Why delay things?

[Ceadeus]

I say this in the most genuine, least sarcastic way possible.

Why do you even bother to delay updates, DE?

Every update that gets delayed NEVER functions on release, PoE especially, and that's fine, that's perfectly understandable that certain things can't be caught till they're out in the public, but when there's always some huge bug that breaks basically everything about the update, why bother catching so much flak for delaying it and shipping it broken.  In all honesty it just makes you lose worse as devs.  Again, I'm not trying to be an a-hole, we both know that everybody makes the comments once the bugs in updates come to light; "Well why was it delayed so long then?" *cough*War Within*cough*

Really you might as well just ship it once it's in a playable state with all the content you want ready, just so long as it's not a "this bug wipes out your entire account" deal.  Yes there will be bugs and it won't be as polished as you might like it, but that's gonna be the case regardless it seems, so you could at least get the credit for being on time with updates anymore.

[Baterial]

2 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

I say this in the most genuine, least sarcastic way possible.

Why do you even bother to delay updates, DE?

BECAUSE THEY WANT UPDATES TO BE FREE FROM BUGS MAKING UPDATE BROKEN AF

[motorfirebox]

Because... if they didn't... it would be even more broken? Is this actually a question?

[Entharias]

Unless you work for DE, and you knew that PoE was ready time before the release, and DE delayed it, you can't know for *****.
Another useless post.

[Ceadeus]

Just now, motorfirebox said:

Because... if they didn't... it would be even more broken? Is this actually a question?

I don't think it gets much more broken than War Within and Plains were at launch.  Both outright didn't function for half the playerbase, both got people locked out of their accounts still a hotfix was pushed, Plains only ever lets you complete a quest and actually get your rewards about half the time.

[Shinobu_Scorpion]

I mean, unless you want it in even worse condition, sure, go for it. Don't delay that update. Just don't complain about it after.

[Ceadeus]

Just now, Shinobu_Scorpion said:

I mean, unless you want it in even worse condition, sure, go for it. Don't delay that update. Just don't complain about it after.

My point was people complain about it either way because it's broken either way.  So even if it was "more broken" nobody would notice and they'd have more time to fix the bugs that only crop up once things hit live servers.

[Ceadeus]

4 minutes ago, Nakrast said:

Unless you work for DE, and you knew that PoE was ready time before the release, and DE delayed it, you can't know for *****.
Another useless post.

Hence why I said the part about "once all the content is there and playable".  Maybe read the whole post first.  I'm not implying it was flawless before the delay, I'm saying they usually delay for "bugfixes" but then ship with gamebreaking bugs anyway.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Ceadeus

[BaIthazar]

15 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

I don't think it gets much more broken than War Within and Plains were at launch.

you do realize there are countless ways an update could be more broken than it was had they not delayed right?

the amount of flak DE would get had they released PoE with countless game crashing bugs would have been way more than what we ended up getting

Edited October 15, 2017 by BaIthazar

[Catacomb]

If it's as broken and unplayable on ship as you claim, then how bad do you think it would have been if they shipped it earlier? 

23 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

Again, I'm not trying to be an a-hole

Could have fooled me.

[Ceadeus]

Just now, BaIthazar said:

you do realize there are countless ways an update could be more broken than it was had they not delayed right?

Yes, and my point is that if it ships broken anyway, and they're already going to get hate for it being broken, they could at least save themselves a few points and ship it on time.  Nothing about the way people react is going to change because they fixed a bunch of bugs people never knew about to begin with.  So the only way they save any grace by delaying is if it actually ships fully functional.

[AXCrusnik]

R.I.P. Sad reactions.

[BaIthazar]

3 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

Yes, and my point is that if it ships broken anyway, and they're already going to get hate for it being broken, they could at least save themselves a few points and ship it on time.  Nothing about the way people react is going to change because they fixed a bunch of bugs people never knew about to begin with.  So the only way they save any grace by delaying is if it actually ships fully functional.

I'm going to put this differently.

I would much rather have a delayed product be at least somewhat playable.
rather than have it be released on schedule and be literally unplayable.

and to top it all off:

DE NEVER gave us a definitive release date.
you can't claim they delayed PoEs release if you don't even know when they were planning on releasing it in the first place

Edited October 15, 2017 by BaIthazar

[Ceadeus]

Just now, Catacomb said:

If it's as broken and unplayable on ship as you claim, then how bad do you think it would have been if they shipped it earlier? 

Could have fooled me.

Why are you saying "as you claim" like there weren't tons of forum posts about how people couldn't even get into the game?  Or how every 3rd mission ends in a disconnect and loss of rewards?

Again, I'm not ripping on them for having bugs, that's fine, my point is that they still have bugs after delay so they're getting hate for two issues instead of one.  They're not going to get less hate from the forums just because they fixed some bugs that nobody ever knew about to begin with during those delays if it still ships with bugs.  I'm just trying to help their reputation with their playerbase so they can stop getting known for delaying every update too.

[Ceadeus]

Just now, BaIthazar said:

I'm going to put this differently.

I would much rather have a delayed product be at least somewhat playable.
rather than have it be released on schedule and be literally unplayable.

and to top it all off:

DE NEVER gave us a definitive release date.
you can't claim they delayed PoEs release if you don't even know when they were planning on releasing it

They were planning a September release, I believe the 26th was projected at one point.  And as I've already said in the original post "once it's playable", and on top of that, it wasn't playable for a good number of people till 2 hotfixes in.

I'm not stupid and telling them to ship nothing.

