Bugs Being Closed Prematurely

[drah]

I've had a few bug reports be closed by one of the moderators here, and in 2 cases prematurely before any devs had a chance to respond... in two instances this moderator has been asked by developers (or other 'staff') not to close such tickets as I did my best to avoid spoilers (and probably was a little vague even at that!!).

Most recently, one was closed when the problem still actually exists when using the exact phrase given to you by another NPC. (there exists a workaround by dropping one of the words in the phrase, but it shouldn't be assumed that players will do this when they've been provided a full name of something to ask for!!). --- The problem still exists (unless any work has been done on it since I submitted the bug) but the ticket was closed, yet again.

I'm not out to identify the person or poke at them personally... as I know they were only trying to keep things clean and tidy on the bugtracker and you can't blame them for that!!... but I would like moderators to remember that if someone does their best not to provide spoilers.. to try to recognize that in the same way the developers and Xillix have and no close the ticket too hastily, especially if it's a fundamental flaw in a quest (as one of my reports was).  Otherwise there might as well be a solid rule not to post any quest-related bugs to the bug-tracker.

Not really a whiny complaint... just a... "could you try to avoid closing bug reports unless they actually do spoil quests!!" kinda request.

Thanks

[ Edited for language. --Karyuu ]

[Caarrie]

When adding things to the bugtracker it is better to have as much infomation about the bug as possible including the exact phrase and talad told us [gms] not to post spoilers on the bugtracker so for now untill otherwise told I dont think they should be added there. So for now please petition them to a gm and we will make sure the devs know about them to get them fixed the more info the better.

[bilbous]

If this is the case would it be possible to have a list here (somewhere) of bugged quests and an indication if they are still possible or not so people will know not to accept them if they are not?

[acraig]

Can I have the bug number?  I will examine them

[Caarrie]

A list of bugged quests is a list of spoilers if you have a question about a quest as a gm most of us can find out if a quest is working or not.

[AryHann]

Hi Drah,

I understand your concern fully.
We are implementing for this reason a bugtracker process (or trying too) that should define roles and actions for each different group of actors when it comes to bug reports.
One of this is that if a bug is assigned the only persons that can do something about it is just the assignee, the admin of the bugtracker and nobody else.

You are free to reopen bugs, please do that, and being atm the responsible for the bugtracker and the bugtracker process, I would invite you to contact me personally(here, IRC, email, wherever) in order to set order where there is confusion.

It is not correct to spoil a quest, but I am really aware that this happens anyway, in IRC, on other forums, using MSN, ICQ and whatever else. It is nobody purpose to hunt people down, because it is impossible.
I assume that the bugtracker is used to report bugs and not solutions to anything and I haven't seen ever a bug report made with malicious purposes.
The bugtracker is a perfect tool for tracking bugs and for giving the chance of having a direct communication between reporter and developer, to give the possibility to different people to have an opinion and discuss about matters.

Please, continue to write bug reports in the bugtracker and if the usage of it will continue as it has happened until now, there won't be the need to close anything hastily because it has half of a preposition of a sentence of a quest.

Thanks,

[drah]

Well.. when I report the bugs.. the number one thing I avoid posting is anything about who actually gives the quest.  And only provide information that is given blatantly during the quest and is of no use unless you've already established that... so effectively, it cannot be used to initiate something the bug-viewer didn't already know how to initiate.

Carrie, as you can tell I've no hard feelings, so I might as well admit it's you who's closing these tickets... I'm just raising this issue because your actions are contradicted by the devs and by Xillix and I'd like some official clarification on what to do or not to do as I don't want to cause problems.

I'm also not sure what happens to petitions if no GMs are around and the server dies... I'm just trying to use what seems to be the most reliable method to report problems.

That's all.

[Caarrie]

If there is no gm or dev on atm and there is a petition it stays till a gm logs on to read it even if there is a server crash

[drah]

Thanks for letting me know about how the server works, as nobody had explained that to me before.

Okay, well... it seems that nobody is 100% sure what to with quest bugs and in future I will, unless told otherwise, ONLY ever submit them as petitions to GMs.

On behalf of everyone else unsure... just to totally clarify and close this thread... is the advice, at present...

That ALL quest bugs should NOT be posted to the bugtracker for now?

[AryHann]

No. That's not what I said.

Please, continue to submit bugs, including quest bugs until there will be some other word said or an official statement from the development team.

Just don't post spoilers - but that has NEVER happened until today, so relax :-)

[Zan]

I've also been disappointed by the loose closing and discarding of certain bugs by those that probably should have let more experienced people handle it. I'm not going to sling accusations or mention any names here though ... there is no point in that.

I'm just glad to see that steps are being taken to make these incidents more difficult to occur.

Just a friendly service towards those players that take the time to report bugs can already mean a world of difference, nobody wants to discourage us to be testers.

[bilbous]

Well then there are those bugs that stick around forever and remain unconfirmed, I think some of them might be closed.

[AryHann]

bilbous: they *should* be closed if they don't happen anymore! Actually, the unconfirmed bugs of today are pretty recent submissions.
I would not close them just because they are unconfirmed.
We are overloaded of bugs to check and correct, and if some just stay there in the queue it doesn't hurt anybody.

With my attempt of resurrect the bugtracker, I would like to also get rid of obsolete problems that haven't been touched for years and things like this. But you can't expect that things get automagically ready in one evening.
For having some good quality, time is a crucial factor here!
Give us time and if you want to close some bug, devote some time into the new/unconfirmed section and play around with them until you are 500% sure that they can't be reproduced :-)

[bilbous]

I really was not criticizing the dev team with that comment, it was more a statement of fact. It has been a month or two since I've looked at the bugtracker and having just looked at it today it is not as bad as I remembered so Kudos not brickbats...
Your pardon, Gentlefolk.

[AryHann]

No worries ;-)