They scheduled weekend mass tests and guess what happened?
now that you mention it, looks like there are two Saturdays (previously just noticed the actual event time) in there so that is something. I would step back a little and take another looking at the % of player base turnout that had been mentioned (don't recall if by you or someone else). In this same thread, it was mentioned only 20% of the players engage in null sec, let alone large fleet fights, so in reality, the percentage of affected players who are testing this issue may be much higher then the fraction of a percent of the total playerbase that was brought up. As the saying goes though; "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics"
On another, perhaps more positive note, they mentioned their "thin client" recently (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?pid=4315910&id=17614129393) which appeared to run about 250 (detailed on the first page of comments) or so accounts. It seems like 2 of these would satisfy their target testing numbers. I wonder, if the lag is perceived to be server side, how these thin clients differ for the purpose of testing and how closely their client scripting can simulate real users/use cases. At any rate, that is the sort of thing that I, as a customer, like to see in regards to them trying to sort out the issue. I think that at least their image could benefit from more posts like that which show some idea of what is going on.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Originally posted by Gardavil2 I am going to hate myself for sticking my nose in this, but I care about EvE so here goes...
This isn't the fist time there have been major Lag issues. It has happened before in the past and CCP in my opinion has always busted their tails to try to fix it. The fix wasn't always fast to be implemented, but it WAS fixed for the most part. I say this not because I have experienced the current Lag, but the times of Lag that occurred due to certain patches and expansions from 2004 through 2008. Yes this happened before. As a Player that subscribed to EvE for over 4 years... I will say that I see this as primarily CCP's responsibility AND also the Players responsibility since it is in the Player's best interest to work with CCP to fix the current Lag issues. Players have always been the Testers in EvE, that's how it's set up. It takes two to do the bug fixing dance. If the current Players of EvE want the Lag issues fixed, then start spending more time on the Test Server (Singularity) and HELP CCP speed up the process. If the Lag is as bad as you say it is, then most of what you can do right now on Tranquility is a frustrating mess anyway. Yes you pay for the game, but if you enjoy PvP and Fleet Battles, and you are good with noticing details and can file bug reports, then take some time to lend a hand. It is your own best interest to do so. The Lag issues may not be directly tied to the Fleet Ops, so Players that do many different activities in EvE are needed on Singularity to discern the cause. One thing is for certain... the cause will most probably not be discovered and fixed with less than a thousand Players on Singularity, not with how the Servers are set up now. It make takes a Testing group of thousands to help CCP determine and fix the cause(s). I can not help as much as many of you can. I suck at EvE style combat, I suck at PvP, and I would end up contributing nothing of importance as far as the fleet combat testing goes. That's the only reason I left EvE a couple years ago... I got tired of banging my head against the wall trying to do well in a game I shouldn't have been playing in the first place. I could just be there as a "target" (I am rather good at that lol), but I can no longer afford to pay for EvE so even though I see the importance of Players getting involved I will not be there (my Wife and Daughters now play a MMO and all of my money is going to those subs dangblastedall). {I will see what I can do to get the money for at least one month's sub to come back and lend a hand myself.} I wish I could help with the Testing, I would be logged into Singularity constantly. Maybe most of you can though, not just for your own benefit, but for the benefit of your Corp mates and the entire game as well. Support the game and put your money where you want to be in EvE in the future by helping to test now, or just *hope* CCP gets lucky and fixes it fast. Remember, a MMO is not just the Devs, it's the Devs and the Players working and playing together that makes a MMO great. Your choice.
Clearly, this all the players fault.
Lag has always been fixed in the past because CCP has always been focused on developing and improving the mechanics of the core game. This is no longer the case. Today they are focused on things that have little to do with the core features and this is what people are upset about. Fix the base then expand, and don't build on a broken base. No one was really upset about these plans until it became clear that the base features where not working as intended. Going on sisi will in no way address this.
I said the following:
"I will say that I see this as primarily CCP's responsibility AND...."
