Jagex and Bugs (from 18 Aug 09 update thread)

[Zepheras]

Not saying you aren't right, but I don't see how it's hard to catch a bug that stops monsters from attacking back.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, from what is said by them, many of the employees there have their own personal accounts. I can't see how they can't have their own beta world, privately for use by them, and set it up that they can beta test their own updates with normal accounts. That would sure as hell solve thing like "invalid teleport."

 

 

 

And as far as the complexity of coding, so what? Cars can be complex too. If my car breaks down and I take it to get someplace fixed and they patch it up for 2 weeks, that sucks. It happening every 2 weeks would really get on your nerves.

 

 

 

Runescape appears to be a game on continous n word-rigged. :wall:

 

 

 

 

 

Are the both of you still unaware/ignorant/oblivious of the fact that the bugs are caused by hundreds of thousands of users accessing the game at the same time? Unless their QA team is has a manpower of at least 50,000 people to simulate an actual game situation, it's inevitable for bugs to occur, especially at a time when it's the year of upgrades (in terms of new engine, new code) for THEIR side as well.

 

 

 

Even a MMORPG that cost three times that of RuneScape has their own fair share of major bugs equivalent in magnitude to your Falador Massacre. That, plus a bunch of securtiy breach that RuneScape players don't have to worry about, at least.

[swampjedi]

Libs,

 

 

 

Ahh, Adam Smith. I guess some COULD argue that there are externalities here that somewhat reduce Rationalism's usefulness as a model, but I think they'd be wrong in this case.

 

 

 

Seems like we're on the same page - except the bit about QA. As I've seen (and studies show), QA is the first thing that gets cut when time gets short. And time, alas, is created by management.

[Draconic]

Oh hai dere, first post in months.

 

 

 

And I say again: Jagex is ruining Runescape on purpose so we switch to Mechscape but it will fail due to it being a piece of crap.

 

 

 

You really think a multi-million dollar corporation would purposely reduce the quality of their product in order to promote another product that isn't available yet?

 

 

 

They're not stupid, you know.

 

 

 

And as far as the complexity of coding, so what? Cars can be complex too. If my car breaks down and I take it to get someplace fixed and they patch it up for 2 weeks, that sucks. It happening every 2 weeks would really get on your nerves.

 

 

 

A car contains ~15K parts, many of which are completely independent of eachother. Runescape contains what could be hundreds of millions of lines of code, and different systems can effect eachother in totally unexpected ways.

 

 

 

Cars also aren't updated every 1-2 weeks.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

Libs,

 

 

 

Ahh, Adam Smith. I guess some COULD argue that there are externalities here that somewhat reduce Rationalism's usefulness as a model, but I think they'd be wrong in this case.

 

 

 

Seems like we're on the same page - except the bit about QA. As I've seen (and studies show), QA is the first thing that gets cut when time gets short. And time, alas, is created by management.

 

 

 

I'm sure Adam Smith said it first, but when I said it, I was thinking of Ayn Rand. Though as someone born in Scotland, I love Adam Smith as well.

 

 

 

Yes, QA does get cut, which again falls on the shoulders of management. And Ravian, I get the point. My issue is with something as blatantly obvious as monsters not fighting back and invalid teleports. The invalid teleport is a great example. This is something that affected every single person that I know of on this game and on these forums. How in the world does that get by them? Any person playing the update on a server would've caught that. I bring up my point I made earlier that they need a private server that they play their normal accounts on. Run through it. Now of course this won't get out many bugs, but it wills top things so apparent as invalid teleport.

 

 

 

I know bugs happen. I know they're unavoidable. But we are talking about massive bugs, bugs that completely hinder an update. We aren't talking about glitchy cut scenes, issues with chatsheads, etc. These are very noticable bugs.

 

 

 

And yes, you can pound the idea that 50,000 people will do more testing than any QA team can manage... blah blah blah. I love how this only became a valid point after Jagex said it and now it's repeated ad nauseum when I never heard in mentioned before that in my 7 years of playing the game.

 

 

 

Point is. Massive bugs. Too commonplace. No one holding them to any sort of standard. Everyone just says how hard it is and apologizes for them. I pay them money. I hold them accountable.

 

 

 

And oh Draconic, thanks for redacting down what was meant to be a simple analogy. No, cars and software can't be compared exactly to each other. Thanks for letting the point fly over your head.

