122217-an-apology-to-the-dev-team-and-the-people-who-fix-bugs

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I would like to apologize for my ignorance, and having this absurd expectation that Carbine is different from any other business/corporation.  Back at launch, I took my frustration out on and took jabs at you guys, which I typically wouldn't do.  However, I had fangirl-glazed eyes, and regarded Carbine as this model of perfection.
 
It hit me hard today, after getting REALLY moody over one of my threads (regarding a Zone Lore object) being inappropriately moved to the housing forum.  And since I spent hours searching online, with no avail, and then it being moved to a forum where no one would ever see it, I was unreasonably upset.  Since I couldn't complain on the forums, I googled "Why is Carbine Customer Service so bad?" and the glaze went away when I saw what came up.  I had the abrupt realization that Carbine is no different than any other company in this miserable world.
 
Carbine is a company like many others.  Full of once bright-eyed and optimistic "underling" employees.  Brilliant minds and hearts full of passion.  These employees are wonderful people, just like me, trying to get by in life, and thought they were lucky enough to get a job that they loved and adored.  They thought, "This is the one.  This job is special.  It's not like all the other jobs."
 
It's easy to blame the dev team, because they are the ones we talk to.  They are the ones who actually care about Wildstar.  I ask everyone to take it easy on them from here on out.  Please.  Because they are no different than us.  People trapped working for a dysfunctional, cutthroat, corporate ladder that feigns compassion for their workers.  My heart goes out to you all.
 
Check out Glass Door reviews on Carbine.  Not a single positive employee review, aside from one that was allegedly posted by upper management after they realized they were getting slammed and contacting Glass Door to see if they could do anything to get the employee reviews removed.
 
Now that I'm looking at Carbine realistically, I now sympathize.  I now understand why there are so many simple, non-game-breaking bugs left unchecked.  It's because your employer is asking you to complete impossible tasks, in impossibly little time.
 
I was thinking of leaving Wildstar after looking at these reviews, and I still might, but you guys, the guys who do the REAL work.  You, I like.
 
The Devs are listening, but the ruttin' upper management NEEDS to start listening to you guys, because what they're doing is CLEARLY not working.  So if by some miracle, upper management sees this, PLEASE for the love of Nexus, listen to your damn employees input and take it to heart!!!!  I work for a massage company, and we have idiot corporate people telling us to do illegal things, telling us to do things that violate health-regulations and licensure regulations, and lease regulations, along with things that are just PLAIN stupid and the customers would either not go for, or would completely hate, or that would make them absurdly uncomfortable. (i.e. Telling us to carry a tacky basket of out massage merchandise and using it during the massage.  They're paying for a MASSAGE!  Not a ruttin' commercial to get them to buy more merchandise!!)  Why?  Because they have NO idea what's going on. They just see numbers and are all like, "LOW NUMBERS BAAAAAD!!  HIGH NUMBERS GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!  ME WANT U TO MAKE NUMBERS HIGH NOW OR U NOT HAVE JOB ANYMORE!!!!"
 
These guys in between the customers and the management, the ones that do all the work and make you all youir money.  They're the middle people.  They KNOW what the customers want, and they have a WAY better idea of how to make things work that someone who sits in a gorram office all day and doesn't know a darn thing about the business they're managing.  This is the same reason Enlisted to Commission officers perform SOOOOOO much better than ROTC Officers.  Because they know.  They know what the people they're commanding are going through.  What they're feeling, and what they have to do to complete their jobs.
 
So please swallow your pride and please take your terribad Glass Door reviews to heart if only for making more money off of Wildstar.  Happy employees are statistically more efficient and loyal.
 
<3 Elly	
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The lower your expectations, the less likely you'll be disappointed!
 
High five!
 
 
 :(	
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			As someone working in the industry, thank you for posting this.  More people need to take this to heart and stop acting like their $15 entitles them to a position managing the company.	
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Very well put.
 
