BUGS

[tbhp]

Devs are volunteers. From what I've heard, they're only expected to help for a few months after the game clears beta. Anything beyond that is on their available time and goodwill. In my experience, devs have sometimes fixed a bug in a game that I was playing, allowing the game to complete.

That's good, but I don't see why there shouldn't be a dedicated team whose job is specifically to help the people with bugs. It should be more than just "I volunteer to do it" in my opinion, because this is an important fairness issue.

The devs appear to have time to work on things that no one even asked for, as proven with the recent interface overhaul that must have taken a lot of time and resources. Yet something more important like correcting bugs is relegated to volunteer work. That seems backwards.

If a game is so broken that it can't be played, report/upvote the bug and don't play again until it's fixed. You'll be notified when it is.

It seems that any game can potentially have bugs. The game in my example is very popular and certainly not broken, yet a bug still happened in an important game and no one seemed to care (even the other players seemed apathetic to the issue).

Of course you can't expect the devs to be able to solve every bug, but there should be an expectation that they will at least try.

[nik592]

That's good, but I don't see why there shouldn't be a dedicated team whose job is specifically to help the people with bugs. It should be more than just "I volunteer to do it" in my opinion, because this is an important fairness issue.

The devs appear to have time to work on things that no one even asked for, as proven with the recent interface overhaul that must have taken a lot of time and resources. Yet something more important like correcting bugs is relegated to volunteer work. That seems backwards.

While I don't disagree that some of the changes made by the BGA admin team aren't well-thought out or well-planned, it does make sense that they devote paid resources to maintaining the infrastructure and volunteer devs are used for (majority of) the game development. To have staff dedicated to fixing game bugs would require more resources - I don't think it's a case of taking people away from maintaining the infrastructure (as has also been noted, the infrastructure isn't always the best either). More resources costs more money. I'm assuming based on the current subscription rate, they'd probably be hesitant to do that.

A bug in a game is annoying, but at the end of the day, it's just a game. Some games aren't on here. Some are on here but don't work that well (and don't have anyone actively working on them). You can either play them as is, choose to become a volunteer dev and help, or choose not to play them. Consider those games as not existing on the platform if that helps. And the games that ended improperly due to a bug, well, it happens. It's just a game. You report the bug, but there's no point complaining that there needs to be more resources to fix them (unless you're prepared to become part of those resources). It's not like there aren't other games to choose in the meantime.

[Kayvon]

Not only would it pull BGA employees away from maintaining the site, it wouldn't be terribly efficient.

A bug in my game that I can fix in 5 minutes might take another developer, who isn't familiar with my code, a full 8-hour workday to resolve. It's not a great use of time.

Additionally, most "bugs" reports on mature games I maintain are rules misunderstandings. Gaia Project is a good example. I had a real bug reported on it just last week: The zombie player wasn't passing in a certain condition. That's the first real bug in, I think, years. Most of my Gaia time is spent looking up rules and explaining to people that, yes, that's how the game works.

At this point, I spend far more time maintaining games than I do actually playing them, and that's as a volunteer. For full-time employees, it would be completely unmanageable. You'd have to triple the cost of the site or something similar.

[Meeplelowda]

Additionally, most "bugs" reports on mature games I maintain are rules misunderstandings. ... Most of my Gaia time is spent looking up rules and explaining to people that, yes, that's how the game works.

Almost as if to illustrate your point, there's an example of this earlier in this thread.

[Kayvon]

Additionally, most "bugs" reports on mature games I maintain are rules misunderstandings. ... Most of my Gaia time is spent looking up rules and explaining to people that, yes, that's how the game works.

Almost as if to illustrate your point, there's an example of this earlier in this thread.

Yes. A complete waste of a "dedicated team whose job is specifically to help the people with bugs." That team would have to go research the rules, the errata, becoming virtual experts in the rules of BGA's ~1,400 game titles so they could explain to the player how he misunderstood the rules.

It's an excellent example of where crowdsourcing (the forums!) is a much better approach.

Edit: grammar

[tbhp]

Not only would it pull BGA employees away from maintaining the site, it wouldn't be terribly efficient.

