Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Alpha Testing Goals

    • 1095 posts
    September 15, 2017 5:53 PM PDT

    Curious inquiry,

    Say VR let you all lose on PA5, (Pre-alpha stage 5) *random guess,

    Answer these three questions:

    What test framework would you use?

    What woun't you spend time testing?

    How would you try to break things?

     


    This post was edited by Aich at September 15, 2017 7:06 PM PDT
    • 9115 posts
    September 15, 2017 6:12 PM PDT

    We will release a full official plan when the time comes my friend, we are preparing it as we speak so when testing is almost ready we can roll it out, so stay tuned for more soon.

    • 1095 posts
    September 15, 2017 7:03 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    We will release a full official plan when the time comes my friend, we are preparing it as we speak so when testing is almost ready we can roll it out, so stay tuned for more soon.

    This was just a conversation starter. How would you test if it was just open ended. I edited the OP maybe it helps.


    This post was edited by Aich at September 15, 2017 7:05 PM PDT
    • 399 posts
    September 15, 2017 9:44 PM PDT

    i started developing software in 1978, nearly 40 years ago and lived and worked in three continents doing it. Aside from common techniques and rules which, as Kilsin said, would be provided to us, anyone who has a solid background writing and testing software, very likely also developed an intuition of how things might break or could be broken. There will be many srategies but one that always worked really well for me is when we made it a monthly competition where there were "rewards" for the tester who found the most bugs, the weirdest bugs, the funniest bugs, the most unexpected bugs Etc.   

    if vr could keep track of such things, that'd be great!

    i know that doesnt exactly answer your question, Zeem but i thought it worth writing :)

     

    • 294 posts
    September 17, 2017 6:54 AM PDT

    I like the idea of rewards for those who find the most, or most bizzar bugs, Durp.

    It doesn't have to be anything over the top either. A simple shout-out to so-in-so for finding crazy bug #?, etc...

    Nice idea.

    • 1095 posts
    September 17, 2017 1:38 PM PDT

    Yeah i am looking forward to gorilla testing/ smoke testing and off script testing.

    The hard part is asking my self what I woun't test. Perhaps things that do with dying.


    This post was edited by Aich at September 17, 2017 1:38 PM PDT
    • 208 posts
    September 18, 2017 10:23 AM PDT

    I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience.  I was able to get into an early beta stage on Vanguard but there were very few "jobs/goals" associated with beta as I remember.  I do not know any coding or scripting or any kind of "development" epxerience or knowledge.  I have many years in fantasy games going all the way back to early '80s.  I have a grasp of what "feels right" and/or needs tweaked in some way to help with the flow or goal of a quest or story line but all those 0s and 1s and other bits and bytes, its all geek to me unfortunately.  I will help VR to the best that I can with my limited knowledge if I am lucky enough to get into Pre-Alpha/Alpha but *shrugs* that is up to the powers that be.

    • 769 posts
    September 18, 2017 11:37 AM PDT

    Sogotp said:

    I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience.  I was able to get into an early beta stage on Vanguard but there were very few "jobs/goals" associated with beta as I remember.  I do not know any coding or scripting or any kind of "development" epxerience or knowledge.  I have many years in fantasy games going all the way back to early '80s.  I have a grasp of what "feels right" and/or needs tweaked in some way to help with the flow or goal of a quest or story line but all those 0s and 1s and other bits and bytes, its all geek to me unfortunately.  I will help VR to the best that I can with my limited knowledge if I am lucky enough to get into Pre-Alpha/Alpha but *shrugs* that is up to the powers that be.

    I can imagine that for Vanguard beta, it would be harder to not find bugs than the other way around.

    The real winner is the person who could actually walk up stairs without getting stuck.

    • 1399 posts
    September 18, 2017 11:48 AM PDT

    Sogotp said:

    I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience.  I was able to get into an early beta stage on Vanguard but there were very few "jobs/goals" associated with beta as I remember.  I do not know any coding or scripting or any kind of "development" epxerience or knowledge.  I have many years in fantasy games going all the way back to early '80s.  I have a grasp of what "feels right" and/or needs tweaked in some way to help with the flow or goal of a quest or story line but all those 0s and 1s and other bits and bytes, its all geek to me unfortunately.  I will help VR to the best that I can with my limited knowledge if I am lucky enough to get into Pre-Alpha/Alpha but *shrugs* that is up to the powers that be.

