Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

jordguitar — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:26 GMT

DESPERATION MOVE HAS FAILED

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Grimsol — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:25 GMT

I have not the slightest interest inj what is happening on Eveonline. So why send me these items?

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Indelible — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:24 GMT

Blizzard would break your PC and then say nothing about why it happend, when it happened or how they fixed it. I don't think this is a desperation move. I think this is more of a hands-up move. CCP are saying, "we screwed up and broke your OS," and they are trying to/have restored some confidence by telling everyone how they have fixed it and how they are ensuring it won't happen again. I personally find this blog interesting and reassuring because now I know for sure that it isn't going to happen again anytime soon so I can install Eve and patch it without biting my fingernails off :-)

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

weldslag — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:23 GMT

maybe because you asked them to, whether you know it or not? always check to see what's checked before you hit "submit".

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Nechi — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:22 GMT

I have to disagree Indelible. Blizzard has yet to screw up anywhere near this bad for starters, but if they did, they would have full disclosure.

After playing eve online for two years, and wow for three, I can most confidently say that not only is this a desperation move, but one that CCP practices with experience. It never surprises me when they bungle up this horribly.

The Tranquility server is CCP's only reliable form of beta that they have and the people running things there really truly have no interest in how their players feel about them and their game. Aside from blatant near fatal screw ups like this one, simply look to how they treat their staff that use their powers to cheat within in the game itself.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

ArenaceusMaga — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:21 GMT

"Blizzard would break your PC and then say nothing about why it happend, when it happened or how they fixed it."

No, blizzard would never send out a product that was this screwed up. With all of Blizzard's faults they are very attentive to details. The only thing they never plan on is the population/lag issues the game has when brand new content is released. And thats not directly their fault. Honestly though, this would never come close to happening in a Blizzard game.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Indelible — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:20 GMT

I have to disagree Indelible. Blizzard has yet to screw up anywhere near this bad for starters, but if they did, they would have full disclosure.

That's not actually the case. There are multiple instances of errors on Blizzard part where they have not released all the information relevant to the problem. Most of these cases revolve around the banning of accounts or issues with connectivity but they are indicative of Blizzards approach. I've experienced this behaviour in both Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft.

I've played Eve and know people who have been playing it for many a year and I agree that CCP have, in the past, made some near-fatal errors as they have with the boot.ini issue but CCP have always retified the issues and have always provided clear and concise information relevant to the problem at hand. Blizzard have not. Blizzard have sometimes provided fractional amounts of information or, more often than not, just said, "I can't say anything...".

The activity you mention about in game cheating is prevalent in World of Warcraft as well. There have been situations where GMs have abused their powers to give players an unfair advantage over others. Entire guilds have been transferred PvE to PvP simply because high-ups at Blizzard are in the guild. In almost all of the situations involving Blizzard employees breaking rules, they have just gone, "it is our game." It is also popular to beleive that class balance is dictate by the Leads and more often than not, these Leads play the very same classes that are being OP-buffed (speculation ofc).

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Dezar — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:19 GMT

I don't know what sorta banning issue you're referring too, but banning is a case by case situation and personal. You, the player, surely know what you did in order to be banned and if not the email you'll get from Blizzard will refer to the policy you violated that led to your ban. I fail to see how that is not releasing information to the relevant parties. They will not give out full details as to what you said or did specifically as that could, in certain situations, compromise the one who reported you in the first place.
Save to say that NO Blizzard product has ever deleted a MAJOR system file in all the years they've been making games so I fail again to see why you say that they'd rather break your pc! If you're gonna make such claims it would be nice if you could back it up! Also GM's that cheat will get fired on the spot and whatever change they did will be undone. At least that's what happens in the EU office. And as far as I read about the Eve GM's cheating they have not lost their job, remember reading about one of the developers just getting a slap on the wrist and nothing more!

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Indelible — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:18 GMT

I myself have never been banned, suspeneded or otherwise but I know people who have and I know that the reasons that are given are not personal by any stretch of the imagination. They do not document the offenses on a case by case basis. They do not list the reports and the observations that led to the ban. They do not tell you exactly what was detected or reported. It is possible to tell people what happened without revealing who reported them you know :-) More often than not, the Warden has its way with you and that is hardly personal now is it?

