Maxoid Sam trusts the Feedback forms as little as we do?

[miramis]

http://tinyurl.com/35gyvg

So many of us have submitted those feedback forms time and again, only to be frustrated that nothing gets done about the worst issues, while the miniscule ones get special treatment.  But the winds may be changing, because now we have been given a direct e-mail to the sims team Tech support.  What I found interesting was that the team was unaware of the bsod issue with pets, Maxoid Sam also appeared to be confused over how the Feedback Form keeps disappearing off the BBS, and has stated that it will remain from now on.  I starting to like this guy, perhaps things will get better after all. 

My only concern is that the fanboys/girls will abuse the e-mail with nonsense that has nothing to do with fixing bugs.

How do you guys feel about this?

[KatEnigma]

I think that MaxoidSam lies through his teeth, and that he's just doing this to make it appear as if he gives a damn and shut up the complainers. If he said the sky was blue, I'd look outside to check.

[jrd]

Sheesh... the second posting there (the Pets BSOD thing) describes what seems like an same issue I've been battling ever since the friggin' patch. Only I don't get a bluescreen, just a completely locked up PC with a black (turned off) monitor. I must've missed the initial posting of it.

Poor Maxoids by the way. They're caught in the crossfire between annoyed TS2 players who run in to bugs, and EA Games who doesn't care for QA....

[miramis]

I have thought about the cheat thing a lot, (and have my own transcript of last nights chat just in case) and have wondered if he just hasn't been given the right information.  Someone edited out that transcript, I remember it coming up in the chat too, and reading it again in the transcript afterwards, but was it Maxoid Sam or someone else?  We will never know.  But this guy does seem to be doing more than Tim LeTourneau did, of course there is a new EP out soon, I'm not oblivious to the timing.  But when did Tim ever post about any issues, Maxoid Kane used to do that, but she was often given the wrong information, who's to say that the same wrong info isn't being given to Sam?  There is something very strange going on at that company.

We complain about poor communication with the fans, but I think their own internal communication is sorely lacking.

[cwykes]

So should we send them e-mails about all the things we reported already?
Most of my current irritations are to do with OFB and I can't see them adding OFB fixes now anyway.
- business data not moving with the sim
- food shopping on community lots broken
- missing LTWs
- lags and broken stuff about wages especially for teens/elders
- overload of stupid wants to hire sims who already work for you on another lot, or just because you know them.
- inventory bugginess - undo loses things!
- robots break too frequently
- wants to slow dance when you don't have NL and can't slowdance!
- athletics bus goes without my sim - if you cancel it out of the queue, the bus goes immediately.
- maids stuck cleaning fish tanks
- expresso cups strewn all over the lot.
- community lots not "upgrading" when you add OFB (clothes racks/food bins etc came down in price a lot)
- flamingo wall lights disappeared when adding OFB to base game
,.....enough already....

Fortunately you guys have fixes for a lot of things - wonder if someone is going to come and visit or lurk here like MaxoidTom! 

[miramis]

Send them in, I filled out a couple of feedback forms a couple of days back for OFB and Nightlife bugs.  If they can squeeze them into an EP or something that's great.  On the lurking maxoid topic though, I don't know how wise that would be actually, Maxoid Tom mysteriously disappeared after that didn't he.  He hasn't posted at MTS2 since either 

[dizzy]

Stuck between the anvil of EA greed and user helplessness. I hope MaxoidTom got a real job at a company that actually gives a shit about customers.

[MutantBunny]

MaxiodTom said last May he was doing another project, but still with EA.

I agree, poor MaxiodTom! I do think he's moved on to a much better place, even if still at EA! He's out of the Sims2 cesspool!

And poor Maxiods in general. *hangs head in shame* I may be one of the worst to trash them. But when one wants to state how disappointed one is with the game/EP/patch then Maxis or EA or the Maxiods gets blamed as a natural course of action. 

IF EA would just learn to LISTEN to their employees and their customers and then TAKE TIMELY ACTION on that.....

