AE Team

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us... [8D]

[2Stepper]

Joe and company, congrats on a job well done I'm sure. I regret not having had the chance to join in the effort to bring a weather mans perspective to the game. Life, still being active in the military (though now retired after 21years) and some health issues kept me away.

That said though, I'm anxious to be able to get hold of this game and enjoy it as much as I did WITP. I may toss an odd suggestion or two around about the weather, but I'm sure we're in a better shape then before. One never knows. Besides, now that I'm in the software business professionally I can totally relate to the development cycle business so I won't be pushing for updates to spiral 300, dev build 1.1.1.1.1.1.0.a, or whatever it might be. [:D]

All kidding aside, it's good to be back and see so many familiar faces on the boards. So now it begins again! [&o][8D]

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us... [8D]

Hmm, I can only see half the team. When do we get the other half?
[:D]

[timtom]

Oh, that one's taken during the WitP:AE conference on Fiji last year, sponsored by M&M Enterprises and KABLAMMO (tm). Everyone was there. The Sea Urchin roe was some'it else I tell ya.

[DivePac88]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us... [8D]

Look what I can see.

[USSAmerica]

[:D]

[jwilkerson]

jrcar, tony luke

These two guys joined the test team late in 2008 ... they both get paid to "play" wargames for the Australian military (training software as they call it!). Rob (jrcar) and I played a PBEM campaign test from 7 Dec 41 through Aug 42 which revealed a number of issues which have subsequently been fixed. Tony and Rob have both played many turns and their professional opinions are both welcome and valuable.

[jwilkerson]

technical bugs/functional bugs/enhancements

During the past 18 or so months since we formed the AE Beta test team (Dec 07) we have encountered about 100 issues per month. This is actually pretty much aligned with the defect frequency I see on similar sized projects in my day job so fundamentally the raw defect count for AE is hardly abnormal.

For purposes of this discussion, I will differentiate defects into three groups:

01 - Technical bugs - these are things like the game crashing or locking up (infinite loop) or graphics not displaying correctly - disappearing units - disappearing leaders etc. We hope and think we have caught all of these - but with a code base as complex as WITP/AE we cannot be sure. We do think the frequency is lower than we experienced with WITP a few years ago. I would except the "synch bug" - I doubt we have nailed all the causes of that symptom - though I think we have nailed a bunch of them - and hence we should see reduced frequency in AE.

02 - Functional bugs - these would be things like casualties being too high in certain circumstances or ships being immune to damage - basically the game works - but produces results that we think are far enough off - consistently enough - that we think we should make adjustments. Over the past 7 months especially, we have made major efforts to improve the game results and place most results within a band that seems to reflect real life casualty/damage figures. The number of potential variables is emmense and hence we can never ensure that all results will be "realistic" - and hecque I find real world examples all the time - that seem - at first glance - to be impossible. And certainly WITP does not produce "normed" results every time - nor does AE - so there will always be out lier results - and there should be. Such results happen more frequently in real life that we might think - until we exmaine the data.

03 - Enhancements - often during our test cycle - someone will report an "issue". After examination the team will decide that things are either working as designed or that the reported issue is not of sufficient priority to resolve immediately. In these cases the item is added to the "patch list". Currently the internal "patch list" has 453 posts - though probably only half (or less) of these are actual proposals because there is often considerable "back and forth" discussion when someone posts to the patch list.

As we go through the GOLD process - the AE team will start to work on patch 01 - we will prioritize our efforts in the above sequence ... 01 tech bugs, 02 func bugs, 03 enhancements. Our expectation is that patch 01 wiill be released about 30 days after the game is released. Given testing and release processing time - this will really only allow 2-3 weeks for design, coding and unit testing, so we will be focused on critical items only for patch 01. And of course we have to allow at least a week after the release to allow time for the players to find things - so we cannot "close the kitchen" for patch one until at least a week after initial release.

