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[Kyle Polulak]

Greetings MechWarriors,

In order to improve communication from players to the Quality Assurance team, we would like to offer you all a few bug reporting pointers to help you get us the details we need to pin down the issues you are encountering.

When reporting a bug, please try to include the following details:

Bug Location: This serves to tell us whether the bug only affects specific features.

• Examples include: Specific Maps, Game Modes, Mechs, Weapons, etc..., If the bug appears in all possible situations, you can identify the bug as "Global"

Steps to Reproduce: This serves as a guide for QA to be able to reproduce the bug.

• Try to go point by point with each action taken, to the best of your recollection or understanding.

Reproduction Rate: This helps tell our QA team how many times they might have to attempt the issue before seeing it, and can often (but not always) serve to indicate how accurate the steps to reproduce are. Bugs which occur once only indicate a server or user side glitch which has since passed.

• This is usually a fraction or a percentage, e.g. 70% or 7 out of 10 attempts.

Bug Evidence: This is to help point out the issue in a visual manner for our QA team to identify it.

• This is usually a screencapture or videocapture.

Bug Description: Once the other details are in, it is much easier to describe the issue in a qualitative manner. A quick paragraph describing the issue can help us understand the bug you have encountered and in what ways it has affected your ability to play and enjoy the game.

• For sanity, please try to keep this to 1 (max 2) paragraphs, unless the issue is very complex and requiring more description.

Bug Thread Title: This can tell our team at a glance the essence of the issue as they review the Patch Feedback forums. It is best to write this once all other details are in.

• Please be specific to the issue, for example: "Crash when loading Mech Lab with toaster plugged into USB" is a far better title than "HELP PGI I HAZ BUG!"

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Do:

• Keep your sentences simple: Avoid confusing run-on sentences by going point-by-point.
  
• Try to reproduce a bug before reporting it. It is not uncommon for small one-off glitches to appear on either the server-side or player-side.
  
• Provide details of your hardware configuration and system settings if the bug appears to be specific to you.

Don't:

• Combine multiple bugs into one report.
  
• Open duplicate threads on the same bug.
  
• Be vague in your description of the issue, especially if you do not have evidence of the issue in picture or video format.
  
• Be like QA Pigeon.

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To further assist, here is an example of an issue the QA team dealt with in past:
Title: Some of the Xmas Lights have partial or no signature when viewed in Thermal Vision
Description: In-game, if the player enters a match with Xmas Lights equipped on their Battlemech, it can be seen that some of the Xmas Lights have partial or no heat signature when viewed in Thermal Vision.
Location: Cockpit
Reproduction Rate: 100%
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch a game in any level with Xmas Lights equipped on Battlemech.
2. Enter Thermal Vision mode.
3. Observe the heat signature of the Xmas Lights.
4. Notice some of the Xmas lights have no heat signature when on.

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And here is a blank version of the bug template for your copy-pasta use.
Title:
Description:
Location:
Reproduction Rate:
Steps to Reproduce:

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Thank you again for your assistance in helping us improve the quality of MechWarrior Online.