Should LL fix old bugs before adding new features?

Linden Lab (LL) seems to have a habit of adding new features to SL before fixing old bugs. It took LL at least 6 months to fix the bug where the camera zoom-in reset when an object was edited up close (which made detailed building EXTREMELY frustrating/annoying). Since SL 1.7 there have been at least 3 bugs that STILL have yet to be fixed:

1. avatar lag: a high-prim-attachment, lit avatar comes into your view range and SL framerate drops to ~4fps
   
2. extended ASCII characters in Windows user profile directory name causes SL not to load
   
3. disabling fog from debug menu causes 24-bit textures to turn (and remain) yellow after objects are selected
   

Yet, since SL 1.7, LL has, amazingly, found time to add point teleporting, ripple water, an improved in-world classified ad system, new/changed LSL functions, planar texturemapping, etc.

This is not a good development pattern...

1) Sounds partially like your computer/settings, i have a mac with a crappy mx440 chipset thats in preview now getting 6fps with 32 avatars in view

2) Its in the known issues

3) Has been fixed in 1.9

My computer (Pentium Dual-Core 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, GeForce FX 6600GT 128MB) is fine and unchanged (except for a new extra hard drive) since SL 1.7. I'm not the only one who's had this problem since SL 1.7 either. Turn local lighting on and you'll have the av lag problem too.

Yea, after I explicitly posted about it in the PUBLIC FORUMS to bring attention to it. Bug reports do nothing. Besides, that known issues list is so long there are bugs from MONTHS (if not years) ago STILL on it.

Oh? I see nothing in the release notes...

Well local lighting in a crowded highly lit area is just asking for trouble, everyone knows that, local lighting in a quiet area is quite nice, tested myself on a private island with a few lightsources and got 101.5 fps. karen has already announced that very soon there will be an improved local lighting system

As far as your fog bug goes its in the release notes on the qa page

Release Notes for Second Life 1.9.0(9) Mar 2, 2006
* Yellow fog no longer appears on 24-bit textures when fog is turned off

https://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Preview+Release+Notes

Ah, but this lag occurs even with ONE (1) OTHER avatar in an empty area (no other av within visibility distance). Obviously LL screwed up something in 1.7 that caused this lag to happen. Vektor Linden told me it was something to do with AGP pipelining/caching/bandwidth--I just don't recall and couldn't get the info out of him today when I FINALLY got a hold of him (but he was getting ready to do the 1.9 stress test). LL just needs to figure out what causes this before implementing a new lighting system (that is no doubt months away still).

Well that's good. Unfortunately, that had to be made a big stink about in the forums before LL acknowledged and added it to the known issues list too! Remember, these bugs have been happening since 1.7!

I am assuming LL has both a bug fixing team and a new features implementing team etc... maybe the bug fixing team is having more problems or is slower at getting things fixed up and they are bringing in new features too quickly for them to catch up with the whole new batch of problems the new stuff could bring... the other thing seems to be priority... new features are nice and all but it would make more sense to go through all the bugs and problems that are known (and there seems to be a BIG list) and maybe work on that first and fix as much as they can before trying to add more features in new updates... the game staying the same with no added features for a month or two won't effect people too much... bugs not being fixed and continually taking away from everyone's game experience do...

Yea, I remember reading about SL development getting split up like that and thought that was pretty stupid. All resources should be going into fixing bugs FIRST, THEN developing new features. Otherwise, bugs just get compounded--especially if there's miscommunication between the teams. But even if there isn't, the resources are still split.

Case in point: SL 1.7 avatar lag (mentioned above). LL somehow screwed it up bad in SL 1.7 then tried to fix it by introducing avatar attachment LOD and dorking with prim light reflection updating (but it's not in the release notes, of course). The bug never gets fixed yet more bugs are created in the process of trying to make OTHER areas more efficient while neglecting the root problem. It's freakin' ridiculous!

"United we stand, divided we fall." United, the bugs will fall; divided, they will stand.

This poll question has been asked so many times i just want a third options "I don't care"

Oh, sorry to hear that. Maybe you could compile all the past polls and put them in one post and maybe shove it down LL's throat so they actually take notice this time?

This post is self-contradictory.

hehe ... yes ... obviously.

Mel

It is -in my humble opinion- important to consider that the LindenLabs' developer are many and differently skilled. Not all bugs are created equal, they need different skills to be addressed.

It's quite possible that the people who implemented, for example, P2P teleporting can't contribute much to the solution of a local lighting problem caused by AGP pipelining.

So my answer is No. It's not that I don't want the old annoying bugs to go unfixed, I just think that asking a sommelier to cook because there are too many orders isn't a good recipe to get quality food.

I would rather some bugs be worked on before new features were added, but not to the point of "Oh, there's a minor annoyance with a tiny amount of avatar misalignment on teleport, so we won't add llTeleportAgent until we hunt this bug down and fix it!"

In other words, only major bugs (that are either too deprecative or have been around too long) should be worked on.

Mmm, if the new login nonsense isn't fixed in 1.9.1 if not before methinks LL will have a few bits of explaining to do.

Dear Kijara, please pardon my extreme and slightly bitter sarcasm on this, but LL explain? Yeah, right, and I should expect an E.L.E. (extinction level event) to hit New York tomorrow too, while I'm at it. In my time here, I have found they do so to perilous few folk, and even then it is usually less than satisfactory in its' details and explanations. I must also admit they only seem to address bugs brought up to them by those in a fairly high financial position, ignoring those of lesser users. I stand with Eep on this one, and I am not prone to take a quarrelsome position. I feel it is highly likely that LL will most thoroughly ignore any and all of us unless such a stink is made that they find it impossible to continue until it is addressed. I also feel this stink will STILL only generate action when someone in a significant financial position endorses it with their support, or else it, too, shall be summarily ignored, or answered with the form-letter copy-and-paste response of "Please submit a bug report to handle this matter". 150,001 bug reports later, no answer nor action. Oh, quite responsive, yes indeed.
Again, please pardon my sarcasm on this matter, but it should be evident by looking at the forums in any detail that this is the modus operandi for Linden Labs on the whole. It is, in a word, deplorable.

Yours,
Mika Kyubi (Muromachi)
Kitsune-at-Large
(who shall in all liklihood never see her last name of Kyubi on SL)