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| Thread: Heroes 6 Patch Communication (starting with the patch 1.3) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted April 06, 2012 10:23 AM |
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Either way, the whole development process of H6 was a bit flawed, but still it will evolve in a great title...
You must have a very serious internal information to make such claims. Otherwise it's blind optimism.
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avalon00x
Bad-mannered
Known Hero
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posted April 06, 2012 10:46 AM |
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They have their reasons. It probably doesn't matter to their customers who don't give a damn about them having problems but it's not exactly "slacking".
Hmm oh well its not as if patch 1.3 fixes alot of important things.
the conflux..was there anyone who gave a damn about the conflux?
The custom maps better work tho!
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted April 06, 2012 12:32 PM |
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Edited by Maurice at 12:33, 06 Apr 2012.
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Quote:
They have their reasons. It probably doesn't matter to their customers who don't give a damn about them having problems but it's not exactly "slacking".
I'm a reasonable guy, so as long as a company is providing reasonable information, they can go a very long way with me. As a customer, I might even take more slack from such a company than my customer rights detail. But UbiSoft is seriously coming short on the information aspect.
I don't expect them to justify every minute of every employee spent on this project, nor the intricate details of the problems they're facing - but a rough outline of what's troubling them (again, I am not interested in details) as well as a running update to their (realistic!) planning of when things are expected to come would give so incredibly much goodwill with the community, that I find it unbelievable that they're not grabbing that opportunity.
It reminds me of a web community in which I was participating. Due to hardware failure and a couple of complications on the side that interfered, the community was offline for at least three weeks. But the host provided an almost daily quick update on what they were doing and an expectation of when they would be online again (updating it with longer downtime every time they ran into additional problems). And you know what? When they finally did get back online again, many people praised them for being so communicative; there was not a single foul word on them being gone for longer than expected due to what seemed initially to be nothing more than a simple hardware failure.
The ambiance in that community was so much different, purely because the host in this case provided semi-transparency of what was happening behind the scenes.
I ask nothing more in this case, but we're getting nothing but an ear-deafening silence (except for indirect messages from VIPs - no offense to you folks, I know you're doing your best and care a great deal).
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Falconian
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 08, 2012 07:21 PM |
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Quote:
They have their reasons. It probably doesn't matter to their customers who don't give a damn about them having problems but it's not exactly "slacking".
Either way, the whole development process of H6 was a bit flawed, but still it will evolve in a great title... I'm starting to dislike the idea of big expansion packs, it makes games waste of time to play at 1st release because they are like maybe 50% of what they will be three years after.. 
H6 was a big code&engine failure but the investors pushed BH to release it anyways to make a revenue; simple as that.
It would probably take 5 years to fix the game under those circumstances and make it on par with the prequels, not to mention huge amounts of money they obviously don't have.
It's much easier to build a new, stable engine and code a new game in a bug-free environment.
Let's just put it this way: you build a skyscraper on a muddy, swampy terrain.
No matter the amount of work you do on the building, the terrain just doesn't allow for construction, and can't be fixed without removing the entire building first.
So you simply dismantle the building and go build your skyscraper on a solid terrain.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 09, 2012 04:12 PM |
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Edited by G0b1in at 17:21, 09 Apr 2012.
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They have their reasons.
Yet I didn't hear a single one. In my mind there can be no just excuse for that.
Edit: VIP's should imo just tell us what they know at this point. The pact of silence they made with Ubihole, is no longer relevant. Why should you uphold your end of the bargain, when the other side does not?
That's what i would do.
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted April 09, 2012 05:49 PM |
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Edit: VIP's should imo just tell us what they know at this point. The pact of silence they made with Ubihole, is no longer relevant. Why should you uphold your end of the bargain, when the other side does not?
That's what i would do.
Easy for you to say. You did not sign an NDA, you're not liable to get sued or worse if you break your contract.
There's quite some difference between the contract the VIP's signed and the loose "promise" of trying to keep a fanbase informed of progress.
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hobo2
Promising
Known Hero
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posted April 09, 2012 06:49 PM |
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Certainly they have exhausted my patience. Heroes VI is a coaster.
It's low on content, the source code is buggy to the core, the strategy and tactics of the game are repetitive and shallow, the replayability is so minuscule that even playing the same faction on a different map is a chore. Ubisoft's treatment of the paying customer is deeply insulting, from their intrusive and destructive DRM that literally makes the game unplayable for days at a time to their complete failure to meet even the grotesquely generous patching schedule they set for themselves coupled with their awe-inspiring hubris of refusing to even explain themselves in public - it's too much.
