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Author Topic: Bug Reporting Guide  (Read 920 times)

celebrinborn

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Bug Reporting Guide
« on: February 29, 2012, 05:08:03 pm »
Hello, I hope to one day to into game design and from what I've read, quality assurance is often a good starting point. I also read, that if I want to go into game design, one of the many things I need to do includes learning how to find bugs and file bug reports. Additionally, I like dwarf fortress and in the past have stumbled across several bugs but have never known how to submit them properly. Therefore, I would like to know if anyone has any hints to how to effectively report bugs, such as what information to find and submit, how to properly communicate that  information, are there any resources/guides I can read that will help me learn this, etc. Thank you very much.
Also, if anyone has any experience in QA, do you have any hints/suggestions/other helpful information that you would be willing to share with me?
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Prologue

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Re: Bug Reporting Guide
« Reply #1 on: February 29, 2012, 05:26:11 pm »
Bug Forum
Bug Tracker

This probably won't pertain to DF but in general you do not find bugs in a game by yourself. It's most likely when the designer adds in something and makes you check it. For example he adds a thousand trees in a level, then your job is to make sure it works properly, like finding if the tree's hit-box is working properly and won't let you walk through them etc on all the trees, one by one.

To report the bug you need to include every detail to replicate it. And make sure when they follow it it duplicates the bug.
« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 05:27:51 pm by Prologue »
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HiEv

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Re: Bug Reporting Guide
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2012, 05:27:05 am »
Read "Tales from the Trenches".

If that doesn't scare you away from doing QA for video games, nothing will.
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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has its limits.

NTJedi

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Re: Bug Reporting Guide
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2012, 01:50:48 pm »
I've done beta testing and alpha testing for games... I can say the most disappointing piece is reporting bugs without any feedback or updates from the developers.  After months pass and the same bugs still exist... you just lose interest because you feel you're not being heard.
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Prologue

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Re: Bug Reporting Guide
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2012, 03:32:40 pm »
Quote from: HiEv on March 01, 2012, 05:27:05 am
Read "Tales from the Trenches".

If that doesn't scare you away from doing QA for video games, nothing will.

I agree, but being a QA is the first step to get into video game companies. I've done at least 2 years of QA for games and yes it is hard, but now that it's over and have experience, I can finally go to the next stage of being a game dev.
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