Most everyone on our team agrees that a reported issue is an issue - where we get into contention is priorities - however this is inevitable. One of my software rules is that we can do (almost) anything - but we cannot do everything - so we have to prioritize. On the AE team we usually agree about issues - we often disagree about priorities - but someone has to set them - we only have finite resources and finite time. So the scope has to be set and a line drawn.

Once the game is released we will welcome feedback and we actually expect to heavily weigh real player opinion regarding our setting of priorities - but just as we on the AE team do not agree about all priorities - neither do real players - so everyone needs to understand this as well. We will consider priorities based on most benefit for most players - that will be a key criteria for us.

[CaptDave]

Joe, I just wish you were in a high-enough position at my old company to beat into the Client Services Group's collective heads that they can't have everything all the time! As you undoubtedly know, there's a rule in QA and Development: you can have it fast, cheap, or correct -- pick two. Too often Project Management (of which we had none) is underappreciated, along with being bloodied and bruised more than anyone else. Once again, my many thanks for your work on this project!

[jwilkerson]

rtrapasso
Bob as helped both the AE team and the WITP support team in several ways - perhaps the most important is by helping me answer the day to day WITP forum questions. I asked Bob to help me with this several years ago - since he was informally doing it anyway - and he agreed. Then there was a time where Bob had to leave the forum. When he came back he actually resumed the support help without any real discussion. I can say that Bob's assistance in this regard is a huge benefit to me personally and also to the WITP community at large and I wish to thank him for his generosity!!!

yamato hugger
Yammy first came on board to help Bob and I with WITP patch 1.8.0.7 (still in abeyance) then transitioned over to the AE beta team in late 07. Especially in the past 6 months YH has been driving hard in terms of finding issues - and might have surpassed Sonny II and Mike Scholl in terms of overall issues found - I'm not sure - would have to check - but certainly in the past few months I think YH has found the most. So everyone should thank our self-styled "sharp eyed bug hunter" because he has certainly proven these words to be true.

Sonny II
JoeC first came on board as a programmer - then had to leave the team - then rejoined as a tester and hooked up with Scholl and together I think they may have the lead in terms of number of issues found over the past 18 months. Recently, JoeC has decided to rejoin the programmer ranks and is transitioning back over to that role. We thank JoeC for his support and his flexability in being able to do what is needed - when it is needed to help the project.

[Grotius]

Thanks for a very interesting thread. One doesn't see this sort of insider info from many game developers.

Heh, you mentioned that Mike was your resident AFB tester. Who had the JFB role? Brady?

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Thanks for a very interesting thread. One doesn't see this sort of insider info from many game developers.

Heh, you mentioned that Mike was your resident AFB tester. Who had the JFB role? Brady?

That was a rhetorical question correct?

[Grotius]

Lol, I suppose it was mostly a rhetorical question.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Who had the JFB role? Brady?

Well Brady started off with that role - but then he "graduated" to the AIFB role instead. [:)]

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

ORIGINAL: TOMLABEL
And great support he has given!!![&o]

As already mentioned, Bill is just one of the great programmers we have on the team; however, he is one of several programmers on the team who understands us 'art' guys!!! We owe many kudos for his support given to all the crazy ideas us art guys came up with and finding a way (code-wise) to make it work! [&o][&o][&o]

Growing up with a professional photographer probably helped. I'm like Joe, I can't do much in the way of art, but having lived with one, I did gain some appreciation for the process of creating a visual presentation and the artwork in a game is important.

I have wondered if some people are subconsciously drawn to naval games over land games because of the calming blue map?

Doing the code was easy. I appreciate that I had someone as talented and easy to work with as you was doing the "hard part". [:)]

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Everyone has helped on the AI but I would like to my especial thanks to James and Brady -

James has put up with my couldnt we make the Ai do this....comments for two years now how he remains sane is beyond me. I dont think he has ever said this cannot be done not even to my wildest requests

Brady did a huge amount of testing on the AI in many ways I have been playing brady via an interdiary for over a year now - cursing him as he finds a way to stop the AI - and then going back tot he drawing board to come up with another cunning plan to beat him.

