"What Would You Do?" Theoretical Bug Found

[FoulVileTerror]

Imagination Time!

 

Say there's a game feature you've been eager for since the yesteryears of Legacy/Retail.  You've been told "no" and "no, again" with reasons ranging from "it can't work," to "it won't work," to "I don't want it," to "I don't understand what you're asking."

And then, during beta testing, you uncover an unintentional bug which appears to replicate the very feature you've long desired.  All the testing you've done suggests it's stable.  You've looked around, done some research, got some others to try to reproduce it; and ultimately you've found a loophole that will give you something you've desired for ages . . . maybe.  If you don't report it, it might get through to Live.

 

Would you stay quiet, or file the report?

If you stay quiet, how severe does the bug have to be before you change your mind?  Where do you draw the line?

How badly would you need to want something before taking the risk of not reporting it?

 

Purely theoretical.

Feel free to imagine any kind of bug or scenarios you like for this.

I'm mostly curious to see what aspects of the game people attribute personal value to, and where they feel that personal value potentially outweighs the rest of the multiplayer experience.

[Coyotedancer]

I'd have to mention it... Probably as a "Oh hey, did you guys know that X does Y? You know... That same Y we've been looking for for ages? Cool, right? Tell me it doesn;t break anything vital so we can keep it." 

[Ironblade]

14 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

And then, during beta testing, you uncover an unintentional bug which appears to replicate the very feature you've long desired.  All the testing you've done suggests it's stable.

Is it breaking something or causing problems with some other system?  If yes, report it immediately.

If not, I don't consider that a bug.  It's an 'undocumented feature'.

[Greycat]

If it isn't breaking or exploting something ("hey, I'm 30' taller and mobs can't hit me") I'd still point it out and ask that it get added in officially so others can possibly enjoy it.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Would you stay quiet, or file the report?

If you stay quiet, how severe does the bug have to be before you change your mind?  Where do you draw the line?

How badly would you need to want something before taking the risk of not reporting it?

 

I reported every bug I ever found, most of them in PMs to Castle.  Including the bugs I might have wished the developers could ignore.  I did that because I knew that even the least of them could turn into something major if it weren't fixed (happened many times when the original servers were up).  A bug might not be critical now, but everything affects everything else in this engine, sometimes in completely unexpected and unpredictable ways, and something non-critical can turn into a real problem later.  Unless or until the code is locked and there are no more changes being made (meaning, the HC team disbands and no-one else picks up the project), bugs are risky to leave untouched, and they can't be fixed if they aren't reported.

[EmmySky]

Knowing myself, as I do, I would stupidly open my mouth and ask them why x did y and when they added that.  I most likely wouldn't realize it was a bug and I most likely wouldnt think to report it if I did realize it was a bug, figuring that everyone and their dog probably reported it already.

 

Sometimes I am not the sharpest bulb in the flock.

[Giovanni Valia]

Seeing as how as how the /enterbasefrompasscode bug has been allowed to live, I'd quiet about it as long as it doesn't break the game; i.e. adding free inf/ killing players in any zone. The bug may even come to be an expected feature, given enough time and exposure on the servers.

 

Purely theoretical, of course...

Edited September 27, 2020 by Giovanni Valia

[MTeague]

If it affected combat, I would have to tell them.

If it doesn't affect combat in any way shape or form..... it becomes much easier to rationlize

[Ukase]

I think you're on the test server to test. You report it and hope it's a feature that wasn't documented yet. 

 

[ForeverLaxx]

Always report a bug, no matter how "stable" you think it is at the time of finding it. Errant code is bad enough, but errant code isn't usually considered when new features are being added and can cause more problems down the line if left unaccounted for. No matter how "beneficial" a bug might be, it needs to be fixed so the game can be evaluated correctly.

 

And yes, this even includes the old Rage bug.

[Hexquisite]

Report it, if for no other reason than this bug could potentially be the seeds of of a self-aware machine. Then, before you know it, it's developed new capabilities, greater sentience and intelligence, eventually becoming a homicidal AI with a seething hatred for all organic life, sending out it's minions to slaughter us en masses and enslave the survivors

 

So report bugs. Or take responsibility for the extinction of the universe.

[FoulVileTerror]

Well!  I, for one, welcome our new AI Overlords!

*is eviscerated*

[Glacier Peak]

Report it and understand that if it has theoretically existed since legacy, and continues to exist on Homecoming, it is likely not going to be fixed any time soon due to a number of constraints on our volunteer team. 

 

I also use the one I found to roleplay >.>

[FoulVileTerror]

Oh, minor adjustment to the constraints of this theoretical situation:

The bug is -new.-

A byproduct of unintended interactions of new code elements or content.  As some might call it "an unintentional feature" that did not exist prior to the current Beta which you are participating in during this scenario.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Hexquisite said:

Report it, if for no other reason than this bug could potentially be the seeds of of a self-aware machine. Then, before you know it, it's developed new capabilities, greater sentience and intelligence, eventually becoming a homicidal AI with a seething hatred for all organic life, sending out it's minions to slaughter us en masses and enslave the survivors

 

❤️

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Oh, minor adjustment to the constraints of this theoretical situation:

The bug is -new.-

A byproduct of unintended interactions of new code elements or content.  As some might call it "an unintentional feature" that did not exist prior to the current Beta which you are participating in during this scenario.

 

Look at my avatar.  Look at @Hexquisite's post.

 

Do you really want to risk it?

[FoulVileTerror]

I did my rebuttal already.

