Guild Wars 2

There are a number of minor bugs that could be fixed immediately. Somethings that require as much as one line of code. Why does anet wait 3 years to fix something like a shovel indicator that isnt the image of a shovel? This would help their PR so much.

Same reason I haven’t re-aligned the two chairs that make up my ‘sofa’ even though it constantly bugs me that they’re not in line, and I haven’t put away the small stack of odd bits of paper that all need to go into different drawers.

It actually takes more effort than you might assume (unless you’re familiar with programming for the games proprietary engine?) and there are much better things that can be done with that time. Like fixing bugs that cause server crashes or exploits or block events.

Because what might seem simple to us, is very complicated in reality. Or the current fixes they’ve tried have caused other, possibly worse, problems.

Or the major, high priority glitches are taking up the current manpower.

Line up those chairs, already! They’re bugging me, just from your description.

Because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of minor issues. A lot aren’t even logged in any defect tracking system and I have no faith in your ability to judge the complexity of the work required to fix a defect: sure it may be "one line of code " but the challenges in a system as complex as this game a) are finding the right line of code you need to fix and b) making sure that your fix doesn’t break anything else. Neither is as easy as you might think.

Finally these are as you say minor issues. They have better things to do with their time.

This is common in software development. The schedule is always built around the new because new sells. If you try to tell the powers that be that fixing this pile of bugs would be equivalent to a minor new feature it’ll get rejected. It aggravating as hell as a developer. Often bugs are postpone until that area gets a revamp or it’s done off book, meaning off hours.

Of course that assumes the “bug” is really a bug and not an intended feature that some segment of the playerbase dislikes. The cause has to then be found and assessed as to the odds fixing it will cause a bug to emerge elsewhere or bring the whole Jenga tower of code for that sub system down around the devs ears.

Mundanes would be surprised on how not straightforward development on a large project is.

Daniel Handler.4816:

There are a number of minor bugs that could be fixed immediately. Somethings that require as much as one line of code. Why does anet wait 3 years to fix something like a shovel indicator that isnt the image of a shovel? This would help their PR so much.

First, if it was just one line of code, they would have done it, if for no other reason than to stop us from wondering why those bugs are still around. Usually, the problem is that the root cause isn’t well-understood and/or it’s not clear what else that “one line of code” will change.

Second, any code change, no matter how simple, requires code-specific QA, integration, and other change & configuration management.

Third, like any bit of software (and especially game-ware), there are a lot of issues, some bugs, some not. Plus a huge demand for new stuff, minor and major. All of that takes time and ANet doesn’t have an infinite amount of staff to work on everything, so issues get prioritized. If the issue can be worked around and doesn’t affect a ton of folks, it gets pushed back relative to blocking issues.

tl;dr if it were that easy, it would be fixed. Ergo, it’s not that easy.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Daniel Handler.4816:

There are a number of minor bugs that could be fixed immediately. Somethings that require as much as one line of code. Why does anet wait 3 years to fix something like a shovel indicator that isnt the image of a shovel? This would help their PR so much.

First, if it was just one line of code, they would have done it, if for no other reason than to stop us from wondering why those bugs are still around. Usually, the problem is that the root cause isn’t well-understood and/or it’s not clear what else that “one line of code” will change.

Second, any code change, no matter how simple, requires code-specific QA, integration, and other change & configuration management.

Third, like any bit of software (and especially game-ware), there are a lot of issues, some bugs, some not. Plus a huge demand for new stuff, minor and major. All of that takes time and ANet doesn’t have an infinite amount of staff to work on everything, so issues get prioritized. If the issue can be worked around and doesn’t affect a ton of folks, it gets pushed back relative to blocking issues.

tl;dr if it were that easy, it would be fixed. Ergo, it’s not that easy.

Or if it is easy, but not fixed, not high enough on the priority list to have reached the level of do now. This one is more likely for newer minor bugs than older minor bugs as I would imagine priority does factor in how long the bug has been around.

Things like the wrong icon on an item, or the many NPC’s that have Greet interaction but say nothing (some of those turn to face you, others don’t) suggests to me that the game was published with a lot of such polish left undone. Given the sheer volume of such, I doubt that making those changes would be a trivial undertaking.

I get what OP is saying and I’m familiar with development. I, too, am extremely disenfranchised by their choice to ignore bugs that have been documented repeatedly for 3 solid years running that end up costing hours of game play. I get that they have to expand because money. I understand. I understand revamping boring zerg world bosses. But there are legitimately a litany of easy fixes that are reported on a regular basis and it’s getting ridiculous. Their response is that they know and they’re fixing it- and it’s been that way for 3 years (if they even bother to respond at all). It may take a bit to fix any one “easy” issue but certainly not 3 years. This suggests to me, from experience of being in that position, providing a false front while they’re busy creating new content to exploit money. If you leave a trail of bugs behind you then yes, eventually you’ve created a pile you can’t dig yourself out of. That doesn’t make it right.

