I mentioned Tequalt because that is what Chris talks about, proudly, despite the numerous bugs when it was released.

Probably not enough in-house testers to actually test the encounter on live conditions.
No PTR to test the encounter.

Releasing content untested.

ANet should hide in shame for the worst QA if this is true.

BlueZone.4236:

Remember all the Tequatl bugs?
Here’s why (copy and paste the link, the forum breaks the link):
http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

Chris Whiteside

Playing that, I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works.

I’m ok with his opinion that they don’t need to kill it to know how balanced it is, but they do need to kill it to see whether it is killable.

TLDR constructive feedback: Don’t skip testing.

As a game developer of 11 years myself, programmer specifically, I’m practically dying over here. Not testing content before rolling it out sounds like shear insanity. Not only do we, as programmers, spend quite a bit of time testing the content locally while implementing it, our in-house QA team will do daily tests that would mimic how end-users would play it.

With one caveat: we tell them to try to break it. We want them to throw everything they have at the feature(s), including things that players normally wouldn’t do, to see if anything causes progression breakage or even the slightest detriment to the experience either for the player him/herself, or other players. It’s a mantra.

Small anecdote. While working on a major single/multiplayer game for Capcom, this is one of the questions we asked QA interviewees: how would you test this stapler (stapler put on the desk in front of them) ? Give an example of how you would know that the stapler is ready for sale. One of the guys paused for a minute, picked the stapler up, and chucked it to the ground. It broke into about 3 pieces. His response: “I guess they didn’t test to see what would happen if someone accidentally knocked the stapler off their desk. It’s a kittenty stapler.”

He was hired, and several years later is now a producer for a different company. I love telling that bit, and I still use the stapler methodology during interviews. Nobody else has tried to break it, though.

never,
underestimate,
the ability of thousands of gamers…

to F*** with your product.

Pretty sure they announced at the live presentation of Teq that they hadn’t enough people or whatever the reason was, and hadn’t killed Teq…right then. Why is it an issue now, several months later? Why weren’t you up in arms then?

The technical quality is ok. I think the design quality is worse and too many fixes need to themselves be fixed later. Anyone who can remember back to games like Everquest I will not have a problem with the current level of bugs. EQ had servers down for 50% of the time after a patch and your character progress kept getting reset from a back-up (so you lost any progress and loot).

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Pretty sure they announced at the live presentation of Teq that they hadn’t enough people or whatever the reason was, and hadn’t killed Teq…right then. Why is it an issue now, several months later? Why weren’t you up in arms then?

Not sure how you want me to respond to this.
“Why are you up in arms before they’ve done anything?”
“Why are you up in arms now?”
“Why weren’t you up in arms before?”
Is there ever an appropriate time to give them a good suggestion…?

Problem is Anet doesn’t test any of it. They design, look at it for about 10 seconds and then put it in the game we the players test it. (This does not include the quality of the content itself either) I’ve based this opinion on the need to patch every single thing they put in (even with months of “making sure its correct”) and mostly within that day if not a hour or two of the updates going live. (Again does not include the quality of the content aka story or new mechanics they add which have problems their own)

BUNK – they DO test as they have special ALPHA servers to test everything. BUT, and here is the BUT, it is hard to test on EVERY PIECE of hardware and to test with MANY players on at once. That is the key. If it works in the ALPHA test it should work in the real game – again that is hard to do and reproduce. My wife is a software developer and they test constantly only to find when they roll something out to the live servers, it acts differently.

Kamedin, please stop. You do not know what you are talking about. You are assuming a lot and you are wrong – flat out.

Public Test Server.

It’s been mentioned heaps of times before, it’ll continue to be mentioned heaps more times until they do something about it. Nothing Anet released in this game comes without a breakage of some kind. In-house QA testing clearly isn’t good enough. Load up the game properly with real players with real accounts and real toons being played in the upcoming content to test for breakages. It’s really that easy, and Anet flat-out won’t take part in it. They’d save themselves lots of $$$ hand over fist from reduced fixing times and patches if they’d just get a PTS rolling. To be honest they’d be stupid not to consider this option.

kamedin.4698:

Problem is Anet doesn’t test any of it. They design, look at it for about 10 seconds and then put it in the game we the players test it. (This does not include the quality of the content itself either) I’ve based this opinion on the need to patch every single thing they put in (even with months of “making sure its correct”) and mostly within that day if not a hour or two of the updates going live. (Again does not include the quality of the content aka story or new mechanics they add which have problems their own)

Have you come across ANY piece of software that has NEVER had any bug fix updates to it?