But for me, anyway, they are too late. I am so disgusted with the bugs and glitches and alll of the crap--and at the same time I miss my sims!- I will not give EA one more cent! until they have a proven track record-- which IF EVER is years away.

[Magicmoon]

http://tinyurl.com/35gyvg

Maxoid Sam also appeared to be confused over how the Feedback Form keeps disappearing off the BBS, and has stated that it will remain from now on. 

I clicked on the link that will remain from now on 7/24/365 and got the EA 404 page not found with a confused Sim looking for the page.

[jrd]

That's because MaxoidSam (or at least whoever posted that thing)'s a noob.

He linked to http://thesims2.ea.com/community/qa_form.php. — the working link is http://thesims2.ea.com/community/qa_form.php (no trailing dot).

[Frally]

*de-lurk*

I just read Maxoid Sams blurb and to me it seemed to be saying "Don't trash the game on a public forum where potential buyers may see that it's riddled with bugs". Maybe I'm just too jaded by EA releasing broken games year after year, I can't believe anything they say anymore.

[KellyQ]

Okay taken completely out of context I found it humorous when he said "we are always happy when people find bugs in the game...". Really? Is this why they include so many of them???
Damn, there must be a lot of happy Maxoids then!

Oh, and riddle me this: Why are they still called Maxoids when Maxis has absolutely nothing to do with EA anymore?

[Moa]

I think this tends to be as good as you often get from any large organization, especially if there is no dedicated in-house push towards really excellent customer support. And these days, what high-tech related company is dedicated to good post-sales tech support? I'm sure they exist, but they're the exception, not the rule.

That said, having worked for a large organization, I can guess that every once in a while somebody in the company gets the idea that they need to do a better job with the customer feedback and some guy or group of guys will be designated to wade through the complaints, some coherent and many not, to see what can be done about them. The easy changes get done first, because well they're easy. The hard problems get put off, because the guys in charge of fixing this stuff (assuming anybody has been put in charge of fixing the stuff) have a ton of stuff on their plates and this sort of thing isn't sexy, fun, and is probably pretty thankless to boot. Plus some of their more knowledgeable playing customers have freely made fixes available to them that are most likely to create a fuss, so why bother?

I'm wondering, however, if the NVidia BSOD problems haven't finally kicked off some alarms. I know that I probably would have bought a 8800GTS by now if it weren't for my own BSOD problem for several months after I installed OFB, a problem I circumvented on my own by throwing more hardware at it. After all that, I hesitate to try yet another Nvidia card. That's $400 that's probably going into ATI's pocket later this year, rather than Nvidia's.

[PandaGirl]

I read his blog... they want you to attach pictures or movies of the bugs. Why not error logs? Wouldn't that be more informative? I do realise then they'd have to teach the sheeple how to create an error log, but really what information of bug causes will they get from a picture?

[KatEnigma]

Maxis is still a part of EA. The take-down of Maxis.com was temporary. Something even with LS said something along the lines of "made by Maxis for EA.."

Anyway, Maxoid Sam is supposed to be the one in charge of TS2 right now. He took over shortly before Pets released. When the transcript was edited (and I too saw it in the transcript to begin with, since I missed that chat) he was already in charge. It wouldn't have been edited without his knowing about it, and if it was, it's his JOB to find out about it. Just like it was his JOB to know the cheat was in there, in the first place.

Just like he doesn't know where the feedback forms disappear to? Hello, once again, he's the one in charge of the division, and he's trying to say he has no way of knowing what happens to them? They magically disappear just like the cheat magically appeared? Riiiggghhttt.

He also permabans people, and not the ones who need to be banned.  He does it if he just doesn't like what's being said.

This latest transcript for Seasons was already partially edited, and for something completely stupid. He came in and said "hello all" and didn't say "let's get chattin'"  I remember because I thought it was odd that they launched straight into the chat. He had it edited to make him look like less of a moron.

I wish they'd send him back to EA Sports. Tim was a moron, but he wasn't an asshole.

