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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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.
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Not meant as an insult to BaBs, but its sad when the only dev that connects to the playerbase on any level is the animations guy. (Again, no insult BaBs, ur awesum i swearz 
)
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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.
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 game '/bug' reports go directly to QA in Austin, who shuffle through them, verify them, and add them into our bug tracking database before sending them our way where they get doled out to individuals to fix. That process can take a long time.
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Thank you BaBs!
Honestly for a long time I have been unsure the best way to get bugs and stuff to the Developers in the most expedient manner. I have done /bug and talked to the in game managers etc, and most people tell me to do that, but it never feels like that goes anywhere. I do try to post stuff on the forums but it rarely gets much of a response. (( A.) I'm not much of a bug hunter. B.) you guys got lots of things to do besides responding to every minor bug reported here.))
However having you say that, really makes things clearer to me and I will keep that in mind for all future bugs, especially in open betas and the like.
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
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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? 
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Sometimes that is all I can personally put in.. I mean I once ran a vanguard mission where the guy I was supposed to defeat Spawned in as an Ally Pet, as did his entire mob. I couldn't defeat him or fire on him at all because he was an ally.
When I bugged it. All I could say was "I went in this mission, the guy I was supposed to beat spawned as an ally."
I would have loved to have given more details but hell, I don't know why the game did that. (And did it every time I reset the mission after.) I just know, "Target Z" Was an ally and couldn't be fired on or interacted with in any way.
Now if the Devs gave me access to their code and spread sheets, I know I could track down the problem lickity split, I've taken apart a lot of video games in the past and once I know how the data is stored, organized etc, I can get through stuff like that damned fast. ( I analyze data at work on the time.) But if they gave me access to all that, then I'd be working there..
*ahem* Which I would certainly like to do. ::Glances at HR.::
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker
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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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We did. But we also bugged it. Our problem was that the the closest thing we had to a tank was an SR scrapper and Fluffy. We'd pull as best we could, but if we got more than two of them at once, it was... yeah, not pretty. The GM auto completed the first mission but we did the rest with a lot of wakeys.
We also severely exceeded the 5 death limit goal.
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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[ QUOTE ][*]Zenith Hoverbots will no longer loop their exploding death animation</li>[*]Rikti Drones will no longer loop their exploding death animation</li>[/LIST]
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Aw shucks! 
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Seconded, see my sig for details. In fact, you could run that arc as a fond farewell.
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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.
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Not meant as an insult to BaBs, but its sad when the only dev that connects to the playerbase on any level is the animations guy. (Again, no insult BaBs, ur awesum i swearz )
[/ QUOTE ]castle, the powers guy, posts often. jay, the costume designer guy, occasionally posts but his posts are always memorable, positron, the lead dev posts when time permits, honestly, compared to most mmos out there, the dev team, and i mean the actual guys making the game, not just the community relations guys, are pretty responsive. go check out some other mmo's forums for developer posts, including the 800lb gorilla and hit back with results for me. many mmos will not allow anyone other than the community relations guy speak with the forums, there is a certain business sense to that, but that isnt how things run here, and many people, including myself, kind of prefer that.
Yeah, no. The "800lbs gorilla" forums has tons of dev and community rep and little b.s. pseudo reps posting in it all the frickin' time. They actually build up reputations for being smacktards (or not) in responding and such.
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Yeah, no. The "800lbs gorilla" forums has tons of dev and community rep
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When you say that, do you mean that actual developers post and interact with the community, or that developer representatives post and interact with the community?
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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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.
*snip*
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Actually, for most of the bugs i've submitted recently, i've gotten an email letting me know they've received my bug report and are looking into it. So, if i've also petitioned it (because i need it fixed immediately, too), i'll have both a petition and a bug email waiting for my in my gmail inbox.
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Still no stf fix?
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Which STF fix were you expecting?
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I'm not sure if its been mentioned yet, but there's an issue with Rikti drones exploding repeatedly after death. This was occuring last night for all members of my team both in RWZ, and in the door missions we were running..
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I'm not sure if its been mentioned yet, but there's an issue with Rikti drones exploding repeatedly after death. This was occuring last night for all members of my team both in RWZ, and in the door missions we were running..
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Council Zenith Hoverbot's do it to.
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I'm not sure if its been mentioned yet, but there's an issue with Rikti drones exploding repeatedly after death. This was occuring last night for all members of my team both in RWZ, and in the door missions we were running..
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Council Zenith Hoverbot's do it to.
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Check out the first patch note listed on the first page of this thread.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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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*
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Awwww! C'mon Brawler, you couldn't let just a smidge of info slip about Issue 16!
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
QR
I've come across several things that are obvious bugs. Sometimes I can reproduce them and sometimes I can't. Usually they will eventually go away on their own. In general I just ask on the forums if anyone else is having a similar problem.
I've used the in-game bug reporting once or twice, especially if I don't see any mention of it in the forums. They always tell me to also report it in the forums but I rarely do.
Frankly, that's because there is no place to formally post a bug report where I'd think anyone in a position to do anything about it would read it (certainly not Tech Issues/Bugs).
When an issue goes live would seem like the perfect time but the Beta Bug-Report forums are usually locked down. To me there needs to be an "Issue xx Live Bug Reports" forum just like the Beta versions. Keep it up for 1-2 months with categorized threads that are heavily moderated. The Beta Feedback forums usually stay up but they rarely have formal bug report threads. I have posted bugs in those but have no idea if they get any attention at all.
