Hi everyone,
Sorry for my disappearance, I had to deal with several personal crises and then got sick, but I did manage to close out the last VP Congress session. I'm feeling better, back in action and working on the next version.
I was looking over our large GitHub issue backlog (which would be significantly larger were it not for @axatin's considerable bugfixing, thanks again) and concluded that one of the reasons why I personally feel a lot of mental resistance to fixing some bugs is modmods. In general, I've noticed a pattern that issues from players who use a lot of mods tend to go unaddressed for much longer.
To be specific, here is the problem in more detail. When I encounter such a report, I have to:
- Go through every modmod listed.
- For each modmod listed, go to CivFanatics or Steam and download the version. Sometimes waste time trying to find the modmod only to find it has a different name, is unavailable, can only be found on page 22 of a forum thread, or only the latest version is available while the player was using an older version, sometimes one explicitly marked as incompatible.
- Activate all mods, in addition to the version of VP I'm using to debug, and wait for them to load.
- Try to load the savegame. About half the time, I discover that there's additional mods that weren't declared. Sometimes it'll be listed when trying to load the savegame, and Civ V won't let me load it. Other times, the undeclared mod causes a CTD when trying to load the savegame, wasting all of the previous effort.
- Sometimes because Civ V handled mods poorly, it randomly crashes on one loading attempt and succeeds on another one.
- Then go through all the work required to solve the bug normally.
I can't speak for the other developers, but I find this process exhausting and it reduces my speed of bugfixing greatly.
As a result, my idea is as follows: if an issue needs a savegame to debug, the player must upload the folder of all the other mods they're using to their bug report. This folder is located at My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5/MODS.
This idea really personally appeals to me because the purpose of the GitHub issues tracker is to debug problems with core VP, not modmods.
Potential challenges:
- Players may not know when an issue needs a savegame to debug. In general, anything which is simply a text or database issue doesn't need a savegame (along with some Lua files), but it's never unhelpful to have as a resource. By default, we ask for a savegame, because players are not developers and they may not know in what cases a savegame is required.
- Players with bad internet connections or who find such a requirement overly arduous may simply not report issues if this requirement is in place.
I feel like if this policy were implemented, it'd be a lot easier for developers to address issues, because the process becomes:
- Download the uploaded MODS folder.
- Activate all mods in the folder, in addition to the version of VP I'm using to debug, and wait for them to load.
- Try to load the savegame. If it fails, slap a "Cannot reproduce" label on it and close it. Should probably try two or three times because of Civ V's glitchy loading.
- If it succeeds, go through all the work required to solve the bug normally.
- Delete the downloaded MODS folder and move on to the next issue.
I would like to hear the thoughts of the community on this idea (which is not a policy yet), particularly our other developers. @Gazebo @ilteroi @Rekk @axatin @pineappledan
I'm not putting this to a community vote as it should really be a developer decision, but feedback/discussion is welcome.
Sorry for my disappearance, I had to deal with several personal crises and then got sick, but I did manage to close out the last VP Congress session. I'm feeling better, back in action and working on the next version.
I was looking over our large GitHub issue backlog (which would be significantly larger were it not for @axatin's considerable bugfixing, thanks again) and concluded that one of the reasons why I personally feel a lot of mental resistance to fixing some bugs is modmods. In general, I've noticed a pattern that issues from players who use a lot of mods tend to go unaddressed for much longer.
To be specific, here is the problem in more detail. When I encounter such a report, I have to:
- Go through every modmod listed.
- For each modmod listed, go to CivFanatics or Steam and download the version. Sometimes waste time trying to find the modmod only to find it has a different name, is unavailable, can only be found on page 22 of a forum thread, or only the latest version is available while the player was using an older version, sometimes one explicitly marked as incompatible.
- Activate all mods, in addition to the version of VP I'm using to debug, and wait for them to load.
- Try to load the savegame. About half the time, I discover that there's additional mods that weren't declared. Sometimes it'll be listed when trying to load the savegame, and Civ V won't let me load it. Other times, the undeclared mod causes a CTD when trying to load the savegame, wasting all of the previous effort.
- Sometimes because Civ V handled mods poorly, it randomly crashes on one loading attempt and succeeds on another one.
- Then go through all the work required to solve the bug normally.
I can't speak for the other developers, but I find this process exhausting and it reduces my speed of bugfixing greatly.
As a result, my idea is as follows: if an issue needs a savegame to debug, the player must upload the folder of all the other mods they're using to their bug report. This folder is located at My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5/MODS.
This idea really personally appeals to me because the purpose of the GitHub issues tracker is to debug problems with core VP, not modmods.
Potential challenges:
- Players may not know when an issue needs a savegame to debug. In general, anything which is simply a text or database issue doesn't need a savegame (along with some Lua files), but it's never unhelpful to have as a resource. By default, we ask for a savegame, because players are not developers and they may not know in what cases a savegame is required.
- Players with bad internet connections or who find such a requirement overly arduous may simply not report issues if this requirement is in place.
I feel like if this policy were implemented, it'd be a lot easier for developers to address issues, because the process becomes:
- Download the uploaded MODS folder.
- Activate all mods in the folder, in addition to the version of VP I'm using to debug, and wait for them to load.
- Try to load the savegame. If it fails, slap a "Cannot reproduce" label on it and close it. Should probably try two or three times because of Civ V's glitchy loading.
- If it succeeds, go through all the work required to solve the bug normally.
- Delete the downloaded MODS folder and move on to the next issue.
I would like to hear the thoughts of the community on this idea (which is not a policy yet), particularly our other developers. @Gazebo @ilteroi @Rekk @axatin @pineappledan
I'm not putting this to a community vote as it should really be a developer decision, but feedback/discussion is welcome.
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