[FIXED v1.07] Separate crashes

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: RobotCriminal

Wow really didn't mean to start an argument here, sorry about that.

My point was this:

1: If more people submit crash logs/save files then developers have more data to work with and things get fixed faster and more efficiently.
2: Things getting fixed faster and more efficiently equals a better game experience for everyone.
3: Streamlining the process of submitting saves/crash dumps leads to a lot more submissions than just relying on the good will of people to do it. It's hardly uncommon in the game industry to try to make this as easy as possible for people to do, I've seen a number of games go so far as to basically wrap it up and then just ask for end-user permission to fire it off.

#3 is mostly what I was getting at.

Ocelot might have worded it a good bit more strongly then I would have, but he isn't wrong. I understand that no one writes perfect software, and that no matter how hard you QA and beta test things are bound to crop up when you release it to thousands of man hours of end user use on a ton of different hardware configs, and that why I went through the trouble of registering an account and wrapping things up nicely to try to help.

However the bottom line is that I just paid 50 bucks for a piece of software that crashes a whole lot, and frankly a lot of end users are a lot more likely to just smack the close button and go to bed instead of trying to find what forum its supposed to be submitted on. Pointing people in the right direction or implementing some semi-automated version (ie /Crash folder with logs and save files) would probably get a lot more submissions for you guys.

That was my suggestion, and it was from a standpoint of trying to help you out with data collection, not attack you. Sorry if it came across wrong.

Honestly appreciate your concerns and really sorry you experienced the issue. I'm just not a fan of auto loggers or forms primarily because the human interaction gets cut out of it.My issue was how it was worded it because it made it sound like reporting bugs as we do now is a waste of time which it isn't.

Mike

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: Ocel0t

Thanks for your time guys, I honestly just wanted the existing bug reporting system built into the game to make it a bit faster. I definitely am not trying to illicit the responses that have transpired. Definitely not to create a scene, or stress anyone out. I'm not sure why everyone has gotten this impression, honestly. So I'm equally shocked as anyone over this thread. Again, my goal here is only to make friends, find common ground and ultimately to put everyone's mind at ease; so that my future posts will be taken in the tone of a friendly, relaxed and creative atmosphere.

In short, everyone chill, no one needs to change! There should never have been any "wtf" moments, no ones saying "fixed it!!!" I'm disappointed you guys ever thought that way at all. Anyways, we're all good here; issue closed. [;)]

I get it but the speed at which we resolve thing isn't a problem however don't take my word for it. Take a look at our fix and add lists with every build and ask the players on this forum and get a consensus. if you discover there is an issue with this please let us know.

Part of our thing is we're still developing the game and adding big features for players. This is well known and for now we're happy to do it. The downside is the bugs that may crop up when you add stuff (if you're a pro you know this can happen) but for now players seem to be ok with it as long as we follow up and fix things and move forward. We will stop updating if we start getting significant push back on it.

As Dimitris mentioned if our interactions here start turning to having to validate everything we do and why we're going to pull back big time. We're here to develop a fun game not debate software development methods or discuss microsoft libraries with a shit ton of dependencies that only a large corporation is staffed to support[:)] We know most guys feel the same.

Anyways no hard feelings and thanks for writing in.

Thanks!

Mike

[RobotCriminal]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

ORIGINAL: RobotCriminal
Just bought this game, would be nice if it didn't crash so damn much though [&:] . As an aside, if you guys could also make a link to this forum (or better yet, an e-mail or something to avoid making an account) in the pop-up that occurs with a crash that would be helpful to new players.

Anyway, enough griping, game is still fun when it runs so here you go (there are actually 4 crash files, but I forgot to snag the autosave with #1):

Hello,

Could you please try turning off sound effects and seeing if it makes a difference. We've had a number of reports that associate usage of sound effects with an increased frequency of crashes in the current version and we are working on a fix for this.

Thanks!

Done, seems to reduce the OOM crashes substantially. Remaining ones are mostly the "Exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" .

[RobotCriminal]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

Valid points, especially RE: hardware config.

Also FWIW it was a genuine surprise to me that this isn't a day job. I honestly thought you guys were a small full time studio (says something about the end product I guess) [X(]

[RobotCriminal]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Honestly appreciate your concerns and really sorry you experienced the issue. I'm just not a fan of auto loggers or forms primarily because the human interaction gets cut out of it.My issue was how it was worded it because it made it sound like reporting bugs as we do now is a waste of time which it isn't.

Mike

Fair enough, poorly worded then.

My actual point was reporting bugs by end-users is basically ESSENTIAL to have any hope of squashing them. I was actually trying to help, not bitch. [;)]


And it could be worse really, game still seems really young and has an active dev team committed to fixing broke stuff quickly which is like 95% of the battle. Keep up the good work [;)]

[Ocel0t]

Right, and that's where I was trying to say "I get it, I empathize." In 14 years I've yet to see even the best programmers integrate something significant without at least some issues .[:)]

Anyways, in my view, you guys are doing yourselves proud with the development of the game.

Thanks again for your time, sorry for the confusion, and I look forward to more fruitful threads in the future. [:)]

[Casinn]

ORIGINAL: RobotCriminal

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

Valid points, especially RE: hardware config.

Also FWIW it was a genuine surprise to me that this isn't a day job. I honestly thought you guys were a small full time studio (says something about the end product I guess) [X(]

Yeah, it's an amazing product (and improving all the time) for a small group of part-timers. Imagine their "part time" covers more hours than my day job.

[batek688]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk
I'm just not a fan of auto loggers or forms primarily because the human interaction gets cut out of it.

To expand a bit here, Mikmyk makes a great point and anyone who deals with QA reports out of an offshore shop will recognize this. When you have an auto-form, your success at recreation/resolution is very dependent on the ability of that autoform to completely capture everything. The catch-22 is that in order to "catch everything" the form gets huge and to the point of being a hindrance to the person trying to recreate/debug, rather than a help. A human explanation and minimal data will either be sufficient to solve OR be sufficient to establish a joint context for some back and forth to quickly recreate/resolve. Think of the autosave as the autoform with the text you post as the context. A far cleaner solution, IMO. My only "change" would be to have the autosave on a crash zip-up the file to save me a step when uploading -- but then I make no attempt to hide that yes, I am that freakin lazy!

Think of a conversation with the wife. I just want her to tell me what she bought, not to spend 30 mins telling me about the trip to the mall, what the traffic was like, what songs were on the radio, the stores she went into, etc. Just tell me how much money you spent! =)