Release Notes for Build 19.20090702.2 ~ 7/7/09
By
300_below,
Posted on: 2009-07-07 15:25 in The Global Training Room Test Server
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For things like this, that have a very dramatic impact on game play, cause crashing, affect a lot of people, can be used as major exploits, etc...it'd be really helpful if you could bring those issues to the forums where they have a chance of being immediately and directly seen by us in addition to /bug -ing them.
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Fixed 
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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This isn't directed at you BaB's, but you guys gotta get your house in order.
[/ QUOTE ]This is a really major dropped ball and was probably an ill-advised post by BAB.
It's pretty tempting to echo the "Did you guys know there's a chat bug?" Or the long-standing issue of channels not keeping their color settings during zoning, etc.
Hard not to get pretty jaded and cynical when we see a post like that.
My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
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This isn't directed at you BaB's, but you guys gotta get your house in order.
[/ QUOTE ]This is a really major dropped ball and was probably an ill-advised post by BAB.
It's pretty tempting to echo the "Did you guys know there's a chat bug?" Or the long-standing issue of channels not keeping their color settings during zoning, etc.
Hard not to get pretty jaded and cynical when we see a post like that.
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Yes, it is. But let's leave it as a mis-statement by ONE employee. I really don't know how the entire organization really did not know about this bug besides Austin.
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This isn't directed at you BaB's, but you guys gotta get your house in order.
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THIS! Also, good to know that using /bug means absolutely nothing. Note to self: give up on /bug.
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One thing where /bug can be useful is situations where location or various game states might be part of the issue, either in fixing or triggering the bug.
They've said in the past that /bug captures a lot of values and game state data when it's submitted. It may take a while for said data to churn through the process, but 2+ weeks from log to dev and 30 seconds to replicate is a lot better than hearing it on the boards and unable to reproduce.
I'm not saying this is the case for the STF bug, but more of a general thing.
Also, not saying this as an apologist, just a Non-Paragon non-NCSoft software developer who knows the values of internal logging for bugs assigned to him in his Non-Paragon Non-NCSoft job and who likes to play devil's advocate.
Edit: also, someone jokingly said this, that QA has to verify and all and couldn't get pass GW and Mako.
If they're using any sort of internal tool to insta-kill the lieuts, or to trigger a Lord Recluse spawn on an otherwise empty map of the last mission while trying to reproduce the bug, something in said tool could be preventing the bug from occurring. Thus they can't reproduce, and thus the bug doesn't get moved up.
$DEITY knows I've had to talk with some of the people from QA at my job for logging bugs caused only when certain things occur with our internal tools.
Arc #345863 - When The Bough Breaks
"Curse you Perry the Plata...wait, is that Love Handel?" - Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
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This isn't directed at you BaB's, but you guys gotta get your house in order.
[/ QUOTE ]This is a really major dropped ball and was probably an ill-advised post by BAB.
It's pretty tempting to echo the "Did you guys know there's a chat bug?" Or the long-standing issue of channels not keeping their color settings during zoning, etc.
Hard not to get pretty jaded and cynical when we see a post like that.
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Yes, it is. But let's leave it as a mis-statement by ONE employee. I really don't know how the entire organization really did not know about this bug besides Austin.
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It was more the part about using ingame features to report bugs being ineffectual that made me raise an eyebrow.
I think it explains so much when you factor in how few people use the forums and the chances of said postings being missed.
It's not that they missed one bug, but rather the explanation of why numerous bugs have gone unnoticed.
My mouth was literally hanging open when I read that statement. It's not something you expect to hear from a 5 year success. It really makes me wonder how much of the success of this game was by chance rather than by design.
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I DID bug it, and I DID post on the forums about it. I don't know what else was expected.
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And we're very appreciative that you took the time to do so. I don't want you guys to infer that bugging things in game is useless, just that it's only one avenue to bring things to our attention. We get bugs from many sources. Sometimes they come from QA, sometimes they're pulled from the forums, other times they come from PMs or even personal experiences.
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I DID bug it, and I DID post on the forums about it. I don't know what else was expected.
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And we're very appreciative that you took the time to do so. I don't want you guys to infer that bugging things in game is useless, just that it's only one avenue to bring things to our attention. We get bugs from many sources. Sometimes they come from QA, sometimes they're pulled from the forums, other times they come from PMs or even personal experiences.
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That's fair. I know that with really game-breaking stuff (the crash that happened every time you accessed the black market a couple of months back) it got fixed almost immediately after somebody sent Ghost Falcon a pm. I wouldn't bother with that route for anything else, since most of the time /bug is fine. It's just a matter of us prioritizing, too.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Well, then, as long as your here, and this is being discussed...
We Bugged and Petitioned this, and got a GM in pretty short order, but it's still a bug.
We ran the Manticore TF the other day. The team was capped at 35 and so were most of the bad guys. All but those darn level 40 Paragon Protector Elites. It was only those foes, and only in a few of the missions.
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.
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How long does Austin take to tell you there is a problem? Are we NOT supposed to /bug items this bad?
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They have to attempt to verify first, and they keep pulling GW and mako together.
