Re: FREE GAME: Hot Wheels Unleashed

On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 09:35:24 -0500, Xocyll <Xocyll@gmx.com> wrote:

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>
looked up from reading the entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The
Augury is good, the signs say:

Oh god, they're /unleashed/? RUN

But it's epic, so they broke down before they left the parking lot.
Epic, the British Leyland of gaming companies.

<chuckle>

It's not so much that Epic's servers crashed under load. I get it; it
happens. (It seems to happen /a lot/ with Epic Game Store, which is
another problem entirely, but it's not the primary reason for my
upset). I suspect that it was the sheer number of DLC available that
kicked their servers into overdrive; had it _just_ been the core game,
the servers probably would have been able to handle it, I think. But
12 items (core game + 11 DLC) was probably just a bit more load than
their shopping carts could handle when tens of thousands of gamers
descended upon it for their daily freebie.

No, what is truly embarassing is how the client handled the error. Not
only does it expose the cloudflare page to the users (with a very
scary, 'you've been blocked' message that will freak out the rubes and
the sort of thing a storefront should never let a client see), but the
client itself is unable to handle the situation and locks up, forcing
users to kill the process from task-manager. That's just a pathetic
degree of coding. And it's not like this is the first time I've seen
this happen. This sort of incompetence has been going on for a while.
This specific error was new, yes, but not random lockups of the client
when it comes across an error and doesn't know how to deal with it
gracefully.

So it makes you wonder: is this because Epic just doesn't have any
programming chops to do any better? In which case, why should I
entrust them with my gaming library or payment details? Or do they
just NOT CARE about providing good service, in which case, why should
I trust them with my games?

People have been telling Epic to improve its client almost from day
one, and Epic has done very little to follow that advice. Yet they
wonder why -outside of Fortnite- they lag behind Valve in attracting
gamers.

Build a better mousetrap, Epic.