Malfador Website

[Aris_Sung]

Aaahh, I see.
So you play and play until you find errors or it crashes and you report it.
Sounds fun.

[Phoenix-D]

Well, early in the beta phase it tends to be..not very fun.

"Ok, lets install it. Ok, that worked..lets play.
-click program icon-
CRASH!

Well, crap."

[Atrocities]

Its a lot of work and you never finish a game because of the updates that will most likely be put out by Malfador as the beta testing progresses.

The object of a beta (Not saying it is for this beta) is to play test it looking for whatever errors or what nots that might creep in. UI bugs, hang ups, errors, etc.

As many of us earily players can atest to, the dreaded RCE (Range Check Error) was the surge of many a games. Through beta testing the RCE was nicely retired. (Thank you)

[Sivran]

I think they bear too much resemblence to the Abbidon ships. Just a little blockier and blue..

[Suicide Junkie]

Atrocities said:
Its a lot of work and you never finish a game because of the updates that will most likely be put out by Malfador as the beta testing progresses.

The object of a beta (Not saying it is for this beta) is to play test it looking for whatever errors or what nots that might creep in. UI bugs, hang ups, errors, etc.

As many of us earily players can atest to, the dreaded RCE (Range Check Error) was the surge of many a games. Through beta testing the RCE was nicely retired. (Thank you)

And modding too...

Me and Rollo were doing a bunch of that. Its tough when you have to rebuild your mod from scratch every other week because the format of the datafiles has changed.

Rollo's EEE/spacemonsters mod was great. I have a copy still, but it only works under v0.15 or so, and I don't have the skills to update it.

[boran_blok]

imho the beta testing shouldnt be randomized, some people are better at beta testing than others, maybe they should have every aspirant beta tester write a small paragraph of why he/she wants to be a beta tester, some people have no ide of how frustrating the life of a beta tester can be. if you're beta testing your own code it's even more frustrating, I can speak from experience there

beta testers should not expect to play a game, they should expect to play something which looks like a game but is actually a collection of bugs, definetly in the earlier stages.

Also, I doubt this would happen, but some bugs are SERIOUS, as in: damage user data. PoR had a nasty bug that survived beta testing and ended up in retail which removed all data from C.... effectively formatting your drive, nice, really really nice ...

[geoschmo]

I think you misunderstood. The beta team is definetly NOT a random group. Most of the beta testing team is already pretty much set. The lottery thing is just for a few extra spots. It's basically a way to give anyone that wants to be a beta tester at least a chance to participate, since you obviously can't have everyone be a beat tester.

[David E. Gervais]

Exactly what Geo said, there is a core list of people that will be givin an invite to the se5 beta, but this in no way guarantees that they will be available (as in 'have the necessary time to spend hunting bugs') The random selection does two things, it indeed gives a chance for new gamers to get into the beta but it also brings new blood into the mix. Often in the beta process a newbie will find things a veteran will miss, simply because the veteran knows how to play and is less likely to make wierd or 'different' choices when going through the different parts of the game.

All in all, there is allot to scan and test during beta. It always starts out as a massive bug hunt, and then slowly it becomes more stable and the beta testers get to make 'suggestion' for gameplay imporvements. At the end of the beta all the testers can be proud of a job well done, but you should know that a beta does not end at the release of the game, beta testing still goes on after the release of the game. (just that everyone is now a beta tester )

Anyway, the countdown has begun, so stay tuned.

Cheers!

Edit: Fixed embarrasing typo