Since my post was addressed primarily to Players on how they could help get this issue resolved, I did not really get after CCP about why they screwed up and how. I was going to do that in another post and real life got in the way. I had a funeral to go to unexpectedly for an old friend this morning. We had not received notice of his death until this morning. Real life always takes priority over my MMO time.
CCP has screwed up. Instead of maintaining their focus on EvE, where it should be, they have allowed themselves to become distracted by other projects or EvE content that is not Core Content. The Devs of EvE, who have been Players in the past of other MMOs should know better than to let this happen. Now I will address my comments to them since I am not allowed to do so on the official EvE forums themselves...
To CCP:
So CCP, if you read this, than take this to heart... If you allow yourselves to forget your current customers in an attempt to attract new customers with content you don't have yet, you will fail. ALL MMOs Teams that attempt this fail. You must maintain what you have right now for the benefit of the customers you have right now. If you forget this simple fact of MMO gaming management You will lose some of your most loyal customers and you will pay a hefty public relations and MMO reputation cost in the process. Now that EvE is launched your proiority must always be to maintain and fix WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE and then, and ONLY then, do you work on new stuff. I have always supported you in acting this way, in managing EvE this way and I personally never have criticized you for doing what you should be doing. I understood that it was OK for new content to be sparse sometimes and take awhile to be released because you were taking care of the current EvE client first. Now according to many Players you have stopped keeping EvE as a whole maintained because you are working on other projects. Bad idea CCP, you should know better by now. Don't let your Team get distracted. Don't forget what is important: The Players and the Game itself TODAY, not in a month or two from now, a time that we may not see in real life due to real life itself. Other Developers in another MMO years ago sacrificed their current Player base to chase after a dream... and that dream ultimately proved to be nightmare. Please don't make a similar mistake.
And I am not saying this as a customer that right now is lagged to hell and back ingame. I cannot afford to subscribe to EvE and I suck so much at EvE finance that I have never been able to earn enough ISK ingame to pay for my EvE time. I am saying this a former customer whose profession was made obsolete by new content, a former customer that really does still care about you guys and gals at CCP, a customer that still loves EvE for what it is even if I can not and should not play it, and as a customer that paid you subscriptions on several accounts for 3 to 4 years... I have "invested" in EvE and I want to see it continue to succeed. I want to see the current and the future customers... the Players of EvE... to continue to enjoy what I personally feel is the best MMO in existence.
CCP, fix the REAL problem, your current design priority list. Make EvE as a whole your priority, not the other projects or minor content. Do this and this whole current hub-hub will go away... because the Players will be happy your back on top of things again.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I don't normally post here but this issue (and thread) has started to go out of control.
First of all let's not forget the OP. This thread is about the player reaction from CCP asking players to vote for them in some game developer competition. We kind of drifted off into a completely other discussion about how it is the players responsibility to test the game, which is not what this thread is about. Players right now are upset at seeing that very few developers are actually working on Eve, you know the space ship part, and a massive chunk are working on projects that many consider to be fluff. At the same time Eve is currently much more unstable than it used to be, lag appears to be getting worse, not better. This is not a new problem. I have been playing Eve for nearly 4 years and can tell you that I have never seen one patch make the game so unstable for so long. Less than a year ago we could easily have 300+ fights, believe I know, I participated in them. Now after Dominon and Tyrannis we have seen fights with 200 people get plauged with lag, node crashes from small amounts of people in unreinforced systems and the latest big fight (around 500 to 700 depending on who you ask) with a complete node meltdown. It was deysnc galore. This is not new, we have never seen the came digress like this in the past.
Secondly, I have to address who's reponsibility this whole problem is. Many of you are arguing that it is the players responsibility to go to the test server to help out to solve this problem. My issue with this is different than most. I don't see why it is beneficial to look at a single case scenario with everything setup by CCP. Its hard for me to believe that CCP does not keep track of large fights, hell most of the time one of the developers shows up in system. The amount of information they gain from these fights must be greater than those test scenarios (there has to be another reason for the reinforced nodes).
