How can we help the devs?

[FrzrBrn]

Given that the game server code is still under development and that we're all effectively testers, what can we do to help track down bugs? Is there a way to enable a log file or report a stack dump when the client crashes or...? Being a (much different type of) software developer, I know that getting detailed info from people when they run into a problem is both difficult and critical to solving said issues. So what can we do to make life easier?

[catholicism198]

You can help by posting any bugs you find here:
https://github.com/WarEmu/WarBugs/issues

[Ley]

Report bugs to bugtracker and report hackers/cheaters to GMs

[FrzrBrn]

Using the bug tracker is certainly a good start, but "I was standing in IC and then the client crashed to desktop" isn't exactly enlightening. I was wondering if there was some automatically generated technical data that we could forward as part of the bug report.

[Luicetarro]

Bet the Devs would love such info. In fact they would love it that much, that we would've been asked to run a background-client that might hand them such data.
But sadly, they have no way of checking for trouble like that. Else they could manage those unknown packets, that most likely will cause those crashes.

[Genisaurus]

Stacktraces and crashes are actually logged on the server, but tracking down what causes a crash isn't necessarily a straightforward task. The malformed packet that caused the crash might have actually been built with bad data accumulated from 3 other packets - one containing bad data from a legitimate bug; one containing bad data from a client hack that wasn't checked against; and one packet that we don't 100% understand, so figuring out what went wrong can't be done at all until the packet is fully understood. We keep the information and there's a process for fixing things, but a lot of improvement is bottlenecked by other things that need fixing first.

The biggest ways any player can help are by

1. Playing the game. Not only because it gives us data to use to identify problems, but because players are frustratingly, terribly, painfully good at identifying use-cases and abuses that weren't intended, and breaking the game in new ways. More important than that though, IMO, is that every player that shows up on the player count bar on the homepage improves the confidence and interest of everyone else who sees it. When a new player comes to the server, the difference between 700/1400 players and 1000/1400 players can be the difference between whether they decide to stick around.
2. Reporting players who can't act like decent human beings. Whether it's using a program to speedhack, flaming in advice, or AFKing in scenarios, these players drive away others. This hurts our numbers, and low numbers can discourage new players from settling in. Players who expect that a competitive PvP game should have a higher tolerance of bigotry and offensive language are a slow poison to the community we are trying to build, and the long-term success of this project.
3. Reporting bugs that you find. Preferably after searching the bugtracker to see if it has already been reported. We can't fix things we don't know are broken.

[Luth]

You can help by posting any bugs you find here:
https://github.com/WarEmu/WarBugs/issues

Report bugs to bugtracker and report hackers/cheaters to GMs

And by posting only one bug per report*, using the search function first and be as precise as possible.

*Problems that are very close together can be posted into one report too, like "NPC xy is not located where he belongs to and is hostile instead of friendly." If you are not sure, better use one report per issue.

But please not " My character xy has the following bugged abilities: #1... and #2... and #3... and he can't mount up and he sometimes disconnects and ..."

Background: cumulative reports can't be closed until the last bug has been fixed and they need to be labeled with all kinds of available labels (which makes it pointless).

Thanks.