Devs don't play their own game...

[JeffRyan]

It's come up in ANOTHER thread. It's based off of a comment David made about not getting to play the live build as much these days (though he still does, in Open). That's it. The /live/ build. He spends more time playing/testing the work in progress, then he know, has a life (family, company running, other stuff).

It's clear to anyone who watches the live streams that the Devs do play, many of them the live build and... be helpful if FDEV can chime in here...

I'm not sure people are willfully misconstruing what was said or made an honest mistake, but come on...

 

[jasonbarron]

It's come up in ANOTHER thread. It's based off of a comment David made about not getting to play the live build as much these days (though he still does, in Open). That's it. The /live/ build. He spends more time playing/testing the work in progress, then he know, has a life (family, company running, other stuff).

It's clear to anyone who watches the live streams that the Devs do play, many of them the live build and... be helpful if FDEV can chime in here...

I'm not sure people are willfully misconstruing what was said or made an honest mistake, but come on...

The rubbish billowing about that other thread reminds me of when the toilet doesn't flush all the way down.

 

[Wylie28]

Game devs do not play live builds. They play the most current build, it makes more sense from a development and a enjoyment perspective.

 

[Karunamon]

Game devs do not play live builds. They play the most current build, it makes more sense from a development and a enjoyment perspective.

And (biowaste) all from a practical one, since there's a massive difference between looking at metrics and actually interacting with the live service as used by actual customers.

Again, I would have bet real cash money on there being a video this was construed from since I've seen it with my own eyes once already.. I think it was a live stream of some kind, and had two Frontier people on screen chatting about things with the game in the background. I just can't find it because the forum search is near worthless and doesn't understand the concept of a whole phrase search.

 

[Wylie28]

So you want them to instead of testing the version of the game they are working on, to instead play one already released? What does this achieve? It doesn't help bugs get fixed as theres no way to confirm a bug is fixed when you are playing an old build of the game, it doesn't help test features as none of the changes that have been made in the most current build are reflected in the old one. The have played the version used by actual customers, just weeks before you. Use logic in the future.

 

[Karunamon]

So you want them to instead of testing the version of the game they are working on, to instead play one already released? What does this achieve?

Comprehension of issues people are actually dealing with, rather than the much more interesting land of New Shiny Features. And I don't mean confirmation that the issues exist (that's what bug tickets are for), I mean confirmation of their severity.

I firmly believe that if an actual Frontier developer had played their own game once beta was released to prod, missions wouldn't have been hosed for well over a week now. This is the second or third time that the beta build hit production and horribly, terribly broken things were immediately found. And then sat on.

As a software developer in real life that works on a service you've probably heard of and may use yourself, all of the developers and operations staff at my company are required to use our service from home, partially because it uncovers bad bugs and bad UX that did not rear their heads during normal beta/acceptance testing. It works.

Now watch as the white knight below me doesn't actually address any of this, and just falls back on the COMPLAINERS!!!!1 gambit that's so common around these parts.

 

[jasonbarron]

So you want them to instead of testing the version of the game they are working on, to instead play one already released? What does this achieve? It doesn't help bugs get fixed as theres no way to confirm a bug is fixed when you are playing an old build of the game, it doesn't help test features as none of the changes that have been made in the most current build are reflected in the old one.

You're wasting your time (and so is the OP) trying to explain this. The thread in question is peopled by the same brain trust that wants to play the game for hundreds if not thousands of hours and then spam the forum with their blather about how the dev's are incompetent/don't play their own game and let everyone know how much they're dissatisfied. There is simply no getting through to that group; the primary goal of their existence is to complain.

 

[Wylie28]

Comprehension of issues people are actually dealing with, rather than the much more interesting land of New Shiny Features. And I don't mean confirmation that the issues exist (that's what bug tickets are for), I mean confirmation of their severity.

I firmly believe that if an actual Frontier developer had played their own game once beta was released to prod, missions wouldn't have been hosed for well over a week now. This is the second or third time that the beta build hit production and horribly, terribly broken things were immediately found.

Bugs in the current live build don't magically disappear. They are there for all dev builds until fixed internally.
Besides. Do you even play other video games? All patches have significant bugs. That's what happens in video games. You fix things, which in turn breaks other things that worked fine with the original broken thing. All changes have a ripple effect. You clearly have been spoiled if you think anything in ED is anywhere close to broken.

They did play the beta. The missions worked fine all the way up to release. The mission payouts were caused by a change between then and release. Once they figure out which change cause it missions will be fixed. In a game as large as this there are literally thousands of things that influence mission prices.

Bugs are fixed while new features are added. This is how game development works and always will. No game dev will ever only focus on bugs (as like I said this always leads to new ones) nor will they ever just focus on new content.

 

[Karunamon]

Bugs in the current live build don't magically disappear. They are there for all dev builds until fixed internally.

Knowing that a bug exists is completely different from knowing its impact on how people enjoy the game. What is just a minor thing for you could be game-breakingly infuriating for someone else. This is way too easy to forget when you're looking at metrics on the back end. This is actually a concept called dogfooding.

"Fun" is not a KPI and cannot be measured, charted over time, and analyzed.

