05-Jul-2011 - Salt in the Wound

[BioIce]

To add to the gamebreaking glitches:

 

There was at least one group that purposely crashed a server only to have an entire farm of servers go down a while back. They used the noclip glitch, I think.

[Stewie_Griffen]

Yes, it's the things that QA should catch, the obvious things and stuff, by just TRYING the content.

Look at the chompy hats update, you couldn't even get any hats at Rantz, it would just say that you inventory was full.

The sagas: you could just teleport out with masses of runes.

The past quest: the knights in the 4th room didn't spawn for me, so I had to redo almost the whole quest. And not to forget: the invalid space orders for the NPCs.

Smuggling the red skull out of the Fight Pits.

The ceremonial sword (design 5) not able to be gotten from artisans workshop.

The crash that's now going on.

 

Just a few I can think about within a minute, which all came the last 3-4 months.

 

How is the crash a testament to Jagex's QA team when the update came out two days ago? QA is not some sort of omniscient Jagex-wide entity that is also responsible for the login servers. They test updates, that's the extent of it.

 

I look at all of those glitches, and they are in no way gamebreaking. Say "it's the little things that add up over time" all you want, but if someone quits the game over chompy hats and ceremonial swords, then Jagex had no realistic chance of keeping them happy.

 

 

To add to the gamebreaking glitches:

 

There was at least one group that purposely crashed a server only to have an entire farm of servers go down a while back. They used the noclip glitch, I think.

 

When was this?

[BioIce]

It happened a few months back. April at the least.

 

EDIT: And before I forget, there was also the developer console unlock hack. Using the zoom function for a superior line of sight, anyone?

[HunterDexter]

But it clearly shows that QA isn't doing their job anymore, and it is causing the players to not to be able to play some content. Not everyone can sit all day behind their computer, a lot of people can only play a few hours a week, and it is sad to see they can't play the game as intended, because some parts of the producing process in creating an update are lacking.

[Stewie_Griffen]

It happened a few months back. April at the least.

 

Huh. I was unaware of it. How are you sure they used the no clip glitch?

 

Wikipedia says it was patched in 08. Not the most reliable source, but it's a source.

 

 

But it clearly shows that QA isn't doing their job anymore, and it is causing the players to not to be able to play some content. Not everyone can sit all day behind their computer, a lot of people can only play a few hours a week, and it is sad to see they can't play the game as intended, because some parts of the producing process in creating an update are lacking.

 

QA isn't doing their job anymore? If they weren't doing their job anymore, then the glitches would be bigger than the little ones you mentioned. That aside, there would be fewer glitches if Jagex was given more time to do an update.

[HunterDexter]

There were vids posted of it on these forums.

[BioIce]

And they bragged about it in their forums.

 

The developer console hack isn't fixed.

[RU_Insane]

But it clearly shows that QA isn't doing their job anymore, and it is causing the players to not to be able to play some content. Not everyone can sit all day behind their computer, a lot of people can only play a few hours a week, and it is sad to see they can't play the game as intended, because some parts of the producing process in creating an update are lacking.

 

No one's forcing them to play. Chances are if people aren't committed to playing for whatever reason, there's no reason to expect those same people to keep playing, and so any glitch that incidentally clashes with the enjoyment of their game-play is irrelevant because they're not guaranteed customers and thus don't comprise the core of the player-base. You can't please everyone. That's all your statement proves. QA isn't omniscient nor omnipresent. In fact, I disagree with you that they aren't doing their job. What do you think their job is? To test something only before its release, and if it fails upon release, it's their fault? If they weren't doing their job, those patches could *never* be applied to the broken content after the fact. They are doing they're job -- they're assuring quality by maintaining it when needed in addition to checking quality is up to expectations before release. You can't expect QA to know everything wrong about an update they're testing. Any glitch that slips by them is quickly patched up. What part of their jobs have they failed to do? Oh, checking for glitches you claim can't be overlooked? The coding is quite complex. Glitches are unpredictable. There's no large chance that they could have encountered these glitches even if they tested the content that produced these glitches before release. Keep in mind, they only test content. There could be a problem with server feedback that's causing a glitch -- that isn't part of the content and thus isn't part of the QA's responsibility. How many of the glitches you listed were specifically content related, and not just a server issue? In addition, you can't realistically condemn the QA keeping in mind that these glitches are unpredictable and that the burden of production of an update is spread across more than one unit.

