Wasteland The Wasteland 2 Beta Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

And pay for the privilege to boot.

 

To give feedback and help them make a better game... or at least that was the idea.

But it really just became a "Pay to be QA" thing. The few things they actually ask for feedback can be debated even without playing the game, like UI and the Character System.

 

We thought we could post ideas/bugs on a working feedback system and help in development. The truth is Inxile setup code center to be a static database you put things in and never see if your feedback went in or how it was received.

In short, folks who backed at higher tiers to get into 'beta' wanted to influence the final stages of development. What we got is an alpha where our feedback goes into a black hole.

 

Your fault for having hopes and dreams.

 

I disagree, lots of feedback has been taken into account and changes/fixes/balancing have been implemented based off of things they didn't even ask for feedback on.

A lot of it from here, the other forum, and I assume the codecenter as well.

 

That's not what I said. I don't care if feedback was used or not. Clearly they're going to use it.

What I said is -my- feedback just sits there and I have no idea how it was received. For example even in the latest build I have no idea how many APs a reload action takes. My very first ticket on code center was to ask for a simple tool tip to be added so I'd know how much AP reloading takes.

I expect that ticket to enter a state where it's either planned, or being considered, or going into the next build. What happens is the ticket just remains there and there's no response from Inxile.

If this was an unpaid beta where I was helping the developer I would understand but -payed- to get into this beta. There's extra money there that should have been budgeted toward making the beta experience better for the testers.

It's complete shit. They might as well not even bother reading code center. Why does someone like Sea get to send in weekly reports and engage them over other backers who paid for access?

Complete shit.

 

All I'm saying is that the feedback is considered and implemented, so I don't see what you aren't getting, you're still influencing the development, whether they reply to your tickets or not.

Not that it doesn't suck that you have no way of knowing whether or not your feedback has been considered, it would be much better if they did it like they are for Torment.

 

Uservoice for Torment barely gets updated anymore, and a lot of stuff is sitting in 'considered' despite being up there for a year now with a lot of votes.

Complete fail.

 

There have been approximately 10,000 reports on Center Code. 7377 bug reports and 2556 suggestions.

Every single report in Center Code gets transported into our JIRA database.

The process is basically as follows (this is oversimplified a bit, but you get the idea):

1) First everything gets imported en masse to a JIRA quarantine database.

2) Everything is refined in an algorithmic fashion by keywords and issue type. For example, if the word "CRASH" is in an issue, that issue's priority is elevated. If the word "AG CENTER" is in the summary or description field, the issue is labelled with "AG CENTER" for game level and given the component "GAME LEVELS", etc., etc., etc. The output of this process is not yet usable by the development team because the machine-process will leave many errors and mistakes. Therefore...

3) Everything is refined by a human being (generally John Lynch, our QA Lead). He goes through and eliminates additional duplicates, massages priorities, etc.

4) Everything that has been both machine and human refined is imported into the main Wasteland 2 JIRA database.

5) Everything that is in the main Wasteland 2 JIRA database starts out assigned to a producer, director or executive. This set of things is refined by a human being (generally a producer, director, or executive). Priorities get refined further, things get less messy, etc. Now we've got a set of data that is usable by the development team.

6) Everything is assigned to developers.

7) Everything is tracked and managed from there.

Theoretically, we could push information back upstream to the originator of the issue.

Doing so would cost money and time, so we are making the active choice to rather spend that money and time on fixing issues rather than telling people we are fixing issues.

The Backer and Steam Early Access reports are a huge part of our development process. We combine the reports from the players with a large stream of reports from our external QA partners at Testronic as well as with reports from our in-house QA group and the development team itself.

That being said, I totally dig that it would be very good if individuals could know the status of their individual reports. It's not something we don't want to do. Nor something we didn't consider. It's just something that's too time consuming and inefficient when balanced against competing interests.

If someone has a bug report or suggestion that they want a specific response on, they can always email support@inxile.net and they will get a response.

[I'd also be happy to answer any questions about why things work the way they do and what the implications would be of doing things differently]

 

Mark I appreciate you writing out the process and assuring us everything is being touched by someone at some point. I do. It's nice of you. I think it also illustrates how disconnected you are from what the customer wanted from this process.

It's complete fail though because you missed out on one important part, which I brought up earlier. As the consumer and one of the many patrons of this project the value of the beta dropped to zero. I barely played it after the first build. I did not pay extra to play through your beta builds. I payed extra to become an active participant in your final stages of your development.

Most of the other projects I backed for early access had an active developer responding in the official forums, and moderation guidelines which, to be frank, were applied with inclusion in mind. In my case I got a wall of text from a mod telling me I'm on my last warning -- despite never being rude to anyone or even getting a 'first'warning. I voluntarily just decided not to post anymore since it seemed more dignified.

