developpement on stand-by ?

[Vaz]

Testing needs to be done, though, and it needs to be done by players. It's simply not possible to properly test everything internally.

Indeed. To elaborate:
It is quite impossible to simulate the rigors of the live environment within in-house testing, even for a low-population game, and especially for a small company like Virtrium. Hire 50-100+ testers, even part time? Don't think so. So that leaves the option of having volunteers do the testing. Where's the best place to find those volunteers? Among the existing game players, of course.

[LaughingOtter]

By the way, WoW has its own version of Blight. The PTR, or Public Test Realm, is open to anyone who wants to play on them to test the upcoming patches. There are no special incentives to do so, other than getting a chance to help find and fix bugs.

And guess what? Even with all the people on Blizzard's QC team and all the people who play on the PTR, bugs STILL make it to live! Not for lack of resources or lack of effort, but because it's not possible, even for the biggest team in the industry, to test everything.

Nobody is expected or required to test. Everyone who wants to do so is welcome to, however, and the more testers we have the more bugs will be found and fixed prior to going live.

Those who do test have my deepest appreciation, though, and I'd like to offer a hearty "thank you!!" to all of you.

[Kulamata]

I think one reason for the mutter and squeak is the plot issue; it would be nice if a Blight plot didn't count. But as far as I know, there is no building content being developed right now, so a plot is not really necessary for the testing that's needed now.

The spawn system "won" the poll as Horizon's thorniest issue, and it's great to see that a possible improvement is being tested so soon.

It's been a long time since I was on Blight. I'd complained about the razing of Istaria at the merge, so I felt it behooved me to try to help test the revised Lesser Aradoth. The Blighters were very nice, and I expect Illya (?) is sadly missed. They said that they were sometimes harassed by visiting firemen from the live servers, which is really unfortunate; I hope that no longer occurs.

Given everything, we're fortunate to have the game, the development, and the testing volunteers. Cheers for all.

[Theros Ironfeld]

It was Illyist and yes we missed him when he was let go
btw blight is also missing about a dozen full time testers and about as many part timers when the Conclave and the Brotherhood made the move to WoW

[Kulamata]

I've always regarded EVE as a very professionally developed and managed game that is technically very advanced. Things like single huge shard, full time professional economist... excellence galore.

They just released a massive expansion. Portions began showing up on the test servers quite a while ago; it's been extensively tested.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum...letes-boot-ini

Redness of face! It happens even to the best.

[Antonath]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum...letes-boot-ini

Redness of face! It happens even to the best.

So now we have "redness face" to go with "dryness face"?

I was going to point that EVE one out - how the heck did testing miss something that serious? I can only think they were testing on virtual pcs, so never noticed the missing file...

Antonath

[Tryagain]

lol you people.

If someone doesn't want to test on blight and believes QA should be better than they are entitled to that belief even if you believe they aren't. Just because everyone does not bow at the feet of the game doesn't mean they are some great evil to the game. Sheesh people a little less feeling of being threatened and more belief that Horizons isn't going anywhere. No need to beat down those that simply believe differently than you do. Vitrium didn't take over HZ to get pats on the back. Its a business remember that.

Fact is bugs happen and its just a fact of life in development. From the most complex program to the simplest they simply slip through. That being said playing on a test server is totally optional nor is it required. Vitrium know's this I am sure.

Don't sweat it. The world still goes round and round even if Horizons isn't perfect.

[Goriax]

So now we have "redness face" to go with "dryness face"?

I was going to point that EVE one out - how the heck did testing miss something that serious? I can only think they were testing on virtual pcs, so never noticed the missing file...

Antonath

As I recall, that file is mainly for multi-boot systems. Could be that nobody who was testing had a multi-boot system.

That's why it's a REALLY good idea to have a wide variety of testers. It can go south on account of configurations nobody would have DREAMED would matter.
------------

Hmm. May have to eat my words. Could be it's standard for NT kernel systems (2000, XP, Vista) even if they're not multi-boot? I remember it from my days of having multi-boot systems where it's rather noticable when you start messing with stuff. If it's always needed then I don't see how it was missed, unless it didn't ALWAYS get deleted or unless nobody ever rebooted.

[Antonath]

It always got deleted - Windows could rebuild it under most "normal installation" environments, and there would have been an easily-ignorable error message. But multi boot, other odd set-ups it hosed the system.

Antonath

[Kulamata]

On the original topic;
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...921#post168921 . This pretty well covers the waterfront; I thought it was exceptionally well done.