Rant about stupid people on another forum



  • I know, TRWTF is me expecting to have an intelligent conversation on the Internet, but this whole thread on the Minecraft forums just reminded me how arrogant and willfully ignorant humanity is.

    Yeah, OP came off as trolling but he had a valid point, and some developers (including myself) tried to intelligently point out some of the problems that Majong (the company that's developing Minecraft) seems to be having as far as testing and development methodology, based on our own experiences and what we can witness of the Minecraft release cycle. Then a bunch of 12-year-old super-genius users who can single-handedly solve all the world's problems ruined the thread by constantly posting woefully ignorant and occasionally hateful stuff and won't even bother using basic logic or even reading what's been posted already. By the time we got some of their points addressed and politely pointed out how they were wrong and how things can be improved, a ton more came in and posted the exact same woefully ignorant stuff that we just refuted. So it degraded into a pointless flame war between a few knowledgeable developers and a forum full of unthinking illiterate game addicts who can't possibly consider that maybe other people can have their own opinions and just maybe those opinions are sometimes correct or at least somewhat valid.

    It seems stating I'm a developer automatically means I'm lying and should be ignored when discussing software development. I momentarily considered scanning my transcript, diploma, resume, IQ test results, and list of successful software projects I've worked on and making them my forum avatar but I know it wouldn't help.

    Well here's the summary of WTFs I encountered or got flamed for pointing out:

    • Releasing new features (with new bugs) without fixing the stockpile of existing (often massive) bugs
    • Calling it Minecraft "Beta" while clearly treating it like "Alpha"
    • Lack of testing (last update had an update with spawn points as one of the major features, five minutes into the game you can clearly tell that the feature didn't exist, updates are often followed a day or so later by an update that actually works and does what the first update claimed to do)
    • Userbase screams "IT'S BETA GET OVER IT" when we find problems and post possible solutions. Aren't we supposed to point out flaws during beta testing?
    • Userbase screams that the problems are minor or nonexistant and ignores any evidence to the contrary.

    I'm not sure how to turn this into a valid topic instead of just me raging and ranting, but at least you guys here are usually intelligent and civil.

    /rant



  • @mott555 said:

    I'm not sure how to turn this into a valid topic instead of just me raging and ranting, but at least you guys here are usually intelligent
    and civil.

    It's a hell of a lot better than "I like working from home here's a stupid comic".

    Did anybody in that forum say that you were the tester? Because I'm not sure if that message got across...

    I kind of look forward to Minecraft's inevitable implosion, since I'm still pissed at them for writing a game which seems like something I'd want to play IN JAVA. Thus excluding me from trying/buying it forever.

    It sounds to me as a neutral outsider, based on that thread, that what Notch and his company are really doing (during the 5 days it took to *remove* the April Fools' joke or the two weeks it took to add wolves that didn't even work properly to the game and with the $10 million in advance money) is hookers.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Did anybody in that forum say that you were the tester? Because I'm not sure if that message got across...
     

    It was mentioned several times and I agree totally. The problem is when you point out the flaws and try to make suggestions on how to improve (that is the point of beta testing, right?) you get flamed by a bunch of kids screaming "ITS B3TA YOU HAV NO RITE TO COMPLANE!!"

    I understand they have no concept of what it takes to develop and test software but it's still frustrating.

     



  • @mott555 said:

    I momentarily considered scanning my transcript, diploma, resume, IQ test results, and list of successful software projects I've worked on and making them my forum avatar but I know it wouldn't help.
    The problem is you care. I've taken part in my share of online arguments and what I eventualy realized is that they are a complete and utter waste of my time. Now as soon as things get heated up I go do something else. Unless you have some stake in the argument if someone wants to be retarded on the Internet then let him be retarded. Even if you somehow manage to educate him another moron will simply take his place.



