FD QA hang your heads in shame
- Thread starter Excalibrates
- Start date
The game released last year. This isn't version 0.xxxx.
You could say the game is being developed non-stop - which it is. So do you think it's ok that bugs remain persistent forever?
The funniest part is, FDev will never give you any respond on this topic xD
I work in a software team 5 minutes walk from the Frontier office (I see their people walking around the area).and my company had exactly the same release QA problems until we got a tight grip on our code repository (git in our case). Defects from previous releases are creeping back in to ED, for example, yesterday's release reintroduced the bounty total bug (wrong on the info screen but correct at station cash-in). Is it possible that Frontier's repository integrity is a bit poor? Hard to tell, could be other things but it would fit the symptom.
They're going to need to get a grip on all of this now they're on consoles. They won't be able to patch daily and on the fly like they're used to.
FDs particular thing seems to be breaking things that were fixed or just were never broken at all.
I would write unit tests to cover this.
That would show up any issues and also if anyone tinkered with it in the future then the failing unit tests would alert the developer to that fact.
If there was an issue that wasn't covered by a unit test then you would have write a unit test that covered that aspect.
If you have any doubt about the effectiveness of unit tests I once took a poorly functioning 730 line of C++ that ran in a dialog. I refactored it so it wasn't part of the dialog and then set about writing unit tests. Just 18 unit tests later I had covered the majority of the functionality then set about rewriting the functor getting it down to 135 lines of tight C++ that worked flawlessly.
That would show up any issues and also if anyone tinkered with it in the future then the failing unit tests would alert the developer to that fact.
If there was an issue that wasn't covered by a unit test then you would have write a unit test that covered that aspect.
If you have any doubt about the effectiveness of unit tests I once took a poorly functioning 730 line of C++ that ran in a dialog. I refactored it so it wasn't part of the dialog and then set about writing unit tests. Just 18 unit tests later I had covered the majority of the functionality then set about rewriting the functor getting it down to 135 lines of tight C++ that worked flawlessly.
Whoa what a game changer.
Everyone? Guys? We need to stop the thread.
This one dude says it's nonsense without any supporting argument.
It must be true...
I guess the Devs need to play their own game more.
You can't even do missions without obvious, glaring bugs. And it's the same bugs as before, even though the mission system was given an overhaul.
They never backported their fixes. It's still $##{alternateReward} in the text.
I had a mission to kill some pirates, for 250,000 cr. The alternate reward was 13,000 credits. All I want to do is get the Clipper, but I have already done 2 ascension missions without any progress.
My personal experience, 2 out of 4 missions are bugged.
You can't even do missions without obvious, glaring bugs. And it's the same bugs as before, even though the mission system was given an overhaul.
They never backported their fixes. It's still $##{alternateReward} in the text.
I had a mission to kill some pirates, for 250,000 cr. The alternate reward was 13,000 credits. All I want to do is get the Clipper, but I have already done 2 ascension missions without any progress.
My personal experience, 2 out of 4 missions are bugged.
Sit down, Have some rep!
I know it sounds strange but I've always wanted to say/write that and this seemed like a good oppertunity
As a customer of a released, shipping product I shouldn't have to come onto bug forums to find reasons why I shouldn't start the game up - and there are more reasons than I can count right now.
This is not a beta any more so stop treating it like one. Having previously fixed bugs being reintroduced and the efforts of beta testers ignored, releasing 1.3 anyway in no state to be in the public hands is a quick way to the early death of this game.
Not everyone wants to get involved with the mini board game called Powerplay. 1.3 brings to those people little else in added content, more negatives than anything else in the form of eroding reputation (still hugely bugged) and a list of bugs so game breaking it's probably a safe bet to ignore the game for the next 3 or 4 patches.
The beta mentality needs to go. You need to appreciate that you cross a very definitive line when you go from beta to release, from testers to customers.
This is not a beta any more so stop treating it like one. Having previously fixed bugs being reintroduced and the efforts of beta testers ignored, releasing 1.3 anyway in no state to be in the public hands is a quick way to the early death of this game.
Not everyone wants to get involved with the mini board game called Powerplay. 1.3 brings to those people little else in added content, more negatives than anything else in the form of eroding reputation (still hugely bugged) and a list of bugs so game breaking it's probably a safe bet to ignore the game for the next 3 or 4 patches.
The beta mentality needs to go. You need to appreciate that you cross a very definitive line when you go from beta to release, from testers to customers.
Pretty sure they're using SVN, which would explain a lot...
To be fair, in the greater scheme of things, when all has been carefully weighed, measured and considered. When we've looked at the pros and cons.
