Seems that FD Needs to make some changes to Beta testing.

[Controlledpress]

With the slew of heavy errors that seem to be getting worse with every update. It seems to me that the beta testers are no longer actually testing.

The only explanation I can think of for this is that the "beta" testers are in it just for the fun of being first on flying new ships and seeing new stuff. But there's NO way that they can be playing and not experiencing at least half of the major issues that become blatantly obvious as soon as the release hits.

So My suggestion to FD would be to purge their BETA pool and find some new testers that actually WANT to test the updates.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

Selection process?
Retention criteria?

 

[Scudmungus]

Yuh get wat you pay for!

Beside, dem 'Beta Testers' - they proffesional? Unlikely!

Dem be numbers - costing Frontier notin.

 

[emacinnes]

With the slew of heavy errors that seem to be getting worse with every update. It seems to me that the beta testers are no longer actually testing.

The only explanation I can think of for this is that the "beta" testers are in it just for the fun of being first on flying new ships and seeing new stuff. But there's NO way that they can be playing and not experiencing at least half of the major issues that become blatantly obvious as soon as the release hits.

So My suggestion to FD would be to purge their BETA pool and find some new testers that actually WANT to test the updates.

As a heavy beta player, "I find your lack of faith disturbing". Hundreds of bugs were submitted, issues were known, not much of it was a surprise. I would say that this beta was too short to really get into it, powerplay took a while to get to grips with, and not many really got a chance to play it forward a number of times. It really needed another 2-3 weeks, but it looks, at least on the surface, that E3 forced their hand somewhat on this occasion, it was too big an update that was too close to a major event.

 

[Grimnir9]

Yep, that's pretty much how many folks look at beta testing. Before this update, I've never seen this much down time in this game. I'm off today on holiday, and wanted to jump right in, but with the servers down; I can't. I have my second playthrough of the witcher 3 to keep me company, but I wanted to spend time with this game.

 

[Monk]

The beta test forum had lots and lots of bug reports in it...I subscribe to an RSS feed from the support forum and there was a constant stream of beta testers finding issues.

Many of the issues we are experiencing today just weren't there during the beta test....

You are asking Frontier to make changes based on assumptions. Personally, I think they should close the open beta all together and put some money towards a bigger internal QA team. Just so everyone will shut the heck up about this crap.

 

[tetra]

As a heavy beta player, "I find your lack of faith disturbing". Hundreds of bugs were submitted, issues were known, not much of it was a surprise. I would say that this beta was too short to really get into it, powerplay took a while to get to grips with, and not many really got a chance to play it forward a number of times.

This ^. There were pages and pages of bug reports submitted, some bugs which ended up in 1.3 were not even apparent in the beta at all and due to the beta setup for pricing etc others were not triggered. Blaming this on the beta testers is beyond ridiculous...

 

[Rankaze]

With the slew of heavy errors that seem to be getting worse with every update. It seems to me that the beta testers are no longer actually testing.

The only explanation I can think of for this is that the "beta" testers are in it just for the fun of being first on flying new ships and seeing new stuff. But there's NO way that they can be playing and not experiencing at least half of the major issues that become blatantly obvious as soon as the release hits.

So My suggestion to FD would be to purge their BETA pool and find some new testers that actually WANT to test the updates.

Um, no, many of these problems WERE reported in Beta. Others simply didn't crop up during the rather limited beta time.

To put it in other terms... beta testers report issues. If FD chooses to release without addressing those issues, that is on FD, not the testers!

 

[Grimnir9]

As a heavy beta player, "I find your lack of faith disturbing". Hundreds of bugs were submitted, issues were known, not much of it was a surprise. I would say that this beta was too short to really get into it, powerplay took a while to get to grips with, and not many really got a chance to play it forward a number of times. It really needed another 2-3 weeks, but it looks, at least on the surface, that E3 forced their hand somewhat on this occasion.

Not every tester is like you. Some just want the jump on the new stuff. I admit, when I beta test, it's to check out the new features, but when I come across a bug, I report it in detail straight away. Seems like you do the same. Others on the other hand...

 

[Nagual]

Wow, I'm impressed with your diagnostic ability. Beta testers not testing eh? No. Sorry a load of tosh. Bunkum and Balderdash. Bug reports were submitted by the thousand. What didn't happen, was a prolonged beta period where FDev could address those bugs. In addition they did not give 1.3 RC to the beta testers to test.

In addition, part of testing IS just playing normally to see if errors crop up.

