alosso:
How would you deal with unknown future or parallel updates of third party SW like Flash?
Me thinks it's mostly unlucky coincidence this time.
Best way to deal with any unknown future is not to change what we have already but to build on it. WGT are quite rightly not jumping into unknown uncertainties.
To be honest, the game works very well and if it ain't broke don't fix it. By changing what we already have would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire as it were. You get issues with mostly every platform, every coding language as they are constantly being updated and till there's fixes for them (which may take a day or a week or longer) ...designers, coders/programmers etc will try their best to find a workaround to stabilise or fix the issue(s) involved. It is not always as easy a task as some in this forum seem to believe.
I think what the team at WGT are doing is the right thing. Sure there is the odd hiccup after update(s) but Icon's usually on the case to the programmers with immediate effect and it gets sorted. Sure, there's always going to be bugs and we will just need to accept that, because being an online game, there are just so many variables involved with the function of this game that can effect the stability of it.
In my own opinion, one of the main contributing factor to problems that arise are browsers and how they deal with flash, especially the browsers which embed flash as a plug in. Browsers that use flash as an ActiveX seem to be less effected.
ActiveX is the system Internet Explorer uses in place of the NPAPI system that all other browsers use to embed other applications inside themselves. Hence.....in one of the threads yesterday a person said he'd switch from chrome or firefox back to internet explorer and the game was fine again.
I think this latest version of flash however, is the problem with browser support forums telling users to revert back to a previous working version.
The trouble with Flash is that Adobe is constantly trying to keep up with it's media rivals for example HTML 5 Video Players and suchlike. It's like a game of cat and mouse and unfortunately players using chrome and firefox will see the side effects when the combination doesn't work out too well leading to a surge of complaints directed at WGT.....and it's not entirely their problem.
Firefox & Adobe both realise there's a problem and have said they're trying to sort it out. I'd say Google chrome suffers the same issues as firefox because they both use Flash as either an extension or a plug in.
I'm certain WGT have looked at every avenue open to them and are always considering the next possible step to move the game forward, the WGT are a pretty sharp bunch of folks, but like you said with the "unknown future".....right now would not be a wise time to completely change what we we already have and what works very well IMHO.
Before anyone bangs on about Beta bla bla. The problems we face with browsers and flash today are the same problems we'd be facing tomorrow if this game was out of beta and was still primarily being played online because the major factors effecting game play are browsers & flash issues / isp dns issues & network carrier issues.
We have to take the good with the bad. Mostly for all parts it's good no one can deny that. One bad day does not ruin the entire year.
Yes it's annoying when things go wierd after an update, I hate it....you hate it, other players hate it......but I really don't think the WGT Team are much in love with the issues either.....especially WGTicon. He must dread coming to work on the day on an update lol.
All we can do is be patient, let those pressing the buttons try to sort the issues as quickly as they can. Let's face it, we still got a great game here, which WGT are constantly trying to improve.
My own line on this is, if we didn't make mistakes, we would never learn. I think WGT are moving in the right direction working with the flash platform and are constantly changing things, adding things , removing things and holding chat sessions to get all important customer feedback.
It's always easier just to shout and blame what's immediately in front of us, instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Any folks..........enjoy the game and stay lucky.
TBE