Unplayable?

[Grandpa]

I've crashed the game over a dozen times doing any number of things since early this morning: trying to change seas, teleporting anyplace other than PR and Tortuga, fighting ships, etc.

I consider this version of the game to be virtually unplayable; even for a beta version. Is anyone else having similar problems.


On another note, did anyone get a chance to use the cannons that were on the beach of PR yesterday? They don't appear to be there today.

[Captain Midnight]

The game has taken a slight turn for the worst in some aspects, i sank 3 vanguards last night with no credit and my notoriety has not changed, its stuck.

The Beach Cannons were great, coulda used them last night.

[WDWTigger72]

Interesting, I have attempted to logon numerous times and everytime it starts "connecting" the game immediately crashes and brings me to the report a bug web page. I thought initially it was because Adobe Shockwave had an update applied to my computer, but this does not seem to be the case at all. Hopefully things are fixed pretty soon...

[livewire82]

i've had many crashes as well including on my ship and off also a few noted above, but with all testing and game development you fix one bug and create 5 new lol

[thebeez]

I would have to agree. I can get into the game but seem to get kicked out every 5-10 minutes. The new journal quest system has completely messed up my progress, can't complete, can't drop. Pressing enter to bring up a dialog box kicks me out, along with the things others have mentioned and I can't always get back in, the load screen seems to stick. Just have to keep sending in those bug reports. I'm sure they are tired of hearing from me today.
The game does seem to run smoother in the new full screen mode. My timing in the cutlass battles is easier, more fluid.

[JoG]

I had the opposite. Game performance has gotten much better. Much less lag but I still have the occasional game lock up.

--JoG

[Warioguy]

Oi, I agree. It's quite a mess, really. I myself have a very state-of-the-art computer, but even I have to set the graphics to the absolute minimum (textures low, shadows off, the whole nine yards) in order to keep the lag to a point that I can play at all. I've been trying to get to the Governor's Mansion to get the seal since 6 PM yesterday, and everytime I get even close to the building I crash. It's a pain in the neck, really.

That, and the ship that was sailing directly through Port Royal's town. O_O

-War

[searage]

Well they obviously fixed a bunch of the old bugs/lag issues, but in the process made a bunch of new ones! Quite a common occurance in software development sadly.

It's quite obvious they have no formal internal QA process, they are just tossing out new patches and letting us test everything for them. I can't see how this can be even remotely efficient, but that's what they are doing!

[JoG]

Originally Posted by searage

Well they obviously fixed a bunch of the old bugs/lag issues, but in the process made a bunch of new ones! Quite a common occurance in software development sadly.

It's quite obvious they have no formal internal QA process, they are just tossing out new patches and letting us test everything for them. I can't see how this can be even remotely efficient, but that's what they are doing!

This must be your first beta then. It is quite common for the program to be at different stages of stability during full beta. All things are logged and reports are generated for the programmers to see. Just because some people have stability issues does not mean everyone does. As far as a Q&A process, there is no real need during a beta. Your feedback is all that is required. Just put in a bug report and let them know the facts as you see it. We have no need to know what they are looking at or working on aside from specific things they ask us to test. Since you do not have a programming back ground it will look like it is not efficient. I can tell you it is and they know exactly what is going on. Keep trying to play as normal and submit all the bugs and errors that occur.

--JoG

[searage]

Originally Posted by JoG

This must be your first beta then. It is quite common for the program to be at different stages of stability during full beta. All things are logged and reports are generated for the programmers to see. Just because some people have stability issues does not mean everyone does. As far as a Q&A process, there is no real need during a beta. Your feedback is all that is required. Just put in a bug report and let them know the facts as you see it. We have no need to know what they are looking at or working on aside from specific things they ask us to test. Since you do not have a programming back ground it will look like it is not efficient. I can tell you it is and they know exactly what is going on. Keep trying to play as normal and submit all the bugs and errors that occur.

--JoG

On the contrary, I have 22+ years experience developing and delivering software, so I know the difference between the right way and the wrong way. Most of my career has been spent building a selling platform for big box retailers, which handles over $10 million in sales daily, so I know what it means to develop highly reliable client/server applications that scale to thousands of users.

If they really were shooting for a delivery in May, the code base should be much tighter at this point in time. No one can tell me with a straight face this is "beta" quality code. This is at best "pre-alpha" code quality we're dealing with here.

If you're serious about developing a platform that scales, you build a system that simulates real load on the system. You had this in your budget from day one if you knew what you were doing. You use this system to ramp up the load until things start to break. These so called "stress tests" we've had the last few weekends are just for show. There haven't been more than 75 people on each server. You don't rely on a handful of gamers to plink away at the servers in their spare time to decide if your software is ready for prime time.

Now I'm not trying to bash VR Studios, I'm just calling it like I see it. I'm sure they're all in serious crunch time pouring their heart and soul into 100+ hour weeks right now. But unfortunately for them, their management hasn't seen fit to spend enough on internal QA, making their lives that much harder.

[Dennis]

I have to agree. How is it a "stress test" with 75 people on when the day it goes live, you could have 75,000 people trying to play.

[Warioguy]

Agreed. The server has serious lag issues with just 3 or 5 people on one screen, how is it going to be able to handle a number like, let's say, 10,000.

-War

[wolf]

o__O woah.. you all are lucky that you could actualy play yesterday.. i couldent even get into the game because the "connection was lost" and now i see that happening today..

[Bizneo]

yarr!! I was able to play a little yesterday, lost connection q lot though. The lag dont seem to be as bad today.

If this keeps up i'll be dancing the hempen jig!

[Warioguy]

Originally Posted by wolf

o__O woah.. you all are lucky that you could actualy play yesterday.. i couldent even get into the game because the "connection was lost" and now i see that happening today..

Welcome to the club, I haven't been able to play all day, either.

-War