  • @DOA said:

    The problem is you care. I've taken part in my share of online arguments and what I eventualy realized is that they are a complete and utter waste of my time. Now as soon as things get heated up I go do something else. Unless you have some stake in the argument if someone wants to be retarded on the Internet then let him be retarded. Even if you somehow manage to educate him another moron will simply take his place.

     

    Nah, the problem is listed in the tags on my first post. I usually don't care but I was pretty irritable to begin with. Crapping fire once an hour does that to me.

     



  • @mott555 said:

    It was mentioned several times and I agree totally.

    I just possibly might have been joking.

    I guess it was a Fark-ism, though, so I guess it was a little obscure.

    BTW, how did Minecraft win a best game award when it's not even finished? WTF? Was the game award given by the Nobel Prize committee?



  • It's forums, not a bug tracker.  I play minecraft, i find it kind of fun, but i don't really look at it like a proffesional product. More like a very closed source commercial open source project that has 1 developer who only codes at night while he tries to balance 2 other jobs to sustain himself.

    So yeah, I think i agree with blakeyrat, i guess they mostly buy hookers at that company.

     

     

    BTW, how did Minecraft win a best game award when it's not even finished? WTF? Was the game award given by the Nobel Prize committee?

    I guess indeedd in the same way obama got the peace prize.

     


  • 🚽 Regular

    @mott555 said:

    It seems stating I'm a developer automatically means I'm lying and should be ignored when discussing software development.
     

    To be fair, people who do lie about their credentials when arguing on the interwebs is common, and it's hard to distinguish the real experts from the fake ones. Scanning your credentials on the web will probably only accomplish getting your identity stolen and possibly even by someone else who can use your own articles to "prove" they know what they're talking about.

    I'd have to wonder what the age ranges that we're dealing with are. I can tell that some of these folks haven't finished high school, given their naive look at the world.

    Beta-testing-driven-development is a tricky beast because, while you are correct that they should fix all of their existing bugs before introducing new features, they also have a PR campaign to maintain. If there's bad press about your product, regardless of how incorrect or unfair it is, it could damage your chances of making a successful full release. Sometimes you need to throw your testers a bone just to calm them the fuck down.



  • @stratos said:

    BTW, how did Minecraft win a best game award when it's not even
    finished? WTF? Was the game award given by the Nobel Prize committee?

    I guess indeedd in the same way obama got the peace prize.

    "Hey, Ringo... THAT was the joke!"



  • @mott555 said:

    Releasing new features (with new bugs) without fixing the stockpile of existing (often massive) bugs
    Firefox@mott555 said:
    Userbase screams "IT'S BETA GET OVER IT" when we find problems and post possible solutions. Aren't we supposed to point out flaws during beta testing?
    I like this one  from the Minecraft thread:

    its not always easy to test stuff properly, deadlines await and shit has to get done
    Isn't part of the "shit that has to get done" making sure that the code actually works?

     


  • Garbage Person

     All gaming-related forums are trash like that. I've only ever encountered two gaming forums that did not do the exact same shit:

    1) The OpenTTD/TTDPatch forums. This is because half the users are active contributing developers/aspiring contributing developers/creating art assets - and the other half don't know enough english to bother with serious arguments. The original game is also older than dirt and not 'interesting' to most 12-year-old audiences.
    2) The Dwarf Fortress forums. I suspect this is because the game itself is practically an IQ test establishing a minimum barrier to entry.

     

    Another favorite is game forums that trash the game before it's even out - because it isn't 'just like the original'. Bonus points if the differences they're bitching about are solid improvements over the original. On the Deus Ex Human Revolution forum, I saw them bitching about how there's 'too much artificial cover' (meaning there are crates and planters to hide behind) - and that alternate paths are 'too obvious' (meaning that if you're looking for an alternate path, you can quickly spot some random debris you can climb up). On the other hand, in the original, there were entire nonsensical architectural elements that served only to provide cover from gunfire, and alternate paths usually took the form of big ugly ladders attached to things that should not have ladders attached to them (like shipping containers - which were also completely nonsensically located)

     

     

    This disease is one of the biggest things that's killing PC gaming. PC gamers are overly and unwarrentedly critical of our own games, their developers, etc. Consoletards, on the other hand, worship their games and developers as gods, and are only overly and unwarrentedly critical of games and developers for that other console.



