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OPT-IN to current beta patch build

agrisagris Member Posts: 581
in Archive (Feature Requests)
Purpose: Expand the player base testing your new patch, with the goal of reducing unnoticed bugs such as the APR bug.

Side benefit: Reduce player frustration at waiting for the Apple/MAC store to approve patches, so that your single-player game can be patched. Opt-in mechanism self-selects against people wanting cross-platform multi.


Expand the base, reduce frustration, increase feedback. Sounds awesome. Is this planned?

@Avenger_teambg @Aosaw @KeithS

Comments

  • bigdogchrisbigdogchris Member Posts: 1,336
    edited February 2013
    There are a lot of players in the beta who, I believe, all have access to the patch a head of time. The patches get tested plenty.

    A lot of bugs that are in the current build such as the one you noted are known, it's just a matter of priority to fixing them.

    If you would like to participate in the beta, continue to make good contributions to the forum and you may be asked, or you can ask a developer to see if you can join.
    Post edited by bigdogchris on
  • reedmilfamreedmilfam Member Posts: 2,808
    Side liability - being the guinea pig and breaking your game in the process. I think I'll use the 'patience is a virtue' adage and wait for the next patch.
  • MessiMessi Member Posts: 738
    edited February 2013
    bigdogchris said:

    There are a lot of players in the beta who, I believe, all have access to the patch a head of time. The patches get tested plenty.

    A lot of bugs that are in the current build such as the one you noted are known, it's just a matter of priority to fixing them.

    If you would like to participate in the beta, continue to make good contributions to the forum and you may be asked, or you can ask a developer to see if you can join.

    Sorry to say but this just seems blatantly false. This patch is a good example, the very first quest you are likely to get is completely bugged now, dwarfs are capped 16 dex, shadowdancer has multiple bugs, etc. Same with the previous patch and eg. the APR bug.

    Things like those would shouldn't get through. And they definitely are a sign there is not a good amount of people in the beta because they are stuff you would most likely notice, if you actually played the game.

    Edit: BGEE got reputation as buggy piece of poop in many peoples minds because of the launch if you read what is said about it outside this little cocoon. And I have to say that, while I really appreciate what Overhaul has done patching the game since, they could still really improve here.
  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    We catch the majority of all bugs that the new patches introduce before the patch gets released, but if there is no major or progress interfering bugs then the developers will often make the decision to release the patch anyway.
  • bigdogchrisbigdogchris Member Posts: 1,336
    edited February 2013
    There is a difference between not knowing about a bug and not having the resources to fix the bug. I would suspect that the internal bug tracker has most of the bugs people mention, as well as many you don't know about.

    An 'opt in' for access to beta patches would not fix this. What would help is if you know specifically how to fix the bugs that you find and post the fix.
  • agrisagris Member Posts: 581
    edited February 2013
    @bigdogchris I appreciate you engaging, but you're making a serious assumption:
    bigdogchris said:

    I would suspect that the internal bug tracker has most of the bugs people mention, as well as many you don't know about.

    Why would you assume this? The fact that two patches have been released, both containing major bugs (ApR and flag-ship kit addition being buggy, in addition to dwarf racial snafu and countless others) tells us that something isn't working correctly.

    Beta testing is crowd sourced information gathering. The more people who are testing a patch, the faster bugs are found.

    Say you are right, and everything was in the tracker. When was it entered? How close to the end of patching development was the ApR bug was reported? Every patch cycle, development resources are allocated to fixing problems, after which there is a cut-off and no new resources are commited. The faster that problems are identified, the better judgement Beamdog can make about when and what to fix.

    How would you have a better, faster bug reporting process? By having more players testing your code. I don't want beta access. I'm busy. I think that the current round of patch testing is inadequate, as evidenced by the host of new bugs introduced in each of the recent patches. The status quo isn't cutting it and needs to change.

    This isn't helping Beamdog, and quite frankly I can't understand the attitude that makes one think that everything with their current process is ok, when it clearly isn't.



  • bigdogchrisbigdogchris Member Posts: 1,336
    edited February 2013
    @Agris

    Why would you assume that because somethings not fixed that they don't know about it? There are priorities involved, like what bugs affect the most amount of people in a negative way, come first.
  • agrisagris Member Posts: 581
    edited February 2013
    That really doesn't address (a) when they're aware of bugs (b) what bugs they've been made aware of or (c) how to improve the current system.

    edit: dude, read the post.
  • bigdogchrisbigdogchris Member Posts: 1,336
    edited February 2013
    You're asking for more people to "find bugs". It doesn't matter how many people searching for bugs there are if there are only a few people able to fix them. I wouldn't be surprised if their tracker is in the thousands of things needing improvement or fixing. They have to prioritize that. If you're not happy that the bugs you want fixed are not high enough priority, that's just too bad.
  • nsrnsr Member Posts: 174
    Beta users finding bugs may not be useful, as mentioned above. Beta users may be useful in helping prioritize the current set of bugs though. Potentially, a bug may be known, but put lower on the queue because it doesn't seem like a big deal to the development team. If 50 out of 50 beta users talk about how serious it is on the forum, it may reshuffle the priority of that bug.
  • MessiMessi Member Posts: 738
    edited February 2013
    bigdogchris said:

    @Agris

    Why would you assume that because somethings not fixed that they don't know about it? There are priorities involved, like what bugs affect the most amount of people in a negative way, come first.

    First of all you are making the assumption that they actually know about all the bugs, which I find very doubtful. Even much larger companies, with a lot larger QA departments, would be very hesitant to claim something like that. Especially since according to some tweets/posts they only freeze the patch about week or so before it is released to the public. Ie. it is at a state that nothing is no longer added to it that can create new conflicts.

    Secondly even if we assume that you are correct and they 100% know of all bugs out there when they release a new patch. There is still the job of prioritization and also the issue of when the bug is found.(As other people in this thread have pointed out). Also if Overhaul actually knew about all the bugs they would introduce into the game with 2014, but decided to release it anyway, I'd say it shows some pretty poor judgement on their part.

    Edit: Fixed few spelling errors, many more still remain. :)
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