Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: CrusssDaddy

This is exactly the kind of discussion this game deserves. Thank you for letting me laugh at you. (Not satire.)

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins


- It is time for another "state of the game" post and I apologize for keeping you waiting. Steve and I are in regular communication, but we were hopeful that we'd be able to get to a stable netplay release before now and were continuing the cycle of testing and iterating with the expectation that we were closer to a stable release than it turned out.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I believe the mark given (only 5% are solitaire) is way below the mark. It seems to me that there are far more players using the solitaire version than doing the net play. One of the big reasons why is the solitaire version is the one being used for multiplayer and also by people that believe it is further along than the net play version. They simply use the solitaire version with other devices/work arounds instead of the net version.

I also believe that Joseignacio may misunderstand the issues from the solitaire point of view.

Working towards net play has broken the solitaire version of the game to the point it isn't really playable (until some of these recent fixes went in). To go back to the previous stand alone solitaire version would be going back well over a year and have that version be missing a lot of things that were taken care of in subsequent versions of the game.

The bottom line is until some work is done on game stability to eliminate some of these game breaking bugs, neither version is going to be any good. It makes sense to get the simpler version (solitaire) going first, then get back to work on the net play version.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Sorry for the delay on that, Zartacla. It was mostly due to family health issues (my mom had two major surgeries, one with less than a week's notice, the other unplanned) on my side that led me to be out of the office for most of the last three weeks. I'm back in the office this week while still helping to care for her but also catching up with work. Steve is also back and I plan to review the planned State of the Game with him both int terms of updating everyone on the official update plans and for the forum post I promised.

Regards,

- Erik

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

quote:

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I believe the mark given (only 5% are solitaire) is way below the mark. It seems to me that there are far more players using the solitaire version than doing the net play. One of the big reasons why is the solitaire version is the one being used for multiplayer and also by people that believe it is further along than the net play version. They simply use the solitaire version with other devices/work arounds instead of the net version.

I also believe that Joseignacio may misunderstand the issues from the solitaire point of view.

Working towards net play has broken the solitaire version of the game to the point it isn't really playable (until some of these recent fixes went in). To go back to the previous stand alone solitaire version would be going back well over a year and have that version be missing a lot of things that were taken care of in subsequent versions of the game.

The bottom line is until some work is done on game stability to eliminate some of these game breaking bugs, neither version is going to be any good. It makes sense to get the simpler version (solitaire) going first, then get back to work on the net play version.

There are two matters here:

1- There are bugs that belong only to netplay. Netplay has it's own glitches from day one, I remember having problems of connection from 2 years ago when we first tried it, and they are still there. No advance has been made in solving the (synchronization?) problems that make the game have mad except errors, due exclusively to connection problems or the lobby, which are both Multiplayer issues. Or at least not enough, since critical errors persist for some of us from minute one of the game - setup.

2 - If every time the game version for MP creates a new bug the priorities are solving the "SP (& MP)" errors and never the MP own problems, the game will never advance to a MP stage. Or maybe yes, but let's say it clearly: "we'll not be addressing the MP problems if they don't affect SP".

When we are speaking of advancing from SP to MP one would say that some of the major items would be connections. IMO this is what would need to be worked on first if we want to even be able to beta test properly.

Is it worth to beta test like this? When you have a specific MP problem and it's not addressed so you cannot pass from setup (or some other early phase) , as far as it doesn't affect SP, because then SP players will moan that they want their version to upgrade and so Steve has to stop all pure MP bug solving and give the SP players an upgrade...

I understand that if Solitaire is not stable we may not be ready for MP, but we did, and now it seems we are stuck with MP because SP players who had their own SP version, now want the MP version to upgrade theirs. It's insane.

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ORIGINAL: Centuur

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

quote:

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I believe the mark given (only 5% are solitaire) is way below the mark. It seems to me that there are far more players using the solitaire version than doing the net play. One of the big reasons why is the solitaire version is the one being used for multiplayer and also by people that believe it is further along than the net play version. They simply use the solitaire version with other devices/work arounds instead of the net version.

I also believe that Joseignacio may misunderstand the issues from the solitaire point of view.

Working towards net play has broken the solitaire version of the game to the point it isn't really playable (until some of these recent fixes went in). To go back to the previous stand alone solitaire version would be going back well over a year and have that version be missing a lot of things that were taken care of in subsequent versions of the game.

The bottom line is until some work is done on game stability to eliminate some of these game breaking bugs, neither version is going to be any good. It makes sense to get the simpler version (solitaire) going first, then get back to work on the net play version.

There are two matters here:

1- There are bugs that belong only to netplay. Netplay has it's own glitches from day one, I remember having problems of connection from 2 years ago when we first tried it, and they are still there. No advance has been made in solving the (synchronization?) problems that make the game have mad except errors, due exclusively to connection problems or the lobby, which are both Multiplayer issues. Or at least not enough, since critical errors persist for some of us from minute one of the game - setup.

2 - If every time the game version for MP creates a new bug the priorities are solving the "SP (& MP)" errors and never the MP own problems, the game will never advance to a MP stage. Or maybe yes, but let's say it clearly: "we'll not be addressing the MP problems if they don't affect SP".

When we are speaking of advancing from SP to MP one would say that some of the major items would be connections. IMO this is what would need to be worked on first if we want to even be able to beta test properly.

