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A lot left to do...

AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
in The Road to v2.0
So I've taken a look at the beta, just started a few characters in BG1 and fooled around a bit with the new UI, the new features, etc. I regret to have to say this, but I don't think it's quite in top shape right now. It seems like there is a lot of stuff left to fix, based on the sheer number of bugs and issues I've run into in just a couple of hours. And, well, not a lot of time left to do it before release.

I've written up a few feature requests, but the bug reports will have to wait until I have more time to dedicate to this. There's a lot of bugs already posted on Redmine, and searching up each issue in order to avoid posting duplicates is a chore.

Good work so far, Beamdog, but it seems there's a lot left to do. IWD:EE had a fairly smooth release, and I'm hoping you'll manage to do the same for SoD.

Comments

  • FlashburnFlashburn Member Posts: 1,847
    Tell me about it. The new UIs are a disaster.

    The zoom in/out animation for the area map is cool as hell, however.
  • FredSRichardsonFredSRichardson Member Posts: 465
    Well, it's nice to see an ambitious effort to rework things. Most of the bugs I found look like they are "in progress" in redmine so I think that is a good sign. There were a few that hadn't been reported yet.
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    Reported 9 issues so far and counting. Only one of the bugs I've found had been reported.
  • MessiMessi Member Posts: 738
    Have to agree with the OP. I'm really hoping SoD is a huge success for Beamdog, but the state of the betas three weeks before the release date is not promising. I'll do my part and try to squeeze a full playthrough of BGEE and obviously report the stuff I find at least.
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    Don't worry we'll find all those nasty bugs, and dev team will squash them :smile: I think, most glaring ones are UI bugs, and those need to be fixed before release without question.
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    Dee said:

    Keep reporting issues as you find them.

    Will do!

    (I'm at 18 now. Do you guys hate me yet?)
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    @Adul If you are who I think you are, then you are doing a superb job! Keep it up! This is exactly what they need to get the patch into shape on time!
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    FredSRichardson said:

    Well, it's nice to see an ambitious effort to rework things. Most of the bugs I found look like they are "in progress" in redmine so I think that is a good sign. There were a few that hadn't been reported yet.

    Takes time to confirm each bug and make sure it hasn't already been reported. But we're working on it :)
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    Only three weeks left, and I'll be honest, I'm still worried here. Maybe even more so than I was at the time of the original post.

    There's 155 open bugs in the BG:EE public beta tracker, and only 32 are "in progress". Each day there's about 10 new bugs being reported and only a couple of them go into progress. I have 30 reported bugs, out of which only 2 are in progress. As far as I can tell no bugs have been resolved yet. And then there's all the feature requests, the vast majority of which haven't even been touched even though some of them cover quite important usability issues.

    Is this perceived shortage of developer action in the BG:EE public beta tracker only temporary? Will this change at some point?
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    edited March 2016
    First of all, quality > quantity. The developers should never haste things and do everything pariently, with a lot of attention to details.

    But the already announced release date puts an extra pressure on them: they have a strict date and in the same time they have an increasing amount of bug reports, with new and new bugs being found.

    I think a possible solution can be to increase the amount of QA members, actually.

    There're definitely quite experienced beta-testers busy with this testing, and if they had some developer tools as well, it would help, I think.

    Like @Tresset who has been here for a long, long time, and knows a lot about the in-game mechanics, who is skilled in using programs like NearInfinity and DLTC, and who has some experience in modding BG in terms of fixing bugs on his own (the fix of the sleep effect in the 1.3 patch, for example). Tresset is one of those in the line of @Troodon80 and @Gate70 - and these people are already a part of the team.

    And I'm sure there're other skilled testers as well.

    So maybe you could discuss it "with those who decide", @Dee? ;)
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    edited March 2016
    To clarify my statement, I immensely appreciate the QA folk and testers who are active in the tracker, and I think they're doing a great job.

    What I'm worried about is the slowness of the process and the fast approach of the release date.
  • FranpaFranpa Member Posts: 637
    Well although they might not be making rapid progress on the publicly reported issues for the public beta, you have to keep in mind that their also working on other stuff that isn't necessarily reported or even accessible within the beta (Like SoD content). Afaik there's a private beta for SoD so there's also a private bug tracker for SoD and I also expect them to be slightly more focused on SoD than BG 1 or 2 as SoD is the single biggest new thing coming.
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    Also, a classic application of Brook's Law is that adding new folks to a project when it is just 3 weeks from delivery is only going to delay it further, not speed it up.
  • BelegCuthalionBelegCuthalion Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 454
    depends on whether they are helping out with time consuming stuff that "has to be done" and that is blocking those who could actually do the significant stuff instead – or they should take over key tasks themselves.
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    edited March 2016
    Yep, what you are seeing is a pipeline bottleneck, and easing a bottleneck in a pipeline isn't really subject to Brooks law. (Also, I modified my original message to clarify that we didn't hire someone new, we moved them between roles)
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    Thanks for the explanations, I'm looking forward to the next update to the beta. To clarify, does this mean there are bugs in the public tracker with the "new" status that are being worked on or are fixed internally? If so, why not change these to "in progress" as well?
  • DurenasDurenas Member Posts: 508
    question: how rapid are the patch iterations to the steam version? Can we expect updates to the beta?
  • XKalXKal Member Posts: 58
    Amberion said:

    question: how rapid are the patch iterations to the steam version? Can we expect updates to the beta?

    Per the post by @Dee in the survey thread, there should be a new refresh to the build in the next few days.

    I suspect you'll see a rash of bug closures in redmine at that point. I also suspect a number of the bugs being reported in redmine were already reported internally and so the rate of incoming new bugs is not quite as great as people believe.

    That's my hope anyway!
  • MonkeyLungsMonkeyLungs Member Posts: 44
    This is a process. All the stuff that I took notes on that wasn't already in the redmine list I haven't actually been able to reproduce myself. And that's me on my same exact computer. Imagine the sparks flying out of the Beamdog's ears right now!
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    Yeah, but to be fair, the Beamdog always has sparks coming out of its ears. That's how we run the lights.
  • DurenasDurenas Member Posts: 508
    Dee said:

    Yeah, but to be fair, the Beamdog always has sparks coming out of its ears. That's how we run the lights.

    I immediately started figuring out how to set up a voltage regulator and capacitor in order to do that.
  • lefreutlefreut Member Posts: 1,462
    Why do you keep making this huge patches instead of releasing more often smaller patches ? I think it's a mistake to try to change so many things at the same time.

    Now you have to rush to finish 2.0 and SoD at the same time.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    edited March 2016
    Some time has passed since the posts in this thread. I understand the patch can go live at the end of this week.

    What do people think about it? Is it ready to go live?

    My opinion: the games are much more stable right now, and if 80% of reports made until now find their fixes in the final build, the patch is fine to be released, especially if we have a chance to see 2.1 and 2.2 patches not long afterwards (based on further implementation of fixes) and if the redmine system stays.
    Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
  • DoubledimasDoubledimas Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 1,286
    edited March 2016
    12 new bugs, 14 requires review bugs and the other 216 bugs are all 'submitted' according to redmine at the moment. If all those submitted bugs are resolved in a new patch (without breaking something again) before the release of SoD we're getting somewhere. 
  • AdulAdul Member Posts: 2,002
    Yeah, things look much better now than they did just a couple of weeks ago. We'll see what the release build does with all those submitted bugs. Hopefully most of them will be ironed out.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    We probably will get a final beta a few days prior to final release.
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