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***Downtime Tonight 9/30***

• Cheryl294 69 Posts

  Wed, Oct 1 2014 6:16 PM

  will u be smoothing out the meter this time?

• dandycap 1,809 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 4:52 AM

  PBaldwin:

  adeypa:

  gmaster007:

   

  also you can now toggle shot and putter pals on and off from the meter itself

   

  So you can, and how annoying is it to have it right in your eye line when you're setting shot or putt strength. Please give those of us who use neither of these 'aids' the option to remove these intrusive on/off panels.

  Yes please allow me to get this crap off my screen.

  or just move it WGT.   Please.   Btw, I had my invisible Scotch tape before you had the putter pal.  Now I can't read a damn thing over74%.   I'm old school and I will not try to learn a whole new way to use the meter when I'm still working on learning other punch shots.  --  just dandy

• SHRUDE 5,835 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 6:02 AM

  WGTdbloshoe:

  Because players in the forums are only a minority of the players on the game.  If we did it this way, you would vote down a idea that may benefit a lot of players who do not know about the forums or do not read them often.  We appreciate all feedback but basing decisions on just the forums would not work.

  Thats a load of shite.

  
  So you would rather assume what the unheard voices want rather than listen to a majority of  what vocal users want.

  So...  if you were to take a vote on an issue, you would be giving yourself licence to make a decision based on assumptions of those that didnt vote?

  For every forum user you have probably 20 - 30 lurkers, who will read and gather knowledge and possibly impart that knowledge to their friends or their Country Club.

  But because they dont make a post, the knowledge they gain is useless.
  
  Seriously?

• WillyBigg 2,135 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 6:06 AM

  +1 ^      The button is ridiculous, you could not have out it in a worse place. No need for it, it only seems to bog the game down even more.

• SplashLewis 358 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 6:31 AM

  As a Principal Engineer at a Software company, several things irk me about how wgt does some things, but for now I will mention a couple.

  Why does WGT release all of this changes/fixes to the general public?   Why not have a beta client link available to only a select few?  20, 50 or 100 people that sign up and are willing to be guinea pigs to test software first?  Not a hard thing to do especially when you need a login id to play, so even if I got the "beta" link, I would still have to be validated to use it?  That way you can get feedback and then decide whether or not you still want to release the update based on some real feedback.....like "notebook doesn't update from hole to hole"?

  So even if you release the update to the general public with known bugs, you can address them within the RELEASE NOTES THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPLIED AT THE SAME TIME THE UPDATE GOES PUBLIC.

  An example of the release note format we use at our company

  defect number xxxx - fixed notebook not updating from hole to hole

  defect number xxxx - fixed stuttering meter due to embedded link

  enhancement xxxx - added putter pal toggle "button" on-screen

  known defects/issues with this release - complaints about new putter pal button placement affecting some users shot accuracy.  Cabo "free play" error

  etc.

   

  The beauty of this is that you (WGT) get ahead of the uproar. You've made a decision to either scrap an update or move foreword with known and addressable issues. Your users are informed about what's changed.  Your users aren't likely to post pages and pages about a new feature(s) that you've already identified as having issues.

  In our company, we CANT release software updates without release notes. 

   

   

• DonCaron 5,502 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 6:42 AM

  Splash has a great Idea in his thread, Try it first on a selected group. I think they also need a Panel of Players to discuss changes. I wish they would warn us better about Downtime so We can Warn our Brothers Overseas (CC)

• ThreeSpot 476 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 6:44 AM

  +1 Splash. I'm a partner in a software development firm, and we would never make a release without release notes. The key difference is that my firm develops business software. Making releases with poor design choices, poor QA and no documentation is not an option. Since WGT is making a recreational product, they see minimal impact on the bottom line when they ignore what is essential protocol for most software companies. But, yes, I do indeed wish they'd change the way they do business.

• SplashLewis 358 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 7:26 AM

  ThreeSpot:

  +1 Splash. I'm a partner in a software development firm, and we would never make a release without release notes. The key difference is that my firm develops business software. Making releases with poor design choices, poor QA and no documentation is not an option. Since WGT is making a recreational product, they see minimal impact on the bottom line when they ignore what is essential protocol for most software companies. But, yes, I do indeed wish they'd change the way they do business.

   

  Agreed.  We are in the same boat at my company.  We make call center/predictive software for Banks mostly, so we have strict standards.  knowing that this is a golf game, I never complained about much (other than the obvious lack of QA or concern about the Facebook users).  However, I think release notes are very easy and several companies, including game companies release them.  I remember being a beta tester for a game called "Top Gun".  it was a F14 simulator.  Before the game came out, we would get a new CD (yes CD) or two every week before the game was actually released.  We got release notes.  Even after release, we got release notes.  Same with the other flight simulators I played. this was what, almost 20 years ago.

• nopro17 16,176 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 8:26 AM

  SplashLewis:

  Why does WGT release all of this changes/fixes to the general public?   Why not have a beta client link available to only a select few?  20, 50 or 100 people that sign up and are willing to be guinea pigs to test software first?

  I have suggested this several times.  Have 50-100 real users test it out to find the major bugs and give their comments before rolling out the update.  I would be first in line to volunteer to be a tester.

  Programmers can never assume that a user will always do something a certain way.  I've been in the business for over 30 years and users STILL surprise me with their, uh, "creativity".

  If you roll out something like the Putter/Shot Pal green blob and 90% of your "beta testers" think that it's a) ugly and b) poorly positioned, then it *IS* ugly and poorly positioned, despite what management or the design people think.

  WGT ... ask for help and there are plenty of us who are more than willing to give it.

   

• gmaster007 2,101 Posts

  Thu, Oct 2 2014 8:36 AM

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