Also, another point to note.  When upper management does stupid stuff to drive customers away, they're not the ones to suffer for it.  Instead, they fire the workers who they forced to implement their stupid stuff (like 60 employees getting fired recently).  Rinse and repeat, until the company goes under and everyone is fired.  Then the upper management nitwits deploy their golden parachutes, taking what's left of the company assets, then land upper management jobs at another company. And the cycle continues.	
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			i feel bad for the devs and say shame shame on you management!	
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Yeah, I was really shocked at how negative their reviews were.  I was also disgusted by someone from upper management trying to mask their poor reviews by posting a biased positive review, instead of using it as constructive criticism.
 
You can tell by the game that the people who made it poured their hearts into it.  The music is beautiful, the scenery and story are splendid, and the characters are beautifully done.  There's no doubt about that.  In all honesty, the only bad part about the game is how it's managed.  The big executive decisions.  Yeah, they should make money off of it, but Wildstar is more than just a means to make money to the devs and the artists and all of the players and fans.  Wildstar is like a dream.  It's an ambitious project.  It shows the beauty and magnificence of human creativity.  From designing animations, to weaving stories, to fleshing out characters, to painting the foundations of Nexus with code.  It's a shame to see something with so much potential, so much beauty, so much of it's makers' hearts and passion be wasted so needlessly.
 
They put their everything into it, and despite contracts, despite agreements, despite corporate structure, chain of command, position of power, or whatever, the people who built this world should have a say in what is done with it, so that they can make that beautiful world flourish and grow and blossom, because they know it better than the management does.  Love and trust your employees, like we love and trust our devs. (or like we should)	
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			A big part of me wishes I could give my sub money directly to Carbine, and not NCSoft.	
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I agree with OP. I strongly dislike NCsoft and 90% of their practices. I can't speak for carbine itself but every game published by NCsoft i ever played was poorly managed, rushed, and tanked. Mostly due to not listening to customer complaints.. games with a lot of potential and just lack fixes, and constant content. They go to big too fast and cant keep up with it or cut their staff too quickly.. or even worse like in the case of wildstar, force launch WAY too soon.
 
The game NOW, feels finished.the game how it is today is where it should have been  7 months ago.
 
if they pull their heads out of their a$$es they might just save this game and stand to profit a lot more since money is honestly literally their only goal. MMos are not hte place for greedy corporate scum. These things take time to build up and most of them demand immediate results and will never get it... and would rather run the game into the dirt and  sqweez their subs dry until everyone's so badly burned they leave and never come back.
 
I already know a good handful of ppl that will NEVER play again because of how burned they were by the slow content releases and promises that either were not fulfilled, severely delayed, or misinterpreted... or even just bad ideas being implemented.. like random ass rune slots and random number or rune slots >.>	
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^ http://www. glassdoor. com/Reviews/Carbine-Studios-Reviews-E587246.htmFor anyone interested in seeing for themselves. this is honestly apauling. I have worked for companies like this and it will be nothing but a downward spirle until the " Bros " gtfo of dodge. 
 
I really feel for the devs. I hope so much that they can endure these hard times and pull through <3
 
We all love you and the work you do. A lot of people get frustrated and vent but forget that its not the devs its the shit heels holding the reins that create this shit storm of fail.	
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^ http://www. glassdoor. com/Reviews/Carbine-Studios-Reviews-E587246.htm
 
For anyone interested in seeing for themselves. this is honestly apauling. I have worked for companies like this and it will be nothing but a downward spirle until the " Bros " gtfo of dodge. 
 
I really feel for the devs. I hope so much that they can endure these hard times and pull through <3
 
We all love you and the work you do. A lot of people get frustrated and vent but forget that its not the devs its the shit heels holding the reins that create this shit storm of fail.
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Please put up RELEVANT sites thank you.
glasdoor is simply loaded with negative feedback about any company, even the one where I work.
It's like a cesspit for fired employees.
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Please put up RELEVANT sites thank you.
glasdoor is simply loaded with negative feedback about any company, even the one where I work.
It's like a cesspit for fired employees.
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Welcome to reality all over the world, especially the world of capitalism.
Everything was subordinated money, everything. Humanity has fallen by the wayside.It´s always and everywhere the same stupid game, with very rare exceptions.The system produces what stakeholders can profit from, not customers.
 
And "A fish rots from the head down".
 
If you are lucky, you find a company, where management is not that bad.During my career, I once had the incredible situation to participate in a realy good company.Once (!). For about two years, then it was closed, due to unfortunate circumstances.
 
