Pot-Stirring Time

[whyBish]

The real way to stop the Pesky Fan Noise is to:

Fix the Effing Bugs.  :)

But what is a bug?

Take MoO3 for example... pretty much 'bug-free' in that it doesn't crash, but it is boring as anything to try and wade through.

Yes, blizzard may have given us some candy over fixes, and the balance may still be off, after four years, but I'm still playing it after all this time (well, a few breaks in between)

I would hate to calculate the $/hr cost of D2, because it was a real bargain.

[TriggerHappy]

I fully support requiring not only registration for participating in official forums, but also the use of your actual name and a visible email address. This is no guarantee that someone won't be a jerk, but it's a start. If you want to participate in discussions on an official forum, you don't get to role play. They're there as themselves, you should be there as yourself.

I also have to disagree with this section.

First, because it's all too easy to falsify the name that comes with the e-mail address. Therefore there is no guarantee that it will indeed be the person's real life name.

Second, when a person uses an alias for years online, they become attached to it. They begin to value it. With time, the reputation of that "alias" becomes as important as the reputation of their real life name would be. In this case, the moderation effect would be as strong as if they were using their real names.

Lastly, there is again no guarantee that people would not stil be jerks even if forced to use their real names online. Real life offers plenty of evidence to back up this reality.

[Crystalion]

If you want to make a difference in your favorite games

Right.  With the developers having a "we know what is right and you know #$%& attitude" our input really matters.

They could tell every poster here at the Lounge to piss off and die

And have done so, over and over again by their actions.

When hope is gone, all that is left is bitterness and style.

The commentary is not to influence the designers -- they aren't listening.  We know, because they've said so.  The commentary is to blow off steam against idiots who make games for the masses.

Well, I've used (as have probably most of you reading this) a lot of different software, including quite a few games, so I tend to put my developer "indifference" rating on a relative scale for that. For example, at one end of the scale: I thought that through much of EQ's life cycle that the developers were pretty cruel to players; at the other end are developers that release the full source code to their commercially obsolete games (i.e. no further revenue likely).

Another relative scale I use--since I've been in the industry--is to forgive or overlook problems when I have a pretty good idea under what constraints the developers have to operate. This includes, but is not limited to, such things as:

1) company controlled by non-gamers (or even game haters)
2) company direction/actions controlled by bean counters
3) company in chaos because corporate parent is a flake, or hostile
4) company in chaos because key personel leave
5) product a platform support nightmare (e.g. because OS sucks)
6) product too complex (e.g. Mythical Man Month factor--no amount of bodies can help)
7) product work to do too overwhelming (e.g. short on man-hours for ship date)
8) etc. etc....

To help you get into this line of thought... imagine you find it convenient to go into McDs and order a burger, even though you don't prefer to do that usually (innumerable reasons)--would you typically vent your distaste on the girl behind the counter taking your order? I, for example, think that McDs mostly sells expensive junk. I occasionally find it convenient to eat there. I have never, iirc, been deliberately rude to a counter person (although occasionally they do mess up, of course). Aside from the fact that that I believe courtesy to be the oil of lubrication that keeps the engine of society from exploding due to friction, I also believe that workers at fast food places usually have what might be termed a sh*t job (albeit a useful/necessary one, for them and society) and I sympathize with the difficulty of their situation.

Now (game) software developers actually have a lot in common with the movie business (Trip Hawkins was one of the first major movers to realize this, though perhaps he overstated the case for investor relations and the coolness factor). There aren't that many of us, and we work on a project for a fairly short period of time, for consumption by very large numbers of people, the more the better ($ for us), and though the product can stick around basically forever, most of the use/gravy ($ for us again) occurs shortly after release, unless the product is "a classic".

Over time these businesses have discovered that putting extra effort/content (as opposed to just extra marketing) into a product, post-ship, can be profitable if the product has a large ongoing audience. Thus "special edition" DVDs, and expansion packs, etc.

However, you, as a customer, probably should keep in mind that this is a "cash" business--like drug dealing. We takes your money, and then we don't want to see you ever again (unless you have more money for us, of course). The game business is competitive and pimped. That is to say, the corporation skims the profits (they aren't re-invested to the benefit of the customers, except incidentally) and no company wants to skip doing a lucrative product so they can pour time and money into a soso or losing product (again, always judged by net $).