  • @Weng said:

    and are only overly and unwarrentedly critical of games and developers for that other console.
    That other console really sucks.

     


  • 🚽 Regular

    @El_Heffe said:

    Isn't part of the "shit that has to get done" making sure that the code actually works?
     

    Exactly, it really sounds like another case of management holding tight deadlines that prevent developers from doing what they need to get a release out. However, it looks like those developers are still partially at fault because they don't have the balls to tell management that their deadlines are too soon.

    Either that, of course, or they're just slacking off and aren't doing their job.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @RHuckster said:

    Exactly, it really sounds like another case of management holding tight deadlines that prevent developers from doing what they need to get a release out.

    Or it's just another instance of new features being more fun than fixing old bugs.



  • @RHuckster said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    Isn't part of the "shit that has to get done" making sure that the code actually works?
     

    Exactly, it really sounds like another case of management holding tight deadlines that prevent developers from doing what they need to get a release out. However, it looks like those developers are still partially at fault because they don't have the balls to tell management that their deadlines are too soon.

    Either that, of course, or they're just slacking off and aren't doing their job.

    Do they even have managers? It's like a 4-man programming team.

    This is just amateurs pretending to be professionals. They got a $10 million advance, but they're still acting like the loser guys who shared that house in Knocked Up. You can dress it up by listing all the solid software development practices they're failing to accomplish, but it's easier to just say it that way.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Or it's just another instance of new features being more fun than fixing old bugs.
     

    Killing a really nasty bug, I have found, is often far more rewarding than adding a new feature.

    Also,  what ever happened to writing software with no bugs in the first place? (Just because it's not really feasible doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it. Note: I firmly believe that it is technically possible to write bug-free code, just very difficult.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @too_many_usernames said:

    Killing a really nasty bug, I have found, is often far more rewarding than adding a new feature.

    I generally agree, but that reward comes at the end. Everything I know about minecraft I read on this site, so all I know is that it's a game written in Java, and the coders got some money. They sure didn't get the money for killing bugs. And if many / most of their players are prepared to live with them...

    But hard to reproduce / apparently intermittent bugs tend to stay around. I have no idea how many of theirs fall into that category.

    @too_many_usernames said:
    Also,  what ever happened to writing software with no bugs in the first place? (Just because it's not really feasible doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it. Note: I firmly believe that it is technically possible to write bug-free code, just very difficult.)

    Well, they're the ones who got someone to give them a pile of money. If I had the choice of writing awesome code or super lucrative code, I know which one I'd go for. I suppose, based on what I've heard, that these guys are more or less following the Twitter model as far as that goes.


  • As i undersatnd it with minimal research this was basically a one man show, then it became a hit, and he got money and hired people.

    Now I doubt the first thing he did was say "Hey, now that it's a hit, lets rewrite everything from scratch and do it right this time" 



  • @stratos said:

    As i undersatnd it with minimal research this was basically a one man show, then it became a hit, and he got money and hired people.

    Now I doubt the first thing he did was say "Hey, now that it's a hit, lets rewrite everything from scratch and do it right this time" 

    Can you imagine trying to explain that to your VC guys. "Yeah, thanks for that $10 million, we've spent it on getting to exactly the same place we were when you gave it to us."



  • @intertravel said:

    @stratos said:

    As i undersatnd it with minimal research this was basically a one man show, then it became a hit, and he got money and hired people.

    Now I doubt the first thing he did was say "Hey, now that it's a hit, lets rewrite everything from scratch and do it right this time" 

    Can you imagine trying to explain that to your VC guys. "Yeah, thanks for that $10 million, we've spent it on getting to exactly the same place we were when you gave it to us."