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

Are you talking about the total disaster known as final of the LS1? It took them a week to get the most critical bugs fixed.

Yeah, good, that they think they do not really have to properly test their encounters before putting them on the live servers…

StriderShinryu.6923:

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

They test hence the mega servers were only rolled out to specific areas at first. They collected data and looked it at and did a few more and so on.

Players assume because there is a bug, it wasn’t tested and that is NOT the case. With my wife’s work, they only really use one or two types of servers and they STILL have issues, even after all the testing they do.

Y’all really need to learn HOW SOFTWARE is written and tested before one posts. It will save you a lot of embarrassment time.

Why doesn’t this game have a public test realm?

I think what he’s saying is they don’t need to be able to kill the boss to know whether players will be able to.

The bugs are another thing completely. It’s unacceptable to have a bug where Tequatl goes invisible and you have to hit a spot with AoE damage to kill him. It has been in the game since February and not a word has been said about it. This really drives me up the wall.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Why doesn’t this game have a public test realm?

Because it is too hard to control – period. They tried it with GW1 and they didn’t have any more luck than they did w/o it.

With all the software, etc we have on our machines, it is hard to test FOR ALL THE VARIABLES. They do the testing, based on the hardware and game software, but we have music programs, etc which can affect things – heck even MS Office and Open Office can affect things.

People need to understand, no code is perfect. There is no code w/o any bugs or flaws. Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Why doesn’t this game have a public test realm?

Because it is too hard to control – period. They tried it with GW1 and they didn’t have any more luck than they did w/o it.

With all the software, etc we have on our machines, it is hard to test FOR ALL THE VARIABLES. They do the testing, based on the hardware and game software, but we have music programs, etc which can affect things – heck even MS Office and Open Office can affect things.

People need to understand, no code is perfect. There is no code w/o any bugs or flaws. Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

It works well enough for WoW. The fact that they don’t let players try out these new “features” before releasing them into the live game is really shocking. Maybe Teq wouldn’t have been such a mess if they, you know, actually tested the encounter.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible). A.Net can only control the server and the client and there is a huge area in between they have no control over. If they haven’t fixed it, it may be they can’t tell from the data they are collecting.

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible).

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Right, so I guess I lost a packet when defense phase is skipped, and I have to hit a spot until the next one might/might not come. 100 people lose packets, that’s your excuse?

I don’t know why you’re trying to defend the game when it’s obviously not a “random mistake” somewhere for players. It’s a bug in the game, how can it be so hard to acknowledge?

No company can test with the massive numbers any MMO experiences on the live servers. I remember one game where the 5-hour patch process would routinely result in immediate issues that prompted further downtime, sometimes extending to an entire day, followed by days more of small patches, again with the game down. This occurred virtually every time a patch was applied. I’ve experienced considerably less frustration in GW2 than elsewhere.

Are things going to be bugged? Of course, and no internal QA is going to catch them all, not and have patches go live before the heat death of the universe. Still, I’d rather ANet’s system over massive downtime, or over companies that use a PTR but never actually do anything with the comments of the unpaid testers.

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible).

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Right, so I guess I lost a packet when defense phase is skipped, and I have to hit a spot until the next one might/might not come. 100 people lose packets, that’s your excuse?

I don’t know why you’re trying to defend the game when it’s obviously not a “random mistake” somewhere for players. It’s a bug in the game, how can it be so hard to acknowledge?

How do you know it is a BUG in the game? Are you an A.Net coder? Are you an Alpha tester?

What I am saying there CAN be other reasons, just saying it is a bug is a cop out. As I said, unless you can say unequivocally that is the game, then it is a bug. If you can’t then who knows.

