Post a list of bugs seen by devs

[Grace_ana]

There is a lack of communication between the devs and the players as to which bugs are being looked at. This tends to cause a lot of angst for the players, who then yell at the devs for being unresponsive. It also means there are fewer bug reports because players see it as useless.

If there could be a thread or page somewhere where Turbine lists bugs reported and seen and what their status is, and that information is updated regularly, it would go a long way towards improving this situation.

[Scraap]

That's the kind of sense that makes folks dollars.

Bonus TP purchased if it includes notations for where they need more data/clarification.

(No, I'm not above blatant bribery/extortion at this point.)

[arkonas]

actually i want to see something that maj was doing like a progress report weekly. we all had fun. we responded. it made people happy.

[eris2323]

Something perhaps using mantis?

"MantisBT is a free popular web-based bugtracking system"

http://www.mantisbt.org/

Good luck with that though... I think it'd be nice too if DDO actually used some of the tools available to programmers, such as oh, you know... version control/repository software.

[GermanicusMaximus]

actually i want to see something that maj was doing like a progress report weekly. we all had fun. we responded. it made people happy.

Well, it made some people happy. For the rest of us, all we saw was a PR effort soaking up QA time while the quality of the game was steadily degrading. I think I'll pass on getting it restarted.

What the game does need is an official list of the bugs that are acknowledged as such by the devs, The "Things Broken" list is an outstanding effort on the part of the players involved, but it really isn't an adequate replacement for an official list. Yes, Turbine should acknowledge what is broken in a single easy to find location. It should also keep a corresponding list of "bugs" that were reported that were deemed Working As Intended.

Accurate documentation would likely

1) Increase unique bug reports, as players would have confidence that the bug reports were being treated seriously.

2) Decrease the number of duplicate bug reports, as players could easily determine for themselves whether a bug had been previously reported.

The result would be a more efficient system of driving quality into the game software, assuming Turbine has any interest in doing so. Given the current quality of the game software, its time to put new practices in place. The current methodology is simply a failure. QA needs to stop BSing on the forums, and institute reasonable professional practices. This would be a good place to start.

[Angelus_dead]

If there could be a thread or page somewhere where Turbine lists bugs reported and seen and what their status is, and that information is updated regularly, it would go a long way towards improving this situation.

Yes, adding a small entry to a known issues list is a key first step to dealing with bugs. Adding a small entry to a list should take a tiny fraction of the time to actually fix a bug.

That is especially crucial when the bug is something that customers would want to be actively avoiding, like if respec or reincarnation can get their characters stuck. But even if it's less important, having a list of reported bugs would enormously encourage players to report actual bugs: right now they have essentially ZERO way to tell if the devs already know the bug or not.

And, the list should include both real bugs, and have a separate section for WAI behaviors that could be interpreted as a bug. The list doesn't have to be perfect and include everything: it wouldn't take much to be substantially better than what they have now.

[Tshober]

Unfortunately, the known issues list for DDO is pretty irrelevent, IMO.

Over the years I have submitted many bug reports. Of all the bug reports I have written, not a single one has ever made its way onto the official known issues list. A small percentage of the bugs I have reported (maybe 20-30%) do eventually get fixed after many months but they never make the known issues list ever. For some bugs that I find particularly annoying, I make a new bug report every time a new known issues list is published, but still they never make the list and often never get fixed either. The only conclusion I can come to from this is the devs simply never read any of my bug reports and instead rely on something else to decide what bugs to fix and to decide what to list as known issues. So, recently, I have stopped writing bug reports entirely, since they seem to be a total waste of time.

[blerkington]

Hi,

Good suggestion, signed.

Thanks.

[parvo]

Been asking since launch. Waste of electrons. It's obvious this would be a quality improvement. Turb doesn't care about quality.

[Galeria]

Maj said unequivocally that they would not post a list of known bugs. Not gonna happen.

I enjoyed his posts as well and he gave us a great list of U14 bugs known/in progress. Personally, that gave me some faith in the process.

[Talias006]

actually i want to see something that maj was doing like a progress report weekly. we all had fun. we responded. it made people happy.

Some bad apples ruined the bunch for us with the weekly updates.
Devs post their progress in area A, and players ask why they're not doing anything with B, often with volatile attitudes towards the Devs.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Maj said unequivocally that they would not post a list of known bugs. Not gonna happen.

Yeah, its easy to understand that Maj wouldn't want to publish a list of bugs that eluded the QA process he oversaw. At some point, a reputable business would understand that the concerns of its customers outweigh the personal considerations of one of its employees.

[NexEverto]

See my signature. It's likely the best you're going to get, through it gets great feedback from both the community and the developer team so for a lot of people it's more than they could have hoped for.

Honestly though, I don't think being told about bugs is important, as long as they get fixed. Now, for everyone who's going to pop up and say 'Bugs don't get fixed!', well, they do. You just don't notice. It's hard to put things in perspective when you only know of a dozen bugs, but when you know of over two hundred, you start getting perspective and seeing them fixed.

[blerkington]

Hi,

First off, Nex, great list. I'm sure I'm not the only one that appreciates the work that went into those posts of yours. However, I still think it should be Turbine that compiles the list, not a community-minded player.

It would be useful and a great sign of goodwill, especially in view of some dev's comments around the release of U14 that their communication should be better. This would be a GREAT way to follow through with that. People are far more tolerant of delays if they see their problems acknowledged and know that help is on the way.

