A sobering experience

Well, today I crashed out of GW (multiple Net Err 7's). I assume it's just server load or a poor connection on my end. Whatever, I've got lots of games to play. Even a new one for me: Dungeon Siege 2.

DS2 plays, looks, and feels like some kind of cross-breed with Diablo 2 and Gauntlet: Legends. And it plays fairly well, too. Only reason I got it is because my friends that used to play GW still want to play a game together, and this one has internet capable stuff. Ok, done deal.

Then the bugs started popping up. Like, the game overloading my wireless connection and frying the card. After an hour of play I have to reset my router. In game bugs that cause problems and make it nearly impossible to play. A broken world navigation control that's amazingly bad. A hotkey save function that doesn't work. Broken skills, buged drops, and the list goes on and on. And this is version 2.2

So, I start digging for forums on this game. Official forums. I'm still pretty stunned as to what I found.

Microsoft doesn't have a forum. At all. Not even a direct link to one run by someone else. They just have a basically useless FAQ page all about installing the product. It's like they just don't care at all what people think of their products. Either that, or they want you to e-mail them directly so some poor minimum wage desk jocky can read your woes and forward you the latest PR statement. No thanks.

Gas Powered Games has a dedicated forum. I checked that and found what seems to be a continuous finger pointing contest between Microsoft and GPG, where nothing gets solved save for the most prevalent of problems. It's also filled with people that are ticked because their game is broken and no one wants to fix it or even listen to their complaints. There's also GPG reps there that seem fed up with Microsoft and the way the game is treated.

This was a truely sobering experience for me. It let me realize exactly how good we have it here on GW. I've seen reps pop in here all the time for no better reason than to answer a question, or squash a rumor. I've seen bug fixes all the time. There's no whining, there's just results. If something is broken, it gets fixed (Blood Stained Boots comes to mind). I'm just more impressed with A.Net staff now that I've seen the other end.

Is A.Net perfect? No. But they're a far sight better than what I've seen elsewhere.

Well, for DS2 I think you're all just screwed. Thanks for the input htough as I was considering this game as well (I love DS/DS:LoA). However, if you are a fan of the first game at least, it was just announced today that Microsoft turned over the publishing rights (not clear exactly how much they turned over or if it was all of it) to 2k Games. In the new titles they announced (one expansion, one for PSP) it looks like it will just be 2k Games and Gas Powered Games from now on. Maybe the two will take over the problems of DS2. Who knows.

Before I buy any game I ALWAYS check out to see if they have a forum and then browse it for a while to see if people are having fun or if there are any major problems with the game.

Point in case: Dungeon Lords. I thought the game looked like it would be cool before it game out. Then it was release and I read about allllll the bugs the game had. The dev's tried patches but I don't think it fixed it. Basically it was shipped broken and the Dev's knew it was broke. Shame on them. Needless to say I did not purchase that game

Are there any patches out there to fix Dungeon Seige 2's bugs?

I appreciate Anet's dedication to running a top notch game, even with the recent troubles

I still have that game shrinkwrapped sitting in my closet... maybe I won't install it, after all..

eBay it! Quickly!

I went out and bought SW: Empire at War on release day (well ship day since stores didn't have it until the 16th). I got it right away. There was already an update waiting for me when it installed (and checked). lol. I posted it on digg (linked to the update page) but only got like 9 diggs. I love the game, but they released a 2nd update a few days later. If you go look at the update page, these are by no means minor updates. There are even game balance issues in the updates that are corrected. It doesn't surprise me too much anymore to hear about stuff like that. The game is still pretty fun though.

I wish I would have checked the forums before buying Temple of Elemental Evil. That is the second worst game I've ever bought, after Black and White. ToEE was so full of bugs, broken quests, and broken game mechanics. Fansites actually made the best patches for the game.

I even liked Deus Ex 2 better than ToEE.

I also got SW: EoW. It is fun and a good refresher, since my roots in computer gaming (vs console) are in strategies...still the graphics aren't what they could be, the game play isn't as good as it could be, they cripple you with tightly limiting the number of structures per planet...

The game is fun and has a cool new perspective for an RTS, but I have still played much more of GW.

As a Star Wars fan (<----check my IGN) I have been disappointed in the last few SW titles that have been released. Battlefront - Critically Acclaimed?!?!! It was one of the worst/least thought out games I have played in a loooong time, Republic Commando - also very poor quality with sub par graphics and lame gameplay. I couldn't even bring myself to even think about buying BFII after seeing reviews that said it followed in the footsteps of its predecessor why would you want to do that?!? When I actually looked at the box art, it had many of the same flaws and shoddy work as the first BF...

