Attn. CDPR Witcher 3 Product/Project Managers

[drewdog173]

Attn. CDPR Witcher 3 Product/Project Managers

I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I really did. I waited and waited, and played through the weekend, and completed several quests that gave me no XP, and kept checking and refreshing and looking for 1.05.

After resorting to installing a community mod to fix the XP bug, I have to make some comments:

1. Whoever the Communications Director is that is telling the Community Manager what he can and can't say - you are behaving like the worst kind of stereotypical corporate creep. This whole patch debacle comes across as "Cover My A** from Liability" with tiny slivers of information being divulged after clamor by the community. You might be "protecting yourself" from any potential litigious buyers seeking refunds, but you are screwing your company's reputation. Try transparency and you'd find the community being much more accepting of the cluster**** you've created.

2. Product/Scrum/whatever manager - not hotfixing the XP bug - please get your head examined. You have a AAA title RPG - AN RPG FOR GODS SAKE - that is veeeeerrrrrrry stingy on XP due to a bug. What do you do? Fix it immediately? No, let the community play the game the week following release without being able to get XP, push the patch back and back and back because you "want to bundle everything together." Are you kidding me? You have an RPG. With an XP bug. Fix THAT first. Yeah, my camera still stutters like crazy, but hey, if I COULD LEVEL UP I wouldn't mind so much.

3. OK, so you decide to go the "Opaque wall, don't tell anybody what's going on, vague responses to the community that provide no real information and only leave people more frustrated" route. At least get your LOE and testing estimates in line. We were going to have the patch late last week, then Monday, then yesterday, still nothing today (that is Wednesday, for AN RPG WITH A BUG PREVENTING XP GAIN ARE YOU KIDDING ME)... you are seriously messing with people who want to play your game based on the quality of your previous efforts. You won't even show the decency of half-disclosure.

I realize your devs are working their asses off. The shame is that everybody related to them - Community, Communications, Marketing, Product Management, Project Management - are making awful business decisions that dev shops half your age and half your size got right a decade ago.

Get it together, please. Realize that the people upset about this are the same ones that love your games. Stop treating them like they're not worthy of even the slightest bit of *honest* information.

 

[HozzM]

I agree. Its really surprising they appear so blase about a bug that prevents players from getting XP. Especially on the heels of the 'downgrade' fiasco, it seems like they learned nothing.

 

[TurboIRL]

1. You bought a game within the first month of release.
2. its a PC port, there will be bugs.
3. This day and age you paid to basically be a tester to help the devs figure out what is actually wrong with the game outside of their workstations.
4. Have a nice day...and wait.

 

[PrincessMassacre]

This whole patch debacle comes across as "Cover My A** from Liability"

We work hard to try to make CD PROJEKT RED games and services work on your systems but we only have limited time to carry out tests and we don't always get everything right. Therefore, we can’t accept any liability or responsibility if CD PROJEKT RED games or services do not work fully or completely.

wrong planet, yo...

if that failure is caused by the happening of any unforeseen event beyond your or our reasonable control including without limitation, Internet outages, communications outages, fire, flood, war or act of God.

epic. we'll just claim it was an act of god.

all jokes aside... you posted an entire wall of text for what you could have said in 1 sentence (in another thread): please fix the xp bug, or when is patch? but you already know the answer to that... so y u aksin?

it's stickied in the main tech area: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/42937-Addressing-the-no-XP-Glitch?p=1718751#post1718751

 

[kingeliran]

Can you link me to the xp mod fix please?

 

[carsomnyr]

Can you link me to the xp mod fix please?

Finaly a sensible request here you go mate
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/119/?

 

[Lobasso]

1; There was no downgrade fiasco to begin with. Comparing a showcase video to a finished product does not make sense. People are crying about being unable to run the game at decent fps. What would have happened if they had released the game with the pre-release graphics?

2; I am unwilling to install the "xp-mod" as from what I hear, it merely raises the level of each quest to 68, meaning that people will get XP even for greyed out quests (which normally would not award any) breaking the game balance even further. I will wait for an official patch. instead of some wannabe savior's half-assed attempt at shaming the devs.

3; That being said, the silence surrounding some issues of the patching process and bugs, especially that NPC pop-ins is extremely disturbing. SUpport keeps claiming they can't reproduce the popping, whereas thousands have seen my thread on the forums, and about one hundred replied that they suffer from it too, including console gamers. I also find it somewhat derogatory that the default assumption of the support staff is that the person starting the ticket has absolutely no knowledge about computers, coding, and software design, and are treated as such. Having played games for almost 20 years, and reading, educating myself extensively on game design. I am able to say with an eighty percent certainity that the pop-ins are a result of the game not being able to handle the transition between "cells" of the game world properly. Considering how huge the world is, it is absolutely certain that they use some way to delineate areas from each other. It is the transition when popping happens, and saving/loading gets rid of the issue, as new assets load in one fell swoop. Nothing to reproduce, this is what happens for everyone. It was made more severe with 1.03, where LOD values were tweaked in order to better accomodate the game for console hardware, as both versions use the same code, and potatoes had trouble running it in its release state.

