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Bugs and The Sims 101 - Everything you need to know - Discussion
EA_Arcadia
Posts: 14 EA Community Manager
Have any questions or comments about our recent discussion about Bugs and The Sims, here's the best place to leave them.
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Comments
The question arises since reported issues take a very long time to get fixed. There is of course no game without bugs, but the issues for this game are surprisingly many. The new attempt at inclusion of all players, and visibility into the bug fixing process in The Laundry List is applaudable, but as a player and customer I find it odd that a bug forum for such a high profit complex game with numerous DLC often added, does not get proper, knowledgeable and offical management of their bug forum. The report template is misunderstood by many players using it, and what would be considered a bug and how a report is to be made is not made sufficiently clear by official sources. There is no system for checking the credentials of the players posting in the bug reports section, and subsequently the discussion in the bug report threads are more of a social forum discussion; than proper judgement on what issue is a bug or not, based on an actual skill set in programming, game production, animation and so forth. Only the game producer can decide what they will consider a bug or not, but the process in which the bug reports are analyzed and decided to be valid or not is not made clear. That players are allowed to post in the bug report threads and in what capacity they are useful, is not made clear by official sources. The function of the button Me Too is not made clear by official sources.
The question is asked mainly to get an explanation for the slow bug fixing process and the many bugs that occur after each patch and pack. It is also posed in an attempt to get an explanation of the management of the bug report section, and why it is seemingly run by players, and why the EA offical personnel are so invisible. And lastly, it is asked in an attempt to understand what effect this has on the slow bug fixing process.
I as a player have helped in testing many newly made bug reports in an attempt to replicate them, this to ascertain their validity. I have done this on a Discord server not run by EA, but with the sole intention of discussing threads made for The Sims, on AHQ; and with members those players that post on AHQ and other Sims Forums. I am not hired or compensated in any way by EA for this. I have never been contacted by EA asking me to do this, but only by players posting at AHQ, specifically those with administrative right to manage it. None of the information left the server, I did not post in the bug report section with this information. If the bug report section on AHQ is run by EA offical personnel - how is it that players can help out with work that should be done by The EA SimGurus, or appointed personnel; and this in a forum separated from AHQ, and the effort not initiated by EA personnel.
The question is of course only directed to EA SimGurus, and/or the personnel in charge of decisions regarding the forum. Players posting in this forum are of course welcome to discuss the matter if interested. They need to do so in a proper way, being polite and constructive. Please refrain from posting before giving others the benefit of the doubt. Also refrain from quoting eachother; write using your own words instead.
This thread is not made to diminish the role of the player; neither as the role we all have, nor any specific person's - but to ask a simple question. If it is an intentional choice to let players run the forum, and do the work of the forum; I would like to know the reasoning behind it. I think I have explained what makes me describe it as managed, but discussion is welcome.
I posted this question a couple of weeks ago, and recieved two answers from EA personnel, official AHQ Forum Managers. One was to forward the feedback to their admin, but there was no following response. The other was to explain how the bug forum is managed. I asked that this information then would be posted / pinned to AHQ. This has not been done. Then my thread was removed. No EA Moderator posted in the thread to close it, or sent me a message about any potential rules broken, or to let me know that is was removed, or why. The thread was calm and not one of those posting in it, including me, broke any Forum Rules. If this was an oversight or mistake, any EA Moderator are welcome to explain this action by posting in the thread, I am sure to understand. This thread is an update of that older one.
This post is to clarify a couple of things that came up in the other thread, hence the 'reserved' state. I will add to it.
A lot was talked about the so called superusers of AHQ, mostly by the EA representatives posting in the thread; but also some interesting questions posed by players. One was if there is a system to control the Heroes, the players that get administrative rights on the forum, to merge, move and name threads, both in the bug report sction and the others, Technical and General Discussion & Feedback.
Here are the presentation and rules for the program. It is posted as late as April 2020, although I think AHQ and the program is much older. There is no explanation to what warranted the information being given at this time.