GW FTW

I give ya Kudos for sharing this experience. It does make you realize something when you find out a game that has even more bugs than GW, has no forum, no support like GW...

And, now i can tell my friend that buying DS2 was a horrible idea...

Dungeon Siege 2 is such a fun game to play. Bought, installed, and I haven't had a problem with it. The drops are good, I don't see anything wrong with navigation.

The bonus dev level was so funny, pillow fights, haha.

And as far as I know, places like GameBanshee and Fileplanet had forums for Dungeon Siege 2.

Yeah, they're server isn't down that much (coughWcoughOcoughW) and the only major problem they had was the rollback which only lasted a couple of hours. Of course people always make a big deal about it though and a lot of people make it out to be worse than it is. They did the right thing, it would have ruined economy (people that had FoW that didn't really earn it). Hurt the PvPers and people farming or doing missions, but really that was the only major problem. WoW people probably complain all the time w/ that server.

My friend just got WoW, I'll hear the complaints from her soon enough then if that's the case.

As far back as I can remember, to the March BWE when I joined GW and GWG, this is the first time the server was down unintentally, and globally for a few hours, every other time it has been down it wasn't nearly this long and it was only in some places.

I'm thrilled with what all ANet does, GW is free, they constantly work to help mold the game to what we want as best as they can, as long as it falls in to keep the game callenging, fair and all of that fun stuff.

I'm impressed that they have a Fansite Kit, I've never seen any other company ENCOURAGE fansites and I've never seen a game have so many contests before. So, I am glad I have found a welcome MMO with so much support. I'm imporessed also that GW doesn't have to have a CD to run, gotta love switching between CD's for games and all of those fun things...

ANet is a sweet, sweet company for support and such. The only comparison I can think of off the top of my head is Stardock.

But all pales before the sheer ineptitude of the lethargic morass over at EA. That monolith is evil. Take BFMEII, for example (the latest game I've purchased to carry the EA taint - er, logo). I had to reinstall it four days after first installing it because the anti-crack anti-copy paranoia safeguards went haywire. The game doesn't even start half the time. The processes get going but it just drops back to the desktop without opening the application properly. The so-called support site says to "make sure your drivers are up to date" - no shit, and they are - and not to run an illegal copy.

Yes, EA support is about as useful as a swift kick in the crotch.

In conclusion, go ANet.

I have a lot of respect for the Anet crew. One could almost feel the angst they felt when they realized they had to roll back to preserve the economy and keep things fair. They are pretty quick dealing with bugs caused by updates, and I get the feeling that they really do look for root causes of problems and try to prevent them from occuring again. They are keenly aware of what we're doing, analyze tons of statistics about the game, and act accordingly.

This is a good company that has had only a couple of 'major' snafus since the game has been released, and who is having a pretty crappy week. I'm quite content to be patient with them as they clean up the mess and, as always, continue to move forward.

Frankly, the thing I keep wondering is, 'How long will Anet continue to produce Guild Wars: Chapter XX content?' We're here in the early days, just coming up on a (late) Chapter 2 called Factions, but at some point you have got to figure that it's all going to be over, and these guys are going to move on to something else.

I am not looking forward to that day. This is a great game, great technology, great idea. Let's hope we have 3, 4, 5 years of only a couple of major problems per year, but many hundreds of quality gaming hours every year!

A.Net has my respect too, they don't just update to cater to forum whims, they constantly update to fix the old stuff and bugs that come up. I've never found such dilligently visible servicing of a game by any company. In addition they don't just say "we updated today, huzzah" they do their best to briefly inform the play what was wrong. This has two positive effects:

-Gives players a better idea how to spot future bugs.
-Allows the player to determine how this fix will effect their gameplay.

To Denny Pace:
Hey, never know, if they keep it fresh they could have a franchise to rival Final Fantasy; gotta admit GW might have that potential. Even if that slows down, they'll have a new game to hook us once more. Maybe their next great game(s) will go futuristic ^_^.

All Hail A.Net!

DS2 is great. A game overloading and frying your wireless nic? LoL. Dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

Before buying any game, I read the reviews either in Computer Gaming World, or check out the reviews at www.1up.com, which is run by some of the same people. CGW has never steered me wrong.

along with many other games hes too lazy to play lol

It's a known fact most companies outsource their admin/support to a third party company. And so some support for games is horrid simply because the third party is based off of how many questions they get through a day, etc..