4; At the same time, I completely understand that software design is tough, and there are many unforeseen variables that can hinder the release of a patch. I am grateful to CDPR for releasing such a masterpiece, as it will no doubt be remembered as the new standard of story-driven RPGs for years to come. I do not wish to rush them into releasing a broken patch. The only thing I, as many others, want, is some honesty, and transparency. If they said: "We are working on it as hard as we can, but due to some complications we don't expect the patgch to be available before next monday", I'd have accepted it. No communication is the worst strategy. I could also have used a more detailed preliminary patch notes

Tl; DR: Game is awesome, devs are probably doing their best to fix everything, but the attitude of the support leaves a lot to be desired

 

[TheIzay]

This was a very calm and well written post that adequately puts what many of us are feeling into words. I genuinely hope they read this. Thank you @drewdog173

 

[drewdog173]

Regarding #1 - Yep, sure did. Just because other shops frequently release games with bugs doesn't mean that the practice should be condoned, or accepted.

Regarding #2 - It's not black and white. It's a spectrum, as are so many things in life, and there are degrees of bugs and issues. Minor issues that need to be patched are no big deal. But we're now over a week out on a AAA RPG with a bug preventing people from getting XP - that's a big f***** deal, dude.

Regarding #3 - I categorically disagree with your assertion here. If I bought an early access title on Steam, maybe, but this is not that. Maybe you like games being released broken as the status quo. I don't.

Moreover, other dev shops that have launched AAA titles with comparable degrees of ineptitude have been raked over the coals for it (looking at you, AC Unity/Ubisoft), and there's no reason why CDPR should escape that criticism for doing the same damn thing.

Moreover, the XP bug was INTRODUCED as a result of previous patches. It's not like this was a bug that launched with the game. You come across as an apologist.

 

[AverageGeek451]

OMG - "Attn. CDPR Witcher 3 Product/Project Managers"!

They all dropped what they were doing like a hot potato and opened your new topic, POST HASTE.

Then they went... wait for it...

TL;DR

I know I did.

 

[etsubmariner13]

Our major thread requesting a Bug Tracker was closed with a simple No. Communication is vital to your consumer base, and I thought it was pretty bad to just close a thread of many people asking for a Bug Tracker.

 

[vladgiurgiubv]

1. You bought a game within the first month of release.
2. its a PC port, there will be bugs.
3. This day and age you paid to basically be a tester to help the devs figure out what is actually wrong with the game outside of their workstations.
4. Have a nice day...and wait.

+9000
This is the way games launch today!

 

[drewdog173]

OMG - "Attn. CDPR Witcher 3 Product/Project Managers"!

They all dropped what they were doing like a hot potato and opened your new topic, POST HASTE.

Then they went... wait for it...

TL;DR

I know I did.

Wow, you're so super edgy, making fun of people who are frustrated that something they bought doesn't work as advertised! You're SO COOL, Mr. Massengill.

 

[razorpakk]

Agree with the OP.

I think the reason many of us are so bitter is that we truly believed that CDPR was different.

They're clearly no better than anyone else.

 

[you2]

Agree with the OP.

I think the reason many of us are so bitter is that we truly believed that CDPR was different.

They're clearly no better than anyone else.

Well right now i'm quite negative on them; they won't even accept a 'support' case.

 

[art_of_cope]

Gotta say I share the same notion here. I started off thinking CD Projekt was different, but their lack of communication with the community has been alarming.

 

[AverageGeek451]

Wow, you're so super edgy, making fun of people who are frustrated that something they bought doesn't work as advertised! You're SO COOL, Mr. Massengill.

Addressing the staff at CD Projekt Red such as the original poster did, with a blatant display of self-centered self-entitled Me-Monsterism as the thread title -- THAT is the only douchebaggery I see in this thread.

Oh, aside from yours that is - you get the minor "Thread Douchebaggery" award. 2nd place. Must feel right at home.

 

[RedBehrend]

Lets be mad at CDPR, i mean they made this dang game and without them we wouldn't have to go through all these communication horrors.... oohhh the horror.... on wait....

They have communicated fine IMO, the problem is when they communicate it's not clear across the board, they could update us more yes but would they really have more information? I dunno about that...
It also doesn't help when they try to update people it gets twisted across the internet as somehow bad or not enough.
CDPR HAS ALWAYS gone by "We don't release it till we think it's up to our standards"
They tried to rush a patch and it caused some major bugs, I think they are trying to release a good patch across the board.

 

[CrocPoulet]

The problem is primarily all CDPR lies, before and after launch. Anybody trust in them now, that's all.