[dizzy]

EA obviously subscribes to the same philosophy as Microsoft. Lie to people about the quality of your software, deliberately confuse the specs and insert code that you know is buggy, then keep your customers running the upgrade treadmill. If Maxoids say anything different, it's because they are worthless sacks of shilling shit.

EA could easily fix all the bugs that are in the Sims and they know it, and I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are deliberately placed there. Feel free to quote me anywhere you like.

[cwykes]

That said, having worked for a large organization, I can guess that every once in a while somebody in the company gets the idea that they need to do a better job with the customer feedback and some guy or group of guys will be designated to wade through the complaints, some coherent and many not, to see what can be done about them. The easy changes get done first, because well they're easy. The hard problems get put off, because the guys in charge of fixing this stuff (assuming anybody has been put in charge of fixing the stuff) have a ton of stuff on their plates and this sort of thing isn't sexy, fun, and is probably pretty thankless to boot. Plus some of their more knowledgeable playing customers have freely made fixes available to them that are most likely to create a fuss, so why bother?

The other reason easy things get fixed first is that people get set simplistic targets like "fix 10 bugs".  If your bonus depends on meeting targets - who in their right mind is going to pick hard bugs to tackle?

[witch]

...and I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are deliberately placed there...

Why would they do that?

[Eggs]

So they can sell EPs that fix them of course. :p

[uaintjak]

Yes, remember the fun when they sad they weren't going to release a stand-alone patch for one of their expansions?  I forget which.  Their excuse was something along the lines of "It's too hard to fix the bugs in a stand-alone patch, so we're just going to put it in the expansion."

[Dea]

I do realise then they'd have to teach the sheeple how to create an error log

Not really all they need to do is show them where it located.  Whether or not debug mode is on or not an error report is generated. Believe me I never turn it on and get an error report everyday about my incompatible sound card.

[KatEnigma]

So they can sell EPs that fix them of course. :p

The EP's don't fix them, so your theory doesn't hold up. That was true in TS1, but not in any of the EPs with TS2. The most you can say is that OFB tightened up the code and made the whole thing run better than it ever did, but the same old bugs are there unless you patch. Installation of a new EP forces you to patch the base game- from the website, but nothing else.

[LFox]

I don't believe they intentially put the bugs in the game but i do believe their a bunch of lazy useless people and their testers are a bunch of monkeys that can't tell the difference between cheese and iron.  90% of bugs should NOT make it past the beta testers, ASSUMING THEY EVEN BETA TEST.  Most of them are so serious and so easy to pop up that any fool who actually plays the game would come across them.  Their never going to fix all the problems with patches because there is no money in it and its a waste of resources for them.  The only reason they bother patching anything is because if they at least patch some of the minor problems most of the sheep will think hey we got a patch they fixed stuff they'll keep doing it.

Heh and lets not forget whenever they patch something they usually break it with the next patch or EP anyway.

Anyway thats my take on the situation.

[Marvin Kosh]

When you have a whole bunch of people working on the same project, not necessarily putting helpful comments on their code, it's not hard to see how bugs are introduced.  It's not necessarily the case that there's a programming error, but a lack of foresight on the part of someone who simply wants to get his day's work done and get home.  When more code is laid down which then calls ClockWatcher's code, it too seems to work at first glance.  By the time the game or expansion pack in finished, his code is firmly entrenched by routines which call the routine which calls it.  You change his code, you have to change everything that follows from it.

When the game is played by people who have hours upon hours to experience the full range of bugginess, the shortcomings of ClockWatcher's code finally reveal themselves.  Rather than admit the mistake when it comes to light and come up with a fix either the offending code is superceded in the next expansion pack, or some sort of plastering-over of the cracks is introduced.

Basically if you want something done right and not according to some rigid timescale, you've got to hire people who don't declare victory so soon.

[LynnMar]

I read somewhere that when they test a new EP, they only test it with the base game loaded.   Well, hell, no wonder there are so many bugs.   

 If they wanted to find out if it is compatable, then they should test it with all the EP's installed.    But that would be too much trouble for them and besides we don't want them to do anything that makes sense.   It would send us all into shock.              rofl