Is it worth to beta test like this? When you have a specific MP problem and it's not addressed so you cannot pass from setup (or some other early phase) , as far as it doesn't affect SP, because then SP players will moan that they want their version to upgrade and so Steve has to stop all pure MP bug solving and give the SP players an upgrade...

I understand that if Solitaire is not stable we may not be ready for MP, but we did, and now it seems we are stuck with MP because SP players who had their own SP version, now want the MP version to upgrade theirs. It's insane.

Well, what's insane is the fact that there is only one developer having to take on all the bugs. There is no easy solution, and to be honest, I believe we will see that netplay has suffered from the fixing of solitair bugs. It's possible that we'll end up in an indefinite loop if we are not careful. At some point, someone should say that it's time to fix bugs in an area, whether or not they are only solitair or netplay. Fixes should be tested against all modes of play to see if the fix is complete for all modes of play.
The one debug tool that is really missing here, is one in which one could change a solitair game into a netplay or hot seat game so that we could test fixes in all modes of play. That would speed things up a lot, I believe...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Centuur
Well, what's insane is the fact that there is only one developer having to take on all the bugs. There is no easy solution, and to be honest, I believe we will see that netplay has suffered from the fixing of solitair bugs. It's possible that we'll end up in an indefinite loop if we are not careful. At some point, someone should say that it's time to fix bugs in an area, whether or not they are only solitair or netplay. Fixes should be tested against all modes of play to see if the fix is complete for all modes of play.
The one debug tool that is really missing here, is one in which one could change a solitair game into a netplay or hot seat game so that we could test fixes in all modes of play. That would speed things up a lot, I believe...

quote:

ORIGINAL: davidachamberlain

quote:

ORIGINAL: Centuur
Well, what's insane is the fact that there is only one developer having to take on all the bugs. There is no easy solution, and to be honest, I believe we will see that netplay has suffered from the fixing of solitair bugs. It's possible that we'll end up in an indefinite loop if we are not careful. At some point, someone should say that it's time to fix bugs in an area, whether or not they are only solitair or netplay. Fixes should be tested against all modes of play to see if the fix is complete for all modes of play.
The one debug tool that is really missing here, is one in which one could change a solitair game into a netplay or hot seat game so that we could test fixes in all modes of play. That would speed things up a lot, I believe...

There are some advantages to only having one person assigned. Only one person is modifying the code, avoiding someone else changing something you are working on; there is only one version being managed by one person which sometimes results in replacing completed work with incomplete work.

There might be value in separate testers (which we kind of have with the beta testers) or someone to take on the prioritization to take some work off Steve.

As much as I also would like to see things go faster, at this stage, this is probably the most effective way to get things done. Communication takes time and the more people you have involved, the more time and effort it will take.

It is certainly possible (as happens today) to have 2 machines both connected to Netplay to test those.

I think part of the problem is that we have got beyond white box testing to black box testing where we are relying more on the games to test rather than enumerating all of the different combinations of activities to verify that everything works. I know that Steve tries to do that in his own testing, but it is going to be pretty limited.

One of the processes in modern development and testing is using an automated tool harness that automatically retests every change against the requirements and specifications. Steve's development tools are a little antiquated for those tools, so he needs to work with what he has.

Dave

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ORIGINAL: Centuur

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

That may only work for production because it's one of the few phases in NetPlay where the players can independently do things. Usually there is a constant stream of game records flowing back and forth and without those, the two game files will go out of sync.

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ORIGINAL: Zartacla

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins


- It is time for another "state of the game" post and I apologize for keeping you waiting. Steve and I are in regular communication, but we were hopeful that we'd be able to get to a stable netplay release before now and were continuing the cycle of testing and iterating with the expectation that we were closer to a stable release than it turned out.

Yes it is. But that was over a month ago and you haven't been heard from or seen since. Erik, if you were a customer instead of an employee, what would your reaction to that be?

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ORIGINAL: Sir Roland

When will this game get a version update that is not a beta test update?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

There are monthly reports that Steve posts around the 1st of each month that are 'official'. I find those far more useful to know what is going on versus anything Eric and/or Matrix says. Since this information is coming directly from the person doing the work

Steve is the lead (and only) programmer on the project in case you were not aware. He is helped by a number of Beta testers to get things done. There is no one at Matrix helping code the game (or anywhere else). Which is why the monthly reports should matter as official status of the game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: davidachamberlain

quote:

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

There are monthly reports that Steve posts around the 1st of each month that are 'official'. I find those far more useful to know what is going on versus anything Eric and/or Matrix says. Since this information is coming directly from the person doing the work

Steve is the lead (and only) programmer on the project in case you were not aware. He is helped by a number of Beta testers to get things done. There is no one at Matrix helping code the game (or anywhere else). Which is why the monthly reports should matter as official status of the game.

I think what he was asking about was a non-Beta version (an official updated version). Steve was planning that before the summer, but there has not yet been enough stability to release that version.

It will come, but I would rather have it arrive later than just be another open Beta being called an official version.

I find the Beta's are good enough to use and better than the last "official" version.

Dave

quote:

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

Ah.

Like you I find using the betas the best way to play. So I don't really care when 'official' releases are scheduled/made. I totally missed that they were looking for an official release.

With all the Early Access games running around these days (some of them amazingly good) you would think official releases of anything would not matter as much.