Arguing about customer relations and reputatation building would be fine here, were there actually some shining star company that did those so perfectly that everyone else would have to as well, or else they could not get any customers. This kind of thing is called "raising the bar", btw. George Lucas did it for special effects in mainstream movies, to offer an example. But investment in bar raising is very iffy compared to investment in marketing and distribution. Thus most bar raising in the games business occurs when a company has a $uccessful product and decide to make a $equel--they raise the bar for themselves, because this pays off getting more money from existing customers (whereas fixing/improving those customers existing product typically would not--Bill Gates has experimented with making software into a subscription model, with some success, but generally it makes the customer too aware of the software company being, in some sense, a blood-sucking leech, so it's a difficult strategy to make work).

So, does D2 and Blizzard have problems? Yes. Should we, in our frustration, lose sight of the big picture and assume they are eeeee-vil? I think not. While I'm personally mildy annoyed that v1.10 has taken so long and that many bugs I consider of importance have been around seemingly forever, I nonetheless can see quite clearly that a small number of people inside Blizzard have been granted an incredible leeway to do an excruciatingly long deathmarch to an amazingly large free-expansion of the game. Re-orging things to make life easier for modders is, by itself, a surprising and wonderful development, which can not be justified by any bean-counter acceptable rationale that I can see.

Since, like actors, developers receive large amounts of public praise and approbation (aka sh*t), this development is even more unusual... clearly you garner more praise by leaving old stuff to rot and be forgotten, while you move on to the latest-and-greatest.

Do I wish the QC (quality control) for D2 were higher? You bet. Do I understand why it isn't and sympathize with Blizzard? Definitely.

Am I grateful that v1.10 is coming? Yep--apart from wondering whether I should be doing something more productive with my time than playing games (sorry, I guess that was off-topic).

YMMV.

p.s. for PR reasons it is *not* in any game company's interest to allow it to be known publicly that they ever feel any customer should "piss off and die", but, of course, being human, some developers probably entertain such thoughts and share them privately--I imagine a number of actors have thrown darts at pictures of movie critics. Realistically speaking, however, the Blizzard lurkers could just stop lurking, and, as Bolty implies, neither they nor Blizzard would be measurably affected financially. I would prefer LL to be polite and for Blizzard to lurk, since they are likely to find facts and insights here that occassionally they have time to act upon, to make the game better.

edit: for grammar and punctuation (still more, I know, but I don't have endless time to correct myself--certainly my run-on style could use a lot of cleaning up... maybe I'll fix it--in version 10 ;) )

edit2: four ain't to gud et spelin thangs, lyke me gramma.

[Bolty]

edit: for grammer and punctuation (still more, I know, but I don't have endless time to correct myself--certainly my run-on style could use a lot of cleaning up... maybe I'll fix it--in version 10 ;) )

That's ok. You just summed up my thoughts better than I ever could, thus showing me up. Once again.

I've stated before that from a "bean counter" perspective, 1.10 makes no sense. When they just take crap from gamers for doing it, it drives me up the wall. And yes, this is just my opinion, but I can't see how a constructive fan-to-developer relationship can EVER be established when they log on and see people complaining "all the time." Remember that to a developer, that one "whine" post shines out more brightly than 5 other good, quality constructive criticism posts.

Also, people are wrongly assuming I'm going after just about everyone here - FAR from it. I'm adressing the small minority of people who are so jaded that they just can't say anything good about Blizzard anymore. I think they need to step back and look at the big picture. Blizzard is a software development company. Their goal is to make money, just like everyone else. But it appears to me that they have brains and realize that taking care of their customers pays off. They are, surprisingly, in the minority of gaming companies in that respect. IMHO. This is why I buy their games.

Am I posting all this to tell the negative posters to go away, or that I'll ban them? Nope. They have a right to their opinion. But I'm going to try to change it whenever I can... :D

-Bolty

[CelticHound]

I've stated before that from a "bean counter" perspective, 1.10 makes no sense.

And I've stated before that there are other perspectives that might make sense.

Let's do a quick daydream fantasy. The Fab Four left Blizzard recently, and I believe that the resale value of the company dropped a bit. In fact, in this interview, Bill Roper mentions "a loss of $100-$150 million in valuation to their games unit (based on what analysts have said)".

