What's the best way to ask the Devs for a bug fix issue?

Damn straight! If a hacker can break into the systems of an alien mothership in under a minute, how hard can it be to fix these bugs? Sheesh!

umm, then why do that? Why not use the people who know the system?

Where did his post imply not doing so?

Depends on the issue that the purchase fixes. "What's that, your minions are pants-on-head stupid? huh, mine are perfectly obedient and sane. best $5 ever!"

Not saying I wouldn't grumble loudly about having to pay real monies for a fix that should have happened for free ages ago - but that money would be out of my bank account an into NCsoft/Paragon Studio's at the speed of plaid.

not sure why I am bothering to reply, but right here:

It's pretty much the entirety of that post. It's one sentence long and consists solely of the assertion that throwing people who don't know a system at it to fix bugs is a recipe for disaster.
I honestly don't know how to make that any clearer.

If you're just hassling me for fun, you must be very bored.

And to be honest, I have no idea why that subject even came up.

There're many things that could be a recipe for disaster. I really doubt that all of them need to be addressed.
but I'll go ahead and get few out of the way.

Problem: Having animators handle database issues wouldn't go so well.
Solution: Have animators work on animation and have database admins work on the database.

Problem: Having animators sit on their hands while powers guys work on fixes wastes time .
Solution: Let the animators work on animation after they have worked on their ANIMATION bugs w/e they may be.

Problem: Using goats to code would be a recipe for disaster.
Solution: Don't use goats to code.

Seriously, a solution to a number of these objections can be figured out in the time it takes to read the objection.

But, if anyone has a moment I would like to hear about how having the appropriate personnel shift the priority of working on bugs in their appropriate field from priority # 11 to priority # 3 for X units of time is somehow the equivalent of performing a magical Hollywood hack.

Sorry, little distracted lately. More important things on my mind, but I do have to keep myself diverted.

The core of the point he was making is the same whether it's "people who know the system" or not: Just "throwing more at it" won't fix the problem. Sometimes the best way is to let one guy chop away at it at his own pace. Sometimes the best thing is even to set it aside for a few days/weeks then come back at it with a fresh perspective. Coding isn't as simple a matter as you seem to think it is. Being unable to find/fix the cause of a bug doesn't mean that there aren't enough people putting enough time in it or that those people don't know what they're doing. The cause of a bug in even the cleanest code can often be VERY obscure and turn up in totally surprising places that seem completely unrelated.

They do put people who know the system to fixing bugs. Why do you think there is a constant stream of bug fixes going into the game. People even complain that they take the game down to often to apply a new patch and what is in those patches? Mainly bug fixes.

I am unclear as to why coding has to be perceived to be simple for a request for more attention be devoted to bug fixes for a period of time. But w/e.

That's all granted. Thanks for writing it all down.

That's what I also assume. I am unsure why someone brought up putting people who don't know the system on the job. That part is a mystery to me.
I did not broach the idea. I merely pointed out the simplicity of countering the issue that was raised.

Because you seem to be under the impression that the fact that bugs aren't magically fixed with a wave of a wand within a few days of becoming known means that they AREN'T putting enough attention on them.

I haven't said anything about bugs not being fixed in days after they're discovered. ymmv of course.

I am pretty sure that there's no other way of fixing bugs than devoting time to fixing them. I could be wrong about that. If I am please let me know.

I am talking about having the appropriate personnel shift the priority of working on bugs in their appropriate field from priority # y to priority # y-n where n>0 for X units of time and where a lower value for y means higher priority.

Didn't say you did. I said "you seem to be under the impression...".

No one's arguing against that. We're arguing against the notion that they're NOT doing so. Just because they're putting out more content doesn't mean they're not devoting time to fixing bugs, and putting more people on the bugs won't necessarily make things go quicker. Possibly even the exact opposite.

Until you know how they assign their workers, you really don't even BEGIN to be qualified to suggest better ways for them to do so. It would take a lot more than just knowing how they apply man hours, though, to really be qualified to do so.

They do spend time working on bugs. Why else are there bug fixes being released into the game constantly? If they didn't spend time fixing them then there wouldn't be any bug fixes going into the game.

As has been repeatedly and in fairly good detail explained in this thread just throwing people at fixing bugs won't get them fixed. The same essentially applies to just pulling all the programmers off of doing anything else and fixing bugs. Oh thy might do that for a few days but that is it. After that the easy to fix bugs are done and you are left with the ones that can't be fixed right now for some reason.

Which brings us to your real question. Why is the bug that annoys you specifically not getting fixed.

Well at a guess it isn't replicable or if it is it would require major reprogramming effort to fix what is essentially an annoyance.

See bugs are broken up into categories. Now these are just fast off the top of my head and will differ in each programming house but the general categories will remain.

Bug type 1 - Game breaking. Player draws the sword of the curmudgeon while casting the spell of youth and the game crashes. - Response, drop everything and fix. [Not that many bugs fall into this category.]

