Gamechangers For Tsw2

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Mertjuuh, Jan 23, 2021.

?
  1. Yes

  2. No

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  1. Mertjuuh

    Mertjuuh New Member

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    Hi guys,

    I came to the idea (in connection with SEHS) for a Beta program for TSW2.

    What does this include?
    - You can test new routes, and give feedback to DTG
    - If you give feedback, DTG should listen to this and (if it's possible) also do it.

    Why?
    -
    Seeing SEHS in TSW2 was very dissapointing. To prevent for this in the future, a beta program would be the best idea. People can play test it, give their opinion and send it to DTG.

    bye!
     
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  2. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    As far as I’m aware, DTG already have their own internal beta testers, who they select specially, so there’s little to no chance of a ‘public’ beta of routes and other things.
     
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  3. Mertjuuh

    Mertjuuh New Member

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    Yes, but mostly those people don't want to say whats *REALLY* bad. Looking at SEHS, the beta testers didn't do their job right. Thats why i would like to see some action from the community.
     
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  4. GrayDawg

    GrayDawg Well-Known Member

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    Is it in the beta testers "job description" to tell DTG about more fences, more/less vegetation, services etc. - or is to just playtest what is there, and make sure that works as intended without the whole shebang blowing up? I'm pretty convinced it is the latter, but hey, I never beta tested anything for them, so I could be wrong, I suppose. I also believe they do report many bugs, but DTG decides not to fix them. Time constraints, too much work, don't know how, "release it as is and we'll patch it up later À la EA (maaaybe)"?
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2021
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  5. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    DTG’s TSW2 beta team are headhunted from various places, including, but not limited to, retirement homes, caravan parks and the gift shop at the pencil museum. A crack team of train enthusiasts, famed for their bottle-bottom spectacles, supplies of kendal mint cake and sudoku solving skills, they gather once a week in an abandoned train shed somewhere on the south coast of England to swap anecdotes about the days of steam, tales of feeling self conscious in laundrettes, and to compare, amongst other things, their nasal hair removal techniques. Occasionally they also test the game. Once a year they plug in a PS4 and try again to figure out how to switch it on. Three years and counting and they haven’t realised the on switch is on the controller. This is what I’ve heard, it may not be true, they might actually meet in Swindon for all I know.
     
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  6. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the laugh.
    I fear you do them a disservice.
    Making anything requires choices and compromises, especially if you are working to a price/time limit.
    I suspect much of their feedback is unviable commercially.
    Their remit will probably be centred around stability and gameplay rather than graphical fidelity.
    I'd like to be wrong (Well used to it :))
     
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  7. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I don’t know what the beta testing requires but it won’t be what a lot of people imagine it to be, which is to get the game and then report anything you just happen to come across. It almost certainly takes a lot of dedication and would frustrate most people if after feeling useful when reporting something it then doesn’t get addressed for whatever reason. I occasionally think that I might like to do it myself but then remind myself that it would possibly sap a lot of the enjoyment from playing. The only thing that makes me think it would be a better experience than finding lots of bugs as a customer would be the opportunity to report and discuss directly with the devs exactly what I’ve found and not just report it here and hope for the best.

    I don’t think for one minute that anything that I found as a tester would be deemed more important than anything else found by either the other beta testers or the players later, or be more likely to be addressed, because finding the issues is only a small part of the whole process, but it might feel better to be helping rather than complaining. It would also help to know why things are the way they are, something I like to think about when evaluating what I think are issues worth bleating on about on the forum, or just accepting as that’s how things are from having an educated guess, and that would enable me to give better feedback. I’d feel more useful for sure and I’d certainly relish the prospect of entering into more insightful discussions with others who are on the same page rather than with a wider, less forgiving public audience, although I do also enjoy that sometimes.

    I haven’t even thought about what beta testing on console would be like, or how it may differ to testing on PC, as I play on PS4. A lot of people have the impression that no testing takes place on consoles but I would assume that the main difference would be that there would be fewer builds to test, but I really have no idea to be honest. Overall I don’t think I would enjoy being part of the beta team. Most people wouldn’t.

    One thing beta testing isn’t about is what the OP in this thread suggests. Having a bit of a play, having a bit of a rant, then seeing everything change dramatically in front of your eyes. A public beta would be a nightmare for everyone concerned if it was. Anyone making bug reports now is sort of entering into a process that would be identical to what a public beta would be, with the exact same chance of anything changing.

    Certainly coming to the forum and suggesting the current beta testers aren’t doing their jobs correctly doesn’t really warrant a serious response, hence my reply above.
     
  8. Stockton Rails

    Stockton Rails Well-Known Member

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    I’m pretty sure I saw this listed here at the forums at some point (or maybe it was something I thought of): In reality, all of *us* represent the largest group of beta testers for DTG’s code... and we pay them no less for the ‘privilege’ of doing that. What’s wrong with that picture? Maybe one day they will finally start (seriously) cleaning up all of the issues with their code (including, but not limited to, issues that affect immersion)... but I’m not holding my breath.
     
  9. Knightfire1964

    Knightfire1964 Well-Known Member

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    i have some experience in beta testing games myself and even when the game came out i had bugs that i never encountered when testing so sometimes it can be a hit or miss especially with coding. i feel though if they were to do something like this they would need great control to obviously not have any leaks occur with pc i know its going to be simpler to do and with xbox the insider app has had a good few updates to it for testing games although my knowledge for such things for ps4 are unknown
     
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  10. LeadCatcher

    LeadCatcher Well-Known Member

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    Having been a beta tester for operating systems as well as games in the past - if the program is run correctly, you are given set pieces for configurations, particular goals to test and have to follow a precise sequence then observe - little freelance game play where you just run the game and report on your run. Usually you will have to meticulously report your running environment - drivers loaded, any background tasks, and must document memory usage, cpu gpu utilization and be able to precisely recreate the same environment time and again to test code changes. When you do find a problem, you must make sure it is reproducible and document exactly the steps to do so. Definitely not a leisurely activity. . More like a job. :)
     
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  11. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    My experience is that external beta testing is primarily the purview of those who just want to get something and play it a few weeks earlier. True beta testing as the honourable person above mentions is tedious, monotonous and usually leaves you fed up to the back teeth and never want to see that particular item again. It's one of the reasons I rarely drive the routes I've created in MSTS, Trainz and TS (well apart from the fact most are c..p anyway); by the time you've been back over the same section 50 times fixing and snagging issues you just want to move on and do something else!
     
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  12. mattdsoares

    mattdsoares Well-Known Member

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    As others have said, there are already beta and playtesters for TSW. The issue isn't these people "not doing their job" as you suggest, but rather DTG choosing to move on despite issues. Issues get caught during testing, but it's up to the developer to commit to fixing them before release. Sometimes it's just not possible given what the issue is, and other times it's a choice by the developer that instituting a fix isn't worth the time and effort. It's a trade off. So it's not like DTG was shocked to learn that their ballast color was wrong. I'm sure someone pointed it out but that the decision was initially made that it wasn't worth bothering with.

    I'll also point out that a lot of the "issues" people have with the still unreleased SEHS route were explained by Matt DURING THE STREAM, if you watched it all. The performance was brought up, and he explained it. He talked about the sounds. Everything it seems except for a ballast color which seems to really upset a lot of folks.
     
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  13. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    And the fences. Don't forget the game-breaking fences which make the route unplayable.

    :cool:
     
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