Commando Archive
Thread: February ends and still no Beta
garvin wrote:
TK-132 wrote:
That might not be good Garv. I have a big fear that there going to give us the most bug-infested patch ever. Also called the CU. And it's Alpha that hasn't started. Alpha then Beta then TC then live.
Well...that would be the case if testing begins when Alpha begins...but what if that isn't the beginning of the massive testing? What if testing did start when they originally told us it would, but not in the way we thought it would...what if testing and refinement has been going on in preperation for the the Alpha Testing...this is of course all hypothetical...
Think about it...what if, when a crew finishes building a house, they lived in it for a month to find and repair any possible issues before letting the new owners move it...and what if during that month, they decided "you know what...this room here isn't what we hoped, let's change this to be bigger and better, and while we are at it, let's add on another room over here, throw in some more furnishings since it's taking so long, and hey...going back to the new owner's wishlist, let's give them a bit more before we move on to the next house"...By living in the house and catching all those bugs before the owners move in, they may leave less issues for the new owners to have to deal with when they move in...
Again...just a thought...but if things are already in motion and there are less critical issues present when Alphat/Beta testing starts, then maybe things will move faster and we'll see things go live sooner...but again...that's all hypothetical...
That would make sense, especially with all the added stuff we've seen them put ito LIVE lately. I'm quite anxious to see what TH is going to "announce' this week. And even though I think the game needs more CONTENT, I've been very pleased with the recent course of events. I hope they can keep it up.
garvin wrote:
Samun wrote:Aye, I definately agree. Guess I should have said what I really meant... I'd hate to see them cut the Alpha and Beta testing short because they feel that there's already been a great deal of testing done in-house. I have a lot of faith in the Alpha and Beta testers, and hope they do a great job. And furthermore... I hope their voices are heard.Ackehece wrote:
And that is what the alpha phase is for. New tenants who only job it to poke and prod and generally try to break things in as many ways as they can possibly do it.
I don't think they'll cut anything short...I think that, again...hypothetically...by "living in the house" early before the actual tenants get there, they have a better chance of catching most of the bugs and other major issues that the tenants would find...they'd make early repairs which would mean that we wouldn't have to wait until the tenants move in, find the issues, and sit around while the builders come up with solutions...If there is less the break/fix then things should go faster...
My hope is that the only bugs we find are stress related (and that can be dealt with hardware)...Beyond bugs, Testers are going to have their hands full balancing things...so to have bugs checked off the list would be a big help to speed up the balancing...Wouldn't it be nice if ALL we had to focus on is achieving balance in this game as well as getting the additional requests we want created...We wouldn't have to sit around and hear "sorry, no time, we have to make these fixes before we can add anything new"...Spotting bugs and waiting for fixes take time...and that's time I'd rather see the devs spend their focus elsewhere...so if I have to wait a bit longer to get as many bugs out of the new system, I'm willing to wait...in the long run, I believe (again, hypothetically) that it would really speed up the process a lot...instead of waiting for bugs, fixes, balances, and anything new to go in before hitting live...all we'd have to do is wait for balances and new things...we'd be able to really but our focus where WE WANT to put our focus (do you really want to spend your time finding bugs or would you rather it be on balances and new items?)
Well, the one thing I hope they test heavily is profession balance at ALL stages of development, in PVE and PvP. I understand that everything will not be equal per se, but balanced out in different ways. But I hope they stress the hi end testing as that is where most people judge the game.
I also hope that they finally take into account cost in sp vs effectiveness so that Commando, BH and CM reflect in abilities commensurate with the addition 77 skillpoint cost over any elite profession.
garvin wrote:
TK-132 wrote:
That might not be good Garv. I have a big fear that there going to give us the most bug-infested patch ever. Also called the CU. And it's Alpha that hasn't started. Alpha then Beta then TC then live.
Well...that would be the case if testing begins when Alpha begins...but what if that isn't the beginning of the massive testing? What if testing did start when they originally told us it would, but not in the way we thought it would...what if testing and refinement has been going on in preperation for the the Alpha Testing...this is of course all hypothetical...
