Bug Rant (seriously, a rant.)

[Acherontia]

I can't believe how polite I managed to be. I avoided phrases like "get your heads out of your asses," "we're paying customers," etc. My post on the official forums requests an ETA on bug fixes, and reads like this:

Regarding these issues:

1. Running into a slope/wall often DCs a player.
2. WSG/Twin Peaks flags often don't cap for ~10 seconds.
3. Show All Enemy Buffs/Debuffs must often be unticked & reticked to take effect, usually in the middle of a fight when you realize it's not working again.

The question is not whether the bugs are known--they're well-documented and have been commented on, repeatedly, by blues. The question is--when are these finally going to be fixed? They're bugs that are serious quality-of-life issues for players, have been known for over a year and still show no sign of a fix. Please don't wait for a new expansion to fix year-old bugs (like with the Pet HP "Bug" that's actually a shoddy bugfix that's been around since vanilla); get a patch out and deal with this stuff.

So: is there an ETA on these bugfixes?

First of all, I've basically been told that I won't get a reply at all because I'm on the EU forums. Nice start.

How I REALLY feel isn't in there at all. My anger is leaking out a little at the know-it-all (know-nothing) GM wannabes who run around that forum and reply to all the questions as if they're completely mentally stunted Blue posters--in an official fashion and completely wrong. Copy-paste idiots. It's free bumps, I guess, but jesus. I managed to hold back my rage... BUT FEAR NOT, for I'm here to share it with all of you.

We've had these effing bugs for over a YEAR. If I bought a goddamn appliance that stopped its work and had to be reset every time I bumped into an object in the room, or if I had a car that refused to go into park for 10 seconds 20% of the time I attempted to park it, or a monitoring system that had to have all the settings manually reset EVERY TIME I RAN IT, you'd better believe I'd be getting a refund, or a free fix. Blizzard lets these bugs--along with the hunter FD bug and many others--just go. Over a YEAR and the bugs are still here. Is this a multi-million (billion?) dollar company or some indie gaming fiasco? Seriously?? Not even an

"I'm sorry, but these bugs are proving extremely difficult to track down."

Just. Effing. Silence.

A dollar off your monthly fee until it's fixed--imagine that? Imagine if they had to REIMBURSE you every time you lost an arena match or random battleground to hitting a tomb, log or rock? Every time you wiped on Deathwing because your tanks DC'd on the stupid rocks on the platforms?

Imagine if Blizzard had to pay out every time your being unable to see a debuff on the enemy meant you overlapped CC and again, lost the match? Blew your cooldowns into that cyclone because between all the crappy flashing Paladin lights and lack of visible debuffs, you had no idea the enemy was even CC'd?

Imagine if they had to pay out for every single BG lost because the FC was standing on the flagpoint for ten seconds before he died, and the flag just NEVER EFFING CAPPED?

I'd be getting my monthly fee back, I can tell you.

I'm sick of these bugs being around for over a year. I'm shocked when I search the forums and find dozens of threads reporting the same bugs, a dozen blues replying that it's been noted and will be looked into, and this sheet STILL ain't fixed?!

And looking at the Pet HP bug and finding out that it was an EXPLOIT "FIX," an INTENDED EFFING MECHANIC that made my hunter's gameplay HELL, and finding out that not only have they already FIXED it in MoP but that they just can't be effing BOTHERED to implement the fix on live... Really?!

Starting to lose faith in Blizzard as a company, in all honesty. Sad as that is. Their customer service is generally polite, but if their actual game quality is dropping so hard...

EvE-Online, plagued by bugs, once made the mistake of announcing that they believed that their customers preferred "new content to polished old" regarding bugfixes. They lost 1/3 of their subs within a day or two. And yet this is the same mistake WoW is making. EVERY time one of these bugs hits me, a wave of utter frustration rolls through me. The thought "I'm PAYING for this ****ing game, and they STILL haven't fixed this ****" goes through my head, every time. And not even a forum reply.

Sick of it, want a fix, get your **** together Blizzard.

I have no real point to make, not looking for support or sympathy, just needed to rant. If these bugs have been driving YOU nuts, you are not alone.

/Your skill in Ranting has increased to 525/525. You have reached Illustrious Grandmaster Rage. Congratulations!

[Kalliope]

*hugs regardless*

[Acherontia]

Thank you, lol

Venting makes it a LITTLE better >.>

[Kalliope]

I hear ya, seriously.

And hey, bitching does sometimes keep 'em honest. *submits new ME3 endings which are not perfect, but are what should have been released in the first place* Sometimes, it's just about having the right thing done. There's a difference between extra perks and basic bugs in the game.

It's sad seeing the quality gaming companies making errors around the same time; it's hard to keep your faith in any of them as a whole, really. No offense to the individuals; it's just the general direction that prioritizing is taking that's of major concern.

