The incredibly limited input and response from staff, especially staff that can actually fix a problem, is alarming at best. Hours, then days, then weeks go by without staff responding. has repeatedly assured the user base that this is a highly frequented forum as far as staff is concerned, but how is that even possible? Either staff isn't reading, or they don't care enough to do anything about the issues. I'd prefer the former over the latter, but don't have much confidence left.

Yeah, I've been pestering staff about several things (armory hovers and various forum issues, especially) for literally months. It gets really tiring and I sometimes wonder why I'm wasting my time.

Unfortunately it does seem like a big chunk of the bugs reported is considered "low impact" or something along those lines, thus "falling under the radar" more often than not.

I'd even say that most of the (few?) things that get done seem to be a result of the MMs organization in compiling the bugs and making reports on whatever internal system staff uses the most. Instead of just modding and organizing topics / offering preliminar help steps, they now have to be this "bridge", which certainly makes us think the programmers don't check that area as often as we would like :/ (Mind you, I admire their effort and I know they will happily do it; that's besides my point.)

...and then, of course, as a result of these two factors, things take much longer to be addressed properly. As much as we can understand staff has limited resources and is involved with different projects, it is definitely frustrating.

You've got to understand that these people are running a website. They're constantly working on things from a day to day basis. They're working on bugs, creating events, coding the site, moderating the forums, replying to tickets, making new items and wearables, etc. There's a lot that goes into these things, especially at this time of the year when there's a lot of events going on back to back. Sometimes they don't have the time to fix things in a timely manner. Sometimes they aren't able to work on fixing something because they're already working on fixing too many other things. Give the people a break. I'm sure they're doing their best.

Those should, in theory, be entirely different people working on those things. Programmers do the coding; admins and minimods deal with moderation and tickets; and artists do all the art. That's not really a good explanation for why these bugs go unfixed for months at a time.

I'm aware that they work on different things but it ends up being a group effort in the end. I went to school for computers and networking so I can understand the pressure and strain on them to get things done. And as said, some of these reports and problems are considered low priority. Maybe they have more important things to worry about on the site. Plus there's only so many people who can work on the stuff. I mean they have lives too, and I'm sure jobs and perhaps schooling to care about. Family and friends to spend time with. Subeta isn't the center of their world. Maybe they should look into hiring some more people.

The Luminaire layout is a good example of this - it was broken for at least three weeks, with people reporting it on the forums nearly every day. And a regular user figured out that it was a simple fix, and made a workaround. But it still took a programmer three weeks to respond and fix the damned thing.

I think the problem here really is the staff don't seem to play the site, unless something's changed in the recent past (I know some do play aspects of the site, but do any staffers actually collect wearables/pets/do quests/earn sP/play games/collect items or achievements/etc?) so they're making judgement calls on what is "low priority" and what's "high priority".

While I get that "The site is lagging/not allowing users to log in/images aren't showing up/502s/weird line errors" are obviously highest priority regardless since they obviously effect everyone, I feel like there's an issue with what's "meh I'll fix that whenevers" and "I should probably do that like now" when it comes to users verses staff.

Like achievements not exactly counting correctly, group pings not working, pet page lag, or glitchy games might not seem like a big deal-- but those are 100% things people play the site for, and give the site money to enjoy. If they don't work, why even be here? Those are actually very big bug issues that need to be resolved because if they don't work people leave-- and if no one's here, it really doesn't matter if the site is running correctly or not because no one's here to use it.

So, I don't necessarily think that staff ignore that forum, or don't fix anything-- I feel like they don't really know how important something is sometimes, and consider them to be low priority when in all actuality they're driving previously active/happy users away.

(edit2add: some of those are issues I just made up and/or have been fixed previously, I just needed a few examples of things that took a very long time to get fixed and caused a great deal of user frustration.)

Yeah, see, I think there surely is an explanation as to why things are how they are, and that most certainly touches on "low priority" and "not checking reports directly often enough".

The thing is, when combined, those factors become highly concerning, because, besides potentially overlooking reports, it also implies some red icons might not be logging on the site often enough to be able to properly identify what are low impact bugs and what aren't. The ping system was utterly broken for a long while because group pings were possibly considered low impact needs, or, at best, were overlooked :/ And then it was just a matter of a few minutes for them to get (mostly) fixed, what happened as soon as a heated feedback topic got made.