99% of what we write here is nonsense.
1% might be accidentally on the verge of wisdom.
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We use SVN - moving to git in a few weeks. There's still no excuse for reintroducing old bugs. Has someone created a patch from an old revision? Merged an old working branch back into the trunk? These would seem horribly risky things to do. Our code-base has a variety of different products in it, some of which share common elements. This is tricky to manage with svn and inefficient, but observing simple rules is enough to avoid these sorts of issues: new releases branch from the trunk, don't do features on shipping branches just bug fixes, fix bugs in two places (trunk and branch). Heypresto.
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I've been in the PP beta and have to say that the 1.3 release was a bit shoddy.
Nothing altogether game breaking, but lots of minor & medium bugs that could have been avoided if tested longer.
Like, releasing a new PP gui with main texts not even fitting their boxes and faulty infos., tch, tch...
Seems 1.3 simply had to be rushed out of the door to be in time for E3.
Nothing altogether game breaking, but lots of minor & medium bugs that could have been avoided if tested longer.
Like, releasing a new PP gui with main texts not even fitting their boxes and faulty infos., tch, tch...
Seems 1.3 simply had to be rushed out of the door to be in time for E3.
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Frontier,
<Begin angry rant>
Thanks for the buggy release of powerplay. It sure is great wondering if repair and wear and tear is correct or not. I love waiting for you guys to fix bugs with RES only to create more in the process. I thought I bought a released game, that wasn't in beta, that wasn't in alpha. No, this is just what I should expect from Frontier's released games apparently. Bugs are being reintroduced repeatedly. We understand this is an ongoing development process, but this many bugs should never make it into production.
Your patch notes are literally the worst I've ever seen. You won't give numbers of how much repair cost should be, god forbid one of us do the math and find a problem with it. Is wear and tear at 0% supposed to be 10% of the ship cost, 5%, 1%? What about repairing modules, what's the cost in % to repair those? I'm not sure even you guys know. Instead we're forced to just guess there's a problem and all we get in return is (paraphrasing) "We're looking at it, obviously it isn't correct.".
Are you using Mercurial for your source code repository? You need to nip that in the bud and switch to Git, this won't happen anymore if you switch. The change will take a few days but save you so much effort in the long run. It's obvious you are not using test driven design, which would help you out too. It's never too late to add them.
The past month with you guys has been unbelievably frustrating, and not many here are willing to give you the constructive criticism you need to hear. We love the game and want to see it succeed just as much as you do. Please, we're begging you, do something about the bugs.
<End angry rant>
With all that negativity out of my system, I have some positivity for you as well. The graphic models, sound, ai, music, and feel of the game is shown an incredible level of attention to detail. There is no game out there like this, in my opinion, that really shines in all these areas at once. The future is bright, and we'll be here with you along the way. Thank you for creating this wonderful game and I look forward to the future of Elite. It's in good hands.
<Begin angry rant>
Thanks for the buggy release of powerplay. It sure is great wondering if repair and wear and tear is correct or not. I love waiting for you guys to fix bugs with RES only to create more in the process. I thought I bought a released game, that wasn't in beta, that wasn't in alpha. No, this is just what I should expect from Frontier's released games apparently. Bugs are being reintroduced repeatedly. We understand this is an ongoing development process, but this many bugs should never make it into production.
Your patch notes are literally the worst I've ever seen. You won't give numbers of how much repair cost should be, god forbid one of us do the math and find a problem with it. Is wear and tear at 0% supposed to be 10% of the ship cost, 5%, 1%? What about repairing modules, what's the cost in % to repair those? I'm not sure even you guys know. Instead we're forced to just guess there's a problem and all we get in return is (paraphrasing) "We're looking at it, obviously it isn't correct.".
Are you using Mercurial for your source code repository? You need to nip that in the bud and switch to Git, this won't happen anymore if you switch. The change will take a few days but save you so much effort in the long run. It's obvious you are not using test driven design, which would help you out too. It's never too late to add them.
The past month with you guys has been unbelievably frustrating, and not many here are willing to give you the constructive criticism you need to hear. We love the game and want to see it succeed just as much as you do. Please, we're begging you, do something about the bugs.
<End angry rant>
With all that negativity out of my system, I have some positivity for you as well. The graphic models, sound, ai, music, and feel of the game is shown an incredible level of attention to detail. There is no game out there like this, in my opinion, that really shines in all these areas at once. The future is bright, and we'll be here with you along the way. Thank you for creating this wonderful game and I look forward to the future of Elite. It's in good hands.