Closed In-game bug submission system

I actually think the entire point of good game design is to get the player to enjoy the game or use the feature without them feeling like it is a lot of work. That said, even an in-game reporting feature would feel like work, not play. While it might increase the number of bug reports, it doesn't necessarily increase the quality of bug reports, and it really isn't hard to hit alt+prntscrn or f12. In all of those ways, I agree with you.

The real benefit of an in-game reporting feature is that it can be programmed to save the game state and send it in. That allows the developer to actually go into the situation the player was in and see what was going on first-hand. It potentially allows them to look at the code as it happens as well, saving them time that would otherwise be spent trying to reproduce the bug.

 

I say what I see, and what I see is that a lot of people will take the shortest way even if it'd take all of 30 seconds to do a much better job.

If it was able to send the gamestate, then that's definitely a good thing, especially given all the procedural generation. It would largely still rely on people giving a semi-detailed description of what happened unless something went horribly/obviously wrong.

 

That's where you are wrong, when they have the game state even the most simpleton "I was building a house and kablooey" will give an indication of involved entities [it would be unheard of if the game DIDN'T have crash/error logs for reporting]

There is nothing to lose, only gain from an in-game reporting system.

 

It's an investment of the developer's time. Like all investments, it might pay off later on.

Like all investments, there is no guarantee of that. It could be that testimony is enough. There is no real way to know for sure, but it's a decision that I entreat the developers to make. They have more experience and knowledge on this subject matter than I have, and more than the vast majority of people participating in the beta. I'm not strongly in favor of either side of the decision, but I trust Chucklefish to choose something that works well for them.

 

I think it would depend on how easy it will be to implement that system into the game, we might end up debugging the bug report system the first couple days and not any of the actual game features.

 

Because there's nothing better they could be doing that trying to figure out what somebody meant or digging through the data in the gamestate chasing after a vague description. And since they didn't just post on the forum, there's no way to get any follow up or clarification.

 

Or, make it a "Ticket" system, like world of warcraft, and then the whole feedback and clarification issue is solved. Really, I don't see why you are trying so hard to find bad things about a convenient system for both testers and developers. Your prestige took a hit or something when not everyone agreed with you instantly? :S

The only compelling argument I've read so far is that it is a time and money investment for the developers, time and money that could have gone into better things.

But let me tell you this: I have been in many, many beta tests. And the ones with in-game report systems are the ones I have ever bothered with writing lengthy reports to. Because this is what I have to do in the forum based bug report system you seem so fond of. Alt+tab, open browser, log in to forum, go to the beta forum, go to the bug report sub forum, search the forum to see if the issue is already reported, if it is, see if there is something I can add, if not, post a new thread, manually uploading screenshots and or bug reports and dxdiag and whatnot. This would take me 15-25 minutes.

With an ingame report system, i do this, i hit esc, open the bug report system, write a down to the point report on what happened, what mechanics were involved, if I have managed to replicate the bug and if so, how I replicated it. And I hit send, and choose if I want a screenshot to be sent. And that's all. This would take me 5-10 minutes.

So really, what's the big issue with having a conventient, fast, automatic and detailed system instead of a clunky and slow one?

 

aka the point I've been making. There are better things to do than sort through good reports vs spam.

I'm not sure how it would take much longer. It takes less than a minute to change windows, log in to the forum, and go to a particular section. Searching for something similar likewise doesn't take long, and you probably wouldn't be able to do that with an in-game report system anyway so if anything that's a benefit of using the forums. Uploading screenshots and a log likewise takes about a minute. Do you type slowly or something?

It seems like an easy way to make less detailed reports.

 

As a person with little programming knowledge, but a massive willingness to bug-find and beta test... i'd be much more for the in-game reporter.
and not actually for the convenience, but more for if their system can get the screenshot... possibly take a system file that has my computer specs and what was happening at time of the bug...
really anything that can give them more detailed info, (the type I may personally not know to look for or how to convey to them), I feel that would really help the fan masses

 

I liked how Neverwinter did it. Give the report ticket a name and a category from a list, make a screen capture, register player stat and location and stick all that to your description of the issue.
Yes, like all bug reporting system, it is only as good as the people using it, meaning in general, next to useless. But still, if no one was to ever make a good use of those, I do wonder if any of the big developers would bother at all with customer bug reporting.
I know that if I have access toa convenient bug reporting system I will use it. If that system take care of the job of reporting my system spec and current situation (if wanted and if that wasn't a crash to desktop) then all the better, I can spend more time to write a comprehensive description of the issue.

