The beta and long-game players

When doing a beta like this, it is generally more important to be using the latest build available. If you're not on the same page as the devs, then there's not a lot of point to testing (since you will be encountering issues that have since been fixed, and missing any new ones that have arisen since).

I'm sure the update process will have short stretches and long stretches. My sense is the latest patch we got was well on its way even before the beta had gone live which is why it came out so quickly. As the process continues you'll start to see more time between updates.

As Kryo said it is important that you are always playing the latest version even if this means you've got to abandon your current games. However I would think the devs want you to play the same type and style of game you normally do. There are some things that just don't get tested in a game with only a handful of stars and a couple of dozen planets. A large portion of the reason for a public beta is because it vastly expands the testing that can happen on the game.

Thanks for the rapid response, Kryo. I had mostly guessed that immediate updates were best, but wondered if there was something I wasn't seeing about how a complete long game regardless of build might be useful to Stardock.

Cyberj, your take on the speed of 1A makes sense to me, and I hope you're right that the full beta process will manage to capture some input from mature or near-complete long games, even if my work sched stabs me in the back, which is likely for Dec & Jan .

The next major build will be next week. It's going to be rapid fire.

 

When doing a beta like this, it is generally more important to be using the latest build available. If you're not on the same page as the devs, then there's not a lot of point to testing (since you will be encountering issues that have since been fixed, and missing any new ones that have arisen since).

For my 2 cents, while I would agree the reporting of old errors is counter productive, there is an aspect of play that could be ignored by immediately dumping a current game in favor starting one on a newer release.

There are errors that could occur only with large number of fleets moving around in unanticipated ways. There are also other issues related to the scale of the game that might not be detected in shorter games. I think one of the purposes of a beta is to find errors that occur in different kinds of games with different styles of play.

I would encourage you to *not* ignore problems that may only occur during long games.

I think I'd be *really* smart if I could write a (layperson-readable) test plan for a public beta for a game with such a huge range of play options.

@Mumble: Your reply makes me think that I might be able to skip a release or two and still possibly report something worthwhile from my late game.

But I've been reading a lot around here about the balance stuff, and right now I have no idea how I'd try to guess whether something I see in 1A is moot b/c of changes in place by 1E or 2. The things holding my lay-tester attention right now are the environments and the Super Hive ability from a player POV. I can tell from Brad's Super Abilites manual update that his mind is *very* open right now...

I agree it's not a good idea to get too far behind the curve, I was just suggesting that's there's some utility in investigating issue's that may only occur deep into a game.

This will probably be more effective later in the beta cycle when the pace of change slows down and the functionality is closer to final.

I design hardware and although it's not precisely the same, the process is analogous. The most difficult problems to find, debug and fix are the ones that are infrequent, only occur under certain combinations of events, or both.

I once had a failure that only occurred once every two weeks on one machine out of twenty running in a thermal chamber cycling between -10C and 50C. It took me close to three months to find the problem. In a short duration test, you’d probably never even see the problem. I’ve also learned over time that you ignore these types of low error rate problems at your peril.

I suppose if you stay current on what bugs people are seeing in their games there isn't any harm in finishing a game with one version before you go on to the next provided it doesn't take you another week to finish the current game. As has been said any game that helps the devs track down a bug is a good thing whether it came from a short, medium, or long game. You just need to be aware of when something you see may have been fixed in the next release.

For us, because we aren't privy to the internals at SD, I think it is more important for the game to function under our normal play. If the devs want us to really tax a particular feature in the game I'm sure they'll post about it. Pacing is something I'm sure they'll want us to help them get a feel for. Can't do that without playing lots of different length games.

I'm several days behind in updating for Beta 2A, and my current Huge game has just yielded my first encounter with the new unit distibutions when an AI surrenders.

I have a screen cap that seems very odd to me and a question about whether the Stardock devs need input from "late" people like me or if they might be better off not getting caps, comments, SmartException zips, etc. from folks who are not able or willing to update within X days of the latest public build.

I have a screen cap that shows a stack of ships that appears to indclude two AIs who were at war. I can email to support if it is of interest.

I always use Stardock Central to run DA, as it updates automatically.

I have a screen cap that shows a stack of ships that appears to indclude two AIs who were at war. I can email to support if it is of interest.

Send it to [email protected], with save if you have one.

I have to agree with Mumble on the inherent fallacies of short duration testing. Also, the developers have hinted more than once that they do very little (if any) testing on maps larger than medium. There could easily be more hiccups out there like the "path too long so aborting" bug with ship movement that would never appear on the smaller maps.

If you have the time to play through a game on a larger map during the beta, please do so. You really may be going where no tester has gone before.

GW, if you have screen caps of an issue that was never reported by anybody else, you could easily have found something that was not fixed in newer builds. At least post the screen cap and the description; hopefully that will draw enough attention to get your other questions answered.

My worry is that there are a few (plural) bugs that appear in every game I have played once I started in on a game size huge or larger (1.2-1.4). Ships losing destination points on game load + ship and planet build complete icons on the right side of the screen fail to appear are the most common. I have hesitated to report them formally, because I always seem to be one rev behind, given the time it takes me to play a game... It would be nice, if at some time, the dev team found a reasonable means to allow a few users to run through the very large maps and address bugs (old and maybe new) that commonly crop up due to the size of the map and the number of planets/ships etc. you consequently have. Having worked for several companies that develop software, I know early cycles are simply not the place for this, but maybe later?

Re screen caps, I sent email per Kryo's request and I can't (won't) post here b/c the site demands third-party hosting for images (at least that's how I read the UI).

Re the notion of trying to semi-formalize feedback from the Large+ Map crowd, I heartily concur. I like that notion *much* better than eliminating larger maps, as has been suggested in other threads (esp. re the speed thing).

It's popular right now to praise the GCII AIs as exceptional in the genre, and I agree with the general impulse. But the best AIs in the world would quickly end up gathering digital dust if they didn't have a very flexible playing field, and I suspect that the Stardock dev crew are fully capable of learning how to make their AIs handle huge maps and high speed even if those same devs never have time to play that sort of game.

See.. I knew your long games would be of use GW .

As I said before anything that helps track down bugs is a good thing so long as you don't post about something that has already been fixed. Some things just won't show up unless a game goes really really long.

Keep it up. Gotta squish as many as we can so that the public release goes out without any serious hiccups