Dragon Lair Update: November 9, 2005

[dorrin]

then don't even bother to say "next week"

[Kitimandiri]

but it could happen :P

[Dragoniade]

Presumably they havepeople doing QA in-house. I really hope they rely primarily on in-house people for QA. If Blight is their sole source of QA we are in trouble.

God forbid that. At work, we have a ladder of about 4-5 servers of testing, before something even hit live. Some twirk happens, yes, but it shouldn't be the common things

I hope Genesis and Blight aren't the only tier of beta system they got. It would explain a few things though

[Dragoniade]

then don't even bother to say "next week"

Next week seem a plausible date. Next week.. of next year.

[Freak]

Caouls you tear down a few unused plots on Arua and add a Dragon Lair for me? PLEASE!?!?!?! [:D][;)]

[Goriax]

I have worked at various places developing software-- places which sell shrink wrapped desktop software, places which sell enterprise software, places which just use the software internally -- and they all do QA a bit differently, often depending on the unique demands of their business.

The current place I'm working somewhatresembles the HZ situation in that, even though the software is only used internally andisn't game software (well mainly internally, they spun off a company to sell one of our products and have been getting equiries about another). That is, it has numerous servers with the client automatically patched to the desktops. The client is periodically updated as new features are added to the system.

In that situation we have the classic three phases for the client: alpha, beta, and production with an internal QA phase between each one. Alpha is not intended for production and is mainly just the current build off the main development branch. We allow a few users involved in the development to see it so we can be getting feeedback early. To be released to beta it has to go through moderately strigent testing after which we have a beta release. Friendly users who are aware of the risks can usebeta for production use. Some vastly prefer it since it sees features first and in our business features==money. It's intent is more or less like Blight I think. We don't expect those users to find every last bug (that's what our testers are for) but it's handy for additional feedback and sometimes a beta tester finds a way of breaking the software the QA testers overlooked since the users ARE using it for production use.

Then periodically we take whatever is the current beta, do some far more thorough testing, and release it to production. We try to always start with a beta which has been out for awhile.

The point is, the beta users are very nice to have, but they're not even remotely the only testers involved. They're more a way to get extra feedback,a chance to exercise it in a production environment,and maybe find some bugs the full time testers missed.

[Pharcellus]

Except that, with Horizons, there are very few internal QA testers (mostly just the developers who test parts they have a hand in), and the beta testers on Blight are the majority. That's been a real problem in the past, where we weren't even able to do testing on Blight at all. It has changed some since then, but the Blight testers are still a very, VERY necessary part of Horizons' QA process, and they need all the help they can get.

In the software houses I have worked in (including my own), a REAL QA team is not comprised of the developers themselves, or if developers are involved, they are not usually the ones who worked directly on the product(s) they are testing. The point is that developers testing their own stuff only test the most direct path through the design; the one that they are most familiar with, since they wrote the code. They rarely venture very far from that path because, to them, if it works along that path, it is golden. Users, however, do some of the damnedest things to software. I can't count how many times I have heard a developer say "you weren't supposed to do that!" to a user who just turned their prize-winning application into a smoking ruin within a couple minutes of use.

[Dragoniade]

Actually in Horizons, there's no Prod (production) server. Their live servers are actually their beta servers ;)

[Akuluxtraxas]

From testing and working on blight last week or two i would be extremely concerned if the current setup goes live. bugs are rampant atm and a lot of things are not right on blight. not saying its huge or really bad stuff but when corpses are still there 30+ hours later after i log back in and the planning windows cause crashes among other things i hope things stay right where they are on blight and get fixed. there are many of us working very hard to help find and report these bugs and broken areas but with current state on blight i sure as hell would be wondering a lot if it goes live.

As far as lair interface,designs and new XP system i am quite liking of it. as noted its not the easy route but by no means is it unreachable or excrutiating. designing and planning lairs is really fun for me and has infinite possibilities. some new crystals are abundant and seem neat as well as mob AI has taken a leap forward it appears and is in a positive way. Lots of god on blight atm but imo at least 2-3 weeks more may be needed to knock out the bugs,issues and add/test remaining things that go with lairs.

just my report from what i have experienced. Also lairs are purchasable and adjusted in price on blight so feel free to get scouting!

[Dragoniade]

just my report from what i have experienced. Also lairs are purchasable and adjusted in price on blight so feel free to get scouting!

I would, but I fear the plot bug people encountered during the last auctions will occur again if I buy myself a lair on Blight.
"Sorry, you already have a plot"
Has this been fixed yet?