[BioIce]

Any glitch that slips by them is quickly patched up. When have they failed to do this?

 

When?

 

Great Orb Project auto-win glitches are the clearest ones I can remember. Took like an entire year and a half for it to be fixed. EDIT: a portion of it still exists.

 

There's also the dungeoneering experience glitch that certainly took a while to be half-fixed as it is now.

[Helm_Lardar]

My friends made pures today and got this message:

 

 

I think they're both convinced now. In all seriousness, though, this is really desperate.

 

 

Jagex are being bankrupted by their progress on what coul dbe up to 4 unreleased MMOs. It might seem desperate, but once they release Stellar Dawn and a bit of the pressure is off, they might be able to stop farming players so much. However, MMG will be pushing them to make money right now, as they really really need it.

 

Jagex have changed their policy in response to real crunch as they bite off more than they can chew. MMG has had to change his principles a little, and instead of just adding pickpocket options and gnome gliders again, he's trying to get timely reminders put in for low level f2p of fun things they could do in p2p, so that they get adverts relevant to them.

 

I think it's a pretty good scheme actually, especially if it encourages new growth in the playerbase.

[BioIce]

Jagex are being bankrupted by their progress on what coul dbe up to 4 unreleased MMOs.

 

Why they take on 4 projects that will hit them in the payroll at all?

[HunterDexter]

But it clearly shows that QA isn't doing their job anymore, and it is causing the players to not to be able to play some content. Not everyone can sit all day behind their computer, a lot of people can only play a few hours a week, and it is sad to see they can't play the game as intended, because some parts of the producing process in creating an update are lacking.

 

No one's forcing them to play. Chances are if people aren't committed to playing for whatever reason, there's no reason to expect those same people to keep playing, and so any glitch that incidentally clashes with the enjoyment of their game-play is irrelevant because they're not guaranteed customers and thus don't comprise the core of the player-base. You can't please everyone. That's all your statement proves. QA isn't omniscient nor omnipresent. In fact, I disagree with you that they aren't doing their job. What do you think their job is? To test something only before its release, and if it fails upon release, it's their fault? If they weren't doing their job, those patches could *never* be applied to the broken content after the fact. They are doing they're job -- they're assuring quality by maintaining it when needed in addition to checking quality is up to expectations before release. You can't expect QA to know everything wrong about an update they're testing. Any glitch that slips by them is quickly patched up. When have they failed to do this?

 

 

 

Oh no, of course no one is forcing anyone to play, anyone who just dislikes the ways how the company is run today, or just can't play a piece of content like it is intended to work, may freely leave, jagex-fanboys and bots will take their places, no problem.

 

Sorry, but if they don't even check if you can get chompy hats, when it is a special update to GIVE the hats, than there is clearly something wrong.

[Stewie_Griffen]

But it clearly shows that QA isn't doing their job anymore, and it is causing the players to not to be able to play some content. Not everyone can sit all day behind their computer, a lot of people can only play a few hours a week, and it is sad to see they can't play the game as intended, because some parts of the producing process in creating an update are lacking.

 

No one's forcing them to play. Chances are if people aren't committed to playing for whatever reason, there's no reason to expect those same people to keep playing, and so any glitch that incidentally clashes with the enjoyment of their game-play is irrelevant because they're not guaranteed customers and thus don't comprise the core of the player-base. You can't please everyone. That's all your statement proves. QA isn't omniscient nor omnipresent. In fact, I disagree with you that they aren't doing their job. What do you think their job is? To test something only before its release, and if it fails upon release, it's their fault? If they weren't doing their job, those patches could *never* be applied to the broken content after the fact. They are doing they're job -- they're assuring quality by maintaining it when needed in addition to checking quality is up to expectations before release. You can't expect QA to know everything wrong about an update they're testing. Any glitch that slips by them is quickly patched up. When have they failed to do this?

 

 

 

Oh no, of course no one is forcing anyone to play, anyone who just dislikes the ways how the company is run today, or just can't play a piece of content like it is intended to work, may freely leave, jagex-fanboys and bots will take their places, no problem.

 

Sorry, but if they don't even check if you can get chompy hats, when it is a special update to GIVE the hats, than there is clearly something wrong.