*still has insides in an outside location*

 

Of course, if we're speaking seriously; I think we all know that worst case scenarios are more likely to be something akin to a server reset.   Not at all a good thing and deeply unpleasant, but not (real) world ending.

And that's really the question I was posing to everyone here.  Where do they place themselves on the spectrum of risk/reward when it comes to bugs/unintentional features which are personally beneficial, but have a nebulous risk variable that can't be immediately predicted.

 

And after all; even intentional features could have unintended consequences down the line.  Levelling Pacts come to mind.

[The Pyn]

"Exploit early and exploit often" is the usual mantra* in mmo's and hope that there isn't a rollback/ban after the devs fix it.  I believe though that the spirit of this slogan is more applicable to open world, competitive pvp mmo's and not so much to coh.  

 

With particular respect to coh I haven't become aware of any glitch.

[MTeague]

On 9/27/2020 at 10:40 AM, Hexquisite said:

Report it, if for no other reason than this bug could potentially be the seeds of of a self-aware machine. Then, before you know it, it's developed new capabilities, greater sentience and intelligence, eventually becoming a homicidal AI with a seething hatred for all organic life, sending out it's minions to slaughter us en masses and enslave the survivors

 

So report bugs. Or take responsibility for the extinction of the universe.

I've been a programmer for 25 years. 

I have ABSOLUTELY no fear of a Skynet situation. 

Experience has shown me, time and time again, that All Code Is Bad  <--- not mine, but a HILAROUSLY TRUE rant

If an AI does begin to emerge, it will die, choking on bugs, it's last thoughts being "Why? Why does bad code happen to good people!?" as the uncaring sky fades to black. 

[Lines]

Personal benefit is a double edged sword.

 

Say the exploit was, like, a rogue dialogue loop that repeatedly gave you merits, inf and XP. So you could level up by clicking through dialogue.

 

It's personally beneficial in that I get the rewards, but in my head that equates to "You now have less game to play". The value of those rewards becomes meaningless. That would suck. It's gotta go.

[Cipher]

Often times in CoH, and other games for that matter, bugs will present themselves in a way that seems fun or harmless ("hey look at this cool thing I figured out I can do; it doesn't seem to be affecting anything else!"). The reality to many of these bugs/reports is often a bit worse though, as many times what you're seeing is just the tip of a more deeply-rooted issue which could be affecting anything from performance and stability to a multitude of other systems. You would be surprised to see some of the things that we've found that seemed okay but were actually causing quite significant problems elsewhere.

 

Informing us of the bug allows us the opportunity to investigate and hopefully fix the issue, ensuring that it's not going to become more of a problem down the road when other things are changed or implemented. If one result of the bug was something that the community has been wanting as a feature, then we should definitely look into making it so, just without being the result of an erroneous piece of code or data.

 

That said, please do report any bugs that you find to us! It really does help us out tremendously in keeping the game stable. The Bug Hunter badge is even up for grabs (in some situations, depending on the bug) for players who help us identify these things!

[Tsuko]

4 minutes ago, Cipher said:

Often times in CoH, and other games for that matter, bugs will present themselves in a way that seems fun or harmless ("hey look at this cool thing I figured out I can do; it doesn't seem to be affecting anything else!"). The reality to many of these bugs/reports is often a bit worse though, as many times what you're seeing is just the tip of a more deeply-rooted issue which could be affecting anything from performance and stability to a multitude of other systems. You would be surprised to see some of the things that we've found that seemed okay but were actually causing quite significant problems elsewhere.

 

Informing us of the bug allows us the opportunity to investigate and hopefully fix the issue, ensuring that it's not going to become more of a problem down the road when other things are changed or implemented. If one result of the bug was something that the community has been wanting as a feature, then we should definitely look into making it so, just without being the result of an erroneous piece of code or data.

 

That said, please do report any bugs that you find to us! It really does help us out tremendously in keeping the game stable. The Bug Hunter badge is even up for grabs (in some situations, depending on the bug) for players who help us identify these things!

I found one ! The game glitch when i log in 😕

 

 

Je suis bien trop sexy pour ce jeu ! 

[Hew]

On 9/27/2020 at 12:08 AM, ForeverLaxx said:

Always report a bug, no matter how "stable" you think it is at the time of finding it. Errant code is bad enough, but errant code isn't usually considered when new features are being added and can cause more problems down the line if left unaccounted for. No matter how "beneficial" a bug might be, it needs to be fixed so the game can be evaluated correctly.

 

And yes, this even includes the old Rage bug.

Just because it helps you doesn't mean it doesn't harm someone else. Per Laxx, _always report_.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, MTeague said:

If an AI does begin to emerge, it will die, choking on bugs, it's last thoughts being "Why? Why does bad code happen to good people!?" as the uncaring sky fades to black.

 

Unless the emergence is the result of bugs and bad code.  Evolution isn't a consciously directed process, it's not something which occurs like a series of tests, it's purely random.  Multi-cellular life, quadrupedal locomotion, gills for oxygenation, being self-aware, everything which makes up the multitudinous and varied forms of life on our planet, it's all due to random changes in DNA.  Essentially, bugs in our code.

 

What happens when we're using code bases multiple terabytes in size, instead of gigabytes?  Or yottabytes?  We assume that life is organic, and only organic, because that's the only life we can see and touch and test, and it gives us an organic-centric view of the universe.  Hubris alone tells us that life must be like us, meaning, organic, but when we look past our bias, we have to admit that there are other possible forms of life.  In an infinite universe, having only one form of life would be surprising.

[BZRKR]

This isn't hard at all! "Bug Hunter" is a badge. Report Everything!