We all have to live with that, in all realms, until we substantially change ourthoughts and systems. 	
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			Now I really have no sympathy. The dev team are like the corporate bigwigs and we are the "devs" telling the higher ups what should be done to improve the game only for it to fall on deaf ears. The circle of life - hakuna matata	
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As a software developer, I've always has sympathy for the Carbine folks, especially with the demands people in the community have made that are simply unrealistic based on faulty assumptions. They are doing a really hard task, and as near as I can tell doing a pretty great job of it. The biggest failure was whoever thought they could deliver content updates once a month and then set that is a public perception. The moment I heard it I thought it was a crazy idea.
 
As a note, I wouldn't touch the gaming industry with a 10 foot pole because of all the nasty stories I've heard. I value my work-life balance too much.
 
Anyway, I wouldn't completely blame NCSoft if there really is management failure going on at Carbine. Carbine has managers too.
 
But Devs like TT and a few others consistently demonstrate both talent and a love for what they are doing, and that speaks volumes. If TT were ever let go or decided to move on, I'd strongly consider ending my sub that day.	
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Welcome to the field of practical design.  There's always too much to do, there's not enough time to do it in, and there's nothing management can rationally do about it.
 
Every single project I've ever worked on has addendums and revisions after our permit date.  Even before I was designing hospitals, when I worked on tenant spaces and Starbucks coffee shops, construction administration is a continuous process that continues until even after opening day at times.  New issues arise, new problems surface, clients want things changed halfway through the process and it creates a cascading effect of issues you can deal with all the way through construction.  There's not much that can be done unless you invent a time machine that automatically unmakes any mistakes and you design everything exactly as everybody wants it the first time.
 
Maybe my architecture career gives me a kind of perspective through which I see game development with a bit more empathy.  There are projects here that have been in-process for ten years and will be in-process for ten more, if they don't simply continue as continuous renovations.  I get it, I come to work every day and get to live that life.  The only difference is that everyone at the hospitals and health care facilities we build don't show up on our website and have huge, self-sustaining conversations about processes they don't completely understand.  God only knows what I'd do if everyone at the project we just finished had a forum to completely rage on, feeling indignant that our buildings have to meet fire code and account for staff circulation, thus we didn't have "enough patient rooms for everyone."
 
That'd drive me insane.	
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Welcome to the field of practical design.  There's always too much to do, there's not enough time to do it in, and there's nothing management can rationally do about it.
 
Every single project I've ever worked on has addendums and revisions after our permit date.  Even before I was designing hospitals, when I worked on tenant spaces and Starbucks coffee shops, construction administration is a continuous process that continues until even after opening day at times.  New issues arise, new problems surface, clients want things changed halfway through the process and it creates a cascading effect of issues you can deal with all the way through construction.  There's not much that can be done unless you invent a time machine that automatically unmakes any mistakes and you design everything exactly as everybody wants it the first time.
 
Maybe my architecture career gives me a kind of perspective through which I see game development with a bit more empathy.  There are projects here that have been in-process for ten years and will be in-process for ten more, if they don't simply continue as continuous renovations.  I get it, I come to work every day and get to live that life.  The only difference is that everyone at the hospitals and health care facilities we build don't show up on our website and have huge, self-sustaining conversations about processes they don't completely understand.  God only knows what I'd do if everyone at the project we just finished had a forum to completely rage on, feeling indignant that our buildings have to meet fire code and account for staff circulation, thus we didn't have "enough patient rooms for everyone."
 
That'd drive me insane.
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Do your hospitals go without key features for months, while also making design changes and construction that adversely affect other parts of your hospital?  Does your hospital discriminate between patients, blatantly providing more privileges to certain ones, over others?
 
Does your hospital allow players to defraud your billing because they fall under a certain privilege category?
 
Is your hospital accessible to all people?  Or just moderately healthy people that get sick sometimes?
Does your hospital properly communicate between departments?
 
Does your hospital promise changes to patient care / infrastructure, then make those changes while also making things worse for other patients / infrastructure?
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Do your hospitals go without key features for months, while also making design changes and construction that adversely affect other parts of your hospital?  Does your hospital discriminate between patients, blatantly providing more privileges to certain ones, over others?
 