 

I don't think that's what he meant. For every one person who quits over chompy hats or an unplayable quest, there's plenty who will happily pay for the hundreds of other pieces of content. There's others who will complain about the glitches but still pay Jagex. His first sentence really was kind of silly so I can see why you reacted as such.

 

In regard to your previous point, don't you think that someone who plays more would be more affected by a glitch than someone who plays less? Someone who plays all the time will have higher levels and be more on top of recent updates. They'll be the ones mad at the new quest that they went to on the day of release. Someone who plays less frequently will either have something else to do with their limited playing time or they will get to the quest later in the week (at the earliest) when the bugs would have usually been fixed. The glitches usually are fixed by the time a less active player gets around to them. It would affect the more active players as opposed to the less active ones and I think that's reflected on this site.

 

 

Jagex are being bankrupted by their progress on what coul dbe up to 4 unreleased MMOs.

 

Why they take on 4 projects that will hit them in the payroll at all?

 

I think they expected Stellar Dawn would be done by now. Didn't they say a few months ago that they had a semi-finished project and scrapped it and started over? I remember one unannounced MMO and a Transformers MMO that Hasbro wanted. Maybe Hasbro offered them a decent advance? I don't know for sure but it would make sense.

[HunterDexter]

Well yeah, I'm a very active player, so all little bugs do add up seriously on my playtime. Just the fact that I had to redo yesterdays quest because of a bugged room, while I'm an avid quester, pissed me off a lot. But I do think players who play less frequently are somewhat evenly disturbed by bugs that could have been prevented (easily) by QA, as I'm thinking that those don't skill a lot, but do more things like minigames, quests and stuff, focusing on unique content, because of the limited time they have. And as those have more unique coding than skills, you can expect a lot more bugs on this type of content.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Hi, I'm here to rant about the FAQ replies, which are finally up. :P

 

"Where did this Eva character come from all of a sudden?"

 

Mod Trick: You can ask her yourself. Shell explain that, after being familiar with your past work, she volunteered for the assignment.

 

We also required a hero to fill each slot in the combat triangle. By expanding upon Ezekials explosives we have a ranger, and Kennith naturally fits the bill of mage. This leaves a gap for our melee specialist. Originally, this role was filled by an older knight called Lee, but both his age and mannerisms lacked appeal. We were looking for someone with more character. Someone we could play against the other heroes, Kennith in particular. Thus Eva was born.

WAT. An Asian temple knight, and they scrapped that. Nice.

 

"What about the 'Hunt for the Red Raktuber', where a sea slug takes over the captain of it? As it is now, the mind-control powers are supposedly gone, so how does this work?"

 

Mod Osborne: We were well aware of Marlins sea slug, and we considered adding Hunt for Red Raktuber as a requirement for this quest. That would have meant fewer people being able to play this quest, however. Whatever the case, I really like the idea that Marlin believes he has been controlled by Mother Mallum, when really the slug was a bit mangled and wasnt functioning at all. Look at it in the quest; that slug is looking a bit peaky!

What a cop-out.

 

"Would Ezekial be able to sell us his explosives as a new ranged weapon? Or teach us to make them"

 

Mod Trick: Whilst we considered this as a reward for quest completion we didnt want to overlap with the Chinchompas available to qualified Hunters. I cannot speak for future projects.

63 (?) Hunter, or this whole quest chain? Dear me.

I mean, where who are all the red chinchompas coming from, anyway?

[michel555555]

"What about the 'Hunt for the Red Raktuber', where a sea slug takes over the captain of it? As it is now, the mind-control powers are supposedly gone, so how does this work?"

 

Mod Osborne: We were well aware of Marlin’s sea slug, and we considered adding Hunt for Red Raktuber as a requirement for this quest. That would have meant fewer people being able to play this quest, however. Whatever the case, I really like the idea that Marlin believes he has been controlled by Mother Mallum, when really the slug was a bit mangled and wasn’t functioning at all. Look at it in the quest; that slug is looking a bit peaky!

What a cop-out.

 

... I don't know what to say to this.

 

Sure if it was say a mutated slug that freed itself from mallum's control and developed its own personality. But to just have it basically be a dud and have a crazy penguin bent on giving everyone funny hats instead of taking over the great white north?

