Beta Test Focus

[Mike D]

BTS,

Since CM is in such good shape at this point in its development in relative comparison to most other games, I'm wondering what the focus of the beta testing will be since many of the "bugs" and other problems will have already been eliminated. I'm sure the playtesters will find some things when the beta testing starts, this always seems to happen when you get a piece of software into more peoples hands, who in turn have different hardware they are running the game on, etc. However, since much of the playtesters time during beta test of your "average game" is often "wasted" reporting the types of bugs that CM will apparently already have taken care of then what do you plan to have the playtesters focus on during the testing? Also, based on playtesters feedback, roughly how much in the way of testers suggestions for additions / improvements to the game will be considered vs. just fixing the problems that they find? I would imagine that the maturity of CM when beta testing starts will be such that much of what has been coded prior to beta will not be changed / added to in any significant manner afterwards, so I would think that the beta / post beta programming changes will mostly focus on fixing problems.

Mike D

aka Mikester

[Guest Big Time Software]

Trust me... as good as CM is right now Beta testers will find lots of stuff for us to fix. With every set of new eyes problems will be found. Law of the Universe I think Our point about being ahead of other games at the same stage is still valid, but we won't have release quality when we hit Beta. Well, at least OUR definition of release quality.

There will also be lots of what we call "stress testing". I'm sure the first thing one of our testers will do is put down 50 Panthers and 100 Shermans, then tell us it doesn't work This might mean that we found some practical limit and put in some kind of safety check. Or a tester might tell us that it looks like 2 bazookas firing at the same time, at the same target, from opposite sides causes the game to crash because the tank commander panics too much

On top of all this we need the Beta testers to see how realistic and accurate all of our data is. This is where we figure out if certain things we did are seen as "correct" by other people. Remember, so far Combat Mission is just "correct" as far as Charles and I are concerned. We need more feedback to make sure that we didn't make some kind of bad assumption or mistake. This will most likely make up the bulk of testing.

If user feedback strongly suggests that something needs to change, it will be changed even if that means delaying the game. We refuse to put out something that we know will have problems. Better to get it as right as possible the first time.

Steve

[Brian Rock]

I've never done a proper beta-test, so I can't really comment on what "should" happen, but when I get a new game I tend to try two different strategies:

Step 1) see how well the game simulates what it is supposed to. Eg do historical tactics work as they should?

Step 2) break it. See if you can find any loopholes that undermine the game system. Eg are there any loopy/dopey tactics that produce absurdly effetive results?

Very few even come close to passing both tests.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Another thing we'd like Beta testers to do is create scenarios, both battles and campaigns, for two purposes:

1. To test them. See if things work as you expect, and are historically accurate.

2. To take the best of the group and distribute them with the game itself. This will be the "first wave" of user-created scenarios for Combat Mission. Ideally, once CM is in the hands of the public, we'd love to put a whole library of high-quality user-created scenarios here on the website for free download. A sort of CM community-building kind of thing, which will keep CM fans fed with new material on a fairly regular basis - at least that's the plan.

Charles