Wanfei
07-31-2009, 10:20 AM
Hello all,
I would first like to say this is in no way a means of telling you how to write bugs, search for them, or hassle anyone in any way. This is just a little suggestion of mine to help you guys out.
Finding Bugs: Ok, so you have found what looks to be weird, but do not know if it is a bug or not. A lot of games, even when polished, have tons of bugs in them. I am seeing a lot of you say, "I can never find any bugs, they are hard to spot." in most cases you just have to think outside of the box like for example; "What would happen if I walked in this corner even though nothing is there worth looking at." or " What would happen if I healed this boss, or ran away when he is almost dead. ". Just think of ways to go about doing stuff you would not normally do. In this case though the easiest bugs are talking to NPC's and writting up the localization issues. In the QA world if in doubt bug it, but since this game is coming from another version probably 85% will be localization testing. This has to do with all the text in the game to make sure it is translated properly, correct grammar, and the right punctuation. A lot of games, even when polished, have tons of bugs in them so there should be no reason not to spot them. Also once you have found a bug it is good to see if the issue happens again. Go back and see if the same problem persists over and over again, or if it was just a one time thing. This also narrows down how to make the bug occur, and you can add it to the steps.
Searching Forums: So now you have the bug, what next? Search the forums and see if there is any similar bug already posted. It is good to write out the bug when you find it, but if it is a duplicate that just leaves more work for the devs and mods. So the best thing to do for this, is search up key words that the bug is related to. For example you found a bug with the wrong NPC name in the quest; best thing to do would be to search the name of the mob, quest name, or zone area. That way you can see if the bug is in the foums already and get back to finding more.
Bug Writting: Everyone has their own way to write bugs, I do not know the exact standards Changyou guys use so I use a basic report. I will go over each step individually.
- Title: This to me is probably the most important part of the bug. When a title has the general idea of the bug in it, it is easier for the mods and devs to look at the title and know the basics without opening the bug itself. Also this is very important for the people who do search the forums to find the bug you have wrote up, and see it in the title. So lets say you found a bug that has to do with a text error for a quest. A good title might be, "Bug: Quest - Su Zhou's Fisherman has a text error in the chat box", this tells the problem within the title. Doing the same bug in a general way like, "Text bug in Su Zhou." is still good but doesn't really cover the issue at hand.
- Description: Ok so now you have the title down, what next? Description of the bug. This is the meat and potatoes of the issue, what the main problem is, and the specifics of the bug. Basically you just write out a specific report on the title you made, adding the cordinates, what town the npc is in, if the game crashes, that sorta stuff. This part is important as well so the devs and mods know what the problem is specifically and can deal with it.
- Steps: Not a lot of people like to use steps, but it makes it easier for the devs to find the problem if there is a list of how to get to the issue. Most localization bugs will not need steps to reproduce the issue since it is mostly text. Steps are for those kind of bugs where you need to take an action some where in game like what level to get for a quest, a location of the area or mob, what city or zone to go to, it just makes it easier. Basically steps is a list of how to get to your bug. For example...
- Obtain level 37
- Go to Su Zhou
- Talk to <NPC> [45 , 73]
- Select <name of quest>
- Read quest description
- Problem + Solution: Ok to wrap it up we are at the two parts of what the bug situation is. Problem is the outcome of the bug which is usually just the title being repeated. It shows the dev team what the issue is with the bug so they can go ahead and fix it. Solution ( sounds bad but thats what i use ) is the proposed idea of what you think should go in instead of the bug. So if the bug was for example " The grass is blue " the proposed solution for that would be " The grass is green" . Also in your solution its a good idea not to use the word should. Should is a bad thing to use for QA cause you don't really know what should actually go there only give an idea of the bugs solution. So lets use the bug above again the solution was " The grass is green " this is an obvious solution cause in our world the grass is green, but what if they want the grass to be blue who knows. So saying " The grass should be green " is bad, because you dont really know if it should be blue, green, rainbow or whatever. Should is just basically telling the dev team what to put in instead and that isn't a good thing. Have to remember it is their game and they put in what they want to :D.