I'm not going to pay any more attention to Heroes VI. If Ubisoft is involved in Heroes VII, I won't pay attention to it either. Ubisoft has lost itself a customer. Permanently.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 09, 2012 06:59 PM |
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Edited by G0b1in at 19:04, 09 Apr 2012.
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@War-overlord
...maybe but ... if some commoner like me or you for eg. would somehow obtain this information from some annonymus sources and post it here or even in some other site in vast lands of the internet... 
also I think NDA is just an excuse they hide behind. NDA's purpose is to protect the product in making, from competition, stealing their ideas. Using it on finished product and calling for it, when only information we crave for is simply about fixes and tweeks and more important, dates, imo does not make sense.
Now I ask you this: Skip your job for one week, and don't give your boss any explanation, not a single phone-call. And when you return don't apologize for it. Only if boss annoyingly asks you say: "I know it wont happen again" - I dare you - i double dare you - i even tripple dare you!!
Simple explanation like: We are sorry, but due to finnancial difficulties (i only give example here) and lack of manpower we must postpone the patch untill X.X.XXX, would do! And it's in no way NDA breach!
As long as they're silent i can rightly assume H6 is dead, and no new patches are comming.
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted April 09, 2012 09:36 PM |
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Now I ask you this: Skip your job for one week, and don't give your boss any explanation, not a single phone-call. And when you return don't apologize for it. Only if boss annoyingly asks you say: "I know it wont happen again" - I dare you - i double dare you - i even tripple dare you!!
Simple explanation like: We are sorry, but due to finnancial difficulties (i only give example here) and lack of manpower we must postpone the patch untill X.X.XXX, would do! And it's in no way NDA breach!
As much as I agree that it would be a minimal effort to give a quick explaination as to why the patching program is delayed, that is where it ends. The reasons and uses of NDA are entirely inconsequential to the fact that the VIP's are bound by them. And to the fact that they can face repercussions if they break it.
And I do not know where you work, but pulling a stunt like that would give the boss the excuse he needs to fire me on the spot.
However, your comparison fails to hold water. The relationschip between an employer and an employee is a decidedly different that the customer-supplier relationship a fanbase has with a developer.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 09, 2012 11:41 PM |
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It's not such a cold relationship as hold your silence or we sue your @ss. But when you do collaborate with someone you don't just screw him over just because you felt like it. I do not agree with their communication policy which indeed might suggest that they do not really care about improving the game anymore - which is far from the truth - but beyond giving them my feedback, it is not my place to overstep my bounds.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 10, 2012 12:29 AM |
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Edited by G0b1in at 00:33, 10 Apr 2012.
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Hmm ok well I agree that maybe i was a bit too harsh - got up on wrong foot today - After reading post on related topic i'm a bit more content. But still ...
Quote:
... pulling a stunt like that would give the boss the excuse he needs to fire me on the spot.
However, your comparison fails to hold water. The relationschip between an employer and an employee is a decidedly different that the customer-supplier relationship a fanbase has with a developer.
Exactly the answer I knew you would give! A point however is diferent one. Now let's say you call your boss first thing in the morning and report, that you're too sick to go to work (and later ofc. provide doctor's proof), or you got injured and will be next week in hospital. Will you still be fired ? (let's assume you're normal hard working individual and your boss is not a nazi) Likely not - you would be excused for a week.
Point is - if you know you mess up, at least inform ppl and apologize. It's common courtousey. (however you eglish buggers write that word)
For more direct comparison try this: if you go in restaurant and order fish, but after 2h waiting, waiter brings you pork steak. Idk how in your countries is, but here, any better restaurant that respects it's name, would formaly apologize on the spot for delay and immidiatley offer you your fish free of charge. So long as they don't tarnish their reputation.
And Ubi is doing just that - wasting company's reputation. If there is a reason more ppl didn't buy heroes 6 it's this. I ask my friend if he's up for a H6 game - his answer: I didn't buy it, coz on forum i read it's no good
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted April 10, 2012 11:01 AM |
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Exactly the answer I knew you would give! A point however is diferent one. Now let's say you call your boss first thing in the morning and report, that you're too sick to go to work (and later ofc. provide doctor's proof), or you got injured and will be next week in hospital. Will you still be fired ? (let's assume you're normal hard working individual and your boss is not a nazi) Likely not - you would be excused for a week.
Point is - if you know you mess up, at least inform ppl and apologize. It's common courtousey. (however you eglish buggers write that word)
For more direct comparison try this: if you go in restaurant and order fish, but after 2h waiting, waiter brings you pork steak. Idk how in your countries is, but here, any better restaurant that respects it's name, would formaly apologize on the spot for delay and immidiatley offer you your fish free of charge. So long as they don't tarnish their reputation.
