NHL 11 Patch Coming November 9th (for PS3, 360 Delayed by MS)

[canucksss]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blueland

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I just want to ask. Have you ever worked in QA before?

not in a QA setting of a production company but as a Clinical Pharmacist. one of our duties is to see that ALL MEDICATIONS that will go out from the Hosp Pharmacy going to the patients/or nursing units are done correctly. Right drug, right bags (in D5, NS, 1/2 NS etc), right calculations (if needed), right billing, right quantity etc. so you could say i did work in QA.

[kutya69]

I have in both hardware and software areas. And in both we never released something that was not ready for the spotlight. That's why i'm so hard on the NHL and FIFA team. Unfinished products cause the backlash that is happening in these forums. It shouldn't be a surprise. If you like spending money for unfinished products that's your prerogative, but I myself don't and in my work I would never dump something on a user the way EA has.
When you do find there are issues you address them, kiss the customers rear end, apologize profusely and get it fixed. And you never, ever release a shaky fix/patch. You already made a mistake and caused a black eye on your company and product so you don't want to make another one. You make sure that that patch fixes issues or you will lose customers, revenue and probably your job.

[Blueland]

Quote: Originally Posted by kutya69

I have in both hardware and software areas. And in both we never released something that was not ready for the spotlight. That's why i'm so hard on the NHL and FIFA team. Unfinished products cause the backlash that is happening in these forums. It shouldn't be a surprise. If you like spending money for unfinished products that's your prerogative, but I myself don't and in my work I would never dump something on a user the way EA has. When you do find there are issues you address them, kiss the customers rear end, apologize profusely and get it fixed. And you never, ever release a shaky fix/patch. You already made a mistake and caused a black eye on your company and product so you don't want to make another one. You make sure that that patch fixes issues or you will lose customers, revenue and probably your job.

But that's just the thing. You guys have to remember that sim gamers like us are in the vast minority of people who play the game. If 90% of the people who use your product are completely satisfied with it, is the product ready for the spotlight? I'd say yes, you can't please everyone. There will always be bugs with software. There just will. And QA will never catch them all.

I work on a QA software team, there's four of us. There's probably 350 people who use the software we QA. Every patch we release there's always tons of new bugs that come up, that we never catch. It's incredibly difficult to catch all of them.

Just to use the AHL glitch as an example (a glitch I have personally not seen). What if, for some reason, the glitch was caused by a person hitting the backspace three or more times when choosing their GM name in Be a GM? How do you target that? How do you catch that?

Remember, the AHL thing was just an example, I'm not saying that that particular glitch is caused by something so off key. But it's happened before tons of times with software. It happens to me every day.

Edit: Fixed some horrible sentence structure.

[sroz39]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blueland

But that's just the thing. You guys have to remember that sim gamers like us are in the vast minority of people who play the game. If 90% of the people who use your product are completely satisfied with it, is the product ready for the spotlight? I'd say yes, you can't please everyone. There will always be bugs with software. There just will. And QA will never catch them all. I work on a QA software team, there's four of us. There's probably 350 people who use the software we QA. Every patch we release there's always tons of new bugs that come up, that we never catch. It's incredibly difficult to catch all of them. Just to use the AHL glitch as an example (a glitch I have personally not seen). What if, for some reason, the glitch was caused by a person hitting the backspace three or more times when choosing their GM name in Be a GM? How do you target that? How do you catch that? Remember, the AHL thing was just an example, I'm not saying that that particular glitch is caused by something so off key. But it's happened before tons of times with software. It happens to me every day. Edit: Fixed some horrible sentence structure.

Pretty much bang on with what was said. EA's QA department, no matter how big, will NEVER reach the number of the consumers playing the game. Which in NHL's case, is in the millions. With all the stuff that this dev team in particular tries to cram into their yearly releases, I almost expect that some things will be buggy. What this team does not lack in, is post release support. They take their time with things and usually release a solid tuner or patch. I'd rather that then what we've seen from the 2K bball dev team or even the Madden team in recent years, for example, where it seems like almost a token patch. The guys working on this game and The Show do an outstanding job of releasing worthwhile patches and though it sometimes is frustrating waiting on the updates or even the details of what's in it, in the end it's almost always worth the wait.

[nolesfan69]

I think I spend so much time listening to others and mostly on this forum.
That I can't even make a simple decision if I should start my BeAGm or
not. Hell I don't even know why the BeAGM mode is so bad that no
one should play it till the patch. Now we are not sure if the patch will
be here on Nov 9th. But I love this forum because everyone is so hard core about their sports games. But everyone wants perfection all the time.
Why can't we just enjoy the game the way it is.

[kutya69]

I'm not even talking about random bugs that might be some weird anomaly. And if they had issues with a PC version of NHL 11 I could agree with you that yes there are just so many combinations of hardware and software on a PC that its difficult to reproduce the perfect storm. But PS3 and Xbox are pretty solid platforms you are working with, there aren't many variations between their operating systems.

I'm talking about the well known XP problem, the issue with young draft picks contracts not sticking and other teams grabbing your players, the issue with star players not getting picked up ,etc. I don't play online at all and I would like BeAGM and BAP to work correctly. Folks on these boards Sim'd a season the second they opened the game and found there were issues, how can EA not find that?

Getting off topic a little, FIFA 11's career mode(like NHL BAP) did not include a way for me to substitute my player off the field if he is tired or injured!! The player has an energy meter and if you use too much you will tire yourself out and not be able to play the next game(s). My player got injured early in the first half and I had to hobble around like a gimp the rest of the game. How do you over look that? That's not a strange bug, its a huge oversight.

[Redshirt_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by canucksss

i really appreciate your work in informing us here, please dont get me wrong. but my question is this: how come that every time EA release this product, it seems that it didnt pass through extensive quality test. perfect example is the roster update, that you need to re-release another one to cure the AHL bug which could have been prevented if it was properly tested. (again, i appreciate EA for correcting them immediately).

I think there is another roster update coming, but don't quote me on that.

Your broader question isn't something I can really offer an opinion about. I will say that it isn't for lack of effort by the dev team.

Quote:

Regarding tuner updates, most of these are answering the problems of ONLINE not offline. Why is it that offline users (using BaGM mode) are seems being left out? THink whatever, but somehow this kind of actions of EA leave offline patrons feels being left out.

Tuning updates, as they are being used currently, can only change gameplay, not things outside of gameplay like how Be A Pro and Be A GM work. Both online and offline gameplay do get changed by tuning updates, but there is more focus for online because balance for competitive human vs human gameplay is more critical because the AI doesn't learn exploits the way human opponents do.

If the 360 patch is delayed it probably won't be more than a week, but again this is just second hand info so I don't know all the details. Hopefully we'll all know the exact dates soon.

[Tomba]

RedShirt_EA...

I just want to know why the development team never thought to put much emphasis into a broadcast cam?

Do they not feel authentic tv presentation be important?

Games like NBA 2k11 etc seem to perfect this and it just makes it all the more real to watch.

My father was over one day and i wanted to show him NHL 11 and how it played. He instantly commented on why it didn't have a tv broadcast angle?
Honest truth. Totally random without me or anyone mentioning it yet he mentioned it.

This can't be overseen yet again by the games producers.

I've since not played the game in hopes you'd have been able to patch a customizable version of your broadcast camera angle but news is it's not possible this year. It was something sorely needed not this year but probably two years ago...