I'm still annoyed with BioWare for accidentally screwing up the flags on one of the side stories in ME3, so if you made a particular decision in ME1, you don't get to see it. You mean to tell me that they can't slip in a tiny patch to fix that? I can't imagine it would take all that much effort.

Sorry. This is where my gamer rage has been going. :/ Bug fixes aren't fun, but they are necessary.

[Wain]

Ugh, sounds like you're having a bitch of a time

Whatever is causing these issues sounds like it's only in a small percentage of the player base and is hard for them to reproduce. I'd be surprised if they're really just ignoring it as much as having nothing concrete they can say about it because they simply haven't worked it out. But if it had been happening to be for over a year I'd be furious and going nuts too!

[Acherontia]

Yeah, I was soooo much more satisfied with the new endings!! I can't understand why some people are annoyed at Bioware "caving to whining fanboys" when it was clearly such an issue. The new endings--all three, well, four--are so poignant and... complete! by comparison. By the way, which sidequest's flag was it that is bugged in ME1? I think I can vaguely remember something about it but I forgot >.>

And yeah, Wain--I'd understand if that's their issue. I know software can be a bitch. Although... well, I don't understand completely given the size and power of the company involved, lol (I mean, with the amount of money they have couldn't they just hire 20 extra guys to try and sort it out ). I know at least the show all buffs & debuffs one is probably fixable, since they had the same exact issue with the Profanity Filter and sorted it out.

That said, if they CAN'T fix it, I'd rather know. I'd rather they reply and say, "sorry, but we don't know what is doing this" rather than utter silence and/or assurances that it is a "known bug" that will be fixed "soon" for a year! This is what makes me feel like my money isn't valued, my custom isn't valued, that the only thing that matters is MoP, selling MoP and "new content" rather than fixing the old.

Sometimes I wonder if the Blizz devs even play WoW anymore, lol

[Kalliope]

You only get to see Gabby and Donnelley's romantic storyline evolve if you saved Ashley on Virmire and have her on the Normandy in ME3. Which sucks if you saved Kaidan. It's a completely unrelated bug. There's a mention of Williams in their banter, which is likely where the error is (since obviously that wouldn't be there if Alenko's alive). It just sucks for people who would rather save Kaidan. :/

The other flag that was never fixed was Conrad Verner's flag in ME2, where he thought you threatened him in ME1 no matter what you'd picked (since both the paragon and renegade choices were flagged). Sure, they made a joke of it in ME3 (which played well), but you'd think they could have fixed ME2 as well.

[Acherontia]

Omg, I had NO idea they even had a romance! I just assumed they were... I don't know, twins, or cousins or something XD

The Conrad Verner one is the one I think I remember. I went full paragon and was shocked when he accused me of attacking him

[Kalliope]

I guess you also saved Kaiden then? Gabby and Donnelley are adorable! It's really worth Youtubing their romance. Especially for the end, bahahaha!

[Acherontia]

Umm, I played through a couple times, but on my main playthrough I THINK it was Kaidan, yeah. On my superparagonshep I liked Kaidan, although they wrote the romance storylines a little pushily (I'd be nice to him and suddenly he'd be devastated that I didn't want foreverlovefuntimes with him... wat).

I did take Ashley on my badass-Shep, simply because her cynicism & constant xenophobia seemed to fit >.>

My husband, in other news, used a savegame editor to see what would happen if you saved them both and "romanced everyone." His female Shepard romanced Liara in the romance scene in ME3, with a MALE Shep voice, and then woke up next to Kaiden, or something like that lol.

[Kalliope]

That is disturbingly awesome!

[Equeon]

To be honest, the only one of those I've personally experienced is the pet HP bug and the cap-delay, but I understand how frustrating bugs can be. The Pet-HP one is what really gets me, though: getting off of a demolisher and having my pet 1-shot, or summoning a new pet in a dungeon and having my pet 1-shot = terrible.

[Acherontia]

Language Warning >.>

God, when did Blizzard customer service become so utterly shit? Between simply NOT fixing bugs, and replying with crap like this:

I'm afraid that we don't provide ETAs on potential bug fixes Acherontia.

That's the ENTIRE forum response, by the way. I mean, I understand if they can't give out ETAs. But christ, how hard would a little "This is being worked on by our dev team, and is proving a little more difficult to root out than we anticipated" be? Or "We're sorry for the continuing inconvenience these issues are causing"? A little bit of politeness?

If they're too busy to write an extra sentence or two, they need to HIRE MORE GMs.

Of course, even better would be to actually get an effing response from the Devs. I don't care if it's not policy for an ETA, give us some idea that you aren't simply sitting on your asses ignoring it because it's not actually cutting into your profits. That's the impression Blizzard is giving me atm, as a paying customer: "If nobody is actually quitting due to this bug, we can live without fixing it." I want to know that it's being WORKED ON. I want to know why it's not been FIXED yet.

