This may be a bit long and ugly, but read to the end. There is a point to the post.
One of the things I find difficult in judgment making is when to test. Most of the time I set testing at a viable first draft. My first battery of tests is sent to a list of private friends and family. In one hand I send it off to players looking for their input, on the other I send it to non-players to get a kind of newbie response. For the latter it is a way to discover how coherent the overall project came out. For the latter, it is to find problems and correct them before release. However, there is always a gray area. A point where you feel that the draft is final, or close enough to final to announce it, and then move on to stage 2 which is open testing. This is where the problems really start to show up.
You can look at the first stage as a kind of aesthetic testing. The reason being is that group A, the players, know they are getting the next version very soon so only really breeze through the book. Group B is likely not going to care about actual play testing the game, so they aren’t going to find mechanical problems. So when you send it out for open, it tends to get a real test. For me, I send out demos, usually downloaded from the forums. I also send it out to my private list of people who were actively involved in any previous testing. I get fairly good responses for both, however, I get more responses on errata or balance issues after official release. I can almost see why many companies don’t really test as much as they say, if at all.
The DPnP programs are different. Simply put, I run them through their paces and wait for a bug. I find none, and then have some friends try it. Asstonishingly it took less than 2 minutes for James to find a bug that killed the program. So I went back to the table and started again, fixed the bugs, ran through my tests, added some new features, tested those, etc. etc. etc.
So today I am finishing up one of the last features, and the last major feature. This is the content importer/exporter that is vital to sharing and building campaigns. I was going to leave it out for testing but I figured that it would be stupid to do so. So here I am, pushing back yet another deadline I set for myself to add in another feature.
Hopefully this will end it so I can get testing out the door. The only features not added at this point will be the xml report and adding in Modern Sagas Content. The framework for the latter is there, I just have to build the structure, the former is not even touched yet.
The effort to wrap up the exporter should be done, the importer is a bit more difficult but on its way. However, I am tired and battling a migraine that attacked me yesterday morning. This is clearly slowing down my efforts. Today, I missed such an obvious mistake that took me 2 and a half hours to find and 10 seconds to fix. WTF? I know, some would put it down and wait. however, even slow progress is progress. I get done what I can and when I am feeling better I’ll steam on through to the finish line.
Some may say that I should rest, but the math wont add up to me. Even getting a touch more done is more done than I had before I started. As of now, the importer succesfully imports skills and skill groups, which is one of the larger batches to code out. Also, the bugs are all but gone in that portion so now all I have to do is add the other parts, utilizing the same basic code. So now it is just monkey work.
I know this all sounds like a ramble, so what’s the point? The point is I should be done in a day or two, barring any other whopping and glaring glitches and can get this thing compiled and sent to testers for phase 2. Phase one was completed before James found the bug before. I have had great feedback on the program from phase one. It is easy to manipulate the resources you can build and understand the program’s design concept. The GUI is as simple as could be expected, or maybe even simpler if you have messed with any other similar programs (I have and they are not too friendly).
So if you read up to this point, happily (or not so happily) ignoring grammatical and spelling mistakes, then you may be pleased to know that you are invited to test the Campaign Resource Manager. I know I announced testing before, but I still have some room on the list. So don’t be shy, send me an email at crmtesting@sagasrpg.com
Until next time…
Happy Gaming!
