6 ms·

You stopped playing because they listened to you and fixed the bug for everyone?

by phailhaus 4y ago

altairprime 4y ago
They didn’t say “thank you”, which for many humans is demoralizing.
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  And at that point he'd played the game a lot, so he probably would have quit playing anyway. Were he like me, the fun at that point was the statistics portion anyway, and he'd already found and fixed that, so it was no longer fun either.
anyfoo 4y ago
After I (happily!) did their work for them, a simple "thank you", or even an acknowledgment through a closed ticket, would have entirely sufficed to make my day.
- rcfox 4y ago
  Back when Stack Overflow was in beta, the original design was really rough, so I mocked up a suggested new design for the main page via Stylish and submitted it to them. Within a day or two, they adopted something almost identical but never acknowledged me. One could argue it was a pretty basic idea (I only spent around 15 minutes on it myself) and they probably arrived there independently, but I still like to believe that I influenced a major site's design.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Back when reddit was good, I was a moderator of a pretty large subreddit. One April Fools' day, I decided that, as a joke, I'd edit my subreddit's CSS to show the "reddit is down" image over of the home page. I did that, and, a few minutes later, reddit was actually down. One could argue it was a coincidence, but I still like to believe that I influenced a major site's uptime. Mostly because they told me I crashed the site and asked me not to play any more jokes like that again.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    Speaking of SO, their policy of removing "thank you" and things like "any help is much appreciated" etc is why I've stopped contributing to the site. Even ChatGPT has better manners, and is possibly on the way to being more human than the people who made that rule, and certainly less of a wanker.
- kvark 4y ago
  Or maybe the bug was closed as a duplicate of one they were already aware of? Still impolite of them, of course, but we shouldn’t assume the worst.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Danieru 4y ago
    Protip for other gamedevs: when a player reports a bug you already know about say "thanks for the report, the fix will be in the next patch". It is not the players fault patches take time to get through QA. Nor should there be an implicit valuation curve to free bug reports from players.
30minAdayHN 4y ago
Because they lacked decency and intellectual humility to acknowledge his email despite benefiting from it.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Because they lacked decency and intellectual humility to acknowledge his email despite benefiting from it. Or their internal communication was haphazard and not designed to handle this case. I could totally imagine the bug report getting passed informally through a game of telephone and losing the connection to the external reporter (e.g. at some point the report got paraphrased, so the developer who fixed it doesn't know where the report came from, and the person who received the initial report doesn't know if it had merit or if it was fixed).
  - kadoban 4y ago
    Which is why you should immediately answer "thanks, we'll look into it!", then at least they got something even if you forget later. I learned this as a the triage guy in one of my first jobs, as I have a very shit memory. Worst case you thank someone for something useless.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
narag 4y ago
I sent a patch to a bigger and more known software company, now defunct. I ended up writing some rude comments in the bug submitting form, after being forced to enter endless data about me, the company that I worked for and a lot of information about how to reproduce the error. Not proud of it, but I understand the GP: you're helping them and they treat you poorly. They included the fix in the next version of the tool. I later noticed it was incomplete, but this time I just made the correction locally.
- macintux 4y ago
  It is quite maddening to have to provide personal information to report a bug. My city stopped allowing anonymous reports of broken traffic lights, so every time I report one (much rarer now that they’ve made it harder) I always give bogus information.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    Hey look Jimbob! The consultant says if we added obnoxious paperwork requirements, there'd be fewer broken traffic lights! I don't know how that's possible, but by-golly it worked!
  - jfk13 4y ago
    Wow ... how often do traffic lights break in your city?!
    - macintux 4y ago
      I see a burnt-out bulb at least once a week.
      - jfk13 4y ago
        Interesting. I feel like it's something I've only seen very occasionally - I don't remember when I last noticed one. Maybe you just have a much higher density of traffic lights where you live, which would make it more common to see failures; and/or maybe they're a different type or differently maintained.
bombcar 4y ago
I remember writing a suggestion letter to Maxis about SimCity and they not only replied but also sent me a copy of the Terrain Editor. Very nice of them.

