Announce post #3007: Issues

Autoposter

<pre>9/20/2019 at 15:41
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
Issues

We need to talk about issues.

Bugs are not issues unless they are literally breaking the game. Yes, bugs are something that need to be fixed ASAP, and we don't want you to suffer through them for any more time than is necessary. Bugs are sorted every day, and priority bugs are checked. Rest assured, if it's breaking your class or making something crazy happen, it will get fixed in a timely manner. Even if it's a small thing, we have a team that goes through them every day. (Artifacts are exempt, they fall under customer service)

Questions to the Producer about silly little things? That can be a message, I'm happy to answer questions! Yes, they can be about lore or content and I'll forward them to whomever answers them best. If it's a big thing, email is good too. Important discussions of rules and problems, those are fine too.

Issues are customer service. Think of it like taking the time to drive up to the store to talk to a manager. Not in the sense of Karen complaining because her salad has tomato on it, and she's allergic to phytochemicals; but in the sense that you need to tell someone in charge that a kid is setting fire to the effigy section. If it deals with money, the running of the game itself, or things between you and another player needing a mediator, it's an issue.

We only have so much time in the day, and while bugs and questions are something we go over every single day, issues are meant to tell us "Drop everything and help." At the moment the influx of issues is overwhelming our ability to handle daily activities.

So please ask yourself, does it need to wake Tiur up in the middle of the night, or make Raz stop watching anime?

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 1st of Arios, in the year 483 MA.</pre>

Iazamat

Bugs are, in my opinion, 100000% an issue if they are being abused by someone, which doesn't fall under the auspices of "literally breaking the game". Abuse can make players incapable of enjoying something like PvP. That... really shouldn't need said.

Edit: And the only reason I'm even stating this is because there seems to be an incredibly binary approach to moderation from the current administration. It's either 0 or 1, and when anyone argues otherwise, we get told we're being petulant/overreacting and the trend is to make rulings that inevitably cause problems later or just lead to more confusion given the circumstances.

Eliadon

issue me hi Tiur/Razmael/Keroc/Alectro/etc I wanted to tell you that ur a wonderful person tyty.

Tiur

Because issues are between staff and the issuer, I'm not going to bring up specific examples. But let's be clear, I'm not downing on people issuing bug abuse in PvP. A lot of times those are game breaking. I'm specifically trying to cut down on the number of "I used this skill and it didn't do what I think it should do." as an issue. Issues have lost a lot of oomph and we're spending too much time sorting them.

Absolutely: I am not going to punish people for being wrong about their issues importance. I really just want people to think about what they send up. Maybe I won't wake up in the middle of the night to my phone telling me someone thinks there's a bug in a skill where it doesn't do X as often as it claims. If you think it's an issue, go for it! If it's not, I'll tell you and we can dial in the amount. This post also came with a code upgrade for letting us downgrade an issue to a bug.

And yeah, I'm an Engineer. I tend to think in terms of "broke" and "not broke yet". I can get a little binary, sorry.

Aishia

Response rates on messages can be sort of low, same with bugs. Maybe want to improve how signal boosted priority bugs are or something.

Rhyot

When it comes to PVP, how do we determine whether something is an ISSUE versus a BUG. Obviously PVP items are very hot button things and can unilaterally be abused unless fixed quickly. Considering bugs aren't necessarily fixed quickly, while an issue is gotten attention rather quickly as well.

Let's use an example from the past:
Mentis Lure being used to drag people through icewalls.

During the Three Widows War, I was luring people through icewalls and didn't realize it. Once I was sent an OOC tell saying that I was pulling people through icewalls, I obviously wanted to test it to verify. Upon verifying that I was, in fact, luring people THROUGH icewalls, I stopped.


Would the above scenario better to be BUG'd or ISSUE'd? And if a BUG, in what situation would you create an ISSUE for an issue regarding PVP?

Aloli

@Rhyot, you're able to specify one of your bugs as a priority bug and that usually gets taken care of in a timely manner. My bug list is kind of large but I tend to go through it when I have the time and delete the stuff that was either fixed or just doesn't apply anymore.

The answer to your question is pretty simple and as he mentioned in the post, issue yourself or someone if you can't get things resolved IG. My opinion on PVP items or skills is the same. Make it a priority bug and have the patience to wait for it to be looked at unless it's something that absolutely breaks the game. There are so many venues to address PVP issues as well, such as classleads.

Rhyot

@Aloli While I would love to agree with you, PRIORITY BUGS just dont get seen as often as you might think. For example, I had a bug submitted for the inability to PATH FIND while in lower Xaanhal for almost 1.5 years. The entire time I had it marked as a priority bug. So my faith in bugs actively being looked at and fixed is at an absolute 0. 

Classleads dont address immediate breaks. They only address imbalances or different ideas to skills. Additionally, if we put in bugs for PVP and label them priority, given the above history... It makes it very difficult to determine if theyd ever actually be looked at, let alone fixed. 

Even so though, @Tiur... Given the example above and the question on PVP breaks, I'd still like to know the official ruling on Bugs v Issues for PVP items only. Sorry if I'm being a pest.