Playtesting

Supernorn · March 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">not a "i want to be a playtester" thread</div> Never being a playtester, i always had the urge to be one.
I used to think it would be really cool, because i would be able to play the game beforehand...But it isnt like that..You have to search for bugs, click on things to see if they break...and see if things work..This of course, could be great fun at times, but i'm guessing it gets pretty tedious at times too.. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

So big shout out to all those that playtest.
but what exactly do you do? see how many offense towers you can build before you crash the server? that kind of stuff?

So im curious...kill me. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

ubermensch · March 2003

...i hate to say this but i think you need to get some real life friends

/flame mode off

Shockeh · March 2003

/me points at the Eve beta test.

Now, THAT goes from fun to tedious regularily.

Jower · March 2003

I'd wanna know to...
Maybe they see how many turrets they can stack on top of each other before they start shooting eachother ?
hehe
Or how many bile bombs you have to launch at the same time to crash a server

Gadzuko · March 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kann_nix @ Mar 12 2003, 02:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> ...i hate to say this but i think you need to get some real life friends

/flame mode off  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Well, that was pointless and insulting, thanks.

As for the topic, from what I've heard, most of playtesting is "Hey, I've got this crazy idea, let's see if it could happen" ad infinitum at this point (although with 1.1 there are also balance issues to be worked out, so *shrug*). Initial playtesting for game balance and whatnot is more interesting.

ShuflY · March 2003

While a good portion of the time would be spent looking for bugs and such, the main goal of playtesting a game like Natural Selection would be to balance the game. There is no way the development team could discover on their own all the different ways their game could be played, so by getting testers to play the hell out of it, you will eventually find what strats are too powerful so they can change the game to make such strats less overpowering.

Nemesis_Zero · March 2003

NS playtests are mainly gameplay playtests. This means that, while we search for bugs, our main objective is identifying balance issues, giving feedback on controls, interface, or feeling of the game, and being a general stress-group for the mechanics ('How many people chose which upgrades?' 'How many people does it take to defend a marine outpost against how many aliens?' 'How much does it affect gameplay when we increase the LMG spread by x?').

This means that the NS playtest can be a rather entertaining experience, with not too much 'gamebreaking' between the actual fun.

BTW, should anyone feel like telling us we did a lousy job, I'd like to point at the first playtest build, where shotguns (which fired slugs at the time) were on par with railguns, Fade Acid was MG fire, and Gorgespit (you read right) terrorized whole bases.

Jower · March 2003

So you mean they couldent figure out that acid aint supposed to be bullets by themself ?

Hida_Tsuzua · March 2003

Playtesting usually involves playing a version of the game that Flayra sends out as if it was regular NS (to the best of our abilities because some patches make NS completely unplayable such as when marines didn't spawn). We discuss all parts of the game in-depth from the good (immersive gameplay!), the bad (extremely unbalanced siege cannons, grenade launchers, nukes, leap, buildings, invisable acid rocket mines, etc), and the eye-bursting ugly (what do you mean all the Kharaa models have been replaced with nude MonsE models?!?!). Then we continue playing that patch testing out possible problems (is the command mode really bugged? how fast can we lag the server to death? do playing Tanith's readyroom music backwoods really summon Satan?). Flayra and whatever army of monkeys he uses then sends us a new patch and the process repeats itself.

Jower · March 2003

Of course Tanith's readyroom dosent summon satan when played backwards !
It's the easterbunny !

Supernorn · March 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kann_nix @ Mar 12 2003, 07:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> ...i hate to say this but i think you need to get some real life friends

/flame mode off  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
trust me when i say you wouldnt be one of them.
your constant bashing is irritating and childish.

back on topic:

I personally thought the 1.0 playtesting went quite well and you did a good job overall.
Of course, i trust 1.1 playtesting will be alot more thorough for 1.1 and of course, alot more fun <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Necro · March 2003

to playtest you REALLY have to love it, take cs for example, if you don't really love it, you won't be a good playtester because you will play less and less, take me for example i play ns every day, infact today we had 2 matches (plus about 4 hours of pubbing) ;D

Fantasmo · March 2003

All <i>I</i> gotta say is.

<b>I want to be a playtester</b>.