Why should you lump the blame on the players? Why is it my job to go onto the test server to fix the very thing that CCP seemed to fix (at least toned down the problem) a little less than a year ago? I understand if you are happy with Eve right now, especially if these problems don't affect you. The problem is that they affect a large portion of the Eve community, the part that CCP loves to talke about, 0.0 and low sec (although sometimes high sec is affected). 18 months is a long time and if things don't change, especially with a community like Eve, we might start to see subscriptions drop for the first time.
------------------- If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
I find it absolutely astonishing that people for even a moment think that CCP does not care about lag. Lag is their cross to bear with a single shard setup, simple solution for other MMO's; setup more servers. EVE does not have this luxury.
I think where CCP has fallen down is simple communication. The lag in large fleet battles after Dominion is serious enough that there should be a consistent line of communication to the community to it's status. Then of course there is over communication, as demonstrated by CCP Zulu's recent blog. When you have bread-and-butter issues like lag plaguing your game what you don't do is tell everyone how you have most of your staff working on "other things". People don't/won't understand how these people would not be able to help fix lag even if they were available. That was the absolutely worse time for Zulu to put up that blog. Let's not forget that little gem of a blog was posted after CSM got back from Iceland with not many kind words. All around bad timing and it honestly brings into question Zulu's competence.
Like most of you guys I've been in game for a while, I don't help with mass testing. The reason I don't because it's not my job. Sad I know but in every other MMO I played I don't remember devs ever telling it's customers they can't fix a problem because no one will help beta new code on their test server. I know they are "working" on tools to help elevate the need for mass testing on sisi. Sorry CCP but those tools should've been in place either before Dominion or part of the launch. Instead of this constant plea for more mass testers, which honestly almost feels like they are scape goating the problem on to the players. Do I think CCP will fix the lag? Yes (pre-Dominion level), it's a matter of when not if and IMO they have already taken WAY to much time.
Originally posted by Gardavil2 If you allow yourselves to forget your current customers in an attempt to attract new customers with content you don't have yet, you will fail. ALL MMOs Teams that attempt this fail. You must maintain what you have right now for the benefit of the customers you have right now.
This is entirely not true.
Players stay with the game for couple months only, and those numbers are pretty much the same for all MMOs.
The game can live off new players only(considering you want growing playerbase) and as stated, investing time into developing core features, is not efficient.
I understand your point of view, but the numbers speak different.
Cant see any lag in EvE from where i play. Also to those who refuse to help test things on the test server.....thats simply apathy on your part. How do you expect them to fix the lag caused by 1000 v 1000 fleet battles if you are too lazy to help ccp simulate the conditions?
Not that it matters really, in 12 months time eve will still be breaking records and everyone excluding the vocal minoraty will be happy playing.
As to the actuall topic. Yea it is a bit cheeky.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Not obligated, but if you keep screaming from hell to high heaven about a problem you might as well help fix it FASTER rather than just complaining about it all day long.
Longtime players are worried because CCP broke large fleet combat; the lag when you get 100+ ship battles is very often unplayable and it is those battles (and the massive alliance wars they represent) that make EVE, EVE. Without them, EVE is largely a sub-par spreadsheet program. (yeah small scale pvp is fun too, but I can get that in a lot of games with a lot less time investment than it takes in EVE)
The worry is that CCP is basically ignoring that problem in favor of dragging in shiny new customers with DUST and Incarna; I see it as a completely justified worry really. It's not hysteria to be worried that a company with very limited resources is admitting that the biggest concern of the current playerbase is way down the priority list for the next 18 months.
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Not obligated, but if you keep screaming from hell to high heaven about a problem you might as well help fix it FASTER rather than just complaining about it all day long.
This is so wrong on so many levels!
Like it's allready said a thousand times before, a company delivers a product, a customer buys a product, if product fails for whatever reason, it is the companies duty to fix the problem, whatever that is. It is in no way the responsibility of the customer to fix, help fix, test to get a fix or whatnot. (look good what I wrote here: test to get a fix, not test the fix)
The only responsibility of the customer is to make the problem known to the company and check the fix to see if it is satisfactory, if not send it back until the fix sticks.