 

edit- Now heres how it would be a great story line. Add salt in the wound as the requirement to the next penguin quest and have the slug on Marlin actually be a new born prince or princess slug that went out to create its own empire and found the land of the penguins. Then you have to stop it from giving the order to the penguin army to invade the rest of gilenor as pay back for the death of mother Mallum.

[RU_Insane]

Any glitch that slips by them is quickly patched up. When have they failed to do this?

 

When?

 

Great Orb Project auto-win glitches are the clearest ones I can remember. Took like an entire year and a half for it to be fixed. EDIT: a portion of it still exists.

 

There's also the dungeoneering experience glitch that certainly took a while to be half-fixed as it is now.

 

I grant you that and there's a few more for sure. Keep in mind they're continually producing content though. They can't always keep an eye on every piece of content existing. There's bound to be glitches. Granted, the auto-win glitch sounds pretty bad. But has it really been game-breaking? I'd assume they fix content that disrupts game-play experience for the core of the player-base. By that definition, it would be game-breaking if that condition was satisfied. GOP's a fairly niche activity in contrast.

 

I don't think that's what he meant. For every one person who quits over chompy hats or an unplayable quest, there's plenty who will happily pay for the hundreds of other pieces of content. There's others who will complain about the glitches but still pay Jagex.

 

That's what I meant, yeah. That, and an unloyal customer isn't really worth anything to Jagex. So their unenjoyment of the game in the small space of time they're able to play really shouldn't pressure Jagex to do anything. As well, there's so much content to play, why should a person stick to one piece of content and demand it be fixed even though a) they're not loyal customers b) Jagex has other priorities c) even if they were loyal customers, as you said earlier, it doesn't entitle them to anything more than the next paying person. I'm sorry Jagex can't bend head over heels to cater to the petty complaints of the minority population.

[Sy_Accursed]

 

"Where did this Eva character come from all of a sudden?"

 

Mod Trick: You can ask her yourself. She’ll explain that, after being familiar with your past work, she volunteered for the assignment.

 

We also required a hero to fill each slot in the combat triangle. By expanding upon Ezekial’s explosives we have a ranger, and Kennith naturally fits the bill of mage. This leaves a gap for our melee specialist. Originally, this role was filled by an older knight called Lee, but both his age and mannerisms lacked appeal. We were looking for someone with more character. Someone we could play against the other heroes, Kennith in particular. Thus Eva was born.

WAT. An Asian temple knight, and they scrapped that. Nice.

 

Where'd you get Asian from?

Older knight doesn't suggest asian.

Nor does the name "Lee"

Lee being a decidedly British name, opposed to the Asian words that sound the same like Li

 

What interests me more is contradictory answers eg:

"Why and how did the slugs raise the white knights from the dead?"

 

Mod Trick: The slugs gain control of their hosts by attaching at the base of the brain-stem. Living or dead, the body still contains the vital parts necessary for movement and combat (albeit without some of the coordination of their living counterparts).

 

Mod Osborne: The White Knights had tried to stop the slugs before and failed, with hundreds dying in the Slug Citadel. These dead knights have come back as undead, and live (or unlive) together with the slugs, rather than being controlled by them. It’s a mutual relationship with very few conversations.

 

So Mod Trick says the slugs control them as the brain is still there; yet Osborne says they just came back as undead and lived there?

Get your sodding story straight people!

[Kimberly]

At the end of the day, you're right Stewie. I'm getting a little unnecessarily heated over this. And while I still think some of my concerns were valid, some of them weren't. You're right that the people with heavily invested time in the game are their guaranteed income, and have less weight of it because of that. I thought those people were the core, important, because of the fact that if they suddenly were alienated they would really hurt Jagex. Yet it's that new growth that keeps them alive, and I suppose that in Jagex's eyes that's the core. That's my failure to be objective and see it from their PoV rather than the player's.

 

I had misgivings with all of the updates that occurred over the past few months: the ornate katana, the loyalty program, this dwarven army axe, etc. But they handled the Loyalty Program with grace and cleverness and time will tell if they'll do the same with this. If they do, then it hopefully won't go any farther than these low-level items. I really hope that's the case. I'll make a greater effort to be patient and just wait. Can't guarantee that I won't pop back into debates to present my side of it, haha, but maybe with your points showing me the weakness of my argument, I'll make a better job of it next time round.

