First impressions from beta testers

[Mr Kriegtooth]

Sounds like a good idea, doesnt make for epic posts, but by the time of release, should damn well be good and tested

Dont think I'll loose sleep waiting for this though...What, 30 weeks to test everything? Wont be out for another year! Im sure if everything looks good you can go a little faster though

Still, very good to make sure its all gewd before release

[Diglytron]

Every think I've read from the beta testers sounds quite good. A few question though,

- what are the bugs you've encountered?
- About what are you most worried?
- What is the biggest new ''element'' of DOTS?

Anyways, goodluck testing, again. And I hope for CA and Rome II that the mod will release afterwards Rome II since I probatly will only play this otherwise !

[Hydro]

THIS is gonna be awesome.

[Larkin]

I have to repeat my colleagues above, the game testers run do lack many features simply because it would be impossible to track bugs in everything at once. Faction specific testing has not even begun yet and it is only scheduled for the update in coming days. First faction to test will be Aragon and then we will continue alphabetically most likely one faction per week (so yes, it will take long time to do it right!). Beside that there will be other features added with every "faction" update to test along it but again only gradually in order not to bog down the testers. As has been stated even publicly, testing is not playing - not even close. It is really more working than anything and we are grateful that so many people applied and that quite few of them is actually still participating.

Ergo queries about certain factions or very specific mechanics cannot really be answered yet for which we are sorry but it cannot be otherwise as of yet.

Why don't you try and recruit more testers (since some of us missed out on the first application but still want to get involved) and split them in half, having one half test from Aragon to Venice (or whoever the last alphabetical faction is) and the other half going the other way? It'd allow for more extensive testing and be quicker overall.

[Charlatan]

Why don't you try and recruit more testers (since some of us missed out on the first application but still want to get involved) and split them in half, having one half test from Aragon to Venice (or whoever the last alphabetical faction is) and the other half going the other way? It'd allow for more extensive testing and be quicker overall.

We are being as careful as we can, so right now the access they have is far simpler version than the one that the modding team runs. Naturally we don't have as much time as beta testers to run our 'alpha' versions, so it's a bit of a filtering process really. We make it, run it, seems ok- pass it on, they test it, pass it back to us with errors, we fix it, pass it back.... this whole process in overlapping waves. This happening whilst we are trying to finish modding, running the administration of the modding files, the site, and public relations here. So frankly, we are swamped.

Hope this helps.

[Larkin]

Hope this helps.

...I don't see how that makes my question any less pertinent? More beta testers = reduces the workload on everyone.

[Resurrection]

...I don't see how that makes my question any less pertinent? More beta testers = reduces the workload on everyone.

Actually all it would do is add the workload which is too much already which is what Andy pointed out by quoting Hross who pretty much said it earlier. The problem is not enough people to test or that we could not test more than faction per week but that we are small team and I am currently pretty much the only one processing the bugs while others work on finishing their respective features. Having twice as many bugs reported won't make them fixed any faster if we struggle to fix those reported already in a reasonable time.

[The Norseman]

Any news on the design of the Norwegian Kingdom? Environment, cities, castles etc.?

[Larkin]

Actually all it would do is add the workload which is too much already which is what Andy pointed out by quoting Hross who pretty much said it earlier. The problem is not enough people to test or that we could not test more than faction per week but that we are small team and I am currently pretty much the only one processing the bugs while others work on finishing their respective features. Having twice as many bugs reported won't make them fixed any faster if we struggle to fix those reported already in a reasonable time.

Ah I see, so it'd reduce the work for the beta testers but add for you, that makes sense. How many bug reports are you dealing with? Anything huge come up so far?

[Giorgios]

Just how active are the "active rebels" proving to be? Are rebel stacks a real thorn in the player's side, or does the basic TW AI stop them from being any more than a minor irritation?

[Hengest]

Ah I see, so it'd reduce the work for the beta testers but add for you, that makes sense. How many bug reports are you dealing with? Anything huge come up so far?

No nothing huge, and it's highly unlikely. It's the small things that are the pain in the arse. The more time we spend now means the less chance your game will be spoilt later.

[Mr Kriegtooth]

So hows the progress? Whats your plan and limits? Like, play a full game with each faction?

[Coldfire88]

Whats the unit size limit? 150? 250? are there still units left over from vanilla?

[Larkin]

No nothing huge, and it's highly unlikely. It's the small things that are the pain in the arse. The more time we spend now means the less chance your game will be spoilt later.

Sure. We've waited this long, we're okay with waiting a bit longer! (Perhaps this is just my inherent British attitude).

So long as there hasn't been any gamebreaking issues where you've just thought "well crap, I don't know how to fix this." That happened to me before when I used to mod Age of Empires. Not pleasant.

Hope progress is coming along, I want to see more expressions from the testers! Though I expect they are all hard at work...

[Hengest]

Mr Kriegtooth -yes
Coldfire88 -yes we are using mainly vanilla units renamed and given new stats, supported by units from other mods, and some of our own original work- which I think are mainly Moorish and Hussite units.

[napoleonic]

Mr Kriegtooth -yes
Coldfire88 -yes we are using mainly vanilla units renamed and given new stats, supported by units from other mods, and some of our own original work- which I think are mainly Moorish and Hussite units.

okay no offense, but that's frankly quite shocking and disappointing to hear since there are plenty mods out there that give permission to use their units to be used. will that also be in the final released version or are you planning to overhaul them?

[Gaelstrix]

There's nothing wrong with the looks of most vanilla units, they're changing everything, but the actual men and their clothes are fine, and he did say they are using some from other mods + they're own work.

[napoleonic]

There's nothing wrong with the looks of most vanilla units, they're changing everything, but the actual men and their clothes are fine, and he did say they are using some from other mods + they're own work.

nothing wrong? if there's nothing wrong with vanilla units people wouldn't be bothered to make custom units

[Vipman]

I think (or at least hope) that 1) he was sarcastic, or 2) this is the situation in this beta version and units weren't added/changed yet

[Landil]

Our unit rosters, which are completely unique and original, are more are less finished. We aim to have the same for the unit models by the time of the final release, but we can't promise it for the first public release, which is to be seen as an Open Beta release and as such incomplete. So yes, there will be some vanilla models in Hammer & Anvil, but that is about all the vanilla material still left in DotS by now.