I suppose a bean counter wouldn't notice something minor like that.

Time to go out on a limb: I'm going to assume that the Blizzard dev teams are pretty much made up of people - many of whom are gamers - who like to do a good job. No, more than that. They get a personal payoff from getting way cool software out the door. (You don't do a death march without identifying yourself with it.) And after years of tinkering, they have a personal stake in getting what they were shooting for with 1.10.

Even if 1.10 didn't bring in another dime of revenue - and I'll contest that - it could be worth it, if it just kept another half dozen people from leaving. Turnover is a nasty hidden expense. Or if people don't leave, they may become apathetic, and what does that do for your future profits?

If I were to take all the people from Blizzard who had helped make those great games, and you got everything else that was left - trademarks, codebase, etc. - which of us would have a better chance of producing a great (and profitable) game in the future?

I think 1.10 makes sense in several ways and that Blizzard could have been perfectly rational in deciding to do it. That doesn't mean that Vivendi saw the same thing with their "bean counter" perspective.

But what's a hundred mil between friends?

-- CH

p.s. Can you tell I've been reading Jim McCarthy and Tom deMarco, lately?

[kandrathe]

From the POV of a software designer and engineer:

I always want to make the best software and systems possible within the time frame allowed. Your control over a softwares features are highest at the time of conception, and diminish to nearly zero at implementation. Once a piece of software is published, the amount of effort allowed for maintenance is finite and is driven by cost. Not just the cost of making and testing the changes, but the lost opportunity cost of having the people work on the old stuff rather than work on the new stuff. I imagine it is the same for anyone who designs and builds any type of widget for a company that is interested in making a profit. In some ways writing game software is like being the cinematographer for Hollywood movies. You see your craft, blood, sweat and tears, get decimated in editing and rewrites to force it into a marketable 2 hour product. If it is successful, maybe your efforts may be mentioned, but it is the directors that get most of the glory and the producers who get most of the money.

However, opinions do matter. Some opinions matter more than others and will contribute to the mythos of the game and to the prestige of its legacy. Definately not to Ma and Pa Kettle who bought little Joey yet another FPS which he plops in his XBox or installs on his Mac who soon tires of it and tosses it aside for DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball. But, there is a community of people, like us, who discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of every aspect of every feature of every game. We would just as likely discuss opening moves in chess as strategies for CS_Italy, or the merits of Tron 2.0.

Alone anyones opinion is useless, but just like voting it does matter in the long run. If you write, and consistently write or produce stuff that is trash, that becomes your reputation. You know people, and I know people and if the grumbling becomes too widespread it becomes a thunder, and then an earthquake that can destroy a company like EA or Blizzard. That is why they cater to prominent industry voices to sway their opinions to promote their wares, or at least not blast them as hard. Back to voting; what matters more is activism with an example of that being the steady erosion by open source, and a fanatical Linux community against the Microsoft empire. Will it fall? I don't know, and I doubt it. Will it hurt, yes. Now, with Blizzard, it seems enough of the old guard have drifted away from the original Blizzard construct to form new constructs in the spirit of that original model; one that worked before and will likely work again.

I suspect that the reason that the founders of Blizzard started writing games was not primarily to get rich. I suspect they had some skills and decided to write the games they wanted to play. If they happened to be able to sell them, and make enough bucks to continue writing some more, all the better. In a way, for those with the skills, writing software is like printing money. It only gets difficult to control the presses once the machine is too big, and then the EA's, Universal's, et. al. step in and buy you out or crush you into dust.

But, I'm with you in general on software companies. I at least am trying to vote with my pocketbook. For instance, the last EA game I bought was FA-18 Incerceptor for my development Amiga 1000. It would take a miracle for them to ever win me as a loyal consumer. As for Blizzard, for me the jury is still out. I think SC:Ghost might be a good product -- although written by someone else. DII v1.10 may turn LOD into a game, rather than Monty's Haul but due to the extent of the changes it might also do more harm than good. Warcraft III was an average effort which extended old content and IMHO, falls a little short when compared to other games published at that time. As for WOW, who knows and it might just be a tired old concept by the time it is released. At least some parts of Blizzard do seem to try to make that connection to their fans, even if in the end (due to whatever powers that be) it just seems like more hype and marketing.