I bought a car few months back. It was turning slightly to the right, not a big problem but it would become one if it stayed like that coz it would damage 1 wheel faster then the other 3.
I made this problem known to my garage.
I did not have to do testrides with my car to provide data on the right turning, I did not get a wrench to try and fix the damn thing myself (I know how to pop a hood, but that is the extend of the technical knowledge of my car), I did not have to fill out multiple forms with questionairs in regards to my cars problem.
The only thing I had to do is clearly explain the problem and a day later I got it back and it was fixed to my satisfaction.
At no point in time was the delivery of the fix my responsibility!
Only the notification of the problem and the acceptance of the fix was my responsibility.
There was allready a crazy shift in responsibility of mmorpgs companies when beta testing phase changed from an internally funded testing phase to what it is now, a by the public payed external testing phase! (Insane imo).
Now you want even the finshed product to be payed and maintained by the consumers?
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Problem is the problem is a eve one. No other mmo works in the same way as eve with similar numbers so how do you sujest ccp fix this?
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Originally posted by HYPERI0N Originally posted by AzurePrower What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems. Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun. People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Problem is the problem is a eve one. No other mmo works in the same way as eve with similar numbers so how do you sujest ccp fix this?
Again. Not my problem or any one else's problem. It's CCP's problem that THEY have to figure out a solution for if they intend to keep THEIR paying customers.
I'm really amazed at the number of thoughtful well written post that have come out of this thread. Especially by people that rarely post here and have very low post counts. I think it say's much about CCP and EVE.
For the record, I think the lag is getting worse on the server and that it is not a static problem. I also think CCP is aware of this and cares about it, but they are between a rock and a hard place and have made the decision that going puplic with there problem would only make it worse.
If you think about it, this game and every thing about it was built on Null Sec theatrics. From BOB to Goons and a list that really goes on and on. It pretty niave to think it can continue to have success with Incarna and Dust as it's flagship features.
I'm starting to think, as a player who cares, maybe I should give CCP the benefit of the doubt and show a little patience.
Yes I know, they have given almost no reason to think this way after last few year but I'm still starting to think it.
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Problem is the problem is a eve one. No other mmo works in the same way as eve with similar numbers so how do you sujest ccp fix this?
A good start might be for them to actually start putting some priority into fixing the bugs that players have already (repeatedly) reported before they whine that the players aren't helping them.
There are bugs on the tracker that over 5 YEARS old.
i've only really noticed lag on the large fleet actions.. changing your in game settings for these is common practice and does work fairly well, brackets off and effects off etc. It is worth mentioning i think, that this game has been continously growing, continually increasing the number of concurrent users, so while lag is an issue for some, not for all by any means, there are some that don't venture out of high sec and think Jita is what lag is all about! Used to be, peak rate was 24k or so players online, now its 30+k during the quiet times and over 54k at peak playing times... but i wonder if some of this hate isnt really because Eve is doing as well as it is, you get more hate for WoW, but thats because it has over 11m players, Eve only has 350k or so, seems like the more successful a game is, the more a certain.. vocal minority.. spout out the hate.. some of it is easy to spot though, the problems they 'advertise' are often out of context, which usually means they read about it rather than actually encountered it...
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
Problem is the problem is a eve one. No other mmo works in the same way as eve with similar numbers so how do you sujest ccp fix this?
Again. Not my problem or any one else's problem. It's CCP's problem that THEY have to figure out a solution for if they intend to keep THEIR paying customers.
A rather poor dodge here. Ok let me rephrase the question then!
If you were a CCP dev how would YOU go about fixing the lag without using the playerbase to help stress test.
Also have to question your real motive here as its pretty obviouse you dont play eve.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Then I would use them for more then just shooting civ lasers....
