ChaoticIntake wrote:So, I worked as a QA Tester for a video game company for a year and a half. The team we had consisted of me and three other people, one of which was our lead. He couldn't help us most times because he was in meetings all the time, so it was really just me and two other people. We tested an entire game for like six solid months, because we couldn't get the approval for any more people.
It got to the point where we couldn't handle the day-to-day workload we were given, because it was just too much. We'd come in, be given a bunch of tasks to do, then have to stretch that day's tasks into the next day. Sometimes, those tasks were urgent, so we ended up staying until like midnight, sometimes later, to get all this crap done.
One of the things that happened that helped us IMMENSELY was when we went into our Closed Beta phase. It was basically free QA to the people we handed out codes to. Instead of us reporting bugs, checking them, sending them to the appropriate people, and verifying the fix when they got fixed, THEY would report bugs, leaving the rest of the steps to us, but cutting out a BIG part of our work, which helped us so much. Plus, some of the stuff we couldn't see with our small team. We had to have more people playing.
This is exactly what MrM is doing. He's employing the Closed Beta strategy. Give a build of the game to popular servers or active community members, and let THEM test things. Like he said, some crashes and bugs won't occur until large numbers of players are playing. This is the perfect opportunity for him to find these things.
I get that you guys have personal lives, which is cool, and you don't get paid to do this, so I don't understand why beta builds of the mod have to be some "cool kids club" where all the cool kids have to gather round and majority vote on whether or not to accept new members. The only thing this is doing is helping the mod. It's not like a leak of this mod is going to end the world, because the base game is already out, and beta builds are, by definition, buggy in at least some sense and sometimes unplayable. Again, all MrM does by having more eyes on the beta builds is help the mod become more stable.
And for the record, as far as I know, free hosting, unless you do it from your own computer, is complete shit. Plus, servers have enough issues with a constantly-updating database, and if you aren't paying someone to host your server, there's most likely less they'd be willing to put up with.
And don't worry, I understand the points you're all making about "why do we even have beta testers then". I don't have a good answer for that, because I'm not MrM. My best guess is the size issue. There's a good amount of you, as far as I know, but it's hard synchronizing everyone's schedules to spend three hours testing a version of the game for a few crash bugs. My best guess is that he wants you beta testers to log functionality or graphical bugs, and if he needs help with the big stuff, he employs the Closed Beta strategy I talked about above.
There's a part of there that I agree with and a part I don't. In the first place, I didn't complain for Mr.M releasing a Beta to a server to test server bugs, this is completely o.k. and is logicall. But the problem was that the Beta, which like you called it, is a "closed beta" became just too open, to the point that everyone who knew what this forums were could get it (while the link was in Yokon's topic). I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but that it should be handled in a more carefull way, so that it remains a closed beta, even if it's in a server. For example, I got the server beta, but had to join the skype group and ask Vikerius for it personally. I think that's how it should be done, as I've seen people asking friends to give them the beta, and then not reporting bugs, which is the overall point of a Beta. Just that, the way it was handled. If it's distributed to a server, I don't mind, as long as it stays on that server and isn't distributed to everyone.
- 16 May 2013 21:54#35520
Also, it was so open a decent sized youtuber got it and gave it to all his subs, so... there are benifits and disadvantages to both optioons
NodeCraft
