107620-new-content-vs-bug-fixes

== Content ==
			
Another day, another post.
This time, I am going to bring up the bug issue vs content drop rate. There are lots of them! Break out the raid!
I have touched on this before, and I would like to again. I feel Carbine is shooting themselves in the foot with how quickly they plan to drop new content vs how quickly they are fixing the already known and existing bugs in game. Some of the bugs have been around since closed beta (how the crap are they still here??!!) and some are brought about with their drops they do at the end of the month. INB4 people say they are two different teams and they have already had this content in the hopper for months. (Let’s break it down!)
 
1. Existing bugs: From the posts I have read before on this subject, there is a team that is focused solely on existing bugs in game, their sole purpose is to effectively find and fix these known bugs and get the fix in the patch ASAP. This team is more than likely already overloaded with bugs, since they have been piling up since closed beta, and are probably working as hard and as fast as possible to resolve them. We’ll call them the Help Desk for easy understanding.
 
2. Next we have the PvP team that is testing, creating new content, and working on everything PvP related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvP content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this team PvP team for easy understanding.
 
3. Next we have the PvE team that is testing, creating new content and working on everything PvE related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvE content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this the PvE team for easy understanding.
 
4. Rinse and repeat for the crafting team
5. Rinse and repeat for the path team
6. Rinse and repeat for the dungeon, adventures and raid team
7. Rinse and repeat for the graphic team
8. Rinse and repeat for the quest team
(I think you are starting to get the picture here.)
 
There are multiple teams that work on multiple different things in the game, and because they have content slated to come out for the next year or so they are creating a huge influx on bugs for the Help Desk to fix. Normally these other teams could help the Help Desk but because there is new content monthly these other teams cannot give sufficient help to the Help Desk to fix bugs in a timely manner and thus causes this team to become so inundated with bugs that they don’t even know which way is up. 
 
Now, I know there will be people out there that complain there isn’t enough to do in the game, there are always these people. What I would like to see Carbine do though is continue to release content, just nowhere near the rate at which they have slated for themselves and bring it out when they have fixed the huge issues in game aka all the bugs, class balance, PvP, itemization, paths, and the list goes on. More people probably would rather have these things fixed instead of new content. Content is good and allows the game to give people something new to play, but if every drop causes more headaches that fixes then at some point is has to break. 
 	
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There are two different teams who work on bug fixes and content drops.
I get what you're saying..kind of (I skimmed over).
But the content developers don't test bugs (for the most part), they just make stuff.	
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{| class="blockquote"
There are two different teams who work on bug fixes and content drops.
I get what you're saying..kind of (I skimmed over).
But the content developers don't test bugs (for the most part), they just make break stuff.
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The only thing that "grinds my gears" about this game so far is things getting "rebroken" with new content patch.
 
The "Helping Hands" quest is an example ( as well as similar quest mechanics ).
 
I fully understand that MMORPGS are complex but, what I can not understand is why "this particular" quest mechanic is not tested ( or seems to not be tested ) prior to the release of each content drop.
 
This is not a new problem ( the "Helping Hands" thing ) it's been an issue since beta.
 
I would really like a answer to this ...	
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QA (quality assumptions) finds new bugs or verifies bugs reported by the playerbase.
 
The bugs go into a bug tracking system (excel spreadsheet made by Mary in HR), where a developer is assigned to it.
 
That developer, assuming they still work for the company, gets tired of playing Eve for the day and checks his or her list of bugs then spends a few minutes finding the root cause.  If he gets bored before finding the root cause, he goes to the break room to get a soda and discuss last night's episode of Dominion with a member of QA.
 
This continues until he finds the root cause of the bug, and he backspaces the extra semi-colon that caused the compile issue forcing that module not to load to begin with.  He checks in the fix to their source code repository (Floppy disk) and passes it to QA.  Eventually, the staff janitor finds the floppy laying under a pile of Cheetos dust and hands it to someone in the build department, who loads it onto the servers.
 
For content, the guys with the "Testing? Find someone who cares" stickers on their monitors sit around saying "OMG I have this cool idea.." and they throw it together real quick, and cause it's so cool, their buds in Art whip together the assets needed, and the janitor writes the code for it because he's taking a class at night.  They tell the suits "Hey we have this great new content!"  and Marketing gets involved to promote it.  QA?  Who needs QA when you have an awesome player base that will find all the bugs for you?
 
...
 
Tongue in cheek.  Who's cheek, I'm not saying.	
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The only thing that "grinds my gears" about this game so far is things getting "rebroken" with new content patch.
 