According to that link, the thin client was running 250 ships. As I said previously, if the lag is server side, I can't imagine the differences in the 'thin client" being significant enough as to not reproduce issues. Given the nature of the planned mass tests, they goal seems to be more about jumping fleets into each other or jumping into gate camps so it would seem that could be handled by a couple of these thin clients. Just my pedestrian observation though.
Perhaps they are already doing this and qazyman's assessment about communications is spot on. One can only hope that is the case right?
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
i've only really noticed lag on the large fleet actions.. changing your in game settings for these is common practice and does work fairly well, brackets off and effects off etc. It is worth mentioning i think, that this game has been continously growing, continually increasing the number of concurrent users, so while lag is an issue for some, not for all by any means,
I'm sorry, but that is a mistaken set of beliefs.
The various setting gimmicks are the *baseline* for all serious fleet actions, not what is causing the lag problems. Everyone who knows what they are doing (or at least follows orders) is already turning off all brackets, all notifications, playing on lowest video settings, turning off in game chat and playing with weapons on manual etc. It occasionally means you have a slide show and get to fire a few times instead of getting the BSOD. When everyone has done that and *everyone* on a 100+ plus voice chat has the same experience, it is a whole lot closer to all than some.
Then I would use them for more then just shooting civ lasers....
According to that link, the thin client was running 250 ships. As I said previously, if the lag is server side, I can't imagine the differences in the 'thin client" being significant enough as to not reproduce issues. Given the nature of the planned mass tests, they goal seems to be more about jumping fleets into each other or jumping into gate camps so it would seem that could be handled by a couple of these thin clients. Just my pedestrian observation though.
Perhaps they are already doing this and qazyman's assessment about communications is spot on. One can only hope that is the case right?
That picture is very funny
And if the problem is server side then thin clients may be a good idea.
Oh and thanks for actually answering my question without dodging.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Comments
now that you mention it, looks like there are two Saturdays (previously just noticed the actual event time) in there so that is something. I would step back a little and take another looking at the % of player base turnout that had been mentioned (don't recall if by you or someone else). In this same thread, it was mentioned only 20% of the players engage in null sec, let alone large fleet fights, so in reality, the percentage of affected players who are testing this issue may be much higher then the fraction of a percent of the total playerbase that was brought up. As the saying goes though; "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics"
On another, perhaps more positive note, they mentioned their "thin client" recently (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?pid=4315910&id=17614129393) which appeared to run about 250 (detailed on the first page of comments) or so accounts. It seems like 2 of these would satisfy their target testing numbers. I wonder, if the lag is perceived to be server side, how these thin clients differ for the purpose of testing and how closely their client scripting can simulate real users/use cases. At any rate, that is the sort of thing that I, as a customer, like to see in regards to them trying to sort out the issue. I think that at least their image could benefit from more posts like that which show some idea of what is going on.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Ah...finally you are getting what the relation between CCP and players is.
So they tell us to FO and we are wrong for not doing more to help them.
TBH I'm having a hard time seeing the apathy.
(And no Gdemami I'm not looking forward to your " I told you so thread" = ] )
"...I will be paying with PLEX in the future."
Sweet. I hope there are lots more people thinking this way, I'd love for the price of plex to go up. Anything that gets me more isk/dollar is great.
Imagined slights and the spite you feel resulting from them isn't going to fix the game for you.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
I said the following:
"I will say that I see this as primarily CCP's responsibility AND...."
Since my post was addressed primarily to Players on how they could help get this issue resolved, I did not really get after CCP about why they screwed up and how. I was going to do that in another post and real life got in the way. I had a funeral to go to unexpectedly for an old friend this morning. We had not received notice of his death until this morning. Real life always takes priority over my MMO time.
CCP has screwed up. Instead of maintaining their focus on EvE, where it should be, they have allowed themselves to become distracted by other projects or EvE content that is not Core Content. The Devs of EvE, who have been Players in the past of other MMOs should know better than to let this happen. Now I will address my comments to them since I am not allowed to do so on the official EvE forums themselves...