Andy

He's been beating up on your kid for the last 18 months. [:D]

Bill

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

I am so complied to ask this question with a preface. I am such a fan of El Cid and his game contributions, that have mostly gone unrecognized by the community. I know he is dogmatic, opinionated, argumentative, non-flexible and I am sure there was no way he could have ever worked with a team effort such as AE and in fact he was prone to just pissing people off along the way. In fact many of the people mentioned as contributors to AE, went out of their way to ridicule him along the way.

But you know what guys although he followed his own path without and any recognition or encouragement, he (with Cobra's map help) did develop quite a few different workable concepts . And now guess what, he is working on a real life game between the Chinese and Formosa.

And now the question. Isn't there any way you can throw this dedicated WITP gamer a bone here as a contributor if not just for some of his ideas .

First, let me say I am glad to hear Sid is doing well. When people of our generation don't show up on the forum for awhile I get worried.

As to my history with Sid, ok, here goes a brief summary:

When Sid showed up on the forum in late 2005 (Nov IIRC) I saw his energy and interest. Among the projects Andrew had asked me to work on for CHS was a redo of the Japanese air OOB. Sid and I began discussing this - and I decided to give him a shot at it. By Feb 06 it was clear that the vision of what Sid was trying to achieve did not match up with the vision CHS was trying to achieve. There is nothing wrong with that. But in discussing "what to do next" - I mentioned that one option would be for Sid to do his own mod - and perhaps he could call it "RHS". I'm not sure I was serious with the name idea - more the spirit of how he was thinking - but he decided to adopt the name and go forth - nothing wrong with that either. Sid's separation from CHS had nothing to do with any "behavior" issues one way or the other. It was strictly a difference in artistic vision - and the Sid CHS split is not the only such split I've been involved in with this community - nothing unique - people feel strongly about certain things - and that is what makes life interesting!

From that point forward, Sid would contact Andrew or I when he had an issue. Andrew would answer the map issues I would look things up in the code for him. When Sid would quote an "anonymous Matrix programmer" - I assume he usually - if not always was referring to me. But Andrew and I certainly always have maintained a professional relationship with Sid - and we have never stopped.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: 2Stepper

Joe and company, congrats on a job well done I'm sure. I regret not having had the chance to join in the effort to bring a weather mans perspective to the game. Life, still being active in the military (though now retired after 21years) and some health issues kept me away.

That said though, I'm anxious to be able to get hold of this game and enjoy it as much as I did WITP. I may toss an odd suggestion or two around about the weather, but I'm sure we're in a better shape then before. One never knows. Besides, now that I'm in the software business professionally I can totally relate to the development cycle business so I won't be pushing for updates to spiral 300, dev build 1.1.1.1.1.1.0.a, or whatever it might be. [:D]

All kidding aside, it's good to be back and see so many familiar faces on the boards. So now it begins again! [&o][8D]

Hey, hey, hey, there you are!

There was actually a question a few days back on this very sub-forum for the "weather team". I was thinking of you when I responded - well we're still waiting for our weather team to come back!!!
[:D]

Anyway, Andrew has a place holder for you on the "patch list" - called "redo weather system". So, whenever you're ready, you can dive right in!
[;)]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Heh, you mentioned that Mike was your resident AFB tester. Who had the JFB role? Brady?

Brady did his part (as you would expect), but the truth is that among almost all players (myself included) there is a certain natural tendency to "root for the underdog". Japan's problems are so much more obvious than the Allies...., that I felt oblidged to step into the AFB role to keep reminding folks that there would be TWO sides playing the game when it was released. The "Loyal Opposition" as it were.

I'm pretty sure I generated some heat and frustration among others on the AE Team..., and I know they returned the feelings as well---but hopefully the finished product is better for the effort on all sides.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
...Andrew and I certainly always have maintained a professional relationship with Sid - and we have never stopped.

That is indeed the case. Sid has done a vast amount for the WitP community. I think we all recognise that. Yes, his vision was different from many of us who wotked on CHS, but I think having CHS + RHS is a lot better than having CHS alone (not forgetting all of the other mods, of course).

Andrew