 

 

 

Let's try this. Your car breaks down every 2 weeks. Anyone who's played RS this year would say that this is a very apt comparison to their updates. Then they have to fix it. The question is why does my car keep breaking down?

 

 

 

Of course that comparison doesn't really follow the right pattern. So before someone breaks it down and tells me it's wrong, I'm saying it's wrong. I'll beat you to it. It's just meant to be funny.

[Kietaro1]

While I will agree that programming is difficult and will always have bugs regardless of how much testing is involved, I do see the merit in the arguments of the the disgruntled.

 

 

 

I went to college for compnent programing and nearly got a degree in it before switching to political sciences. The reason for my switch was partially due to being told what to program but I digress. I know a very small portion of what developing software is like and how much work goes into making it flawless. But you know what? That is not my job, it is not even what I enjoy about programing. Jagex is a company that proudly boasts it's regular updates as one of the game's selling points. As such in the business world, it should be held to a standard. With even using Jagex itself, we see many years with very few bugs (or at least less noticeable bugs). Coupled with the fact that in years past there have been updates consistantly week after week, I believe that players have even more ground to be upset with Jagex and their subpar year of game content/upgrades.

 

 

 

Less updates over a given time translates into more development time. Since the updates in comparison to previous years have not been amazing I feel that the longer development time could have spent on testing. With the amount of bugs that we have in recent updates, I cannot say that is the case. Two weeks ago, Jagex had no update lending to the idea that something big was coming. In honesty I did not expect anything big and as a result was not let down by the new skeletal thing. A week later which in my opinion would still have been affected by the week they took off, we see yet another update with many bugs. It is not an issue of whether a bug is game breaking or not; the issue is are there bugs? Now we as players can work around them and make things work (I for instance built my new room before work yesterday and was able to get it done without complaining). The problem though is that we should not have to work around things as major as the bugs we saw this week AND MOST WEEKS this year at Jagex.

 

 

 

"If you do not like it, quit."

 

 

 

First of all I want to say that this response, though widely used is very ignorant. I have not spent the last 7 years of my life playing a game on and off to quit because Jagex suck at upholding one of their key promises to their players. They are already releasing less content (take quests for instance - half as many in the same time frame and NONE this year affect the game like those of last year) which bothers me but with less content I think we have the right to see quality updates. Jagex is a company and the complainers are a small group that do not like what jagex does on a small scale. If they quit we will not lose an awful lot BUT I have played this game long enough to know that it is enjoyable enough to stick around. I have stuck around, however, because I trust Jagex to knock my socks off. In the past 8 months however I an beggining to lose that trust. In the 7 years or so that I have played, never have I been as disappointed as I have been with this years updates.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

 

 

 

"If you do not like it, quit."

 

 

 

First of all I want to say that this response, though widely used is very ignorant. I have not spent the last 7 years of my life playing a game on and off to quit because Jagex suck at upholding one of their key promises to their players. They are already releasing less content (take quests for instance - half as many in the same time frame and NONE this year affect the game like those of last year) which bothers me but with less content I think we have the right to see quality updates. Jagex is a company and the complainers are a small group that do not like what jagex does on a small scale. If they quit we will not lose an awful lot BUT I have played this game long enough to know that it is enjoyable enough to stick around. I have stuck around, however, because I trust Jagex to knock my socks off. In the past 8 months however I an beggining to lose that trust. In the 7 years or so that I have played, never have I been as disappointed as I have been with this years updates.

 

 

 

I don't know if you're a boy or a girl, but I don't care. I love you...

[Sy_Accursed]

 

And as far as the complexity of coding, so what? Cars can be complex too. If my car breaks down and I take it to get someplace fixed and they patch it up for 2 weeks, that sucks. It happening every 2 weeks would really get on your nerves.

 

 

 

A car contains ~15K parts, many of which are completely independent of eachother. Runescape contains what could be hundreds of millions of lines of code, and different systems can effect eachother in totally unexpected ways.

 

 

 

Cars also aren't updated every 1-2 weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah the car analogy is utter fail.

 

 

 

Cars are a precise thing, it is designed built, tested and released to the market.

 

Any work done to it is straight forward replacing or upgrade of existing parts based on what is compatible.

 

It is not the same as a game code.