Bug Type 2 - Exploit. Player discovers that eating the roast mango pizza with pepper sauce gives you +5000 levels in everything for 10 minutes. - Response, depending on interaction and how easy it is to exploit drop everything and fix or fix and roll in with the next patch. [Not that many bugs fall into this category]

Bug Type 3 - Interferes in a major way with game play. Player draws the sword of the curmudgeon while whistling the happy woodcutter song and tugging on their left earlobe and no one can cast spells in 100 yard radius. - Response look at it and see if you can spot the interactions that cause it. If possible fix if not set it so no one can whistle while drawing a sword. [A lot of fixed bugs fall into this category.]

Bug type 4 - Has an annoying effect ie. Occasionally your wolf will run over to the next continent for no reason. - Response if their is a clear easy to repeat trigger that causes this and it is easy to fix then it will be in the next patch. [Most bugs fall into this category]

Bug type 5 - Doesn't work as designed but doesn't really hurt anything either. Item with charges that causes minor cosmetic effect say turning into a large furry critter never actually runs out of charges and can be kept after the quest that you got it in. Clearly not working as designed but doesn't hurt anything. - Response depending on whim of the programmers may never be fixed. [a number of bugs fall into this category.]

Bug type 6 - Working exactly the way the dev wants it to but the player doesn't like it. Player can't call their wolf to them while on the boat. - Response clear the bug from the bug list and move on. [A huge number of bugs fall into this category. Where the programmer sees it as working just fine but the player doesn't.]

Now for added complexity bugs also get sorted by system. Some systems are very twitchy and experience has taught the programmers that touching the wolf subsystem causes 5 new bugs for every typo, or other minor bug they fix if someone just goes in to fix the bug. Or maybe the Wolf subsystem has a major flaw but until it can be rewritten none of the bugs associated with the subsystem can be touched. So instead they are filed with the wolf subsystem and next time it is up for scheduled work ie adding a new feature etc then the bugs associated with that system are also targeted. But they won't just randomly go in and try and fix it.

Last you have an entire category of bugs where clearly something is wrong but there is no clue what is causing it. This could be for example the wolf running off to the next continent every now and again. If it just happens sometimes at random trying to track it down and fix it can be almost impossible unless you get lucky or have an inspiration.

What you ask can cause the last category of bug? I'm glad you asked, this is where one system causes something else in game to break. But it only happens when everything is lined up perfectly. Ie Suppose you have a transport spell that moves you from Cavern A to Forest B. Normally it works fine, but say it stores a value somewhere in the system while doing this and if a player with oh a name shorter than 4 characters uses that spell to do that action it accidentally over writes a value used by the wolf to tell it where to go. Now this only happens if the wolf's action is que'd up immediately after the player with the short name uses that exact transport spell to do that exact transport and the wolf is the next thing in game to act.

How the @#$@#%#!@ hell are you supposed to find that bug?

Throwing more people at it isn't going to find it. Basically at some point either the transport system or the wolf system will have a change that makes it go away but because the cause and effect are not even remotely linked trying to find the bug is harder than looking for a needle in a haystack.

I didn't say that they did't spend time on fixing bugs, nor do I think that.

I don't have any such bug.

That would be a problem with perception of then. Not much more I can do about that. I can only say what I mean. Other meanings and other extras that are assigned to what I say by other people are beyond my control.

But if that's not the impression you're under, this whole thread is pointless. Either they're already doing what you ask for or they're not. This whole thread existing in the first place is what's giving the impression that I said.

So, if I am not under the impression that because "bugs aren't magically fixed with a wave of a wand within a few days of becoming known means that they AREN'T putting enough attention on them," then the thread is pointless?

fascinating.
and cool story bro.

Yes, indeed. Because this whole thread exists to ask them to do something that they're pretty much already doing as well as they can.

If I want to have a birthday party, does that mean I think that there's not enough cake and ice cream in my daily diet? Or I think people aren't giving me enough presents everyday?

Or is it a desire for a special event instead of a statement about the day-to-day affairs in my life?

What people are trying to drill into your head is THEY ARE WORKING ON BUGS. There doesn't need to be a special issue dedicated to it, because EVERY GODDAMNED PATCH has bug fixes, not just the issues. A "bug fix issue" won't have anything more in the way of bug fixes. Just less content. You're asking them to throw more people at a problem when doing so won't really improve matters any.

I am aware that they are working on bugs. I have not made any comment to the effect that they are not doing so.
Perhaps if you used a larger font, more exclamation marks, and maybe some color in addition to all caps, maybe I could understand you better. idk

Then why ask for an issue where they work on bugs if you're aware they're already working on them? Like I said, if you're already aware of what we're trying to tell you, then this thread is pointless. You're asking for something that's already being done.

Just because you miss the point doesn't mean it's not there.


Just because I am good house keeper doesn't mean that I don't "straighten up a little" before special company comes over.
The same with the bugs.
Just because they keep house [fix bugs regularly] doesn't mean that it is somehow impossible to "straighten up a little" [temporarily adjust the priority of bug fixing] before special company comes over.