The Bug Brigade - Community QA Volunteers Needed

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Attenwood, Oct 13, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Attenwood

    Attenwood Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    6,910
    Likes Received:
    5,863
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Hello Bug Hunters and All!

    The Portalarium Team is reaching out to you, our incredible Community at large, for a handful of volunteer participants in what we are affectionately calling the Bug Brigade!

    Now more than ever our team has a need for additional community support in triaging and monitoring our community Bug Forums to make sure Critical Issues are known and fixed immediately, and to make sure that no bug, no matter how small, falls through the cracks. The support from our community in this endeavor will allow our internal QA team to better prioritize tasks to make sure new features, systems, and fixes are tested thoroughly to improve the community experience as a whole.

    Note that this is a role for forum review, triage, and management to assist the Dev team in monitoring issues on specific forum sections that might be missed otherwise! We are in need of the added Eyes and Ears to keep our bug forums up-to-date and to provide rapid responsiveness to Critical issues.

    Our team is blown away by the increased bug reporting that has followed in the wake of introducing the Testing Incentives Program! I want to assure you that the TIP program is still strong, and we still rely on the hard work and dedication of ALL of our bug reporting community members. Please keep sending in those bugs!

    If you are interested in becoming a community volunteer Bug Hunter, or would like more information on the Bug Brigade, please reach out to me, @Attenwood, via PM or at rromero@portalarium.com.

    Thank You!

    UPDATE (10/19/16)

    The First Wave of Bug Brigade participants have been selected, and they have hit the ground running at full-speed to help extend our bandwidth on addressing forum reports between both R34 and Dev+ R35 bug forums so far.

    Don't be dismayed! If you are interested in being a future member of the Bug Brigade, send in a request to my PM and I'll get back to you ASAP!

    We're busy with work and preparing for Release 35 in the next week, so responses may be delayed!

    Thank you all for your interest! :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2016
    VectorGammar, Ancev, lollie and 29 others like this.
  2. Mobidoy Querrent

    Mobidoy Querrent Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    755
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Kingston, Ontario, Canada
  3. Waxillium

    Waxillium Avatar

    Messages:
    3,311
    Likes Received:
    9,043
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Rift's End
  4. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    Wouldn't PM be a more convenient way of communication with members of the community?
     
  5. Attenwood

    Attenwood Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    6,910
    Likes Received:
    5,863
    Trophy Points:
    153
  6. Attenwood

    Attenwood Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    6,910
    Likes Received:
    5,863
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Except that our PM boxes are regularly flooded. Wanted to try and keep to a single channel that could be reviewed and sorted easily on my part. :)

    Since I'm already getting PMs, I suppose I'll update the original post anyway. haha.
     
  7. Link_of_Hyrule

    Link_of_Hyrule Avatar

    Messages:
    1,394
    Likes Received:
    2,142
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Ogden, Utah
  8. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    Poor Attenwood, there will be a whole host of emails and PMs to sort through on top of his usual burdens.
    [​IMG]
     
    Brickbat, lollie, 4EverLost and 9 others like this.
  9. Horance

    Horance Avatar

    Messages:
    60
    Likes Received:
    136
    Trophy Points:
    8
    There are many bugs which were reported, easily reproducible and confirmed by others players, but got no answer from the developers.

    Would it be possible to give more information about the status of a bug?
    Was the bug read? Is it a bug or an expected behavior? Could you reproduce it on your side? Do you need more information? When will it be fixed? Has it be fixed? In what release?

    Example:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-item-is-added-to-the-player-inventory.65911/
     
    Widsith [MGT], FrostII, Acred and 5 others like this.
  10. Grimbone

    Grimbone Avatar

    Messages:
    575
    Likes Received:
    957
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    USA
    Thank you for involving the community!
     
    lollie, 4EverLost, Acred and 3 others like this.
  11. Moiseyev Trueden

    Moiseyev Trueden Avatar

    Messages:
    3,016
    Likes Received:
    8,439
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    California
    I'm fairly confident that this is the exact reason why this is starting up.
     