There could even be (or should be for legal reasons) a form that you can check to agree to send basic information about your system when you send a report since that is quite often usefull.

 

I feel the addition of an in-game bug report system would be great, for those with rather crap short-term memory spans, (Like myself) in order for them to submit bugs before the memory becomes hazy and hard to recall.

 

I don't know about you man, with the release of World of Warcraft, blizzard had many bugs which they could have had a hard time finding themselves, alot of bugs were fixed thanks to fans that cared about the game and reported almost every single one they found, I can count me, my good friend, and a brother who will constantly be reporting bug in stage 1 of the beta, so that's 3, and i'm sure there will be more.

 

You could favorite the page for the Beta section of the forum, and have the website automatically log you in on that computer. At that point, all you need to do is hit Alt+PrntScrn to get a screenshot, Alt+Tab into your web browser, start a new thread and upload the image. Writing the description of the bug would take an equal amount of time in each case, and if there are already threads about the same bug then I fail to see how that is much different than already having the same bug reported already with an in-game feature.

I'm not saying that an in-game reporting feature isn't more convenient for the play testers. It would be. However, I doubt that the difference is as stark as advocates seem to think. There are still many companies that don't ever use an in-game bug reporting feature and they do just fine. That's exactly why I say that this is a decision for Chucklefish to make. We might think that an in-game feature is obviously better, but that's probably because we are biased towards what is convenient for us and not what works best for the developers. In reality, there are pros and cons to both and it will probably be perfectly fine either way.

And if you really NEED to have an in-game bug reporting feature, you can just mod it in! <- that's a joke...

 

I can't say it's a bad idea, however, most people that pre-ordered this game is a member if this forum anyway, so it wouldn't really be hard to just create a new section in the forums under the name "Bug Reports" and just make a thread there. Maybe you could have sub-categories as well, like "World/Terrain Generation" or "Items".

 

I love valve's bug report on their games, you can take a printscreen, info, etc quite easly! Do think a game should have that

 

The most time would go to reading through the threads reporting this issue to see if there is something new for me to add. An ingame version would provide the developers with a gamestate, something I could never do. The dxdiag would only be a problem the first time admittedly... But dont worry thinking the devs would be bogged down in millions of small, undetailed reports. They would, if they know what they are doing, add some kind of sorting system. If many people selected the woodblock as a source of error in their reports, then they wouldnt read through all 150 000 reports, they'd just get a general idea and then look into it. And besides, many people reporting the same thing will be an issue on the forums as well, and they would basically do the same thing, get the general idea and look into it... Except they wouldnt have a gamestate, which would be a really good debugging tool.

You are welcome to think what you will though. The developers will have to decide for themselves how they want the reports to work, to maximize their work efficiency. Scour through the forums every day, or having a system that automatically compile a list of bugs that hasnt been reported before, what was going on in the coding when the bug happened, and a crash screenshot if possible.

 

I'm not saying that in-game reporting isn't useful, I'm saying that there are certain trade-offs when comparing it to posting on a forum. For example if its a forum thread, there can be follow up if necessary, such as asking for clarification or checking to make sure that the bug was fixed on the user's configuration.

 

As much as I like the premise of an in-game reporting system; reporting on the forums can be tedious - although it would make the reports far more organized and publicly available, how would it be managed if players abuse the in-game system and file in already known bugs or blatantly poor reports. For the staff, iltering through these reports would make the task of actually solving these bugs that much harder, compared to the convenience of the user for that system.

 

i think the way arma 3 is doing bug reports is a nice wat to do it .. and it should be done the same way here .. one site .. with open bug issues you can vote on . reprort and comment and see all statuses on every bug there is in game .. its a nice clean way to do it

and you can access it via steam web browser.. thats how i would do it