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

As Mark Twian said,
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Yes, the game is not thoroughly tested…

…but it would’ve been fine if it was promptly and thoroughly fixed.

Dusty Moon.4382:

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

Alas, works both ways: the majority of players just defends without really thinking about what they are defending.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible).

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Right, so I guess I lost a packet when defense phase is skipped, and I have to hit a spot until the next one might/might not come. 100 people lose packets, that’s your excuse?

I don’t know why you’re trying to defend the game when it’s obviously not a “random mistake” somewhere for players. It’s a bug in the game, how can it be so hard to acknowledge?

How do you know it is a BUG in the game? Are you an A.Net coder? Are you an Alpha tester?

What I am saying there CAN be other reasons, just saying it is a bug is a cop out. As I said, unless you can say unequivocally that is the game, then it is a bug. If you can’t then who knows.

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

As Mark Twian said,
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Right, so this thing affects the entire server and it’s not client-side, of course it’s a bug then. It’s not intentional. It’s server-side and unintentional, so it’s pretty much not the players’ end that’s wrong.

In cases where something is client-side you can’t just expect it to work, of course, I’ve discussed issues with devs for two larger games where we’ve found what’s wrong. That’s a big difference too, they have openly discussed what could be the issue.

Over three months and not even a “checking into this easiliy reproducible bug”.

As Donald Duck said,
“Stop quoting things, it adds nothing to the discussion.”.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dusty Moon.4382:

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

Alas, works both ways: the majority of players just defends without really thinking about what they are defending.

I am thinking about it, are you? It is easy to demonize A.Net and jump on the bandwagon of "they don’t test, look at all the bugs!‘. I am surprised many of you haven’t asked for a public lynching of A.Net due to ‘all the bugs’ in the game. Again it is the ‘entitled’ attitude coming out.

If GW2 is SO BUGGY, why are you playing it? Ask yourself that question…..

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible).

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Right, so I guess I lost a packet when defense phase is skipped, and I have to hit a spot until the next one might/might not come. 100 people lose packets, that’s your excuse?

I don’t know why you’re trying to defend the game when it’s obviously not a “random mistake” somewhere for players. It’s a bug in the game, how can it be so hard to acknowledge?

How do you know it is a BUG in the game? Are you an A.Net coder? Are you an Alpha tester?

What I am saying there CAN be other reasons, just saying it is a bug is a cop out. As I said, unless you can say unequivocally that is the game, then it is a bug. If you can’t then who knows.

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

As Mark Twian said,
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Right, so this thing affects the entire server and it’s not client-side, of course it’s a bug then. It’s not intentional. It’s server-side and unintentional, so it’s pretty much not the players’ end that’s wrong.

In cases where something is client-side you can’t just expect it to work, of course, I’ve discussed issues with devs for two larger games where we’ve found what’s wrong. That’s a big difference too, they have openly discussed what could be the issue.

Over three months and not even a “checking into this easiliy reproducible bug”.

As Donald Duck said,
“Stop quoting things, it adds nothing to the discussion.”.

Not a Donald Duck quote – sorry bud.

You can reproduce it – can they? Or are you assuming they can? Have you asked them in a ticket or do you just come to the forum to gripe? It may not be easily reproducible may be the answer…..

All I am saying is it is easy to complain, harder to take in the big picture.

Dusty Moon.4382:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

They test hence the mega servers were only rolled out to specific areas at first. They collected data and looked it at and did a few more and so on.

Players assume because there is a bug, it wasn’t tested and that is NOT the case. With my wife’s work, they only really use one or two types of servers and they STILL have issues, even after all the testing they do.

Y’all really need to learn HOW SOFTWARE is written and tested before one posts. It will save you a lot of embarrassment time.

The thing is, the quoted statement basically agrees that the content is not really tested. Or, at the least, is not tested from the perspective of the player base. Just because something works okay when viewed on a white board and doesn’t have any obvious issues in a simulated testing environment (which the recent QoL/Features update did, but that’s another story) doesn’t mean that it’s ready for release. It’s just another rather clear message to players that ANet is not interested in viewing things from their perspective unless that perspective clearly lines up with what they already have in mind.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible).