Does your hospital allow players to defraud your billing because they fall under a certain privilege category?
 
Is your hospital accessible to all people?  Or just moderately healthy people that get sick sometimes?
Does your hospital properly communicate between departments?
 
Does your hospital promise changes to patient care / infrastructure, then make those changes while also making things worse for other patients / infrastructure?
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I knew that you would find a lot of parallels in the questions I asked.  I think that is important to note, however; that not all of these complains on these forums are complaints about design.  There are also numerous changes that can be made without interfering with the large scope of things, that simply aren't being done.
 
Finally, we're not installing any building expansions here in Wildstar.  We're trying to figure out why there are urinals in the women's bathrooms, who thought it was a good idea, and why does it take 6 months to acknowledge so obvious of a problem?	
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Finally, we're not installing any building expansions here in Wildstar.  We're trying to figure out why there are urinals in the women's bathrooms, who thought it was a good idea, and why does it take 6 months to acknowledge so obvious of a problem?
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I knew that you would find a lot of parallels in the questions I asked.  I think that is important to note, however; that not all of these complains on these forums are complaints about design.  There are also numerous changes that can be made without interfering with the large scope of things, that simply aren't being done.
 
Finally, we're not installing any building expansions here in Wildstar.  We're trying to figure out why there are urinals in the women's bathrooms, who thought it was a good idea, and why does it take 6 months to acknowledge so obvious of a problem?
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I think it's good to understand who put it there.  If the same people that put bad things in there in the first place, are still on your team, then you probably want to understand why you did that?   I know that a brick wall / steel frame isn't the easiest of things to pull out of a wall, but damn, if you pull it out you could have quite the mess on your hands.  If you pulled the thing out, you might break the whole hospital, right?
 
That's not exactly true for software, and one of the many good things about software design.  Yes, software has brick walls, and things in place that could potentially bring the whole place down if you pull it out.  There are things that would require a very big engineering investment into replacing.  However, in software, if you pull out the brick wall, and the whole build crumbles, then you simply use the old build.    Now it's probably less black and white, and more of "how many things did we break doing it this way versus this way," but you see the idea.
 
You are not testing things like steel frames or brick walls, because you know that if you have the right materials, they're probably going to hold up, after all, they're just hard pieces of clay / metal.
 
As far as our toilet analogy goes--- it's not about why they had to put the toilet there, it's about why the toilet designed for men is in the women's bathroom, in the first place?
 
A better example would be something like, putting the physical therapy rooms up 2 flights of steps without an elevator.  Hell, a lot of people could probably make it up those steps, but the people in wheelchairs / trying to regain function in their legs are trying to figure out why there's a damn stairwell between them and getting their legs fixed.  Hell, you'd have wildstar pvp in a nutshell if the people at the top of the stairs were knocking those kids in wheelchairs back down the stairs if they got even close to the top.	
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Take your experience as a lesson, OP. A lot of people fall into this trap:
 
1) People on the internet, when presented with any product of a job, will always claim that they are better at that job and could make a better final product, even if they work in a field not even remotely related to the job in question and never produce any evidence of their own production.
 
2) Those people who make those claims are always wrong, as they do not work at those jobs or make that product, therefore they never have the full story behind the production that happened, no matter how much data mining, theory crafting or philosophizing they do, and are not qualified to say that they would have done anything differently
 
If that's not one of the Rules of the Internet, it should be one.	
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As someone working in the industry, thank you for posting this. More people need to take this to heart and stop acting like their $15 entitles them to a position managing the company.
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I just want to be clear in my posts too, that I do think CRB does a good job, despite my critical opinions.  I probably have the most justified opinion here, being a PvPer and all, even though a lot of of the neglect probably comes from the lack of a dedicated PvP developer.
 
I will say too though, that I'm a firm believer in people being held to their responsibilities.  If they say they're going to deliver on something bug-free, it shouldn't have any over the top bugs / exploits.  If they say they're going to devote a patch to PvP, it better not be half-assed etc.
 
I just think a lot of the time people take this whole side of, "well management blablabla," and it's like--- a Developer can make quality whether management asks them to or not, and it will shine through regardless of deadlines, design processes, etc.
 