    Getting into alpha pre-alpha isn't a luck thing here. It's a buy in. If your subscription includes the given access, your in, if not your not. Check your subscription level if you didn't get alpha or beta you can upgrade.

    As far as goals, I'm looking forward to seeing how VR lays it out. I've been in a few alpha betas before, but they were done poorly and nothing more than early access to unfinished games that just ruined it for most.

    Base on that experience my hopes are that VR let's us in for a weekend, a week, two weeks at most, just enough to get themselves some to work on. Then locks us out while they work on things and then start all over. 

    • 763 posts
    September 18, 2017 1:01 PM PDT

    Sogotp said: I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience. 

    For those in a similar situation, Diemond posted a helpful link a while back....

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w0ak6SAr8qPnxnE51FCZceyw1Zl1JPaxqiC3713xPP0/edit

    That is not to say VR's testing phases will follows these exactly, but it should give you a good idea for what the various stages refer to at the very least!

    • 801 posts
    September 18, 2017 3:16 PM PDT

    Zorkon said:

    Sogotp said:

    I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience.  I was able to get into an early beta stage on Vanguard but there were very few "jobs/goals" associated with beta as I remember.  I do not know any coding or scripting or any kind of "development" epxerience or knowledge.  I have many years in fantasy games going all the way back to early '80s.  I have a grasp of what "feels right" and/or needs tweaked in some way to help with the flow or goal of a quest or story line but all those 0s and 1s and other bits and bytes, its all geek to me unfortunately.  I will help VR to the best that I can with my limited knowledge if I am lucky enough to get into Pre-Alpha/Alpha but *shrugs* that is up to the powers that be.

    Getting into alpha pre-alpha isn't a luck thing here. It's a buy in. If your subscription includes the given access, your in, if not your not. Check your subscription level if you didn't get alpha or beta you can upgrade.

    As far as goals, I'm looking forward to seeing how VR lays it out. I've been in a few alpha betas before, but they were done poorly and nothing more than early access to unfinished games that just ruined it for most.

    Base on that experience my hopes are that VR let's us in for a weekend, a week, two weeks at most, just enough to get themselves some to work on. Then locks us out while they work on things and then start all over. 

     

    Until that changes and locked down. Can't give everyone free access either.

    • 1468 posts
    September 18, 2017 9:16 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    We will release a full official plan when the time comes my friend, we are preparing it as we speak so when testing is almost ready we can roll it out, so stay tuned for more soon.

    Awesome :). I'll do anything that VR staff want testers to do (and I'll try and add on some stuff I come up with on my own). I really want to help as much as I can during testing to make sure Pantheon has the best launch possible.

    I'll also co-ordinate with guild members who are in testing at the same time so that we can help as a large group of people.

    • 15 posts
    September 18, 2017 9:30 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    so stay tuned for more soon.

     I'm hoping that this slice of the statement has merit. Although "soon" in mmo times can mean anything really.


    This post was edited by Syrenol at September 18, 2017 9:31 PM PDT
    • 769 posts
    September 19, 2017 11:25 AM PDT

    Cromulent said:

    Kilsin said:

    We will release a full official plan when the time comes my friend, we are preparing it as we speak so when testing is almost ready we can roll it out, so stay tuned for more soon.

     I'll do anything that VR staff want testers to do (and I'll try and add on some stuff I come up with on my own).

    .....Aaaaaaaaanything?

    • 34 posts
    September 19, 2017 6:15 PM PDT

    Sogotp said:

    I will be honest I have no Alpha testing experience.  I was able to get into an early beta stage on Vanguard but there were very few "jobs/goals" associated with beta as I remember.  I do not know any coding or scripting or any kind of "development" epxerience or knowledge.  I have many years in fantasy games going all the way back to early '80s.  I have a grasp of what "feels right" and/or needs tweaked in some way to help with the flow or goal of a quest or story line but all those 0s and 1s and other bits and bytes, its all geek to me unfortunately.

    Testing phases aren't solely to hunt bugs and technical exploits but also serve as a test and source of feedback on gameplay, features and environment. Nobody is an expert on everything which is why you want a good variety of people involved to cover as many aspects of the game as possible.


    This post was edited by OtakuMegane at September 19, 2017 6:18 PM PDT
    • 3016 posts
    September 20, 2017 6:21 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    We will release a full official plan when the time comes my friend, we are preparing it as we speak so when testing is almost ready we can roll it out, so stay tuned for more soon.

     

    Thank you Kilsin...I was just going to say,  that will be up to the VR Dev team.  :)  Just point me in the right direction I'm game :D