Communication is Awkward

[Comrade_Shamrock]

Time to get crucified yay!

Well, let's all have a seat and talk about the release of the Beta client. It could have gone better, let's face it wasn't great when it came out. I'm not sure if anything actually worked. The key problem according to those developing it was the lack of testers. Probably true. I myself didn't test the beta client and I don't recall anyone I know doing so either, at least if they did they didn't mention it to me.

I recall a few mentions of no one ever being on. I brushed this off when I read it way back when. I don't pay much attention to aeolus considering the amount of dickery that tends to go on in there. However now that I think on that it may have been a bit of a mistake to just passively leave the testing to individuals. It may have been a massive pain if a person just came on and couldn't join games or do much of anything because there was no one else on at the same time, at least on the beta. There is a small amount of players that pay attention to the news and probably an even smaller pool that actually act on the content actually contained. So say if 50 players decided to test the beta, sounds good but if they're spread out along the timezones and have different jobs it plays havoc with the actual testing. They may not be online on the same day or the same time. And maybe because it becomes to much of a problem to even try, they give up.

Another thing that could have confused people was the the two Betas you guy were running simultaneously. It got me at least. You ask for help with a Beta but you had the client and the gameplay one. If you just said beta and a person only knew about one they would assume that it's that one. Even if you differentiated it by saying gameplay beta or client beta, a person may just pick up on the word beta and assume one and the same. Not everyone notices the difference in jargon especially if they're not versed in it.

Another thing I feel may have hampered testing is the news system. The announcement asking for beta testers was only made once and was only on top of the pile for two days. Then it got buried under an increasing pile of Tourney announcements, FAF development school and the gameplay beta news. Maybe repeated requests would have gotten more attention. An explanation of what the testing might have involved might have helped differentiate it from the gameplay beta and got more people interested. People might be more brave about trying it if they knew what they were expected to do and/or the requirements.

If you're going to do this again perhaps you could put a little more information on the Betas in the news, organise some times for testing and be more assertive with the news on the development you want us to see. Or anything else you think might be helpful.

Spoiler: show

Okay you may commence with the execution, just let me go and get the guillotine.

Spoiler: show

Flees while everyone waits for the guillotine

[bugblatterbeast]

Fair call on the whole. I was aware of the beta client but there wasn't enough info coming about how to effectively trial it.

[VioletAnia]

Well they did post in the topic bar and people seemed to be talking about it a bit in Aeolus and other chats?
Also there was a massive like yellow writing that gave a 2 minute warning, then 1 minute and etc. Apparently there are 3 coders and programming logic is a pain sometimes so maybe it didn't go as smoothly as they planned? (just speculation) i think maybe we should just be grateful we're getting updates and stuffles for free ahahaha ^^
PA made us pay like $16 for an expansion, which i'm not complaining about but i think they're trying their best, also how many people read the news sections that don't read the forums and aeolus, i don't think they could have asserted it more unless they put it in like large bright pink writing but that's just imo. <3

edit: love the spoilers though <3

[Comrade_Shamrock]

VioletAnia I don't mean the actual transition was poorly handled, I mean the fact that so many features seemed to seize up afterwards. I'm not sure how many tested the Beta or how much it was tested. It was raised in aeolus that there weren't enough testers, so maybe if they decide to update in future and need testers they could be more vocal about it.

[Zock]

This are fair points, one thing to consider is that a large portion of things were not due to the client updates but a server change, and i am not really educated in this area, but i believe this is nothing you can simply test with a small group of persons a couple of times?

Doing the server change with a small group of testers and put it under maintenance for a couple of hours for everyone else until it works decently might be a good idea, but this wouldn't make anyone able to play during the meantime either.

[Blackheart]

beta testing is just not attractive - its insanely annoying to write proper reports that coders understand and also intensely boring. To add to that of course actually testing and finding bugs. For some stuff you also need quite some people, e.g. joining/hosting games and such.

so why should you help testing? the changes done are not visible to the normal players eye - he just sees the current, working system get raped and is unhappy and unsatisfied with it, regardless if the code is now 10 times cleaner or not. adding to that, the testers get 0 attention or anything (just like the coders but they have the power to change everything so are not allowed to complain ). E.g. our good old friend ZLO has found how many bugs? 10 billion? what did he get for it so far? some complaints that his bug reports were not in the best fashion possible. No avatar, no nothing. That is the reason why nobody is testing - its frustrating and the only thing you get out of it is some small sense of happiness that you helped improving the client, even if you dont see it. for most that is not enough. Thanks!

[Blodir]

Hi,
If it is at all possible to execute it would be nice if we handled patching like other game projects usually do. Schedule a few hours of maintenance time, announce it in the news a day beforehand. Then when the time comes only let in a group of testers (can be just everyone 1500+ for example, since we can make an assumption that these guys know somewhat what is going on with patching) and no one else to see that we get through the patch smoothly. This will avoid a lot of drama and confusion from the general public and will prevent us from scaring away new players.
Q: Testers never do anything, it won't work
A: I'm certain people will test (at least the most obvious things like hosting and joining a game) if there is no other option

[Comrade_Shamrock]

Blackheart:

Fair enough. It's not a great system, but it might be less awkward. Oh well. What's done is done. If people don't want to do it, may as well force em.

Blodir:

Are the testers provided guidelines or even a list of what to check? I mean if they aren't they're going to check what comes to mind which will probably be just games or maybe replays.

[KeyBlue]

My main problem with the whole process was actually how little was said about the scheduled client update.

I read the post on "What's New" a couple of days ago, which explained all the changes on the server and a future client update.
But that is the strange part: they said we could expect it soon. Which to me didn't mean that it would be part of "Everything else".

Since all the server changes didn't seem to have a huge impact on the users, I expected the same from changes to "Everything else".
But instead they push for a client update with a lot of problems.

Wouldn't it have been better if they actually mentioned the client update and expected problems so people who where unwilling to take part of the early testing could just not show up today?


I'm happy that the progress is made, but the communication wasn't as good as it could have been.

[Mel_Gibson]

I knew I could test out beta client/server ages ago. But i didn't beyond logging on because...no one to play with. But i didn't get butthurt when the shit hit the fan today. There are people giving up a hell of a lot of their time and effort to not only continue this small community but try and make it better. They could spend all their time in a futile attempt to try and get people to test things out or they can just crack on with it (i'm not suggesting anyone here is unappreciative). I don't contribute anything to this community beyond playing, i suspect i'm not the only one. So if the carriers of this community want to crack on with trying to improve it and hit a few hiccups on the way then there is no butthurt coming from me. I've seen bigger butthurt in aeolus over not being able to play FAF for a couple of hours than when banks cock up and you can't access your account for a week.

This was over aeolus since before people knew [SPOILER REMOVED].

beta.png (23.06 KiB) Viewed 3678 times

TLDR: 10/10 event, i hope to see people being as butthurt in the futher rather than helping, watching a film, reading a book or going out and getting drunk.

Time to get crucified.