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So you want to be a bugtester/betatester

Started by Xifanie, October 20, 2016, 08:04:19 pm

Xifanie

What is a casual bugtester/betatester?
[indent=2]One in, usually, hundreds or thousands of people testing the game/software.
The sheer volume of testers allows to easily spot bugs even if testers really suck at their job: i.e. finding bugs and reporting them so that they can be fixed.
As a reward, people tend to get reduced subscription costs or even get the game/software for free.
Usually, they don't give two fucks about reporting bugs, and just want the early access, and well, the reward is always welcome.[/indent]

What is a professional bugtester/betatester?
[indent=2]Someone who goes through a game or uses a software actively attempting to break it.
They, at the very least, have a basic understanding on how video game works. This is very important to know what to try to break. Trying to think about something the programmers missed.
They have to write very detailed reports on how the bug was achieved, if it could be reproduced and so on.
They are paid in money for their work (yes, it is work, pretty boring usually), and will likely keep the material they were testing.[/indent]

Where do we stand?
[indent=2]Fixing bugs on the way, here and then, reported by people who feel like reporting them is far from an ideal solution, but it's all anyone on FFH ever had access to, because quite frankly, having one person being a casual bugtester and not reporting anything is really of no help. So far, as far as I am concerned, we've had less than a handful people apply for a position of bugtester for JotF (I doubt any other mod ever had that "luxury"), and 100% of them never reported back.
From our perspective, they're just a bunch of people who abused our trust and only wanted to play the mod before everyone else. We don't need them.
We can't afford to have a thousand betatesters; we might as well not even try to fix the damn game before releasing it and call a public release a "betatest". We just want our mods to be as bug-free as possible when first released. Modding consumes a lot of time and most people can't commit themselves to that. Like I said, we've never had a proper bugtester here on FFH, and having one would be so very welcomed! But if you're not... please don't waste our time and abuse our trust.

Thank you.
[/indent]
  • Modding version: PSX
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Bonesy

tl;dr for those of you who can't be assed to read:

don't ask to bugtest unless you're willing to put in the time and effort
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Bonesy#9386

Guru

Sad that these things have to be posted. I can understand people getting in over their heads, but 100% not posting back....that's just shitty.

I've really only played I think 3 mods here, and I'm pretty sure I have offered to do testing for all of them, since there is not much more I can do... and I would still be more than happy to do so for any of the dedicated modders . I don't want my time wasted either  ;)

I am in no way a professional bug tester, but the effort is there and I am always willing to learn and improve though. I also have a rl and I'm sure most everyone here knows how that can be.

3lric

Guru, you are one of the few people that I planned to give early access to Jot5 for bugtesting, youve always been good at getting back to me on things even if Im a bit slow to respond at times. Not saying itll be soon, but itll happen lol
  • Modding version: PSX

Guru

Yeah no worries I have the same problem sometimes. RL can be a pain in the ass lol.

I'd definitely be up for that though, I pop on here pretty frequently to check things out so just lmk. I got a lot of respect for all the work that everybody does here, so I'd be more than happy to contribute what I can.