 

 

 

The code is there, every time they make an update they add new code and change existing code. Code processes data based on number strings for items, stats etc etc.

 

Within runescape there are close to infinite combinations of data strings that a single code may have to process based on your stats, quest completion and what you have you or are wearing something that cannot be tested by a QA team and only comes to light when thousands of players are there. Add to that that EVERY single new code or code change has the potential to have millions of unexpected outcomes when put in with the old code and it is infinitely easy for an area tht currently has no projects in it and thus isn't being tested to become bugged or break and go unnoticed until general release.

 

 

 

Then factor in the code behaviour. When presented with a string of data or 20 strings oif data the code may work perfectly, but once it has 2000 simultaneous data strings accessing it it can do something crazy. Eg invaild teleport bug, obviously new house load coding, it probably worked fine in testing and equally just after launch no-one hit this bug. It was when the worlds started to hit 1,000+ players most of who were rushing to their house that suddenly the invalid teleport appeared

[swampjedi]

 

I'm sure Adam Smith said it first, but when I said it, I was thinking of Ayn Rand. Though as someone born in Scotland, I love Adam Smith as well.

 

 

 

 

Oh, a Randite? That explains a lot! :-P

 

 

 

 

And yes, you can pound the idea that 50,000 people will do more testing than any QA team can manage... blah blah blah. I love how this only became a valid point after Jagex said it and now it's repeated ad nauseum when I never heard in mentioned before that in my 7 years of playing the game.

 

 

 

 

I've never heard them say that. I say it from experience. No one, and I mean no one, can test software like your average Joe Idiot Player.

 

 

 

 

Point is. Massive bugs. Too commonplace. No one holding them to any sort of standard. Everyone just says how hard it is and apologizes for them. I pay them money. I hold them accountable.

 

 

 

 

They have a standard that we hold them to. If we don't like the product, then we no longer purchase it. There is no other standard in the world of commerce (barring government regulation).

 

 

 

I do wonder how the teleport bug and free plank bug got through, though. However, I know enough to not immediately jump to "they were stupid" - because it's more complex than we think.

 

 

 

As for the numerous construction bugs - no. I don't wonder. State changes (ie, building mode, "in house mode") are notoriously hard to get right, ESPECIALLY when there are multiple (unexpected) transitions between the modes.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

 

I'm sure Adam Smith said it first, but when I said it, I was thinking of Ayn Rand. Though as someone born in Scotland, I love Adam Smith as well.

 

 

 

 

Oh, a Randite? That explains a lot! :-P

 

 

 

 

And yes, you can pound the idea that 50,000 people will do more testing than any QA team can manage... blah blah blah. I love how this only became a valid point after Jagex said it and now it's repeated ad nauseum when I never heard in mentioned before that in my 7 years of playing the game.

 

 

 

 

I've never heard them say that. I say it from experience. No one, and I mean no one, can test software like your average Joe Idiot Player.

 

 

 

 

Point is. Massive bugs. Too commonplace. No one holding them to any sort of standard. Everyone just says how hard it is and apologizes for them. I pay them money. I hold them accountable.

 

 

 

 

They have a standard that we hold them to. If we don't like the product, then we no longer purchase it. There is no other standard in the world of commerce (barring government regulation).

 

 

 

I do wonder how the teleport bug and free plank bug got through, though. However, I know enough to not immediately jump to "they were stupid" - because it's more complex than we think.

 

 

 

As for the numerous construction bugs - no. I don't wonder. State changes (ie, building mode, "in house mode") are notoriously hard to get right, ESPECIALLY when there are multiple (unexpected) transitions between the modes.

 

 

 

We prefer the term "objectivist." And they said it a couple of months ago. Can't remember who. Probably MMG. He mentioned it in a Q&A thing I believe. And I hold them to a standard. They're failing to meet it. My membership runs out today. Where as I used to keep it going all the time, not much anymore. I'll probably take another 3 months off at least. More than likely I'll wait until the end of the Upgrayedd year.

[xpx]

Also i'd love to adress all these people who are hinting for me to quit- i have been around Runescape for 6 years and have NEVER before said anything about the programming or QA team. I have always been content, even though i have seen some (if not all) the major bug abuses. I have suffered alot trough the years by not abusing bugs that i have known about and other people continiously have abused, and i have been content, because i have usually been awarded by the elimination of competition and people getting banned for their deeds.