[BaIthazar]

2 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

my point is that they still have bugs after delay so they're getting hate for two issues instead of one.

and you are failing to realize that DE would have gotten MORE hate for releasing an unplayable patch than they would for delaying it to make it playable

[Ceadeus]

Just now, BaIthazar said:

and you are failing to realize that DE would have gotten MORE hate for releasing an unplayable patch than they would for delaying it to make it playable

I literally just explained this to you.  A.  I said NOT to release something unplayable, at no point did I say to release something completely unplayable.  I said to not worry about all the little bugs and stuff since even if they fix it in closed testing a new version of that bug will probably stem out from it once it goes live and need to be fixed again. B. PoE already WAS unplayable for people, so that point is completely irrelevant.

[BaIthazar]

1 minute ago, Ceadeus said:

I literally just explained this to you.  A.  I said NOT to release something unplayable, at no point did I say to release something completely unplayable.  I said to not worry about all the little bugs and stuff since even if they fix it in closed testing a new version of that bug will probably stem out from it once it goes live and need to be fixed again. B. PoE already WAS unplayable for people, so that point is completely irrelevant.

A. The Title of your post asks: "why delay things"
suggesting not to delay updates if it's going to have bugs anyway.
but DE delays updates to minimize bugs, it's near impossible to make an update bug free, and many game breaking bugs will not be found untill released to the masses.

many of us have already answered the question you were asking in your OP, you just refuse to understand how game development works.

B. PoE was unplayable for SOME people.
it was still playable in general

[motorfirebox]

30 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

I don't think it gets much more broken than War Within and Plains were at launch.  Both outright didn't function for half the playerbase, both got people locked out of their accounts still a hotfix was pushed, Plains only ever lets you complete a quest and actually get your rewards about half the time.

It can actually be much more broken. It can fail to function for 90% of the playerbase. It can wipe accounts. It can bluescreen your computer. There's no lower limit on how bad, or how widespread, bugs can be.

[BaIthazar]

1 minute ago, motorfirebox said:

It can fail to function for 90% of the playerbase. It can wipe accounts. It can bluescreen your computer.

when I mentioned "literally unplayable" in previous posts this is what I meant..

not the modern way of using the word 'literally'

[Ceadeus]

7 minutes ago, BaIthazar said:

"many game breaking bugs will not be found untill released to the masses."

2

This.  Right here.  So, you're telling me, that it is better to work on a finite number of things, delaying from the release you had people anticipate, knowing full well this is not all that you'll have to do, then pause for release and wait for all the hate to come back about the bugs, THEN spend even longer to fix those so that ultimately the update is in a broken state longer, rather than get it to a playable state, release it, immediately get feedback of ALL the bugs, and start stomping them all out right then and there.

Let's assume they'd released back in September, we'd have already known about all the bugs with matchmaking, disconnects, drops, etc as well as any bugs they might have been working on between then and our actual PoE release date.  They could have already been working on all of those at the same time and probably gotten them fixed by now.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Ceadeus

[Ceadeus]

6 minutes ago, motorfirebox said:

It can actually be much more broken. It can fail to function for 90% of the playerbase. It can wipe accounts. It can bluescreen your computer. There's no lower limit on how bad, or how widespread, bugs can be.

Did you even read the original post?  Or are you the type to just read titles and assume that's the whole structure of the post?

[BaIthazar]

7 minutes ago, Ceadeus said:

This.  Right here.  So, you're telling me, that it is better to work on a finite number of things, delaying from the release you had people anticipate, knowing full well this is not all that you'll have to do, then pause for release and wait for all the hate to come back about the bugs, THEN spend even longer to fix those so that ultimately the update is in a broken state longer, rather than get it to a playable state, release it, immediately get feedback of ALL the bugs, and start stomping them all out right then and there.

yes, you took the words right out of my mouth. you just made my point for me
in game development this IS better than releasing an update on par with the Assassins Creed Unity release fiasco.

Quote

Let's assume they'd released back in September, we'd have already known about all the bugs with matchmaking, disconnects, drops, etc as well as any bugs they might have been working on between than and our actual PoE release date.  They could have already been working on all of those at the same time and probably gotten them fixed by now.

they would still need to do the same work, the same amount of work..
the only difference would be that had an unplayable patch been released in September they would need to fix everything while the entire playerbase was unable to play rather than a small portion.
if the release we ended up getting was this bad than a September release could have been a warframe killer with the amount of sh*t it would have messed up

Edited October 15, 2017 by BaIthazar

[TheBrsrkr]

1 hour ago, Ceadeus said:

My point was people complain about it either way because it's broken either way.  So even if it was "more broken" nobody would notice and they'd have more time to fix the bugs that only crop up once things hit live servers.

Problem being "more broken" could be "not even working at all". 

 

You don't really understand how dev builds work. They create multiple instances of the update with different builds, and test each one to see what their problems are. Takes a lot of time, isn't guaranteed to work. They choose the least broken of the bunch and ship it. If the least broken isn't playable, then they delay it until you can. 

Edited October 15, 2017 by TheBrsrkr

[Ceadeus]

Clearly the forums was the wrong place to post this since nobody seems to be capable of reading and everyone likes to assume I'm saying:

"Ship a 100% broken build, fix nothing, use the first iteration of everything.  Developers do nothing, there's absolutely no reason for development time."

rather than:

"If it's broken now and it was broken then, I'd still rather have been able to play it then and give them more time to work on the stuff that showed up only once it was released so it would have been fixed by now."