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Handling of bug reports on Elvenar EN vs. Beta

  • Thread starter DeletedUser6357
  • Start date

DeletedUser6357

Guest
What's the advantage of a moderator who doesn't know what he's doing?
I'm reporting a bug in the software.
But some moderator deletes the bug topic and moves my opinion into a topic for common conversations.
Why then is there a section in the forum

Bug reporting
  1. Found a bug?
 

Timneh

Artisan
What is the advantage of having a bug reporting section ? Almost everytime someone posts a bug report they just get told to open a ticket with support. Might as well get rid of the bug reporting section and just put a notice there saying if you have found a bug pease contact support.
 

DeletedUser3097

Guest
What's the advantage of a moderator who doesn't know what he's doing?
I'm reporting a bug in the software.
But some moderator deletes the bug topic and moves my opinion into a topic for common conversations.
Why then is there a section in the forum

Bug reporting
  1. Found a bug?
Thank you for opening this thread as it has given me an opportunity to explain how 'Found a Bug' works.

Your particular post was about how some quests can be repeated. As the quests are allocated randomly this can and does occur; it is intentional and therefore is not an unintentional bug. As I imagine you want your feedback to be heard by the game designers, it was moved into the official feedback thread. If feedback is not on the official thread, it could possibly be overlooked when the feedback is gathered up and passed on. As I am sure that was not what you wanted, I moved it for you. The other option would be to move it back but sadly it would be marked 'Closed- archived' and moved to the Archive since it is not a bug.
What is the advantage of having a bug reporting section ? Almost everytime someone posts a bug report they just get told to open a ticket with support. Might as well get rid of the bug reporting section and just put a notice there saying if you have found a bug pease contact support.
If a player reports a problem with their particular account, it is far better to ask them to open a ticket with Support where we have the tools to investigate further. Many players post on the Forum and also open a ticket so the prefix 'Closed- contact Support' covers that too. When it is a problem which affects many people, it is easier to post an update in the 'Found a Bug' section.
 

DeletedUser8921

Guest
@Dizzy Lizzie I get what you're saying here, but at the same time I had a bug report (of the tournament end screen showing up repeatedly when switching from city to research to world map views) marked as "Closed -- Contact Support" when the exact same thing was later acknowledged as a bug on the beta forum. Sometimes we do report legitimate bugs, and it's annoying to not see them acknowledged. (As of the last tournament that bug seems to have been fixed, but we'll see with the end of this tournament.)

You folks are not perfect, of course, but we players often do know what we're talking about. It's not like we want diamonds for bugs like they get over on the beta forum, but at least acknowledge the issue when it's brought up.
 

DeletedUser3097

Guest
Sometimes we do report legitimate bugs, and it's annoying to not see them acknowledged. (As of the last tournament that bug seems to have been fixed, but we'll see with the end of this tournament.)

Many threads marked 'Archived- contact Support' end up being confirmed as a bug either through Beta, EN or other markets. The prefix does not mean that it is not a bug, it just means we would like you to contact Support so we can look into the matter further. Once it reaches Support we can begin filling in all the details we might not have:
  • App or browser or both?
  • Can we find evidence in our tools to back up what has been reported?
  • Can we find further cases or is it a one-off?
  • Can we replicate it?
plus many, many more unknowns. Redirecting players to Support is not to dismiss what is being said, it is to confirm then escalate if necessary. Incidentally, one of today's 'Archived- contact Support' reports has already been confirmed and forwarded for fixing.
 

DeletedUser8921

Guest
Maybe you could use a similar system of feedback that they do on beta, where if a bug is confirmed it's marked confirmed. That would be good feedback to our users, to let us know that you're really checking into things.
 

Timneh

Artisan
One of the annoying things about bug reports getting closed is that it stops other players being able to comment on it. Sometimes other players can give different information that could possibly help the devs find and solve the problem. Why not do as @Crowella suggests and then leave the thread open until the bug is fixed ?
 

Pauly7

Magus
I'm not sure where I sit on this debate, but just to add that there has been a couple of times where I've reported something as a possible bug as I'm not sure whether it is just me or if it is system wide. The thread is then closed fairly swiftly with the "contact support" message and you can still be wondering if other people were going to reply saying it was happening to them too. I would have thought that leaving the thread open, at least for a few days, is the only way to ascertain that... unless, of course, it is a known question that is simply answered.
 

Lelanya

Mentor
So what do we need? It is clear that the staff are following a format that they believe is appropriate. But it leaves us feeling like our efforts are meaningless and worse yet, leaves little room for the scale of an issue to be evaluated at this level.
I like the idea of marking a bug report and leaving it open to collect feedback. But if that is not possible then the staff need to update or add to the guide section.
 

Heymrdiedier

Enchanter
What's the advantage of a moderator who doesn't know what he's doing?
I'm reporting a bug in the software.
But some moderator deletes the bug topic and moves my opinion into a topic for common conversations.
Why then is there a section in the forum

Bug reporting
  1. Found a bug?

i replied to your bug when it was still a 'bug' and not merged as feedback.
How can you call a statement like this "Duplicate tasks in Mermaids is no fun." a bug?
How do you expect the devs to fix that bug? fun isnt something thats the same for every person.
I personally think that the mod who moved this bug to feedback did a very fine job.

Maybe the bug part wasn't really clear to the mod and needed some extra clarification, it sure wasn't to me aswell. There's a reason the bug report template asks for: current behavior and expected behavior.
 