I can't believe who said it earlier, but I think they mentioned that if TT moved on, they'd probably quit the game.  I would too, at this point.... 	
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I think it's good to understand who put it there.  If the same people that put bad things in there in the first place, are still on your team, then you probably want to understand why you did that?   I know that a brick wall / steel frame isn't the easiest of things to pull out of a wall, but damn, if you pull it out you could have quite the mess on your hands.  If you pulled the thing out, you might break the whole hospital, right?
 
That's not exactly true for software, and one of the many good things about software design.  Yes, software has brick walls, and things in place that could potentially bring the whole place down if you pull it out.  There are things that would require a very big engineering investment into replacing.  However, in software, if you pull out the brick wall, and the whole build crumbles, then you simply use the old build.    Now it's probably less black and white, and more of "how many things did we break doing it this way versus this way," but you see the idea.
 
You are not testing things like steel frames or brick walls, because you know that if you have the right materials, they're probably going to hold up, after all, they're just hard pieces of clay / metal.
 
As far as our toilet analogy goes--- it's not about why they had to put the toilet there, it's about why the toilet designed for men is in the women's bathroom, in the first place?
 
A better example would be something like, putting the physical therapy rooms up 2 flights of steps without an elevator.  Hell, a lot of people could probably make it up those steps, but the people in wheelchairs / trying to regain function in their legs are trying to figure out why there's a damn stairwell between them and getting their legs fixed.  Hell, you'd have wildstar pvp in a nutshell if the people at the top of the stairs were knocking those kids in wheelchairs back down the stairs if they got even close to the top.
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a Developer can make quality whether management asks them to or not, and it will shine through regardless of deadlines, design processes, etc.
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That's not exactly true for software, and one of the many good things about software design.
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This is so completely not true I don't know how to respond.
 
The number one killer of quality is deadlines. And in fact, the best way to make a project take longer and have more bugs is to impose aggressive deadlines. And design process is, well, pretty dang important. You can't just go write "quality code" and expect it to work as part of the whole system without a good process. People who try are the worst people to have on your team.
 
Believe me, at the end of the day you do what you are told, even if it results in a sub-par product. The number of developers shackled into making poor decisions by other people is astronomical. It's one of the major reasons that Agile done will is so good. But Agile is rarely done well.
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I can't believe who said it earlier, but I think they mentioned that if TT moved on, they'd probably quit the game. I would too, at this point....
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A Developer can make quality whether management asks them to or not, and it will shine through regardless of deadlines, design processes, etc.
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 I literally do game QA for a living.  It's not an easy job.  Saying that a developer can just "make quality" is the biggest, most untrue thing I've ever heard.  A developer can make a quality IDEA, but once it's implemented it's not just going to be 100% golden and sparkly and problem free.  It still needs to go through approvals, implementation, quality assurance, revision after quality assurance, re-implementation, feature greenlight, focused consumer testing, pre-release, and finally live release.  Each of those comma-separated situations have about 10-15 smaller and more menial steps to them.
 
 
 
Other posters have said it better:  You can't just "make a change" in a game.  I've said this so many times I'm pretty sure I should just tattoo it on my forehead so all I need to do is move my bangs to tell people the obvious truth.
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You're right.  Wildstar was unable to shine through despite all of these suggested management problems
 
... ??? Come on man
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Or your bias / personal feelings toward it cause you to take things harder than they're meant to be /shrug
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If that's literally all you meant to say, you worded it badly.
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As far as we've seen, I don't think another two people have put more heart and soul into this game than TT and Pappy. I'm sure they have some amazing people on their teams as well, so a big 'thank you' to them, too. The work TT has done with raids and the level of care he shows for the overall product of the game has made me a loyal fan. At this point, I'm willing to try anything he works on. Keep it up, yo!
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Yeah, I was really shocked at how negative their reviews were.  I was also disgusted by someone from upper management trying to mask their poor reviews by posting a biased positive review, instead of using it as constructive criticism.
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Of course, everyone is a pro in telling on anonymous site which review is made by trustful employee, and which one is biased and made by upper management.
 
2015, people still trust everything on a web.
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