I mean what the hell, I've been PAYING for this game, these bugs are absolutely PLAGUING me with frustration, this is a company with no shortage of money, and they can't even reply as to WHY it's not been fixed?

Sigh.

At this rate, I can definitely tell you I won't be buying MoP, nor playing WoW for very much longer. People like me are stuck playing on completely dead realms with hideous faction imbalance because Blizzard can't be bothered to rectify it. We can't PvP properly with all the PvE gear, bots, 80k hp alts and 5-healer-teams you wind up with in CTF bgs (solvable simply with an invisible ranking system/queue system, but do they bother? nope). The plot lines are retconned and weak ("IT GOT CORRUPTED, LOL"), the old models are far out-of-date and show no sign of being upgraded, etc. I enjoyed playing WoW while I did. I love PvP in general, and I love the "themes" I've created for my chars, the personalities they have. I liked being able to play alongside my friends, but slowly they have all trickled away, mostly due to PvP-being-crap reasons and stale gameplay.

It seems like Blizzard has given up on their own game. Creating an expansion to "fix" what's wrong, lol? And then once MoP is out, then what? Ignore all MoP issues, because Titan is next and they don't care about WoW anymore?

Reading over what I'm writing, I feel like I should clam it. If I don't like it, I should just not play. But honestly, I loved the game too much to just drop it... and this entire situation--the complete lack of polishing on such a HUGE game, and the complete lack of a response from the people who run it--frustrates the hell out of me. I guess I'm just fighting them because I want to keep playing, and they're driving me away, lol.

[Kalliope]

It's hit or miss, really. There are some really lazy GMs (like the one you just encountered -_- ) and then some who put in that extra bit of thought/effort. Unfortunately, the lazy ones really do quite a bit of damage to Blizzard's image.

I'm on a dead realm too and I am optimistic that MoP will rectify the empty server issues by opening up transfers after the initial flood of returning players has passed. In my case, I expect to have quite a bit of space to do my leveling in MoP.

You can only decide what's right for you. I didn't intend to return for MoP myself, but changed my mind. There's still time for you to consider things in either direction.

[GormanGhaste]

Even though you've enjoyed wow a lot and have many great memories, it doesn't sound like you are having fun playing right now. I'd recommend taking an extended break, it will give you more perspective. Either you'll decide it's time to move on or will come back refreshed.

And I know the bugs are very frustrating, but the CMs answered the question you actually asked. Community managers just don't have the detailed information you want, and even devs don't know how long a fix might take.

[Acherontia]

but the CMs answered the question you actually asked.

That is very true. I didn't think that they might not have read the rest of the posts (it was around 2 pages when they replied, and I and others had requested a reason "why not" if the bugs weren't being fixed); perhaps he just checked out the OP and moved on. Or she?

I was angry when I wrote that, and I'm not angry now, but I'm still frustrated now with the actual state of things.

I am grinding mounts, working on alts, PvPing on mains. WoW isn't dead to me, but every time I go to do that PvP and DC on a rock or my flag doesn't cap, I die and we lose the match as a result, etc., it makes me wonder exactly what Blizzard is doing with their money.

Just bathing in it, I suppose.

Not to mention GM wait time is literally days atm, MoP is set to launch--and they aren't hiring

[Acherontia]

Right, well this wound up really getting to me, and I made a biiig post. Not a ranty one at all, but rather a (I hope) well-thought-out suggestion.

The TL;DR Version: I suggested a stickied thread across all forums which lists all concerns that are frequently brought up by players (i.e. WSG Flags bug, Bots, Dead Realms etc.) and their status. Basically the CMs would keep watch on the forums, and when a load of threads crop up about one topic, they add it to this thread as well as a note on its progress (handed down from the Devs): Noted, Being Addressed and Fix Upcoming.

Basically what I'd hope to accomplish with this is show players that their concerns aren't being ignored--that the devs know what is going on despite the players being unable to contact them directly, that Blizzard isn't disregarding the issues, etc. My hope would be that there then wouldn't need to be a hundred posts about one problem, that players wouldn't become as frustrated as I have about the issue, and that maybe the forum community as a whole would benefit.

I'm actually rather surprised that there's nothing like this already in effect.

Post link follows, if anyone is interested--and also, if anyone has an American account, feel free to copy/paste it (just link it back so I can follow it if you do, please!).

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4887759498

[Meggers]

Oh they're hiring alright...

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/ca ... n=Americas

Good thing they fired those 600 some odd people several months back and shot themselves in the foot to hell and back with D3 RITE? /eyeroll

[Acherontia]

Maybe in the US only?

My friend tried to apply EU-side and was told that they are not taking anyone atm. Not sure. Regardless, the GM service in the EU is the one I'm referring to--several days' worth of wait times atm >.<