Behellagh.1468:

This is common in software development. The schedule is always built around the new because new sells. If you try to tell the powers that be that fixing this pile of bugs would be equivalent to a minor new feature it’ll get rejected. It aggravating as hell as a developer. Often bugs are postpone until that area gets a revamp or it’s done off book, meaning off hours.

Of course that assumes the “bug” is really a bug and not an intended feature that some segment of the playerbase dislikes. The cause has to then be found and assessed as to the odds fixing it will cause a bug to emerge elsewhere or bring the whole Jenga tower of code for that sub system down around the devs ears.

Mundanes would be surprised on how not straightforward development on a large project is.

ding ding ding

The Predator’s footfall on human male falls halfway through the terrain making it barely visible, and it’s a small footfall as it is. Gets even worse when rifle is drawn. Since they decided to renew all the legendaries with journys i think this should be fixed to make the feeling of acomplishment go without frustrations as that. Been present since i got it in 2014

I am a complete layperson when it comes to coding. My assumption has always been that if what appear to be a “simple” bug goes unaddressed for ages. It is more likely that one or two things are going on. The bug, while it mat seem simple, is very much not. And if it isn’t game breaking then it isn’t worth the time. The worry there then being, making a tiny little fix to an annoying bug creates a much larger issue.

This is one of the biggest reasons I want them to finally update Orr (other than it being cleansed three years ago). The events bug out so often, that they might as well replace them.

Danikat.8537:

Same reason I haven’t re-aligned the two chairs that make up my ‘sofa’ even though it constantly bugs me that they’re not in line, and I haven’t put away the small stack of odd bits of paper that all need to go into different drawers.

It actually takes more effort than you might assume (unless you’re familiar with programming for the games proprietary engine?) and there are much better things that can be done with that time. Like fixing bugs that cause server crashes or exploits or block events.

Except they rarely fix bugged events either unless its related to content that is in the spotlight. There are 2 particular events that sticks out in my mind, one in cursed short near anchorage waypoint that is always frozen the exact same way. I don’t think i have ever actually seen that event not frozen. The other is the pact dolyak that goes from the starting point in silverwastes north to indigo cave. That poor dolyak spends hours just standing in the same spot every metaevent turnover stuck in a dazed animation.

daniellepierce.9718:

Danikat.8537:

Same reason I haven’t re-aligned the two chairs that make up my ‘sofa’ even though it constantly bugs me that they’re not in line, and I haven’t put away the small stack of odd bits of paper that all need to go into different drawers.

It actually takes more effort than you might assume (unless you’re familiar with programming for the games proprietary engine?) and there are much better things that can be done with that time. Like fixing bugs that cause server crashes or exploits or block events.

Except they rarely fix bugged events either unless its related to content that is in the spotlight. There are 2 particular events that sticks out in my mind, one in cursed short near anchorage waypoint that is always frozen the exact same way. I don’t think i have ever actually seen that event not frozen. The other is the pact dolyak that goes from the starting point in silverwastes to indigo cave. That poor dolyak spends hours just standing in the same spot every metaevent turnover stuck in a dazed animation.

Have you filed a bug report when you see those bugged events?

Always whenever I see something clearly broken. Yet certain things, despite however many times I report them, go unfixed week after week and month after month and year after year…

Hell, just by doing rolling restarts on the server every week or 2 during a period when the player base in at its least active hour would probably fix a lot of these types of issues simply by refreshing the server’s memory.

I think some bugs are so minor that they do not even see them.

I was told by a friend in software development that they are vastly overstating the number of people they have in these things. That if it had been 3 years and they had their purported amount of manpower a lot of things would be fixed by now.

He told me that it’s likely Anet doesn’t have actual coders, only story designers who edit tables, they outsource the rest. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know the company seems to be struggling on a pr front. At this point they need to be more transparent or they are going to lose a lot of business.

the minor bugs you think of might be hard lined into the coding of the game so if they were to correct it, it may take such a effort as redoing large aspects of coding to get it there. Minor bugs are just that minor. Dont dwell on them to much as many games do have them.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I was told by a friend in software development that they are vastly overstating the number of people they have in these things. That if it had been 3 years and they had their purported amount of manpower a lot of things would be fixed by now.

He told me that it’s likely Anet doesn’t have actual coders, only story designers who edit tables, they outsource the rest. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know the company seems to be struggling on a pr front. At this point they need to be more transparent or they are going to lose a lot of business.

Well I would say that there is likely a majority of the staff are in jobs other than client/server software development. Asset/content development I imagine has the most people in it.