Think about it...what if, when a crew finishes building a house, they lived in it for a month to find and repair any possible issues before letting the new owners move it...and what if during that month, they decided "you know what...this room here isn't what we hoped, let's change this to be bigger and better, and while we are at it, let's add on another room over here, throw in some more furnishings since it's taking so long, and hey...going back to the new owner's wishlist, let's give them a bit more before we move on to the next house"...By living in the house and catching all those bugs before the owners move in, they may leave less issues for the new owners to have to deal with when they move in...
Again...just a thought...but if things are already in motion and there are less critical issues present when Alphat/Beta testing starts, then maybe things will move faster and we'll see things go live sooner...but again...that's all hypothetical...
So, they would then therefore be building the house completely, and painting it all orange, and putting in a Sliding door in the back... and when the people who asked for the house come in, they say, "but we wanted Blue! and French Doors! We even sent you a fax telling you this! And informed the contractor! "
Sorry, but they can't be trusted to do this much work w/o telling us what they're doing, and USING our input. Not to bring a dead horse from a whole other ranch and beat it over here, but the Devs decided to "Fix" Feign Death without any input from smugglers, despite the fact that we made said input available. It now no longer functions AT ALL in PVP. Buying an already built house is one thing. Hiring someone else to design and build a house for you, you expect them to respect your concerns and suggestions
Message Edited by maxtheusher on 02-28-2005 10:23 AM
maxtheusher wrote:
garvin wrote:
TK-132 wrote:
That might not be good Garv. I have a big fear that there going to give us the most bug-infested patch ever. Also called the CU. And it's Alpha that hasn't started. Alpha then Beta then TC then live.
Well...that would be the case if testing begins when Alpha begins...but what if that isn't the beginning of the massive testing? What if testing did start when they originally told us it would, but not in the way we thought it would...what if testing and refinement has been going on in preperation for the the Alpha Testing...this is of course all hypothetical...
Think about it...what if, when a crew finishes building a house, they lived in it for a month to find and repair any possible issues before letting the new owners move it...and what if during that month, they decided "you know what...this room here isn't what we hoped, let's change this to be bigger and better, and while we are at it, let's add on another room over here, throw in some more furnishings since it's taking so long, and hey...going back to the new owner's wishlist, let's give them a bit more before we move on to the next house"...By living in the house and catching all those bugs before the owners move in, they may leave less issues for the new owners to have to deal with when they move in...
Again...just a thought...but if things are already in motion and there are less critical issues present when Alphat/Beta testing starts, then maybe things will move faster and we'll see things go live sooner...but again...that's all hypothetical...
So, they would then therefore be building the house completely, and painting it all orange, and putting in a Sliding door in the back... and when the people who asked for the house come in, they say, "but we wanted Blue! and French Doors! We even sent you a fax telling you this! And informed the contractor! "
Sorry, but they can't be trusted to do this much work w/o telling us what they're doing, and USING our input. Not to bring a dead horse from a whole other ranch and beat it over here, but the Devs decided to "Fix" Feign Death without any input from smugglers, despite the fact that we made said input available. It now no longer functions AT ALL in PVP. Buying an already built house is one thing. Hiring someone else to design and build a house for you, you expect them to respect your concerns and suggestions
Message Edited by maxtheusher on 02-28-2005 10:23 AM
Not really...by moving in early, it's more like they figured out that the sink leaks, the stairs creek, and if the lights are turned on upstairs the lights downstairs seem to flicker...and with some extra time, they throw in double paned windows instead of single for no additional price...in otherwords...they find and repair many issues that we'd spend wasted time and effort finding and waiting for them to repair if we were already in testing...When it comes to "balance" issue like what color the house is or french doors, that's something the "owners" would decided when testing does begin...Extra time is just to find and repair things now so focus can better be put into making things better rather then fixing what is broken...