The "Helping Hands" quest is an example ( as well as similar quest mechanics ).
 
I fully understand that MMORPGS are complex but, what I can not understand is why "this particular" quest mechanic is not tested ( or seems to not be tested ) prior to the release of each content drop.
 
This is not a new problem ( the "Helping Hands" thing ) it's been an issue since beta.
 
I would really like a answer to this ...
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Another day, another post.
This time, I am going to bring up the bug issue vs content drop rate. There are lots of them! Break out the raid!
I have touched on this before, and I would like to again. I feel Carbine is shooting themselves in the foot with how quickly they plan to drop new content vs how quickly they are fixing the already known and existing bugs in game. Some of the bugs have been around since closed beta (how the crap are they still here??!!) and some are brought about with their drops they do at the end of the month. INB4 people say they are two different teams and they have already had this content in the hopper for months. (Let’s break it down!)
 
1. Existing bugs: From the posts I have read before on this subject, there is a team that is focused solely on existing bugs in game, their sole purpose is to effectively find and fix these known bugs and get the fix in the patch ASAP. This team is more than likely already overloaded with bugs, since they have been piling up since closed beta, and are probably working as hard and as fast as possible to resolve them. We’ll call them the Help Desk for easy understanding.
 
2. Next we have the PvP team that is testing, creating new content, and working on everything PvP related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvP content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this team PvP team for easy understanding.
 
3. Next we have the PvE team that is testing, creating new content and working on everything PvE related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvE content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this the PvE team for easy understanding.
 
4. Rinse and repeat for the crafting team
5. Rinse and repeat for the path team
6. Rinse and repeat for the dungeon, adventures and raid team
7. Rinse and repeat for the graphic team
8. Rinse and repeat for the quest team
(I think you are starting to get the picture here.)
 
There are multiple teams that work on multiple different things in the game, and because they have content slated to come out for the next year or so they are creating a huge influx on bugs for the Help Desk to fix. Normally these other teams could help the Help Desk but because there is new content monthly these other teams cannot give sufficient help to the Help Desk to fix bugs in a timely manner and thus causes this team to become so inundated with bugs that they don’t even know which way is up. 
 
Now, I know there will be people out there that complain there isn’t enough to do in the game, there are always these people. What I would like to see Carbine do though is continue to release content, just nowhere near the rate at which they have slated for themselves and bring it out when they have fixed the huge issues in game aka all the bugs, class balance, PvP, itemization, paths, and the list goes on. More people probably would rather have these things fixed instead of new content. Content is good and allows the game to give people something new to play, but if every drop causes more headaches that fixes then at some point is has to break. 
 
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its surprisingly easy actually and usually due to the programmer working on new things.
 
they have an old version of some component on their build environment. they create new things, they pass their "product" off to QA and tell them this is what I put in, make sure it works. because the OLDER content wasnt touched and the testers cannot QA the ENTIRE game, they test what they are told to. the patch goes live..and an old broken version hits live.
 
happens a lot if coders are not careful and make sure they have the latest version of everything on their build environment
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@Kestrial,
 
But each time?  That is what boggles me.  I can understand once but, it has been an ongoing issue since beta.  It really speaks to their over all QA process. :\	
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{| class="blockquote"
(I am talking about the bold area here)
 
In a previous post this was talked about. They have somewhere near 5-6 environments they test in and run at one time at Carbine. Why force yourselves into this? (They also stated that they had so many because of the volume of content drops they have) Why not stop content drops, cut back on the number of environments and fix your issues? Can they not see how these overlooks and issues are effecting their community? Or do they just not care if they continue to break things and create more broken content?
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The drop team is smaller than the bug fix team at this point, from my understanding.  That's what your "inb4" is skimming over.  The drop team has most of this stuff done; they're simply adapting it to the fixes and changes they've since made.  A lot of what seem to us to be minor graphical issues are actually conflicts happening between engine components, and they need to be changed for the content drop.
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			We've had this argument before. You were wrong then, you're wrong now. Doesn't matter how many threads you start with variations on the same complaints.	
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That's impossible to answer unless you work there and know the culture + background of why this happened or how this evolved in the first place.
There's definitely a reason behind it why they did it like this.
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ya and that's my point I am trying to make, obviously it isn't working :P
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The only thing that "grinds my gears" about this game so far is things getting "rebroken" with new content patch.
 
The "Helping Hands" quest is an example ( as well as similar quest mechanics ).
 