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That was hilarious
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BABs said:
I've done a bit of poking around on the forums and there appears to be conflicting reports on how much of an impact this is having. Some are saying it's now impossible, others have said that it's noticeable, but still manageable. Bottom line is, we're aware of it now and we're looking into whether or not anything needs to be changed.
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Count me in as someone who noticed it, but didn't think it made the TF unmanageable or unbeatable. Yeah, it takes a bit longer to take down the towers, and you really need to make sure none of the already defeated towers get noticed by the repairmen, but it's not that bad.
Honestly, I thought it might have been a deliberate change to add some challenge to what has become a rather routine defeat strategy. 
-Esch
"I swear you could fling a man hole cover across the street and hit more notes than 90% of those idiots on American Idol" -Desmodos
"Every time you post I feel like I been hit with a fist full of smart! Thanks." - Volken re: Sucker Punch
Arc #36984 V'kta A'cha Vox'm
Don't stop /bugging!!!
There are departments and developers who do *not* read the boards and they learn about bugs that they need to know about through the /bugging process.
It may not be the quickest route, but technically, it's the most documented route.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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We ran the Manticore TF the other day. The team was capped at 35 and so were most of the bad guys. All but those darn level 40 Paragon Protector Elites. It was only those foes, and only in a few of the missions.
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You didn't just kill them like real men? That's what my team did when we hit that bug 
At one point we had four of them on us at once, it was not pretty.
Infatum on Virtueverse
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BABs said:
I've done a bit of poking around on the forums and there appears to be conflicting reports on how much of an impact this is having. Some are saying it's now impossible, others have said that it's noticeable, but still manageable. Bottom line is, we're aware of it now and we're looking into whether or not anything needs to be changed.
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Count me in as someone who noticed it, but didn't think it made the TF unmanageable or unbeatable. Yeah, it takes a bit longer to take down the towers, and you really need to make sure none of the already defeated towers get noticed by the repairmen, but it's not that bad.
Honestly, I thought it might have been a deliberate change to add some challenge to what has become a rather routine defeat strategy.
-Esch
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My biggest concern is for Master runs--you have to stack more on support than pure DPS which is where it'll cause the most problem.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
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The use of /bug is something of a bugbear - no pun intended - for me. From a user perspective logging a bug with /bug takes roughly the same steps, and has roughly the same effect, as writing the bug description to a file in a text editor and then immediately deleting it.
You fill in the bug details, submit it ... get a "bugged kthxbye" message and that's the last you ever hear of it.
Does anyone read the bugs? Do they get sent to the devs? Do they get prioritised in any meaningful way? Zombie_Man extols the virtues of /bug but as a user I see nothing to back that up. BaB's post is the only evidence we ever see that anything actually happens to these bugs.
Take the slashchat bug which was recently fixed (hurrah). I /bugged it immediately when I saw it, which was immediately because I always remap / to chat in every game I play. I'm pretty sure I bugged it on test before that issue went live. Months went by before I saw anyone mention having the same problem and then magically it was fixed.
It would be nice if there were some ... any ... acknowledgement of the bugs in the system. Something as simple as an automated in-game email that said "Your bug is a known issue" or "We couldn't reproduce your bug" or "We are working on it" would provide some reassurance that the bug tracker was something other than a giant black hole.
It should be mentioned that this game is no worse in this regard than any other game I've cared about enough to raise bugs (ie SWG).
Still no Fix to "Triumphant Insult: Chance to Disorient" IO?
This thing must have like a .1 Mag!
My level 44 tank took 5 minutes to stun a level 12 outcast for 1/2 a second!!
ArchRex Dojhrom x ?
* Sidus Loricatus: B-NRG2, S-BS/Reg, T-Fire/Ice, MM-Bots/FF, St-NRG2, Dom-Psi/NRG, Cor-Son/Traps, Cor-Ice/Kin, Ctrl-Fire/Kin, PB-LB/LA
* Arachnos Loricatus: Soldier, Widow
* Praetoria Loricatus: B-DP/Dev, Cor-Elec/Elec
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I DID bug it, and I DID post on the forums about it. I don't know what else was expected.
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And we're very appreciative that you took the time to do so. I don't want you guys to infer that bugging things in game is useless, just that it's only one avenue to bring things to our attention. We get bugs from many sources. Sometimes they come from QA, sometimes they're pulled from the forums, other times they come from PMs or even personal experiences.
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BackAlleyBrawler ,
Did you see that it was posted on the forums 8 days ago? I can link it again if you need it.
(I'm not being snarky. I'm seriously asking.)
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I DID bug it, and I DID post on the forums about it. I don't know what else was expected.
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And we're very appreciative that you took the time to do so. I don't want you guys to infer that bugging things in game is useless, just that it's only one avenue to bring things to our attention. We get bugs from many sources. Sometimes they come from QA, sometimes they're pulled from the forums, other times they come from PMs or even personal experiences.
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BackAlleyBrawler ,
Did you see that it was posted on the forums 8 days ago? I can link it again if you need it.
(I'm not being snarky. I'm seriously asking.)
