107620-new-content-vs-bug-fixes

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It seems like there's some massive communication breakdown at Carbine that results in old builds without bugs fixed being pushed to live and re-breaking things over and over and over and over again. In some cases they don't even push out the fixed build in the first place. It's bizarre that they apparently don't have their pipeline sorted out yet after all this time.


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I honestly don't think NC should breath down anyone's neck too hard since they don't seem to grasp the western way of doing things for the most part. I do want current state of the game to be improved before adding more on top though-you can't build on a shaky foundation and expect things to hold up. There is a lot of quality of life changes that should be made before going forward. There needs to be a big improvement in QA. Giving us half cooked food is gonna get really old really fast.


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In the beginning they seemed to have such a good grasp though. I don't understand why it's so hard to realize how important a "first impression" with mmos is. There have been so many examples to look at, games that have crashed and burnt and why so. It is insulting when you see the playerbase get ignored about some major issues though (Espers for example) due to outrigh stubbornness.


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Thanks for responding and it's good to know something is coming even if it is soon™.


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IMO, this happens because of a general idea in gaming today that will end up killing the gaming industry. The idea is, "Why fix now when we can fix later...when we already have their money." I understand MMO's are somewhat different than other games but MMO companies still suffer from this capitalist point of view; money first, quality later. The industry has flipped priorities from "making quality entretainment" first to "screw quality, we just want your money". The proof of this lies when we compare independent games to mainstream games. Independent games are, for the most part, labors of love. The game-maker is intent on creating an enjoyable game without thinking about how much money they're gonna make. This does not mean independent game-makers don't expect to make money off of their creations. Of course they do! The difference is that money is not their driving force. It is not their main motive or source of motivational energy. Their energy comes from the desire to create a well-made, complete game that will hopefully be appreciated by their target audience. In psychological terms this is what is known as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Self-Determination Theory), which also relates to primary and secondary reinforcements (B.F. Skinner's Operational Conditioning Theory). Money is an extrinsic motivator and secondary reinforcement, whereas that feeling of accomplishment you experience when you know you have succesfully completed an endeavor is an intrinsic motivator and a primary reinforcement. It is generally considered and accepted by the psychological community that intrinsic motivation and primary reinforcements are more effective than extrinsic motivation and secondary reinforcements. However, western society has evolved to where individuals and institutions alike pay more attention to extrinsic motivators and secondary reinforcements. That is why athletes no longer compete to feel accomplished or because they love the game. They compete to get the most endorsements and the juiciest contracts. Why musical "artists" no longer write music to express and share their feelings or to retaliate against the current establishment. They write whatever the recording company thinks is gonna sell the most cd's/downloads/concert tickets. Why the amount of really, REALLY good, praise-deserving games has significantly reduced because publishers will push whatever crap they think will sell, even if that means using and reusing the same formula, over and over and over again (e.g., Modern Warfare and all you "can't reinvent the wheel"-type thinkers).


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I don't need to argue about it though. The esper issue was not at all entitlement. It was a poor vision of a class that did not belong in this game and they got what they wanted and rightly so. When you provide a service you are at your customer's mercy in so many ways. I dunno how theres any debate for that lol. It's less about bugs really but the things design wise that made it from beta to live after metric tons of feedback about how it wasn't gonna be acceptable is just a bit telling of mentalities in the company. I did see that Carbine is hiring a QA lead so maybe thats a good thing for the future.


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That's probably true, but I have a feeling it's more due to people's reliance on immediacy conflicting with their desire (especially here in the US) to have everything that does everything. We, as modern, first world people, want to eat our cake and keep it, too. We want more things that intrinsically require more complexity, but we aren't willing to wait for them to be there or deal with the consequences of that speed. Divorced as we are from the production (via the extinction of the craftsman as the primary means of production whose authority was never questioned) we aren't appreciative of the necessary investment of those who produce our goods. Nottino's point is to understand that production to a degree and say that, in terms of raw numbers, removing people from the hypothetical task of "content drops" frees them up for the hypothetical task of "bug fixing". My disagreement with that point is that, fundamentally, people aren't lego bricks and these tasks aren't cars on an assembly line (much as we've adapted the analogy). Adding more people to the task does not necessarily produce faster or more accurate results; these people aren't factory workers screwing bolts onto an engine who can be duplicated on another line or whose work can be divided to speed up production. In essence, bug fixing and content dropping aren't bricks on one corner of the yard that need moved and stacked on the other. The larger point, I think for people less aware of the issue of conservation that Nottino is trying to articulate, leads to people wanting a game that already does everything perfectly right now. That's simply not feasible, and rather insulting to the developers who've put so much work into this game. I don't think it's fair to lump Nottino into that camp, though. He's asking whether or not a re-allocation of resources would feasibly affect the build quality of outgoing new content. While I don't imagine it does, it's probably also fair to say both of us could be wrong, and also that it's very difficult to know. It's fair to raise the point, at least.


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honestly if it was for a short period it would be better if they did until things are in a better state. go back to every month after a few months of fixes =). It sucks, but long term life vs short term gratification is basically what that comes down to.


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