And Ubi is doing just that - wasting company's reputation. If there is a reason more ppl didn't buy heroes 6 it's this. I ask my friend if he's up for a H6 game - his answer: I didn't buy it, coz on forum i read it's no good
As I said, I agree on the fact that it is little to no effort to keep us informed. Then again I also said that I do not want to hear about deadlines that are likely not to be kept and I still stand by that as well.
And again, your comparisson fails to hold water. The only way that would be an apt comparisson, would be when you ordered Heroes and got Assassin's Creed.
Keeping with the restaurant-analogy, let me provide an comparisson that is apt, IMHO.
Say you are in a restaurant and order the Halibut with Hollandaise sauce. Now you expect to get a finely cooked piece of Halibut on a plate with a Hollandaise sauce drizzled over it. What you get is a living Halibut on your table and a jar of Hollandaise sauce. What you get is nowhere near what you either expected or wanted, yet none of you are in breach of anything, due to the ambiguity of the order Halibut with Hollandaise sauce.
Are you wrong to expect a finely cooked piece of Halibut on a plate with a Hollandaise sauce drizzled over it, when you order Halibut with Hollandaise sauce? No, you are not.
Is the cook (the developer) wrong for giving you a living Halibut on your table and a jar of Hollandaise sauce? No, neither is he, as it did fit exactly what you ordered.
What it comes down to is: Is the cook doing his reputation good in expecting that you will be satisfied with what you get, as there is plenty indication and he has more than enough common sense to know that you expected something fundamentally different?
Is the cook doing his reputation good in expecting that you will be satisfied with what you get, with the indication that he will try and cook something more satisfactory with that very same Halibut and Hollandaise sauce, when the resources and the time are available to him even if he cannot (or will not) specify when he expects that to be the case. Explaining, in more or less words, that the efforts required to get a hold of very same Halibut and Hollandaise sauce took more than was expected and planned for.
I would agree that this would not do the reputation of the cook good, yet neither is he anywhere at fault. Despite the fact that the items you get are not satisfactory in your opinion.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 10, 2012 12:46 PM |
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Edited by G0b1in at 12:53, 10 Apr 2012.
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well if it is to find as similar example as possible I would even say that, in your case, you order Halibut, but you don't get it when you are supposed to - you wait for 3h for it.
Is it not right that the waiter would inform you of the delay? In the lines of: "We're out of sauce, and it will take a bit of time" or "our cook got stroke and can't bring it in time" ... or something ?
Or would you prefer he is silent?
In today's world in every field, be it on your workplace, or in restaurant, and specially in business field, it is normally INEXCUSABLE to not apologize for delays.
Any restaurant, that does not do this (in rare ocassions that it happens), can't expect to have many guests. Any employee that does not do this can't expect to keep his job. If you're late on your date, you can't expect she'll be happy etc.
In gaming it is not any different. Any game company that does this can't expect to have much sales. Lack of communication is the biggest fault i see (as a customer) in Heroe's case. And as far as i figured out from other post so it was the lack of communication between Ubi and BH, that caused the game to be as it is (again fault on Ubi side).
This was i was about, and not giving mirror situation (altho it could help - so confusion is my cause here).
And now pure speculation (based on info from other thread "End of BH games" so plz read that before if you are confused):
Reason why patch 1.3 is delayed is because BH is not working with Ubi anymore, instead Ubi is doing this by themselves. The game's code is a mess and would prove difficult to work on, even with ppl who developed the game, let alone Ubi. This means BH will not work on Heroes 6 in future, and so we can expect delays/cancels with every patch/expansion they promised us or have planed. They obiousley did not expect this to happen, when they posted patching schedule. (again speculation) They are working on solutions, but i expect they want to keep silent until they find something. Ubi still has plans (so VIP's say) and still wishes to develop game further, but atm it is staled.
All this is my theory anyways based on recent posts - my taughts on this if you will
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted April 10, 2012 05:02 PM |
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well if it is to find as similar example as possible I would even say that, in your case, you order Halibut, but you don't get it when you are supposed to - you wait for 3h for it.
Is it not right that the waiter would inform you of the delay? In the lines of: "We're out of sauce, and it will take a bit of time" or "our cook got stroke and can't bring it in time" ... or something ?
I do not know if you are short of memory, but this was not the case. Up untill launch, every delay we were adequately notified of. The Beta was delayed and the Beta dragged on longer as planned, true enough. However we knew from alpha reports, as beta participants and by official chanels that this was to fix glaring bugs and serious disbalance.(That this endeavour proved inadequate is a different story) True enough, what was being done exactly was unclear, but we were often told that delays were made to fix the game.