 

I think the only thing my past posts are good for are drinking games. Every time I say trend or core we can take a shot. With any luck we won't die of alcohol poisoning at the end of it...

[Stewie_Griffen]

At the end of the day, you're right Stewie. I'm getting a little unnecessarily heated over this. And while I still think some of my concerns were valid, some of them weren't. You're right that the people with heavily invested time in the game are their guaranteed income, and have less weight of it because of that. I thought those people were the core, important, because of the fact that if they suddenly were alienated they would really hurt Jagex. Yet it's that new growth that keeps them alive, and I suppose that in Jagex's eyes that's the core. That's my failure to be objective and see it from their PoV rather than the player's.

 

I had misgivings with all of the updates that occurred over the past few months: the ornate katana, the loyalty program, this dwarven army axe, etc. But they handled the Loyalty Program with grace and cleverness and time will tell if they'll do the same with this. If they do, then it hopefully won't go any farther than these low-level items. I really hope that's the case. I'll make a greater effort to be patient and just wait. Can't guarantee that I won't pop back into debates to present my side of it, haha, but maybe with your points showing me the weakness of my argument, I'll make a better job of it next time round.

 

I think the only thing my past posts are good for are drinking games. Every time I say trend or core we can take a shot. With any luck we won't die of alcohol poisoning at the end of it...

 

It's alright. When you really believe in something it's hard to look at it objectively. However corny this sounds, it's better than not believing in anything.

 

You're right, time will tell. Just by their attitudes thus far I don't think they're heading back down the path of gnomecopters, but we'll have to see.

[meili]

Well at least it give herby exp. That's always good.

[Platinum_Myr]

A lot of these glitches are random-recurring, and QA may not see them every time. Also, QA probably tests things under a testing environment, which can sometimes cause problems because of changes which people thought were unconnected. Sometimes the transition from development into production system (going from the test bed into the real world) can cause bugs that were not there in the QA's test sandbox. I agree that they could potentially do more QA, but would it be worth the cost? Maybe.

 

Many bugs are configuration dependent. There are millions-billions of combinations of character names, skills, stats, items, character outfits, times, servers, random numbers, all of which could cause any one of the bugs that have been mentioned as "easily" fixable. Remember, as in this quest's example: the 4th room with the skeletons spawning... That did not happen for everyone. I played the quest (fairly) early on that day and had no trouble at all.

 

Keep in mind that sometimes changes are requested late (due to balance etc) and there isn't always time to fully test things. We can't criticize the QA team's work without knowing what the actual process is. And I can tell you for certain, if QA wasn't doing their job, the game would be 100x more bug filled than it is now.

 

 

NOW: as for the storyboard and depth of this quest.. that is an entirely different matter, and I believe Jagex could have done a much better job. Yes, I believe there is room for humor in the quests, but I don't believe that ignoring older quests is good. Suddenly adding characters into quest lines who don't really need to be there is also bad story telling.

 

I think the penguin explanation is more or less alright, because the penguin quests were meant to be more hilarious anyways.

[Saradomin_Mage]

I just noticed that James B, developer of the Recruitment Drive and Wanted! quests, is now in the Transformers Content Team.

Developers of Slug Menace and Kennith's Concerns are long gone too.

 

I sometimes wish I could just find out how they envisioned the storylines would actually play out.

[SomeNut]

I just noticed that James B, developer of the Recruitment Drive and Wanted! quests, is now in the Transformers Content Team.

Developers of Slug Menace and Kennith's Concerns are long gone too.

 

I sometimes wish I could just find out how they envisioned the storylines would actually play out.

so much for other projects not affecting runescape's quality <_<

[Deathknell]

I just noticed that James B, developer of the Recruitment Drive and Wanted! quests, is now in the Transformers Content Team.

Developers of Slug Menace and Kennith's Concerns are long gone too.

 

I sometimes wish I could just find out how they envisioned the storylines would actually play out.

so much for other projects not affecting runescape's quality <_<

 

A developer can take over other's people questchains without having them suffer terribly. Honestly though, don't they have phones? Can't they get the guy's extension, ring him up, and ask him if the story he came up follows well, or does it like this quest, does it destroy the whole storyline?