And, much as I like your work, Nex, I completely disagree with your comment that being told about bugs is not important. Losing millions of ED xp because you didn't know about the LR bug is hardly unimportant. Some bugs are trivial, sure, but there are others that are really, really serious.

Thanks.

See my signature. It's likely the best you're going to get, through it gets great feedback from both the community and the developer team so for a lot of people it's more than they could have hoped for.

Honestly though, I don't think being told about bugs is important, as long as they get fixed. Now, for everyone who's going to pop up and say 'Bugs don't get fixed!', well, they do. You just don't notice. It's hard to put things in perspective when you only know of a dozen bugs, but when you know of over two hundred, you start getting perspective and seeing them fixed.

[NexEverto]

Kind Words!

-Snip-

And, much as I like your work, Nex, I completely disagree with your comment that being told about bugs is not important. Losing millions of ED xp because you didn't know about the LR bug is hardly unimportant. Some bugs are trivial, sure, but there are others that are really, really serious.

Thanks.

Sorry, I do agree with you, my statement was probably too broad and general, aimed at 'lower level' bugs. There are some major game impacting bugs that should be more publicized, your example of the LR-ED-Exp-Gone (LEEG for short? Maybe this is the wrong time for humor. ) bug is a perfect one. Of course, there is another issue to that. LR-ED-Exp-Gone isn't effecting everyone, making it hard to pin down. I've LRed a character using the free LR, and retained my ED Exp. Though I still don't dare LR my main who is an ED Completionist.

Now, this is likely going to be taken the wrong way, but I'm going to say it anyway. With bugs that aren't blanket issues, it's hard to tell who's really experienced the bug and who's just saying they have. I do know of a person who leveled from 20 - 25 without selecting an ED, and then realized after it was too late that they'd gained no ED Exp when they could have. If 15 of 20 people report the issue, who knows if 2 of the 15 are just saying they experienced the issue to try gain free Exp? Unlikely, hopefully, but it's always a possibility; one that's always at the back of my mind when I read through bugs.

[blerkington]

Hi again,

Thanks for the clarification, Nex.

I need to LR before I TR again and I'm too scared to do it because of the ED xp bug. Don't really want to lose 16 million xp from my EDs. I like to focus on my main, and I'm currently lost in endgame limbo when I would much rather be playing the whole game and accruing more past lives.

That's what gets me about the lack of communication about bugs. This is a really big one. Not just because of the risk to people, but far more so because those who have lost xp don't seem to be getting the help they deserve, and more people (who may not read the forums) will have it happen to them too.

This issue should be made a priority, but as usual, just silence instead. I get the impression that the main reason we don't have a bug list is because someone is ashamed at how many there are, and they don't want them recorded all in one place. But the harm being caused by hiding from the issue is a lot worse.

Thanks.

[knockcocker]

Unfortunately, the known issues list for DDO is pretty irrelevent, IMO.

Over the years I have submitted many bug reports. Of all the bug reports I have written, not a single one has ever made its way onto the official known issues list. A small percentage of the bugs I have reported (maybe 20-30%) do eventually get fixed after many months but they never make the known issues list ever. For some bugs that I find particularly annoying, I make a new bug report every time a new known issues list is published, but still they never make the list and often never get fixed either. The only conclusion I can come to from this is the devs simply never read any of my bug reports and instead rely on something else to decide what bugs to fix and to decide what to list as known issues. So, recently, I have stopped writing bug reports entirely, since they seem to be a total waste of time.

This.

[parvo]

Unfortunately, the known issues list for DDO is pretty irrelevent, IMO.

Over the years I have submitted many bug reports. Of all the bug reports I have written, not a single one has ever made its way onto the official known issues list. A small percentage of the bugs I have reported (maybe 20-30%) do eventually get fixed after many months but they never make the known issues list ever. For some bugs that I find particularly annoying, I make a new bug report every time a new known issues list is published, but still they never make the list and often never get fixed either. The only conclusion I can come to from this is the devs simply never read any of my bug reports and instead rely on something else to decide what bugs to fix and to decide what to list as known issues. So, recently, I have stopped writing bug reports entirely, since they seem to be a total waste of time.

I support you. Until Turbine demonstrates they care about quality, I'm no longer filling out bug reports.

[Chai]

I support you. Until Turbine demonstrates they care about quality, I'm no longer filling out bug reports.

Saying this for years at a time, and still being here to say it, is a direct contradiction.

A driver of Fords who has 5+ years of bad experiences moves on to chevys or dodge.
A user of HP computers who has 5+ years of bad experiences with their systems moves on to Dell.

What does a small but loud group of DDO forumites do? Harp about how much the game sucks over years and years of time, with their next action each time being tabbing back into the game to play more DDO.

Its hilarious when someone goes into a restaurant, orders a pizza, eats the ENTIRE THING, then complains it was poor quality. What some people have been doing on these forums is akin to the same person showing up to the same restaurant every friday and ordering the same pizza, eating it all, then delivering the same complaint for reason not to have to pay for it.

My point: You do realize that people will just stop believing the complaints when reinforced with completely contradictory behavior.

[Chai]

See my signature. It's likely the best you're going to get, through it gets great feedback from both the community and the developer team so for a lot of people it's more than they could have hoped for.

Honestly though, I don't think being told about bugs is important, as long as they get fixed. Now, for everyone who's going to pop up and say 'Bugs don't get fixed!', well, they do. You just don't notice. It's hard to put things in perspective when you only know of a dozen bugs, but when you know of over two hundred, you start getting perspective and seeing them fixed.

This.