It's a bughunt

korn469 · October 19, 2001, 17:54

Quote:

Is this going to be a stand up fight Sir, or is this going to be another bug hunt?
Hudson from Aliens

Well that time is upon us, Civ3 is right around the corner and will be in our greedy little hands before we know it. Besides all of the much anticipated features like culture, armies, forced labor, war penalties, etc.; Civ3 will also come with at least a few bugs. In the past the fans came together under the direction of that Civ Heretic Yin26

and put together a buglist for SMAC. That buglist proved to be quite successful, and firaxis fixed most of the items on it. Quality Assurance is one of the most labor intensive parts of computer game development making it a fairly expensive item; not only that resources earmarked for Q/A are determined by how well the game sells and how long its sells remain strong. Firaxis has a good record of supporting their games, but even firaxis has a limit on how long they can use resources to support a game. This means that the sooner bugs get found, the greater the possibility they will get fixed.

The one resource overflowing here at Apolyton is free time. By harnessing our free time we help alliveate Q/A labor needs for firaxis. While bug hunters at Apolyton could not replace Q/A team members at firaxis we could prove to be a very useful resource for them. For one thing we work for free! Additionally we are some of the most civ players, and we know a bug when we see it. With some cooperation between firaxis and Apolyton, the community and the developers could work together in the same way they for for the past two years and really accomplish something great! I really hope that civ3 is flawless, I realize that this isn't possible, but I think it can come very close.

I have contacted MarkG and DanQ about this, and it appears that we will have their support in this project (like always! thanks guys!). Also I mailed the following document to Kelly Gilmore yeterday, and a reply said that I Kelly was off from work right now but would be back on monday. I would have mailed this to Jeff Morris, but I don't have his email address.

Quote:

Firaxis (Q/A in particular),

We here at Apolyton know that Firaxis will do everything within its power to find and quash all of the bugs in Civ3 during the beta; however, some will make it into the final release. With SMAC, it seemed that bug lists created by the fans helped make the job easier. With that in mind, we at Apolyton would like to focus our efforts on creating the best bug report we can for you at Firaxis. All we can offer you is a group of enthusiastic (rabid) fans who are willing to volunteer their spare time to finding and verifying bugs. All we ask is for you to tell us how you want this data organized and presented. We want to work with you as closely as possible to ensure our efforts will be of a great benefit to you, because the greatest reward for us is having the best possible Civ3. So if you would be kind enough to tell us how you would like for us to classify, verify, organize, and report bugs to Firaxis we will follow your instructions. Any other suggestions or advice you might have would also be helpful. Our process will be completely open over at Apolyton so feel free to drop in as much as possible! Thanks for your time.

I know that I have moaned just as much as anyone about Civ3, and I am now putting money where my mouth is. I will buy the person who finds the most verified Civ3 bugs an Apolyton t-shirt of their choosing. Yeap, you heard me. If you are the person who finds the most bugs in Civ3 I will buy you an Apolyton T-shirt. I already own one myself, and I will gets some pics of me in it soon to prove I am serious.

The one lesson learned in the past two years is that organization makes all fan efforts more successful. It is much better to create an Apolyton bug list, than for each fan who finds a certain bug to fill the firaxis Q/A team's mailbox. So here is what I am proposing.

In our bug list efforts we need a few positions. First thing we need is for the community to post the bugs they find. This is the basic bug hunter position. All you have to do to be a bug hunter, is when you see a bug goto the correct forum, and describe the bug. If you have a save game that would be great! The next position we need is for people to verify the bugs. They look at the bug list, see a bug that hasn't been verified yet, then they try to recreate the bug. Once they have done this they will post a savegame of the bug. The next position is the bug list administrators. They need to scurry the forum looking for new bug postings, then they need to take those bug postings, make sure they are really new bugs, then post them to the official bug list, which will be topped in the correct forum. The last position is the most interesting, and that is the game breaker. Thos who want to be game breakers will try to do crazy things to induce bugs. If they are really creative, then hopefully this can really speed up the process. All the community needs is a just a little bit of your free time.

Until we hear from Firaxis the exact method of describing bugs is unknown. Hopefully they will give us a form to follow, but if they don't we will work out our own form, so that the list will be as easy to understand as possible. I really hope that Firaxis participates, if they do then they will get even more benefit out of it.

Just remember that we have one goal, and that goal is to make Civ3 the best quality game possible!

If you wish to participate please, say say which things you would like to do and put the email address you want to be contacted at in your post. As things get nailed down a little bit better, I will update you; however, if we are going to be ready and have this organized from day one we need to start now.

korn469 · October 19, 2001, 17:56

bug hunter, verifier, bug list administrator, game breaker

korn469@mindless.com

Provost Harrison · October 19, 2001, 18:00

I have found a bug before on one of the civ3 screenshots. Lemme find it a sec!