Edit: Fixed some spelling and added stuff, but I still ramble a bit.

[kandrathe]

It takes effort to enforce a modicum of proper behaviour.

1) Validating sign up via e-mail response is at least a start -- the next step is to require some type of Credit Card # and a small token one time fee. If you steal or forge that or in anyway abuse it then, it is called fraud. If you are under 18 and your parents need to help you sign up, then you will probably be even more careful - or not (see #3). If you were Blizzard you might even include the "free" battlenet membership with a secret code within the packaging of the game -- thereby also ecouraging people to buy legitimate copies of the game.

2) You can maintain the alias and still associate that with real world information (just like here at the lounge)

and

3) True, but if you get banned for violating the sites TOS or being a jerk and then lose your $12 one time signup fee -- how many times will you reapply and continue to be a jerk?

[whyBish]

Your control over a softwares features are highest at the time of conception, and diminish to nearly zero at implementation.

Alone anyones opinion is useless, but just like voting it does matter in the long run.  If you write, and consistently write or produce stuff that is trash, that becomes your reputation.

Re: first quote, This is for traditional waterfall software development techniques, but in a R.A.D. or prototyping environment (which is useful in an R&D/Experimental type setup) this is not so true (Yes there is less control at implementation, but, I just disagree with the 'diminishing to almost zero'). A lot of games seem to be developed following the experimental approach...

Re quote two, This is a problem in so many fields. Negative feedack as a means of enforcement only works on a going concern, and not a transient. It also means that you need to sample (though not neccessarily first hand) before you can judgge quality. A 'bad rep' is not enough of a negative reinforcement in the software industry I.M.O. due to the following:
- Games have large gaps between development, so memory/weighting of bad experiences may diminish
- Transience, companies can always claim that this game is either different from the 'bad' ones in some way (all games can have the 'unique' claim, just varies in degree), even if they can't they can also point that a different division/dev team/ lead designer worked on the latest one so it "won't have the same issues"


Sorry if arguements are not coherent... just finished 19hr work day, need to be up again in 3 hrs... should be asleep now :P

[whyBish]

Even if 1.10 didn't bring in another dime of revenue - and I'll contest that - it could be worth it, if it just kept another half dozen people from leaving.  Turnover is a nasty hidden expense.  Or if people don't leave, they may become apathetic, and what does that do for your future profits?

Good point, but this also implies that the developers must have the passion/drive to work on that old game rather than a new one, which means that this process would not be driven by the company, just an expense that in your scenario they would be willing to pay if people felt that way.
Also, it implies that those developers will either simultaneously, or eventually, be working on other projects (From a profitability point of view their is no point having a highly motivated person working on a project with negative profit if they wont achieve above normal profit from that person through some other means)

[Selby]

I agree with everything Pete says.

And when I don't like a game, I just don't play it. If a company wants my money now, they really have to earn it. I don't play games because it is cool, I play games because I want to have fun. If a game doesn't have the fun at release, promises of fun being patched in later really make me nervous. Too many companies have fallen from my eyes after years of quality releases due to the bean counters and corporations buying them up.

I have bought all of 4 games in the last 2 years. And only two of those were fun.

Selby

[--Pete]

Hi,

Compare the bug list that Buzzard got from us by asking the Strategy and Tech Support fora for input with the actual changes made in that patch. Then consider the effort fixing some of those bugs would have taken (such as moving a number from the denominator to the numerator in one expression, such as slightly rearranging some conditionals in one routine, such as replacing a wrong number with a right one).

The facts are:
They asked for input.
They got complete and detailed input.
Many of the bug squashes could have been done by one programmer familiar with the code in one day.
They decided that since only the grognards would notice the bug fixes they weren't even worth one man day of effort.

If there is a clearer way to send the message, "We don't give a damn about you", then I don't know what it is. And I simply reply in kind.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Re: first quote, This is for traditional waterfall software development techniques, but in a R.A.D. or prototyping environment (which is useful in an R&D/Experimental type setup) this is not so true (Yes there is less control at implementation, but, I just disagree with the 'diminishing to almost zero'). A lot of games seem to be developed following the experimental approach...

