How much more do people have to complain before Bioware actually does something...

[Sasir]

For real though...I created a Sith assassin and got to my class quest At the foot of the colossus, did everything I was supposed to...Got to the door and opened it and no auto-update, no picking up the relic. Put in a ticket and then checked out the forums for the problem. It seems like this problem has been going on since the begining of the month with no kind of time estimation to be fixed

STAR WARS: The Old Republic - Sith Inquisitor Class Quest Bug [At the Foot of the Colossus]

Why even build a game if your not even gonna try to fix the problem asap? Theres been enough tickets/forum rants/customer support listings about it... SHEESH!! /rant

[clamus68]

I have an Inquisitor that is stuck at that point. I'm disappointed but the fix should occur tonight for maintenance.

[Shaddarah]

I would think that they haven't found the issue or the issue is going to break something else and they're working on that.

[kgotter]

Finding the cause for issues like that can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

I remember when skyrim companion quest was broken for a lot of people it was months until it got fixed.

[Sutek]

Todays patch notes say they fixed several mission completion problems. Of course they didn't list any of the missions. Hopefully yours is one that got fixed.

Is this a new bug? I have leveled several inquistors and never had this happen to me.

[Liberty]

A buddy of mine said his toon was having that problem but Tuesdays patch did indeed fix the problem.

[Jetsu]

How software support works:

A person reports a problem. They then verified the problem. It gets prioritized for a fix (which will be immediate if it's a necessary function that's broken). After that they diagnose the problem. Someone fixes the code. Then they have to test the change. After that it will be released.

All the reporting that happens after the first person contacts BioWare is pointless unless they offered additional information about the circumstances of the issue and BioWare isn't already past the diagnosis stage. The reality is that most users only make things worse by complaining, as they offer nothing new and only add pointless negativity to the situation.

So to answer the question in the title: significantly less than the number that already have. One until they do something, perhaps more to help with diagnosis.

[clamus68]

You outlined a process that would be wonderful IF it worked. Class quests in this game have been broken multiple times. The Inquisitor class quest is not the first to be broken. It invariably becomes which class quest line is broken now. In this case it was the Inquisitor/Counselor quest lines. It has been broken on a couple occasions. My Imperial Agent quest was broken at one point. This is a story based mmo, the one thing you would HOPE they get right is the story lines for the various classes. There will always be bugs but the truth is the customers have a right to complain when the bugs are affecting core parts of the game.

[sethdanielpaul]

Sure people can complain, but once BioWare announces that they are working on a fix that complaining stops being either constructive or helpful. Every minute they have to waste reading, replying to, moderating, or otherwise fielding subscriber complaints after that is time that could have been spent more productively. I personally would like my $15 per month to be used for something better than paying some poor customer service rep to deal with all the gratuitous whining.

[Jetsu]

You outlined a process that would be wonderful IF it worked. Class quests in this game have been broken multiple times. The Inquisitor class quest is not the first to be broken. It invariably becomes which class quest line is broken now. In this case it was the Inquisitor/Counselor quest lines. It has been broken on a couple occasions. My Imperial Agent quest was broken at one point.

And they've all been fixed multiple times, therefore the process I outlined (I.E. support process) IS working. It's also worked fairly quickly in most cases (at most a week of time to diagnose, fix, test, and release is about as fast as software can move). I really do realize it feels like years in user time (being a user myself).


The problem you mention is not related at all to the support process. Your issue is one I've noticed as well, and is based on seemingly terrible initial software design practices. There are logically unrelated systems that seem somehow coupled. Take this last patch for instance: They make a few items legacy bound, change the way a species displays certain helms, make legacy names non-unique, add a few things to the selection and customization UI, and messed with the LFG tool some. None of that should have any coupling to the quest system or any specific quest.


It's either a terribly constructed infrastructure or they're accidently releasing changes that weren't intended to be released yet. I'd like to think it's just that they're terrible at managing their source (because that would be simple to fix by putting new business practices in place), but based on similar bugs in previous patches I'm thinking there was some terrible, hard-coded, standardless coding going on early in this game's development.


Luckily, it sounds like they declined to renew a lot of contracts of the developers who were there at the beginning. Unfortunately a lot of developers are TERRIBLE with logic but very determined so they'll hack all day until something "works". Unfortunately, this makes any changes or updates to that system likely to cause bugs that you'd never think to check because logically there's no reason the functionality should be related.

There will always be bugs but the truth is the customers have a right to complain when the bugs are affecting core parts of the game.

