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Author Topic: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.  (Read 2278 times)

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Offline laggy

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Hi dear collegues and masters,

I have a few ideas and questions and I hope I'm not way out of line here. As a "puritan" and devoted mission designer I wonder about these few things:

1. What about "marking" your "addon free" missions as exactly addon free on the forum, just to make it easier to overview. I love betatesting, but don't like missions that are based on addon additions in general. "Range of Death" campaign was an exception. If addonfree missions where clearly announced, I would do way more betatesting for the benefit of the community. In my humble opinion I'm sure that many other betatesters feel the same way.

2. When does this forum think it's okay to doublepost regarding your own submitted missions? I submitted two new missions ("Sum of all Fears" and "Hell Unleashed") a month ago and they have been downloaded many times, but still no betatesting feedback. Even though I understand that technical MP testing is way more complicated and harder to organize, my missions are usually for 1+ players which means that even SP mode players can give feedback on the mission idea and design.

Thanks and cheers

Laggy
« Last Edit: 28 May 2008, 22:21:26 by laggy »
And I looked and beheld a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him.

Offline Cheetah

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #1 on: 28 May 2008, 22:21:21 »
Hey laggy,

@Q1

You mean a tag for addon free in the mission's first post? Or a tag in the mission topic's title? What would make it clear for you?

@Q2

After a day or three you can bump your mission if it hasn't received any beta tests. I'm not sure if you'll much more by doing so, but you can always try. Problem is that not much people take some time to post a beta report. Some are frequent beta testers like mathias (sorry to all those whom are not mentioned) and a lot of missions rely solely on these people. If you can play it in SP mode, it is smart to add [SP/MP] in the title of the mission's topic.
Like missions? Help with Beta Testing! or take a look at the OFPEC Missions Depot for reviewed missions!

Offline laggy

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #2 on: 28 May 2008, 22:28:14 »
Hi Cheetah and sorry for posting in the wrong place,

Just as we put [COOP/QG] in the thread I think it would be a good idea to write [COOP/QG/1.14/ADDONFREE]. Like I said I think this could be a good info and wouldn't take much work.

Cheers

Laggy
And I looked and beheld a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him.

Offline mathias_eichinger

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #3 on: 09 Jul 2008, 23:42:59 »
Hi laggy!

I support your [COOP/QG/Addonfree] tags, I was thinking about doing the reverse when I had a mission with addons in mind.

One thing that bothers me is that an increasing number of people put a (please beta test) behind their thread title.
To me, this is completely tautological, since the very existence of a mission in the beta board means that it should be beta tested. It just cramps up the forum and makes missions (marked for review) harder to spot.
I think it would be good to have a news post on the homepage asking people to hold off from marking their missions with (please beta test). Any other opinions on this?

Offline WinKIller0

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #4 on: 10 Jul 2008, 17:46:00 »
I agree, no (please beta test) it just doesn't fit there really

-wink0
You haven't seen the end of The Devil yet...

Offline wcrvieira

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #5 on: 11 Jul 2008, 05:07:29 »
I think it would be good to have a news post on the homepage asking people to hold off from marking their missions with (please beta test). Any other opinions on this?

I agree completely on this.

Regarding the questions by Laggy, I do agree with marking missions are addon free, however marking them in the topic title will clutter the forum like the situation showed above my post by mathias_eichinger.
However, do not stay away from missions with addons just because of that. Many missions use addons because they bring something extra with them, something you don't really have with vanilla ArmA.

Regarding question #2 I think you should really state that in your topic, that is it SP-able. Don't really know if you already did that, didn't have time to check it out. Also, yes it is much harder to review in a MP environment, much due to the known constraints it all involves (finding players, a server, a timezone, etc etc). But we are getting there.

One thing you can do, if you have a server or a clan, is to call some players to beta-test it with you. If you don't have it, you can tell a friend with a server about OFPEC and he can become a beta-tester himself :) with a own server. Wouldn't that be cool eh?

Offline Cheetah

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Re: Some questions and suggestions about mission betatesting.
« Reply #6 on: 11 Jul 2008, 11:35:15 »
Loki's server is great for MP. I recommend it, downside could be that you have 100+ ping as its located in the USA.

About the addon free. Why not include it at the top of the first post? I don't like the forums getting too cluttered with all those tags, MP and SP is great. But addon free, what are the reasons for having it there instead of inside the first post of a topic - for example in bold tags on top.
Like missions? Help with Beta Testing! or take a look at the OFPEC Missions Depot for reviewed missions!