playtesters and playtesting

[bo]

This not a knock against anyone who did the playtesting on TOW, I have no idea what you go through to find mistakes and such, but I believe heart and soul the best playtesters are the people who play this game everday on this server and when something is found that you dont think is correct you should post it on these forums without fear of some cynical remarks by anyone who does not agree with you. The only playtesting I did was a long time ago and it was computer 3rd Reich, I was given a minor job of checking the AI's answer to human moves, I told them start over it stinks [should have used another word] they thanked me and I never heard from them again. As you may know computer 3rd Reich once the finest board game on the war scene at that time was a total disaster for people who played only against the AI, and I decided I would never do any playtesting again. I admit I am moving pretty slow in playing this game in the world 39 scenerio but I play when I can and in the mood. Some things I noticed so far.

1- the way f11 handles pp's is to me totally wrong, putting aside house rules etc, the programmers should change the way these pp's are handled. I feel a pop-up should also go along with f11 and ask the sending nation how many pp's do you want to send and to whom, and the program does the simple calculations [not us] providing there is a clear way to get those pp's to the other friendly nation, Germany can send by convoy pp's to Finland if a port is open and not controlled by Russia or some other country[of course the convoy can be attacked] we can already do that [send pp's to Finland] but just suppose Russia has complete control of the Baltic and Finnish ports what now. Lets say for arguments sake that Iraq
needs help against Britain or whoever and to build her defences she needs troops and does not have the pp's to build units, the way it is now Germany can send 200, 300 hundred pp's with no problem[if Iraq is aligned with Germany or maybe does not have to be aligned dont know. HUH!] How does Germany get those pp's to Iraq if Iraq is isolated and cut off from Germany or Italy, wire transfer?
Did they have wire transfer in the 1940's?[not sure] Not easy for them but in my opinion playtesters should have seen this possibility.

2- Harping on this again no unit should be allowed to be built outside its own borders period! I will let go of the 30 units being built in one week [no opitional time delay]because thats the way most players like it [instant gratification] players talk of house rules fine I have no problem with that but it should not have to come down to house rules it should have been taken care of in the game programming, yes of course I will never build a unit outside of my home country not because I am Mr. nice guy it is because I like a little realism[just a little].

3- how will the AI handle transferring of pp's across borders and building units god knows where, I dont know maybe it is too late for this to be changed and maybe it should not be changed, but remember this please players and posters you are the best playtesters in the world because your sitting looking at it as you play, there is right and there is wrong.
If no one does nothing[Wastelands] its ok with me but if you the playtesters dont bring up things you see in game it will stay in cyber space forever, or gnaw at you as long as you play TOW.

Bo

[gwgardner]

cynical remark

(actually I agree on all but the F11 thing - that's strictly a developer's cheat, use it or not)

[bo]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

cynical remark

(actually I agree on all but the F11 thing - that's strictly a developer's cheat, use it or not)

Hey Gw was that cynical not sure? Could you please explain what you mean by developer's cheat? I do not understand why they have it there? I dont care I can play around it but of what use is it to us other than changing countries from human to AI?

Bo

[gwgardner]

A developer's cheat, as someone explained in another thread, is a testing/debugging mechanism. Not intended for player use.

[Anraz]

Most of players  had wanted us to leave it so we left it. It was discussed several times before.

[willgamer]

bo wrote:

I dont care I can play around it but of what use is it to us other than changing countries from human to AI?

For my style of play, that's important.

FWIW, other that my own testing (also important to me in its own way), that's all I use F11 for in normal gameplay.