Performance/Stability before Content?

Neglecterino wrote:
Here's another, all too common, problem...

Program bugs can be really hard to fix. Many people say that the best programmers/debuggers should be put on that job. But many companies put the newest people on fixing bugs. I kid you not! People that don't even know the code yet. I suppose they think it is a good way to learn the code. IMHO it turns out to be a great way to introduce even more bugs into the program.

Wise words.

4junk3000 wrote:
Yes i agree 100%.

The family guy game doesn't crash at all. In fact none of my other games crash like this one does. If it weren't for the Simpsons content I'd have blown this game out by now. So i think they are taking advantage of our fandom to make loads of cash off a really poorly maintained game.

But i don't know if the issues are in bad code, bad scripts, or bad network. Are their servers overloaded? Is one down? Who knows since they don't communicate to us through this website.

It would be awesome if they resolved all of the widespread issues with some sort of higher priority than it appears now.

My experience with this game has definitely formed the most negative opinion of EA.

Fyi I've been visiting your town daily, neighbor. I hope you're getting some handshakes from it. I'm not tracking visitors lately because i can't be sure who's actually trying to visit, but i deleted 20 neighbors yesterday who had not played in over 24 hrs. I don't want to be blaming EA for a lack of handshakes when it's actually neighbors not playing. I still visit neighbors daily even though I'm max FP. I need the cash for the sit n rotate. 6 mil to go!!

What?? My game NEVER crashes. My Family Guy game crashes every time.

I would like both. Why can't EA release content that doesn't cause problems? My guess is they are just patching the existing game along because they see the end coming and don't want to invest the effort to recode or that a ver.2 is coming on the horizon. I think ver.2 would solve some problems because it would drop the current compatibility with older devices.

montmorencyj wrote:

dhlennon wrote:


The Stonecutters 'takedown' forced update well and truly nerfed some features, notably the now omnipresent 'Cannot connect to server' message on start-up, and the broken 'neighbo(u)r handshakes'. You don't have to be a coder to see what happened with the handshakes. They changed the way tapping on buildings worked for the (excellent) event, yet hadn't correctly put in place the procedure to 'rollback'

Funny you say that. One of the undocumented features I get every now and then is a sudden tripped-out town of animated buildings. It's like some sort of phantom Stonecutters event with steaming cooling towers, flapping doors and flashing lights everywhere. It's happened twice now and both times it occurred after about 5-10 minutes of idling in the town. I wondering if it was indictative of buildings with invisible handshakes.

That's awesome! And that sounds like left over code to me also.

I have lots of experience with this part of SE. It's known as SCM. Even with merge tools it can be quite difficult to remove just some of the new code, or replacing it with old code, while keeping other parts of new code. Now imagine doing this across code that supports multiple devices. You either end up with multiple code bases that need changing or a complex "ifdefed" single source, or even a mixture. Either way it can be a nightmare.

So glad I'm retired. :)

Neglecterino wrote:
Here's another, all too common, problem...

Program bugs can be really hard to fix. Many people say that the best programmers/debuggers should be put on that job. But many companies put the newest people on fixing bugs. I kid you not! People that don't even know the code yet. I suppose they think it is a good way to learn the code. IMHO it turns out to be a great way to introduce even more bugs into the program.

Is part of the problem also that the debugging end of programming is the most tedious, and thus considered "grunt work"? It hardly seems to be what draws my husband's high school students into a career in this field. I suppose the company COULD decide to pay a lot more to the bug fixer positions. (Right.) But even that probably wouldn't keep someone who was dreaming of spreading their creative wings to stay a what they see as t the boring end of the business.

(They'd need to find math nerds like me who enjoy the OCD part of programming perfection. If this stuff had come along half a century ago, I'd love doing it.)

annettemarc wrote:

Neglecterino wrote:
Here's another, all too common, problem...

Program bugs can be really hard to fix. Many people say that the best programmers/debuggers should be put on that job. But many companies put the newest people on fixing bugs. I kid you not! People that don't even know the code yet. I suppose they think it is a good way to learn the code. IMHO it turns out to be a great way to introduce even more bugs into the program.

Is part of the problem also that the debugging end of programming is the most tedious, and thus considered "grunt work"? It hardly seems to be what draws my husband's high school students into a career in this field. I suppose the company COULD decide to pay a lot more to the bug fixer positions. (Right.) But even that probably wouldn't keep someone who was dreaming of spreading their creative wings to stay a what they see as t the boring end of the business.

(They'd need to find math nerds like me who enjoy the OCD part of programming perfection. If this stuff had come along half a century ago, I'd love doing it.)

Yep. Tedious, difficult, and not the new stuff.

dhlennon wrote:
Now don't get me wrong. I'm as impatient/greedy as many Tappers for new content on a regular basis (although not as much as some who now seem to expect something every week). I actually think EA do a reasonable job on this actually.

