What was the point of beta testing 1.3?

[Colonel North]

I guess we'll have to continue guessing as FD don't seem to want to disclose what's going on, as usual. Which is ironic, as a simple 'this was the issue' statement would probably calm things down just fine.

Too right. I understand there are and will always be issues, nothing in life is perfect and most reasonable people respect this.

But the communication to customers is appalling sloppy bordering on derisory. Not helped by moderators pointing a link to the news page and then closing the thread.

 

[Ancipital]

Because it looks like the original beta test crowd is getting less motivated, to get involved with each new beta.

It feels like things that you report in the beta phase just don't get fixed, anyway- so the only point seems to be a secret treehouse early access club for people who want to try out new mechanics and changes. Personally, I'm not just demotivated to beta test now, but demotivated to play at all, given the current state of the game.

As a harsh Elite fanboy, I was expecting it to take a lot longer than this for the forum to become more interesting and fun than the game- which is usually sign of a game being "over" for me. Rarely does a game recover from this sort of personal decline purgatory. I haven't played in some time- initially, I told myself that I was waiting for it to stabilise after the terrible mess that 1.3 would inevitably bring.. but now, I'm not so sure. I hope that I'm wrong.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

You can't perfectly beta test game this complex. As for bugs - some could be avoided, some I doubt. I would like for FD to have more confidence and take more time with releasing code, but I suspect there's some marketing decision making involved too (after all, game has to sell copies to keep people hired). We can argue to no end how FD should act in such cases. Haven't played a lot of PP for example, so I can't discuss bugs there - however single player part of the game is very improved for me.

Also people treat things they don't like as bugs - for example increased tear and wear cost. That makes things a bit hazy too.

However I can fully understand that there's lot of confusion around and it will take some time clear things up PP.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Many eyes fix bugs. They could have run Beta for 4 more weeks, still not fixed all the bugs and had people saying "It was in beta for a month and now a month later they've still not fixed them."

For perspective they've had about 60 hours of work time to fix them since the release on Friday afternoon.

 

[Lord_Crazy]

You can't perfectly beta test game this complex. As for bugs - some could be avoided, some I doubt. I would like for FD to have more confidence and take more time with releasing code, but I suspect there's some marketing decision making involved too (after all, game has to sell copies to keep people hired). We can argue to no end how FD should act in such cases. Haven't played a lot of PP for example, so I can't discuss bugs there - however single player part of the game is very improved for me.

Also people treat things they don't like as bugs - for example increased tear and wear cost. That makes things a bit hazy too.

However I can fully understand that there's lot of confusion around and it will take some time clear things up PP.

I agree: even beta cannot prevent bugs (and I mean real bugs, not unwanted features) from happening, and features are always debatable no matter how hard the devs work on them.
The problem with 1.3 is different though. I am sorry to be so blunt but this release is far from being satisfactory:
- some bugs already spotted in beta;
- major server hit that could possibly have been anticipated;
- lot of unpolished things pertaining to lack of attention to details rather than technical issues or bugs(lot of typos for instance. Or also the 10% thingy that could have been released with a proper module storage that could have merely been copied from ship storage, ...);
- top of all: a 1-week-only beta even though it was clear that there was a lot of work left to do before a satisfactory release.

So yes I must say I am really disappointed. Not by the work itself, but by the fact that 1.3 was clearly pushed toward release despite all the known issues. FD had choice between more time and more quality or less time and less quality. I let players decide what choice was made.
On a brighter note I am sure we will all learn a lot from that. Also, FD is good at releasing patches.

 

[parazaine]

I agree that there seem to be a lot of issues with 'official' releases. I helped beta test the 1.3 release and there were a lot of concerns form testers that it was far from ready for release. IF as a previous post implies, FD are using the term 'Beta Testing' in the context Michael Brookes mentioned, then it shows that they have no clear concept of what beta testing is (or at least Michael is being honest).

I find this particularly irksome just for the fact that they are selling early access under the title of 'beta testing' and real money is involved here rather than just some bruised virtual egos.

Their strange decision to release on a friday evening doesn't take a genius to foresee potential additional problems with...the servers struggled all weekend to cope and 2 patches later we have a version that is less stable overall than before 1.3 dropped this leads me to conclude that the entire reason for such a buggy early release (against the advice of their 'free' beta testing q&a) must have been financial

I'm not familiar with Amazon servers (or servers of any sort) but the layman might conclude that a different server set-up (or provider) might be the answer (at least in part)?

 

[Andromalius]

Because it looks like the original beta test crowd is getting less motivated, to get involved with each new beta.

Given feedback is utterly ignored and the FD communication, you shouldn't be surprised. I have personally not logged once to the beta PP, I knew perfectly well how it was going to endup from experience of the pre-release beta. Participating is an unconstructive waste of time.

 

[neXib]

Beta can't load test anything because there's not enough people. Still, I saw many people in the little time I played the beta, so I wouldn't say it was a failure, but you can't have a beta forever.

The server load is always higher on release, they anticipate that and can't do anything about it unless their server setup is a perfectly set up scalable solution. With physical servers it would make no sense to buy 100 extra hardware just because people will be unhappy for 1 day at launch. That's just how it is, ask Blizzard, EA or anyone.