I fully understand that MMORPGS are complex but, what I can not understand is why "this particular" quest mechanic is not tested ( or seems to not be tested ) prior to the release of each content drop.
 
This is not a new problem ( the "Helping Hands" thing ) it's been an issue since beta.
 
I would really like a answer to this ...
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{| class="blockquote"
matter of perception.
it's working for them, and that's all that counts. They have to work in that environment and if it makes sense to them for whatever reason, then they should keep it.
Nobody here on these forums even has a clue what working over there is like, or what working in such an environment or project is like.
Anyone claiming they do, can post his credentials like I did to show he does.
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That's like saying, hey we have all these quests and bugs that are breaking the game, but it works for us so who cares? There are tons of threads daily about bugs that have been around months and tons of threads daily about new bugs from both drops. Obviously it isn't working. 
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{| class="blockquote"
@Kestrial,
 
But each time?  That is what boggles me.  I can understand once but, it has been an ongoing issue since beta.  It really speaks to their over all QA process. :\
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{| class="blockquote"
Totally different topic. Don't try to turn bugs in a product into an argument to fight over when we're talking about their development cycle.
I don't even care whatever "perfect" development solution you come up with, your end product WILL have bugs in it.
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True, there will never be a perfect environment. Again what I was stating in the beginning and what I will state again is why is Carbine dead set on releasing new content and new bugs that are not properly tested and working? Why do they continue to cause new bugs and break existing bugs instead of focusing everything on fixing the issues they have before releasing new content? That is my question
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@Kestriel,
 
Helping hands broke through beta ( check goggle ) and broke with Strain and Sabotage.
 
It's a pain for new players and altoholics ( like me ... I have two characters on the exile side parked on Evindra waiting for the gate to reopen).
 
This particular quest line for light armor wearers leads to their first shoulder armor.  Also, it can be demoralizing for newbies because they will not "know where to go".
 
For me ... I wait.  Frustrated, yes. But, I am not ready to "throw the baby out with the bath water" over this.  But, I can see how some may drop the game over this if they are not MMORPG vets.
 
Since it is a quest progression bug, AND it breaks with each content patch I just don't see why this can not be a PRIORITY 1 Test with each patch ...	
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{| class="blockquote"
Read my other replies in the threads made about this, I'm not retyping this every time.
You know the answer as well as I do on that question.
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			Because MMOs.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Even if it is, they still create more than they fix with their drops. This would hold water to me and most if their were LESS bugs with each drop and not more. This reads to me as we have less people to test the things we are bringing out so we can guarantee more bugs. How is that a good model?
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{| class="blockquote"
and that's my point, Carbine is backwards in their thought process and it shows
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{| class="blockquote"
Because MMOs.
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{| class="blockquote"
No, you assume them to be.
Again you're forcing what you think is the solution to a problem you perceive.
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{| class="blockquote"
@Kestriel,
 
Helping hands broke through beta ( check goggle ) and broke with Strain and Sabotage.
 
It's a pain for new players and altoholics ( like me ... I have two characters on the exile side parked on Evindra waiting for the gate to reopen).
 
This particular quest line for light armor wearers leads to their first shoulder armor.  Also, it can be demoralizing for newbies because they will not "know where to go".
 
For me ... I wait.  Frustrated, yes. But, I am not ready to "throw the baby out with the bath water" over this.  But, I can see how some may drop the game over this if they are not MMORPG vets.
 
Since it is a quest progression bug, AND it breaks with each content patch I just don't see why this can not be a PRIORITY 1 Test with each patch ...
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{| class="blockquote"
lol, ok well thanks for your input, but I disagree and a lot of others do too
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{| class="blockquote"
Which is your right.
Just don't force thoughts or assumptions unless you can prove it.
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@Kestriel,
 
The two known workarounds ( the 2 people and the double click ) are not working right now... it's more broken in Sabotage than it was in Strain. :(	
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{| class="blockquote"
I agree at first with any new content drop there is always bugs, but when they drop something and have bugs and they persist through the next drop there is a problem, and that's what the issue is
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{| class="blockquote"
Players will always have issues with the priority list for bug fixes, whether justified or not.
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Why do they HAVE to stick to this system?
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Hey guys, 
 
Reminder to stay on topic please and refrain from personal insults. I know this is a passionate topic and I'll see if we can't get some more input to explain what our process is. 
 
