So what makes a good description?: A good bug description is like good reporting in a newspaper. It should be an unbiased declaration of facts. Try to keep your emotion at encountering a bug out of the report, and try to include all of the relevant details. Good: "After patch 2.0.1, the 2H weapon that my Shaman, Kahdrick, had equipped, disappeared. it is not in my inventory, bank, or on my character. The missing weapon was 'The Unstoppable Force'." Bad: "Where is my TUF?! I hate you! #&&^$@". For more complicated bugs, the description will be longer. Also, if you take the time to investigate the bug more thouroughly, you may find more information to include in the description: "I have also found that other 2H weapons that I equip will disappear if I respec my talents. It seems that this bug is actually related to the loss of the 2H Axe and 2H Mace skills when unlearning talent points. Since all talent points were refunded to all players when patch 2.0.1 went live, this seems to be related. Note that 2H staff weapons will not be lost when unlearning talents (2H staff is not a talent-trained skill). This bug also affects dual-wielded weapons in the off-hand."

What makes a good list of steps to reproduce?: A good list of steps should start from the last place that you know the bug did not occur, and then list every step after that. It is probably safe to assume that the tester who reads your bug has some familiarity with the game, but they may not know all of the acronyms, etc., so it is best to refrain from using abbreviations or acronyms when listing steps. Also, be very careful about how specific a given step should be. For example, if your bug occurs with any 2H weapon, you want to specify "Any 2H Weapon" and not "The Unstoppable Force". However, if it only occurs with The Unstoppable Force, be sure that you specify that, and do not say "a 2H weapon." The steps to reproduce may sometimes seem absurd "Have Blizzard patch the game servers to version 2.0.1 from any 1.x.x version" and will often seem redundant to the information in the description. Keep in mind that the goal is to make everything as clear as possible so that the tester can reproduce the bug in one try. Towards that end, don't worry about posting the same information twice or even three times in your bug - it helps!

Do I really need screenshots and other supporing information?: Probably not. However, any additional information that you can provide will help the devs to track down the problem and - hopefully - fix it. Graphic bugs should probably always have a screenshot. Crash bugs should have the dump file (if possible). Other, general functionality bugs may only be visible in movies. Don't go too crazy, however - this forum is to help the tester to reproduce the bug on his or her end - they will get whatever supporting information the developer needs to fix the issue. If your bug is concise without a need for screenshots or other info, don't worry about it. The Blizzard posters can always ask you for more information if they need it.

How do I know that Blizzard is reading my bug reports?: It's been stated time and time again that Blizzard reads every post in this forum. Be patient :)

Why didn't Blizzard respond to my bug report?: Only Blizzard knows why they chose not to respond to your post. However, many of the responses I have seen on this forum are requests for additional information. Given that, it is safe to assume that if there's no Blizzard response to your bug, then you wrote a Good Bug! Congratulations!

Blizzard just patched the game, but my bug wasn't fixed! Do I need to report it again?: You don't need to report the bug again, but it may be helpful to add to your original post that the bug was found in the new version of the game. Keep in mind, however, that it is practically impossible to fix every bug in a game with the amount of depth and scope that WoW has. There are also some bugs that are far more severe bugs than others (both in terms of gameplay impact and difficulty of fixing it). Quick fix bugs may get fixed even if they aren't a major impact on gameplay, and difficult fix bugs that have large impacts on gameplay will probably be fixed as well. There's really no way to know which bugs are going to be fixed and which aren't. Again, this forum is merely for the reporting and tracking of bugs, and is not a guarantee of any fixes for those issues.

(Continued)

 

 

Enditor: joy