Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Serious poll: Request for a NEW Bio-Eng designer (replace Keldarin)
Any assumptions on Keldarin's ability to complete the task are based on a few sentences we received third hand from him in August. The only real judgement we can make is that it's not done yet. Having delivered functional software to customers in the past, I can guarantee that the level of completion we have seen so far would get a contract cancelled. The task at hand is not rocket science. Database integrity, server performance and client stability are MUCH more difficult than creating a new BE cloning system. Which is probably why SOE has only assigned 1/3 of a developer to this. And as far as we know, he hasn't done it. At all. In any way. Even slightly. And if he has, then ...
When?
Reasonable1 wrote:Any assumptions on Keldarin's ability to complete the task are based on a few sentences we received third hand from him in August. The only real judgement we can make is that it's not done yet.
I think that's a very good point. I'm going to have to agree with Tal-N on this, as tough as it sounds.
I'm a software engineer, and I myself have been placed on projects that I couldn't do. Sometimes, it was just not something that I could get interested in, more often, I was just spread too thin in other projects. We can't know for sure what is taking Keldarin so long, but maybe having someone new coming in to look at it from a fresh angle is just what is needed to bring the project to completion.
What are the hold ups? We know:
1. Original clone changes "took longer than expected", and were not placed in the September update, because of this.
2. Clone changes were reconsidered, and will be worked on in parallel with the new creature level balancing.
I think we can infer from these facts that Keldarin is being held up because his original changes were seen as potential for throwing the creature structure more out of balance than before. More than likely, he was not given clear enough requirements to plan a workable solution. With a problem as complicated as this, we need a dev who will be adament about nailing down the requirements before starting work.
If Keldarin stays on the project, we will eventually see the fixes done, but I'm not
convinced that they will be done correctly. I think it would be better for Keldarin to explain to someone what he has learned about the project (much learned the hard way), and explain where the project currently stands. The new dev would be able to build on Keldarin's experiences, and make use of his/her own insights to finish the project.
Tal-N,
WHile you will find me in accord with you on the general problems facing the profession, I would direct the finger of blame elsewhere. I am fairly sure that what we have going on here is the chickens coming home to roost on the philosophy of nerfs in hotfixes, fixes in publishes.
Look at the laundry list of concerns our correspondant posted, and what got fixed. One that stands out was the fact that DNA didn't get destroyed on a crit failure...you better believe that got priorty placement in line for dev attention, since that fell under the 'nerf' catagory and not under the 'repair' catagory.
Keldarin may just be a good worker bee, doing what he is told to do (by GOD fix anything that needs nerfing, and well, we can get around to actually repairing the game next summer sometime). Yanking him will just put another inexperienced worker bee into that slot who also does his level best to nerf the game, and never gets around to fixing this game.
Your righteous indignation needs to be directed at the dev team lead for the entire project, and the suggestion which requires a bullhorn at full volume pressed to his head is 'ENOUGH WITH THE NERFS! FIX THE BUGS ALREADY!' Put nerfs in publishes, and bug fixing in hot fixes. That is the mantra. Say it loud, say it proud! I am still amazed that they dither away time on things like wedding guides and gardens when so much in this game is just horribly, obviously broken. Sure its no fun tracking down why I warp 20 meters away while I am sitting, but it is way more important fixing that than it is putting inconsequential fluff like wedding guides up. I died by being warped into an aggressive lair while seated and took a deathblow equipment hit, but those gardens, who cares?
In the case of clones, they could have just fixed the other 6 broken ones just like they did the Bol, and they could have done it last publish. They chose to leave them broken, and tell us they are overhauling the clone system. They know how to fix it, they chose not to fix it. We are playing this game right now, and if you can do something like fix a busted clone right now, even though you have some grand sweeping scheme for overhauling clones, you go ahead and fix the busted clones right now, because we are playing this game right now. We paid our $15/month to get a human in the loop on this gaming product, and we need that human in the loop to care about what we are playing right now to the point where they do the quick easy bug fixes as fast as possible.
Hey Tal,
Not a bad idea but I think that the problem is not Keldarin, it's SOE that suck...
The customer support is even worst then AC2... Unbeleivable be true!
The more I think about it, the more I think Keldarin is the problem. All of you EQ'ers out there, do you remember when SoL came out? We were shocked by the fact that the bazaar was not up and functional yet it was touted as one of the major features. Do you know why it wasnt done? Cause the dev that was assigned to work on it plain didnt do it, so they had to go back and completely redesign it from scratch (about 6 months of work if I remember correctly). So there definately is a precedent already set for having completely incompetent developers working for SOE, and am beginning to think that Keldarin is one of them.
Tilen