Presentation:
https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Information/Community-Connections-Program-Volunteer-Helpers-of-AHQ/td-p/8924397
Rules
https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Information/Community-Connections-Program-Participant-Guidelines/m-p/8907846#M2
Just a reminder: This thread is not about the superusers, since any internal forum hierarchy applied by EA for their own purposes, does not make the players recieving a title less of players, as opposed to hired personnel. This thread is a question why players whether they have a title or not, organize and manage the bug report section.
The original thread was shared here:
Thanks.
The original thread with me as OP is here:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/992153/why-is-the-bug-forum-for-the-sims-4-managed-by-players-update#latest
Kudos to Hero Crincrit and all the other volunteers who assist the QA staff. 💚
0. Volunteers are players. If you want all players to engage in the forum, you welcome everyone; if you want to intimidate people then you create a hierarchy. It's up to you. What do you want?
1. Clarify why players should click Me Too.
What is it used for? How does it matter? What limits are there to the count, at what number of Me Too's does it matter? Why it is important for EA to know how many suffers from a particular issue?
2. Clarify for players not creating the bug report what they can do, and why it can be useful. What is a useful post in a bug report once it is made - complaints and angry outbursts, or detailed descriptions on when the issue occurs? Why is it players responsibility to add this information? How does it help and why?
3. Clarify why the tags for bug reports are player made, and not official EA tags posted by SimGurus, EA AHQ Moderators or capable hired personnel.
4. Clarify what counts as information in bug reports. To do this you would have to clarify the process of bug fixing, from experience to duplication to testing fixes. Give examples of what information is good to have for different issues: for examples: how many sims in the household, does it happen in every household, what sim state, (occult, age etc), what did they interact with just before the issue occurred. There are thousand examples. List them elsewhere with examples of bug reports and link to the list. Think about what consumer base you have. Also make sure it will be easy to link the text for those players that want to clarify to other players on what information is important in a bug report.
5. Explain what a searchable title for a bug report is, give examples.
6. It is good that you are working on the bug template. The most important question to be able to effectively duplicate an issue confuses most players. Clarify that question.
7. Clarify who "staff" and "volunteers" are; I see many players confused by the questions asked in bug report threads by mere players, when they expect EA personnel to handle their problem and ask them questions.
8. Clarify who have administrative rights, and why. Clarify why merging is done, both for staff and players. Why is is necessary? Don't you trust players to click Me Too? Do you want to clear up the board? Players who don't understand bugs should not handle the bug forum. Clarify why you have volunteers doing the work of EA.
9. Greatly clarify the divide between the player run compiled bug list and the real one by the Sims Team/EA, and why there are two. Clarify when the player-run bug list is updated, both in your text, and in that thread itself. This is important for searching and finding bug threads, both for players having an issue and those wanting to help them. Could the list be better searchable?
10. Clarify that when there is a solution marked for a thread, that also shows up in its title. This to not scare off players wanting to post about their issue.
11. Greatly clarify the scraping process. When is it done? Do the EA personnel see all bug reports made? Why not?
Players with administrative rights move threads between different sections based on their own opinion; testing done in other communities than AHQ; players posting opinions in the bug threads etc. In all politeness: prove me wrong, if I am wrong, please.
12. Clarify what supplying supporting assets are.
13. Clarify that players are allowed and welcome to post in old bug reports; and that these matter as much as new ones - if they do?
14. Clarify why there are mainly players posting in the bug forum, despite the staff, here stated, being involved.
16. Greatly clarify who the special volunteers working in the bug forum are, what they do, why you have players doing EA work in a bug forum.
16. Greatly clarify why players are doing any work at all in a bug forum for a game that is in development; not an indie production; very complex and large; and with continuously added DLC; and severe lack of testing before release - based on what kind of bugs appear right after a new pack release.
16. Greatly clarify how crinrict's Gaming World Discord server for AHQ helpers, and its purpose; fits into the program of superusers.
17. Rethink the decision to use AHQ for a bug forum, considering all the limitations.
Edit:
In view of the original thread being closed down hindering me from responding to the last post I will answer here, given the prompt to use this thread.
18. Clarify who the QA are.
19. Clarify why this thread is in Forum Feedback, and not Feedback section, where I posted it. This section we are posting in now, is for this forum. The question about the bug forum, is about the section Bug Reports on AHQ.
