Glad Them Shoes Don't Fit Me!

[Ludes]

I really kinda feel bad about people working for EA and affilates..

Anybody here ever worked for a big company whose having big problems in some area?

When I was much younger I did.. everyone is cringing all the time wondering who's gettin fired next..

Just think about how much better off we are.. none of us is worrying about getting fired over the latest screwup are we?

I had this thought cause of something I noticed lately.. I like to page on sunken ships at docks. Well, cannons and binding posts actually since the ship is underwater and hey, outta sight outta mind. I'll sit around and a Gm will usually start a chat and remove said nuisance. Exchanging a few words and a Have a nice day and all that..

Now the cannons and such just start disappearing with no word said...

Must be tense times.

 

[Theo_GL]

I really kinda feel bad about people working for EA and affilates..

Anybody here ever worked for a big company whose having big problems in some area?

When I was much younger I did.. everyone is cringing all the time wondering who's gettin fired next..

Just think about how much better off we are.. none of us is worrying about getting fired over the latest screwup are we?

I had this thought cause of something I noticed lately.. I like to page on sunken ships at docks. Well, cannons and binding posts actually since the ship is underwater and hey, outta sight outta mind. I'll sit around and a Gm will usually start a chat and remove said nuisance. Exchanging a few words and a Have a nice day and all that..

Now the cannons and such just start disappearing with no word said...

Must be tense times.

No sympathy here.

First the GM's should NOT have to remove sunk ships. This is yet another dev team FAIL. To not properly code for sunken ship remnants is another epic fail. I mean, how can you NOT forsee this as being an issue? Why wouldn't this be handled in early beta testing at least?

I work in the software industry and know what it takes to deliver good solid software. Yes, none of it is perfect but you should be able to address obvious issues up front. Crazy bugs like 'riding on a dragon ship with a nightmare, dismount and use special move at same time you cast fireball and ship becomes stuck' is an acceptable bug because the likelyhood of finding it/comming across it is low and when it is found - report and fix. (This is a made up bug).

But adding new content that can sink and not coding for 'clean up' when it sinks is an epic fail. A nine year old is smart enough to forsee this as an issue.

Gm's should NOT be involved in this clean up because it never should have been possible in the game.

The fact that Gm's are NOT chatting with you and addressing and moving on to the next issue is a bonus. That means they can handle more calls per minute/hour than if they chit chat with you in between. This is efficiency and something I would appreciate from any of my employees as well.

Need someone to chat with? Get out and get a friend.

 

[Ludes]

I actually agree with you on every single point Theo..

It is sad that GM's should have to waste time on something as simple as setting a decay time on cannons and binding poles.. I'm sure ther are much better things for them to be doing.

I also worked in the software industry for quite some time..
One of the perks was getting to spend hours and hours playing the game with co-workers.. (and yes we reported bugs) Sad to say companies don't allow this anymore.. To their own detrement as you pointed out..

AND.. I roleplay each and every character I play... Just the way I wanna play not trying to preach.
So calling a GM cause some boat is blocking the docks isn't my idea of looking for a chat with someone.

 

[pgib]

I'm not particularily happy with the overall result but I don't know if we have the knowledge to judge if they are doing a good job or not on the programming side.

For what i know UO is a very old piece of s...oftware and maintaining a very old piece of s...oftware is not one of the easiest task for a programmer.

Also I was frankly scared when i heard someone from EA saying that UO was hugely profitable because if the player base sinks and the fee stay more or less the same then to keep up income you have to cut costs (or use magery) and cutting costs is never a good thing for the code.

And found report and fix is what we (would like to) see but as you know a bug can be much harder than that to track down and remove.

I repeat: i'm not happy either, but deciding who to blame for it may not be so easy.

 

[Woodsman]

Also I was frankly scared when i heard someone from EA saying that UO was hugely profitable because if the player base sinks and the fee stay more or less the same then to keep up income you have to cut costs (or use magery) and cutting costs is never a good thing for the code.

Actually it was "widely profitable" which is a lot different than "hugely" or even "wildly".

As for cutting costs, they did that not too long ago when Warhammer bombed and EA laid off a bunch of Mythic people, including key figures from the Stygian Abyss team.

So cross your fingers that Star Wars succeeds.

 

[Ludes]

Hmmph..