5 What's a bug? Well, if a game program core-dumps under normal
6 conditions, that's definitely a bug. If a player can manufacture
7 game items (circumventing the intended game semantics) then
10 If you don't agree about an existing semantic, or you don't like
11 the format of a particular command output, that's NOT a bug!
13 If you do have a bug to report, I will only pay attention if
14 I have a chance of fixing it. Bug reports which vaguely
15 describe behavior, e.g., "Sometimes when I run the ship
16 command, it gives me funny output" will be ignored! Bug
17 reports should include game output, stack traces if possible
18 (assuming a core dump is produced), and the major, minor, and
19 patch level of the version you're running.
21 Once you find a bug, try and reproduce it. If you can't,
22 then say so. If you can, say that too. If you can't reproduce
23 it, chances are pretty good that I can't either.
25 If you have a debugger, try running the offending game
26 section under your debugger -- preferably gdb -- and try
27 and locate the area of code responsible.
29 If you can fix the bug and verify the fix, then you can bet
30 that I'll be much more interested in your bug report. Response
31 time is likely to be greater too!
35 If you want to get into a discussion of game semantics, the
36 best place to do that is rec.games.empire, or your favorite
37 empire-hackers mailing list. Don't send me a bug report
40 Naturally, I hope you don't find any bugs. If you do,
41 go through the above steps, and mail the resulting output
42 to us -- wolfpack@wolfpackempire.com