20. Clarify the rules and rights for the superusers, and what makes certain players qualified to decide over other players in a bug forum. This also in regards to the methods taken by the superusers of The Sims Forum sections on AHQ to take all discussions elsewhere, off the EA boards.
A simple question about the management of a bug forum is not naming and shaming. The fact that players, and specific players, do this work makes it impossible to criticize the bug forum, without touching on the rule for naming and shaming. Questioning management for something that touches everyone's game experience should not be that hard to do on a public forum. If the bug forum was not managed by players, this problem would not exist. I did not mention the player in question, in the thread, but everyone had their own impression of who it was anyway. That says something about the common impression of how the bug forum is handled and has been for years. I as a player and customer have a right to question the work of EA, without being accused of attacking an individual person. EA's decision to let a single individual be so tightly connected to the bug forum, that by questioning it, this person is inadvertently also dragged into it, no matter how hard one tries to not do that. Players, and any specific player, should not be so closely attached to a game concept, that it is unimaginable to separate them two. crinrict should not be automatically connoted with the bug forum - but crinrict is the bug forum. Is this conundrum clear now?
As a side note regarding quoting: In a thread were I am the OP, I am in the right to ask for a proper behaviour. The thread was not meant for fighting, and that is what most threads end up in, on this forum. Quoting is, to me, incredibly rude, slightly lazy, and on this forum, mainly used to flame a discussion. It is also a part of an high school education to be able to understand a text in a fluid way, and there is no need to quote on a forum for a game. Quoting makes threads too long, and hard to read. Using ones own words prevents in many cases an argument to quickly spin off hand. A problem with quoting is the spiral of misunderstandings it creates, as a quote is focused on a phrase, and not meaning. Not assuming direct and constant understanding is a better, more constructive way of discussing. Several of the comments EA_Arcadia have made, while quoting me, are not in response to what is meant, and the result of such a discussion is only an endless correction of other people's assumptions of a word, a phrase or a paragraph. Quoting also assumes a similar grasp on the used language, that not everyone have.
I am waiting for the promised clarifications, to resume this conversation.
An important addition though: I made the original thread, and I hope you are not saying that I am not allowed to make another. This thread is the duplicate thread, it is EA staff decison to make it, place it in an obscure part of the forum and to merge my thread into it, remove my original thread twice without message and then close it down. As long as my question is unanswered I will ask it. I hope you will answer it here. You have not so far.
EDIT 2:
21. There are a lot of confusion about mods and cc, what it is, how it effects the game, why it creates problems after patches, and why it is necessary to remove them as a first troubleshooting step when creating bug reports. Clarify this for the common user, clearly enough that anyone who wants to help doesn't have to explain it themselves over and over, and can instead link to an official explanation and request.
22. Clarify if all issues are allowed to be reported, or if there is a separation between 'major' and 'minor' ones.
I will take the time to go through and answer all your questions below, we would like to mention that many of these we have answered before both publicly, in the original 101 Bugs thread, and in DMs to you personally. We ask for everyone to please respect the efforts the team has put into these threads, and avoid spamming questions that have been answered expecting a different answer.
We also ask, that if we answer your question and it does not address your concern, do not take this with malicious intent. We answer questions on our best interpretation of how it's asked. English is a fun language in that there can often be many interpretations based on how something is written, we will always take the most common interpretation.
While we will always strive to provide information where possible, there are times where we simply can't as the information is for internal staff only.
Arcadia
Answers within:
All players are welcome to post, as that has always has been the case. The vast majority of the community appreciate the contributions of these recognized Volunteers, do not see this as a hierarchy, and have had no negative interactions with these Volunteers. These volunteers are held to the same rules as everyone else, so if there is any concerning interactions you are welcome to report them through the standard avenues and will with address them as we would any other player.
This has already been clarified - no additions needed:
A feature on our forums is the ability to say “me too” on a thread, if you’ve seen the same bug that the thread details you can hit this button to indicate you’re having the same issue. Doing this allows us to quickly determine how many people are being impacted by the reported bug."
There is no level of "Me-Toos" that "matter", it simply helps us grasp how many people are impacted.
I will add some additional context in terms of what is useful to include in a reply if you're facing a similar issue to the main thread.