Thank you
- team WildStar 	
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{| class="blockquote"
agreed, PvP want PvP fixed now, PvE the same and I know this. My biggest issue is when they bring out new content that breaks things from closed beta and causes new bugs that don't get fixed and roll over into the new drops and it continues from there. All I am saying is instead of compounding their issues why don't they stop their rate of new drops and fix the known issues the best they can? Why do they HAVE to stick to this system?
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Because they don't want the higher-ups to do some unpleasant things to them for not following their instructions? Like any other job?
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			From what I understand the higher up the chain you go at Carbine the less talent there is and the less aware people are of whats going on. That's what glassdoor tells me anyway ;P	
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{| class="blockquote"
Hey guys, 
 
Reminder to stay on topic please and refrain from personal insults. I know this is a passionate topic and I'll see if we can't get some more input to explain what our process is. 
 
Thank you
- team WildStar 
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{| class="blockquote"
From what I understand the higher up the chain you go at any company the less talent there is and the less aware people are of whats going on.
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{| class="blockquote"
Fixed that for you.
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			I guess you're right about that haha. I guess I just hoped for different : /. 	
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now again, this is my own opinion but I think this is the big disconnect here and what will ultimately win out in the end. I think Carbine probably has some pretty big downward push from NCSoft and from the "C"s in Carbines office for content drops being monthly and there being no wiggle room. I understand that they want to make money but I am pretty sure neither NCSoft nor the big wigs at Carbine have any true understanding of the amount of in-game issues there are and what is really happening in game. 
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{| class="blockquote"
now again, this is my own opinion but I think this is the big disconnect here and what will ultimately win out in the end. I think Carbine probably has some pretty big downward push from NCSoft and from the "C"s in Carbines office for content drops being monthly and there being no wiggle room. I understand that they want to make money but I am pretty sure neither NCSoft nor the big wigs at Carbine have any true understanding of the amount of in-game issues there are and what is really happening in game. 
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{| class="blockquote"
Shakyntani's "edit" is exactly that.
Higher ups only care about making their money, and have no clue about the development cycles involved.
And that's speaking out of experience. The higher up you go in the hierarchy chain, the less they know/understand about gaming and the volatility they are dealing with.
 
Classic error in gaming companies: trying to handle the gamer market like any classic market : IT DOES NOT WORK.
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Hi all,
 
I can't go into a lot of details right now, but I do know that there will be a larger post coming soon that will address the concerns expressed here.
 
As several folk have mentioned it is worth noting that different teams work on different things, and that no matter how large or dedicated your QA Team is, things can easily slip through the net as they simply can't replicate the bizarre, unique, and individual circumstances that players can find themselves in.
 
The dev team are working tirelessly to try and make WildStar as good as it can be, and that means taking a flexible approach to things as the game develops.
 
I wish there was more I could say at this time, but for now answers and responses are coming, hopefully soon.	
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{| class="blockquote"
That reminds me of this investor at a Nintendo's meeting basically saying: "I don't play or know anything about videogames and I don't care, now shall we talk about how to make more money from videogames?"
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{| class="blockquote"
Shakyntani's "edit" is exactly that.
Higher ups only care about making their money, and have no clue about the development cycles involved.
And that's speaking out of experience. The higher up you go in the hierarchy chain, the less they know/understand about gaming and the volatility they are dealing with.
 
Classic error in gaming companies: trying to handle the gamer market like any classic market : IT DOES NOT WORK.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hi all,
 
I can't go into a lot of details right now, but I do know that there will be a larger post coming soon that will address the concerns expressed here.
 
As several folk have mentioned it is worth noting that different teams work on different things, and that no matter how large or dedicated your QA Team is, things can easily slip through the net as they simply can't replicate the bizarre, unique, and individual circumstances that players can find themselves in.
 
The dev team are working tirelessly to try and make WildStar as good as it can be, and that means taking a flexible approach to things as the game develops.
 
I wish there was more I could say at this time, but for now answers and responses are coming, hopefully soon.
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{| class="blockquote"
In the beginning they seemed to have such a good grasp though. I don't understand why it's so hard to realize how important a "first impression" with mmos is. There have been so many examples to look at, games that have crashed and burnt and why so. It is insulting when you see the playerbase get ignored about some major issues though (Espers for example) due to outrigh stubbornness.
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{| class="blockquote"
Hi all,
 
I can't go into a lot of details right now, but I do know that there will be a larger post coming soon that will address the concerns expressed here.
 
As several folk have mentioned it is worth noting that different teams work on different things, and that no matter how large or dedicated your QA Team is, things can easily slip through the net as they simply can't replicate the bizarre, unique, and individual circumstances that players can find themselves in.
 