The fact that there's still so much double-scanning and transaction errors worry me though, it seems to get worse when more people are playing so there's definitely something wrong in the pipeline somewhere.

 

[Synther]

Betas clearly have to be longer with the bugs being fixed, rather than "enough" being fixed and then being released on a friday. Some of the game breakers were rather predictable in terms of public response and now we're dealing with it.

 

[Moosegun]

Now, I know there will be the usual band of FD brown-nosers who will berate me for daring to criticise their precious game and their beloved FD, but this has been going on for far too long. Every single time a major update comes along we have to go through this ridiculous charade of the game being nigh-on unplayable for at least the first three patches. How many more times does this have to happen before the Elite: Dangerous community finally says enough is enough? Sort your act out... and the game!

Sorry but you really didnt have to add this bit at the end, it turns your post into nothing more than a rant if you are not willing to accept people might have different opinions. There is a large group of players out there you have had very few problems and are enjoying the new gameplay. It is not about brown nosing, it is just a different opinion and perception.

Personally I have enjoyed the game more since 1.3 without a doubt, my gameplay is a lot more varied, I have sampled but not overly ground PP and found it enjoyable in small doses. Personally I have had very few, if any technical issues. This DOES NOT mean they dont exist nor that they arent going to be extremely frustrating for those suffer them. For what it is worth I also agree that beta should have been longer and the communication has been very poor, something I hope they resolve. I would also point out that there is a lot of ranting on the forums about 'bugs' which are, or could possible be, just a lack on understanding.

 

[RingoD123]

I think these beta's (wings and powerplay) are really just a token gesture to the people who bought during original beta, non of the reported bugs get fixed and multiple new things get added after the testing and its released to the public for the first time, largely untested.

 

[Ancipital]

Given feedback is utterly ignored and the FD communication, you shouldn't be surprised. I have personally not logged once to the beta PP, I knew perfectly well how it was going to endup from experience of the pre-release beta. Participating is an unconstructive waste of time.

Beta cycles are possibly scheduled to fit the timing needs of press releases and PR, rather than iterating until most major showstoppers are fixed. Call me cynical, but it looked that way with 1.1 (which was a real mess), and seems even more the case now with 1.2.

 

[Lord_Crazy]

Beta cycles are possibly timed to end to fit the timing needs of press releases, and PR, rather than iterating until most major showstoppers are fixed.

That is possible indeed. Now do we want to play a game with release dictated by PR needs or dictated by quality?

 

[Ancipital]

Argh, I wish I had been slightly less garbled there, the bit that you quoted is barely language (so I have ninja-edited it)

 

[TriumphANT]

The "beta" monicker can be used differently in different cases. Effectively, 1.3 "beta" was close to what I would consider to be a late Alpha of the PP features loaded onto the final release of 1.2. That's a big issue when you're doing incremental updates as a software developer. e.g. if I was running Windows 10 Tech Preview and something like Notepad or Paint didn't work, I'd be astonished. The core of 1.3 is 1.2 remember, and 1.2 was pretty solid.

So what are we playing now? Effectively a beta of 1.3 on top of the core 1.2 features. I'm pretty saddened by this (again), as it was clear that 1.3 was rushed to release. The opportunities for FD to spend more time with the beta of PP separate to the main game were there, and they chose to do yet another "one update a day for a fortnight" early release. If their attitude doesn't change soon, then I'm very twitchy about how things will end up on the Xbox release, or even what the perception of ED will be to people on Steam who had the solid 1.2 to play, and now have a different system to get used to.

 

[Ancipital]

The "beta" monicker can be used differently in different cases. Effectively, 1.3 "beta" was close to what I would consider to be a late Alpha of the PP features loaded onto the final release of 1.2. That's a big issue when you're doing incremental updates as a software developer. e.g. if I was running Windows 10 Tech Preview and something like Notepad or Paint didn't work, I'd be astonished. The core of 1.3 is 1.2 remember, and 1.2 was pretty solid.

Yes, though if you cast your mind back, 1.2 was a shocking mess too- just remember all the emergency patches trying to fix the "mini-boops of death" bugs (reported extensively in beta) and similar. Yes, I've already had deja vu.. It took a while before 1.2.x became safe to play.

 

[Armour]

The OP stated that there are only 2 game servers in his most recent video. How does he know this for a fact? Does he think it impossible that there might be some proxy-based load balancing going on behind the scenes? It happens all the time in industries like telecommunications, where there are far stricter latency requirements than this game is likely to warrant, given it's reliance on P2P for the twitchy stuff.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

The OP stated that there are only 2 game servers in his most recent video. How does he know this for a fact? Does he think it impossible that there might be some proxy-based load balancing going on behind the scenes? It happens all the time in industries like telecommunications, where there are far stricter latency requirements than this game is likely to warrant, given it's reliance on P2P for the twitchy stuff.

Wrong thread?

p.s. would be interested to know which thread (I am in the telecoms industry)

 

[Armour]

Wrong thread?

p.s. would be interested to know which thread (I am in the telecoms industry)

No, the OP has a Youtube channel where he mumbles and swears a lot. That was what I referred to.

 

[Herik]

I'm seriously starting to think that this ain't the game's fault but a server hardware issue

Most likely.