It is bizarre I am able to interact with you on someone else's forum. You should look into why this is happening.

An example of running a beta from another project that did right is FTL. They used a system similar to UserVoice but -actually- stayed in touch with everyone despite hundreds of little tickets being opened. I'm not saying everyone else, other than Inxile got it right, but I think for the most part they tried and got it mostly right. We got many features into FTL (the save feature was missing and the devs resisted until we pushed the issue enough), and in the end it worked out better for everyone.

When you have the time, and if you have not read it yet, pick up 'The Medium is the Massage(sic)' by Marshal McLuhan. He's a media visionary who passed away before anything resembling the Internet came online and he understood how this medium works better than you, evidently.

You treat feedback as a one way system which is precisely the wrong way to do it. Beta testers could have helped you organize feedback through a voting system.

If projects like FTL can make it a two way process you should be able to do it to. You raised a lot more money and at the beta tier we paid an additional sum that should have gone to making this beta experience better than it currently is.

I hope it was worth it. I hope the essays Sea and several others you hand picked are going to make the game better because at this stage the real feedback you would have gotten is gone.

What a waste.

 

I've been a member here on the Codex since 2006 (and a lurker for a long time before that). Being around for a decade is the primary reason I post on here. I post on the inXile forums too, but I've been a member here longer than there, so Codex is where I go just out of habit.

 

Think about this for a second, though. You paid money to work on someone else's game? Is this really your position? And are you okay with it? Because I don't understand what "making the beta experience better" means. They used to be volunteer for a fucking reason: because they are tedious and boring and frustrating.

To make an analogy, it is like saying you used to volunteer at the soup kitchen. And then you found this really cool soup kitchen you wanted to work at, so you gave them some money to work there (!) and are now upset that the soup kitchen isn't serving the right kind of soup. This is exactly the type problem that gets injected into the creation process when you allow people to buy their way into a beta process. The value curve is reversed, and it fucks everything up.

 

Decado I think that analogy is a bit off don't you? This isn't a soup kitchen. It's a product I wanted to help come to life. I paid to be part of that process. I'm not expecting a desk and a chair at the Inxile office. I just expected to be active in a small way in its development. Instead I got handed some slips and told to go to the complaint box and shove them there for later processing.

 

In my experience most betas are like this. I think it is unrealistic to hope that injecting money into the situation would somehow improve the beta process, because there is not a whole lot that money can do in this situation. There is still only one or two people working as QA leads. They are still working on a tight schedule. At the end of it all, as a beta tester your job is to provide data. The developers are not obligated to give you anything in return. Of course, the fact that you paid for this access adds a hugely confounding variable, because now there is an expectation of a fair exchange. And I get that, I totally do. And I get your disappointment. Which is why I think letting people buy in to a beta is a bad idea. I hope inXile doesn't do that anymore, and I hope other developers follow suit and stop doing it as well. You can give people plenty of chances to influence design (say with the "design your own item" rewards) without creating this situation where beta testers feel like they are owed something because they paid to be a part of things.

Anyways, just my two cents, and hopefully not another derail on this topic.

 

Infinitron on kick animations.... saved for the next time he comments on nitpicking neckbeards.

 

Now that's an animationfag if I've ever seen one.

 

Why not make skill use instantaneous? That would remove both tedium and looping animation (though the latter doesn't seem like much of an issue to me).

The funny thing is that this would be considered a ringing endorsement of Wasteland 2 for many people.

 

To be fair, you were: you paid some money so they could make the game. That's really as far as we can reasonbly expect Kickstarter projects to go.
Sure, you have the beta testing and all, and I'm sure our feedback in this is very valuable to the devs, but ultimately it's still them that make the game the way they see fit. You never paid to become a auxiliary-developer.
This may sound apologetic, but I think it's simply the reality of the thing.
If you want to influence a game more directly, become active part of some open-source project, I guess.

 

Oh really... Am I the only one that finds it awfully generic? Anyone with the novella to comment on this?

Other than that, pretty fine update. I especially appreciate some attempts for opening the map design and tying skills and attributes together (didn't play but some trustworthy fellows here complained)

 

Project Lead talking about decisions and finally a city block that looks like a city block, apparently free for you to roam... definitely incline, but WAS IT THAT HARD TO IT DO FROM THE START?

Also, this:



Note how the interior of the houses is there... does this mean we can enter houses & buildings without "warping" to another dimension? Can I finally enter a house, go to a window and pew-pew evil people outside, Brother None? MASSIVE INCLINE if so, just be sure to fix that on previous maps, or it will really stand out otherwise.

 

49 hours of which is watching the kicking animation for the brute force skill.

Seriously though, the town looks good, better than every other map so far at least. Looks like there's some room for tactical combat using the alleys between the buildings.

 

That update, including the map felipepepe put up, gives me hope. Nice to see Mark Monty post here also.