Idea: devs should play more!

[robhol]

So, it occurred to me that devs might not have all that much experience in multiplayer gaming on the latest revisions, that misc. testing is either alone or with only few people. (I obviously don't know, it's just a suspicion.) The thing is, there are any number of bugs that can be hard to describe and document properly for those of us without a real understanding of how the mod works.

It seems like a waste to let devs operate on random whining of random usefulness from random players on random revisions, instead of having a playing session once in a while and experiencing the bugs in person.

This is just a thought, but one I think you should give some consideration. I recommend you setting up another "public beta" so you can get a few players in on the playing session. (More players = more potential of bugs popping up.)

[Scarface]

How do you know the devs don't play?

About the public beta test, I have thought about it before and it's a good idea, the most I've seen in a nightly server was 12 players and public beta's have at least 60.

[robhol]

How do you know the devs don't play?

About the public beta test, I have thought about it before and it's a good idea, the most I've seen in a nightly server was 12 players and public beta's have at least 60.

As I very clearly stated, I don't know: I just get the impression that they don't, seeing as there are quite a few bugs that would be on the tracker if they did. The whole point is that reports from an average player such as you and I would definitely be less useful to the developers than first-hand experience, since their knowledge of the mod, its structure, its potential "points of interest" as far as bugs go, where in the code this or that "symptom" could originate, etc. etc. etc.

Bottom line: we average players don't know jack.

[Gamesnert]

Maybe we should organise an event? Like... Play-around-with-nightly-1.0-saturday? Or play-race-to-find-some-bugs-sunday?

Might be pretty useful. With a lot of players it's a lot easier to actually find bugs too.

[robhol]

Sure, but then the devs would probably end up stuck organizing the stuff which would defeat the point. I just suggest that a few of them take an hour or so in a server, just playing normally.

[lil Toady]

no thnx, it's nobody but the devs to decide when they play and when they dont. It so happened that devs dont play much, so when we were closed source we had QA to play, now we're open source and there's the whole community to play.

[robhol]

You seem to have noticed, but this wasn't an order; it was a recommendation and an encouragement. You don't need to bitch about "me deciding when the devs should play". But face it, how many of the reports submitted into Mantis are shot down, closed or deleted because they're duplicates, have too little info or the submitter has too little knowledge about the mod to make a good report?

[skybon]

You seem to have noticed, but this wasn't an order; it was a recommendation and an encouragement. You don't need to bitch about "me deciding when the devs should play". But face it, how many of the reports submitted into Mantis are shot down, closed or deleted because they're duplicates, have too little info or the submitter has too little knowledge about the mod to make a good report?

Well anyway devs should develop MTA and not waste time on playing.

[robhol]

You seem to have noticed, but this wasn't an order; it was a recommendation and an encouragement. You don't need to bitch about "me deciding when the devs should play". But face it, how many of the reports submitted into Mantis are shot down, closed or deleted because they're duplicates, have too little info or the submitter has too little knowledge about the mod to make a good report?

Well anyway devs should develop MTA and not waste time on playing.

What a brilliant piece of reasoning. I'm going to repeat my point for the last time here: developers know stuff that normal players don't. When a normal player spots a bug, he doesn't know why it happened, how it happened, or where it happened, he just knows that it did happen. A developer could, by reason of his deeper understanding of the mod and its nature, deduce, estimate, or even guess, exactly what is wrong, why it's wrong and where one might start looking for the mistake in code.

Thus, this wouldn't be a waste of time at all. It would be a form of bug detection, isolation and hopefully, fixing, about ten times more efficient than if normal players *cough* wasted time stumbling into bugs that they don't have the knowledge to understand correctly and making bogus reports that don't help anybody at all. Unlike devs. But I've already made that point, haven't I?

[skybon]

You seem to have noticed, but this wasn't an order; it was a recommendation and an encouragement. You don't need to bitch about "me deciding when the devs should play". But face it, how many of the reports submitted into Mantis are shot down, closed or deleted because they're duplicates, have too little info or the submitter has too little knowledge about the mod to make a good report?

Well anyway devs should develop MTA and not waste time on playing.

What a brilliant piece of reasoning. I'm going to repeat my point for the last time here: devs know stuff that normal players don't. When a normal player spots a bug, he doesn't know why it happened, how it happened, or where it happened, he just knows that it did happen. A dev could, by reason of his deeper understanding of the mod, deduce, estimate, or even guess, exactly what is wrong, why it's wrong and where one might start looking for the mistake in code.

Thus, this wouldn't be a waste of time at all. It would be a form of bug detection, isolation and hopefully, fixing, about ten times more efficient than if normal players *cough* wasted time stumbling into bugs that they don't have the knowledge to understand correctly and making bogus reports that don't help anybody at all. Unlike devs. But I've already made that point, haven't I?

Well, you know, when you spot a bug you won't be able to understand why it happened, no matter whether you are a noob or a dev. Dev can mess this out only when he opens up the source files and starts checking them.

[robhol]

Well, you know, when you spot a bug you won't be able to understand why it happened, no matter whether you are a noob or a dev. Dev can mess this out only when he opens up the source files and starts checking them.

No. Because they are developers and have spent considerable amounts of time with the source code, they'll have acquainted themselves with it in some degree and therefore they're likely to know infinitely more than a normal player about what could cause what. And even if they don't, their reports would be a whole lot more useful than others simply because they know what to look for, what to mention and what is and isn't important.

[lil Toady]

If we were doing everything ourselves we would have never had QA, we would have never gone open source and the mod wouldn't have been released by now. We dont demand anyone to tell us where in the code it happened. Just explain what happened and under what conditions, we will deal with everything else ourselves. Division of labor. A company manager would know how to do stuff better than his workers too, yet he still needs them to make it efficient.