Bottom line, minor bugs can affect daily gaming a lot, but that's something not easily perceivable by someone who might not be in close touch with the game mechanics.

Kind of an unrelated note, but this is a paid job for the programmers (I'm fairly certain it's their main job, if not the only one?) and there are many staffers who depend on Subeta's success to put food on their tables, so while I can understand it's not the main purpose of their lives, it's still fairly important on their priorities scale. And it's important to us too, or we wouldn't be here, of course.

[edit] I most certainly wish we had more programmers, but there seem to be big difficulties in finding, hiring and keeping new people, who would also have a learning curve when it comes to the site's (still) messy backend code :/

[edit] Probably a repetitive edit, but adding another one to say that it's important to check bugs directly on the forums to notice how many people are complaining about something, how vehemently they are doing so and for how long they have been at it, among other reasons. Those could offer good starting points when it comes to setting priorities for fixes.

I don't get why it keeps being brought up on every single one of these topics that the staff also have a life outside subeta. Everyone has a life outside their job, which last time checked does not mean that you can just skip doing parts of your job. No one is saying this fixing the site should happen in their spare time. Fixing the site and keeping it working is a programmers job.

Like already mentioned: there is something wrong with prioritizing. The group ping was considered a low priority and it took months to be fixed. Do you know when someone realized it was about fucking time to fix it? When a cw artist generating loads of money posted that she couldn't ping her group, thus not release items, thus not generate money for the site. Then it was suddenly fixed really fast. It took how many months to realize that not being able to ping a group was actually a bother? It shows how much out of touch staff are sometimes.

The achievement system is still not fixed entirely after how many months now? The wardrobe is still not finished after how many months now? The list of bugs keeps getting longer :(

I'm still running that topic with much needed changes to the site and 63 are still waiting to be fixed vs 13 fixed. (If anyone wants to pop by: there you go, if the topic dies we are back to square 1)

Armory hovers were completely broken for a solid month before Keith popped in to say "all fixed!" and left it at that. Mods were still missing, which are a hugely important piece of information.

Over a month later, he popped back in to say it had been (finally) fixed, and left again. Mods and weapon names are still missing a week later, and it doesn't appear that anything is being done to address this.

I don't think this is a matter of programmers being too busy. This could have all been addressed from the start if they had bothered to bug test the new hovers, but it doesn't appear that they ever did, even after several supposed fixes.

This is the problem I have with how bugs are handled, and it's definitely not an isolated case. Bug testing and follow-up are super important, and it's an area that Subeta is seriously slacking.

I mean we just had a huge feedback thread about this a few months ago. Several long-term issues were addressed, but several more were glossed over and Subeta has already fallen back into old habits. We shouldn't have to raise a huge fuss to get things taken care of.

There was also a fantastic suggestion thread a few weeks ago that basically compiled a huge list of previously reported (and un-addressed) issues. A couple things were fixed there, but staff were only active there for a few days before they apparently disappeared again. I don't know if that thread is still being watched or not, but it doesn't look like it is.

Haha oh god that was like et leash alerts for when they expired, which took ohh... forever to actually get fixed. They were "fixed" about 5 times, then ignored (twice!) for long enough that to bump the bug board would have been a necro.

It wasn't fixed until I literally got 50+ events for a leashing error that it was finally even acknowledged-- and that's something people pay moeny for, at that.

Trust me I'm totally in agreement that not only is there a prioritizing issue here, but there's also a "fixed for realsies" issue to (it feels like sometimes they just type fixed even though nothing was done) (I doubt that's really what happened, because databases are a fickle mistress and coding can be even worse, but sometimes I've sat here and wondered... did you even try?)

I feel like it would be really nice if the Problems and Bugs board had like.. a 1 to 5 scale for topics, and I wonder if that's something that's dooable and if that'd be helpful to the programmers? 1 being "hey I'm experiencing this but it's not really that big of a deal" and 5 being "I swear to god I'm so frustrated I could strangle a baby fix this or I'm so done here" (I imagine a 5 rating would, should, require a post be made before it's accepted).

