Beta Testing

[scout1]

Are the beta testers, testing ?

Haven't heard much and was curious how things are going ?

[mlees]

SSShhhhh!

*whispers* There busy playing...

[pak19652002]

ORIGINAL: scout1

Are the beta testers, testing ?

Haven't heard much and was curious how things are going ?

Yes, indeed we are! All reports are supposed to come from the big man, however. I'm sure Steve will provide an update soon.

Peter

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: pak19652002

ORIGINAL: scout1
Are the beta testers, testing ?

Haven't heard much and was curious how things are going ?

Yes, indeed we are! All reports are supposed to come from the big man, however. I'm sure Steve will provide an update soon.

Peter

Yes, I'm overweight. No need to point it out.[;)]

I have 80 bug reports from the beta testers (though some are my own discoveries) over a period of 12 days. I have fixed 25 of them.

The remainder break down roughly as 14 fatal, 17 bad, and 24 cosmetic-comment-suggestion. I'm working on those first 31. some are easy, some are hard.

Right now I am reviewing the code for moving resources to factories. There is a search routine in there that needs to be improved. Though it is probably not the cause of one of the fatal bugs, it is nearby, so I am going to take my first look at that code.

I gave the beta testers version 03 to start, followed by 04 the next day, and 05 yesterday.

There are no real surprises here, just dumb mistakes - I have yet to see a clever mistake. Most bugs start out as completely hopeless to figure out and at the end, when they have been fixed, you wonder why they were so hard to find. So it goes.

[DavidFaust]

It could be worse, if I was play testing you would have much much more, lol.
The main computer game I have played is WIR and it has been out for a very long time. There have been many posts regarding bugs and faults on this game. I have found bugs/faults that if I posted them on the forum, the game would be unplayable. My play style and tactics are very different and has a tendancy to find faults/bugs.

[Ballista]

I tend to do some wierd things as well- if it can be broke I can do it (unintentionally or not).... [:)]

[YohanTM2]

Alright King and Baliista,

Stop this shameless yet subtle attempt to get into the 2nd round of Beta testing. Clearly a Canadian should be in round 2.

[:D]

Rob

[tigercub]

no Aussies have a more even view of things so are better suited for such work. (just an out right grab for the job)lol.

[DavidFaust]

For those of you confused by the above time references, I should point out that those people walk around upside down. Spring arrives in October and November.

I think Steve summed it up pretty well. Us Aussies see things from a different perspective from walking around upside down. Its a perfect way to test code.

Tigerclub, We were looking at some properties up at Bundeberg as we were thinking of moving up there.

[JimMerson]

ORIGINAL: kingtiger_501

For those of you confused by the above time references, I should point out that those people walk around upside down. Spring arrives in October and November.

I think Steve summed it up pretty well. Us Aussies see things from a different perspective from walking around upside down. Its a perfect way to test code.

Tigerclub, We were looking at some properties up at Bundeberg as we were thinking of moving up there.

From my limited experience dealing with the indegidous people of Australia, I would say the folks of Makey are the friendliest. Followed closely by Melborne.... Man I wish I could go back and walk on my head again!!!!

Jim Merson

[composer99]

ORIGINAL: Yohan

Alright King and Baliista,

Stop this shameless yet subtle attempt to get into the 2nd round of Beta testing. Clearly a Canadian should be in round 2.

[:D]

Rob

Just as long as, if they're looking for Canadians, they wait until mid-April or so to do it... I wouldn't mind beta-testing, but I'd just as soon be done school by the time the opportunity arises.

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: JimMerson
From my limited experience dealing with the indegidous people of Australia, I would say the folks of Makey are the friendliest. Followed closely by Melborne.... Man I wish I could go back and walk on my head again!!!!

Jim Merson

Makey? Melborne?

Didn't you mean 'Mackay' and 'Melbourne'?

Iffen you furriners cain' lern to spell then what use you gunna be in a beta test?

[Greyshaft]

I figured something I can say without breaking confidentiality agreements...

Playing with the new maps is 1,000,000,000,000,000 % better than playing with the old CWiF maps

[tigercub]

i have a block for sale 300m to the river & 1km to the sea.

[pak19652002]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

I figured something I can say without breaking confidentiality agreements...

Playing with the new maps is 1,000,000,000,000,000 % better than playing with the old CWiF maps

Don't exaggerate, Greyshaft. I'd more conservatively estimate that the new maps are 999,999,999,999,998% better than the old maps. No need to get carried away here.

Peter

[Norden_slith]

Its a mood point, numbers can only have one "," [:D]

Norden

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Norden

Its a mood point, numbers can only have one "," [:D]

Norden

In Australia and in the US the ',' symbol is used to group thousands and millions etc.
The decimal point '.' is used to separate the decimals from the whole numbers.
So in my country a number can have only one '.' but can have lots of ','.

[norvandave]

I just hope the AI is not being forgotten here and is getting due attention. Not everybody has the time to play other live players and a good (decent) AI is a must IMHO. Otherwise, I do like what I see.

[macgregor]

The game hasn't been released yet. That's a good sign they're working on your @#$% AI.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: macgregor

The game hasn't been released yet. That's a good sign they're working on your @#$% AI.

Now, now.

I have spent most of the last month replacing and fixing unstable code from CWIF. That is code that seems to work most of the time, but actually is wandering around in the weeds. When it is subjected to rigorous examination and testing, the weaknesses are exposed. Of course, identifying precisely where it is going astray is very difficult - because most of the time there are no symptoms/outright failures. The bug I fixed yesterday had one of the extremely rare comment lines for CWIF: "Is there a defect in the compiler? I had to insert these lines to work around a problem." The answer was: no, there is no defect in the compiler; there's another problem deeper in the code that has to be corrected.

The beta testers make repeated runs against the existing program, noting when failures do and do not occur. That helps me trap the wee beasties.

I haven't been able to spend much time at all over the last 3 months on the AI. Besides the above activity, I have been working on improving the graphics and the user interface. I also spend a lot of time simply reading through sections of the legacy code I have never examined in detail and putting in comments - part of my quest to have a thorough understanding so I can made massive changes later.

In particular, the next major upheaval to the existing code will be replacing the incomplete Internet code (DirectX based) with brand new software (Indy 10 based). I do not want to take that on until after I have cleaned up the existing program so there are no fatal/critical bugs (11 of those remain as of this morning, plus 26 minor/cosmetic bugs). Dan Hatchen is very close to the point where the code he has been writing for Internet play, using the newly released Indy10 software package, can be integrated into the current MWIF program. I was hoping to start doing that by the end of this month (March), but I am running out of month rather quickly.

To get back to Norvadave's post that prompted your response, the AI is not forgotten. Never will be, do not fear.

The major changes to support Indy10 are also essential to lay the foundation for 3 other huge additions that will define the transformation of CWIF into MWIF:
1 - PBEM (play by email mode of play)
2 - AI opponent (solitaire mode of play)
3 - Game record log and replay (the ability to replay a game move by move, decision by decision, both forward in time and backward in time).

The rigorous examination of the current program is to make sure that the foundation the 4 major code structures will be built upon are rock solid (the 4th is the Internet mode of play).