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Weekly (Or less then that) Beta Testing Events |
Supertrooper
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: March 18, 2004
Posts: 1895
From: Maryland, U.S.A
|  Posted: 2007-07-17 05:09
We need them.
They'll be set up to test every aspect of the game. Testing every possible item and ship, every mechanic of the game. It'll give players a good chance to really be involved with it, and not just play one part of the game while Beta is up.
This has been a problem with previous Betas, where players focused on Combat and tested only certain ships. This should end here, and we need to start making sure that everything is tested.
We can come up with battle scenarios, bombing scenarios, Capture/Defend events. Something needs to be done to make sure everything gets worked out, before we release .484.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2007-07-17 15:43
Why?
Beta's running pretty much 24/7, you can jump in and test now. You shouldn't need events to test, there's no need.
We'll be running phase tests when the time comes, but appart from that, you can jump in and play and search for bugs.
You shouldn't be waiting for us to say "Go test it", to find bugs.
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Supertrooper
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: March 18, 2004
Posts: 1895
From: Maryland, U.S.A
| Posted: 2007-07-17 16:49
It's hard to test it when you have no one to fight against, or try to stop you. Sure, I can test building and bombing, but testing combat against a planet or one ship kind of sucks
Then again, lets just leave Beta the same way it's been for the past several versions, and let our wondeful development process run it's course, because it produced a winner with .483.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2007-07-17 19:07
Touche Crim.
I agree with you. Sure, beta runs a lot, and sure people can go test. But what are they going to do? Sit there and build a planet, and say "hmm, builds like before. Consider that done!" and feel all happy? No, they'll be bored spitless and never bother doing it again.
(Plus, the most current news topic says that we don't need testing right now, in any serious manner, so how should we expect them to test it if we tell them not to bother?)
Having directed events would help a lot, I think - a few things we need tested in general (like Crim said, bombing, building, combat, whatever) just to give some direction, get some concentrated feedback, and provide a crowd and motivation for testing.
I like it. If I could get more invovled in dev-dom, I'd organize some; as it is, I'll see if I can at least liason with jack and draf and faust and see if there are priorities; if not, we can just fake it.
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Durlan Katz
Fleet Admiral
Joined: August 29, 2005
Posts: 150
| Posted: 2007-07-18 00:46
Cant you pop in a few AI ships@random places, that way atleast some combat could be tested
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Sixkiller
Marshal
Courageous Elite Commandos
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 1786
From: Netherlands
| Posted: 2007-07-18 03:49
you really dont want to test combat against AI..
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2007-07-18 07:35
Shig - when we need to test combat, we'll probably need to reset all players back to Midshipman so they can test a lot of the low level ships (which was overlooked last time).
Of course we'd need to allow some mid-ranked & high-ranked people and such as well as to test the destroyers, cruisers and dreads.
It'll be pointless with the current user-base and the profile transfer as everyone will just jump into dreadnoughts and/or cruisers, and fight.
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Smartin
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 04, 2005
Posts: 1107
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2007-07-18 08:30
Quote:
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On 2007-07-18 07:35, BackSlash *Jack* wrote:
Shig - when we need to test combat, we'll probably need to reset all players back to Midshipman so they can test a lot of the low level ships (which was overlooked last time).
Of course we'd need to allow some mid-ranked & high-ranked people and such as well as to test the destroyers, cruisers and dreads.
It'll be pointless with the current user-base and the profile transfer as everyone will just jump into dreadnoughts and/or cruisers, and fight.
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Thats why we would setup events with a certain goal in mine.
Example:
7/20/2007 Event: Dessy invasion
Description: Come one come all and bring forth your dessies. For today is the glorious day of dessies. We shall look at all aspects of the destroyer and test the till the limits.
I think the idea of "event beta testing" is a good one. It might help bring some people back to DS that are waiting for 484, and also encourage a lot more people to come in and help.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2007-07-18 10:38
When we are at a stage where we are ready to get into organized testing, we will post a news update, along with a schedule of events which will be added to the events list.
Currently there is a lot of work that needs to be done before we can even consider any form of formal testing. The game, as it stands in Beta, is just a code test more than anything else, and is intended as a live testing environment for the development team. It also serves as a sneak peak for those interested in seeing how well we are progressing.
One immediate item that does need to be looked at is armor scaling.
The general rule in terms of ship balance, is that 1 dreadnought = 2 cruisers = 4 destroyers etc, etc, so in theory, 16 combat scouts should be a match for a single dreadnought. However, this is currently not the case. Those scouts are barely capable of damaging the dreadnoughts armor before being destroyed, and this is without the new layouts for them.
Until simple issues like this are addressed, along with some essential source code fixes, we will not be ready for major testing.
- Draf.
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Supertrooper
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: March 18, 2004
Posts: 1895
From: Maryland, U.S.A
| Posted: 2007-07-18 13:20
Get me enough people to do that Draf, and I'll let them wail on my ships. Could even make it one of these events I'm talking about.. Because without direction, most of the current DS population are probably going to hop into the biggest ship they can and if that works out for them, .484 will be 'complete'.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2007-07-18 14:43
Quote:
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On 2007-07-18 10:38, Drafell wrote:
Those scouts are barely capable of damaging the dreadnoughts armor before being destroyed, and this is without the new layouts for them.
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This is why, draf, I think scouts/frigates need some kind of extremely slow moving projectile that does a large (realisticly in terms of damage a scout/frigate does to any other ship) ammount of splash damage.....So if they fire at point blank range, they may do a lot of damage to the enemy ship, but they basically blow themselves up.
....
...
poor poor self-destructing. so useless...
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BackAlley
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: September 24, 2002
Posts: 203
From: Pittsburgh,Pa. USA
| Posted: 2007-07-18 19:17
Quote:
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On 2007-07-18 07:35, BackSlash *Jack* wrote:
Shig - when we need to test combat, we'll probably need to reset all players back to Midshipman so they can test a lot of the low level ships (which was overlooked last time).
Of course we'd need to allow some mid-ranked & high-ranked people and such as well as to test the destroyers, cruisers and dreads.
It'll be pointless with the current user-base and the profile transfer as everyone will just jump into dreadnoughts and/or cruisers, and fight.
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Like I won't test all the Dessies
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Leonide
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 01, 2005
Posts: 1553
From: Newport News, Virginia
| Posted: 2007-07-19 10:03
event testing is a good idea....taking away people's prestige is a BAD BAD idea in ANY form...(you do that jack, you DIE.) people like me cherish their Dreadnoughts. 
i formally approve Event testing.
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Sixkiller
Marshal
Courageous Elite Commandos
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 1786
From: Netherlands
| Posted: 2007-07-19 15:18
i think what Jack means is reset all beta profiles to 0, lock the automated profile transfer so that everyone ranks up a bit, perhaps manually get some higher ships in there, so that the low ships get tested to.
Tough id advise to just tell players that you want them to fly dessies or something specific.
Because when you reset, youd have a lot of low ships VS low ships, but no low ships VS stations/dreads testing
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doda *EP5 no longer exception...*
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 11, 2005
Posts: 1012
From: happy land
| Posted: 2007-07-19 17:43
or just do small ship events.
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