I will agree in as far as the rough content and minutia are concerned; those things that are changeable, and improvable right up to implementation, such as the quality of the graphics, animations, or music. I was thinking about design and structure -- or those things that define the product. For instance, you would not change DII into a first person game mid project without some tremendous rewrite of the underlying engine. Waterfall or RAD, at some point you must nail down the specifications, otherwise, your project just spins endlessly as all the various things that could be (as opposed to should be) done are explored. It has been my experience that RAD only works when the end product desired is clearly definable by at least someone related to the project. The "waterfall" vs "RAD" is also in many ways a smoke screen tossed out sometimes to chastise advocates of a particular methodology. The basic stucture of any creative act, from painting, to software, to having children is preparation, conception, creation, delivery, cleanup, and then maintain. There are variations on what each of those steps contain. You can do very small chunks iteratively and call it RAD, or Extreme, or do it in one fell swoop. The trend is the former, as it mitigates risk to identify trouble spots earlier. However, if a users requirements are ABCDEF & G -- it does little good to implement just A. Like building an airplane, the entire thing needs to be completed and proven air worthy before it is useful.

To the second; to me it seems odd that people spend an amazing amount of effort to research the quality of a 2 hour movie that they will pay $10 for, but when it comes to software they throw down $50, and seem to grab whatever has the hottest packaging. They have no idea if the software contains 5 hours or 100 hours of content. Movie reviews and critics seem to be an accepted part of the film industry, but when it comes to criticism of entertainment software, consumers seem careless. My guess is that we might both agree that there are not yet accepted venues for entertainment software reviews or criticism. Many are written by either the jaded, or the "avid gamer" which may not be accessible to the typical game consumer.

Your argument applies to any type of experiential entertainment. The movie trailer might look good, or you might have enjoyed a music artists prior album, but unless you experience the content you will not know until you have committed. Just as with music or movies there are also no solid predictors for quality. All actors, producers, or directors seem to fall victim to a flop here and there. For software now (and not just games), I wait until someone who's opinion I value confirms that it is worth investigating. I try to see it in action at a store or on a friends computer before commiting time or money and ask around to see if anyone has had either positive or negative experiences. I guess as an example what I'm trying to suggest is that one persons opinion, however prominent, or loudly spoken, is still only one persons opinion. The late Gene Siskel never seemed to like the movies that I did, while Roger Ebert and I have equivelent tastes. I might listen to Siskel's negative review (a dog is a dog is a dog), but I could never trust his positive reviews. An opinion en masse is something I would listen to, and I suspect any good marketing department or corporate CEO would as well.

[Cybit]

The thing is, Diablo II is probably not the target game for that article. I play Dark Age of Camelot (and work at the IGN site for it, www.camelotvault.com), and you should just peruse some of the boards there to see what TRUE vile and venom is. MMORPG's tend to have the biggest (and boy do i mean biggest) whiners you'll ever see running around there. THEY, in my opinion, are the ones who need to get their act together. Verant died when McQuaid and the people who made EQ left, and SOE/Sony took over. Sony's actually notorious for taking good franchises and murdering them, Twisted Metal, GTA, arguably Final Fantasy after 7 (10 was good, and I've heard good things about 11, but that's all after Square also joined up with Nintendo for some other games), Galaxies (/cries), etc. But I digress. And I do not know why Blizzard is even still doing 1.10, they are being flamed (understatement) pretty harshly for it.

Blizzard is a company that has the rare ability to cater to the mass market as well as hardcore players. That's why they do good in my opinion. If you want to see a purely money making idea, see the Sims and their 4536348957938475 expansions.

Just my 2 cents.

[--Pete]

Hi,

The thing is, Diablo II is probably not the target game for that article.

Yes, but since it was pointed out on *this* board by the webmaster, that made the discussion *here* of necessity about Blizzard, Buzzard, and their games.

MMORPG's tend to have the biggest (and boy do i mean biggest) whiners you'll ever see running around there.

Be that as it may, but are they hard core gamers? Are they true grognards that take games apart for the fun of it, or are they just brats that think because they play games for hours on end they have a clue? The article was about hard core gamers, not the average game brat.