But I am offering up for discussion whether we are better served in the short-term by EA getting to grips with core performance and stability issues that effect some tappers?

Whether my luck or just my old iPad 2, I have avoided most of the issues this year, but judging from posts here, significant numbers are having a frustrating time with crashes etc.

Furthermore, because both EA and ourselves want the longevity of this game to be substantial, it concerns me that the current crop of new tappers (a never-ending stream of which we need) must get a horrible first experience and probably delete the app.

Yes I would like a new 'event' in the next few weeks, yes, new levels, FP prizes always welcome. But getting a grip on these stability issues surely takes precedent?

I like and respect the EA Team dedicated to this game. But as a programmer myself I do wonder about their quality control and testing.

The Stonecutters 'takedown' forced update well and truly nerfed some features, notably the now omnipresent 'Cannot connect to server' message on start-up, and the broken 'neighbo(u)r handshakes'. You don't have to be a coder to see what happened with the handshakes. They changed the way tapping on buildings worked for the (excellent) event, yet hadn't correctly put in place the procedure to 'rollback' to how it worked before the event.

I could list many other 'issues' and 'suggestions' but I'm not one of those whingers, and as I said, (maybe unpopularly) I think they do a good job.

Anyway, what do you folks think?

agreed they REALLY need to address the issues

btw EA doesn't have quality control they live by the motto release first fix later just look at the other games they are involved in.. they put pressure on developers to rush updates and games out and they always end up buggy.

Wijsheid wrote:

4junk3000 wrote:
Yes i agree 100%.

The family guy game doesn't crash at all. In fact none of my other games crash like this one does. If it weren't for the Simpsons content I'd have blown this game out by now. So i think they are taking advantage of our fandom to make loads of cash off a really poorly maintained game.

But i don't know if the issues are in bad code, bad scripts, or bad network. Are their servers overloaded? Is one down? Who knows since they don't communicate to us through this website.

It would be awesome if they resolved all of the widespread issues with some sort of higher priority than it appears now.

My experience with this game has definitely formed the most negative opinion of EA.

Fyi I've been visiting your town daily, neighbor. I hope you're getting some handshakes from it. I'm not tracking visitors lately because i can't be sure who's actually trying to visit, but i deleted 20 neighbors yesterday who had not played in over 24 hrs. I don't want to be blaming EA for a lack of handshakes when it's actually neighbors not playing. I still visit neighbors daily even though I'm max FP. I need the cash for the sit n rotate. 6 mil to go!!

What?? My game NEVER crashes. My Family Guy game crashes every time.

Every time Ive tried to play it, it was painfully laggy, freezing for ten seconds at a time. It's the main reason I gave up on it.

Wijsheid wrote:

4junk3000 wrote:
Yes i agree 100%.

The family guy game doesn't crash at all. In fact none of my other games crash like this one does. If it weren't for the Simpsons content I'd have blown this game out by now. So i think they are taking advantage of our fandom to make loads of cash off a really poorly maintained game.

But i don't know if the issues are in bad code, bad scripts, or bad network. Are their servers overloaded? Is one down? Who knows since they don't communicate to us through this website.

It would be awesome if they resolved all of the widespread issues with some sort of higher priority than it appears now.

My experience with this game has definitely formed the most negative opinion of EA.

Fyi I've been visiting your town daily, neighbor. I hope you're getting some handshakes from it. I'm not tracking visitors lately because i can't be sure who's actually trying to visit, but i deleted 20 neighbors yesterday who had not played in over 24 hrs. I don't want to be blaming EA for a lack of handshakes when it's actually neighbors not playing. I still visit neighbors daily even though I'm max FP. I need the cash for the sit n rotate. 6 mil to go!!

What?? My game NEVER crashes. My Family Guy game crashes every time.

Same, TSTO hardly ever crashes on me (aside from initial connect to server issues) but FGTQFS crashes constantly so I can't play it. It's also very laggy if it does work for longer than 2 minutes but I don't really get that with TSTO.

In reply to the OP, I agree that they should fix the bugs etc as it does seem to lower the opinion of the game, updates or not. I am more than happy to wait for an event or level update or whatever so long as I can access and use the game properly in the meantime.

Sorry to hear others aren't having the same experience as myself with FG. I'm on android. If you are all on apple maybe it's the platform they develop on affecting it. But i can't recall a crash in that game, so maybe once or twice max. Maybe a reinstall is worth a try?

But let's not drift off topic. I think everyone deserves an equal opportunity to play the game and earn the limited features during events. And when the content is rushed for release rather than going through a few more QC test screens, then more people are likely to get bugs making their game unplayable. We read it here all the time, and just because it hadn't happened to me yet doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to those it has.

There are way too many people reporting issues in my thread with the poll. Like 75%. That's horrible.

I'd rather get my steak a little late than cooked wrong. No?