WOW! A beta testers work is never done. (Full Version)

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Ron Saueracker -> WOW! A beta testers work is never done. (5/28/2002 2:48:19 AM)

Sure seems like a lot of bugs to be found so early after a long beta test run. I'm a tad ignorant when it comes to programming (should read utterly illiterate) and production, but should these not have been caught and corrected given the heavy duty testing prior to release (which we all witnessed in AARs to or delight), or is this related to production? Can some disks contain a certain bug, and others not, or a different one?

Perhaps it's the geographical area modelled for the game. Being a malaria ridden, mosquitoe infested region, perhaps beta testing is like swatting at flies. Maybe it's Iain Christie's fault....was he told to model infestation within the map design or was he just being accurate to a tee.:D

What I like seeing is all the interaction between consumers and developers/designers. The first patch will be a thorough one given the number of posts. Who knows, with UPS blading me like they are (lost in the 4th dimension), perhaps the patch will be out and I'll receive the next version.;)

Good luck guys! The more that is corrected here will make WITP that much more a baby to be proud of. Good idea this UV.



johnmac -> (5/28/2002 3:19:35 AM)

I am a developer, and from bitter personal experience I can say that it is impossible to catch all bugs - you need a lot of people beating on a software product to really test it.

I think UV is pretty solid for a version 1. I'm a bit concerned about the 100% CPU usage on my Win2k box, and one of my PBEM partners is reporting that he can see all my taskforces, even the unspotted ones, however these bugs, whilst serious, are reproducible and usually easy enough to fix.

It's the intermittent, "if I do this, this, then this over here and on every second Tuesday, it eats my hard drive" are the ones that give you gray hairs.



Paul Vebber -> (5/28/2002 4:11:08 AM)

IF you read through them all there are 3 main classes:

The "game doesn't work for me" variety, 90% of which are resolvableith tweaks to various sound and/or video settings.

Tyring to make a game that works on all versions of windows with all vairieties of hardware can be daunting! (If you REALY believe Direct X offers a Hardware independant layer, I have BRidge to sell you too ;)

THe second class are the "it doesn;t do what I want it to, when I want it to" variety. SOme of these can be fixed, others are beacasue we have yet to produce mind reading software! That we seem to have equal numbers of "its too far down in the weeds" and "I can't get a strike off when I want against a particular TF" seems to have put it in the right spot. THese can be failure to commicate fully what the game is doing (which can be a difficult thing since keeping the player at the proper command level is important) Some are bugs some are disagreements with design decisions. No game can possibly satisfy EVERYONE any more than a particular history book will not have its detractors.

The third variety are things that tyicaly were fixed at one point and "signed off" and then re-emerged at some point. Fortunatley they are typically easy to fix.

THe fog of war tends to make finding bugs confusing becasue you don;t always know (except playing yourself head to head) what "ground truth" is.

What you can be sure of is that the game will go through a refinement process as WITP moves forward and your input is critical to that refinement process.



Marc von Martial -> (5/28/2002 4:24:09 AM)

So far I must say that Iīm pretty amazed that most of the "bugs" and "errors" where rather easily solved by

a. Driver updates of the user
b. Pointing to game specs (e.g. not enough free HD space)
c. Pointing to the necessity of DirectX 8.1
d. Pointing to rules and design decissions (e.g. Fog of War)
e. Pointing to the manual
f. Shoulder shrugging

However there are of course still bugs in it, some that slipped through and some that just havnīt occured while extensive (the guys did a marvellous job, believe me) testing. These bugs are adressed and are being worked on as I type (Have fun Mike ;) )

Cheers *methinksPaulsspellcheckerhasabugtoo*



elmo3 -> (5/28/2002 8:01:01 AM)

Do you guys have even a wild *** guess on when a patch might be released?



Ross Moorhouse -> (5/28/2002 1:18:51 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by elmo3
[B]Do you guys have even a wild *** guess on when a patch might be released? [/B][/QUOTE]

Sure can tell you.....



















When its done. Thats when we will release it. :p



iancollins -> (5/28/2002 2:32:39 PM)

Ross........ When asked about the patch, use Churchill's reply:

In December 1941, at a press conference where Roosevelt introduced Churchill to American journalists, Winston was pressed by them to say how long it would take to win the war.
Churchill said: "If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly."

:)



Marc von Martial -> (5/28/2002 6:02:28 PM)

Hehe ;)

lotīs of things that got requested adn adressed here, wether gameplay or technical issues, will be changed in the patch. The "first" patch was allready about to be done, then we decided to add some more stuff that bugged a few people here, or was unclear.



A_Master -> (5/29/2002 1:50:07 AM)

About 18 months ago or so, I suggested that when this project was being initiated it should be kept simple. Use low level technology. Well I'm seeing that you need 'state of the art' drivers, only specific CD players work and generally it's become a very complex game to run. Any hope of running the game on a -PII-266, Directx-8 has been dashed. When I do upgrade my system sometime in the future, I'll pick up the game from the bargain bin.



Erik Rutins -> A_Master (5/29/2002 2:23:27 AM)

Actually, it runs well on several PII-266s so far that have been reported. A bit slow, but well. A cheap memory upgrade would be about all I would think you might want if speed is an issue.

I have it running on my P-166 laptop actually. Slow, again, but working fine.

Keep in mind that this forum is for bug reports. Everyone with a problem comes here. As the quantity of other posts, AARs and just plain silence from many of our customers will testify, the game works for the vast majority of users and works well. Based on the reports I've seen here, I'd guess that <1% of our customers are experiencing a problem getting the game to work, the majority of which are due to system maintenance issues or will be addressed in the first patch.

Having the latest drivers is always a good idea and one of the first necessary troubleshooting steps. Drivers are also coded and often don't meet the required specifications. The chance of a bug being due to a driver issue is often quite good, which is why we suggest folks download the latest. This is just basic system maintenance and will help with a whole host of applications and games.

Regards,

- Erik



Paul Vebber -> (5/29/2002 2:43:36 AM)

Sorry, we don't have a bargin bin...but we have reports of the game running on PII-350's (though slower than many might approve)

Last computer show I went to I bought an ASUS "All onboard" MB with 256MB Ram and 1 GHZ Celeron Plus (PIII) a case a 20GB HD and few otehr things and it cost me under $350. You could by a corporate cast-off HP PIII-500 with 128MB RAM and 10GB HD for $199. A computer that runs UV is cheap as game console...

So far there is only one (rather esoteric) laptop DVD/CDRW drive that the game "doesn't work" on. A few others need a workaround but work. Catch CompUSA on a good day and you can get a CD-ROM for 19.99 with a 20 dollar rebate...

Given the complaints we have received and the games sold, 99+% of the buyers have had NO PROBLEM getting the game to run. YOu tend to only see the problems here. Check the AAR section for the fun the VAST MAJORITY of folks are having with the game.

Upgrading to the latest drivers is part of good computer hygeine. Complaining that something doesn't work because you are too busy to upgrade drivers is like complaining about cavities because you're too busy yo go to the dentist...



dgaad -> (5/29/2002 3:02:44 AM)

Mark S :

Your little graphic that you have as part of your signature looks like a guy with a very bad veneral disease trying to relieve himself.

[IMG]http://www.hometrail.de/Vile_50.gif[/IMG]



Marc von Martial -> (5/29/2002 4:20:51 AM)

[QUOTE]Your little graphic that you have as part of your signature looks like a guy with a very bad veneral disease trying to relieve himself. [/QUOTE]

;)

Blame ID Software for the animation. Itīs the Vile Monster from DOOM.



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