Question regarding the testing of new patches

Corporal Cody · Post by **Corporal Cody** » 2008-03-16 16:13

Having only started playing PR a few weeks after .7 came out, I don't really know how the whole "testing" of new patches/modes/etc. works....
Will there be an open beta? Will there be tester "signups"? Or will only a specific few be testing the new things?

TheSkudDestroyer · Post by **TheSkudDestroyer** » 2008-03-16 16:16

Beta's are now closed, and you have to be invited.

.6 had public betas. The betas and gameplay from .6 to .607RC1 were PRIME and I'm kinda disappointed that the DEVS havent used the public as guinea pigs since then. I'm sure they have thier reasons, but I'd like a simple answer.

By the way, .75 patch is done. Someone is just pulling an eggman.

Brummy · Post by **Brummy** » 2008-03-16 16:56

PR has a tester team.

ReaperMAC · Post by **ReaperMAC** » 2008-03-16 17:16

Rhino said that after this patch is released, there will be sign-up for new testers, we'll just have to see.

Post by **Dunehunter** » 2008-03-16 17:20

Indeed, new testers will be taken in after this one. However, it's not just fun and games, you are expected to actually help out with the testing instead of just messing around with the new version before the rest of the community.

One issue with the open beta for .6 was that people were basically just playing .6 already, instead of doing any actual testing.

I do recall a dev saying at one point that they would consider limited open betas, like a fairly finished RC for a weekend or so. However, this is only a patch, albeit a major one.

Also, yes, it will be released soon

markonymous · Post by **markonymous** » 2008-03-16 17:29

how soon? ^^

Waaah_Wah · Post by **Waaah_Wah** » 2008-03-16 17:41

My crystall ball tells me that PR will be out in the next 2-3 days

Or tomorow

Raniak · Post by **Raniak** » 2008-03-16 18:04

[R-MOD]dunehunter wrote:Indeed, new testers will be taken in after this one. However, it's not just fun and games, you are expected to actually help out with the testing instead of just messing around with the new version before the rest of the community.

One issue with the open beta for .6 was that people were basically just playing .6 already, instead of doing any actual testing.

The best way to find bugs is to play the thing over and over again !

Public betas are really to see how the public will react anyway, a last chance to change the things that worked in close betas but don't work with the public...

mammikoura · Post by **mammikoura** » 2008-03-16 18:28

TheSkudDestroyer wrote:Beta's are now closed, and you have to be invited.

.6 had public betas. The betas and gameplay from .6 to .607RC1 were PRIME and I'm kinda disappointed that the DEVS havent used the public as guinea pigs since then. I'm sure they have thier reasons, but I'd like a simple answer.

well there are quite a lot of problems with open betas. For example it's going to be a lot of work for the devs to go through all the bug reports when most of them have probably been reported 5 times already and a lot of time the report will be a bit too vague etc.

With the tester group people generally report bugs in a way that might makes some sence. Except when Masaq is on drugs.

But open betas do have advantages too, such as getting a lot more players. But this is also a bad thing, you have players who think it's the final version (doesn't matter how many times you write beta everywhere, this is the internet) and then they complain because there are a lot of bugs etc. Yeah we all know that it's a beta but when they go spreading the word about a buggy release it might have a negative effect on new players.

Also I've noticed the devs like to be a bit secretive about the releases, so releasing a public beta pretty much ruins the surprise.

Post by **Masaq** » 2008-03-16 18:44

I wasn't on drugs! My case fans do sound like the APC air-con system!

*Sigh*.

But yeah, the .6OB also had the problem that it meant most players switched straight to it; it left .5 servers mostly empty and led to fatigue with 0.6 very quickly- people had played the new maps into the ground.

A limited open is a much better idea, IMHO - one or two servers up for 48 hours at most, with Devs/Cons along with the server admins watching to see how gameplay pans out. I'd even go so far to say that you could run a script to kick players after 90 minutes of gameplay to keep the playerbase cycling through; it'd allow fresh players (with different system hardware setups) to experience it.

Viper5 · Post by **Viper5** » 2008-03-16 19:12

Yeah, PR has a team of dedicated testers. You have to be serious for most of it. Good ideas to get on it would be courteous, play PR consistently, have a mic, and disassociate yourself with me.

WRT .75, the little birds say whenever Slick stops pulling an Eggman

Corporal Cody · Post by **Corporal Cody** » 2008-03-16 19:56

Hey, thanks everyone for the responses!
Anyways, thats interesting to hear about the private testers.... I would have personally prefered it otherwise, but thats just to be on the little secrets my self *hehehe*.
Anyways, thats cool, thanks =D

BloodBane611 · Post by **BloodBane611** » 2008-03-16 20:45

Testing = work

Testing means instead of going and doing what you want to do (go pwn people with your 1337 skillz), you have to go and check out all possible uses of a given weapon, possible exploits, blah blah blah. The reason open betas don't work is because people want to play, not test.

ReaperMAC · Post by **ReaperMAC** » 2008-03-16 21:17

BloodBane611 wrote:Testing = work

Testing means instead of going and doing what you want to do (go pwn people with your 1337 skillz).

Not entirely true

But when organized testing is conducted, you are not allowed to screw off

Expendable Grunt · Post by **Expendable Grunt** » 2008-03-16 21:36

The open betas where a mistake the dev team is too smart to repeat. Wonder if I'll ever join the testers...

TheSkudDestroyer · Post by **TheSkudDestroyer** » 2008-03-16 21:39

So how many of you intend on being professional *** kissers for .8?

Alex6714 · Post by **Alex6714** » 2008-03-16 21:46

I will most likely sign up to be a tester if they open. I would rather be testing that failing on a public server.

blud · Post by **blud** » 2008-03-16 22:18

The open beta wasn't a mistake. The only mistake was having too many servers. They should have had 1 or 2 only. If they ever do another one they should probably just have 1. If people could get over themselves and feeling like an open beta "steals their thunder" then they could do another open beta sometime with just 1 server.

They should make it a "limited open beta". It would also have to be shorter than the last one, but that's not so hard because they could just turn the open beta server on for a couple days and then turn it off and release another open beta a couple weeks later.

Also they could make a section of the forums where only people who have been on the forums for more than 6 months could get in on it, and then password the server - and have a passworded Teamspeak, and change the server password any time they want and only give it out to the people on the teamspeak, etc etc so that even though the limited open beta could easily leak out, that would be an acceptable part of the plan, because it would be so much trouble for people who aren't in the limited beta to actually play the damn game that it wouldn't really leak significantly.

This would go a long way to ensure high quality releases, BUT, the main argument against it is that is it really worth it to bother with all that? If a release comes out with a bug in it, they can just patch it a couple weeks later anyways.

Post by **fuzzhead** » 2008-03-16 23:43

Yea I like that idea bludshot...

PR Testing team will be recruiting new players for the v0.8 release cycle.

An open beta is not out of the question, though it would probably be on a much smaller scale as V0.6 open beta, although hella fun, did kinda get played out (was too large and took too long)

Alex6714 · Post by **Alex6714** » 2008-03-17 00:58

But, one of the best ways of testing would be to play it out, as if in public games?