It could be not automatic (perhaps once it's verified as a problem by the MMs/a staffer, it'd be activated) or automatic and basically would allow users to chose 1 to 5 stars on how extremely important this is to their gaming experience. Not everyone posts on those boards, sometimes it's just like "oh well its' been brought up already now I just have to wait" and sometimes it feels like there's literally 1 or 2 users refusing to let the board kept swept away (been there done that, circa pet leashes) when in reality there might be 5 dozen others not posting.

It could be helpful if there was a rating system and you could see the board is made and you could simply give the problem a 5 star/make your statement and in the end of the day it might give staff a better idea of what we the users find extremely important when they might have assumed it wasn't that big of a deal.

ie: think of all the lost revenue and/or user's dedication the site lost over the huge impact group pings not working made on the CW market. I know I personally (and I only buy for my pet's TCs, not actual wear usage) spent about $40+ less a month on subeta during the period because I was getting no group pings to selling boards. I imagine a lot of people spent a lot less, too.

Even if a problem is considered to be a minor one, I would rather have a staff say something like: "Thanks for bringing _____ to our attention. It's a bit of a smaller problem compared to ____ that we have on our plate, but we'll put it on our list." than nothing at all.

As more minor issues pile up, they become major issues when there are so many. Fixing a problem right away is so much easier than fixing it later, and bug-checking things before release is easier than having to go back and fix them.

I do think that what we as users find important and what the staff find important to fix are different and it can be hard to understand the other's perspective. That being said, fixing bugs and such is someone's job and should be a priority.

Oh my, I don't even want to think about actual bug ironing during beta test phases / prior to release, that's another big frustration point there.

It's true that many people don't post after they see a bug reported, though :c I like the idea of a rating, but who would do the rating is what concerns me. Some people could be inclined to always rate their bug reports 5 because it bugs them a lot (but maybe it's not that big of an issue overall) or idk, ask friends to go rate it 5 just because. Unless it needed MM's approval or was MM's duty, but even then people could try to argue their decisions and idk x_X I feel like it might put even more stress on them and they already have one of the toughest areas to deal with, given all the user frustration around there.

...doesn't mean I have any better idea, though ._.

Totally agree bug "fixes" needed a bit of a followup / double checking too. It often takes many tries for things to work, so if we have to wait months between the attempts... doesn't quite work out.

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not going to post any reasons or excuses. It won't help...even if there are good and valid ones. What I am going to say is that there is a way each of you can help. One of the most frustrating parts of the MMs job is that a lot of reports don't really tell us what is going on. So with that in mind here are some ways to help us.

[b

TITLES ARE IMPORTANT[/b]]

Please, in order to keep everything in order and so that the staff and minimods know what your issue is, do NOT name your thread with vague titles such as "OMG IT DOESN'T WORK ASDADKSG." Instead please choose a descriptive name like "Error when moving item from inventory". Also, please do not use symbols in your error report as we use these in organizing and reporting and it may cause your board to be overlooked!

[b

CONTENT IS IMPORTANT[/b]]

The body of your OP is just as vital. If you are having trouble with a feature or item or game, list as much information as you can. Tell us what browser and OS (operating system) you are using, how long it has been going on, what error if any you receive, the url address where you received the error, what steps you have taken to resolve the issue...these are things we may have to ask you for anyway so BEAT US TO IT!

[b

TICKET VS. FORUM THREAD[/b]]

Some people may ask, how do I know if it is a ticket issue or if I should post it on the forums? If it is something that may just be affecting you like you have not received your CS purchase yet (and it has been 24 hours), that is a ticket issue. If it is something that is more of an all user issue like the wardrobe is not working, that is for the P&B Forum! If you are unsure, Reya and I can help you decide if you comment us!

[b

CHECKING FOR CURRENT THREADS[/b]]

I hate having to lock your boards when they are duplicate. However, duplicate topics push down all the other errors that are being reported and that can lead to us missing important error threads! So please, scan the first page or two or even do a google search for any keywords and then add subeta to the search. Also be sure to check the Known Errors forum. If you see nothing, or if the search pulls up nothing, then feel free to make a new topic. Remember the necroing rules DOES NOT APPLY in P&B, so feel free to add to a topic no matter how old it is or when the last post was!

[b

STAY CALM[/b]]

This goes for any OP or any other user that posts on the thread. Threats and angry words do NOT speed up the process. It really does nothing other than stress the MMs and UAs out. We have a process that we have to go through and the error will get looked at as soon as possible.

