Good job Tynan

Plasmatic · April 06, 2014, 01:18:09 AM

Found this thread: http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2813.0;topicseen

and wanted to respond to the quote below, but as I read it over I thought it would of slightly derailed the thread, so I decided to make a new one instead so that one is dedicated to new testers and questions about that.

Quote from: vertigoita on April 05, 2014, 05:32:42 AM
You should explain to people that this is not a: OH COOL I CAN PLAY THE ALPHA RELEASE BEFORE ANYONE ELSE. But more of a: Ok let's take a look at this,oh this is wrong it shouldn't do that let's post it on the forum. Because some people doesn't get that (sry for bad english i'm italian)

Isn't that what a pre-release alpha is anyways? as in, that is what Rimworld is right now?

We paid to play a pre-release alpha game and some actually treat it as such and report bugs they find. others... well yeah..

Nothing wrong with an actual alpha game like Rimworld where Tynan (the developer) actually listens to feedback and implements good ideas.. But it has to be said that the terms "Beta", "Alpha" are becoming synonymous with 'marketing' which is very sad..

Some games even release what should be a finished game under the flag of an alpha and lean on it whenever bugs or balance issues are found.

Sorry to go off topic a bit, I just want to say I love Tynan for all he does and doesn't do. This game is far more polished than many of the main stream releases (especially some of the newest on steam)

Keep up the good work Tynan!

I'm glad I found Rimworld (Thanks to Etalyx)

Tynan · April 06, 2014, 01:20:45 AM

Why thank you! What else to say? I'd hate to subject you all to ugly bugs is all.

Plasmatic · April 06, 2014, 01:26:47 AM

Quote from: Tynan on April 06, 2014, 01:20:45 AM
Why thank you! What else to say? I'd hate to subject you all to ugly bugs is all.

Bug smashing is so fun though... (As long as I don't actually have to find them in the code - I'm not a programmer. I get lost in HTML

)

Serrate Bloodrage · April 06, 2014, 09:33:37 AM

I have had a lot more fun in Rimworld than any other game since Xcom (original). No other game has held my attention as long, except MMO's.
Great work

Celthric Aysen · April 06, 2014, 09:54:07 AM

Steps to a successful life:
1.Watch Etalyx
2.Sub to Etalyx
3.Watch Rimworld in Etalyx's video
4.Buy Rimworld
5.Play Rimworld
=Profit! BIG TIME!

Col_Jessep · April 06, 2014, 10:01:32 AM

Quote from: Tynan on April 06, 2014, 01:20:45 AMI'd hate to subject you all to ugly bugs is all.

You have a very good track record in my book. No showstopper bugs and everything I noticed is harmless and with one exception fixable with small mods.

In other games I have seen bugs where you have to ask yourself: Did they even test the game for more than 5 minutes? so glaringly obvious bugs passed QA. In some cases those post-release patches that went through 2 weeks of publisher QA.

Modding is great fun too although I'll wait till Alpha 3 before I really look into that. What I like best about Rimworld so far is the pacing. In other, comparable games I'm often waiting on resources or for something to get finished, run out of things to do or simply get bored because there is no challenge. (I'm looking at you, Spacebase DF-9!)

If you want some constructive criticism: Can you rename some of your item/building categories at some point? The "ThingsDef" folder is a wild collection of stuff. Maybe could split it up into more meaningful subcategories at some point. And maybe we need more categories in the UI. Having the stove, butcher's table, stonecrafter and drop beacon in "Furniture" is kind of counterintuitive; same with nutrient paste dispenser and batteries in "Buildings".
Well, that's probably on your list anyway once you get more stuff in.

It would be absolutely wonderful if you could expose the main UI to XML so that we could add our own UI elements and easily reshuffle which "Things" are displayed in which category.

Semmy · April 06, 2014, 11:02:53 AM

The fact that there are no gamestopping bugs is that tynan doesnt just release the game to the public out of the blue.

He does take alot of time killing bugs. And we encountered alot of awfull ones before release.

Plasmatic · April 06, 2014, 11:08:05 AM

Quote from: Semmy on April 06, 2014, 11:02:53 AM
The fact that there are no gamestopping bugs is that tynan doesnt just release the game to the public out of the blue.

He does take alot of time killing bugs. And we encountered alot of awfull ones before release.

Thats just what he is saying though, the fact that you spend time testing and squashing bugs before a general release is what makes Tynan have a great track record.

Games are always going to have bugs, its the amount of time you spend finding and fixing them that makes you a great developer.

chaouki · April 06, 2014, 06:51:53 PM

Quote from: Semmy on April 06, 2014, 11:02:53 AM
The fact that there are no gamestopping bugs is that tynan doesnt just release the game to the public out of the blue.

He does take alot of time killing bugs. And we encountered alot of awfull ones before release.

I'm really happy that you put in a lot of time to find bugs in order to make the game running smoothly as much as possible. This is the first time I've bought an unfinished game and I'm very excited with the whole process of being able to witness its progress (the "baby" game is growing up

). It's a great experience to read the updates of Tynan and you, Semmy, and the suggestions by others. Thanks a lot guys and keep hunting down them bugs.

Col_Jessep · April 06, 2014, 09:59:20 PM

Crowdfunding changed a lot how game development works these days. Most Alphas you get to play from Kickstarter, Early Access... go through some amount of bug fixing before the backers get them. The only reason some of them deserve the title alpha is because they are far from feature complete.

Back in the day alpha meant placeholder art, really mean bugs, no balance and only playing with the goal to find and reproduce bugs. Found a bug that is hard to reproduce? Well, better get comfy because you will be trying to recreate the situation a couple of dozen times until you find a way to reproduce the bug. If you can't reproduce it one of the devs has to check the server logs, pick the code apart and what not - if the bug is serious enough. Costs time and money.

It's a lot of fun sometimes but it can get really frustrating. In a shooter I tested one class was clearly OP. But the devs needed the data for their balance models so we had one OP guy on each team to see how much more dps they would do, how fast they would level, if we could kill them at all. Not necessarily fun to get crushed 20 times in a row but it makes you a better player quickly... xD

The only downside of the new Kickstarter alphas is that new features take longer to implement. More time for bugfixing, art, UI design, sound...

Tynan · April 07, 2014, 11:51:31 AM

Make sure you guys all thank the testers too! They're the ones who find most of the tough bugs. I now have like 25 juicy bugs to work on after the weekend because of them.

Sion · April 07, 2014, 12:41:37 PM

I'm also greatly impressed by the speed that bugs are exterminated here at RimWorld, many times I haven't even finished reporting them before they are fixed

MrSleepless · April 07, 2014, 06:48:26 PM

This Pre-Alpha is better than most finished games. Love it.

And again, Thank you Tynan. This game seems to keep getting better thanks to your hard work.

Col_Jessep · April 08, 2014, 08:26:26 AM

Quote from: Tynan on April 07, 2014, 11:51:31 AM
Make sure you guys all thank the testers too! They're the ones who find most of the tough bugs. I now have like 25 juicy bugs to work on after the weekend because of them.

Splendid, the more bugs are found the merrier! I'm glad to hear the pre-release testers do such a good job. Thank you!