Horizons Please remove 'Elite Dangerous 2.0' from the bottom left

DazzyB

D
Hiya FD,

Can you please remove the wording 'Elite Dangerous 2.0' from the bottom left when playing. I understand why you would want it in the beta as it is a form of disclaimer that way but not in the release please! It already shows on the loading screen and you could have it displaying on the main menu too (if it's not already there).

Having it showing in the release during game play makes it look like a beta still and it's annoying/distracting me!

Thank you for the amazing piece of art that is Horizons!

Dazzy.
 

xyphic

X
It's a known issue. It was apparently spotted before release, but not deemed of high enough importance to warrant a further delay to the release to remove it (even though it seems like a trivial change, they would have had to rebuild and their internal QA process would probably have required a rigorous test to ensure nothing had broken as a result). I'm guessing there'll be a hotfix release today to remove it.
 

DazzyB

D
xyphic said:
It's a known issue. It was apparently spotted before release, but not deemed of high enough importance to warrant a further delay to the release to remove it (even though it seems like a trivial change, they would have had to rebuild and their internal QA process would probably have required a rigorous test to ensure nothing had broken as a result). I'm guessing there'll be a hotfix release today to remove it.
Click to expand...

Ah okies, many thanks for that! :)
 

Red Fox Four

Red Fox Four
Bit off-topic, but how the hell does QA testing even work ?

To me it seems QA testing for games in general is just "play game lots and if you spot something weird, report it". Why else would so many bugs and issues carry over into releases?

Then again, I am used to verification of installations for the offshore industry and we have checklists that are signed for every piece of equipment installed. And not just one item to check, but multiple.

Correct cable installed according to specifications?
Cable bending radius within tolerances?
Cable supported properly?
No visible damage on cable?
Cable tested according to requirements?
Wires terminated correctly?
Wires labelled correctly?
Cable earthing installed correctly?
Cable labelled correctly?
Cable nipple tightened?

Maybe I should do consulting work for QA departments in gaming industry :p
 

Zueuk

Zueuk
Probably the last year's release was considered so successful, that they decided to repeat everything exactly like the last time, including this :)
 

xyphic

X
Red Fox Four said:
Bit off-topic, but how the hell does QA testing even work ?

To me it seems QA testing for games in general is just "play game lots and if you spot something weird, report it". Why else would so many bugs and issues carry over into releases?

Then again, I am used to verification of installations for the offshore industry and we have checklists that are signed for every piece of equipment installed. And not just one item to check, but multiple.

Correct cable installed according to specifications?
Cable bending radius within tolerances?
Cable supported properly?
No visible damage on cable?
Cable tested according to requirements?
Wires terminated correctly?
Wires labelled correctly?
Cable earthing installed correctly?
Cable labelled correctly?
Cable nipple tightened?

Maybe I should do consulting work for QA departments in gaming industry :p
Click to expand...
A game like ED is an extremely complex piece of software, consisting of millions of lines of code, targeted at multiple inconsistent hardware platforms. Putting it simply it consists of a number of features, and there are a number of levels of testing:


  • Unit testing. Each unit test will verify the functionality of a small unit of software, usually per-function. This is white box testing and relies on knowledge of what a function does, its side-effects, etc. This testing is usually automated and verifies that a change to the software hasn't broken the behaviour of a unit. (If this occurs, it'll have effects everywhere the behaviour of that unit is assumed)
  • Regression testing. There'll be some level of automated testing of the integration of units. These will probably be run every time a build is performed, and verify that fundamental operation (e.g. physics) of the software hasn't been broken by a change.
  • Functional / integration testing. This is black box testing, and verifies that each unit (analogous to a piece of equipment in your example) have been correctly integrated (analogous to cables being correctly installed, etc.). There'll be a number of test plans (checklists) to verify this, and will be run manually by the QA team. They'll be checking that the game basically works, so there'll be test cases for all the basic game operation use cases. This is an extremely time-intensive process, and obviously prone to error.


Ideally all the testing that's performed on the game will serve to catch the major game-breaking bugs. But they can't cater for all edge cases (particularly those that occur with exotic hardware configurations or network topologies) and the idea of the Beta process is that there'll be enough testing going on to identify those edge cases, and ideally instructions on how to reproduce them. Those edge cases will be reproduced by the QA team, passed onto the developers and then either regression tests will be written to verify that the bug has been squashed, or test cases created specifically for them (which may or may not make it into the general release test plans). You can't test everything every time, so sometimes bugs get reintroduced and aren't caught as part of future release tests (but are inevitably spotted quickly by the user base).

Software QA testing requires a very particular set of skills, including the ability to be able to repeat the same monotonous tasks over and over without getting bored. It also requires a lack of ego, as your achievements (ensuring that the software that goes out isn't broken too badly) don't tend to be well-recognised. If there are any software QA people from Frontier reading this: I at least recognise the job that you're doing and salute you! o7
 

Soulstain

Soulstain
Only a two week beta before a launch on an expansion deemed "game changing"! Six pages of bug reports the day before release. What did you expect? This is not a developer that says "we will release it when it's ready".
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Ian Phillips
DB acknowledged that this was an error in the Live Stream yesterday, and also said that there would be a fix for it coming ASAP. (don't dare to use the 'S' word....:))
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Ian Phillips
For anyone with no testing experience, I am a software tester with decades of experience.

Currently I am testing 1 batch program for error messages in a file header record and errors in the data record (empty fields).

After 3 weeks of tests, bug reports, code changes and deliveries, 50% of the header record error messages are not working correctly (some were but are now broken again), and of the data records one of the fields is now working properly, after 1.5 weeks of attempts to get that one field right.

QA takes time, and is not simple. For a complex program like a game it's the stuff of nightmares :)
 
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