I'm not saying people don't have the right to complain. I'm just answering the question rationally. The first report is always important. Subsequent reports are valuable so long as they offer additional information and the support team still isn't sure what the cause is. Any other complaining of any kind does absolutely no good, but can serve to validate irritation (which doesn't actually help the community any).


In short, you ALWAYS have the right to complain, but at some point using that right makes you nothing more than another person looking for validation of negatitive emotions and in no way assists in the improvement of the game. It is not, and never will be, a democratic process where they don't bother with bugs until they get enough votes for it, and those votes are in the form of angry forum posts.

[clamus68]

You outlined a process that would be wonderful IF it worked. Class quests in this game have been broken multiple times. The Inquisitor class quest is not the first to be broken. It invariably becomes which class quest line is broken now. In this case it was the Inquisitor/Counselor quest lines. It has been broken on a couple occasions. My Imperial Agent quest was broken at one point.

And they've all been fixed multiple times, therefore the process I outlined (I.E. support process) IS working. It's also worked fairly quickly in most cases (at most a week of time to diagnose, fix, test, and release is about as fast as software can move). I really do realize it feels like years in user time (being a user myself).


The problem you mention is not related at all to the support process. Your issue is one I've noticed as well, and is based on seemingly terrible initial software design practices. There are logically unrelated systems that seem somehow coupled. Take this last patch for instance: They make a few items legacy bound, change the way a species displays certain helms, make legacy names non-unique, add a few things to the selection and customization UI, and messed with the LFG tool some. None of that should have any coupling to the quest system or any specific quest.


It's either a terribly constructed infrastructure or they're accidently releasing changes that weren't intended to be released yet. I'd like to think it's just that they're terrible at managing their source (because that would be simple to fix by putting new business practices in place), but based on similar bugs in previous patches I'm thinking there was some terrible, hard-coded, standardless coding going on early in this game's development.


Luckily, it sounds like they declined to renew a lot of contracts of the developers who were there at the beginning. Unfortunately a lot of developers are TERRIBLE with logic but very determined so they'll hack all day until something "works". Unfortunately, this makes any changes or updates to that system likely to cause bugs that you'd never think to check because logically there's no reason the functionality should be related.

There will always be bugs but the truth is the customers have a right to complain when the bugs are affecting core parts of the game.

I'm not saying people don't have the right to complain. I'm just answering the question rationally. The first report is always important. Subsequent reports are valuable so long as they offer additional information and the support team still isn't sure what the cause is. Any other complaining of any kind does absolutely no good, but can serve to validate irritation (which doesn't actually help the community any).


In short, you ALWAYS have the right to complain, but at some point using that right makes you nothing more than another person looking for validation of negatitive emotions and in no way assists in the improvement of the game. It is not, and never will be, a democratic process where they don't bother with bugs until they get enough votes for it, and those votes are in the form of angry forum posts.

Complaints for the sake of are pointless, in that I agree. The issue is that some people do not complain until their personal patience/faith has lapsed. I didn't complain about this issue this time because I wasn't concerned about it getting a fix because I had heard it was coming Tuesday. That said alot of people have had their patience tested because as you stated the break came from a.seemingly unrelated source. Again, this game does not have the cache of goodwill to constantly have breaks of this kind. Do they fix bugs? Yes they do, pretty quickly in certain cases. But every patch seemingly breaks something anew. This game is just poorly done in many regards from a coding standpoint or so it seems. Just my thoughts.

[Jetsu]

It's contrary to most managers beliefs, but the best programmers you can find are some of the laziest people you'll meet. Why? Because they're going to make everything they create as simple as possible while still achieving the desired effect. Bill Gates said it best when he admitted "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."

When a concept starts having problems a lazy person will get frustrated and find an easier way. A hard worker will keep hacking at every single problem and eventually make any solution work, but the end result is a Frankenstein of programming that will fall apart the next time a change is made...

It seems like the the programmers originally working on this project were the determined sort who "made things work" instead of optimizing it. The engine complaints the forums are overflowing with are symptoms of just one example (and I'm sure if I knew more about their infrastructure it wouldn't even be the worst case).

I suppose the question is if this was mostly because they had contract work (nothing against contract workers, but they tend to do exactly what their told and not push back if a design isn't optimal) or if they have some terrible micro-managing management making technical decisions and then forcing all to adhere to it regardless of feedback. In either case, the massive amount of reorganization and layoffs may actually have put them in a better place.

Time will tell.