On AG 2, to report a bug you have to either leave a comment on the game or the author's profile. Maybe on AG 3, there could be a seperate comment wall for reporting bugs so it's easier for the developer to see problems and not have to read through all the ..... lol ..... good ..... meh ..... very dumb etc. There wouldn't be as much AP so people wouldn't spam that too, unless the comment was helpful and the mods could give a merit for that?
Sounds like a very good idea, as I get annoyed by all the spam in the comments when trying to find a legit comment. However, as with most suggestions that take away points, I have a concern that people will begin spamming up the forums even more than the already do. Or, are you saying keep the comments but have another place to post directly to the game maker?
Giving the users a way to directly send feedback to the gamedev would be important, as long as it doesn't get abused where people start spamming them for help or asking advice, etc., basically sending messages that are not bug reports.
The balance we need to find is one where users can provide helpful information to the gamedev, but not make the bug report form full of questions like "which browser were you using, what operating system are you on, what version of Flash do you use", and make it overly complex, or people will be less likely to even file a bug.
Submitted too soon ... There are ways that we can get some of that information from the user's browser without needing them to select it, or maybe pre-select it for them so they can just type in a quick message about which level they were on, or what they did to find the bug, and say whether or not they can repeat it...
Most, if not the majority of game developers aren't much in the way of interacting, though. I mean, there are chances in which you can find a developer receiving feedback and actually commenting back to the user that gave it. For instance, I replied to a game that just came out at least 12 minutes ago (back then), and the developer actually said "thanks, I'll keep that in mind" or something like that.
Maybe the separate tabs for submitting reports would make things better, but does the team have contact info in which they could notify the developer saying "hey, come take a look at this there's something 'bugging' the players"? Now, it's obvious they don't want to sift through comments to find one bug report, but if things are more organized and separated, they would be more willing to look for bug reports.
I'm also sure that some developers, like CrazyMonkeyGames, have multiple profiles on different sites for submitting their games. We can't be certain that they will frequently check the AG3 side for feedback. This extra tab idea is great, mind you, but is it possible that the staff would take a compiled list of reports and give it to the developer via e-mail? Or do you already do this?
