Javert
Volunteer Moderator
I'd like to make a potential suggestion, that future rounds of beta testing should use a copy of the live accounts so that beta testers would start each round of beta testing from the position they were in when testing started (or a few days before if it takes some time to set up the environment).
Looking at the issues of Release 1.1, it looks to me like several of the issues were caused by the fact that the testing didn't include any testing of what happens when your account is not a new account in the default starting location, you have already active missions, cargo, bounties, cartographics, a ship which is not included in the changes or is very difficult to obtain etc. etc.
I think FD should strongly consider having beta testing conducted the same way as the real cutover to the next version and have commanders accounts roll over to beta.
When a new set of features is rolled out, I'm guessing that the majority of players will be already active, and the number of new players joining each day is surely much lower than the number of already active players.
If there is a big need to test the starting positions as well, then go ahead and reset a random sub set of beta testers to the starting position, but not everybody, or whatever percentage of players makes sense. You could also empty their bank accounts as that is probably not too dangerous, but resetting to default start position for everybody is an issue.
The point is that having every player reset to starting position for each beta is not realistic and is very likely to result in significant issues slipping through.
While we're on the topic, I would also suggest that the guidance given to the beta testers should also focus on regression testing in some way. There was a lot of push in the announcements to test the new features, which is very important, but this may have resulted in less testing of other areas which had unforseen impacts by all the changes being made.
Looking at the issues of Release 1.1, it looks to me like several of the issues were caused by the fact that the testing didn't include any testing of what happens when your account is not a new account in the default starting location, you have already active missions, cargo, bounties, cartographics, a ship which is not included in the changes or is very difficult to obtain etc. etc.
I think FD should strongly consider having beta testing conducted the same way as the real cutover to the next version and have commanders accounts roll over to beta.
When a new set of features is rolled out, I'm guessing that the majority of players will be already active, and the number of new players joining each day is surely much lower than the number of already active players.
If there is a big need to test the starting positions as well, then go ahead and reset a random sub set of beta testers to the starting position, but not everybody, or whatever percentage of players makes sense. You could also empty their bank accounts as that is probably not too dangerous, but resetting to default start position for everybody is an issue.
The point is that having every player reset to starting position for each beta is not realistic and is very likely to result in significant issues slipping through.
While we're on the topic, I would also suggest that the guidance given to the beta testers should also focus on regression testing in some way. There was a lot of push in the announcements to test the new features, which is very important, but this may have resulted in less testing of other areas which had unforseen impacts by all the changes being made.