Let's play Game Designer

the plan is to have an update before the console launch together with the japanese pack thingy. Hopefully some items from the list will make it in the update.. we'll have to wait a little bit to see how these things develop, sometimes things turn out easier than expected and sometimes much much more complicated.

 

All of the options are pretty awesome there, I bet my friend £5 that false starts will likely be whats coming next(stefano dont fail me, I NEED THAT MONEY).

He thinks timed races is coming next.

Or you could add both and have the flashing light mob come after you.

 

You're on

 

I posed the question about developing a program like FlyInside for Racing-Sims and it sounds as though it should be possible and could open VR to many Sim's but, the author would not have time to attempt such a program. FlyInside does seem to work very well with the DK2 and MS FSX so far.

 

I bet everything is being worked on and they were just being cocks putting a poll up.


*reading that back it seems ruder than I original intended and a pun to boot.

 

I think the Lord should be add all the features step by step. Time races ................false starts

 

Lord Kunos, ever tried "AC: Black Flag" ? Not a sim, but beautiful Ocean and islands to explore. The sea fights are visuelle stunning though arcade gameplay...

 

For me, this is the definition of professionnal betatester. That was the main argument in my post.

Then that's not betatesting anymore (or not pure betatesting). That was in my post too.
I agree project type will affect the type of feedback required too, but the culture of the developper (& publisher) too. You KS, self founded italian race fan developpers who have their office at a racetrack are dealing with game development & community interaction differently than SMS (which themsleves were slightly different under EA than under crowdfunded), or than French Eden Games studio (who developped the very unique and still unrivaled in its genre Test drive unlimited 1), or than the norvergian Funcom (Anarchy online), or Blizzard etc.

Yes, in theory beta phase should mean feature complete and thus betatesters only reporting bugs. But in reality beta are most often not pure beta (they often are also a marketting tool replacing the good old demos) , and culture of the dev/publisher affect how the beta phase is dealt with too (as will the funding type. Self funded vs crowed funded vs publisher).

Do you really expect a free volunteer betatester crowd made of thousands of betakeys randomly thrown in the wild to act as professionnaly as would a pro team made of people hired and paid for that with rules written in their contract ? (if that kind of betatester ever existed one day )

Who is more responsible, the much more educated dev (programming & game dev knowledge) and the studio/publisher who organised the betatest or the average joe betatester who has no clue (most often) about how to code something and how game development works ?

No betatesting can be "free". When betatesters are pure random, the unpleasant rants is the price ! And as said I've yet to see a betatest with rules clearly set from the beginning that only bug reports is allowed and any feedback/suggestion/rant will see your betatester account closed immediately. As for many things: "you get what you paid for" Set rules as above and offer invested enough betatesters a free copy and I bet you'll have closer to professionnal level betatesting teams with no rants and only documented bug reports.

You know, as a programmer myself (basic level, but studied it too. At university, not school) I fully understand dev frustration due to rants. In the first place it is the betatest organizitation who is responsible of making the devs have to deal with random betatesters in a beta that is also meant to serve as a marketing tool to promote the game. But once the unavoidable rant sh*t happened, also understand how a free volunteer betatester (who is also a very potential customer) will receive a dev answer like "you guys are here for bug report, period, the rest (design) is not your concern". It is understandable he finds this condescending, which is likely to make the situation worse and worse as this is creating a vicious circle where the betatester/gamer/customer will be encouraged to think most devs are just condescending liars, and the devs that most betatesters are silly spoiled childs. Which is certainly (hopefuly) not true, on both sides.

To me the main guilt is the organization itself. Most devs certainly dislike that phase (not the most fun to hunt for bugs and deal with rants), publishers want to cut costs and make double use of the beta as a demo/promoting tool, the beta aspect main's goal is often to only iron out the most severe bugs to avoid as much as possible of the negative comments at the important-for-game-success launch phase, so this betatesting phase is often done the most brutal and harsh way, especially since betatesting phase also often means a release deadline is putting everyone under pressure (which doesn't help civilized interaction between devs/managers and community). My opinion is it could go way better if it was thought better, and that starts by having a better consideration about the importance of that phase of a game development. Things have already improved over the years (longer beta, several sessions) but the remaining marging for more improvments seems to exist. The current main scheme is still often the "lowcost brute force way of removing most apparent bugs".

 

I don't mix up.

 

If there is a point to be made in that rambling wall of text, I couldn't find it. I really want those two minutes of my life back. Please edit your post with a TL;DR

 

I dont think they need to justify how their beta testing system is.

Fact is their beta testing system works, why should be question it

 

Where did I ask for that ?

That was an answer to Stefano who talked about betatesting/betatesters in general, not specificaly theirs (unless I missed something from the original discuss at RD, which I haven't read) .

@Michael: sorry but you are responsible of what you decide to read^^ On my side I'm just discussing with one person, not looking for debating the subject with anyone else here.

 

I see there's an Initial D-styled AE86 in line for the Japanese pack. Full fluid simulation for cupholder pls, not a true simulator otherwise

 

The beta testers of Kunos have no clue about programming and game dev knowledge. They don't have an own opinion and would never make a suggestion. They test the game for bugs and for bugs and for bugs. And they also do sometimes bug hunting.
But they are:

 

I very much appreciate his work, I was expecting something like this for a long time, I am very happy to have these great features we will have in the future, some already in netKar pro so I hope that will not be anything difficult and we very soon. With these new features and improved online championships collisions will be fantastic. thank you!!
I have some questions for you

What does Time based races?
What does Pick up mode? Does that mean that we can change skin as nkpro?
Custom championships does that mean?

Will we have ability to save the repetition of an online game from the game itself?
Will we pass sanctions at high speed on pit road stop? Speed limiter? This I think is what most need at this time to play a real championship in Assetto Corsa, now the advantage is for the driver entering the street faster pit stop.

Forgive Google translator for having such mistranslations and me for not learning this language.

 

I really don't understand what you are trying to say... but I probably agree (reading walls of text at 7am isn't my strongest skill )

It all comes down to professionalism.. volunteer or "professional" doesn't matter, this is what devs expects from betatesters whether or not this is a realistic expectation is another matter.
The difference is how, as a dev, you enforce that behavior, with professional it's they job so make them do so.. with volunteers you have to ask politely and hope nobody there misunderstood the role.

And, as I've said, the problems start when "non professional" betatesters don't understand what's expected from them and misunderstand the role thinking they've just been promoted game designers... this scenario is likely to bring frustration on both sides (and Ben situation perfectly explains that).

 

I think the most frustrating scenarios were when game design decisions were taken because of reasons besides "good game design". So for instance, one feature was included in the maps, which on a lot of them, broke the map (people could get under the map, it also broke the balance on some too), but they couldnt get rid or reduce the feature because it was a key marketing anchor for the title. Funnily enough, in the later expansion the feature was dropped all together. Or when you are testing something and you are told that they can't change that because it would put the title outside of the budgeted memory allocation for the consoles. I think in these instances when there are outside factors at play are the most difficult to deal with.

 

lol and who decides what is this "good game design"? Let me guess.. you right? allllriiiiiight

Ben, I repeat, you should stay well clear of betatesting roles, you simply don't understand software development and the role that each has in the process.
The scenario you described is very very typical, projects are always compromises between what you want to achieve and what you can achieve given the constraints of time/money/tech available. Those kind of calls surely involved endless meetings and fights among the responsible of the project, because THEY are the one who have to make the call.. surely the last thing they "have" to do is come to justify those decisions to the volunteer betatester that has close to 0 understanding of the dynamics that go behind that decisions.. especially an arrogant one thinking he brings the light of the "good game design".