I know FFXI, and a few others do it anyways.

shhhh... -pushes call of duty 2 further under bed..-

kind of glad I didn't install it, I'd probably have gotten to into it and then just gotten all arrgh no.. my eleeb items ;_;

For the vast majority of complaints I've read here and other places I always wonder where the poster is going to go that they will be happy.

So far GW has been one of the most bug free, fastest response, and generally involved games I've played. There have been others I've felt that way about too, they are not the first, but it is a small group.

All of the "issues" I;ve seen complained about and people saying "OK, I'm leaving for WoW (usually in respect to grind or items not balanced enough) I figure it's just melodramatic or someone thinks that is how they will get thier way. Well, either that or plain stupid. Even complaints about the occasional net error forcing them to some other MORPG, which of course has *more* downtime.

Of course, the person may just be stupid also, I'm sure some were serious, some even went over to another game with 10x the grind and was happy to get away from unlocks and other such things.

Though, to be fair to the devs, in many cases it's the publishers choice to go ahead. While I've never worked on a game, I've worked where buggy code has shipped and I can totally 100% assure it was not my choice. Usually marketing or a non-technology based position. I bet I hated it more than the users - for you it's just one person, for me it knowing each and every sale the marketing people were excited over was an unhappy customer and I would most likely get the blame from the community - not the "brilliant" guy standing up there with a big smile on his face who will later slick talk and try and blame us (note that is not universal, many good marketing, good managers, and sometimes the devs say "yes" when they shouldn't). Though internally it was the person who authorised it against the devs choice fault, slick talk doesn't negate documentation (also why documenting everything is a *good* idea and not always a waste of time - see I told Mr Dumbbutt that it wasn't ready, see the constantly changing requirements - even into the testing phase - from Mr Dumbbutt to see why).

Heh, you expect support from Microsoft?? Dream on! MS has three primary goals, and they are: make money, make money, and make money. Their attitude about bugs, security holes, and other stuff is to not bother with it unless a 3rd party discovers it, makes it widespread knowledge, and puts egg on MS' face. You are a paying beta tester for every MS product you buy. Windows ME was one of the worst pieces of software ever coded, but did MS even try to fix most of its horrendous problems? Nah, their solution was: "here's Windows XP! BUY this, because it's so much better!"

Microsoft only "supports" a product when they have to save face. Who knows, we all might still be using Windows 98 if they could have figured out how to fix the shutdown BSOD.

Bill Gates = God of selling crappy software, really, really, well.

Oh god, please don't consider buying Battlefield 2. If you look at their forums you are going to cry... And it's even worse looking in the topics of BF: EU!
BF2 is a great game though, but EA and DICE is too busy ----ing it up.

Anet is doing a great job. EA is dissapoiting.. Conclusion: Buy Anet games :P

hm..appart from slowdowns, i havent had any troubles with DS2.....
but then, im offline, and i dl the latest patches....
and i only had one add on (rares everywhere type) and an allsaves fix....

one of the worst experiances i had was dungeon keeper and dk2....
i had the deeper dungeons and every time i played, it locked my pc up....
changed the soundcard..addedd a vid card....added more mem....nope, not playing...
so i gave up for a while and grabbed Dungeon keeper2...
(i asked the pleb behind the counter at dixons, 'will this game lock up and freeze my pc like the original version did?' no, says he....prat!)
Blaaarp....no prize for you, bucko...what did you loose? your own shiney soul? aww, bad luck ole boy...

DK2 also frose my pc up.....
in desperation, i went online....and there was the answer.....A PATCH! hehe.
all versions of the bloody game wanted not to work on ANYTHING that was over Win98 FIRST EDITION *gobsmacked i was*
so i had to always patch to even play it lol...

oh, and while i reember....if you are like me and are still on win98 and are looking at online games..dont bother even getting excited about dnd online....the <expletive deleated> have made it XP only....
typical

DS2 sucks, but they got some great spell cast animations though...

Speaking of Dungeon Siege...

It's funny that you guys keep telling me to patch it. I did. It shiped version 2, and patched to version 2.2

I had to patch it to play online AT ALL.

And this is sadly the latest patch. GG Microsoft.

So yeah, I have a new rule concerning the purchase of video games: If it was made by Microsoft or EA, NO TOUCHY.