Game Support
Hi,
I am summarizing in short the things I wrote as a reply in the "Bugfix version of "Muzzled!" available!" thread, since I think they deserve their own thread and replies.
Basically, I have a major problem with the game support of Telltale games.
I would like to say that up until the last two Wallace & Gromit games I had no problems with the Telltale products. However, the last two games give me white screen when trying to launch them - you will see it is a very common problem if you will browse the forum a little.
Until today, I didn't bother Telltale games about that since I saw that other people already notified them about the problem. However, I was getting irritated when I understood that the problem is not going to be fixed, especially since the first game worked perfectly on my machine.
Today I saw the thread I have mentioned before, and it really pissed me off. should I really be updated about fixes from another fellow customer instead of from Telltale Games? Why there is no patch for that? I think you will find the official response to these questions in the thread as unbearable as I had.
Finally, some words of advice from another experianced softwre engineer:
1. Put a "Support" link at the head of the web site (yes, up there, next to the "Store" link).
2. Fix your bugs. We are paying customers.
3. If a first episode of a game works on a specific platform, all episodes should. Think about the whole season release.
4. Create patches, not new releases. We should not endure the tedious process of downloading and installing the complete game for every bug we have.
Thanks,
AG Rocks
I am summarizing in short the things I wrote as a reply in the "Bugfix version of "Muzzled!" available!" thread, since I think they deserve their own thread and replies.
Basically, I have a major problem with the game support of Telltale games.
I would like to say that up until the last two Wallace & Gromit games I had no problems with the Telltale products. However, the last two games give me white screen when trying to launch them - you will see it is a very common problem if you will browse the forum a little.
Until today, I didn't bother Telltale games about that since I saw that other people already notified them about the problem. However, I was getting irritated when I understood that the problem is not going to be fixed, especially since the first game worked perfectly on my machine.
Today I saw the thread I have mentioned before, and it really pissed me off. should I really be updated about fixes from another fellow customer instead of from Telltale Games? Why there is no patch for that? I think you will find the official response to these questions in the thread as unbearable as I had.
Finally, some words of advice from another experianced softwre engineer:
1. Put a "Support" link at the head of the web site (yes, up there, next to the "Store" link).
2. Fix your bugs. We are paying customers.
3. If a first episode of a game works on a specific platform, all episodes should. Think about the whole season release.
4. Create patches, not new releases. We should not endure the tedious process of downloading and installing the complete game for every bug we have.
Thanks,
AG Rocks
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Am I wrong But did you just spell Experienced software engineer wrong?
Good point on the patches think "steam or xbla"
Edit: The above mentioned thread has been undeleted by Will again: <click>
We are a small company, and there is a lot we logistically can't do. But we are definitely not evil and we do care about our customers. If you can't play your game then by god you shouldn't have to pay for it.
As for non blocking issues, while I agree that our bug fixing policy is far from ideal, it is the unfortunate reality of a small company such as ours. With that said, I'm doing my best internally to see that more issues get fixed with a very quick turnaround. Due to the way our system works, it becomes increasingly hard to patch and rebuild a game with each passing week, and that is something that can't change without a complete overhaul of our system.
As to why we updated the build rather than patching, I'm afraid it was a case of an updated build or nothing. While I'd certainly like to get more patches out in the future, it just wasn't possible last week. Sorry!
Oh and finally to Nightsurfer: that thread was pretty belligerent, but you are right that it shouldn't have been deleted. It's back up now, but I believe this thread covers most of those issues.
One last comment about deleting my "petition" thread: I understand that this forum is managed by Telltale Games and you have every right to remove whatever you do not like. However, in a free country this kind of censorship should be the last means to use in case somebody really misbehaves, not just because there might be some cynical comment included. - There are other ways like sending a PM to the user first, editing or removing a single post from that thread.
Having that said, I fully agree with "AG Rocks": I never encountered a major issue with any of the former Telltale games before, but the W&G episodes still contain some serious bugs which need to be fixed. Period. - Telltale had a very good reputation and I understand that you need to look forward. But I am pretty sure that letting your customers down by not offering support for the existing products will backfire sooner or later. - By the way, I think being a small company is no excuse for not informing your customers about a new bugfix version of a game: The reason why I am subscribed to the "Game Updates" newsletter for W&G is to get informed about events like this as soon as possible. - And I cannot imagine that you would need more than 5 minutes to write a quick message stating "we have released a new revision of 'Muzzled' last night that fixes some known issues, so if you have downloaded the game before <date>, please consider to download the new version as soon as possible" or something similar. - There would no money and almost no effort involved for this action.
is that something you just say for fun or are you going to tell me "why all patches are bad"
Did I say all patches are bad?
That is obviously not the case but I have seen instances when a patch to fix one problem in a game has unexpected repercussions in seemingly unrelated areas of the game. This is usually due to either poor patch creation or general poor coding in the game it's self.
I would like to comment about some of the issues brought here:
Well, yes I did. I am afraid English is no my native language, and as you can see from the time of this post, I am also from another part of the globe. I will try to test my text in Word spelling tool but no promises...
Very true (believe me, I know). However, this should not be a consideration at all. If you have a fix, it is your responsibility to post it as fast as you can. A patch is usually the fastest way.
Hey, Will, no offence, and I am really trying not to be too blunt here, but give me a break! I know the meaning of small companies, and usually (because they are small and depends mostly on clients) the case is exactly opposite - small companies take better care of customers than large ones. Besides, I totally agree with Nightsurfer - if the work load is so big, how come you develope so many games is such a short time instead of sometimes back up and concnetrate on fixing problems you had on previous releases? Well, that was a rhetorical question. It is, of course, because of marketing demands, and that is exactly my initial point - something is managed wrong here. I can't spaek for everyone, but I think that most people would rather have a late release than a buggy one.
By the way, I really see refund as a last resort, and this is why I am trying first to convince you to fix my bugs
By the way, What is the policy for people who purchased the entire season up front and can only play the first game?
Thanks Nightsurfer, I could not have come up with a better summary myself.
Thanks,
AG Rocks
The white screen problem happens to me on two different video cards, in both "The Last Resort" and "Muzzled!", and both cards played the first episode perfectly:
1. Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
2. NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX series
Thanks,
AG Rocks
Thanks for the info. Regardless of whether they played the first episode perfectly, neither of these are supported cards. The Geforce 4 is too old and has had issues with our games dating back to Sam & Max Season One, and the Intel chipsets are not supported for Telltale's games (and never have been). This is addressed in our support FAQ, which is linked at the bottom of the website (see How can I tell if my video card will work with your games?).
At this point, your options are to get a better video card, or to have your order refunded. These cards aren't supported for a reason, and we can't spend our resources trying to fix problems related to unsupported hardware.
On the issue of support in general, we do hear what you guys are saying. But I'm going to close this thread now, because having this conversation is taking time away from our team that they could be spending tracking issues and fixing bugs.
If the issues you have encountered are preventing you from playing the game and/or bothering you so much that you want your order canceled, we'll be happy to do so and refund your money if you send an email to support@telltalegames.com and explain the situation.
Otherwise, please believe that we are working hard on this stuff, and we'll fix issues as we're able to.