Here I will explain a method to help players when they post a Technical or Bug post on the forums. (Mainly PC)
Firstly I will explain the difference between Tech and Bug forums:
Technical forums are for issues relating to player’s setups that has little or nothing to do with the game/EA; loosely speaking such issues may be resolved by the aid of the community, volunteers, staff but it may also lead to the player contacting the support of other companies like a driver issue with a mouse for example.
As such it’s important to know your limits in how far you can help.
Bug forums are for issues that can’t be solved by players changing settings or deleting files, but since players are the ones who post they may not always have an issue that isn’t fixable.
This is also true for Tech forums which may require posts to be moved.
Information
Now with any issue it’s important to gain information, this can take many shapes and come from different places.
You can use What the Player posts, Dxdiag, Game crash codes, and Event viewer to find information; take the time to read this information on your own system to better understand it.
-Player posts:
Player posts generally provide the basic info you need for the issue but may also be lacking in detail, it is at this point you request more info from the player.
-Dxdiag:
Dxdiag holds a lot of system information like OS version, driver versions, and many more; as you read through the Dxdiag you can learn a great deal of information, even at the bottom is a small amount of info that Event viewer provides if you know what to look for.
-Game crash codes:
When a game or software app crashes they may occasionally post a crash code which can be used to identify issues, you can either google them for a solution or ask EA staff if they have any information.
BSOD -Blue Screen Of Death- codes can also be googled to find more information and solutions but are usually not related to EA.
-Event Viewer:
Event viewer is a windows system logging app that can provide an error code; even if the game does not provide one, these error codes have time stamps and ID that can be googled for solutions. (some error codes are posted in this viewer even tho nothing has crashed)
Note: Do not suggest installing any “Fix all” software apps as they can be malicious and rarely work at all.
With the information addressed it’s all a matter of context as to how you approach this:
- If it’s crash related then look at Game crash codes or Event viewer codes.
- If it’s a performance issue then look at Dxdiag for outdated GPU drivers (if the driver is up to date then maybe it requires the driver to be reinstalled.) Or Look into some settings that may be the issue.
Once you have attempted some fixes you may or may not have found a solution, if you have not found a solution, depending on the context you can:
- Suggest contacting the support of an external related driver, app or device.
- Asking the support of another volunteer / staff.
- Move the post to bug reports if not already and the issue is mainly the EA game/app.
- Forward the post to escalations if account, payment or any other EA internal related issues.
This is only a basic guide to helping out, its down to you how you make it your own.
"The code is more like guidelines than actual rules" -- Capt. Hector Barbossa