 

BUT, as of late, jagex has NOT been up to any standards. There have been alot of major bug abuses(penguins, ma, familiars in f2p etc) that have rewarded a big part of the players but didn't result in any serious action dealt against them. Furthermore, jagex, as of late, seeing their business slip, have started to unban players that used to abuse these bugs, and yes, it does effect me.

 

 

 

Taking all this information into account, i feel, as a customer, that i have the right to complain about what i am getting for my money, and that jagex should, at the least, respect what i'm saying and look into fixing what they have brought about. As i said, i see the last update as the worst released in the last 3 years in terms of quality, and i stand by that, and expect them not to mess up this bad again.

 

 

 

As an addition(and i mentioned this in my last post), I have no idea for the topic creators incent to troll/flame me about being out of line when people like this are around(and i think it's a fair opinion).

 

 

 

So apparently, and I could be wrong about this, but at Jagex, the proper method for prgramming is this:

 

 

 

The programmer enters his office.

 

He walks up to his desk and bring the keyboard to the edge

 

He unzips his pants and pulls out his gentleman parts.

 

Then he starts smacking the keyboard with said gentleman bits.

 

Hits send.

 

The QA then throughly check it while simultaneously downing shots of Jaeger and tequila.

 

And on Tuesday we get a fabulous update. :thumbup:

[swampjedi]

"If you do not like it, quit."

 

 

 

First of all I want to say that this response, though widely used is very ignorant.

 

 

 

It IS that simple, in the end. Sure, you can gripe about it - but the only real way to get your voice heard is to leave. Your money is the only thing they care about.

 

 

 

I'm not saying don't gripe. Just don't act like you have a God-given right to a perfect game.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

Hey, thanks for that. That's why I used the word "seriously" when I said that about criticism. When I did that, it was meant to be satire. So thanks for missing the point. :thumbup:

 

 

 

Actually, RS is nice because you can play the game and stop giving them the money. Also, no it's not god given a right. It's a purchased right. 8-)

[swampjedi]

 

As an addition(and i mentioned this in my last post), I have no idea for the topic creators incent to troll/flame me about being out of line when people like this are around(and i think it's a fair opinion).

 

 

 

 

I apologized, both on this threat and in a PM. What the heck else do you want? -.-

[Draconic]

And oh yeah, thanks for redacting down what was meant to be a simple analogy. No, cars and software can't be compared exactly to each other. Thanks for letting the point fly over your head.

 

 

 

Let's try this. Your car breaks down every 2 weeks. Anyone who's played RS this year would say that this is a very apt comparison to their updates. Then they have to fix it. The question is why does my car keep breaking down?

 

 

 

Well, if you add a spoiler to your car, then you get a car with a spoiler. If you add a spoiler to a virtual car, other stuff can happen. Maybe the trunk won't open, who knows it's a bloody analogy. As swampjedi said, if a code is update, it gets corrupted, often in unpredictable ways.

 

 

 

And yes I know it's a fracking analogy, it just wasn't a very good one. A car runs you $+10K, an error can potentionally kill you, and it costs a lot of money to fix.

 

 

 

Runescape costs a measly $5 a month (a bargain for a game this size), errors are usually an annoyance ("oh boo hoo I can"t get into my house", well then go do whatever it was you were doing before the update) (and when they ruin your game, well, it's just a game), and are fixed within a day or two.

 

 

 

Yes, software and hardware aren't very good for analogies. You'll find a practically error-free car with no problem. But an online game with over 100,000 players playing at most any given time that is updated every 1-2 weeks, WITHOUT several bugs?

[swampjedi]

 

And I hold them to a standard. They're failing to meet it. My membership runs out today. Where as I used to keep it going all the time, not much anymore. I'll probably take another 3 months off at least. More than likely I'll wait until the end of the Upgrayedd year.

 

 

 

Then I salute you. You don't just gripe, you act.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

 

As an addition(and i mentioned this in my last post), I have no idea for the topic creators incent to troll/flame me about being out of line when people like this are around(and i think it's a fair opinion).

 

 

 

 

I apologized, both on this threat and in a PM. What the heck else do you want? -.-

 

 

 

He wants a

 

[hide=][/hide]

[Toad]

Possible solution - One update a month so catching more bugs? oh wait.. or would people complain yet again?