To CCP:
So CCP, if you read this, than take this to heart... If you allow yourselves to forget your current customers in an attempt to attract new customers with content you don't have yet, you will fail. ALL MMOs Teams that attempt this fail. You must maintain what you have right now for the benefit of the customers you have right now. If you forget this simple fact of MMO gaming management You will lose some of your most loyal customers and you will pay a hefty public relations and MMO reputation cost in the process. Now that EvE is launched your proiority must always be to maintain and fix WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE and then, and ONLY then, do you work on new stuff. I have always supported you in acting this way, in managing EvE this way and I personally never have criticized you for doing what you should be doing. I understood that it was OK for new content to be sparse sometimes and take awhile to be released because you were taking care of the current EvE client first. Now according to many Players you have stopped keeping EvE as a whole maintained because you are working on other projects. Bad idea CCP, you should know better by now. Don't let your Team get distracted. Don't forget what is important: The Players and the Game itself TODAY, not in a month or two from now, a time that we may not see in real life due to real life itself. Other Developers in another MMO years ago sacrificed their current Player base to chase after a dream... and that dream ultimately proved to be nightmare. Please don't make a similar mistake.
And I am not saying this as a customer that right now is lagged to hell and back ingame. I cannot afford to subscribe to EvE and I suck so much at EvE finance that I have never been able to earn enough ISK ingame to pay for my EvE time. I am saying this a former customer whose profession was made obsolete by new content, a former customer that really does still care about you guys and gals at CCP, a customer that still loves EvE for what it is even if I can not and should not play it, and as a customer that paid you subscriptions on several accounts for 3 to 4 years... I have "invested" in EvE and I want to see it continue to succeed. I want to see the current and the future customers... the Players of EvE... to continue to enjoy what I personally feel is the best MMO in existence.
CCP, fix the REAL problem, your current design priority list. Make EvE as a whole your priority, not the other projects or minor content. Do this and this whole current hub-hub will go away... because the Players will be happy your back on top of things again.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I don't normally post here but this issue (and thread) has started to go out of control.
First of all let's not forget the OP. This thread is about the player reaction from CCP asking players to vote for them in some game developer competition. We kind of drifted off into a completely other discussion about how it is the players responsibility to test the game, which is not what this thread is about. Players right now are upset at seeing that very few developers are actually working on Eve, you know the space ship part, and a massive chunk are working on projects that many consider to be fluff. At the same time Eve is currently much more unstable than it used to be, lag appears to be getting worse, not better. This is not a new problem. I have been playing Eve for nearly 4 years and can tell you that I have never seen one patch make the game so unstable for so long. Less than a year ago we could easily have 300+ fights, believe I know, I participated in them. Now after Dominon and Tyrannis we have seen fights with 200 people get plauged with lag, node crashes from small amounts of people in unreinforced systems and the latest big fight (around 500 to 700 depending on who you ask) with a complete node meltdown. It was deysnc galore. This is not new, we have never seen the came digress like this in the past.
Secondly, I have to address who's reponsibility this whole problem is. Many of you are arguing that it is the players responsibility to go to the test server to help out to solve this problem. My issue with this is different than most. I don't see why it is beneficial to look at a single case scenario with everything setup by CCP. Its hard for me to believe that CCP does not keep track of large fights, hell most of the time one of the developers shows up in system. The amount of information they gain from these fights must be greater than those test scenarios (there has to be another reason for the reinforced nodes).
Why should you lump the blame on the players? Why is it my job to go onto the test server to fix the very thing that CCP seemed to fix (at least toned down the problem) a little less than a year ago? I understand if you are happy with Eve right now, especially if these problems don't affect you. The problem is that they affect a large portion of the Eve community, the part that CCP loves to talke about, 0.0 and low sec (although sometimes high sec is affected). 18 months is a long time and if things don't change, especially with a community like Eve, we might start to see subscriptions drop for the first time.
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If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
I find it absolutely astonishing that people for even a moment think that CCP does not care about lag. Lag is their cross to bear with a single shard setup, simple solution for other MMO's; setup more servers. EVE does not have this luxury.