Gramphos · October 19, 2001, 18:01

This sounds good to me. Will there be a specific forums for bugs in Civ3 then?

Gramphos · October 19, 2001, 18:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I have found a bug before on one of the civ3 screenshots. Lemme find it a sec!

There is a bug in the Editor screenshot posted today. One line of the frame "Citizen Mood" is covered by the '%' after "Chance if Rioting:"

Jason Beaudoin · October 19, 2001, 18:05

You can add me to your list of bug hunters. If I find any bugs I will do as you've asked.

Provost Harrison · October 19, 2001, 18:06

I would like you to look at the two cities below, both being large and possessing the same graphic. However look at the bottom left side of Oil Springs. You will notice that the bottom left hand diagonal part of the city icon has been shaved off if you compare it to Tonawanda

Is this perhaps the first bug? Do I get a T-shirt for that?

(it's worth a try

)

korn469 · October 19, 2001, 18:08

Provost Harrison and Gramphos

i am glad you are both interested, but lets wait to see if the bug in the editor screenshot is in the actual game

if it is in Civ3, then we already have the first bug for our list

as far as having a dedicated bug hunt forum, we might or might not have this, it's all up to Mark and Dan, but there will certainly be a Help/Support forum where we can conduct our business in

so are you guys in?

Gramphos · October 19, 2001, 18:15

I'm in. I only need to find somewhere in Sweden to get the game before I can get started.

Provost Harrison · October 19, 2001, 18:26

Well the bug may not be there now, but I am just trying to get ahead of the race in getting that free T-shirt

korn469 · October 19, 2001, 18:34

Provost Harrison

hehe cool

how does this sound, you get 3 points if you are the first person to post a bug that later gets verified and you get 2 points if you are the first person who verifies a bug...however a person cannot verify their own bugs

so using this thread as an example (this thread is certainly not the official bug list, it is just a sign up thread for bug hunters)

since you were the first person to post about the editor screen bug you would get three points and since grampos verified it he would get two points

also i will award a free point if the bug is especially nasty...like if you hit alt tab and it erases your hard drive or something

BLackraven42 · October 19, 2001, 18:39

I'm in for bughunter, but don't need tee shirt. give any of my points to the person who verifies the bugs.

GodSpawn · October 19, 2001, 18:56

Provost: It looks like the corner of the city has been sheared off by the unit sitting next to it.

dainbramaged13 · October 19, 2001, 19:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I would like you to look at the two cities below, both being large and possessing the same graphic. However look at the bottom left side of Oil Springs. You will notice that the bottom left hand diagonal part of the city icon has been shaved off if you compare it to Tonawanda

Is this perhaps the first bug? Do I get a T-shirt for that?

(it's worth a try

)

All i can say is...

WOW!

Provost Harrison · October 19, 2001, 19:29

Well I am king of the pedants and have eyes like a hawk. But yeah, either way it is a bug, although by now, it may be a fixed one, but remember, this is quite a late screenshot, only just before the game went gold, so I may be on a winner. Although it is hardly what I would consider a serious problem

yin26 · October 19, 2001, 20:04

Korn: Big round of applause for you! I know from experience that EVERY legit bug we reported in our Top 10 list for SMAC ver 4.0 got fixed. I would like to just say that what you are about to do is important because:

** There were only be so many patches: Perhaps 4? We were a bit disorganized on SMAC and probably could have accomplished much more had we started as you are before the game is even released.

** Having this kind of effort will naturally give people a place to report problems and feel that something might be done about them. This will help keep the forum far more positive overall.

Yes, you are all going to be 'unpaid beta-testers' in a sense. In a larger sense, however, you are also helping what might be the last major version of Civ (from Firaxis anyway) be the best possible. For that: 3 cheers!

Anyway, if you haven't seen Korn's leadership and organizational skills in action, you are in for a real treat.

I apologize in advance, of course, that I will not have the game for several months and can't contribute much to this effort. I will say, once again: This is VERY important...good luck!

Darkknight · October 19, 2001, 20:05

Quote:

Originally posted by GodSpawn
Provost: It looks like the corner of the city has been sheared off by the unit sitting next to it.

It looks more like a tile improvement maybe mine to me notice it doesn't have a health bar. This could be a problem with the tile improvements.
Hang on I 'll try to find another pic with a tile improvement like a mine beside a city.

I'll try to break this game anyway I can. In other words I'll do all I can to help.

Darkknight · October 19, 2001, 20:13

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26

Yes, you are all going to be 'unpaid beta-testers' in a sense.