 

 

 

Sadly the only way to truly catch mass bugs is to make a beta server which would make the updates less fun.

[swampjedi]

People complain NOW, with 2-4 updates a month! :-)

 

 

 

I wonder if folks would pay $10/mo for more updates. Heck, some games are nearing $20 monthly now. $6/mo would make me happy even if this were like RSC.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

If they had several updates released every month, but did them all at once, that would be great. Then people wouldn't be all bunched up at once place. And maybe we could avoid some of this crap. Not gonna happen, but not a bad idea either.

[xpx]

 

As an addition(and i mentioned this in my last post), I have no idea for the topic creators incent to troll/flame me about being out of line when people like this are around(and i think it's a fair opinion).

 

 

 

 

I apologized, both on this threat and in a PM. What the heck else do you want? -.-

 

Don't really ever read my PMs on forums, so i didn't see it before.

 

 

 

What would i want? most people that read this topic are going to read the first post and not bother with anything else, and i am not content what is written in the first post. You could, at the least, edit my reply(s) into the first post or just edit it not to be offencive.

[swampjedi]

Removed the quote from the first post.

[Zepheras]

To Me_Hate_Libs,

 

 

 

My issue is with something as blatantly obvious as monsters not fighting back and invalid teleports.

 

 

 

My understanding of the situation has always been like this, taking the example of the menagerie update.

 

 

 

Having used the new codes to write new game content,

 

QA staff A, "Teleport to house successful. Checked"

 

QA staff B, "Summoning obelisk recharges summon points. Checked."

 

QA staff C, "Manegerie and upgrades loads without glitches. Checked"

 

QA staff D, "Butlers perform as per intended. Check"

 

 

 

*Loads new update into server*

 

*Hundreds of thousands of players start accessing the contents.*

 

 

 

"OMG NONE OF THE THINGS ARE WORKING! MAYDAY MAYDAY! FIX THOSE DAMN GLITCHES!!!"

 

 

 

I take it as, they're trying to clean up the old coding system, and the incompatibility of having both old and new code in the game causes every new content this year to cause some sort of glitch and bugs when players access the game. It's pretty obvious, the update affects areas that aren't even related to it in some weird manner. It's going to take a few years of updates before each update stacks on the old game nicely rather than slicing through it. What do you expect them to do about it? Have their relatively small QA team test the updates for manhours equivalent to 50,000 players before releasing?

 

 

 

 

 

To Kietaro1, could you clarify a little on what updates last year did you consider amazing? Or any amazing updates in all your gaming years. I'm kinda curious as to what you define as amazing.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

 

As an addition(and i mentioned this in my last post), I have no idea for the topic creators incent to troll/flame me about being out of line when people like this are around(and i think it's a fair opinion).

 

 

 

 

I apologized, both on this threat and in a PM. What the heck else do you want? -.-

 

Don't really ever read my PMs on forums, so i didn't see it before.

 

 

 

What would i want? most people that read this topic are going to read the first post and not bother with anything else, and i am not content what is written in the first post. You could, at the least, edit my reply(s) into the first post or just edit it not to be offencive.

 

 

 

You think so? I'd think people would at least read the first page. On long topics that's what I do. Read the first and last page.

 

 

 

And maybe they're a bit overstretched trying to simultaneously fix one massive game and create another massive game. We can see what is suffering.

[Draconic]

Possible solution - One update a month so catching more bugs? oh wait.. or would people complain yet again?

 

 

 

Well if people were rational it just wouldn't be an internet community, now would it ;)

 

 

 

And maybe they're a bit overstretched trying to simultaneously fix one massive game and create another massive game. We can see what is suffering.

 

 

 

As said before, the Mechscape, Runescape and Funorb teams are all indepenedent of eachother.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

Possible solution - One update a month so catching more bugs? oh wait.. or would people complain yet again?

 

 

 

Well if people were rational it just wouldn't be an internet community, now would it ;)

 

 

 

And maybe they're a bit overstretched trying to simultaneously fix one massive game and create another massive game. We can see what is suffering.

 

 

 

As said before, the Mechscape, Runescape and Funorb teams are all indepenedent of eachother.

 

 

 

They're all one company. They have many projects going on at once. Even if independent they can have an impact on each other.