Inhouse Game testers and Community events..The Rant

[rockchisler]

Greetings, I am not happy and I will explain why, For sports games there are testers inhouse that test video games for bugs and glitches and community events that showcase upcoming games. I assume a tester looks very hard for quirks in gameplay and such, but why is it when the sport game is released the community of avid gamers find bugs and glitches the first hour of play after purchase???? Are the testers not paying attention? Are the testers not sport fans and dont see anything wrong with pick 6's because the offensive line and QB refuse to take a direct line of tackling to the player that picked off the pass. (The roster issue gets a pass because since you are not supposed to have players names on it I can see that getting under the radar, even tho it was not a problem last year). At the community events people like Pasta Padre and people from here go to these events, they see quirks with the game and report them to the designers, These games usually are 80 to 90 percent done, well why is the game still shipped with issues that were reported at the events??? Do they not listen to people??? I dont mind patches but some of these issues should be fixed during development, hey take a extra few weeks with the game, College football does not really Start till August 30...I dont need the game on July 16, take your time. With that said I believe there is only one way to make sure games have as few bugs as possible....Online open Beta testing....They do it for games like Halo and Metal Gear... True football fans can find exploits and glitches faster then some intern tester from Stanford who looks like William Hung, Erkel and Naploean Dynomite and plays Dungeons and Dragons all day. We need...No We demand a open Beta to get these issues corrected, I dont want to wait till september for the second patch to fix gameplay issues that should have been found in the first place..60 plus Dollars is alot of money to spend with Gas the way it is, I want my monies worth. Thank you.

[Andypoint12]

I agree with open beta testing, that would solve a lot of problems.

[Cardot]

I would guess that some of these things are caught by testers, and that developers want to fix them. But management does not want to push the deadline, and they make the call. (Just a guess though).

I am still on the fence for '09, and one reason is the pick 6's which were my biggest issue with '08. But I think we are in the minority. I think there are alot of gamers that love getting multiple pick-6's in a game...and the EA execs know this.

[CM Hooe]

My assumption is that the QA people are looking for critical bugs that would cause the game to be unplayable; not in the sense that it is defined here, but glitches that would cause the game to crash, deliberate online cheating exploits using various tricks that those who prod around may find (on the level of forcing disconnects, putting an opponent at an unintended disadvantage outside the bounds of the game itself, wiggling out of taking a loss...), game situations arising that are not intended, etc.

On the grand scale of things, EA's games are largely bug-free; however, the hardcore football-gaming community in general is very picky about their game, and things such as the lack of pass rush, "Robo-QB", frequent interceptions, etc. are described as "bugs" and "glitches" when really they are the result of the way the developers programmed and tuned the game AI (which may need to be reprogrammed and / or retuned, this is still up for debate; personally I'm perfectly happy with this year's iteration thus far).

For the record, the only true bugs I've encountered in NCAA are the roster glitch (corrected in a patch) and corruption of an online dynasty file (EA addressed their servers, I believe, and I haven't had an issue with any online dynasty since). The things you mention aren't "bugs", per se, and thus probably aren't what the QA testers are looking for; they're there to make sure that the game is in fact playable and doesn't crash in various situations, as I described above.

[bostonsportsrule]

I agree with your ideas for online beta testing, but I had to laugh at you saying you don't need the game in July as the season starts on August 30th, then you claim you don't want to wait until September for another patch. I lol'd.




Seriously, though, online beta testing would really help, I think.

[beeneeb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Andypoint12

I agree with open beta testing, that would solve a lot of problems.

Open beta testing is usually only associated with multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. I can't imagine that EA has the manpower to manage all of the incident requests that it would receive from 1,000 or even 100 beta testers.

As an owner of a website dedicated to NCAA Football, I've always thought this: why not invite the community leaders to test the game when it is only 45 to 55% done? Why wait until it's 90% done? There's a lot of people that would volunteer to pay their own way to get to the EA studios. Thus, EA wouldn't be out any money to have experienced players beta-test the game.

Unfortunately, EA always manages to screw up the game one way or the other. I don't think that the community will ever be completely satisfied with an NCAA Football outing. Keep in mind that the issues that people are having are, for the most part, somewhat liveable. I remember a few years back when people thought that the NCAA game was the worst around. Now, most people say that they like the game, it just has a few quirks that they'd like to see fixed.

[doctorhay53]

They aren't gonna release the game later on, period. They rely on that month where NCAA is the only new football game to sell a bunch of games while people are waiting for Madden.

If they put NCAA and Madden out at the same time, NCAA wouldn't sell. Personally I only play NCAA, so it sucks for me, but that is the reason.

[rockchisler]

Quote: Originally Posted by bostonsportsrule

I agree with your ideas for online beta testing, but I had to laugh at you saying you don't need the game in July as the season starts on August 30th, then you claim you don't want to wait until September for another patch. I lol'd. Seriously, though, online beta testing would really help, I think.

I should have proof read that, I wouldnt mind if madden and Ncaa come out at the same time in August ( How bout a package deal madden and Ncaa instead of Madden and Nfl Head coach ). But to wait 2 months for a patch, nah I would like it almost perfect the day it is released.