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Jower · March 2003

I acctually only play NS sometimes cause this stupid forum is taking all my time...
I played it alot more before I found this

Necro · March 2003

i should add that playtesting requires you to have lots and LOTS of free time and a good understanding of work-in-progress, and of course the creative ideas (eg. trying something that no one would normally do (if they played properly) but you try just so you can stop a nasty exploit)

Comprox · March 2003

One thing about playtesting is the learning curve also. While we delivered a fairly decent game after our first try, the whole testing team has quickly learned our mistakes, and we already have Grendel whipping our scrawny little behinds, err, re-forming our testing methods to provide better feedback, and in result, a better game.

I think this does mean more hours of trying to stack OC's until you crash the server <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>

Supernorn · March 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Comprox @ Mar 12 2003, 10:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think this does mean more hours of trying to stack OC's until you crash the server <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
No stacking in 1.1 remember <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

QuantumSlip · March 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (supernorn2000 @ Mar 12 2003, 04:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Comprox @ Mar 12 2003, 10:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I think this does mean more hours of trying to stack OC's until you crash the server <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
No stacking in 1.1 remember <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
err i think thats only for marines, for the kharaa its part of their stategy

Comprox · March 2003

No stacking of marine buildings, as far as I know, alien stacking is staying in... but, don't quote me on that

Supernorn · March 2003

oh yeah...silly me <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
i just wish some mapper would use that "no stacking" HL texture in the marine spawn of their map...that would make me laugh.

Fam · March 2003

Me and Greedo did the Offence Chamber stacking test. We got to about 140 each before the server fell over. Mine were in a giant pyramid in ns_basts refinery, and Greedo was busy filling every inch of the airlock area up.

I pity that marine who flew in...

.. although it was probably Moleculor. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>

Supernorn · March 2003

lol...did you forget to take screen-shots?
i would of liked to see it <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

How many mines can you lay before the server goes down again? i forget...about 100 isnt it?

Fam · March 2003

My computer crashed and I lost them all.

I did find this on my webserver though, this is my contribution to the playtests (I found rather a few nasty exploits (including the precursor to the stopcommandermode exploit, which was much, much worse)) might be worth a chuckle:

<img src='http://www.box7.co.uk/ns/eheh.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>

DY357LX · March 2003

I'm amazed no-one has asked when 1.1 playtesting begins.

Supernorn · March 2003

had trouble finding what was wrong in the pic, is it the fact that the onos moves arent enabled? or that the onos is detatched from the screen slighty...my guess is both <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Fam · March 2003

As yourself this:

Since when have Onos' had 70 health, 10 armor, and 20 different weapons? ;D

Supernorn · March 2003

since he got shot at by a turret farm and had to make a hasty retreat? <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
lol...that one was a bit less obvious, but yeah, i knew it was something to do with the weapons... <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

TheHornet · March 2003

HAHA! Sounds like you playtesters had alot of fun back in the day.

coil · March 2003

I remember two particularly unpleasant playtest experiences:

1) painstakingly setting up about 30 chambers in the refinery hive, and 9 siege turrets as well, in an attempt to quantify the relationship between server lag and siege turrets.

2) Our first try of a new, much slower resource system, when it was found that destroying the aliens' initial node was (a) very easy and (b) absolutely crippling to alien resource accumulation. 3 games in a row, the marines rushed our node and destroyed it, even after we had asked them for the sake of being able to *play* to not destroy it.

Two particularly enjoyable experiences:

1) Back when the Hera landing pad was accessable through the airlock door in the marine spawn, we had a 45-minute dogfight between jetpacks and lerks.

2) 2 Onos and 4 skulks on Hera, all cloaked, waiting behind the blast door between Reception and Archiving as a team of clueless marines welded it open from the other side.

Necro was quite right, though - playtesting takes a TON of time. I don't have time for it right now, in fact; school is pulling me away too often to be a reliable playtester and give Grendel the feedback expected of us. ):

Supernorn · March 2003

will the hera landing pad be accessable in 1.1? i hear 1.1 will be less laggy after all <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
But yeah, them Jetpack/lerk dogfights do rock <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'> More fun with lerk v lerk though <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'> Flying towards each other firing away with the spikes, and no-body gets hurt <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Cronos · March 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>2) Our first try of a new, much slower resource system, when it was found that destroying the aliens' initial node was (a) very easy and (b) absolutely crippling to alien resource accumulation. 3 games in a row, the marines rushed our node and destroyed it, even after we had asked them for the sake of being able to *play* to not destroy it.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Actually, the marines can still do that, rush the node and the gorge has to wait an eternity just to rebuild that one node <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>

Playtesting

Comments