The dev team are working tirelessly to try and make WildStar as good as it can be, and that means taking a flexible approach to things as the game develops.
 
I wish there was more I could say at this time, but for now answers and responses are coming, hopefully soon.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
Another day, another post.
This time, I am going to bring up the bug issue vs content drop rate. There are lots of them! Break out the raid!
I have touched on this before, and I would like to again. I feel Carbine is shooting themselves in the foot with how quickly they plan to drop new content vs how quickly they are fixing the already known and existing bugs in game. Some of the bugs have been around since closed beta (how the crap are they still here??!!) and some are brought about with their drops they do at the end of the month. INB4 people say they are two different teams and they have already had this content in the hopper for months. (Let’s break it down!)
 
1. Existing bugs: From the posts I have read before on this subject, there is a team that is focused solely on existing bugs in game, their sole purpose is to effectively find and fix these known bugs and get the fix in the patch ASAP. This team is more than likely already overloaded with bugs, since they have been piling up since closed beta, and are probably working as hard and as fast as possible to resolve them. We’ll call them the Help Desk for easy understanding.
 
2. Next we have the PvP team that is testing, creating new content, and working on everything PvP related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvP content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this team PvP team for easy understanding.
 
3. Next we have the PvE team that is testing, creating new content and working on everything PvE related. They also have a small bug team but they exclusively work on the new PvE content and as soon as things go live all of their bugs kick over to the Help Desk to fix. This team works hard on the content that is about to come out, find as much as they can, but still have bugs that make it past them. We’ll call this the PvE team for easy understanding.
 
4. Rinse and repeat for the crafting team
5. Rinse and repeat for the path team
6. Rinse and repeat for the dungeon, adventures and raid team
7. Rinse and repeat for the graphic team
8. Rinse and repeat for the quest team
(I think you are starting to get the picture here.)
 
There are multiple teams that work on multiple different things in the game, and because they have content slated to come out for the next year or so they are creating a huge influx on bugs for the Help Desk to fix. Normally these other teams could help the Help Desk but because there is new content monthly these other teams cannot give sufficient help to the Help Desk to fix bugs in a timely manner and thus causes this team to become so inundated with bugs that they don’t even know which way is up. 
 
Now, I know there will be people out there that complain there isn’t enough to do in the game, there are always these people. What I would like to see Carbine do though is continue to release content, just nowhere near the rate at which they have slated for themselves and bring it out when they have fixed the huge issues in game aka all the bugs, class balance, PvP, itemization, paths, and the list goes on. More people probably would rather have these things fixed instead of new content. Content is good and allows the game to give people something new to play, but if every drop causes more headaches that fixes then at some point is has to break. 
 
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{| class="blockquote"
I don't want to start the whole debate again, but the problem is on two sides here.
Community demanding unreasonable things and entitlement issues.
I don't want to argue about it, but finding a bug or class balance issue and demanding, yes demanding it to be fixed yesterday simply does not fly.
And yes Carbine should try to improve their released software despite their limited test capabilities.
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{| class="blockquote"
I don't want to start the whole debate again, but the problem is on two sides here.
Community demanding unreasonable things and entitlement issues.
I don't want to argue about it, but finding a bug or class balance issue and demanding, yes demanding it to be fixed yesterday simply does not fly.
And yes Carbine should try to improve their released software despite their limited test capabilities.
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{| class="blockquote"
I don't need to argue about it though. The esper issue was not at all entitlement. It was a poor vision of a class that did not belong in his game and they got what they wanted and rightly so. When you provide a service you are at your customer's mercy in so many ways. I dunno how theres any debate for that lol. It's less about bugs really but the things design wise that made it from beta to live after metric tons of feedback about how it wasn't gonna be acceptable is just a bit telling of mentalities in the company. I did see that Carbine is hiring a QA lead so maybe thats a good thing for the future.
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{| class="blockquote"
IMO, this happens because of a general idea in gaming today that will end up killing the gaming industry. The idea is, "Why fix now when we can fix later...when we already have their money." I understand MMO's are somewhat different than other games but MMO companies still suffer from this capitalist point of view; money first, quality later. The industry has flipped priorities from "making quality entretainment" first to "screw quality, we just want your money".
 
The proof of this lies when we compare independent games to mainstream games. Independent games are, for the most part, labors of love. The game-maker is intent on creating an enjoyable game without thinking about how much money they're gonna make. This does not mean independent game-makers don't expect to make money off of their creations. Of course they do! The difference is that money is not their driving force. It is not their main motive or source of motivational energy. Their energy comes from the desire to create a well-made, complete game that will hopefully be appreciated by their target audience.
 
