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lunedì 27 febbraio 2012

One month for one hour...

Ok, i'm officially angry... there has been an in-game event that wouldn't work.
Bug reports have been sent, tests have been made for a whole month.
Yesterday i've been told by the developers that the issue has been fixed, i go on and try it, asking the players to help... again...
Same result as always.
I sent yet another bug report explaining that the event still doesn't work and i receive this reply:
"Ah! The event has to be set up one hour before the beginning for it to work"
And you tell me that one month later?
No comment...

domenica 26 febbraio 2012

Games and Me

This time the focus of the post is not on my job (even though i'll get to it at some point).
I wanted to talk a bit about my relationship with videogames.
I always liked videogames since i was a child, they weren't just fun, they were fascinating, small worlds born from the human intellect. When i was a child i always wondered how it could be possible to see those pictures moving on the screen, following my commands. I loved the stories behind the various videogames, they made me laugh, they made me sad, all kind of emotions came out from playing those games.
And so i decided that i want to be part of that world, i wanted to be able to create my own videogames, i wanted to write those fascinating stories, make people dream and have fun. Growing up though, i learned that making a videogame isn't as easy as it looks like, if you wanted to make one on your own you'd have to know a lot of things, even if you're not starting from the beginning.
I still wanted to be part of the gaming industries though, so i took the chance to become a Game Master. I may not be making any videogame, but with my effort, i can make an existing one more enjoyable for the players.

mercoledì 22 febbraio 2012

Not always things go the right way

Especially when it comes to Corean games.
Yes, the game i'm working with is developed by a Corean software house, i don't mean to say that they're all bad, but most of them are, and only a very small number of them is capable of developing high quality games.
This one sadly is not one of those.
Yesterday morning, a patch has been released wich was supposed to introduce a new feature. This feature should have worked as an indicator of the latency to the gaming server, allowing people to choose the server wich best suits their connection.
Sadly, it looks like this function overloads the server with data packs and it results in massive lagging for everybody.
Needless to say, i had to overwork, waiting for a pacth fixing this issue, wich came only several hours later.

giovedì 2 febbraio 2012

Is pointing out ignorance bad?

I am by no way a Nobel  nor a Pulitzer prize, i am no genius and i'm nowhere near to perfection.
But i'm one who puts pride in everything i do.
I try my best to become better and better at whatever i do, because i think there's always a chance that someday i'll become an even better person.
I consider knowing my own language as an honour, it may sound odd, it may sound cliché, but there is power in words.
The power to convey feelings, the power to convey a message, the power to let others understand what you mean.

Long intro i know, and if you stopped reading i don't blame you, but for the others who are still reading, let's get back to the question.
Is pointing out ignorance bad?
I'm recieving tickets about people having issues, tickets that sound like this:
"I have a problem, help me!" (notice i actually wrote that in an understandable form, they aren't always this clear)

Here is when i actually begin thinking if i'm talking to a moron or not. How am i supposed to help with your problem without knowing what said problem is?
Of course i go asking for more details, something like this:
"could you please explain in more detail what your problem is? The game doesn't work? Are you unable to log in? Does the game give you any kind of error message?"

One would expect an answer to at least one of those questions right?
Wrong!

"I need help! I Can't play the game!" (once again written in an understandable way)

There you get the confirmation of your previous thoughts, you're talking to a moron...