Other than that, posting a bug to the forums really just seems like a monumental waste of time. I'll keep using the /bug. At least I know now that someone in the company will at least attempt to reproduce it and maybe put it on a list someplace.
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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.
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Like... Castle's(?) recent issue where the MM power in the new SF only worked with developers' tools enabled.
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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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.
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yeah, it was interesting (but do-able) last week I think it was. I was 30 at the start of the TF, and so those PPEs were +10 at first.
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.
Still no fix for AE missions where freeing hostages on timed missions causes them to fail I see. Does this happen on regular missions too I wonder?
The Case Against Hardcase- arc id: 438272
Clowning Around- arc id: 408447
Down the Rabbit Hole- arc id: 193055
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Not meant as an insult to BaBs, but its sad when the only dev that connects to the playerbase on any level is the animations guy. (Again, no insult BaBs, ur awesum i swearz )
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After all, we never see pohsyb, WarWitch (Attempt to summon - stands in front of a mirror and chants "Warwitch, Warwitch, WARWITCH!" :P), Ghost Falcon, SexyJ, or Positron.
I would of included Synapse and Sunfire but we seemed to of scared them off.
Quite frankly, that's a lot larger list than many other MMOs.
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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Not meant as an insult to BaBs, but its sad when the only dev that connects to the playerbase on any level is the animations guy. (Again, no insult BaBs, ur awesum i swearz )
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After all, we never see pohsyb, WarWitch (Attempt to summon - stands in front of a mirror and chants "Warwitch, Warwitch, WARWITCH!" :P), Ghost Falcon, SexyJ, or Positron.
I would of included Synapse and Sunfire but we seemed to of scared them off.
Quite frankly, that's a lot larger list than many other MMOs.
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Don't forget Castle; next to Babs he's probably the most active dev on the forums.
The devs on this game are more accessible to players than any other MMO I've heard of. Complaining about it is like a millionaire complaining that he's not a billionaire. 
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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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?
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Sometimes that is all I can personally put in.. I mean I once ran a vanguard mission where the guy I was supposed to defeat Spawned in as an Ally Pet, as did his entire mob. I couldn't defeat him or fire on him at all because he was an ally.
When I bugged it. All I could say was "I went in this mission, the guy I was supposed to beat spawned as an ally."
I would have loved to have given more details but hell, I don't know why the game did that. (And did it every time I reset the mission after.) I just know, "Target Z" Was an ally and couldn't be fired on or interacted with in any way.
Now if the Devs gave me access to their code and spread sheets, I know I could track down the problem lickity split, I've taken apart a lot of video games in the past and once I know how the data is stored, organized etc, I can get through stuff like that damned fast. ( I analyze data at work on the time.) But if they gave me access to all that, then I'd be working there..
*ahem* Which I would certainly like to do. ::Glances at HR.::
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They are currently having a similar issue with Snaptooth at the moment, I believe when he comes out of the ground for the 3rd time.
Was this Vanguard mission something recent? Did the person you were supposed to defeat spawn when you entered the mission instance, or was he spawned when another task was performed? You know, "find this", "destroy that", etc.
Did you get GM assistance to complete that mission?
As for jobs, you might want to check here.
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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*
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*Gives BaB a hug* I know you get alot of heat, as well as the other devs, but ty for the hard work buddy. I'd send a giftbasket, but only be considered a copycat. -If- I did, fruit or junkfood? (ie; carmel popcorn, etc.)
-Virtue's First Naughty Girl-
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Yeah, no. The "800lbs gorilla" forums has tons of dev and community rep
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When you say that, do you mean that actual developers post and interact with the community, or that developer representatives post and interact with the community?
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I'm not familiar with that game's forums, but I'll just ask with regard to here.
If you get a response from say Niviene do you mentally categorize that as less meaningful and important than a response from Castle? Are you inclined to be skeptical of something Niviene tells you and seek confirmation from an actual dev? or do you take it as a red name post?
If you answered those questions the way I imagine you (generic you) did. Then I think it is clear why having actual dev's post isn't all that important.
In this very thread you can see how easily the actual devs can and will miss important things. Them posting is far more of an illusion that you can connect with them and affect their workload. The chances of it actually happening are verging on insignificant for most forum postings.
Them watching the forums looking for feedback is good I guess (though near the bottom of the barrel in efficiency and akin to finding a needle in a haystack). But having them actually post is generally a waste of time, just like it would be a waste of time if one of the community reps started screwing around with the power's code
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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.
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yeah, it was interesting (but do-able) last week I think it was. I was 30 at the start of the TF, and so those PPEs were +10 at first.
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Yeah my team hit this last week. It's not an exploit so it won't get fixed anytime soon.
It took us a minute or so to figure out why our team was getting wiped out on a Heroic run of it. Nothing a little pill popping couldn't fix but it was very annoying.
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In game '/bug' reports go directly to QA in Austin, who shuffle through them, verify them, and add them into our bug tracking database before sending them our way where they get doled out to individuals to fix. That process can take a long time.
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Oh man...
I love BackAlleyBrawler, I really really do.
You just know that there's a NCSoft public relations/marketing guy somewhere going; "He said WHAT?!?!?!??"
LoL! Please don't ever change BaBs. 
Since people are talking about bugs not getting fixed and whatnot, any info on the "organ grinders" Ouroboros arc? The contact still won't let anyone pass the first mish and I was hoping it'd get fixed in I15. Stupid Ritki sabotage :P
The petition link to Save CoH:
http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes