Customer Support?

[Fierce_Deity]

Wasn't sure how to title this. I wanted to kick off a discussion about how significant occurrences of bugs are handled in game when it pertains to the fate of a hearthling. This post is spurred by the recent death of my main character, whom's body disappeared completely when I placed it down. I pmed jorb about the situation just with the intention of reporting the bug, and even explicitly said in the message I didn't expect any kickback or help with my character. Because thats how things are done, and have to be done to avoid floods of false reports and claims of bugs. But is this right? The game may be 'alpha', but many of us are paying to play a game where we have certain expectations like "if i fuck up, die, and recover my body I'll be able to bury it and get the stuff off it and bury the body at the least".

Should paying players claims merit more investigation?
Should there be any attempt to help players in situations like these?
If it can be confirmed that a player has suffered a significant bug, should anything be done?

This post isn't being made with the aim to get my body back, its made to have a discussion about whether bugs should ever be handled on a case by case basis other than "sorry you lost your stuff to a bug". I think that with a dev team of 2 people the answer can only ever really be to apologize and fix the bug, but then theres the issue of those snuffed players leaving the game. Even I feel like taking a break after this, dying is one thing, losing the body to a bug is another.


And in case you are curious, this is my body, and yes, I do miss my boots. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 5jIgjJ.png

[MagicManICT]

It's labeled as "alpha grade" software for a reason--it's buggy and we're the test subjects. It's fair that restorations are not done as none of the data will persist for more than a few months, anyway, relatively speaking... some worlds have lasted less than two months, some more than two years).

Enjoy the game for what it is, not for what it isn't or its "potential" that may never be realized.

[jorb]

Should paying players claims merit more investigation?
Should there be any attempt to help players in situations like these?
If it can be confirmed that a player has suffered a significant bug, should anything be done?

No, no, and no.

Too much time. Too arbitrary. Too much he-said-she-said. Too much pointless logging.

[Kaios]

Should paying players claims merit more investigation?
Should there be any attempt to help players in situations like these?
If it can be confirmed that a player has suffered a significant bug, should anything be done?

No, no, and no.

Too much time. Too arbitrary. Too much he-said-she-said. Too much pointless logging.

I disagree. If players really do lose their characters or bodies due to a bug you were either already aware of and had not yet fixed or something new, the loss for which ultimately would be caused by the negligence of the developers for failing to test certain mechanics properly. Example of this is whale breaking knarr and bodies poofing, it is clear you did not bother to test this even one time because if you had you might have realized how it worked.

[jorb]

Can't possibly test every conceivable edge case that may or may not exist. Better to have a clear cut policy.

[Ardennesss]

Whale combat is an edge case you couldn't have been expected to test, that's an interesting and bold stance to take.

[Kaios]

Can't possibly test every conceivable edge case that may or may not exist. Better to have a clear cut policy.

That’s fair but in the case of this example it would have been as simple as aggroing a whale from the knarr and seeing what happens when it chases you around. Did you even try anything with the flotsam mechanic? Can they be broken by the whale? Do players knocked out on them fall in to the water and drown? What about a player that gets KO’d and then the knarr gets broken, how does it help in that circumstance?

[Fierce_Deity]

No, no, and no.

Yea I figured as much. Still seemed like a discussion worth having. I think checks could be placed on dead bodies (maybe only developed ones) that confirms they still exist in some form, and if they don't it logs the event or even just replaces the body at its last existing location.

[jorb]

Can't possibly test every conceivable edge case that may or may not exist. Better to have a clear cut policy.

That’s fair but in the case of this example it would have been as simple as aggroing a whale from the knarr and seeing what happens when it chases you around. Did you even try anything with the flotsam mechanic? Can they be broken by the whale? Do players knocked out on them fall in to the water and drown? What about a player that gets KO’d and then the knarr gets broken, how does it help in that circumstance?

There are literally millions of things that are easy enough to test by themselves. The point being that it's not a super meaningful use of our time to attack that vast set by individual trial.

[Kaios]

Dude if it comes to anything combat related you should be testing it before implementing I don’t know why that wouldn’t be something you would strive for.