Hell I'm already an unpaid graphics guy why not unpaid beta tester too

no not graphics for civ3.

dennis580 · October 19, 2001, 20:39

I will not go out of my way looking for bugs. I want to enjoy the game and have fun. Nevertheless I will post the bugs I find in the game. I won't be checking to see if it's already been reported though, because I don't want to ruin the game; just like I'm going to avoid reading about strategy's, I will also avoid reading about bugs. So sombody will have to check it that bug has already been posted.

Skanky Burns · October 19, 2001, 21:36

Yep, sign me up for bug-testing (and verifying)

Ill do whatever i can to get Civ 3 as good as i can, and i applaud your effort Korn

"Its an ugly planet, a Bug planet. A planet hostile to life"
"Kill, kill them all!!!"
"Shoot a nuke down a bug-hole, you've got a lot of dead bugs"
- Starship Troopers

korn469 · October 20, 2001, 00:35

yin

thanks for the compliments, hopefully by the time you get your copy of civ3 most of the bugs will have been patched

dennis

no problem, you post the bug and we will take care of it from there

as the various lists have demonstrated, the community is great at find things, and i hope bugs turn out to be another thing we can find and then let firaxis eradicate

tniem · October 20, 2001, 00:40

Korn,

I have told you in the past that I am very interested in helping out in any way I can. I want to see how this all goes down. So of course if I find a bug or can help verify one I will.

That said, at the top you mentioned administrative positions helping you out with lists and what not. If you need help with this, just explain more what you mean and I would be honored to help out in the effort. In my opinion this is going to be a privilage, thanks in advance for all the work that you are going to put into it.

korn469 · October 20, 2001, 01:02

tniem

as for the admins

we certainly need more than one, just in case...i mean anything could happen and without a designated replacement it could throw the entire process off track

but their job should be this

we have a single official bug listed topped in the correct forum, one administrator will maintain this list, in the same way as gramphos's resource list, or ribbanah's wonder list or my unit list
the other admins besides acting as replacements will look for the new bugs threads, then check it against the list to make sure no bugs get duplicated so if a player like dennis finds a bug and posts it, that it will not be on the list twice...if the bug is new they post it to the official bug thread (along with the name of first person to find it), so it can then be added to the list

not only that they will need to work with the bug verifiers to make sure that every bug on the list has at least one (if not two) save games for firaxis...the admins will also need to keep up with the first person to verify a bug

so they maintain the bug list, act as replacements, work with verifiers to make sure that we can prove the existance of all of the bugs on our list, and to make sure that each bug on the list is an individual bug...we don't want to send firaxis three of the same kinds of bugs

that being said we won't need that many admins, maybe five total

the big area of need is probably dedicated bug verifiers or game breakers

also all of these jobs are fairly informal so anyone can help find or verify bugs, however for the sake of order the bug hunt admins should have the sole responsibility for maintaining an accurate and up to date official bug list

and even if there are some hiccups along the way, no problem we will work them out...i hope we will have success in this effort, and out of everything this should prove to have very tangible results

Gramphos · October 20, 2001, 03:59

Wait a minute, I posted about that bug in the site-updated thread before. I posted before PH, and also I thought PH meant another bug.

hetairoi22 · October 20, 2001, 04:53

Quote:

Originally posted by dennis580
I will not go out of my way looking for bugs. I want to enjoy the game and have fun. Nevertheless I will post the bugs I find in the game. I won't be checking to see if it's already been reported though, because I don't want to ruin the game; just like I'm going to avoid reading about strategy's, I will also avoid reading about bugs. So sombody will have to check it that bug has already been posted.

Same here.

Good work korn!

Alex · October 20, 2001, 23:22

korn,

I really would like to help, but unfortunately Firaxis and Infogrames still don't have a Civ3 release date where I live (as stated in the last Ask the Team update). So I think I won't be playing the game as soon as you guys

, but, anyway, I congratulate you for your initiative and I hope that the bug list compiled by Apolytoners really help Firaxis to crush the bugs that will inevitably be found.

Good luck.

korn469 · October 21, 2001, 02:52

Gramphos

nothing has been counted yet

but anyways i just hope we can be really helpful to firaxis

ChrisShaffer · October 21, 2001, 10:38

I strongly encourage you to include "AI stupidities / weaknesses" in your bug list. While not strictly bugs, it would be great if we could provide Firaxis with a list of AI exploits that should be patched.

BLackraven42 · October 21, 2001, 10:41

Good idea, but we don't want the AI to become too powerful...

ChrisShaffer · October 21, 2001, 11:51

Quote:

Originally posted by BLackraven42
Good idea, but we don't want the AI to become too powerful...

Huh? I dunno about you, but I want the AI to be the smartest, meanest, sneakiest, best opponent possible.