Paradox, include CB testing into your QA
- Thread starter Alblaka
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Hi guys!
As always, I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for having such a devoted community that are willing to put so much time and effort into trying to help us out making better games. And for buying and playing our games as well of course
Your passion is humbling.
I've seen a number of insightful comments in here about the challenges of bug testing and fixing. And to confirm a few things that have been said and are true:
1. Yes ,we do release with bugs that we know of. All software developers do, it's impossible to have a piece of software of this complexity that is completely bug free.
So to address the main point of OP was that we should have a larger closed beta group to reduce the number of bugs
I hope that my points above makes it somewhat clear why more testers is not necessarily == less bugs. And as such I'm not sure that the closed beta suggestion is the solution to the proposed problem. You are of course free to have opinions on how we prioritize and post your (constructive) feedback, but I hope that you may consider the possibility that there might be aspects of a bug and how we work that you don't know about. And even though you don't agree with the outcome, you can appreciate that we did our best, and just because the outcome was not living up to your standards it doesn't mean we are incompetent or don't care.
And also, I like that you, @Alblaka, not only complained about a problem. You actually took time to formulate a solution. And even though we might not agree with your solution, we do appreciate you taking your time and that you are trying to be constructive. Thank you.
Lastly I want to ask you kindly to keep a friendly tone and accept that people have different opinions and points of view. Be respectful to each other, both other players as well as devs.
TL;DR There is more to bug fixing than just finding the bugs. A LOT more in fact. Managing an external beta is a lot of work as well. It's not 100% free labor to use at will. We do already have a closed beta group with external testers however. Keep an eye out for if we post about recruiting more people if you want to be a part of that.
As always, I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for having such a devoted community that are willing to put so much time and effort into trying to help us out making better games. And for buying and playing our games as well of course
Your passion is humbling.I've seen a number of insightful comments in here about the challenges of bug testing and fixing. And to confirm a few things that have been said and are true:
1. Yes ,we do release with bugs that we know of. All software developers do, it's impossible to have a piece of software of this complexity that is completely bug free.
- Bugs are classified based on severity. Some types of bugs are show stoppers and others aren't. It's unfortunate if you think something is game breaking and we don't. This may very well be because of a miscalculation on our part or something else. We are not perfect, we do make mistakes.
2. Fixing bugs is not just: * Find bug * Fix bug * Move on.- As been pointed out by: When you mess with the code in any way, there is always a risk of creating more, new, bugs. Or accidentally bring back older bugs that we already fixed, this needs to be tested as well.
- Considering this, sometimes bugs are therefore left for a later fix because there are more important issues to deal with. Risking to create new game breaking bugs in order to solve a medium severity bug might not be worth it. To make the entire project come together, resources and time allocation needs to be scheduled and balanced properly. You need to prioritize.
3. If you look at the number of bugs, there is nothing that makes this release stand out as more buggy than any other release- Considering this, sometimes bugs are therefore left for a later fix because there are more important issues to deal with. Risking to create new game breaking bugs in order to solve a medium severity bug might not be worth it. To make the entire project come together, resources and time allocation needs to be scheduled and balanced properly. You need to prioritize.
- Again, I'm sorry for inconveniences caused by some of the bugs. It's unfortunate if, for any reason, a bug that is actually stopping you completely from having fun made it through to release. We do our best to always minimize the amount of bugs in a project, while still remain somewhat on budget and time.
So to address the main point of OP was that we should have a larger closed beta group to reduce the number of bugs
I hope that my points above makes it somewhat clear why more testers is not necessarily == less bugs. And as such I'm not sure that the closed beta suggestion is the solution to the proposed problem. You are of course free to have opinions on how we prioritize and post your (constructive) feedback, but I hope that you may consider the possibility that there might be aspects of a bug and how we work that you don't know about. And even though you don't agree with the outcome, you can appreciate that we did our best, and just because the outcome was not living up to your standards it doesn't mean we are incompetent or don't care.
And also, I like that you, @Alblaka, not only complained about a problem. You actually took time to formulate a solution. And even though we might not agree with your solution, we do appreciate you taking your time and that you are trying to be constructive. Thank you.
Lastly I want to ask you kindly to keep a friendly tone and accept that people have different opinions and points of view. Be respectful to each other, both other players as well as devs.
TL;DR There is more to bug fixing than just finding the bugs. A LOT more in fact. Managing an external beta is a lot of work as well. It's not 100% free labor to use at will. We do already have a closed beta group with external testers however. Keep an eye out for if we post about recruiting more people if you want to be a part of that.
I have to say, reading your posts is always such a pleasure. Your are the most polite and articulate community representative I have ever seen. You bleed off the very idea of staying angry with such deft precision that I even calm down even if I'm not upset to begin with.
Now you made me blush. Thanks though
This thread is starting to branch up and stray from the OP, which I feel is kind of a completed topic by now (the topic was to petition us to have (more) external testing). So if you wish to continue discussing something brought up in this thread, please start a new thread with a descriptive title clarifying the topic.
I will not lock this thread just yet if you want to round something off. But the length of the thread increase the risk of people joining that didn't read the whole thing, and repetition begins.
So please round this off, the thread might be locked soon.
With OP's blessing I'll go ahead and lock this then. Feel free to create new threads if there are topics from here that you want to continue discussing.
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