I think where CCP has fallen down is simple communication. The lag in large fleet battles after Dominion is serious enough that there should be a consistent line of communication to the community to it's status. Then of course there is over communication, as demonstrated by CCP Zulu's recent blog. When you have bread-and-butter issues like lag plaguing your game what you don't do is tell everyone how you have most of your staff working on "other things". People don't/won't understand how these people would not be able to help fix lag even if they were available. That was the absolutely worse time for Zulu to put up that blog. Let's not forget that little gem of a blog was posted after CSM got back from Iceland with not many kind words. All around bad timing and it honestly brings into question Zulu's competence.
Like most of you guys I've been in game for a while, I don't help with mass testing. The reason I don't because it's not my job. Sad I know but in every other MMO I played I don't remember devs ever telling it's customers they can't fix a problem because no one will help beta new code on their test server. I know they are "working" on tools to help elevate the need for mass testing on sisi. Sorry CCP but those tools should've been in place either before Dominion or part of the launch. Instead of this constant plea for more mass testers, which honestly almost feels like they are scape goating the problem on to the players. Do I think CCP will fix the lag? Yes (pre-Dominion level), it's a matter of when not if and IMO they have already taken WAY to much time.
HTFU CCP!
This is entirely not true.
Players stay with the game for couple months only, and those numbers are pretty much the same for all MMOs.
The game can live off new players only(considering you want growing playerbase) and as stated, investing time into developing core features, is not efficient.
I understand your point of view, but the numbers speak different.
Cant see any lag in EvE from where i play. Also to those who refuse to help test things on the test server.....thats simply apathy on your part. How do you expect them to fix the lag caused by 1000 v 1000 fleet battles if you are too lazy to help ccp simulate the conditions?
Not that it matters really, in 12 months time eve will still be breaking records and everyone excluding the vocal minoraty will be happy playing.
As to the actuall topic. Yea it is a bit cheeky.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
What I am seeing from the die hard EVE fans in this thread is people should work for CCP and pay them to help fix their problems.
Maybe in a completely bizarre world where bean counting is fun.
People want to play a good game. They are not obligated to help fix the game. But they are entitled to a working product. If they aren't presented with a working product. Then only CCP is to blame when their player base take their money else where.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
Not obligated, but if you keep screaming from hell to high heaven about a problem you might as well help fix it FASTER rather than just complaining about it all day long.
This is not a game.
Longtime players are worried because CCP broke large fleet combat; the lag when you get 100+ ship battles is very often unplayable and it is those battles (and the massive alliance wars they represent) that make EVE, EVE. Without them, EVE is largely a sub-par spreadsheet program. (yeah small scale pvp is fun too, but I can get that in a lot of games with a lot less time investment than it takes in EVE)
The worry is that CCP is basically ignoring that problem in favor of dragging in shiny new customers with DUST and Incarna; I see it as a completely justified worry really. It's not hysteria to be worried that a company with very limited resources is admitting that the biggest concern of the current playerbase is way down the priority list for the next 18 months.
This is so wrong on so many levels!
Like it's allready said a thousand times before, a company delivers a product, a customer buys a product, if product fails for whatever reason, it is the companies duty to fix the problem, whatever that is. It is in no way the responsibility of the customer to fix, help fix, test to get a fix or whatnot. (look good what I wrote here: test to get a fix, not test the fix)
The only responsibility of the customer is to make the problem known to the company and check the fix to see if it is satisfactory, if not send it back until the fix sticks.
I bought a car few months back. It was turning slightly to the right, not a big problem but it would become one if it stayed like that coz it would damage 1 wheel faster then the other 3.
I made this problem known to my garage.
I did not have to do testrides with my car to provide data on the right turning, I did not get a wrench to try and fix the damn thing myself (I know how to pop a hood, but that is the extend of the technical knowledge of my car), I did not have to fill out multiple forms with questionairs in regards to my cars problem.