    Some context here. They have almost 2 million customers, 33 million in revenue, and they can't bother checking whether the OS X build works or not before releasing it?



  • @intertravel said:

    @stratos said:

    As i undersatnd it with minimal research this was basically a one man show, then it became a hit, and he got money and hired people.

    Now I doubt the first thing he did was say "Hey, now that it's a hit, lets rewrite everything from scratch and do it right this time" 

    Can you imagine trying to explain that to your VC guys. "Yeah, thanks for that $10 million, we've spent it on getting to exactly the same place we were when you gave it to us."
     

    "Hey VC guy, we looked at our existing architecture and found severe problems that would limit our success with future engagements with the users, thankfully we caught it now, so we are redirecting some resources to solve this hurdle now for cheap and increase our ROI potential in the future."

     



  •  Why exactly is everyone ranting and raving about Minecraft's bugs? I spent a solid 3 weeks playing that game and the only thing that ever bothered me was the terrain generator slowing things down at times. Well, that and creepers landing on my head from shafts in the ceiling, but that's another thing. Sure there's weirdness that may be a bugs or may be unexpected results of the game mechanics, but nothing major. When I play Minecraft I'm not pining for bug fixes, I want more content.



  • You probably play singleplayer. Multiplayer is a very different world, and my friends and I pretty much only play multiplayer. Minecarts and boats aren't really useable, storage chests won't open most of the time, chunks soemtimes won't load and you have to sign out and reconnect or you'll die if you step into them (really bad if it happens in the chunk you spawn in), and sometimes the server fails to inform clients about mob positions. You'll just suddenly die with no warning and when you get back to find your stuff there's a big creeper crater there.



  • @mott555 said:

    You probably play singleplayer. Multiplayer is a very different world
    Ah, I see.

    My condolences, especially about the creepers. Godamn I hate those things...



  • singleplayer is bugged too. The game crashes for me after 5 minutes if the distance is set to far. Also as blakeyrat said, on osx it apparently doesn't even start.



  • Got to love bug ridden java code and horrible opengl code.



  • @stratos said:

    singleplayer is bugged too. The game crashes for me after 5 minutes if the distance is set to far. Also as blakeyrat said, on osx it apparently doesn't even start.

    Don't worry.  Everything will soon be perfect.

     



  •  I've never encountered any terrible bugs in Minecraft, either single player or multiplayer.... at least, not since Beta.

     

    I mean, there is that weird "people are invisible" bug, but that seems to have gotten a bit rarer, same with that missing chunk thing, which I hardly see at all. I guess it's more the type of stuff you see with very high latencies, too. (particularly the ones pointed by this thread's OP about waiting 5 minutes for chests to open, and boats and minecarts being unusable in SMP; we (the people that play on the server we have) built some ornate minecart stations, and we've gone on adventures across the ocean using boats so at the very least I can say I haven't encountered these problems; again, probably issues with high latency. (which brings up the fact that the game should have a way to see your server ping-time).

     

    So, yeah, basically I don't even notice any bugs, the fact that there is no favourites list or anything for servers though get's on my nerves constantly. I'm not saying those bugs aren't there, I mean, as was noted, beds were busted as a spawn point (how the fuck did that happened I don't even want to know).

     

    but at least you guys here are usually intelligent and civil. 

    LIES.  In any case, reading the thread,I'm amazed you kept posting and didn't just say "fuck it, I give up" especially to the ones dismissing your arguments on the basis that "you couldn't prove you were actually a developer" as if somehow your arguments were less valid.

     



  • @BC_Programmer said:

    LIES.  In any case, reading the thread,I'm amazed you kept posting and didn't just say "fuck it, I give up" especially to the ones dismissing your arguments on the basis that "you couldn't prove you were actually a developer" as if somehow your arguments were less valid.

    QFT.

    After the 9th or 10th time someone posted "guess what you are the tester!" I would have lost it completely.


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