Its no-ones "responsibility" to add additional information - it never has been, as always, players are free to interact where they want to with any information they want to, so long as it is in alignment with the forum rules.
I have explained why providing additional information is useful already, no additional clarity is needed on this:
Staff and volunteers often request additional information such as save files, or instructions on how the bug occurred. We ask this information not for fun, but so QA gets as much concise info as they can to get to the root cause quicker.
While it may take the QA Team some time to work on a resolution, this extra information may also lead to another player coming up with a workaround based on the info provided or their own experience, which is great! That’s working as a community and players helping each other.
This has already been addressed.
Since the Volunteers assist Staff with keeping the boards accessible and usable for other players, the tag system was developed with the AHQ Staff to quickly identify key factors with different bugs reports. No other EA title has the same size in terms of DLC/Game Packs. Without the Tag system, vital information is contained within the main section of the reports. It simply increases the visibility of this information.
No, this is internal information in terms of the specifics of how bugs are fixed. Its common knowledge that information means anything relevant to the bug, this doesn't need to be explicitly stated.
This has already been addressed
Please go review thread titles in the compiled list, this should give you plenty of examples.
As mentioned, we're working on it.
Staff: Have clear staff identifiers:
This obvious enough that further clarification isn't needed.
This has been addressed before and doesn't need to be restated. Please READ the links I have previously listed.
There is an internal list that is used so that internally we can catalog technical details related to reported bugs. These details would make no sense to players, clutter up threads, and make it harder for the teams to reference the information. This is why we keep it separate and do not share the information with any players.
How searchable the list is, is limited by the platform, this really doesn't need stating as its common sense.
Its simply a function of how AHQ works. If a player is having an issue, and sees its been marked with a solution, common steps would be to see the solution. From the solution it will be clear whether them adding additional is useful, or whether a solution is already found.
How this specifically works is internal information, and details will not be shared.
Once again, if you had thoroughly read the post, you will see that we state that all bugs are taken and read:
On regular and frequent intervals, the Sims QA team “scrapes” the bug forum and pulls the info from each thread into their catalog so they can begin assessing each reported bug. It’s important to note here that every thread gets pulled during the “scraping” process, neither Staff or Volunteers can prevent or restrict any threads from being taken.
From this catalog view, the QA team starts going through the information and determines a course of action for each bug. During this process, the QA team notes a considerable amount of complex and detailed information regarding each and every bug thread.
Since this is common knowledge, there is no need to add this in.
Supporting: "serving to corroborate something."
Asset: "a useful or valuable thing"
For us can include: screenshots, game files, DxDiag files, etc.
Since this is common knowledge, clarity is not needed.
So long as the issue hasn't been previously fixed, naturally a player is allowed to reply to an older bug thread. If a bug has previously been fixed, and is now occurring again, it is better to make a new thread as the situation surrounding the issue has likely changed.
Since this is common knowledge, clarity is not needed.
Due to the sheer size of the player base (millions), versus the AHQ team of 32 CMs, even if we were playing the game 24/7 and neglecting every other game and task, we would never encounter even close to the same number of bugs that the community does. It is completely unreasonable to expect this to be comparable. Teams within the Maxis studio (like the QA team), do conduct bug searches on the game themselves, but do not report them on the boards, because that would be a redundant activity for them (as its just going to end back with them anyway).
No players are doing EA Work. They voluntarily help with low end housekeeping tasks of the forums to allow the staff to focus on more critical tasks and actual EA Work. As I've previously linked, all information on our volunteers and who they are can be found here.
Reporting a bug is not doing work, it is a voluntary action a player can take. No player is forced to report a bug, however reporting a bug can help us determine a fix quicker. Almost every single game I can think of has avenues for players to report game issues/bugs - it is standard in gaming.
Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to find a bug, and have no where to post about it that you know staff will see it? Exactly.
This has also been answered many times before. Crinrict's Discord (and any other Discord servers) have no association with AHQ, or any function of the Community Connections Program. We do not use Discord in any capacity. No EA Staff are in that server, and we have no overview into its contents.
The only Official EA Discord is the discord that can be found at discord.gg/EA
Please recall this statement regarding AHQ, we're working on improvements to AHQ:
Since this is common knowledge, there is no need to add this in.
