Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Open Beta Test => Topic started by: earl1937 on September 28, 2015, 11:23:15 AM
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:airplane: Hey, I know I am a computer dummy, but what is the purpose of a Alpha test and a Beta test?
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Look up at the Sticky Post above of the current patch download. When you open it. It has the areas of things to test, and also the things that were fixed from previous patch. Pay attention to those things and it's okay to ask questions. I frequently misunderstand instructions and / or overlook them. A good bunch of folks, especially the staff, which have set me on the road to happy alpha testing, and now open alpha.
My guess, is that beta testing is like running the qualifying laps for a race. You know that your car can perform, but how will it perform under uncertain circumstances of the day. The outcome, greatly enhances the strategy for a good start on race day.
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:airplane: Hey, I know I am a computer dummy, but what is the purpose of a Alpha test and a Beta test?
To find bugs,design issues and performance issues.
HiTech
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The way I've been told "Alpha" is an in-house or small closed group test of the game at a time when the game is not finished. "Beta" is a larger, more open public test at a time when the game is finished (the content is all there), but still needs bug hunting. I'm not sure if there's a clear, absolute definition.
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For the record many companies never let an Alpha see the light of day (in large part because there are always people who think anything with an icon is ready for prime time and squeak accordingly). HTC is a tight group, and to their credit they would rather fix the problems (and spelling errors; it IS Dale after all) than find them so they're letting us help out, which is pretty cool.
Alpha: I have code, it compiles, now I have to find out if it actually works correctly. There are always issues; it's a work in progress, and new features are being added as the project progresses. Something that functions today might not function tomorrow because we're still writing the application, but without people to take it out and use it we can't find all the problems. This is what Microsoft releases to the general public.
Beta: We have a functioning product, but only a small group of people have used it on a finite set of machines. This is what you release to the world at large to get as many sets of eyes possible using it on many different platforms so the small nagging issues can be identified before a "production" release is issued. At this point new features are generally not added, but the existing features may be modified, fixed, and occasionally disabled/removed as necessary. Given no two systems are identical it's critical to get this to a wide audience. The is what Microsoft calls "SP1/SP2"
Production: We think this is ready for prime time; to the best of our knowledge all of the features work as intended, and general users should be able to make it work. If something gets to this point at Microsoft they retire it.
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Puck, that was outstanding. :rofl
Pretty darn accurate too.