In psychological terms this is what is known as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Self-Determination Theory), which also relates to primary and secondary reinforcements (B.F. Skinner's Operational Conditioning Theory). Money is an extrinsic motivator and secondary reinforcement, whereas that feeling of accomplishment you experience when you know you have succesfully completed an endeavor is an intrinsic motivator and a primary reinforcement.
 
It is generally considered and accepted by the psychological community that intrinsic motivation and primary reinforcements are more effective than extrinsic motivation and secondary reinforcements. However, western society has evolved to where individuals and institutions alike pay more attention to extrinsic motivators and secondary reinforcements.
 
That is why athletes no longer compete to feel accomplished or because they love the game. They compete to get the most endorsements and the juiciest contracts. Why musical "artists" no longer write music to express and share their feelings or to retaliate against the current establishment. They write whatever the recording company thinks is gonna sell the most cd's/downloads/concert tickets. Why the amount of really, REALLY good, praise-deserving games has significantly reduced because publishers will push whatever crap they think will sell, even if that means using and reusing the same formula, over and over and over again (e.g., Modern Warfare and all you "can't reinvent the wheel"-type thinkers).
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Don't misunderstand, some of these things should have received a higher priority, totally with you on that one.
I'm more aiming at how certain parts of the "community", if you can call it that, react on these forums.
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{| class="blockquote"
Hi all,
 
I can't go into a lot of details right now, but I do know that there will be a larger post coming soon that will address the concerns expressed here.
 
As several folk have mentioned it is worth noting that different teams work on different things, and that no matter how large or dedicated your QA Team is, things can easily slip through the net as they simply can't replicate the bizarre, unique, and individual circumstances that players can find themselves in.
 
The dev team are working tirelessly to try and make WildStar as good as it can be, and that means taking a flexible approach to things as the game develops.
 
I wish there was more I could say at this time, but for now answers and responses are coming, hopefully soon.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I just hope it doesn't mean pushing content to two-three month periods. :(
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@SykoTavo,
 
The state of society today visa vie "intrinsic" vs. "extrinsic" motivation stems more from the heresy of modernity that states that there is no truth and every thing is relative.  Ipso facto, if everything is relative then another person is just an object to be manipulated to seek ones end.  If there is no truth, then there is no virtue, and people devolve into selfishness.  This can best be understood by looking at "how bored" people are today.  This "quest for the intrinsic" never satisfies.  It is only when one seeks fulfillment in the "extrinsic" that one realizes their true natures and their reason for being.	
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			This thread is getting deep...lemme get my water wings	
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@SykoTavo,
 
The state of society today visa vie "intrinsic" vs. "extrinsic" motivation stems more from the heresy of modernity that states that there is no truth and every thing is relative.  Ipso facto, if everything is relative then another person is just an object to be manipulated to seek ones end.  If there is no truth, then there is no virtue, and people devolve into selfishness.  This can best be understood by looking at "how bored" people are today.  This "quest for the intrinsic" never satisfies.  It is only when one seeks fulfillment in the "extrinsic" that one realizes their true natures and their reason for being.
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I think, again my opinion, if they can get the game in a better place quality of life wise this wouldn't need to be. I think they should have a few months to get it to that point but then they can focus solely on the new content and fix things as they come instead of dealing with everything they have now. I don't mind content monthly if the QA is able to stay on top of it and keep the bugs down and the quality up. As we see it now, in my opinion, it isn't that way :(
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@SykoTavo,
 
The state of society today visa vie "intrinsic" vs. "extrinsic" motivation stems more from the heresy of modernity that states that there is no truth and every thing is relative.  Ipso facto, if everything is relative then another person is just an object to be manipulated to seek ones end.  If there is no truth, then there is no virtue, and people devolve into selfishness.  This can best be understood by looking at "how bored" people are today.  This "quest for the intrinsic" never satisfies.  It is only when one seeks fulfillment in the "extrinsic" that one realizes their true natures and their reason for being.
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@Vic,
 
I am not stating that they should move people around and force people to change teams to fix bugs right now, and I see now that's what most people are assuming. I am saying that we need to stop bringing out new content until the old content is fixed and working as intended (or as close as possible). The way I see this happening is to delay content drops and focus the teams that are already working on all the content for their respective groups to focus on bugs and quality of life instead of the new content. That is where the issue to me lies.
 