 

[Hellhawk666]

The only problem with this beta was that it was rushed. The game should not have gone live until about now, but FD wanted it out there.

I see no issue with new beta testers being taken on board, but there's no need for a purge of the existing ones.

 

[Flavourless]

Many of us that have access to the betas put our main game progress on hold (unlike the rest of you) to try to help the launch of the update (as always).
That FD always chooses to release according to their own schedules (reasonable enough), but against the "advice" of the testers, and with many identified bugs not (yet) addressed - is really not a fault of the testers themselves.

 

[Dorohedoro]

The entire "full released" game was just a huge and long beta test. How can you release a game with a totally broken and bugged text based mission system? What a nightmare.

And now players are reporting that the background simulation of pp is also bugged, come on, give me a break...

 

[Rankaze]

Wow, I'm impressed with your diagnostic ability. Beta testers not testing eh? No. Sorry a load of tosh. Bunkum and Balderdash. Bug reports were submitted by the thousand. What didn't happen, was a prolonged beta period where FDev could address those bugs. In addition they did not give 1.3 RC to the beta testers to test.

In addition, part of testing IS just playing normally to see if errors crop up.

And also, if people think it's buggy now, they should have seen Beta 1! Or even Beta 5! There were, what, 8 Beta releases of 1.3? A whole lot of crap was fixed before this ever saw live. And even then a large number of beta testers were still saying it wasn't ready!

 

[CMDR Charybdis]

One aspect of testing is having a larger number of players involved and the BETA test server is going to cover this adequately. A formal test team has already run functional testing scenarios and will have already looked at the build, ironing out a number of the more obvious defects.

For the 1.3 beta testing forum I can see 25 pages of posts at around 50 posts per page. That's a large number of bug reports to work through in a short period of time for Frontier, and difficult to take as a lack of engagement from players in the beta testing groups. Personally I'd like to see Frontier running longer public testing cycles for beta builds, though I'm sure it would be more frustrating for the remainder of the player base.

Nice try at getting on the beta test team though!

 

[Flavourless]

Yuh get wat you pay for!

Beside, dem 'Beta Testers' - they proffesional? Unlikely!

Dem be numbers - costing Frontier notin.

True. But as with any testing, users can identify issues.
How well those issues are actioned depends on the professionalism of the Software Developers.

Commercial software testing is a whole branch in itself, and with best practice not conducted by the developers.

 

[Armour]

FDEV seem to be of the "release early and often" school of QA, at least on this project. Blaming the Beta testers for that is dishonest, OP. If you wanted to get Beta access, you should have ponied up the dough at the time. Painting the guys and gals who actually did as unconcerned with the quality of the game is bound to get them on your side!

 

[brakaton]

1. FD does an internal test
2. Beta is released
3. Bugs are reported
4. Original beta gets released
5. FD fixes bugs for a week or so

Every time

 

[Controlledpress]

One aspect of testing is having a larger number of players involved and the BETA test server is going to cover this adequately. A formal test team has already run functional testing scenarios and will have already looked at the build, ironing out a number of the more obvious defects.

For the 1.3 beta testing forum I can see 25 pages of posts at around 50 posts per page. That's a large number of bug reports to work through in a short period of time for Frontier, and difficult to take as a lack of engagement from players in the beta testing groups. Personally I'd like to see Frontier running longer public testing cycles for beta builds, though I'm sure it would be more frustrating for the remainder of the player base.

Nice try at getting on the beta test team though!

I run my own business, so i don't have time to beta test. But nice deflection.

25*50... I spent a grand total of less than an hour in the game since the update.. and I found an easy 25 things wrong. Commander data - Transaction system faults to other minor things.. So let me say how impressed I am with 1250 bug reports.

 

[Rankaze]

1. FD does an internal test
2. Beta is released
3. Bugs are reported
4. Original beta gets released
5. FD fixes bugs for a week or so

Every time

Nah, release 1.3 is a substantial improvement over Beta 1. Believe me. Beta 1 was bad.

- - - Updated - - -

I run my own business, so i don't have time to beta test. But nice deflection.

25*50... I spent a grand total of less than an hour in the game since the update.. and I found an easy 25 things wrong. Commander data - Transaction system faults to other minor things.. So let me say how impressed I am with 1250 bug reports.

But you have time to troll all the beta testers?

MANY beta testers insisted that 1.3 was not ready for release. FD released anyway. You cannot blame the beta testers for that.