The phrasing of my sentence seems to have been twisted. I was not implying that Blizzard would intentionally break your PC. I'd also like to highlight that CCP did not intentionally break anyones PC. They just did via something they had overlooked. What I was implying was that if Blizzard messed up on such a level where they did compromise an OS to that point, they would not give precise information about the problem on such a technical level. They never have. An incident that comes to mind was the mass banning of Linux users and, despite the fact that they don't support linux, the following unbanning of almost all the accounts. They never fully revealed why so many users were banned. There have been multiple ban waves where this has occured. You are right, there are no events of Blizzard breaking OSs and as such the only way of saying what is most likely of them is to look at previous actions on Blizzards part.

I'm going to take it that you are or were an employee of Blizzard at one point from your wording. I don't know how things work at Blizzard but you know those entire guilds that got transferred from server to server counter to Blizzards policies? Yeah... to my knowledge they never got banned :-) It's happen several times and has been noticed several times and I can't think of a time where they have been moved back to the PvE server they came from, banned, suspended etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure that a couple of the Leads were in a guild that this happened with... and they are still Leads... and not banned :-D CCP have fired employees (contrary to popular belief) for breaking the rules as have Blizzard but much like Blizzard, they are hardly going to fire the high-ups now are they? :-)

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Aaberg — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:17 GMT

Indelible, the moderating fanboy. Eureka.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Nechi — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:16 GMT

If blizzard screwed up this badly, there would be a class action lawsuit. As it is, the eve online player base is so small that CCP can afford to be careless like this.

Honestly, this has got to be one of the worst screwups in mmorpg history.

Indelible, I would be hammering blizzard for making this mistake, even as a fan of wow. I don't even see this as defensible. There are non computer savvy eve players that are probably looking at their computer at this very minute as a paperweight because CCP's team screwed up horribly. Disclosure or not, I would highly advise people reconsider their subscription.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Thael — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:15 GMT

Most people here seem to be focusing on the problem which personally I think is very much secondary to how CCP reacted to the issue.

The problem : the upgrade installer deleted the boot.ini filed.
The why : "The documentation for the Delete function says the file should be specified with a full path but in fact it must be specified with a full path". So thats why it was in there.
Why wasn't it spotted? : Vista was unaffected, computers with the OS on the first partition of the boot drive were unaffected. In total CCP were contacted by 215 users (170 by petition, 45 by phone) who were affected a relatively small fraction.

How did CCP react?
They pulled their programmers out of bed and had the issue fixed within 6 hours of the original patch being released. They followed this up with regular obvious in game warnings not to reboot and posts explaining the issue.
Now we have devs explaining exactly what went wrong.

Personally I'm very much a fan of CCPs and have found their willingness to be open and upfront with their player base a refreshing change from my experiences with Blizzard.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

roninbk — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:14 GMT

You're comparing apples to oranges. Blizzard hasn't made any sort of disclosure in this nature because they haven't had to. All of the misdeeds you have cited are specific to Blizzard's games, and none of those have affected other programs. If Blizzard released a patch that made your system inoperable, they'd own up to it.

You cited three examples of misdeeds. First, banning accounts, Blizzard has traditionally held a zero tolerance policy towards cheating. Whether it was spoofed Battlenet CD-Keys for Starcraft or Diablo, or account sharing and powerlevelling now with WoW, if you get caught, you're done.

Secondly "connectivity issues", which Blizzard has limited control over. A tracert to worldofwarcraft.com can prove just how many possible points of failure can occur.

And your third accusation of Blizzard employee misconduct is difficult to prove, unless you have some form of documentation of those problems. Either way, that's an internal staff problem.

And before you accuse me too, I don't work for Blizzard,

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

Nechi — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:13 GMT

The fact that it happened in the first place is indicative of poor workmanship.

I would love to hear of a single other example of any MMORPG patch acting in such a viral fashion.

Devs follow up boot.ini deletion

roninbk — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:39:12 GMT

Does EVE have a public test server phase that could have caught this bug before it went live to everybody?