NS2 Beta Testing
the_x5
the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Constellation Members and Playtesters Invited?</div>Dear Natural-Selection Community:
Before getting started, let me say that this is quite early I know, DO NOT TELL ME THAT!
However, I think it will become an important discussion later and I'd like not to have it come too late to influence good decision making. I'm curious to know what the community thinks, not any one person.
I would hope the NS2 development team would decide to beta test in some fashion to a great extent before going public with the game. One of the reasons Halo and WoW were so successful is that they did a very large beta test. (had a lot of testers giving ons of great feedback to get the game to "feel" great) Even something as simple as the Halo 2 plasma sword was animated and tweaked from playtesting feedback to give it that satisfying lunge attack.
If you are on the development team you should focus on MAKING the game first, of course.
But for the rest of us... I have an idea to start work on implementing a dedicated I&S like feedback system NOW. Let the development team develop, but we can start thinking about some other things now. And even go as far as deciding who to allow to beta test phase III. <ul><li>My idea is to allow both old constellation members AND playtesters from the original Natural-Selection mod to beta test. </li><li>My other idea is to have a well organized system for bug reporting, balance feedback, and other feedback. Such a system takes time to set up, so why not start now?</li></ul>Now, I would appreciate some USEFUL feedback in the rest of this thread/topic on my idea. And this time let's actually get something done and on time (unlike Valve) if we are going to do something.
thank you,
<!--coloro:#CC0000--><span style="color:#CC0000"><!--/coloro--><b>x5</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Before getting started, let me say that this is quite early I know, DO NOT TELL ME THAT!
However, I think it will become an important discussion later and I'd like not to have it come too late to influence good decision making. I'm curious to know what the community thinks, not any one person.
I would hope the NS2 development team would decide to beta test in some fashion to a great extent before going public with the game. One of the reasons Halo and WoW were so successful is that they did a very large beta test. (had a lot of testers giving ons of great feedback to get the game to "feel" great) Even something as simple as the Halo 2 plasma sword was animated and tweaked from playtesting feedback to give it that satisfying lunge attack.
If you are on the development team you should focus on MAKING the game first, of course.
But for the rest of us... I have an idea to start work on implementing a dedicated I&S like feedback system NOW. Let the development team develop, but we can start thinking about some other things now. And even go as far as deciding who to allow to beta test phase III. <ul><li>My idea is to allow both old constellation members AND playtesters from the original Natural-Selection mod to beta test. </li><li>My other idea is to have a well organized system for bug reporting, balance feedback, and other feedback. Such a system takes time to set up, so why not start now?</li></ul>Now, I would appreciate some USEFUL feedback in the rest of this thread/topic on my idea. And this time let's actually get something done and on time (unlike Valve) if we are going to do something.
thank you,
<!--coloro:#CC0000--><span style="color:#CC0000"><!--/coloro--><b>x5</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Comments
alot of pt's are inactive or retired.
Good point. We're certainly going to do a beta test for NS2 but I'm not sure if it's going to be with Constellation, or some other way like through Fileplanet, Gamespot, etc. We'll figure that out when we get closer. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
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<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> fileplanet i really dont care for but if it helps the game out im down haha
If you're going to do a beta, <b>don't make people pay for it</b>, it'll make people think they're getting the whole game, only to bash the game for its glitches because the incomplete version "sucks". It would probably be a good idea to have some sort of qualification other than paying money so you know out of the people you choose, you'll get helpful members who don't think they're there just to play the game they "bought".
Not as bad as if EA got involved though (not that they would with a smaller project), but i they did I'd find the instigator, a "THIS IS SPARTA!" soundbyte and a large well.
Keep pay-to-participate people out of it (Fileplanet) unless it goes directly to UWE.
Keep pay-to-participate people out of it (Fileplanet) unless it goes directly to UWE. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Oh god yes. Why in the heck would you do something like that?! That would be the ultimate cutdown and very sad for the community if you ignored your loyal fans who would test your game for <i>free</i> and went to pay a third party who really doesn't care about the NS2's well-being in the same way.