QA = Quality Assurance, its team within the Maxis Studio. Who they are specifically, in terms of names, is internal information and will not be shared. It is not relevant
It can always be moved, when posted this was the most logical place to put it. We will review this soon.
We clearly state this and provide links to supporting information: no clarity needed.
Again, Heroes and Champion have no ability to "decide" over another player. In that same breath, we have no desire or ability to control where players have conversations about the game. No clarity is required here as the information is linked in the original thread.
You are correct, its not, but when players begun to be named and their actions questioned, this does fall into the territory of naming and shaming. We left the thread alone until it began to digress to that level.
You are stating you're experiences on the bug forum, which is fine, you're allowed to express your opinion, but claiming it is the experience of everyone when there are few that agreed with you, doesn't make opinion - fact. We have agreed that we have improvements we can make, but you are making statements that are factually incorrect. If Crin decided she was done with helping on the forums, the forums would continue running as they are, with improvements occurring as they currently do. We appreciate her contributions, as we do all players and volunteers, but the forums would continue without her.
We allow quoting, end of matter - you're allowed to have your opinion but have no authority on determining how other users can use the forum features we have enabled. My responses would have been extremely confusing to someone reading my response without directly referencing each question asked. To help with the length of the thread, I've used a spoiler.
If I missed the meaning in what you wrote in your questions, then you may need to reword them to bring better context or clarity to what you meant. As mentioned in the above spoiler, all staff address questions based on the most common interpretation of how its written. We cannot be expected to guess you meant it different when it is written the way it is.
To clarify, you are definitely welcome and encouraged to enjoy the forums and make threads as you see fit, I apologize if that was ambiguous. However, as per the rules of the forum, if your thread is a duplicate or relates to an already established thread, it will be merged appropriately.
This quote is from a different thread, but here seems to be where comments are wanted as that other thread is closed.
You wrote:
"The staff are active in these boards, however as mentioned above, there is little value to players in AHQ Staff replying to acknowledge each and every report with a generic thank you."
I wish you'd reconsider this notion. Right now it is completely opaque whether a bug has even been noticed by EA or not. There were several bug threads I was tracking at AHQ concerning pathing and slope access in Snowy Escape. I added my "me toos" and comments there six months after the threads were initiated.
If there had been even an automated, but official note somewhere in the thread that it had been received by the actual EA bug team, I would have moved on as a more-or-less happy simmer instead of authored multiple threads in the Feedback section about the apparent total lack of interest on EA's part in addressing bugs.
Communication is sooo easy in today's cut and paste environment. Yes a simple post that says, "Thank you, we're looking into it," doesn't hold a lot of value. However a fuller generic post with similar very useful information you've shared in multiple threads lately could hold much more value while still just requiring only a copy paste to send.
I would suggest something along these lines...
"Thank you for reporting this issue. It has been received by the official bug team at EA. Sometimes fixes are easy, sometimes they are hard. Sometimes those fixes have further knock-on effects that require more work to integrate before a final solution can be implemented in one of our monthly patches. But official EA eyes are on the issue.
If you are another viewer of this bug, the most powerful thing you can do is click to 'Me Too' button so we know how many simmers are experiencing this relative to other bugs we are addressing. As time is a limited resource, we do have to sometimes make decisions about the priority of which bugs to address first.
Thank you to everyone who takes the time and effort to participate in AHQ in our on-going effort to minimize bugs in this game. We love that you play our game so much and we want to continually improve it for you."
Do you see the difference and power in such a message, even if just copy pasted?
You've apparently retreated to EA's standard misguided notion that the best communication is no communication.
I thought I saw a glimmer of hope.
Here is some communication for you. No more Mark-money to EA, for any title, until there is a fundamental change in how you appear to handle your various feedback loops.
As we mentioned, if the bug is posted in the bug forum on Answers HQ - then its been noticed and recognized by us. Replying to every thread with a generic acknowledgement also reduces the usefulness of the visibility of a staff response icon on a thread. The copy+paste response brings no additional value, and uses staff time that could be better used in replying to threads where we can provide tailored and detailed responses.