Again: Teams are more focused on the new drops, since they are monthly, and are focused on bringing new things to the PTR for these drops. This is where I see the issue and this is what I would like to change until they can get things to a good place. I am not saying they have to bring all the teams together for one QA team. I am saying that they focus on quality of life in the current environment vs working on new content. In a company that is not working on new software the Desktop admin team doesn't stop working just because there is nothing new to code or test, they continue to work in the current environment and fix the known issues. I am not saying to re-invent the wheel at Carbine, I am saying, shift gears and focus on the game in its current state instead of constantly breaking it with new content. Please don't take what I said out of context and please don't put words in my mouth	
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That's probably true, but I have a feeling it's more due to people's reliance on immediacy conflicting with their desire (especially here in the US) to have everything that does everything.  We, as modern, first world people, want to eat our cake and keep it, too.  We want more things that intrinsically require more complexity, but we aren't willing to wait for them to be there or deal with the consequences of that speed.  Divorced as we are from the production (via the extinction of the craftsman as the primary means of production whose authority was never questioned) we aren't appreciative of the necessary investment of those who produce our goods.
 
Nottino's point is to understand that production to a degree and say that, in terms of raw numbers, removing people from the hypothetical task of "content drops" frees them up for the hypothetical task of "bug fixing".  My disagreement with that point is that, fundamentally, people aren't lego bricks and these tasks aren't cars on an assembly line (much as we've adapted the analogy).  Adding more people to the task does not necessarily produce faster or more accurate results; these people aren't factory workers screwing bolts onto an engine who can be duplicated on another line or whose work can be divided to speed up production.  In essence, bug fixing and content dropping aren't bricks on one corner of the yard that need moved and stacked on the other.
 
The larger point, I think for people less aware of the issue of conservation that Nottino is trying to articulate, leads to people wanting a game that already does everything perfectly right now.  That's simply not feasible, and rather insulting to the developers who've put so much work into this game.  I don't think it's fair to lump Nottino into that camp, though.  He's asking whether or not a re-allocation of resources would feasibly affect the build quality of outgoing new content.  While I don't imagine it does, it's probably also fair to say both of us could be wrong, and also that it's very difficult to know.  It's fair to raise the point, at least.
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			I think the point the OP is trying to make is that it is better to have less quantity of polished content than more, unpolished content, and I agree!	
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I think the point the OP is trying to make is that it is better to have less quantity of polished content than more, unpolished content, and I agree!
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And unfortunately, if they do that, they'll get plenty of "You made us wait <insert time here> just for THAT?!"
But if they release more (and thus more potentially bugged) content at once, they'll get plenty of "You just couldn't have waited a few more weeks/months, could you? You had to release this broken mess right now!".
 
Game developploppment is like Wargames. But then, other people would complain about that, too.
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The dev team are working tirelessly to try and make WildStar as good as it can be, and that means taking a flexible approach to things as the game develops.
 
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 I didn't realize tirelessly means take the weekend off.
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 I didn't realize tirelessly means take the weekend off.
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None of us can know for sure how much Carbine are able to shift the emphasis from content generation to bug fixing, but I would imagine there's at least a bit of wiggle room.
 
I feel they need to do something because it's the bugs and quality of life issues which seem to be dragging the game down at the moment. We're only 2 months in from launch, running out of content shouldn't be an issue, but bugs are definitely an issue. If the player population is declining it is less likely to be because they've exhausted the content and more likely they've decided the game isn't for them, at least not at this time, with the bugs a likely factor. 
 
I'm sure we'd all like to see more content and have more to do in the game. But right now it's not lack of content which is sapping my will to log in and play. It's the many bugs and QOL issues I run into during every gaming session and which impact on every aspect of gameplay. Players report these bugs, some things get fixed but lots do not and some things have been broken since beta. Many get fixed only to be broken again by a subsequent patch. It feels like a game rushed out and which players are expected to try and play while they run around trying to pick up the pieces. More content can surely only make matters worse if they don't get a grip on existing bugs. 
 