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

Right, so I guess I lost a packet when defense phase is skipped, and I have to hit a spot until the next one might/might not come. 100 people lose packets, that’s your excuse?

I don’t know why you’re trying to defend the game when it’s obviously not a “random mistake” somewhere for players. It’s a bug in the game, how can it be so hard to acknowledge?

How do you know it is a BUG in the game? Are you an A.Net coder? Are you an Alpha tester?

What I am saying there CAN be other reasons, just saying it is a bug is a cop out. As I said, unless you can say unequivocally that is the game, then it is a bug. If you can’t then who knows.

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

As Mark Twian said,
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Right, so this thing affects the entire server and it’s not client-side, of course it’s a bug then. It’s not intentional. It’s server-side and unintentional, so it’s pretty much not the players’ end that’s wrong.

In cases where something is client-side you can’t just expect it to work, of course, I’ve discussed issues with devs for two larger games where we’ve found what’s wrong. That’s a big difference too, they have openly discussed what could be the issue.

Over three months and not even a “checking into this easiliy reproducible bug”.

As Donald Duck said,
“Stop quoting things, it adds nothing to the discussion.”.

Not a Donald Duck quote – sorry bud.

You can reproduce it – can they? Or are you assuming they can? Have you asked them in a ticket or do you just come to the forum to gripe? It may not be easily reproducible may be the answer…..

All I am saying is it is easy to complain, harder to take in the big picture.

A bug affecting hundreds of people and not a word? I am not a mind reader, how would I know whether they can replicate a bug that’s been reported with instructions on how to do it. They don’t tell us anything. How is it relevant whether I know if they can or not? Unless they tell me “We can’t seem to replicate this bug, we need more details”, I will continue to expect an answer or a fix. If they can’t replicate a huge bug they shouldn’t be shrugging, they should seek more information about it.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Dusty Moon.4382:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

They test hence the mega servers were only rolled out to specific areas at first. They collected data and looked it at and did a few more and so on.

Players assume because there is a bug, it wasn’t tested and that is NOT the case. With my wife’s work, they only really use one or two types of servers and they STILL have issues, even after all the testing they do.

Y’all really need to learn HOW SOFTWARE is written and tested before one posts. It will save you a lot of embarrassment time.

The thing is, the quoted statement basically agrees that the content is not really tested. Or, at the least, is not tested from the perspective of the player base. Just because something works okay when viewed on a white board and doesn’t have any obvious issues in a simulated testing environment (which the recent QoL/Features update did, but that’s another story) doesn’t mean that it’s ready for release. It’s just another rather clear message to players that ANet is not interested in viewing things from their perspective unless that perspective clearly lines up with what they already have in mind.

HOW CAN THEY TEST FROM THE PLAYER BASE? Most software companies DO NOT do that as they can’t afford to release code that could be copied or cause IP issues for them in the future. The code is what they make money on. That is why they don’t do that any more.

Bugs happen – some games are worse than others.

Why should they view it from the players perspective if players don’t try to do the same. It is not a one way street. Communication is two way – right now I see the forum posters not even trying to understand or listen.

BlueZone.4236:

Remember all the Tequatl bugs?
Here’s why (copy and paste the link, the forum breaks the link):
http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

Chris Whiteside

Playing that, I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works.

I’m ok with his opinion that they don’t need to kill it to know how balanced it is, but they do need to kill it to see whether it is killable.

TLDR constructive feedback: Don’t skip testing.

The “killable boss” thing is pretty standard in all MMO testing. More difficult encounters have not been beaten during testing. You don’t want to limit the difficulty of the boss to the ability of the testers and the devs have tools to test if the mechanics are working properly.

Of course, Tequatl was beaten by Blackgate the first day it was released so this entire conversation is kind of silly.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dusty Moon.4382:

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

Alas, works both ways: the majority of players just defends without really thinking about what they are defending.

I am thinking about it, are you? It is easy to demonize A.Net and jump on the bandwagon of "they don’t test, look at all the bugs!‘. I am surprised many of you haven’t asked for a public lynching of A.Net due to ‘all the bugs’ in the game. Again it is the ‘entitled’ attitude coming out.