You stopped playing because they listened to you and fixed the bug for everyone?

altairprime 4y ago

They didn’t say “thank you”, which for many humans is demoralizing.

xen2xen1 4y ago
And at that point he'd played the game a lot, so he probably would have quit playing anyway. Were he like me, the fun at that point was the statistics portion anyway, and he'd already found and fixed that, so it was no longer fun either.

anyfoo 4y ago

After I (happily!) did their work for them, a simple "thank you", or even an acknowledgment through a closed ticket, would have entirely sufficed to make my day.

rcfox 4y ago
Back when Stack Overflow was in beta, the original design was really rough, so I mocked up a suggested new design for the main page via Stylish and submitted it to them. Within a day or two, they adopted something almost identical but never acknowledged me. One could argue it was a pretty basic idea (I only spent around 15 minutes on it myself) and they probably arrived there independently, but I still like to believe that I influenced a major site's design.
- stavros 4y ago
  Back when reddit was good, I was a moderator of a pretty large subreddit. One April Fools' day, I decided that, as a joke, I'd edit my subreddit's CSS to show the "reddit is down" image over of the home page. I did that, and, a few minutes later, reddit was actually down. One could argue it was a coincidence, but I still like to believe that I influenced a major site's uptime. Mostly because they told me I crashed the site and asked me not to play any more jokes like that again.
- brigandish 4y ago
  Speaking of SO, their policy of removing "thank you" and things like "any help is much appreciated" etc is why I've stopped contributing to the site. Even ChatGPT has better manners, and is possibly on the way to being more human than the people who made that rule, and certainly less of a wanker.
kvark 4y ago
Or maybe the bug was closed as a duplicate of one they were already aware of? Still impolite of them, of course, but we shouldn’t assume the worst.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Danieru 4y ago
  Protip for other gamedevs: when a player reports a bug you already know about say "thanks for the report, the fix will be in the next patch". It is not the players fault patches take time to get through QA. Nor should there be an implicit valuation curve to free bug reports from players.

30minAdayHN 4y ago

Because they lacked decency and intellectual humility to acknowledge his email despite benefiting from it.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Because they lacked decency and intellectual humility to acknowledge his email despite benefiting from it. Or their internal communication was haphazard and not designed to handle this case. I could totally imagine the bug report getting passed informally through a game of telephone and losing the connection to the external reporter (e.g. at some point the report got paraphrased, so the developer who fixed it doesn't know where the report came from, and the person who received the initial report doesn't know if it had merit or if it was fixed).
- kadoban 4y ago
  Which is why you should immediately answer "thanks, we'll look into it!", then at least they got something even if you forget later. I learned this as a the triage guy in one of my first jobs, as I have a very shit memory. Worst case you thank someone for something useless.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

narag 4y ago

I sent a patch to a bigger and more known software company, now defunct. I ended up writing some rude comments in the bug submitting form, after being forced to enter endless data about me, the company that I worked for and a lot of information about how to reproduce the error. Not proud of it, but I understand the GP: you're helping them and they treat you poorly. They included the fix in the next version of the tool. I later noticed it was incomplete, but this time I just made the correction locally.

macintux 4y ago
It is quite maddening to have to provide personal information to report a bug. My city stopped allowing anonymous reports of broken traffic lights, so every time I report one (much rarer now that they’ve made it harder) I always give bogus information.
- idontpost 4y ago
  Hey look Jimbob! The consultant says if we added obnoxious paperwork requirements, there'd be fewer broken traffic lights! I don't know how that's possible, but by-golly it worked!
- jfk13 4y ago
  Wow ... how often do traffic lights break in your city?!
  - macintux 4y ago
    I see a burnt-out bulb at least once a week.
    - jfk13 4y ago
      Interesting. I feel like it's something I've only seen very occasionally - I don't remember when I last noticed one. Maybe you just have a much higher density of traffic lights where you live, which would make it more common to see failures; and/or maybe they're a different type or differently maintained.

bombcar 4y ago

I remember writing a suggestion letter to Maxis about SimCity and they not only replied but also sent me a copy of the Terrain Editor. Very nice of them.