We will continue to assess this approach going forward and always open to trying new approaches if there is sense behind them.
You will see however, when something is fixed, the thread is updated (our Heroes and Champions help with this). Heres a few examples of threads you were previously concerned about
Example 1 - Post - Fix Communicated
Example 2 - Post - Fix Communicated
Example 3 - Post - Fix Communicated
In fact, those three threads you link have a noticable percentage of the commentary about nothing but the lack of communication and apparent lack of care on EA's part about the bugs at all. Great PR... On your own real estate in internet space no less. Yet... Better communication makes no sense?
I'm actively telling you I'm no longer spending money with EA unless there is a fundamental change in how EA communicates about is specific bugs on its own forums, yet... Better communication makes no sense?
For the record, that's well over $200 just since my first comment here. I spent the money elsewhere in spite of EA having products that interest me. By telling me better bug communication makes no sense in this light, are you actively telling me you don't want my entertainment dollar? Wouldn't that be interesting information to pass up the food chain?
The explanation of the bug process you shared in July is lovely information. Very few people are going to see those handful of threads against the background noise of the entire internet when they post or look for information about bugs. They are however going to read threads about those bugs individually being reported. Simple, clear communication, whether automated or semi-automated in those threads is not only ridiculously easy to accomplish, but would create good PR instead of bad. I also bet it would significantly reduce the amount of negative EA commentary on your own boards. Yet none of that makes sense?
The video game industry is all grown up now. Please start communicating with your clients like it's the $30 billion dollar a year industry that it is.
No more Mark-money for EA until a paradigm shift is apparent.
I'm guessing for around $70k per year (100k by the time you factor in benefits) EA could find someone competent and efficient who is as concerned and passionate about quality communication as me to handle the entirety of AnswersHQ communication. They could take the horrid PR of the current situation and, without changing anything at all about how bugs are actually handled, they could make EA look world-class; creating legions of loyal clients who feel EA communicates very well indeed.
It's just seems no one has shown you as an organization the merits of such a position on staff.
I also suspect EA Redwood Shores spends more than that each week on lunch.
We recognized the increase of people who were curious and questioning how we handled bugs, while better late than never, that is why we provided the information in the bug thread that we did. Naturally, we can't disclose everything or specific details, but we believe this gives a good overview.
I'm not sure how many times it needs to be stated, but if its posted, it is noticed. Communication can always be improved, we're in agreement there, however communication with no value add to the player or the thread, is... not so useful. Lets look at some examples from AHQ:
You can see when an EA Staff has posted on a thread (see red), most people take this as an indication that there is meaningful information provided by staff. If we were to go through to every bug post, and add a generic acknowledgement, it would diminish this value. You can also see when a thread has an accepted solution (see blue), even when staff accept player written solutions, it appears like this. When a staff has an accepted solution, it appears with an EA Badge (see orange).
When we do have information that adds value to the post, we do go in and comment, unfortunately, we usually only hear when the bugs are resolved. Outside that, the staff post the monthly laundry list on both forums. Which is doing (more or less) what you're asking, acknowledging the biggest issues impacting the game. Its unreasonable to expect every single bug to be listed in this post.
While in an ideal world, we would have staff responding on every thread on AHQ, unfortunately the community far outnumbers the staff with 500-700 threads with 2000-3000 responses daily(AHQ only), in 9 different languages. Assuming that a staff has all the information available off the top of their heads (as in they do not need to verify/double check/look for the info) an average response takes 1-2 minutes to write, add 1-2 minutes to read the thread before answering, and 30s to navigate between threads. We'll round that up to 5 minutes for ease of the math. Lets also assume that they have no other responsibilities on a day to day basis. They'd be able to respond to 12 posts an hour, or around 90 per day. From personal experience as forum CM for another company, by the time you take out time for meetings, gathering info to respond, and other responsibilities, on my most efficient days, I could get to 30-40 threads.
Given what is an reasonable level of responses being limited, staff have to target the threads they can create the biggest impact on. While I understand why it would be awesome if we could get to every bug thread, unfortunately its an unreasonable ask. An automated response could help with this, sad to say our current platform doesn't have these capabilities, we'll keep the idea in our pocket for the future in case this capability becomes available.