If GW2 is SO BUGGY, why are you playing it? Ask yourself that question…..

Well of course I am a stupid forum whiner and never think about anything, how did you guess?

Of course I never had to think when listing mesmer bugs and providing solutions, and didn’t have to think when coming up with 150+ QoL features (duels, mounts, player housing, guild halls, GvG excluded). I didn’t have to think when stumbling upon bugs in the game, analyzing them, finding 100% repro scenarios and reporting them.

And why didn’t I have to think? Because I do it naturally as it’s a part of my daily life and daily work – just like writing any-case-proof code for my web-projects and testing it under different circumstances is.

Because if I programmed a boss with several stages, I would’ve made sure that even in an unlikely case that the stages get skipped or overlapped, proper functions trigger and the system still works. Unfortunately, according to one of ANet dev’s articles, making fail-proof code is costly, and we all know how cost reduction is important in B2P games. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that the current team is working with a sledgehammer on the old proprietary system developed by the devs of the release stage, and that’s the reason why we get undocumented dailies counted, contestable waypoints uncontested, town clothes converted to tonics, dailies not resetting, and weapons being removed from traders to save up on tab space.

As for playing… ANet doesn’t care if I play or not; ANet cares if i play or not. And from release to release and from one silence to another, I’ve lost faith in the dev team and stopped paying; and since you were interested, I’ve started playing less and less since the 15 April patch in my favourite part of the game and I’m starting to play less overall because I’m fed up with constant bugs and QoL issues here and there, and I also pretty much know that I will be getting a great amount of frustration for the first several days of each 2-week update as numerous silly bugs will pop out.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Why should they view it from the players perspective if players don’t try to do the same. It is not a one way street. Communication is two way – right now I see the forum posters not even trying to understand or listen.

Wow… You know, devs are not your grandma, and GW2 is not a free webcomic run by a single author, and it’s not even some student’s college project; it’s a BUSINESS: they SELL us their products, and we are their CLIENTS who PAY for it (or do not pay if we’re unhappy, simple as that).

So do games with PTRs never have bugs in their releases then? Do they really all get caught during testing?

It’s an honest question because I haven’t played another MMO since UO (which did have PTRs but they were a joke, people only played on them to muck around with free money and the ability to set your stats at will), but I’ve also never heard of any testing process being 100% effective, especially on software as complex as an MMO.

And if PTRs do guarantee every release will be bug free why don’t all games use them?

Vesuvius.9874:

kamedin.4698:

Problem is Anet doesn’t test any of it. They design, look at it for about 10 seconds and then put it in the game we the players test it. (This does not include the quality of the content itself either) I’ve based this opinion on the need to patch every single thing they put in (even with months of “making sure its correct”) and mostly within that day if not a hour or two of the updates going live. (Again does not include the quality of the content aka story or new mechanics they add which have problems their own)

Have you come across ANY piece of software that has NEVER had any bug fix updates to it?

I’ve seen a lot of software that never had any bug fixes at all. Software with no bugs to fix however is a different matter.

Danikat.8537:

So do games with PTRs never have bugs in their releases then? Do they really all get caught during testing?

It’s an honest question because I haven’t played another MMO since UO (which did have PTRs but they were a joke, people only played on them to muck around with free money and the ability to set your stats at will), but I’ve also never heard of any testing process being 100% effective, especially on software as complex as an MMO.

And if PTRs do guarantee every release will be bug free why don’t all games use them?

Vesuvius.9874:

kamedin.4698:

Problem is Anet doesn’t test any of it. They design, look at it for about 10 seconds and then put it in the game we the players test it. (This does not include the quality of the content itself either) I’ve based this opinion on the need to patch every single thing they put in (even with months of “making sure its correct”) and mostly within that day if not a hour or two of the updates going live. (Again does not include the quality of the content aka story or new mechanics they add which have problems their own)

Have you come across ANY piece of software that has NEVER had any bug fix updates to it?

I’ve seen a lot of software that never had any bug fixes at all. Software with no bugs to fix however is a different matter.