[robhol]

If we were doing everything ourselves(1) we would have never had QA, we would have never gone open source and the mod wouldn't have been released by now. We dont demand anyone to tell us where in the code it happened(2). Just explain what happened and under what conditions, we will deal with everything else ourselves(2). Division of labor. A company manager would know how to do stuff better than his workers too, yet he still needs them to make it efficient.

1) This is not about doing everything yourselves, this is, at most, about you taking an hour or so once in a blue moon to actually play your own mod. I don't see how this is an outrageously bad suggestion.

2) I didn't say you demanded it - I just said that so many of the reports are poorly detailed and thus less useful because the people who submit them don't know enough.

Sure enough, a company manager would know how to do stuff better than "his workers" ( ), but would it really hurt him that bad to take an hour per month to look into stuff for himself instead? It'd be roughly 10 times more efficient.

Also, I didn't mean you specifically, there are more devs (or at least people who are more familiar with the source code) than you in here, and any one of those will probably do the trick, really.

Wouldn't it be fun to actually play, though? As I've tried to remind people here, this topic is not a demand, command, reprimand or for that matter, any other *-mand, it's just a suggestion and an encouragement.

[Dark Dragon]

Just explain what happened and under what conditions

but many people don't know which conditions could have something to do with the bug. robhols point of view makes much sense in my opinion, maybe as a dev it seems like anyone knows HOW written code works, but since many people don't know anything they won't understand even simple bugs caused by possibilities they just don't have a clue about. Things that make sense when you think about it like a scripter but not when you think like a player.

"does it matter that resource x was running?" "does it matter that I was in an interior/a car/a car as a passenger/a spectator view before?" "does it matter that I joined a running match?" "Could my name "$&!(§)$"!" have something to do with this issue?" and THIS is where a dev would maybe think like this: "the code asks for the state x but in this case the state would be nil" "aborting this could have caused this value to be stuck" "dividing by zero can't return a correct value" "the loop will never end because that value can't reach -1 (<0)"

in the other hand, testing it yourself would cost even more time. Open sourcing this project was a really good idea and speeds up the whole thing. but devs playing would definitely help as well.

[lil Toady]

If you are unsure about your report, dont report it. Our QA team was doing well describing the bugs, enough info, yet they didn't know a thing about MTA structure or coding/scripting at all. And right now we have a lot of people who know things and track mantis reports like arc_, Talidan, MeKorea. Im quite satisfied with how it is now.

What a reply did you expect? Something like 'damn you're right! we should spend more time in game cause people cant report bugs properly!' ? The whole point of the open bug tracker is that community reports us the issues, not we check them ourselves.

[Dark Dragon]

If you are unsure about your report, dont report it.

which will definitely help... but who cares, I like it how it is right now.

[robhol]

If you are unsure about your report, dont report it. (1)Our QA team was doing well(2) describing the bugs, enough info, yet they didn't know a thing about MTA structure or coding/scripting at all. And right now we have a lot of people who know things and track mantis reports like arc_, Talidan, MeKorea. Im quite satisfied with how it is now.

What a reply did you expect? Something like 'damn you're right! we should spend more time in game cause people cant report bugs properly!' ? (3) The whole point of the open bug tracker is that community reports us the issues, not we check them ourselves.

1) Yeah, completely. No point getting any bugs fixed, they really spice up gameplay.

2) Sure, they were doing well. But why not do even better?

3) I just wanted to air the idea, that's all. I don't give a fuck whether or not you want to discuss this for another two pages, I just want what's best for the mod, which seems, from my point of view, to involve getting some bugs fixed.

Since you seem to deliberately ignore what I'm saying, there's no point for me to continue saying it. I can just hope that a less stubborn developer takes my point instead of finding reasons not to.

I just wonder, why haven't you got time to play when you have time to post half a bible arguing with me whether or not to play?

[lil Toady]

I just wonder, why haven't you got time to play when you have time to post half a bible arguing with me whether or not to play?

It is not of your business why i do not play.

You are saying that devs should test cause community can't report, i say that we gave you the ability to report so we dont have to test. That's it.

[robhol]

It is not of your business why i do not play.

You are saying that devs should test cause community can't report, i say that we gave you the ability to report so we dont have to test. That's it.

No, why you don't play is probably not any of my business, I just wondered why you keep arguing so much, and whether or not you were being intentionally dense.

I also never said it was because the community can't report, I said it was because the developers having a look for themselves would help a lot more and be more efficient. No point in pretending I said something else than what I did, especially since I know what I said, and what I didn't.

[skybon]

Anyway, I think devs know better than we whether to test via QA\community or themselves.

[robhol]

Anyway, I think devs know better than we whether to test via QA\community or themselves.

You do? Fascinating.

[skybon]

Anyway, I think devs know better than we whether to test via QA\community or themselves.

You do? Fascinating.

Looks like you REALLY want to get banned for insulting users and annoying devs

[Scarface]

Anyway, I think devs know better than we whether to test via QA\community or themselves.

You do? Fascinating.

Looks like you REALLY want to get banned for insulting users and annoying devs

You have got to be kidding me

[robhol]

Anyway, I think devs know better than we whether to test via QA\community or themselves.

You do? Fascinating.

Looks like you REALLY want to get banned for insulting users and annoying devs

Looks to me you're REALLY struggling with coming up with something relevant to say. If you took that as an insult, you're really quite touchy for a guy who jumps into the middle of a discussion, apparently without a clear opinion, and then starts telling other people whether they want to get banned or not.

Also, I didn't annoy the one dev who replied to this topic more than he had coming to him given that he actually started the discussion. Once again, I just posted an idea. I didn't ask Toady, and I sure as hell didn't ask you. You still both answered to this topic, and I presume that that was your own decision, and you were not, in fact, being forced at gun point.