I still can't seem to get you all interesting in starting work my feedback system idea. *sad* <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Make sure you're not confusing 'playtesting' with 'play early'. Playtesting is a whole different beast than just playing a game early.
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God, lets put this quote to max font size, bold, in flashing neon colors.
"You've been contracted to playtest NS2!"
"Do wha?"
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo(post=1614733:date=Mar 15 2007, 03:46 PM:name=KungFuDiscoMonkey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KungFuDiscoMonkey @ Mar 15 2007, 03:46 PM) [snapback]1614733[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Make sure you're not confusing 'playtesting' with 'play early'. Playtesting is a whole different beast than just playing a game early.
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God, lets put this quote to max font size, bold, in flashing neon colors.
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Indeed. There are a lot of people that think that way. Play testing should be renamed to "Play a buggy game, report the things that make it buggy".
One thing I do like about playtesting a game is that the playtesting "spoils the fun and surprise" of a new version. So after I play the "playtest versions" and then actually play the final version, the final version isn't actually as exciting or fun as if I were to play the final version without actually playing the test version before.
Though, since there are people who donate money, buy Sudoku, etc to help out the NS community/devs, there are obviously people who'd like to help by being a bug finder.
<!--quoteo(post=1615269:date=Mar 18 2007, 12:16 AM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 18 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]1615269[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I'm not. Are you?
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x5, I am pretty sure KFDM was just speaking of people "in general" and not directly at you.
There may be people that want to play test to "play early" but there are indeed people that want to play test to just find bugs and do all that other tedious work to help the community like people who donate money.
[edit] and make sure p/ts actually have the time and capacity to properly contribute to NS2 advancement,
not just people who want to play the game early. (obvious, yes i know)[/edit]
Just an observation. Don't take offense to it.
might actually encourage some of us to start playing again
3.0 vets plz kthx
might actually encourage some of us to start playing again
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you dont play any more? In between classes i play its fun haha
Make sure you're not confusing 'playtesting' with 'play early'. Playtesting is a whole different beast than just playing a game early.
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I would like to point out the truth of this statement. If you want a 'play the game early', beta is not what you're looking for. :X Many commercial betas are almost complete or feature complete versions of products, but that is not what all betas are by a long shot.
Actually, that's a ###### idea.
<a href="http://www.runuo.com/issues/" target="_blank">http://www.runuo.com/issues/</a>
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you meant, but I figure I'd throw it out there anyways.
I would like to point out the truth of this statement. If you want a 'play the game early', beta is not what you're looking for. :X Many commercial betas are almost complete or feature complete versions of products, but that is not what all betas are by a long shot.
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I'd like to third the statement about betatesting. The general opinion of the gameplaying world, rather than the gamedeveloping world is that it's just a chance to play the game for free, early. Hence, a very small minority will actually give you any useful info, unless you're generating it automatically, and are just looking for balance / statistical issues. Individual client/server bugs aren't going to turn up much.
Add on the tendancy for people to forget it's in beta, and to treat it as if it's gospel the final game will be exactly like the beta, and personally I'd steer well clear unless there's a load based reason you need lots of players, fast.
- Shockwave
It's allways the playtesters that have some problem. The only reason you say that is because you are a playtester
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What do you think I did beforehand? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> I'd say that for any game, whether I was an existing playtester or not. You only need to look at the various Gamespy (blergh!) cash-ins in the guise of Beta test to see that.
Them: "Hey, we've invented this new car, but it might just randomly decide to not start. It's going to retail for £30,000, would you pay £10,000 just to drive it around for us for the next 3 months, while we work out why it keeps stopping?"
Us: "Oh snap, I'll take 3!"
i point you to all the changes made to the various game versions that have been influenced by people other then 'play testers' and all the content that has been OKed by play testers that has ended up being changed after the public NS community got a chance to test it