Idea for forums

[Ian]

Not an idea for the game, but an idea for the forums.

Currently you can give a post an icon. ?Nice novelty idea, but ultimately useless. ?Can we set those icons to something meaningful? ?I'm thinking some sort of priority icons, so we can prioritise bugs. ?Also it would be better if we were classifying TOPICS nots POSTS. ?But I don't know if that can be done either.

Like a nasty red bug with H next to it for high priority, Orange with M for medium, and Green with L for Low.

[Ian]

Testing.

Does the topics page show the icon of the first post, or the most recent?

Edit: Sweet, it shows the icon for the first post.  That's one problem down, just need to get some decent icons (or make up a system using the current ones).  And of course make sure people USE the system (easier said than done).

[The Crazy Animal]

It might be easer just to add a few sub-forum catagories to the bug area so they can be moved into priority order folders as the the higher ups see fit.

[Ian]

Hmmm.  You have to point out the simple and obvious solution, don't you! 

But someone still needs to read and categorise each one.  My way, the poster can prioritise it themselves (as it would be in Bugzilla).

Or we could combine the two, and you need to post your bug report to the appropriate priority sub-forum.

[The Crazy Animal]

I was thinking you would just post it in the main bug area first. If you still want to use the icon system it should be used with it by the user following a guide to priorizing it. the posts could then be looked at by the moderator in some order to file them for fixing. I use to work in IT users always think their problems come first. So I tend to think they need to be looked at by someone who knows exactly what order they need to be fixed in.

sample prority guide:

High priority
did it crash the board
did it cause a prossess to freeze such as mana regen or hp regen

medium prority:
interfers with game play but does not pose any major problems.
spell is not ending
spell is not working as it should

low priority
did something report the wrong message....
colors ar wrong
damage is to high
calculation seems off.
missing short cut

[Ian]

Yeah, a guide seems a good way to go.  The only thing I had against someone sorting them is that Vitoc was saying it takes too much of his time trolling through all these posts to find important ones.

Perhaps you just volunteered for the job

[The Crazy Animal]

lol if I didn't have other forums I was working on right now I would say sure but right now its to hard to get through all the post each nite on all of them.. Some how I ended up being a admin and only mod at a animal breeder association's forum and that's been taking up most of my time as of late.

[The Crazy Animal]

one more thing - we should get a guide together and see how that works out first though might not even need a mod if people are good about it.

[Ian]

I think the sample guide you provided is an excellent start that we can build on.? I've tidied it up and made it pretty, and I think it gives a good idea of how to prioritise bugs.? Hopefully with a decent guide users will post sensibly.

I'd be willing to moderate that forum (basically sort the existing bugs and move any posted in the wrong priority) if no one else wanted to.? I have spare time on my hands atm.

---

Here is a guide to help you judge the priority of your bug report.? Yes, not many bugs will fall into the high priority category.? This is intentional, as it is only for the most system-critical bugs.? Please post sensibly.
Some examples have been provided, but these cannot be expected to cover every eventuality.? You will need to use your own judgement, and remember:? just because you find an annoying bug does not make it high priority.?

High priority - Things that need to be fixed NOW
Did it crash the board?
Did it cause a process to freeze?
Examples

• mana regen or hp regen not occuring
• combat rounds not firing, or combat not engaging
• gos, or game entry/exit messages not appearing

Medium priority - Things that need to be fixed in the near future
Does it interferes with game play (without posing any major problems)?
Examples

• pvp problems
• spells not ending
• spell not working as it should
• portals, secret levers/buttons/switches not working
• various monster attack types that aren't occuring and need adding

Low priority - Things that need to be fixed eventually
Little things that don't really affect anything, they're just finishing touches.
Examples

• something reported the wrong message, or a message needs to be added
• palette changes
• damage/ac/dr/dodge/sneak formulae need adjusting
• missing aliases for commands
• profile/set/help commands

[Locke Cole]

Er, hopefully we'll get Bugzilla (or some sort of defect tracking) going sooner rather than later. In addition to allowing you to priotize bugs, defect/bug tracking software would allow you to categorize bugs (where does it occur), specify specific versions of the software the bug occurs in, and a whole lot more (IIRC Bugzilla has a lot of configuration options).

For an example of Bugzilla, see MediaWiki's Bugzilla bug tracker:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

For an example of how a bug is displayed:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4578

And the submit-a-new-report interface:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaWiki

There's also the handy e-mail notifications when a bug is modified or a comment is left to it. And a bunch more. Anyways, let's hope for this as I expect there'll be a lot of bugs once content starts going in (no disrespect intended to those involved, but mistakes are inevitable). =)