While I can respect that the bug tracker is efficient and gets the job done, I think it's really annoying that you have to use it every time you want to tell someone about a bug. I have tried to simply "pass on the word" to other testers about these bugs but all that happens is they get pissed off and tell me to "use the tracker"..
You tried really hard to get all of us pissed off,
but at least all bugs were processed,
in case you sent them to a tester, or me directly.
We always offered to write the bug-reports in case you do not want to.
Well the tracker mind you is a pain in the butt for me; half the time I report bugs that are happening right before my very eyes, my report gets rejected as untrue (and I DO check for duplicate reports)! This is bullcrap.
Please add a few examples for this.
Yes there is no use for duplicate reports,
nor bugs that you cannot reproduce or at least provide a log or screenshot to give us at least a chance to find it.
I can gladly say:
'Docking broken, please fix'
Is no longer a valid report, without any hint what exactly fails.
We do not have the amount of testers to process this as general request, and tell all:
"Try out docking, something is broken, we do not know what exactly, but it has to be broken!"
And a few questions about the whereabouts of that incident aren't a real problem.
And I guarantee you that around 80% of people on Starmade who actually want to report a bug arent even able to because they dont want to spend a whole hour of their day just writing a report to a bug tracker.
You are talking for 80% of the people?
Wow. I do not want to comment this part.
But there are enough people that showed up reporting issues,
yes we cannot guarantee it gets processed in 24 hours, or fixed in a fixed amount of time.
But we really try hard to process every report with respect and try to figure out what happened.
Feel free to point out an example where this was not done. (Except duplicate reports, for obvious reasons we cant do anything about them, same was for multiple threads covering the same bug in the old forum, remember that mess? 12 threads about crashes at 100% and one solution)
There are literally dozens of major bugs out there that people on different hardware and software setups are getting that they can't get fixed because the devs either delete their reports, tell them "you cant talk about bugs here" or they cant figure out how to use the tracker. And then don't even get me started on the troublesome issues regarding packaging log files in ZIPs just to get them on the tracker.
Fact one:
We currently have:
14 New issues, (not validated),
26 Needing feedback from a user, developer or other tester,
26 Open (need ingame confirmation to happen like described),
67 in Queue waiting to be fixed,
4 that cannot be fixed right now,
45 resolved ones, they got coded, but not confirmed to be fixed yet,
141 closed that got coded, and confirmed to be fixed.
Also we rejected 66 issues. (Most of them were duplicates, were intentional behavior, or just didn't show up)
Fact two:
We have only deleted issue 2 and 3, as they were testing issues.
All others are still present in the system, searchable and open for further comments to reopen or adjust them if needed. (Even rejected ones!)
Fact three:
Yes, hardware specific ones, are hard to narrow down, but we successfully requested feedback on some of them, and got them fixed after a fairly long run. (For example: Preview orientation ghost)
Fact four:
A zip attachment with logs is unwanted for us, as every single person working with that issue, has to download the zip, unpack and search through the files.
This is also described as
part of the validation process in our 'testers-guide'.
And having a log at the hand to see the exact error-message and being able to share this quickly is not bad too.
(Its just few clicks while creating a report, you can even write the report while the upload is in progress.)
I think its rather insulting and counter-productive that people are being told they can only report bugs through the bug tracker.
There needs to be a much easier and more universal way of doing this that doesnt require people to bang their head on a desk in frustration. The old reporting tool built into the launcher worked just fine for that task.
A small fact about the old tool you may not have known:
It sent the report via mail to schema.
There was a large inbox with hundreds of bugs per day.
Books full of logs, blueprints and all the other cool stuff, and a description like:
'Crashed'
or on good days:
'Happened while flying around'
Or the client didn't have java installed, any badly outdated drivers and many thing that could have been fixed by reading the most basic tips.
Push the large unfiltered pile of stuff to schema, make him read all the stuff and leave not a single minute per day to fix things, or implement new features, this is not an option!
Do you really think
this attempt to install a firewall is that bad?
Freeing up time for the rather few developers is efficient in any way you judge it.
We are currently forming a tester-team to process all the stuff faster, and reach a state where incoming reports do not get piled up, and rather get processed quickly.
The tracker is now online for about 6 weeks, and we have nearly 400 issues registered, and only 5-10 volunteers helping. (since today a 6th tester, and another 10 people in trial to learn this)
No one gets paid for this.
We all do this to improve the game we like,
to relieve schema from the messy pile of reports.
As this is currently the only thing we can do to help and speed up the development.
- Andy