  12. StPhil

    StPhil Avatar

    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    17
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Could a kind soul point me in the direction of the link to download the test client? Or how to get started in how to help with the testing process?
     
  13. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    No need to load any client.
    Just by playing the game itself on the live server you can help. But please remember to use the button in the upper right corner Report Bug, that way the formatting gets copied automatically, ready to be pasted into a post made in the bug forums.
    Please also read the following instructions:
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IgbhfeXt8mTLZaY7cXGf3m-Pf-3BodoRK1-sVuHlHr8/pub
    Please note that participation in the TIP doesn't require loggin in to the test server.
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/testing-incentives-program.61911/


    But if you were really looking for the QA server, then you'd need Dev+ and first check out the status on the main page:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=29385
    where on the right hand pane you can see that it is only for "internal" testing right now, meaning it is not yet open for us players in this release cycle.

    Once it is, then the Dev+ gets an announcement like this:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/r34-dev-qa-build-is-up.62858/
    which contains instructions on what to do.

    Happy hunting

    Spoon
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2016
    gadget, Bom, margaritte and 7 others like this.
  14. liz_the_wiz

    liz_the_wiz Avatar

    Messages:
    1,365
    Likes Received:
    2,033
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    More than happily would love to do this. Im a seasoned qa / bug person having done it in my job and for fun...
     
    4EverLost, Moiseyev Trueden and Acred like this.
  15. Net

    Net Avatar

    Messages:
    3,727
    Likes Received:
    11,178
    Trophy Points:
    153
    I really hope this initiative will help solve the following:

    - provide devs with bugs in more legible format (put all related bugs from people reporting similar stuff in separate threads together) It really bugs me to see person reporting the same thing in different locations in 10 separate threads, it floods the bug forums a lot, though I understand that posting to existing thread might mean it is easier to overlook. Bug Hunters will hopefully have time to look into updated threads for more information.
    - look for duplicate bugs
    - provide players with the status of the bug (at least submitted, acknowledged/cannot reproduce/feature, worked on, fixed).

    Ideally, I would love some easily searchable place (google document?) with the status of submitted bugs. I am not really interested in going through forums, but I liek to report bugs but if the forums are mess, it is hard to know what was being reported.

    And I feel that 3/4 of my reports are being ignored and I hate re-reporting everything again and again. I know some things are lower priority, but I would still love to see some feedback that they will be worked on. If this iniative will help with feedback to players, I might be more inclined to post more bug reports and put more effort into them;)
     
  16. liz_the_wiz

    liz_the_wiz Avatar

    Messages:
    1,365
    Likes Received:
    2,033
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    A proper bug database would be hugely valuable, even if you guys cant see it, getting back a bug logged, bug rejected, bug solution planned etc.. would be hugely useful to reporters.
     
  17. Xeen Dread

    Xeen Dread Avatar

    Messages:
    102
    Likes Received:
    190
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Issue Council/Evocati all over again :)

    If you guys aren't familiar with Star Citizen's Issue council (official bug submission portal) and how things work there with escalation/reproductions and then players voting on what to fix first, might be a good thing to check out.
     
    Womby, Pyq, Leostorm and 1 other person like this.
  18. Themo Lock

    Themo Lock Avatar

    Messages:
    4,891
    Likes Received:
    17,639
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Australia
    I don't think this would be an issue here at all personally
     
    4EverLost and Moiseyev Trueden like this.
  19. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

    Messages:
    7,121
    Likes Received:
    10,958
    Trophy Points:
    153
    what would really help is if bug where reported like they are supposed to be then they could actually paste the info into a simple usable database.

    But since players just drop one liners it is moot

    rewards for being in QA now more help to even handle the bugs and organize them :-(

    Not much time left to get a launch date and they are scrambling

    perhapaps time to slow down stop creating pixel crack and work on game mechanics (btw PvP is not a mechanic - could have spent money on a PvP guy better - way better)
     
  20. Themo Lock

    Themo Lock Avatar

    Messages:
    4,891
    Likes Received:
    17,639
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Australia
    there isn't money spent on this, it is community volunteers helping Attenwood
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.