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No, I didn't. I'm pretty busy here right now with Issue 16 and I don't have the luxury of being able to read every post in every thread. Most of us are lucky if we can find a couple of hours every few days to just skim through and catch what we can.
I can't say that no one knows about the bug, just that I personally hadn't heard about it and Castle hadn't heard about it either. It may be sitting in programmer land right now or our QA department might be verifying it. *shrugs*
Every time I've sent in a /bug, I've gotten email confirmation. Since the in-game bug dialog has such a limited character allotment, I'll type up the bug in wordpad with the steps to recreate, paste it, then put an expanded version in the forums, and in the email reply.
One thing I've noticed is the way some posters write their bugs. "When I was in mission Xxxx, after doing Xxx xxxx, this happened/didn't happen."
Might as well have been: "I couldn't leave my house this morning." Was it because the deadbolt wouldn't unlock? Because you went on a bender last night, and couldn't find the door? Because the garage door wouldn't open? Because your your wife tied you to the bed? 
Granted, during a TF/SF things are not always so easy to reproduce considering the actions of others, and the pace of activity. But the more info included in a bug, and more importantly, steps to reproduce are extremely helpful when trying to get someone else to recreate the same issue.
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Does anyone read the bugs? Do they get sent to the devs? Do they get prioritised in any meaningful way? Zombie_Man extols the virtues of /bug but as a user I see nothing to back that up. BaB's post is the only evidence we ever see that anything actually happens to these bugs.
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I said is was the most documented. I didn't exactly extol its virtues. 
But seriously, there are bugs listed on the official known issues list which can be fixed in the next patch or a year later. It's all a matter of prioritization (game-breaker v. annoyance) and then, when the decision is made to allocate resources (i.e., the time of a programmer) to fix it, whether it can actually be found quickly or not. And then, when found, whether it can be fixed easily or not. And if it can be found easily or fixed easily, new resources need to be allocated to debug further.
I've /bugged things that I never posted to the forums or saw posted on the forums and then saw it get fixed rather immediately (especially in Beta). I've bugged some things off and on for years before something was done (e.g., the lack of enhancement stores in Kings Row). /Bugging things work (even to use it to suggest things, there *is* a 'suggestion' button in the /petition box). It doesn't work as quickly or as often as we'd like.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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Granted, during a TF/SF things are not always so easy to reproduce considering the actions of others, and the pace of activity. But the more info included in a bug, and more importantly, steps to reproduce are extremely helpful when trying to get someone else to recreate the same issue.
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This. Every time the issue of "Are the Devs even reading the forums?" or "Is it worth /bugging?" one of the rednames comes into the conversation and asks us in no-uncertain terms to please give as much information as you possibly can about what you see, so that the bug can be tracked down (if it is even a bug at all, and not just some sort of sync issue). They've even provided us with templates with which to convey said information, because people kept asking what information the Devs wanted when we posted about these bugs.
If you're not being as helpful as you can be (giving detailed information, possibly trying to recreate the bug yourself and documenting what happened each time), don't expect your bug reports to go very far, even if they're posted on these boards. They'll start with the ones that are either gamebreaking or easily reproducable, and the bug will only fall under catagory two if they have the necessary info.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
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We ran the Manticore TF the other day. The team was capped at 35 and so were most of the bad guys. All but those darn level 40 Paragon Protector Elites. It was only those foes, and only in a few of the missions.
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You didn't just kill them like real men? That's what my team did when we hit that bug
At one point we had four of them on us at once, it was not pretty.
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I remember when this kind of thing was in the Citadel TF. The warwolf bosses were all spawning as level 35s in the 25-30 TF. I forgot about the bug and put together an All-Scrapper Citadel TF the one night. It was actually quite a bit of fun to take on the +5's; although there were quite a few deaths during the first few missions before we realized we should be paying attention to what's in each spawn.
@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
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I'm pretty busy here right now with Issue 16
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So, does this mean that there is no "Issue" 15.5? Or that it's already done, and waiting approval to go to Test?
Or for that matter, was there ever supposed to be an "Issue" 15.5? I don't recall any Dev saying that there would be, just players saying that the Devs said there would be...
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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:
If you want to preserve the droprate while still encouraging PvP and not farming:
-Keep it linked to Rep.
-Chance to Drop both on win and loss.
-Absolutely no cooldown timer after the drop. If you can kill people efficiently rapidly in the zone, you should be rewarded.
PvP recipes can still be farmed if you think about it hard enough. You just can't do it effectively with only two people. Unfortunately, this fix only has potential for rewarding the organized (I bet you just gave RMTers a big opportunity to farm)
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I'm pretty busy here right now with Issue 16
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So, does this mean that there is no "Issue" 15.5? Or that it's already done, and waiting approval to go to Test?
Or for that matter, was there ever supposed to be an "Issue" 15.5? I don't recall any Dev saying that there would be, just players saying that the Devs said there would be...
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BABs is the head of animation, so it is quite likely he is needed more with that, while there may still be minor updates that others are working with.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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How long does Austin take to tell you there is a problem? Are we NOT supposed to /bug items this bad?
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They have to attempt to verify first, and they keep pulling GW and mako together.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.