The only thing I had to do is clearly explain the problem and a day later I got it back and it was fixed to my satisfaction.
At no point in time was the delivery of the fix my responsibility!
Only the notification of the problem and the acceptance of the fix was my responsibility.
There was allready a crazy shift in responsibility of mmorpgs companies when beta testing phase changed from an internally funded testing phase to what it is now, a by the public payed external testing phase! (Insane imo).
Now you want even the finshed product to be payed and maintained by the consumers?
Problem is the problem is a eve one. No other mmo works in the same way as eve with similar numbers so how do you sujest ccp fix this?
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Again. Not my problem or any one else's problem. It's CCP's problem that THEY have to figure out a solution for if they intend to keep THEIR paying customers.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
I'm really amazed at the number of thoughtful well written post that have come out of this thread. Especially by people that rarely post here and have very low post counts. I think it say's much about CCP and EVE.
For the record, I think the lag is getting worse on the server and that it is not a static problem. I also think CCP is aware of this and cares about it, but they are between a rock and a hard place and have made the decision that going puplic with there problem would only make it worse.
If you think about it, this game and every thing about it was built on Null Sec theatrics. From BOB to Goons and a list that really goes on and on. It pretty niave to think it can continue to have success with Incarna and Dust as it's flagship features.
I'm starting to think, as a player who cares, maybe I should give CCP the benefit of the doubt and show a little patience.
Yes I know, they have given almost no reason to think this way after last few year but I'm still starting to think it.
A good start might be for them to actually start putting some priority into fixing the bugs that players have already (repeatedly) reported before they whine that the players aren't helping them.
There are bugs on the tracker that over 5 YEARS old.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
wrong these are on the way to became features
BestSigEver :P
i've only really noticed lag on the large fleet actions.. changing your in game settings for these is common practice and does work fairly well, brackets off and effects off etc. It is worth mentioning i think, that this game has been continously growing, continually increasing the number of concurrent users, so while lag is an issue for some, not for all by any means, there are some that don't venture out of high sec and think Jita is what lag is all about! Used to be, peak rate was 24k or so players online, now its 30+k during the quiet times and over 54k at peak playing times... but i wonder if some of this hate isnt really because Eve is doing as well as it is, you get more hate for WoW, but thats because it has over 11m players, Eve only has 350k or so, seems like the more successful a game is, the more a certain.. vocal minority.. spout out the hate.. some of it is easy to spot though, the problems they 'advertise' are often out of context, which usually means they read about it rather than actually encountered it...
A rather poor dodge here. Ok let me rephrase the question then!
If you were a CCP dev how would YOU go about fixing the lag without using the playerbase to help stress test.
Also have to question your real motive here as its pretty obviouse you dont play eve.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
oh, oh, pick me! pick me!
I would set up a few of these bad boys: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?pid=4315910&id=17614129393
Then I would use them for more then just shooting civ lasers....
According to that link, the thin client was running 250 ships. As I said previously, if the lag is server side, I can't imagine the differences in the 'thin client" being significant enough as to not reproduce issues. Given the nature of the planned mass tests, they goal seems to be more about jumping fleets into each other or jumping into gate camps so it would seem that could be handled by a couple of these thin clients. Just my pedestrian observation though.
Perhaps they are already doing this and qazyman's assessment about communications is spot on. One can only hope that is the case right?
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
I'm sorry, but that is a mistaken set of beliefs.
The various setting gimmicks are the *baseline* for all serious fleet actions, not what is causing the lag problems. Everyone who knows what they are doing (or at least follows orders) is already turning off all brackets, all notifications, playing on lowest video settings, turning off in game chat and playing with weapons on manual etc. It occasionally means you have a slide show and get to fire a few times instead of getting the BSOD. When everyone has done that and *everyone* on a 100+ plus voice chat has the same experience, it is a whole lot closer to all than some.
That picture is very funny
And if the problem is server side then thin clients may be a good idea.
Oh and thanks for actually answering my question without dodging.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981