PTRs do not eliminate bugs. I used to play WoW which has extensive PTR testing (4 to 6 months) and that was one of the buggiest games I ever played.

Danikat.8537:

Vesuvius.9874:

kamedin.4698:

Problem is Anet doesn’t test any of it. They design, look at it for about 10 seconds and then put it in the game we the players test it. (This does not include the quality of the content itself either) I’ve based this opinion on the need to patch every single thing they put in (even with months of “making sure its correct”) and mostly within that day if not a hour or two of the updates going live. (Again does not include the quality of the content aka story or new mechanics they add which have problems their own)

Have you come across ANY piece of software that has NEVER had any bug fix updates to it?

I’ve seen a lot of software that never had any bug fixes at all. Software with no bugs to fix however is a different matter.

That’s what I meant :P basically every piece of software has bugs. There is no such thing as bug free software.

What people need to realize is that to blame ANet for buggy software and that they don’t test enough is stupidity. Before anyone comes out to say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, please know that I write and test software for a living.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Knaifhogg.5964:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Maybe your machine has a piece of software that causes that, Knaifhogg, one doesn’t know. This is the problem with software.

Yeah, no, it’s for every player in the map, people have reported exactly how you can reproduce it and it should be fixed by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_806gNyWYZo

I have done Tequatl in that time and have NOT had that bug, so it is NOT for everyone. I have done it with TTS and have not had this issue.

People also need to check how many hops they are from the game server, the more hops the bigger chance for packet loss.

If you burst the boss to directly go to the next defense phase it happens every time, stop trying to argue whether this bug is global or not. I guess TTS is weaker than TXS (shots fired).

NO – they do it the exact same way. Ignoring arrogance on your part, which is par for the course on gaming forums (since people ALWAYS ASSUME EVERYONE has the same problems/opinions they do) and when you don’t they belittle and make fun of you.

As I said, check your wonderful internet connection and everything in between. ONE of the possible reasons is because you are losing packets. If you lose the packets about drawing Tequatl, it is possible that you will lose him (go invisible). A.Net can only control the server and the client and there is a huge area in between they have no control over. If they haven’t fixed it, it may be they can’t tell from the data they are collecting.

As Sherlock Holmes said,

‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes Quote -The Sign of Four

I don’t think you understand how transport protocols and packet loss work. In fact, I know you don’t.

Signed, a veteran network programmer. In the games industry, no less.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dusty Moon.4382:

The only reason I am defending is because the majority of players just complain without really thinking about what they are complaining about. This forum and most other game forums seem to be full of whiners and complainers with the ‘I am entitled’ attitude (not saying you are, mind you).

Alas, works both ways: the majority of players just defends without really thinking about what they are defending.

I am thinking about it, are you? It is easy to demonize A.Net and jump on the bandwagon of "they don’t test, look at all the bugs!‘. I am surprised many of you haven’t asked for a public lynching of A.Net due to ‘all the bugs’ in the game. Again it is the ‘entitled’ attitude coming out.

If GW2 is SO BUGGY, why are you playing it? Ask yourself that question…..

Well of course I am a stupid forum whiner and never think about anything, how did you guess?

Of course I never had to think when listing mesmer bugs and providing solutions, and didn’t have to think when coming up with 150+ QoL features (duels, mounts, player housing, guild halls, GvG excluded). I didn’t have to think when stumbling upon bugs in the game, analyzing them, finding 100% repro scenarios and reporting them.

And why didn’t I have to think? Because I do it naturally as it’s a part of my daily life and daily work – just like writing any-case-proof code for my web-projects and testing it under different circumstances is.

Because if I programmed a boss with several stages, I would’ve made sure that even in an unlikely case that the stages get skipped or overlapped, proper functions trigger and the system still works. Unfortunately, according to one of ANet dev’s articles, making fail-proof code is costly, and we all know how cost reduction is important in B2P games. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that the current team is working with a sledgehammer on the old proprietary system developed by the devs of the release stage, and that’s the reason why we get undocumented dailies counted, contestable waypoints uncontested, town clothes converted to tonics, dailies not resetting, and weapons being removed from traders to save up on tab space.