If this is the case, the Devs wouldn't be making those decissions for us that would come out of testing...they'd be making, as much as they can, an bug free environment where we can focus on what is MOST important to us...of course we'd still find bugs and things that need to be fixed, but less fixes needed means the devs have more time time to spend on improvements...
Personally...and this is just my own opinion...I don't want my Sandbox time wasted because Bugs inhibit my play time and because I'm sitting around waiting for the Devs to make fixes...I'd rather focus my time on getting things balanced and getting us that little bit extra...so if I have to wait abit longer for less bugs, then so be it...but again, this is all hypothetical...
garvin wrote:
Not really...by moving in early, it's more like they figured out that the sink leaks, the stairs creek, and if the lights are turned on upstairs the lights downstairs seem to flicker...and with some extra time, they throw in double paned windows instead of single for no additional price...in otherwords...they find and repair many issues that we'd spend wasted time and effort finding and waiting for them to repair if we were already in testing...When it comes to "balance" issue like what color the house is or french doors, that's something the "owners" would decided when testing does begin...Extra time is just to find and repair things now so focus can better be put into making things better rather then fixing what is broken...
If this is the case, the Devs wouldn't be making those decissions for us that would come out of testing...they'd be making, as much as they can, an bug free environment where we can focus on what is MOST important to us...of course we'd still find bugs and things that need to be fixed, but less fixes needed means the devs have more time time to spend on improvements...
Personally...and this is just my own opinion...I don't want my Sandbox time wasted because Bugs inhibit my play time and because I'm sitting around waiting for the Devs to make fixes...I'd rather focus my time on getting things balanced and getting us that little bit extra...so if I have to wait abit longer for less bugs, then so be it...but again, this is all hypothetical...
I see what you're saying, and I agree... if I were lucky enough to be a tester, I'd want the obvious, annoying bugs taken care of so that I could focus on actual content and gameplay testing.
Good point, thanks 
[ PHO | Kauri ] Bingo. A more productive sandbox time will be spent if all the just-plain-ole bugs are gone. That way, what is presented to the sandbox testers is what the developers intend, not unfortunate side-effects of mistakes in programming. They want to be able to say "Working as intended, now....is what we intended going to work". The fewer mundane bugs in the way the greater the amount of time and effort can be spent testing the balances, rather than working through and reporting and 'fixing' bugs like "Flame Cone 2 is only hitting one target now".
garvin wrote:
Personally...and this is just my own opinion...I don't want my Sandbox time wasted because Bugs inhibit my play time and because I'm sitting around waiting for the Devs to make fixes...I'd rather focus my time on getting things balanced and getting us that little bit extra...so if I have to wait abit longer for less bugs, then so be it...but again, this is all hypothetical...
Message Edited by maxtheusher on 02-28-2005 11:42 AM
The Dev's are dragging feet and changing things that don't need changing?
The Alpha testers will be kicked out if they disagree?
The Alpha testers don't know what the "new" plan is?
Do you mean to tell me that our large alpha tester team has been chasing their collective tails, dealing with CU documents that aren't the "real" CU documents? That the dev's are "fixing" things that work and not fixing things that are broken?
I'm hoping not. [looks around for proton grenades. "I know I've got some around here someplace."]
...and are getting special attention!Message Edited by StarNick on 02-28-2005 04:27 PM
Latenighter wrote:
aeuralis wrote:
It feels weird replying to these thread rather then starting it. But being how i have been unable to post for the last 3 days, I will have settle for repling.
Now that 5 months have past since TH posted it would start "in a few weeks" I have to say that i am less and less tolerant of the continuing delays. Even though I am in the Alpha testing, it seems that the Devs are dragging their feet and making changes to systems that work fine as they are. While they have given us some new infomation, they have not given us 3/4 of the total information that we need. They have shown the correspondents all the info so it is done in some form. I would rant on the CURB forums but it would just get me kicked out of the alpha.
