Why Not Dovetail Have Alpha Beta Testing

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by jörgen Näslund, Aug 22, 2020.

  1. jörgen Näslund

    jörgen Näslund Well-Known Member

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    Most every time Dovetail release a product. There is something wrong with it.
    This time with TSW2 it is not too much wrong compared to before (TSW1)
    But the little I have tested I have seen AC4400 in Timetable you cant release the train brake. So you are stuck. In Timetable Gp38 so EOT is 110 Psi But the brake pipe is just 90 Psi. (It cant be higher end ot train) Horn in Gp38 is way to silent (inside cab)
    I am sure it is much much more there.

    Microsoft Flight simulator they had Alpha and Beta testing. It was much wrong with the simulator in beginning, but after 5-10 rounds with new versions in Alpha and Beta so it gradually got better.
    and once they released the game, most of the bugs were gone.

    Dovetail do not do the same. It seems to be Matt who is the bug tester. but of course there are several but they are too few. And when releasing the product, we are the Alpha and Beta testers.
    We may not do exactly what we should do because they have developed it and know exactly what we need to do to make it work.
    Now also when it is PC and 2 consoles, it becomes more complex this.
    Testing through everything is a huge job. and they should take the help of testing persons before releasing the simulator who make the end product much better.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
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  2. Stockton Rails

    Stockton Rails Well-Known Member

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    I‘ve thought about all of this too, and posted something similar to this earlier today. Specifically, I’ve wondered what the QC process is like within DTG- i.e. how many people are available to do QC work on multi-platform products, and whether they have enough time to do a thorough job. I’ve also wondered if they have an internal or external alpha or beta test program, and whether or not those people have enough time to do their jobs. It seems to me that far too many problems with released product are hitting paying customers- instead of being caught on the DTG side as they should be.

    Now if they need add’l beta testers, I volunteer... I opened up 8-10 tickets over the last few months on various issues affecting TSW 2020, not that any of those issues will be fixed now. ;-)
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
  3. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    It's something I've also thought about. Playing the CSX tutorials on console the other day, and coming across the control issue has led me to believe that one of the following issues have occurred:

    - The tutorial was simply never tested on console by anyone. I struggle to believe this is the case, but if anyone had played the tutorial then they'd have noticed the issue.

    - The bugs are found and identified, and never fixed.

    - Late changes introduce new bugs. Perhaps some changes made at the very last minute have caused some bugs to introduce. I get the feeling that TSW2 was very close to the wire, and I'm sure this didn't help the QA process.

    I'm sure there are many of us who would be willing to test (myself included).
     
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  4. LeadCatcher

    LeadCatcher Well-Known Member

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    Want to have some fun, go to the MFS2020 forums and you can find this very same thread.... granted they are talking about the lack of beta testing on the new flight sim. Or really go to a forum on any newly released software and look for the required “poor optimization” threads as well.
    Not saying there are not problems, but just an observation that one can count on the appearance of these two topics in any newly released software forum....

    I participated in the Alpha and Beta of MSFS2020 in which plenty of feedback was provided to the Developers, with many being addressed but many more noted but could not be addressed do to production schedules. So even major software houses unfortunately have schedules to meet.

    What I do appreciate with this release is watching the YouTube videos with Matt and Sam... they are about as brutal on some aspects as in these forums... with realistic responses as to why and what will be worked on to fix. Will look forward to next weeks stream where they talk to the producer that is heading up the bug squash team.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
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  5. StratPlayer62

    StratPlayer62 Well-Known Member

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    Why bother doing a beta test when you can get people to pay for the product and beta test it at the same time? It is basically DTG's model to do it this way. Before TSW was released there was a special "Beta" test that you could be apart of but you had to PAY to do it, which I fell for. I thought DTG will do the right thing when the final TSW product is released and give us that paid in to beta test a discount on TSW but NOPE.

    As far as I'm concerned the first version of TSW was a huge Beta test that we all paid for, probably why the file was called "prototype". And again you would think that DTG would give everyone that had already bought TSW a discount on TSW2 but there hasn't been one that I've seen. If I'm wrong please correct me!

    This is one of the reasons I haven't bought TSW2 as of yet. I'd like to as it seems to have fixed a lot of problems and ads some nice new features but this business practice is just annoying.
     
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  6. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    You are wrong.
     
  7. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    There was a 10% pre order discount on Steam for PC players with an extra 5% if you already owned TSW 2020.

    But I agree that this does appear to be like a paid beta from some of the comments I have read.
     
  8. Dominik Tuchowicz

    Dominik Tuchowicz Member

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    CSX was Alpha.
    Train Sim World was Beta.
    Train Sim World 2020 was pre-release.

    All sold as a full commercial version.
    They found out how badly coded stuff was and were forced to patch up all separately as all was together in engine. So they abandoned the updates for old DLC's as "preserved".
    They put now the core with UE4+SimuGraph together but separated routes / trains / assets, thats why messing around those in editor is possible now, as well 3rd party can create DLC's without having full code or full project. And we can get back old abandoned or "preserved" stuff.

    They made us pay for this. Train Sim World 2 - Revolution in train siming. The final TSW.
     
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  9. StratPlayer62

    StratPlayer62 Well-Known Member

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    Well I stand corrected. However a pre order discount doesn't apply to the point I'm making, and a 5% discount is pretty insulting but I guess it is better than nothing. I refuse to pre order anything from DTG after the Oakville Sub mess.

    I will probably get TSW2 at some point but I'm waiting to hear from others about it and I will probably wait for a sale.

    I did hear Sam say in a video that DTG will now have a dedicated team for fixing problems on already released products, blows my mind that there wasn't one already but hopefully they are starting to make some improvements to the way they operate. If so I'm ready and willing to support the product with my wallet, would just like to see some proof of it in action first.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
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  10. KyleL

    KyleL Well-Known Member

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    It's a good thing I got TSW2 on sale it seems like there is a ton of bugs & things going wrong.But I hope they are actually fixing these bugs
     
  11. Stockton Rails

    Stockton Rails Well-Known Member

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    ...interesting post, several good points in here. Having at least some beta test plan in place back in the day is one thing- that DTG actually charged money for this ‘privilege’ seems pretty self-serving to me. But not having one where you fold in members of the community to broadly and thoroughly test your product is asking for trouble. And if they’re doing the beta testing internally to save cost, how good of a job can they do with replicating all of the different types of PC systems players have to make sure their code is stable across the board?

    I realize that no sw product is perfect at launch, I totally get that... my beef is that said product should be a lot cleaner than this at launch time, and something must be deficient somewhere on the DTG side that’s making this more of a mess than it has to be. I’m also sitting in the wings right now and will not be purchasing TSW 2 anytime soon... just too much noise on too many issues right now for me to invest in it.
     
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  12. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    It's exactly this. All games have some bugs on release. Testers can never quite test every possible combination.

    However, in this case there are several major bugs that take next to no time to identify. This is where DTG could do with a proper bugs list that is shared with the community, alongside the fact they'll be fixing them.

    For all we know, the bugs present could just be features that'll remain forever.
     
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  13. GuitarMan

    GuitarMan Well-Known Member

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    If you follow other games, they all get posts like this after release. Sports games with annual releases are a particularly good example. I think its worth waiting and seeing what will happen. Deadlines always come into play with these things.
     
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  14. jörgen Näslund

    jörgen Näslund Well-Known Member

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    Me having wrong in train brake in ac4400. It works fine. Forget to change to cut in and Lead.
    This is a new function i guess. Cant remember i have change this in TSW1
    Link
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020

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