Hi.
Jeremy and I with Valiant Galaxy Associates have been using something
half way between private alpha public beta. The only difference is we
don't really have an alpha stage. Us two code it until it is shaped like
we want it, and it is playable enough to get the idea, then our testers
get access to it and then here come all the bug reports, suggestions,
grypes, etc. Even though we're new at this, we've done it twice so far
and both times it seems to have worked really well. For our testers, who
are all private by the way, we pick from people we have known personally
or online and we are confident they will tell us how it really is. Also
though they are people who we have good relationships with, so their
opinions can be somewhat biased just on account of they would like to
see us do good because that's what friends do right? But it actually
seems to work because we still get suggestions and, interestingly
enough, the suggestions we got after the one game we have already
released was, in fact, released (traders of known space), the public's
comments, suggestions, complaints, etc were nearly all exactly the same
thing our testers had, and many were already on our to do list so we
could respond with "this is in the works". Some would say keeping an
impartial team is a good idea. I think keeping biased friends around is
better because if they have the same ideas you're good, if they don't
necessarily like what you did, they'll want to help you come up with
something they like better and they understand what you went through
especially if you let them in on a lot of the process you go through
before they actually get to test it. V G A's games are those we would
play ourselves, so that's another reason it's cool to have friends who
may be like minded, because we don't have people turning us into our
tails so much we just lose faith in our own efforts and give it up all
together from discouragement, something much easier to encounter than I
would have thought a year ago.
By the same token though, some of our testers are people who do not
necessarily like the kinds of games we come out with. Indeed we have
actually sat down, Jeremy and I, and put our heads together (online) and
dug up a friend who we thought would not be too thrilled about this
particular game we wanted tested, and asked them if they would test it.
It has resulted in some interesting modifications that weren't too
awfully difficult and which made both games more worthy of the data
space they take up in our own opinion of course.
Aside from that, we find that having a really easy way to provide our
games to the friends is very helpful. Automatic updating between
versions with minimal time and effort on our parts to make the changes
available and on the tester's parts to obtain the updates have been
really good for us. We can release new minor updates once a day if need
be, and keep on plugging at a couple of tough issues while testers are
confirming bugs we did or did not know about in different or the same
area we are working on.
What to take away from all this is, find a very nice way to provide your
updates to testers, use a repository that allows you to push updates
which the end user gets via auto updates, or something such as that. Use
testers you already know and trust. Our testers never signed an NDA, but
to our knowledge the only people leaking details about the games are
Jeremy and I ourselves. One tester accidentally gave a beta copy that we
didn't want released to a friend of theirs upon our actual release of
the TKS game, instead of the actual public release, giving the tester
access to any future beta updates and potentially giving way to bad
reviews and press based on non release material, but we were able to get
the situation fixed to the best of our knowledge. So pick from people
you know, enjoy dealing with, who you are pretty sure will like what
you're doing and want to be helpful. Cheerful feedback, even if not good
feedback, will help you to want to keep kicking butt over your coffee, I
know this, the coder is the lawn mower, and it's in low gear and about
to run out of fuel, encouragement is the fuel, feedback that means more
work, but given in a friendly non confronting manner, is the fuel.
on 7/8/2014 11:36 AM, john wrote:
Hi all,
I'm looking to get the community's opinion on how you feel that the beta
process for a game should be handled. I have several different concepts, and
I'd like to figure out which the community prefers and why. Below, I'll detail
the different strategies I'm thinking of. If you could, please choose the one
(or top couple) that appeal to you, and explain why you feel this way. If you
have your own thoughts on how betas should be done, I'd love to get more input.
The first strategy I'm considering is a public beta. Basically this means that
once there's a playable game, it would be released to the public, just as if it
were finished, with the caveat that there are probably going to be less
features and more bugs than a released game would have.
Secondly is a private beta process. Once a beta version of the game is
finished, a team of testers would be selected, and would be able to test out
and help debug/enhance the game prior to release.
Third is a private alpha/public beta process. This would basically mean that an
even earlier version of the game would be released for private testing, and
once most of the issues are ironed out, released as if it were a public beta.
Fourth is simply not doing a beta process at all, and only releasing the game
in any form when its ready and fully playable.
In addition to all this, if you're a developer whose experienced beta processes
before, would you be willing to share some of your thoughts/experiences/words
of wisdom with me? If you've done beta testing, is there anything that should
never be done, or something the game dev can do that makes testing easier on
you?
Thanks,
John
P. S:
Over the past several months I've been sending a lot of messages to audyssey
asking for help with programming and concepts, and I think I'm finally at the
point where I can start to offer up some details on the project I've been
working on.
Most of my reason for being so secretive up to this point is simply that I
wasn't (and still aren't completely) sure that I was actually going to be able
to finish off the game.
The basic idea is a combination of aspects of the smugglers series and time of
conflict.
Inspired in part by all the news about U.S. cyber security and some
particularly interesting articles I read about a year ago, I came up with the
idea for this game. The (incredibly creative) storyline is basically that
government and corporate types managed to develop a chip that allows a remote
user to control a person's actions and/or emotions remotely, and then marketed
it as a way of advanced crime protection and mental health management. Of
course, remote meant via computer, which was hackable, and that's exactly what
happened. You will play the part of the leader of a small fringe group who
managed to escape the clutches of the people that now control nearly all of the
planet's population, and have to defend your base against their attacks until
the scientists and programmers you have with you manage to crack the signal
being used to access the chip, and return free will to the citizens of earth.
The game is primarily going to be menu based, though I'm still tossing around
some ideas for areas where text input would be more useful than scrolling
through massive menus.
There are a lot of aspects of the game that are still incomplete, and most
everything is somewhat malleable at this point, but I'm pretty confident with
the overall storyline/game concept.
I'm writing this in bgt, which means only windows xp and later will be
supported.
The game is going to be completely freeware, and I'm currently planning to be
hosting it on dropbox.
I'm not going to offer a release date, but I will say that I'm at a (extremely)
tentative alpha stage right now.
Happy gaming.
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