As for playing… ANet doesn’t care if I play or not; ANet cares if i play or not. And from release to release and from one silence to another, I’ve lost faith in the dev team and stopped paying; and since you were interested, I’ve started playing less and less since the 15 April patch in my favourite part of the game and I’m starting to play less overall because I’m fed up with constant bugs and QoL issues here and there, and I also pretty much know that I will be getting a great amount of frustration for the first several days of each 2-week update as numerous silly bugs will pop out.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Why should they view it from the players perspective if players don’t try to do the same. It is not a one way street. Communication is two way – right now I see the forum posters not even trying to understand or listen.

Wow… You know, devs are not your grandma, and GW2 is not a free webcomic run by a single author, and it’s not even some student’s college project; it’s a BUSINESS: they SELL us their products, and we are their CLIENTS who PAY for it (or do not pay if we’re unhappy, simple as that).

AHH – ever work on a system where the software cost 1 million dollars and the company pays 50K/year for each person that uses it? I have and they have as many bugs or sometimes bad faults. These systems are needed for QA/QC in the auto, oil, pharma areas. They do things that are important in the quality of every person and some of them are just down and out bad.

I said, that if someone disagrees with you, like me, then there are personal attacks. You have proved my point without me lifting a finger.

You have received 2 years of GW2 for 60 USD – that is a bargain.

If you are a veteran network programmer (which I doubt), then YOU of all people know how things are tested. Since you seem to be more like, I am perfect and I know all, Tell us OH great Karmack, how would YOU fix things? Of course it is easy to bash people and run. It is harder to be part of the fix.

I am not saying that there are no bugs, heck I complained for 7-8 years about the GW1 armor flaws that were never fixed. But, coming onto the forum and constantly post whines, does no one any good – just makes you sound like the boy who cried wolf.

Dusty Moon.4382:

You have received 2 years of GW2 for 60 USD – that is a bargain.

But for a company, that wants more money from you by convincing you from their product, they do a hell of a bad job.

The game price was a bargain, no doubt, but that was not neccesarily what was calculated as potential income.

Noone likes to pay for broken stuff.

BlueZone.4236:

Remember all the Tequatl bugs?
Here’s why (copy and paste the link, the forum breaks the link):
http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

Chris Whiteside

Playing that, I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works.

I’m ok with his opinion that they don’t need to kill it to know how balanced it is, but they do need to kill it to see whether it is killable.

TLDR constructive feedback: Don’t skip testing.

Are you serious? This game has been tested extensively by many many players for almost 2 years now. In fact we will be getting a LOT of testers from China as well.

Sometimes people just need to do a little more research before posting kittens like this. =/

but seriously, its not possible to test all bugs. Some probably only comes up and become apparent when millions of people are doing it.

Dusty Moon.4382:

I said, that if someone disagrees with you, like me, then there are personal attacks. You have proved my point without me lifting a finger.

Okay, I won’t be pointing at where exactly you’re accusing people of what you’re doing yourself. And heaving read your posts over the forums, I’ll just say I see no point in arguing with you anymore. GL, HF; keep paying ANet when they’re making mistakes, and they’ll give you even more mistakes to defend.

Yeah, ok. Things like Scarlet invasion message broadcasting the wrong zone she’s in, Tequatl invisible to all clients, events not trigger, etc, have little to do with a client’s machine.
These are server side bugs. Unless you want to imply the servers accept corrupted data from clients which bugs the server itself, well, that’s just bad programming then.
Regarding the invisibility bug…I dunno, no one thought about what would happen if they dps Tequatl quickly? Sounds like they haven’t tested out their scripting system enough.

As for PTR servers, well I guess we are the PTR server.

I’m guessing here of course, but I don’t see Anet ever using a PTS for the simply reason they focus too much on the “Economy” of the game. A PTS would show changes that may/may not effect that economy and those in the PTS would be able to exploit the market against those that do not.

While the situation can be applied in any other game with a PTS, most do not generally protect their economy as zealously as Anet does this one.

Again, that’s just a guess of mine.