Beta Testing?

General Wasteland
1

Er…will people be able to beta test?

You know, Beta Testers, or just plain Testers. They test the game, reporting bugs, glitches, and such, so they can be fixed.

I’ve been around the beta testing stuff a long time before. I kind of tried with game maker, but i’m not that good with it much. I’ve seen one of my friends gain the ability to make an actual First-Person Shooter out of Game Maker. (he might give you tips on how, but he said it’s hard to do)

I was hoping i’ve gotten information on that, cuz i’d like to make a good old fps game, well besides that FPS Creator program. I’d rather find something free, so the only thing there is is Gamemaker. Man, i can tell it will be hard, but hey, it would be nice for him to give me a game where i can make my own FPS on GameMaker.

I know this game is a Side-Scroller, but wouldn’t it be nice if you were able to program actual FPS games on Gamemaker? I think it’s pretty neat. I looked at part of my friend’s screenshots, and he needs way more textures. He made it look almost like Metroid Prime gun, and the hud looked mostly perfect. It was the best screenshots i’ve seen. But anyways, i’ve probably gone off topic a lot.

Anyways, are you gonna let people test your game?

~Hug

2

I am not part of the P2D Team, but I think you have to wait
untill the demo is out, then every one can test it out and
tell what they think.

3

Um, i kind of said “Beta”, since Beta is not the same as “Demo”.

I’ve been around waiting before.

Also, i’d like to include some things i can do.

I have the ability to recolor things pretty good. This one time, i recolored the Super Metroid samus into a Dark Colored suit, that looks like the Phazon Suit, but i kind of called it Dark Samus. I’m pretty good with recoloring, as long as i got the materials.

Now making art…well, i can’t.

Program? No, i barely have enough expierience on GameMaker to program.

Mapping? Well, i’m only best if the mapping is an overhead, so i can’t really do side-scroll mapping very much.

Ideas? Well yeah i can do that. I’m a Brainstormer.

Beta Test? Er…i’ve done that lots of times on lots of games, so i know the gig.

Don’t know anything else i missed. I’m bad at art, programming with Game Maker, and Side-Scroll Mapping, but i’m good with Brainstorming, Recoloring, and Beta Testing.

If you want to see my material on how i recolored, i can show you.

~Hug

4

I’m pretty sure the next thing to come out of this project will be the full demo(space pirate frigate). There won’t be any “betas” so to speak.

To quote Daz, a monkey can recolor a sprite. P2D resources consist of completely made from scratch sprites, music, backgrounds, etc.

What good would a brainstormer do? All they are doing is copying everything from MP into a 2D form, it’s not like they are making a ton of this game’s stuff up, it’s already made up for them.

5

there you have it.

If you can’t program, you can’t betatest.

You guys also seem to think being beta tester is something anyone can do on their free time on weekends.

Nothing further from the truth.

A beta tester must be able to comprehend how the core of the games work so they can understand why and how glitches occur.

You think betatesting is just yelling “OMGIFOUNDAGLITCHLOLROFLFIXNOW”

And that’s not how it works, a betatester must be able to tell why the error occured, and how it can be fixed, collaborating with the programmers to do so.

So that comes down to the conclusion, that the programmer is the best betatester.

And if you can’t program to save your lives, you can’t betatest either.

6

Well, from many games i’ve been to, the only thing you have to do as a Beta Tester was to report any bugs, and glitches.

Yea, you don’t just tell i found a bug. You need to explain it as good as you can, so they have enough information to take it out.

The most games i’ve beta tested was C++, but never a GameMaker game.

Only weird thing is, i was never forced to program just to beta test.

Yes, the programmer is the best Beta Tester, although it’s sometimes good to test run a lot, looking for any mispells, and such.

Well, i got tons of free time. Almost the whole day, besides working on my things, sleeping, eating, and such.

Yes i know, Beta Testing takes a lot of responsability. Many people can’t be trusted at that, thats why they take people that can work, and are trustworthy. Like say, they hire this strange guy, he gives a bug fix, but turns out to make the game easier, or corrupt. Don’t really know if they taken trustworthy people on the team, though.

Heres a couple of other questions:

1: If the game don’t need any ideas, why is there a sub-category saying you give out ideas? Is it like…for mini-games or something?

2: Is this game going to be free?

3: Was any part of that post supposed to insult, or be rude to me?

I could just work on my skills on GameMaker for a while.

Anyways, i’m gonna go off tommarow.

Well see ya all, and when it’s the 25th, Merry Christmas everyone.

~Hug

7

1-- No idea.

2–It’s illegal to charge.

3–Yes, but that’s just how CFX is. :slight_smile:

8

I could tell you what the game will be like without playing it, it will the best fangame out made with game maker. I think the reason why it would be so awsome is becouse of ALL of the sprites are well accuate and deatailed ( needs some tweaking a bit ) and since mp and p2d are so popular I think anybody would play it. I think if youre on the team it’s an honor and anybody should be a tester thats on the team.

9

Well, graphics and popularity aren’t everything (though they do help a lot to bring in loads of Americans), but yes, I think P2D is going to be great.

I don’t think we actually need a beta testing part of our team. When the demo comes out, the people that want to beta test can hunt down every single glitch in it and report it to CFX or DF or whoever’s engine we use. I say this because most of the people that would normally reply with “OMGIFOUNDAGLITCHLOLROFLFIXNOW” when they find a glitch are the ones that aren’t going to be searching for glitches. They’ll be the ones to say “OMGTHISGAMEISAWEXOMELOLROFLWTFBBQ”. They can be ignored.

Maybe I’m just saying this because I don’t have any “official” experience beta testing (I’ve pointed out plenty of glitches for plenty of fangames, including DF’s P2D environment test, and have helped pinpoint the cause with most of them, but I’ve never been an official beta tester anywhere) and don’t feel like trying to sign up like that, since every fangame with beta testers usually requires them to have previous experience, and I’m assuming that means not just fixing common Game Maker glitches (though I know I’m better than that). I usually just beta test everything I can just for fun, and signing up for everything I beta test would be a pain.

10

Tell ya what, brainstorming is needed a lot.

The entire way of defeating bosses has to be changed, and it’s not going to be easy to make something challenging and strategic, yet new and compatible with 2d graphics.

Speaking of brainstorming, I guess I could start thinking of how to defeat Flagghra, since the old way is nearly impossible to make on 2d…

11

That would be OPEN beta testing, where they open their doors to a few lucky people to play the game and find SMALL glitches they haven’t found yet. CLOSED beta testing is what we’re talking about here - where you need experienced people to work with the programmers.

12

Ok, time to make some things clear.

There is no beta testing. Why not? Because my engine is not open source and because I know my engine and code better than anyone else, so the only beta tester is me.

You can help testing by reporting glitces and bugs in the demo’s I release. It’s no real beta testing, it’s more like debugging. Anyone can do that, just report the bug, and report the way you found it very accuratly.
Look at the demo topic on the scu forum, http://www.samusforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?..r=asc&start=360
The glitch list is in there, take a look at it first.

Only report new glitches (duh)… :sweat:

All clear now? good :slight_smile:

locks