They only have two developers working on this version of Elite. One caught cold due to wearing shorts all the time, and the other got a flat tire on the way to work, so it was up to the server guy to whip up a quick fix before the weekend.
Notice Mission Board Softlock
- Thread starter Stephen Benedetti
- Start date
Shouldn"t we? I mean I can not comprehent how such a huge amount of issues occur without notice by the test and release team. Bearing in mind that the september update should increase the amount of new gamers by easier on-flight-assistance the result is frankly speaking a desaster: the experienced gamers are the ones who need to struggle with a lot of inconveniences whilst they do not have any benefit from the update. I hope all lessons are learned before frontierdev is going to roll out the december update. I know a lot of gamers who switched over to other games.Just keep up the good work, we all know how complex the game is under the hood. Well.......we should all know anyways, doesn't take a degree to figure that one out
There was no "in-game message" about the "fix" yesterday when it was deployed. The only "in-game message" players were getting was that the servers would be rebooted, and that only sporadically. Players not being informed about this workaround (which is why i'm putting "fix" in quotes) is why this was such a mess.
Evening commanders,
For me the game is still perfectly playable. I didn't want to donate 40 mil or ferry 500 snooty nosed tourists anyway.
If it is 'bugging' you (see what I did there) then Don't play.
Also if the complaints were in relation to a £40 grand car and it was recalled due to the DAB radio not working or the steering wheel falling off occasionally then I would be a tad more understanding.
As it is it's a game that cost me £40 quid a number of years ago now and has provided me many happy hours of RNG related tasks and some genuinely excellent content on occasion.
Happy travels.
Regards
Pug
For me the game is still perfectly playable. I didn't want to donate 40 mil or ferry 500 snooty nosed tourists anyway.
If it is 'bugging' you (see what I did there) then Don't play.
Also if the complaints were in relation to a £40 grand car and it was recalled due to the DAB radio not working or the steering wheel falling off occasionally then I would be a tad more understanding.
As it is it's a game that cost me £40 quid a number of years ago now and has provided me many happy hours of RNG related tasks and some genuinely excellent content on occasion.
Happy travels.
Regards
Pug
Locking up when changing ships, still.
Your welcome. Glad to help.
I feel bonkers is strong as it is perfectly playable, unless of course you wanted to donate £40mil. In which case I agree wholeheartedly, it's knackered.
It'll be back on track soon.
Regards
Pug
Soon™
I got it Ferus, weird it never displayed.
Forum is broken too.
I do get your point honestly. My comment was driven by the endless non-productive posts. It is frustrating when a patch breaks things. It doesn't in any way justify FDev ignoring paying customers concerns and feedback but it's been this way since inception.
Amazing how quickly they fixed the stations not lining up when dropping from super cruise which tells me that the other issues are far more difficult to fix.
Regards
Pug.
It's not perfectly playable, yesterday I launched a fighter and the game promptly dumped me to a black screen.
I now have a Taipan flying around without it's pilot who somehow did not survive the blackscreen crash.
The game is full of bugs and FDev will fix a few before breaking the game again in december when every Cmdr has time off work to play, it's just so predictable.
Well, endless non-productive posts... I absolutely get why they pop up here.
We have endless bugs being introduced over and over and over again to a game we love and many of those bugs prevent players from playing altogether. Many of those bugs are still not resolved after months. I totally get why people vent here... And perhaps while venting they not always manage to stay on topic.
Anyway, my beef is not with FD ignoring paying customers or breaking things. Bugs happen and I get it.
What I don't get is the nature of bugs that slip through QA/testing (if there was any in the first place) - if anyone at FD tried to test the patches for a mere 5 minutes they would immediately spot the most obvious bugs and mistakes. And if they cared enough they would NOT release the patch upon their customers but they would instead delay it and try to fix it first. Or they could bring beta servers back...
And as a side effect the number of non-productive posts would decrease radically.
But hey... here we all are talking about non-productive posts. Trust me, I'd rather be playing the game right now but I just can't bring myself to play it while it is in such a state.
PS: Station orientation is an excellent example - why was it broken in the first place and why didn't anyone at FD spot such an obvious bug before releasing the patch? Of course people will complain and of course there will be many (for some) non-productive posts...
Not sure if this has been reported yet, but the board still softlocks, at least in my case when I select an ongoing transport mission and the mission giver is not on screen. Can anybody else reproduce this? Has this been reported yet?
Open the board, select mission giver:
Scroll down the list until the NPC in question isn't visible anymore:
Click on the mission - board softlocks, only way to close it is to quit to menu or to desktop.
You know what would probably be helpful? If there was an easy way for me to confirm whether or not this only happens with transport missions without messing up my in-game progression. Something like a test server that is not tied to my character. A test server with a test station that has test NPCs available that offer all mission types. That way I would have no problem testing if this is tied to certain mission types that involve the depot mechanic.
It would also be helpful if you wouldn't need me to tell you or google what fire hydrants or cars look like if you want me to report a ** bug.
Frontier, we need to talk about this.
EDIT:
I can now confirm that this also happens when I try to turn in a transport mission.
Open the board, select mission giver:
Scroll down the list until the NPC in question isn't visible anymore:
Click on the mission - board softlocks, only way to close it is to quit to menu or to desktop.
