PSA: Games are maintained by volunteers

[ufm]

"I have an issue with a paid service" and your answer is "Fix it yourself"? I mean, really? That's quite a defensive reply to legitimate question. I appreciate people are busy, but simply ignoring a bug for a year isn't a good look - even if only to say "This ain't getting fixed."

The core of BGA service is the BGA framework which hosts games, not each individual game.

For example, if you ask Steam Support to fix game bugs, your request will be simply transferred to the respective game studio.
If the studio is out of business or has abandoned the game, then the request will fall on deaf ears, obviously.

Likewise, if you have issues with Cribbage, you have to deal with them yourself or wait indefinitely until someone takes over, because the original developer left the building years ago.

If they are aware of and dealing with site wide issues and people are still frustrated then maybe someone needs to look at the comms, as it's not at all apparent to us as users/customers.

You might not notice, but there were many significant improvements on underlying framework and system.

Part of the problem is if it is a fix that you "might not notice," then it leads to the perception that nothing is being done. If a description of improvements to the backend infrastructure was given somewhere in BGA Release Notes, then there would be a visual record of progress (for those of us who actually read that sub-forum).

I realize there is going to be a limit to how transparent they want to be about what problems they're having, but there are ways to word things without going into specifics to describe what is being improved.

I agree. They should use it more frequently: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

[nik592]

"I have an issue with a paid service" and your answer is "Fix it yourself"? I mean, really? That's quite a defensive reply to legitimate question. I appreciate people are busy, but simply ignoring a bug for a year isn't a good look - even if only to say "This ain't getting fixed."

If they are aware of and dealing with site wide issues and people are still frustrated then maybe someone needs to look at the comms, as it's not at all apparent to us as users/customers.

I'm not sure what you're saying they need to fix here. You mentioned a bug in cribbage, ufm pointed out that games are maintained by volunteers and suggested you either wait for someone to volunteer or do it yourself. That's how the platform works. If a game is unplayable, pretend it isn't here for now. Not every game is available here (sadly), not every game that is here is bug free (sadly). If BGA employed enough people to maintain the games AND the platform, your paid subscription would be a LOT higher.

But then you comment about the site wide issues. Which is what the paid employees of BGA focus on resolving and improving. I won't disagree that there are still plenty of issues, but there is some evidence of fixing happening (eg. for a few days, the forums were very slow to load and almost unusable, but this seems to have resolved). While I (and other members of the community) don't always agree with what they choose to focus on (eg. ELO "improvements"), and I have concerns that the fixes being applied are more like bandaids than structural improvements necessary to keep up with a growing library and userbase, I realise such structural improvements aren't easy to implement either, especially with a small team, and bandaid solutions are sometimes the best choice to get things back up and running quickly. I just hope that longer term planning is happening, or ultimately the whole service will fall over one day. As I've said before, I don't think that the BGA admin are doing all the right things, and they could DEFINITELY be better about communicating with (and engaging with) their userbase, but I still think I'm getting value for money out of the platform.

[StrikingCobra]

For example, if you ask Steam Support to fix game bugs, your request will be simply transferred to the respective game studio.
If the studio is out of business or has abandoned the game, then the request will fall on deaf ears, obviously.

Likewise, if you have issues with Cribbage, you have to deal with them yourself or wait indefinitely until someone takes over, because the original developer left the building years ago.

Okay.

[StrikingCobra]

I'm not sure what you're saying they need to fix here. You mentioned a bug in cribbage, ufm pointed out that games are maintained by volunteers and suggested you either wait for someone to volunteer or do it yourself. That's how the platform works. If a game is unplayable, pretend it isn't here for now. Not every game is available here (sadly), not every game that is here is bug free (sadly). If BGA employed enough people to maintain the games AND the platform, your paid subscription would be a LOT higher.

Then do away with the bug list for that game and make it obvious that it's no longer supported?

But then you comment about the site wide issues. Which is what the paid employees of BGA focus on resolving and improving. I won't disagree that there are still plenty of issues, but there is some evidence of fixing happening (eg. for a few days, the forums were very slow to load and almost unusable, but this seems to have resolved). While I (and other members of the community) don't always agree with what they choose to focus on (eg. ELO "improvements"), and I have concerns that the fixes being applied are more like bandaids than structural improvements necessary to keep up with a growing library and userbase, I realise such structural improvements aren't easy to implement either, especially with a small team, and bandaid solutions are sometimes the best choice to get things back up and running quickly. I just hope that longer term planning is happening, or ultimately the whole service will fall over one day. As I've said before, I don't think that the BGA admin are doing all the right things, and they could DEFINITELY be better about communicating with (and engaging with) their userbase, but I still think I'm getting value for money out of the platform.

