Fine-Tune, Tweak, Polish: A Prayer for Civ3

[Bkeela]

I take it back. If you don't have anything nice to say Bkeela, don't say anything at all.

Bkeela.
[This message has been edited by Bkeela (edited February 07, 2001).]

[Aredhran]

I think that what they need for their beta testing team, in addition to the usual round of TBS experts and avid Civ fans, are people new to the genre, or at least unused to the interface.

One of the most annoying things for me, is to have a potentially great game, but one that I can't be bothered to play because the UI is so crappy it makes me wonder if it has been tested at all. (example: Shogun - Total War)

That's what you get when the only people who have been testing the game are the ones who wrote it, or people who are such fans, or have played the game so much that they overlook ease of use and good UI design because they're too excited about a new toy.

Aredhran

[Ralf]

YIN26, first quote:
"At this point in Civ3's development, perhaps the single most important thing to be done is fine-tuning, tweaking, and polishing this baby. Assuming Civ3 is still one year out, I'm guessing you could have a solid 4 major in-house / beta patch cycles. That could make all the difference. A sikly-smooth, highly-polished Civ3 is the surest way to wipe any competition off the market."

YIN26, second quote:
"Yes, I agree that if the beta is to be closed, then Markos and Dan (and perhaps a few others?) would do an excellent job of doing things "by the book" while doing their absolute best to represent their years of experience listening to the Civ crowd."

I really can sympathize with your first quote, Yin26! A "silkly-smooth, highly-polished Civ-3" anyone?
What I dont understand however is the supposed connection with the second quote.

What you are suggesting is basically a standard of-the-shelf closed beta-testing of a commercial game. Something that every game-developer in the industry already does, and something that Firaxis also did with the Alpha Centauri game. The only difference seems to be that you want them to "add Markos and Dan to your beta team".
Now, I have absolutely nothing against that they add some Apolyton-members to their beta-testing team (although I am sure that they can find more Apolyton-candidates to choose from, then just Markos & Dan). What I dont understand however, is how adding 3-5 Apolyton beta-testers, would be the equivalent of "a solid 4 major in-house / beta patch cycles. That could make all the difference."

Isnt it reasonable to think that the SMAC beta-testers where just as 100% dedicated? Despite this, Firaxis had to release no less then four game-patches, until fans (and perhaps also Firaxis) was reasonably satisfied.
These patch-requests, by the way, came from thousends of fans - many of them with strikingly different playing-styles, played on hugely varied & different hardware/software-combinations. And the bugs themselves originated from hundreds and hundreds of different/unique game-situations.
How, can above possibly be nullified just by adding 3-5 apolyton-members to the beta-testing team? The truth is that it simply cannot. Firaxis have really only two beta-testing options to choose from. Either...

1: Traditional closed beta-testing = A reasonably playable game, that can be much smother & more stable with the help of some additional game-patches.

2: Open/semi-open beta-testing = A more smother/stable game already from the first day of the game-release.

Ok then - maybe a fully open beta-testing of Civ-3 is unrealistic because of the reasons mentioned in previous posts. But, that also means that any ideas of releasing a game with the complexity of Civ-3, without the need of any additional game-pathes - is also unrealistic.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 07, 2001).]

[yin26]

Ralf,

First, an Alpha test might even be a better term for what I'm thinking, but I'm assuming Civ3 is far enough down the line to call it a Beta test...even if it won't be out for a year.

Of course I want a MUCH larger effort paid to these issues, including broadly expanding the base of testers. It's not like I'm saying, "Adding Markos and Dan to your team will fix everything." I've inquired about an open beta on more than one occasion, but it looks like it won't happen.

So I'm saying, 1) Please start the testing NOW, even if that means cutting short some new ideas. Then invest the saved time and money in tweaking and polishing. Oh, I'm sure some testing automatically occurs as the game is programmed, but that's not we're talking about. Some of SMAC's nastiest bugs/issues weren't apparent on the surface.

And from what I know about SMAC, not much of their feedback (on bigger issues anyway) could be addressed with the time and staff that was available. I know this from actually speaking with them. They mentioned the color, several bugs, etc., and I have respect for the work they did in pointing out virtually ALL of the issues that caused patches to have to be released. I'm sure that same group would do an outstanding job on Civ3, but we might have the same result. This concerns me.

Keep in mind, too, that Jeff Morris was a "one man QA department" and you've got the picture. Assuming he still is, what's going to happen? He's only human, and what feedback he DOES get from testers might have to be very selectively considered.

This is true of ANY beta test, I realize...you can't redesign the game, of course, but the SMAC patch process took several months after release to complete. So at least leave that much more time in the development process to address those kinds of issues BEFORE release this time around.

And 2) I don't think an open beta will happen. It's not Firaxis tradition. Last I heard, the number of testers will double from what was on SMAC. Of course this is good, but I'd just REALLY like to have Dan and Markos involved if it's going to be a closed beta. I trust them to do a great job.

But what will they bring to the task that the other beta testers won't? Perhaps nothing...perhaps a great deal. I will say, though, that they have a tremendous awareness of public opinion and have seen first-hand patch issues and so forth. And I also think Firaxis will trust them for that...

Bottom Line: LET'S NOT MAKE CIV3 ANOTHER "PATCH A PATCH" MELODRAMA! If that requires a public or much expanded closed-beta, great. If that means cutting out some features to focus on this stuff, great.

[Roman]

While I don't want the game to be buggy, I fully understand that however much they test it some bugs will stay. That is fine by me as long as they then carry on to provide support for the game and release patches to fix the bugs.
Of course, they should try to catch as many bugs as possible before releasing the game, but I fear this is not possible to do efficiently.

[MOHonor]

http://www.an.i-dentity.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/013414.html

[Biddles]

One thing everyone one here has neglected: where do Markos and Dan's loyalties lie. I'm not saying they're going to get to a warez site, what I'm saying is "are they dedicated to the site or to firaxis". (Well I think the answer's pretty clear). Firaxis have been holding their cards pretty close to their chest, if Dan and Markos see the game features are they going to report it on apolyton or are the going to keep quite. What do firaxis want at the point of the beta test: secrecy for a showstopping surprise, or get us all hyped up for the game.