The Devs seem intent on changing everything. In essence, the CURBG is SWG 2.0. That the moment i am not sure if that is good or bad. I have some severe reservations about their changes(not about commando because i don't know anything about the new commando. I know about their old plans but not their new ones. ) That is not to say that the new system will not be fun or better overall. But the the transistion between the old system and the new seems to be catastropic for alot of people at the moment.
Ok. The highlights above are disturbing.
The Dev's are dragging feet and changing things that don't need changing?
There is a problem with this logic...What some think doesn't need to be changed may be a priority to others. The Devs also need to change things that cascade to and from other changes. There are some things that the Devs are just changing because THEY think it will make the game more fun, but those can be chalked up to "time will tell". I'd rather have the Devs do more then they have to rather then less. If there is something new we don't like, we have a better chance at getting them to change it then we would if we needed something new created from scratch.
The Alpha testers will be kicked out if they disagree?
I've never seen that written or stated anywhere inside or outside the CU forums...Starnick or any of the Sandbox testers should be able to testify that disagreeing will not get you kicked out no matter how vocalyou are...if that was the rule I'd have been kicked out long ago...I'm often VERY vocal about the things I disgree with and frequent in posting my disagreements. You will, although, likely get kicked out for the same reasons people currently get banned from the forums. You will also definitely be kicked out for spilling NDA related info...but disagreeing...no way...
The Alpha testers don't know what the "new" plan is?
I've said this from the beginning about the CU docs...they are constantly evolving and that's the MAIN reason they have been going public so slowly...it's true that they are currently evolving yet again, and only now, just before Sandbox testing starts, are we seeing the newest evolution. Many things have changed, but the main points are the same. We haven't seen all the new docs yet, but the Devs HAVE given us a general idea of what to expect. I've seen the new Commando Doc and it's still VERY GOOD for Commandos (to be completely honest, it's better then the last version I saw for Commandos).
Do you mean to tell me that our large alpha tester team has been chasing their collective tails, dealing with CU documents that aren't the "real" CU documents? That the dev's are "fixing" things that work and not fixing things that are broken?
See the "evolution" explaination above...Its tester feedback that has caused the CU docs to evolve (combined with the Testers seeing certain things in action...seeing something on paper, and seeing it ingame can produce different results then expected).
I'm hoping not. [looks around for proton grenades. "I know I've got some around here someplace."]
Message Edited by garvin on 02-28-2005 02:20 PM
Thank you for your responses. You both manage to communicate more than SOE has been able to say on these topics. A change of the CU documents (and a big one from the sounds of it) at this late date, after the long effective silence of SOE, just leaves me speechless.
I'll wait for the "announcement."
StarNick wrote:
Ok. The highlights above are disturbing.
The Dev's are dragging feet and changing things that don't need changing?
I wouldn't exactly say they're dragging their feet....just that they've been working behind the scenes, and not really communicating with the the CU Sandbox testers(in a very open manner)...this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as they are working on it. However the CU has had a dramatic make-over in some aspects since the Alpha Testers first joined the CU Forum....but not in every aspect mind you.
How is the "not really communicating with the the CU Sandbox testers(in a very open manner).." a good thing? How is lack of comunication good unless you are trying to hide something. They have been doing the same thing to the alpha testers that they have been doing to the general public ie giving as little info as possible. How are we " the alpha testers" going to do our job without complete information? It is the fact that are giving only limited info that causes misunderstandings and worry.
The Alpha testers will be kicked out if they disagree?
Testers can disagree, and have many times....the devs went back to a nice chunk of the CU and changed it for the better because of Testers disagreeing. HOWEVER, trolling and hardcore flaming to the point where you're insulting the Devs and your fellow testers aren't tolerated. The CU Forums are treated with a manner of business and professionalism...same thing applies to the Correspondent forum/program. Its not so much of what you say, but of the manner of how you present it.
Yeah but if i posted congratulating TH on 5 months since he said "alpha will start in a few weeks", you and i know it would be locked or deleted in minutes.
Message Edited by StarNick on 02-28-2005 04:27 PM