Muf-Muf

Elvenar Team
Maybe you could use a similar system of feedback that they do on beta, where if a bug is confirmed it's marked confirmed. That would be good feedback to our users, to let us know that you're really checking into things.
We used to do this on EN, and have consciously chosen to move away from that. These were the main reasons for doing so:
  1. We want to focus on quick solutions for individual users, catered to their situation. These are easiest to provide through Support, as we have all the tools we need available when you send a ticket, whereas we don't have that luxury on the forums. Therefore, if an issue requires something is checked on the account, we ask to contact Support. This also makes it easier to discuss details, as we are less limited in what (kind of) information we can share or request, as support tickets are not public communication.

  2. We want to keep things simple for both players and the team. Having an extensive bug reporting section can be daunting, especially for newer members of our forum community. To keep the forums as accessible as possible, we aim to provide simple, low-threshold ways to find information and post. When it comes to reporting bugs, we do so by providing the 'Found a bug?' forum section, where our players can report bugs easily, and without hassle. We link players to Support via a banner at the top of that forum section as well, but we also don't mind if a bug is posted, or even if multiple people report the same bugs or not, as we can sort through them rather quickly, and point players to either the answer to their question or to Support, where we have all the tools we require, and can give better answers than we ever could on the forums (see above).

  3. We do not wish to copy Beta's extensive bug reporting forum section, and maintain the structure in both places. While convenient, it is also very high-maintenance. On EN, we have chosen to spend that time differently, mainly by providing the quick, personalized solutions mentioned above. We believe that, for a game server like Elvenar International, which is not a Beta (testing) environment, that is what we should be doing. Beta's bug reporting section is extensive, as suits a Beta. On EN, our focus lies differently than Beta's, and is more catered towards providing the best gaming experience for all of our players, rather than tracking bugs and testing - The Beta Team does this for us in a great and concise manner, on the Beta forums. For those wanting more information, we can recommend checking out the Beta forums. The information on Beta is all in English, so there should be no problems with language barriers for our EN community either. :)

I hope this offers some further insights on why we're handling things the way we do. Any further questions or comments are of course welcome.
 

DeletedUser6357

Guest
Thank you for opening this thread as it has given me an opportunity to explain how 'Found a Bug' works.

Your particular post was about how some quests can be repeated. As the quests are allocated randomly this can and does occur; it is intentional and therefore is not an unintentional bug. As I imagine you want your feedback to be heard by the game designers, it was moved into the official feedback thread. If feedback is not on the official thread, it could possibly be overlooked when the feedback is gathered up and passed on. As I am sure that was not what you wanted, I moved it for you. The other option would be to move it back but sadly it would be marked 'Closed- archived' and moved to the Archive since it is not a bug.
Thanks.
Your reply confirms that the Bug section of this forum is, if not unnecessary, at least ignored and less important than the General Discussion section.
Which I don't think is right - technical errors in one software are more important than software comments.
I will quote Wikipedia:

A software bug is an error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.

I did not see anywhere in the announcement of the Mermaids that a repetition of the task was possible. (I've already had one task come out three times.)
I saw in the game the effect of software that was not indicated to be possible.
So I opened a topic in the Bug section. And also in the main thread of the discussion of the Mermaids I posted a link to this topic. So it was visible there.

And since the issue of archiving topics too quickly has also been raised, I will say a few more words.
On the one hand Inno games want to develop the forum - to have more text, to have more people in it.
And they should write.
On the other hand, moderators often silence the writing of forum members by quickly archiving, locking, or moving texts.
I suppose there is some methodology or instruction that the moderators follow.
But the forum will gain more if the regime in it is freer.
I see nothing wrong with having a topic open for at least a month.
I read and participate in some big forums where the archives is practically zero.
 

Timneh

Artisan
@Muf-Muf @Dizzy Lizzie Please correct me if i am wrong but i see no negative effect on leaving bug reports open so that other players can comment on them and give their experience on it if they have had the same thing. As i said earlier it may even help the devs find and fix the bug sooner.
 

RainbowElvira

Sorcerer
A bug report is only useful until the respective bug is fixed. Leaving the reports open would give the false impression that the bugs are never fixed. I never had the feeling that the reports got archived too quickly either. (In the particular case, the bug report looked somewhat like a discussion, and was handled as such)

I understand that Beta is for bug hunting and that - ideally - on EN there are no bugs left. So it make sense to me to have an easier way to report bugs here than on Beta - and to get less feedback. Maybe there could be a "Known Issues" section in the release notes for minor bugs that couldn't be fixed before reaching live.
 

Timneh

Artisan
@RainbowElvira What about in the past where bug reports have been closed but the bug is still there months later because the devs thought it was very low priority ? That gives the false impression that a bug has been fixed when it hasn't.
Like i said before an open report would become dead and get buried when poeple stopped posting on it.
You don't think it is too soon to close a report less than an hour after it was opened (which i have seen) with a message saying contact support ? I actually had some new information i wanted to post about that bug as i also had it but i couldn't because it had been closed.
 

DeletedUser3097

Guest
I actually had some new information i wanted to post about that bug as i also had it but i couldn't because it had been closed.
If that happens again, please reach out to a member of the Forum Team and we can either re-open the bug report or add it to the investigation. Alternatively, drop a message to Support so the information can be relayed on.
 

RainbowElvira

Sorcerer
What about in the past where bug reports have been closed but the bug is still there months later because the devs thought it was very low priority ?

That is what I'd love to see in a "Known Issues" section of the release notes.


You don't think it is too soon to close a report less than an hour after it was opened

Most bug reports stay around for several days, a far as I can tell. I'm sure that if a thread gets shut down after such a short time, there's a reason for that - and it has to be investigated case-by-case.
 
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