[suggestion] Support could benfit from an open bug-tracker

from SorcererKing Forums

Have you considered using an open bug tracker like MantisBT? I'm sure you have your own documents and databases and I'm not trying to sell anything. Any open bug-tracker would do. But I only really know about this one. A few other companies use it quite successfully:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/my_view_page.php
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/changelog_page.php

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/my_view_page.php
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/changelog_page.php

I just want these features:

Allowing any user to upload and comment on bugs,
Let anyone view the work done on existing bugs,
Keep each issue separate to avoid things being overlooked
You can group/link lots of related issues together
People can get email notification when a report is changed/commented/resolved.
You can look at the changelog and see what was fixed in what version

Also, concerning support. The Sorcerer King forum hides the support section (for me, probably others too, hence having to move threads to support). I just see General, Dev journal and News from the home page without clicking the drop down box and selecting one of the other hidden sections. Like so:

It'd also be quite nice to have a sticky post with a guide to posting bugs. I've just been taking a guess with what information you actually want. e.g. When do you want saves? (and how best to upload them?) when do you want to know map settings, computer information, debug logs etc. I assume only for major crashes? I don't really know. I've just been playing with photobucket and taking wild guesses. It seems like if you actually want good feedback and bug help then it's nice if we can *see* the bugs being noticed somewhere. It can seem a little like they are just disappearing into the ether atm. I have no idea which bugs are acknowledged, assigned to anyone or already fixed... or if you need more help to reproduce them. I keep feeling like I'm missing an some whole other support area that's equally well hidden.

(Plus if you used something like Mantis you could put all Stardock games on it, for easy switching between projects. I'm sure lots of GalCiv3 users also play LH/FE/SK etc. Moving between game forums is awkward too... Also accessing game from forums.stardock has the same oddity of hiding sections (like 2 old games and a misc section), but with no (obvious) way of selecting sub-categories like Sorcerer King Dev Journals or Support).

support
21,623 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from SorcererKing Forums Top

I agree.

I am also impressed by your zeal in reporting bugs :)

My experience with Stardock is that they do not pay much attention to those bugs, you can report the same bug over and over for months. Then suddenly, out of blue, someone would say - I never heard about this, and the next patch it is fixed .... 

It seems totally random which bugs are acknowledged and which are not, right now I just report them if I get really really frustrated playing ... It is also kind of sad, I can fire FE or SK and have a page of bugs after 1h of playing. It is also true that after all these years with their product you kind of know where to look for :) 

Reply #2 from SorcererKing Forums Top

bpalczewski, thanks for the compliment. It's not just games, I get zealous about everything (choosing towels, cooking, lab-work or love. Everything deserves passionate enthusiasm... in moderation).

I hope the bugs all get noticed. If not a bug tracker even just a sticky current version bug thread made by the devs would be nice. Dominions 4 has one:

http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/dominions-410-bugs

In it bugs that are fixed get the colour of the text turned green to show they're fixed. With each new version they start a new sticky thread to post in. I just hate waste, without a bug tracker there's always going to be wasted effort and duplicate bug-reports that aren't actually adding data the devs need. (Other than as a measure of the frequency of the bug)

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Sounds good to me. It would be more efficient to have one bug thread where people could contribute.

Also, one "cool things you like" thread. For example, I like when the combat map has a big log in it and you kill an opponent and the animation shows him crashing into and bouncing off the log.