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I have never claimed that I posted anything about this. However the first post in this thread, (26731.1) mentioned the problem well in advance. Of course I can't expect you to read every post in the conferences, and I have never claimed that either. However, if you have a bug forum then I expect you to read it frequently (and the bug forum is defintely not flooded with new threads so new threads should be hard to miss), especially during the playoffs.

To put an announcement was just an example of the need for communicating fast and BB-mail is of course an alternative.

In this particular case it was an easy call. Apparently you where alerted too late to know if you would be able to solve it in time, then you should imidiately have communicated this to the involved coaches. If your knew which teams where invoved you could hav sent us a BB-mail, otherwise you should have setup a warning on the news page as the playoff is the most important games of the season.

I'm very sorry that this was the best we were able to do, because perfect is always our goal, bug-free is always our goal, and this obviously was neither. Unfortunately, doing things in real-time is very, very hard, and I'm open to all suggestions on how we can do better.

I do not agree at all that this was the best thing you could have done. There are at least a couple of lessons to learn imo:

* Follow the bug forum on a daily basis on normal season, and several times a day during playoff. Probably you should fix an automated email to the developers when a new thread is opened in the bug forum (if you do not have this already)

* As soon as you learn that there is an important bug inform about this, and take a quick decision on how to handle it (just hoping that you will be able to solve it in time is not a good solution). If you know who it affects then you can use this infromation to send a BB-mail, otherwise you should put up a general warning until you know. Of course not everyone will be online and not everyone will understand, but at least then you have made what you can to inform.

I know it is too late in this case, but I hope it is a lesson learned for next time something like this happens.

Finally, all in all I think you are doing a great job, even though it was a little bit "amateurish" in this particular case.

I do not agree at all that this was the best thing you could have done.

So what would be the best thing that could have been done, AND be realistic?

I already pointed that out in the post your answering to.

In genera a good answer, and it definetly sounds like you should consieder rescheduling. A couple of comments though:

For example, I wouldn't consider this game fully complete until we have been able to add in a better staff system, more advanced tactical options, a youth national team system, and some of the supporter features such as federations, a jersey designer, a hall of fame, etc. that people expect from a game but that couldn't happen until things were more stable.

I hope that you will feel this way all this time as this is one of the best ways to secure continue development. I know that in in the beginning of our company we though that with th next release we will be at a level where it is just about "starting to fix" (what you call getting the game "fully complete"), but now we realized that as soon as we are out with a new version we always see room for new and big improvements. It is a moving target.

The truth is, the correct solution in this case is for it not to happen.

Yes, of course, but the truth is, that things like this will alway happen (hopefully very seldom though). In this cas I guess you havenow added a proper test case to your test suite, so for this thing it should not happen again.

Do you even realise how big this game already is?

You talk about it as a game which has 10 users "just fix the problem, easy" "check all the bug forum posts many times a day, easy" "in this case it's an easy call"
Everything here is easy in your opinion, they should all have done this and that to please you.

This problem affected only about 0.1% of all the teams out here, unlucky you are one of them, but you make a huge problem out of this which isn't fair imo. Ok it's unlucky for you, but do you even realise that the BB staff just can't fix every problem in 2 seconds? There are 5 BBs here, and 30k active teams and 90k games every week.

There has been apologies to those 47 teams already and great explanations from the BBs in this topic. Just accept it and temper you emotions, you can still win those playoffs. A change in 1 home and away maybe shouldn't be such a problem, in the long run you still have 2 home matches and 1 away, the best manager will still win it.

Yes, I do, and I know from experience how this things things can and should be managed and I know that my customers would be really upset if the communication was handled the way it was in this case. I actually I think that BB-Charles got my point too.

Btw, I did not ask them to fix it in two seconds, I didn't even require them to fix the problem before the game, just to inform about it, so I do no get your whole “2-secs point” at all.

There has been apologies to those 47 teams already and great explanations from the BBs in this topic. Just accept it and temper you emotions, you can still win those playoffs.

Actually I think my opponent made a worse mistake caused by this bug, so it is at all about that, and I also think that the BB-s appreciate criticism. The worst thing for a company is when their customers do not tell them when they think things are not handled correctly.

A change in 1 home and away maybe shouldn't be such a problem, in the long run you still have 2 home matches and 1 away, the best manager will still win it.

If you do not realize that this changes things quite considerably I fair you have not understood the whole enthusiasm thing that well (which btw is quite a crappy system inherited from HT).

Anyway, as I said I believe from BB-Charles las message that he has got my point and I am happy with that.

Last edited by chespirito at 5/3/2008 8:35:14 AM