I think we're agreeing here?

[ufm]

I'm not sure what you're saying they need to fix here. You mentioned a bug in cribbage, ufm pointed out that games are maintained by volunteers and suggested you either wait for someone to volunteer or do it yourself. That's how the platform works. If a game is unplayable, pretend it isn't here for now. Not every game is available here (sadly), not every game that is here is bug free (sadly). If BGA employed enough people to maintain the games AND the platform, your paid subscription would be a LOT higher.

Then do away with the bug list for that game and make it obvious that it's no longer supported?

Keeping track still helps the developer who takes up the mantle triaging bugs/suggestions (when such a developer appears, of course).
They will solve the most upvoted issues first.

And... in fact, BGA pulled some games down due to their bugs.
However, it's incredibly rare, as many players actually don't want to lose the ability to the play the game despite recurring bugs.

[StrikingCobra]

Keeping track still helps the developer who takes up the mantle triaging bugs/suggestions (when such a developer appears, of course).

Seems like I need to dust off my Dev hat then - how does someone apply to become a bugfixer?

[Meeplelowda]

Keeping track still helps the developer who takes up the mantle triaging bugs/suggestions (when such a developer appears, of course).

Seems like I need to dust off my Dev hat then - how does someone apply to become a bugfixer?

https://studio.boardgamearena.com/

[ufm]

Keeping track still helps the developer who takes up the mantle triaging bugs/suggestions (when such a developer appears, of course).

Seems like I need to dust off my Dev hat then - how does someone apply to become a bugfixer?

Start from the link Meeplelowda posted, then go to https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Studio
You can visit BGA dev Discord channel through the link posted there and ask some help as well.

[Kayvon]

Part of the problem is if it is a fix that you "might not notice," then it leads to the perception that nothing is being done.

Very true. I once added a set of hotly-requested feature to a game. The immediate player response? "should've spent it on fixing the bugs in it instead."

I responded, "we've also spent countless hours addressing over 50 bugs reported over that same time period."

He didn't know. He never checked the list of bug reports, of course, and it's not obvious that there have been fixes. He wanted us to start posting a report each time we fix bugs which, let me tell you, would take even more time. I'm not at all interested.

But it would be cool to have some sort of indication of how recently the developer has looked at or responded to bug reports. Maybe even relative to how recently a bug report has been filed (many games don't get reports).

[nik592]

I think we're agreeing here?

...but the paid BGA team should be investing our subs into maintainign the site. Adding new games is all well and good, but please can we have some fixes as well?

If they are aware of and dealing with site wide issues...

I took from your posts you thought BGA weren't doing anything about the issues. I know the second half of your last comment mentions being better about comms, but the "if" implies you aren't sure they're actually doing anything. As I said, I don't agree with everything they do, but I wouldn't say they're not dealing with the site-wide issues - there's plenty of evidence that they are. Whether it's a short-term or long-term fix is anyone's guess, but I can't say that they're not planning for the site's future (and there are signs that they are - I can't quote specifics, but it's just a general vibe I get), and one would also assume that they're as invested as anyone in the site's longevity.

Very true. I once added a set of hotly-requested feature to a game. The immediate player response? "should've spent it on fixing the bugs in it instead."

I responded, "we've also spent countless hours addressing over 50 bugs reported over that same time period."

He didn't know. He never checked the list of bug reports, of course, and it's not obvious that there have been fixes. He wanted us to start posting a report each time we fix bugs which, let me tell you, would take even more time. I'm not at all interested.

But it would be cool to have some sort of indication of how recently the developer has looked at or responded to bug reports. Maybe even relative to how recently a bug report has been filed (many games don't get reports).

Can't you subscribe to bugs somehow? I know you certainly can by commenting on it, which suggests there's a way (though I can't see one other than commenting). If knowing that a bug is being fixed is important to you, you should be voting on it, and you should be able to subscribe either at that point ideally.