Bug and Typo Reporting: A refresher

Eoghan

Hello, Imperian!

We have a crop of new players, so I wanted to take another chance to give some guidelines to good bug reporting. If you follow these guidelines, it allows for the turn around and resolution time of bugs and typos much faster, and also makes our jobs as coders a lot easier by helping us find the root cause of a bug. I'm going to make a distinction between bugs and typo reports below. In some cases, the line is blurry (is the abhelp wrong, or the skill wrong!?) but most are straightforward, and we can approach the special cases individually.

First, some general guidelines:

 - DO Include as much relevant detail as possible (we'll get into this more later)

 - DO give us any information required to reproduce the issue.

 - DO file bugs and typos from within the room they occur, if applicable - your current room is automatically included in the report.

 - DON'T include anything extra. Commentary, editorializing, even just trying to be clever, make it harder to read your reports and fix the issues.

 - Please DON'T file a report if it is merely a matter of opinion. This applies more to typos than to bugs, but is a general guideline nonetheless.

 - Please DON'T file bugs exclusively via out-of-game methods (such as the forums). ALWAYS post a report in-game first.

 

Additionally, if you are filing a new bug to clarify one that has been closed, please treat it as a NEW report, and include all of the information from the original report. Closed reports are purged over time, and referencing one in a new report may be meaningless when we actually get to fixing it!

 

If you've already filed a report, but need to add additional information to it before it is resolved, you can do so using the COMMENTBUG command. This will add a comment that we can see. In some cases, an individual investigating or triaging a bug may send you a message asking for clarification or comments.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about TYPO reports!

The TYPO queue doesn't only represent typos in the classical sense. A typo report should be filed any time some text in the game is incorrect. This includes traditional typos (a letter or word is wrong, grammar is incorrect), as well as:

 - Mistakes in skill help files (AB) such as outdated, incorrect, or missing information.

 - Mistakes in general help files (HELP) such as outdated, incorrect, or missing information.

 - Mistakes in game messages (ambient messages, skill messages, etc).

 

When filing a typo report, include AS MUCH of the following information as possible (and that applies):

 - If a typo relating to an item or mobile, include the item or mobile number (found via II or IH)

 - If a typo in a room description, please file the report from within the room, and note that it applies to the room you're in.

   * If you aren't able to return to the room, please make every effort to give us the name or room number of the room!

 - Include the line that contains a typo.

 - Include the specific mistake in that line. Just pasting in the line may not be helpful, because we might not notice what you noticed!

 

Now for the BUG queue.

The BUG queue should contain any report that isn't a TYPO or an IDEA.

If you submit something that should properly be classified in one of the other queues, it may be moved to the appropriate queue, or may be removed as not a bug.

As with typos, include AS MUCH of the following information as possible (and that applies):

 - As much information as possible about the bug, and how to replicate it. This is especially important with skill bugs and quest bugs, as it is not always obvious how to create a situation where obscure bugs can be found and thus fixed.

 - If a bug relating to an item or mobile, include the item or mobile number (found via II or IH)

 - If a bug in a room or room effect, please file the report from within the room, and note that it applies to the room you're in.

   * If you aren't able to return to the room, please make every effort to give us the name or room number of the room!

 - If relating to a skill, include the skill that has a problem, as well as any mitigating factors that may be impacting the behavior.

 - If relating to a quest, where possible include the name of the quest and information about the stage of the quest. There are a lot of quests in Imperian, and none of us know the details about all of them.

 - Bugs are tracked down through messages received and user input. Please include whatever errant message you got and what you typed.

Thanks for working with us to improve this game we all love!