[b

CHAT IS BAD[/b]]

In the P&B Forum, we try and help users to fix a problem. If there is a lot of filler chat and repeated spammy "OMG ME TOO!!!" messages, then sometimes it is hard for programmers to find the information they need to fix things. We promise that we will see something, and if we happen to miss it after a while see below! Please do not needlessly bump a topic or chat about how this error has ruined your experience. We understand and sympathize but the chat belongs elsewhere and not on the P&B Forum.

[b

REMIND US[/b]]

Sometimes people forget. To err is human and really we do not mind a reminder every once in a while. Now, we do not mean everyday, but if a long time has gone by with no answer, feel free to ping Reya or me! Vice versa, if your issue has been resolved, share your great news with us so we can rejoice--then lock and move your board to the resolved subforum!

[b

DO NOT COMBINE ERRORS[/b]]

Please do not make a thread with multiple error reports unless you are directed to by a UA or MM. If you are following the first rule, then you cannot even do this since a good title has a description of the error! It is easier for programmers to go through and work on them individually and if you have 10,000 errors in one report then it is really difficult to close up anything. Now, do not confuse this with multiple "versions" of the same report. If you are getting too many events from both the Resort and from Inn, that is the same error!

[b

TRY THE BASICS[/b]]

Before you report something, check out the troubleshooting boards and the basic workarounds that may solve your problem. Clear your cache and cookies, hard refresh, restart your browser/computer. Sometimes your computer gets tired and needs a good cleaning. If you are getting weird ads (pop-ups for anyone of any ads for gold accounts) this may be a sign of a virus. Please run your antivirus software first!

[b

DO NOT POST DANGEROUS OR EXPLOITABLE BUGS[/b]]

Please make a ticket if you have found an error that can be used to duplicate items, delete user information or something dangerous, PLEASE do not post them there. If you do accidentally post one, either file a ticket and let them know to remove the board or if you know Reya or I are online, comment us and we can take care of it immediately.

[b

DO NOT PING STAFF[/b]]

Please do not ping staff to a thread unless you are responding to their questions. They already get constant pings from our report system and every time they respond to pings on boards, that is less time that they can help you! You are more than welcome to ping Reya and I with questions, but please do not ping us just to ask if this has been looked into yet. Good things to ping the MMs for include: reporting critical but non-exploitable bugs, asking if there are workarounds, updating us on long standing errors, reminding us that an error still is happening (see "remind us" above), and to lock or move topics.

If staff doesn't want to be pinged then they should make a much larger effort to be involved without users having to flag them down. It does not take long to look through the minimal number of boards made in the forum daily. It also seems like the reports made by you and hold as much importance to staff as the users, since it is common to see posts where one or the other of you guys will say you made a report to the programmers and then nothing is done on their end to fix it or follow up.

I am just trying to help both sides out.

I realize that and I'm not trying to come down on you or . There's only so much you guys can do and every bit of that is appreciated, especially since it is 99% of the communication users receive in that forum.

I know :) and believe me I know how frustrating it can get too! I am not saying that there doesn't need to be change. But especially with pinging, that just slowly chips away at the time they do have to work on bugs. I know around holidays it is especially hard for the programmers because they not only have to code the new stuff and make sure it works but they have to continue to work on the stuff that doesn't work.

/guilty of having pinged Reya the other day just for a thanks n_n; haha

I have one tiiny question when it comes to this though

I definitely got the gist of the message here (pointless chat is bad and floods important information!), but this sentence reminds me of what said a bit earlier in this thread. On the Suggestions subforum, we're somewhat encouraged to post even if it's just to say "Support!", just so staff can see how much support that particular idea got. I mean, I've heard Keith mention something along the lines of 'big threads full of support are good indicators of the fact that people really want a thing'. Which is logical and something I surely agree!

Applying this idea to P&B, maybe it's useful / advisable to have people post when they're experiencing a bug, even if it's just to say "me too"? Maybe it would even be advisable if they would add a little blurb about how it makes them want to throw their computer across the window? xD I don't mean for them to start chatting about it, but maybe big threads full of "this makes me so frustrated" would draw staff's attention to the fact that it might be, indeed, a priority bug / more widespread than they might have originally thought. Idk, I know I normally post "I'm having this too" and I'm not sure if that qualifies as flooding important information or if it's still useful for staff somehow. :(