You know what would probably be helpful? If there was an easy way for me to confirm whether or not this only happens with transport missions without messing up my in-game progression. Something like a test server that is not tied to my character. A test server with a test station that has test NPCs available that offer all mission types. That way I would have no problem testing if this is tied to certain mission types that involve the depot mechanic.
It would also be helpful if you wouldn't need me to tell you or google what fire hydrants or cars look like if you want me to report a ** bug.
Frontier, we need to talk about this.
EDIT:
I can now confirm that this also happens when I try to turn in a transport mission.
Last edited:
Evening commanders,
Excellent post Ferus, very concise.
Maybe they could employ a few people who have a divergent opinion instead of the 'more agreeable' people they are currently employing.
If indeed they do have testers, they are probably -friends and family... my opinion. (My god, That's Great Will)
Maybe they could employ us???
Usually when people ask for advice they are looking for corroboration, as they already know the answer they are looking for.
Hearing someone state what we ourselves believe is pleasing. This is why it is more beneficial to a polished final product to have an realistic member/tester on the team.
FDEV do you have in house testers and what are they doing?
Cmdr Chequers stumped me as the last time I launched a fighter was... good god, A while ago.
In summary it is a very complex game with many people doing many different things every day. I hope they can fix it.
If Space legs do come, We Will have - Three, maybe Four appendages and will be able to super-cruise in 'Leg mode' if we have enough Tellurium.
Regards
Pug
I dont think anything between now and Q3/Q4 2020 is supposed to do anything for anyone before then. What matters is that when the PR machine is going full-pull, all media are reporting on ED and the spotlights are on the game that new players then have a smooth experience. Until then spit, ductape and a few strings should suffice to keep the game barely running. Keep in mind they want us to be happy and excited when they have something to sell us. Until then it is just a matter of preparing for that moment; make sure there are tutorials, have the store fully integrated et cetera.
Any chance on getting an update on the mission boards still being broken or at least an acknowledgement by Frontier about this?
Just to add a little note regarding the QA testing within the 'black box' that is the ED Dev team ... it is actually possible that zero hands-on play-testing of any consequence is done by 'present' human beings. It will all be done with software 'scripting' packages that allow for automated checking of internal logic, reactions to expected or non-standard inputs and so forth. And, of course, this will generally only return results for outcomes that the designers have already anticipated.
This is why in my line of work (I'm a SCADA engineer creating software control systems for the National Grid) we do no automated testing that is permitted to stand as verifying anything for release by our QA department - we can run scripts to confirm the internal validity of data but every point, record, input and output has to be manually checked and confirmed by one of us on representative hardware. It's an expensive and lengthy process but that's why we have the reputation we do as a company that delivers systems you just install and turn on and off they go running your substation for you. I suspect that the 'expensive and lengthy' part of this is why ED doesn't get 'properly' tested before release.
This is why in my line of work (I'm a SCADA engineer creating software control systems for the National Grid) we do no automated testing that is permitted to stand as verifying anything for release by our QA department - we can run scripts to confirm the internal validity of data but every point, record, input and output has to be manually checked and confirmed by one of us on representative hardware. It's an expensive and lengthy process but that's why we have the reputation we do as a company that delivers systems you just install and turn on and off they go running your substation for you. I suspect that the 'expensive and lengthy' part of this is why ED doesn't get 'properly' tested before release.
In order to test 'improperly' one must first actually test.
Nobody has asked for a bug-free releases. For the most part everyone understands it is neither reasonable nor feasible for any software to be perfect. 10 minutes of one guy playing though, would have uncovered a huge number of breaking changes in the initial update that should have never made it to a live server. This is not a case of improper, insufficient, or inadequate testing... it is simply a lack of testing. The result of which was completely foreseeable.
Add to that, defensive posturing by FD in response to a player base rightfully up in arms. The attitude on display by Frontier staff ("you've had soo much fun in this game since you paid for it one time a long, long time ago you dont' need to play now") is the cherry on top.
Fix your game, or don't FDev... because of the attitude I don't care. The fact the game was screwed by an update is 1% of the problem. Your handling of it is 99% of the issue, and why I personally will spend another dime on anything Frontier.
Is there a Frontier Jobs page? I'd like to apply I think. I'm a software developer, and I feel the Frontier environment would be a perfect fit. I've always wanted that job where my code doesn't have to be reviewed and pass test suites. I absolutely HATE knowing that if I have a bad week or something and write crappy code, I could actually lose my job for it.
Just tried this in the main mission board and it does the same thing.Not sure if this has been reported yet, but the board still softlocks, at least in my case when I select an ongoing transport mission and the mission giver is not on screen. Can anybody else reproduce this? Has this been reported yet?
Open the board, select mission giver:
Scroll down the list until the NPC in question isn't visible anymore:
Click on the mission - board softlocks, only way to close it is to quit to menu or to desktop.
You know what would probably be helpful? If there was an easy way for me to confirm whether or not this only happens with transport missions without messing up my in-game progression. Something like a test server that is not tied to my character. A test server with a test station that has test NPCs available that offer all mission types. That way I would have no problem testing if this is tied to certain mission types that involve the depot mechanic.
It would also be helpful if you wouldn't need me to tell you or google what fire hydrants or cars look like if you want me to report a ** bug.
Frontier, we need to talk about this.
EDIT:
I can now confirm that this also happens when I try to turn in a transport mission.
The usual bodge to get out of it works, though: go to the Engineers page in your right hand panel and you can get out of the softlock from there. No need to log out.