I mean, I'd rather they spent the subscription money on a team of developers who help solve bugs, even if the success rate was only 10%, rather than spend it on ergonomic changes that no one asked for.

Of course maintaining the infrastructure is important (if the site goes down, that's in itself a bug). But I think maybe some fields of work are not taken as seriously as they should, just because they are harder to consistently get results in.

It's like with scientific research. People are paid for not finding anything most of the time. Some people may say it's useless... But where would we be without research? Some things are important to work towards even if they are a struggle most of the time, and I think striving for more fairness through fighting bugs is one of them.

Also note that no one would say "it's just a game" if we were talking about a popular sports like football. In a way when people say that, they are implying that board games are something less important than real life sports competitions.

[Kayvon]

I'd rather they spent the subscription money on a team of developers who help solve bugs, [...] than spend it on ergonomic changes that no one asked for.

It's a false dichotomy. I'm not a big fan of most changes, either, but those changes probably consumed fewer man hours than I've personally put into responding to false bug reports on just the games I've helped adapt.

The vast majority of the current funds just keep things running. Adding a new team to do this would skyrocket the costs.

[tarongot]

Additionally, most "bugs" reports on mature games I maintain are rules misunderstandings. ... Most of my Gaia time is spent looking up rules and explaining to people that, yes, that's how the game works.

Almost as if to illustrate your point, there's an example of this earlier in this thread.

Yes. A complete waste of a "dedicated team whose job is specifically to help the people with bugs." That team would have to go research the rules, the errata, becoming virtual experts in the rules of BGA's ~1,400 game titles so they could explain to the player how he misunderstood the rules.

It's an excellent example of where crowdsourcing (the forums!) is a much better approach.

Edit: grammar

But the thing is you don't report bugs on forum. You report it on BGA bug system. And you have eksperts on every game, people that might know rules better then one who programed game. And some of them even help on bug's reports, but without tools and authority to do so it feel (for me) uncertain if it should be done. If it helps or hurts more. If they (us) voice is heard and wanted.

[nik592]

Also note that no one would say "it's just a game" if we were talking about a popular sports like football. In a way when people say that, they are implying that board games are something less important than real life sports competitions.

I don't really play or watch sports that much. I am very much not a diehard fan of any particular sport - I was the kid who hated PE, learned to play tennis under protest because my parents wanted me to be able to decently play at least one sport (and honestly, I'm probably slightly grateful for that in adulthood). If we're talking a friendly game of football (or tennis, or whatever) between friends, then yes, it's just a game. That said, real-life games don't tend to experience "bugs", unless you're trying to count the close calls by the umpire or players. I've certainly had/seen calls in a friendly game where it was difficult to say, and let something go that I think might have gone my way (or whoever I was supporting) because it's just a game.

So no, I don't see board games as less important than real-life sports, and yes I would still say, it's just a game.

[FrankJones]

Not only would it pull BGA employees away from maintaining the site, it wouldn't be terribly efficient.

A bug in my game that I can fix in 5 minutes might take another developer, who isn't familiar with my code, a full 8-hour workday to resolve. It's not a great use of time.

Additionally, most "bugs" reports on mature games I maintain are rules misunderstandings. Gaia Project is a good example. I had a real bug reported on it just last week: The zombie player wasn't passing in a certain condition. That's the first real bug in, I think, years. Most of my Gaia time is spent looking up rules and explaining to people that, yes, that's how the game works.

At this point, I spend far more time maintaining games than I do actually playing them, and that's as a volunteer. For full-time employees, it would be completely unmanageable. You'd have to triple the cost of the site or something similar.

Highlighted for emphasis. It's very difficult to read and work with someone else's code.

And, yes, exactly. 99% of bug reports are just people being too lazy to read the rules, or google a rule, or just read the actual text on the card.

There are literally dozens of identical bug reports in Terraforming Mars: "I tried to remove animals from the Pets card, but the game did not let me!"

Printed ON THE "PETS" CARD: "Animals may not be removed from this card."

Well, I should add: 30-40% of the bug reports are players complaining, "I was expelled from a game and I want my Elo and Karma back and blah blah blah..." as though we can do anything about that. 99% of the rest are people not knowing the rules.