No MMO is bug free and it is fair to say that only a few of these bugs are real show-stoppers. But it's the sheer volume of all the niggles that saps the fun out of the game - death by a thousand cuts.	
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and it seems you are just here to tell me everything I say is wrong. You have no data as well and you seem to think you do. Unfortunately the truth of the matter is there are tons of bugs, tons of issues with the game and people are quitting and complaining about it. So instead of trying to defend a system that you have no idea about either, I please ask you to leave this thread and stop trying to get it locked because you don't like me. Thanks
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I have a year of observations plus things that were explained to us during beta. I have a lot more solid of an idea than you do, and you're wrong. Also, don't take things personally that aren't. This isn't about whether I like you, this is about the fact I question your motives in starting and repeating these conversations every few days. Obsessing over problems you have no control or understanding of doesn't get them solved faster, and doesn't improve the attitude of the community. In other words though it may not be your intent, you're trolling. Nothing you've said is helpful to the devs in resolving issues, and none of your demands for information get things done faster.
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and if you were to follow this thread at all, it seems people agree with me. So thanks for your input, but I do again ask you to move on since you have nothing to contribute to this conversation and are only here to attack and get this thread off topic.
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			Poor Project Management	
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Agree with the OP I am afraid. Personally I think it's time for the devs to take a slight breath, focus all efforts on fixing what's actually out there and then get back to developing new content.
 
My main chugs along ok through dailies, dungeons etc etc, but leveling alts with these "old" annoying bugs is like pulling teeth. After all, the life blood of subscriber based games is both end game content playing and subscribers rolling alts to run through content again and give themselves an alternative method to enjoy elder game.
 
If both examples contain ongoing multiple bugs that seem to drag on and on without fix, then perhaps the writing is on the wall for the future of subscriptions?
 
This is a wonderful, promising game; and at this relatively early stage in its life span It's not too late to stop the rot and prevent it going the way of countless other failed subscription based mmo's. I agree that it's a fine balancing act between new content & fixing existing broken content, but at this exact moment I personally feel the balance has shifted more towards the existing breakages causing more long term damage than a lack of new content.	
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Hey everyone,
 
Friendly reminder, please keep your posts on-topic, constructive, and civil. Discuss the post -- not the poster.
 
Thanks,Team WildStar	
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All I'd like is acknowledgement of the list of bugs.  Even if it is just lip service - someone coming into the bug threads and saying, "Thanks for the information guys, we're on it."  If they gave detail, that would be even better, "This quest no longer works because of X, it should be fixed soon." 
 
I know this seems very superficial, but community outreach goes a long way, for me at least.
 
There is a quest in Auroria that is broken right now, stopping progression.  If someone has a strict path on which they play, they may not want to play while they cannot progress appropriately. As of now, that bug has not been "addressed", so there is no timetable for which the quest (and therefore, their progression) will be fixed.  Every day that issue is not addressed, that person may start playing something else which may start getting their gaming dollar. 
 
A "Hey guys, we know that this quest is broken and we plan to have it patched up by Tuesday morning.  Thanks for playing!" would go a long way in quashing the player's frustration.  No company is too busy for community outreach.	
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			Yes to all OP said. The thing is, yes there are teams who do different things but a true agile workforce in gaming shifts their resources around not only based on what they like to do but what they need to do. Therefor if new content comes out and it is breaking old code it stands to reason that those programmers do not just go "meh" and move on. They stay on to fix their code and help the other programmers get things in working order. At least that's how we run our games and we have 5 projects going, with much less resources to actually relocate. Also if they move from every month to every 2 months even that's a full month more of testing and code scrubbing before the content goes live. (less bugs in live)	
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There are two different teams who work on bug fixes and content drops.
I get what you're saying..kind of (I skimmed over).
But the content developers don't test bugs (for the most part), they just make stuff.
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Shakyntani's "edit" is exactly that.
Higher ups only care about making their money, and have no clue about the development cycles involved.
And that's speaking out of experience. The higher up you go in the hierarchy chain, the less they know/understand about gaming and the volatility they are dealing with.
 
Classic error in gaming companies: trying to handle the gamer market like any classic market : IT DOES NOT WORK.
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I want to make it clear, even if sometimes it comes across this way, I am not demanding a fix right this second, I am just asking them to think about the quality of life of the game as it stands vs what has happened the last two drops (since they weren't as pretty as they expected). All I would like to see is them come out and say, we are more focused at this point in fixing the quality of the game and are going to hold off on new content until we are happy with the way things are. That way they aren't forced into a period to fix the issues and once the game is back on track they can continue to bring out content. For me this is a win win
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I just hope it doesn't mean pushing content to two-three month periods. :(
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I am done defending this game.  POS it is.  The hell with it.
 
Just got to YET ANOTHER quest progression bug.
 
"Light the Sky" ... can't get past it.  BROKEN. 
 
I hate this game right now.	
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Completly agree.
 
Please stop with the new content it will get worse. Fix the biggest issues first...
 
Devs are listening? Players too...but we hear nothin...	
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