Besides. Do you even play other video games? All patches have significant bugs. That's what happens in video games. You fix things, which in turn breaks other things that worked fine with the original broken thing. All changes have a ripple effect. You clearly have been spoiled if you think anything in ED is anywhere close to broken.

As a vet of FFXI, World of Warcraft, EVE, and so forth, yeah. Bugs exist. Bugs that break core mechanics have never existed for this long in any of those games to my knowledge. I have a friend of a friend of a friend that works at Blizzard - I should ask them how they would react if a patch accidentally reduced all quest payouts by a factor of 10.

 

[Wylie28]

Knowing that a bug exists is completely different from knowing its impact on how people enjoy the game. What is just a minor thing for you could be game-breakingly infuriating for someone else. This is way too easy to forget when you're looking at metrics on the back end.

"Fun" is not a KPI and cannot be measured, charted over time, and analyzed.



As a vet of FFXI, World of Warcraft, EVE, and so forth, yeah. Bugs exist. Bugs that break core mechanics have never existed for this long in any of those games to my knowledge.

Knowing a bug exists does tell you how it affects players, as it tells you what it does. The missions pay less ergo players have less income. But you need logic to get that far so I understand why you struggle

I never mentioned fun, but nice try trying to derail the conversation

Then you are misinformed in 2 ways. Nothing currently in ED breaks a mechanic. (look up the word break. It doesn't mean what you think it means) And games like FFXI and WOW and EVE have all had their fair share of game breaking bugs. Crashes being one that google will return several hundred results of.

 

[Karunamon]

I never mentioned fun, but nice try trying to derail the conversation

I mentioned fun because fun is what the goal of a BLEEPing video game is. Fun is why we spent $60 on this thing. Lack of fun is why people are here complaining about it.

Then you are misinformed in 2 ways. Nothing currently in ED breaks a mechanic. (look up the word break. It doesn't mean what you think it means) And games like FFXI and WOW and EVE have all had their fair share of game breaking bugs. Crashes being one that google will return several hundred results of.

Go look up the word "break" yourself. FD have acknowledged this particular issue as the game not working as intended.

Given the... unique... networking this game uses, a reproducible crash would be preferable. A CTD means your ship is suddenly invulnerable and out of danger.

 

[Wylie28]

I mentioned fun because fun is what the goal of a BLEEPing video game is.



Go look up the word "break" yourself. FD have acknowledged it as the game not working as intended.

broken doesn't meant "not working as intended". It is defined as "no longer in working order" Theres a reason they are used in different occasions. A mission that pays less isn't working as intended. But if you can finish it, it isn't broken. A mission that is unfinishable is broken. While the passenger missions text may not update correctly, you can still complete them which makes then not broken.

You did mention fun, but its irrelevant to this conversation.

 

[Karunamon]

break doesn't meant "not working as intended". Theres a reason they are used in different occasions. A mission that pays less isn't working as intended. But if you can finish it, it isn't broken. A mission that is unfinishable is broken. While the mission text may not update correctly, you can still complete all missions which makes then not broken.

Whatever, you're clearly more interested in white knighting for Frontier than actually having a discussion.

I can't believe I'm having to explain someone that when the developer says that a certain behavior was not intended, the colloquial usage of english indicates that the unwanted behavior is "broken" and in need of "fixing". This is reflected in the common idiom "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

[Wylie28]

Whatever, you're clearly more interested in white knighting for Frontier than actually having a discussion.

I can't believe I'm having to explain someone that when the developer says that a certain behavior was not intended, the colloquial usage of english indicates that the unwanted behavior is "broken" and in need of "fixing". This is reflected in the common idiom "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Wrong. I'm "White Knighting" for all of devkind. At least if the term white knighting means correcting bull     posts with logical fallacies asking devs to do something that's waste both their and consumers times. Playing outdated builds as a dev achieves nothing. Period

 

[Karunamon]

Wrong. I'm "White Knighting" for all of devkind. At least if the term white knighting means correcting bull     posts with logical fallacies asking devs to do something that's waste both their and consumers times. Playing outdated builds as a dev achieves nothing. Period

You should tell the software development industry that. You'd save a lot of companies a lot of time and money.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

It's not bugs that causes the feeling that the Devs don't play the game. It's their expectation that we would find some new features useful.
e.g. jump boost from white dwarfs, ice mining, or reinforced upgrades for limpet controllers.

But even if the Devs spend a significant amount of time playing, there are now major parts of the game where the community know how it works far better than they do. The BGS, for example.

 

[Wylie28]

You should tell the software development industry that. You'd save a lot of companies a lot of time and money.

So that's it? You have run out of reasoning for your stance on the subject and have to resort to random internet links?

 

[Ben Ryder]

Sometimes its easy to pick up one stuff and be surprised. When a dev finds out about bugs that have been reported months ago multiple times and seems honestly surprised or finds out that some thing is working in a complete bizzare way and has been for several months and seems even more surprised or says they have played about 500 hours of the game since it came out I can understand why some seem disappointed.

 

[Caliber_az]

Knights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Posts that I've written
Never meaning to send

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more

Two sides of a coin no matter how you flip it. The Devs are the only ones who can answer this question.

Caliber_az

 

[mp4x]

Not relevant, missread