is it just me, or have beta testers become redundant?? now i dont mean to cause offence, but when i read on the main dink page:
"... Stone of Balance Patch 11a..."
im assuming that this means that there have been 11 patched to the released version of SOB. now, i ask, what is the point of having beta testers, if you're still going to have to release a slew of patches to bugs which the general public have found??
Ideally, the beta testers would find 90-99 % of bugs, and at most three patched would be released after the initial public release. but i can see where this trend is comming from. after all, micro$oft reported over 2000 "undocumented features" (bugs) in windows98... and this is what you're basing your work, your job, and (to some extent,) your life around!!
i ask that authors AND beta testers try to fix as many bugs before the release, ans try to make this a bit more professional.
DISCLAIMER:
i really dont mean ANY offence to the author of SOB, really...ok?? ;)
I think it is near to impossible to 100% beta-test the game.
There may be several bug "sorts":
- script bugs that may be (and should be) pinned down by a good betatester
- hardness errors - the same
- computer-dependent ones: you and your betatester(s) may never see that particular bug, because of hardware differences, esp. video cards. You have everything nice and running - and suddenly the game craches on someone, and you have to look for a way to make your PC crash the same way and then fix that...
SOB version 1.00 was playable. But it being a big dmod - almost 6 dmods in one, I don't think it is possible to nail every bug with a couple of beta testers.
My two beta testers did an excellent job. I also pushed them to finish as I wanted to release the thing back in 2000 (I'd started the DMOD in March and it was Decemeber... original I wanted it out before the end of Nov but even that did not work.)
Short of having a team of beta testers (about 10 or so on an epic I don't think you can get the DMOD bug free - if you do more power to you!)
Then again... why both releasing patches well over a year after the DMOD's release? Well if someone reports a bug I try (eventually) to fix it. Or let the player know what they have to do to solve their problem. Like DethLord thought the Bag of Invisibility was a bug - it wasn't, but the walkthru I wrote was wrong. I believe Patch 11a has the correct version of the walkthru. If you're interested in the history of SOB's bugs, check out the SOB website.
There, enough of my ranting.
Yeah, i totally agree that once you have found bugs, you should release a bugfix ASAP...
maybe we could organize a list of beta testers who WILL test games. how about a system, where everyone (who wants to test) puts their name down. the list of names are supplied to developers. once a tester is testing a dmod (supplies by the developers), their name gets removed from the list.
of course, each developer would have a share of the testers, to stop one group geting all the testers.... also, there ould be a points system. one point for every bug reported by the tester. Developers could be encouraged to reward their best testers somehow...
something like the above would be really powerfull combined with something like sourceforge's bug tracking system, where the project developers have the ability to assign themselfs a particular bug, and they see it through till its finished...
well, that MY second rant today!! *phew*!!
well, i must say, i hope some of these ideas are implmented, instead of some of the (in my opinion) worse ideas of redinks for the community in the future. (rating reveiws?? what ARE you thinking?? THAT doesn't sound like the way to a fair and honest reveiw...)
: maybe we could organize a list of beta testers who WILL test games. how about a system, where everyone (who wants to test) puts their name down. the list of names are supplied to developers. once a tester is testing a dmod (supplies by the developers), their name gets removed from the list.
Hah, the Dink Network used to have a system just like that (except for that last bit you noted - the names stayed). It didn't work out very well; developers would choose close Dink friends to test or post a message on the board asking for testers, despite the nifty Beta Testers list (with a huge gob of people too). So it got canned with DN Generation 6, I believe.
yeah well, people (the developers) need a gfood solid foundation of testers, so we can produce less buggy scripts...
then again, here are about 3-4000 win32 users on sourceforge.net... that'll do it..
that way, we dont spoil the suprise on the dink network...