It is the patching after launch that is shrouded in silence.
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Or would you prefer he is silent?
I would indeed prefer no promise over a broken one.
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In today's world in every field, be it on your workplace, or in restaurant, and specially in business field, it is normally INEXCUSABLE to not apologize for delays.
I disagree. Mainly because notifications and apologies are different things entirely. No notification is not done, on that I would agree. No apology is a different matter. But then again, I don't put much trust in apologies in general. As they are rarely heartfelt and with that they become an empty formality. Besides, even if Ubisoft in this case were to apologize, I doubt many of the naysayers will put any trust in it either.
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And now pure speculation (based on info from other thread "End of BH games" so plz read that before if you are confused):
Reason why patch 1.3 is delayed is because BH is not working with Ubi anymore, instead Ubi is doing this by themselves. The game's code is a mess and would prove difficult to work on, even with ppl who developed the game, let alone Ubi. This means BH will not work on Heroes 6 in future, and so we can expect delays/cancels with every patch/expansion they promised us or have planed. They obiousley did not expect this to happen, when they posted patching schedule. (again speculation) They are working on solutions, but i expect they want to keep silent until they find something. Ubi still has plans (so VIP's say) and still wishes to develop game further, but atm it is staled.
Speculation, true. But I have similar feelings. However I doubt it is Ubisoft itself that is doing the patching, but another studio, Limbic Entertainment from what I gather from the End of BH thread, who was brought in halfway through the original project. Much of the delays are, from what I gather, deduce, induce and can reproduce from my own experience, a lot due to the fact that the patchers have to work with code that is not their own. Working with code that is not written by yourself (or close associates) is a hellish task in itself, however ordened it might be. And if it is true that the stat of Heroes 6 is as messy and unorganized as is said that makes the job even worse. However, I also think that BH was out of the picture earlier than we/you/they might think. The schedule was likely made after BH was out. However the patchers simply got so bogged down in codeswamp that it is not possible to keep to an overly optimistic schedule. And overly optimistic scheduling is something the entire ICT industry suffers from.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 10, 2012 05:50 PM |
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Edited by G0b1in at 17:50, 10 Apr 2012.
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My memory is not what it used to be, that's true, but not that bad either. This is thread about patches so the "dish" here is the patch rather than game itself. And yes when im buying game, i'm calulating in the continued support. So with my 35 EUR (hey that's how much i got the game for - shop discount) I purchased not only game itself, but also all patching in years to come (specialy with unfinished game).
And yes yes - you are right - notification is what i ment not apology - my english is far from perfect - and in my country we have one word that can be used in both situations. Again i am sorry if sometimes i am not uderstood, coz of my poor english knowledge.
So you would prefer waiter not notify you in case of a delay? And not offer anyting in compensation afterwards?
I only gave assumption here on what's going on (true or not), that i think a lot of ppl come to by now. Still I would indeed be much more symathetic with Ubi if it would come from their own "mouth" - and even more if it would be used in advance as a notification. They don't even need to offer concrete date for the matter, but it would atleast show us that they care, and maybe just maybe they would not lose that many customers.
Again from what i understand you and I actualy agree on most stuff - it's just my faulty knowledge of eglish and my legendrary hard to understand wording
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War-overlord
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Presidente of Isla del Tropico
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posted April 10, 2012 06:47 PM |
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Again from what i understand you and I actualy agree on most stuff - it's just my faulty knowledge of eglish and my legendrary hard to understand wording
That, and your tendency to get emotional over things.
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G0b1in
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 10, 2012 08:00 PM |
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emotional ? why how else would a goblin get post count 
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adriancat
Famous Hero
Protector Of The Peace
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posted April 11, 2012 06:47 PM |
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Patch 1.3 is again delayed. http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/666442-Patch-1-3-delay
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krs
Famous Hero
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posted April 12, 2012 10:57 AM |
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Edited by krs at 10:59, 12 Apr 2012.
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You've misread the whole post. The patch is only slightly delayed not "again delayed". You will give the people the impression that the patch was due 3 weeks ago (for exact date ask War-overlord  ). This is clearly not the case here. They just have to address some last minute networking problems and the patch will be released with a slight delay.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 12, 2012 11:05 AM |
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The problem with the quality testing team is that they can prevent a patch from being delivered because for instance the patch causes the game to crash if you push up, down, right, left, B, A. All it takes is discover a tricky anomaly just before the patch is released et voila!
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