Alright well that wraps it up, I hope this has been a huge help to you guys. Again I am not here to tell you what to do or how to do it, just giving some advice on how to write bugs if you are interested. Go out there and squish them bugs!!!! :D:D:D
I would first like to say this is in no way a means of telling you how to write bugs, search for them, or hassle anyone in any way. This is just a little suggestion of mine to help you guys out.
Finding Bugs: Ok, so you have found what looks to be weird, but do not know if it is a bug or not. A lot of games, even when polished, have tons of bugs in them. I am seeing a lot of you say, "I can never find any bugs, they are hard to spot." in most cases you just have to think outside of the box like for example; "What would happen if I walked in this corner even though nothing is there worth looking at." or " What would happen if I healed this boss, or ran away when he is almost dead. ". Just think of ways to go about doing stuff you would not normally do. In this case though the easiest bugs are talking to NPC's and writting up the localization issues. In the QA world if in doubt bug it, but since this game is coming from another version probably 85% will be localization testing. This has to do with all the text in the game to make sure it is translated properly, correct grammar, and the right punctuation. A lot of games, even when polished, have tons of bugs in them so there should be no reason not to spot them. Also once you have found a bug it is good to see if the issue happens again. Go back and see if the same problem persists over and over again, or if it was just a one time thing. This also narrows down how to make the bug occur, and you can add it to the steps.
Searching Forums: So now you have the bug, what next? Search the forums and see if there is any similar bug already posted. It is good to write out the bug when you find it, but if it is a duplicate that just leaves more work for the devs and mods. So the best thing to do for this, is search up key words that the bug is related to. For example you found a bug with the wrong NPC name in the quest; best thing to do would be to search the name of the mob, quest name, or zone area. That way you can see if the bug is in the foums already and get back to finding more.
Bug Writting: Everyone has their own way to write bugs, I do not know the exact standards Changyou guys use so I use a basic report. I will go over each step individually.
- Title: This to me is probably the most important part of the bug. When a title has the general idea of the bug in it, it is easier for the mods and devs to look at the title and know the basics without opening the bug itself. Also this is very important for the people who do search the forums to find the bug you have wrote up, and see it in the title. So lets say you found a bug that has to do with a text error for a quest. A good title might be, "Bug: Quest - Su Zhou's Fisherman has a text error in the chat box", this tells the problem within the title. Doing the same bug in a general way like, "Text bug in Su Zhou." is still good but doesn't really cover the issue at hand.
- Description: Ok so now you have the title down, what next? Description of the bug. This is the meat and potatoes of the issue, what the main problem is, and the specifics of the bug. Basically you just write out a specific report on the title you made, adding the cordinates, what town the npc is in, if the game crashes, that sorta stuff. This part is important as well so the devs and mods know what the problem is specifically and can deal with it.
- Steps: Not a lot of people like to use steps, but it makes it easier for the devs to find the problem if there is a list of how to get to the issue. Most localization bugs will not need steps to reproduce the issue since it is mostly text. Steps are for those kind of bugs where you need to take an action some where in game like what level to get for a quest, a location of the area or mob, what city or zone to go to, it just makes it easier. Basically steps is a list of how to get to your bug. For example...
- Obtain level 37
- Go to Su Zhou
- Talk to <NPC> [45 , 73]
- Select <name of quest>
- Read quest description
- Problem + Solution: Ok to wrap it up we are at the two parts of what the bug situation is. Problem is the outcome of the bug which is usually just the title being repeated. It shows the dev team what the issue is with the bug so they can go ahead and fix it. Solution ( sounds bad but thats what i use ) is the proposed idea of what you think should go in instead of the bug. So if the bug was for example " The grass is blue " the proposed solution for that would be " The grass is green" . Also in your solution its a good idea not to use the word should. Should is a bad thing to use for QA cause you don't really know what should actually go there only give an idea of the bugs solution. So lets use the bug above again the solution was " The grass is green " this is an obvious solution cause in our world the grass is green, but what if they want the grass to be blue who knows. So saying " The grass should be green " is bad, because you dont really know if it should be blue, green, rainbow or whatever. Should is just basically telling the dev team what to put in instead and that isn't a good thing. Have to remember it is their game and they put in what they want to :D.
Alright well that wraps it up, I hope this has been a huge help to you guys. Again I am not here to tell you what to do or how to do it, just giving some advice on how to write bugs if you are interested. Go out there and squish them bugs!!!! :D:D:D