But, perhaps, I no longer know what a "hard core gamers" is, much as I no longer know what a "hacker" is. Perhaps nowadays a hard core gamer is someone who spends large quantities of his folk's dough on games, consoles and magazines. Which makes the average teen an automotive designer by analogy.

Once again, if a player tells a game company "U got 2 put in dark elves they roolz", the game company is fully justified in ignoring that player. But if a player tells the company that "mana shield gets *less* effective as it goes up in level, not more" and the company puts out a patch but doesn't fix that problem (two minutes work) or fixes it wrong, then were is the fault?

And if that happens time after time, how long does it take to see the company gives not a damn?

--Pete

[Count Duckula]

Blizzard is a company that has the rare ability to cater to the mass market as well as hardcore players. That's why they do good in my opinion. If you want to see a purely money making idea, see the Sims and their 4536348957938475 expansions.

I should have taken Nico's advice about running that game under my car sooner.

Note I said, sooner.

After living with the game for about two hours, I realized all I wanted to do was to build a house to my own specifications after living in a house where the rooms constantly changed form and shape. First, I took the existing bathroom in my little Sim house, and turned it into a bedroom. I put the toilet outside. I even went wallpaper-crazy. After another hour of that, I browsed the Internet looking for patches and information.

Get this. I have to register with Maxis to get the patch. Not just the registry that comes with the game, but a special online registry that signs my email address up with every spam company in existence. Then I went surfing to try and download items and clothing and whatnot, and people charge for these things! I visited 20 sites, and 18 of them had their items for sale only. (Fortunately, 14 of those sites had "freebie" galleries made from the ugliest crap on Earth.) Hmm, let's see, pay $2 for clean blue jeans or a bit of code for a game that will allow my character to wear a hot pink bathing suit with little flamingoes on it?

Blizzard ain't the best, but it ain't the worst. At least you don't have to sell your soul for the patch.

(PS: The best way to run over a game: stuff contents back into box and back over it in reverse, not forwards. Took me a couple times to get maximum squashage.)

[Thecla]

Am I grateful that v1.10 is coming? Yep--apart from wondering whether I should be doing something more productive with my time than playing games (sorry, I guess that was off-topic).

Well, no doubt many of us ponder that question --- but at least when it comes to playing games your research productivity is up there with the best. ;)

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

(PS: The best way to run over a game: stuff contents back into box and back over it in reverse, not forwards. Took me a couple times to get maximum squashage.)

*sniff*

I'm so damned PROUD of you!

*hugs all around*

*tips helm*

[whyBish]

.

Yeah, I think we just differ in what size changes we are talking about.

I was thinking of things like 'AI'. We know that the game will need AI, we have some ideas about approaches, but are not sure if an approach will actually work. Or not knowing if a particular feature of a game will be 'fun' or 'balanced'.

Again I refer to MoO3... this game was designed o the smallest detail, they got it to an almost finished stage and realised that it wasn't fun. They slashed out a ton of stuff (which they still actually advertise exists in their game (www.moo3.com)). It wouldn't have made sense to deliver it to the original design. (Note, the changes they made didn't help in this case, but that's not my point ;) )

As to the second, my frustration at the moment is with analysis and laws that are made that assume that a company is a going concern and hence the negative feedback will adequately police the market. (I.E. the ability to start a company, release a crap product, take the loot and shut up shop).

As to reviews, I think I'll stick to a requirement of 4/5 bottles from Occhi before I purchase anything :P

[kandrathe]

As to the second, my frustration at the moment is with analysis and laws that are made that assume that a company is a going concern and hence the negative feedback will adequately police the market. (I.E. the ability to start a company, release a crap product, take the loot and shut up shop).

Yes. I think since software is not a very visable construction it can lend itself to scams. It is all too easy to produce a pile of garbage, market it as gold, then pack up shop and move on and do it all again. In the corporate software market you have the added problem of consolidation (like EA, or Computer Associates) who are constantly buying anything they can for the existing consumer (hostage) base. They then market it but stop any new development, and drastically reduce the support and maintenance until the product dies. Of all the industries I've worked within, the software construction business is the one filled with most evil lawsuit happy bastards that are ready to rip the still beating hearts from girl scouts or eat their own young to get ahead.

[Zenda]

"two minutes work"

Someone else always has the easier job ... until you try it yourself.