Termination of Inactive Testers Strategem

[Nighthawk]

Greetings, everyone.
This is the point where I have to put on my purging gloves.

Following the decision last week to put Ares on a three month break due to a lack of testing activity all across the board, I am now carrying out a complete personnel review of the entire testing group.

Straight away, I can tell you that seven testers (AlliedG, Apollo, Black Shadow 750, Darkstorm, Gangster, sanedisruption and ZombyDragon) have been instantly cut from the list due to serial inactivity. One other tester has also willingly resigned due to inactivity.

The remaining twenty-one testers will all have their activity and willingness to continue testing personally confirmed by myself over the next two weeks.

Do not panic. Here's what you should do.

If you are a tester and wish to continue testing: When I PM you, tell me of this, and ensure that you once again be active in testing Ares. Otherwise you will be dropped.

If you are a tester and do not wish to continue testing: Let me know, and I will remove you from the list. Otherwise, you'll just be dropped at a later point for inactivity anyway.

If you are not a tester: Ares is on a three month development break, therefore version 0.2 will not be released before December. And even then, a release afterwards will be dependent on an increase in testing activity, unless you would rather have a return to the buggy times of NarfPatch.

If you would like to help: Active and dedicated testers are a necessity if 0.2 is to be released. We also have some other PR-related positions still open. If you have the time to spare, and know what you're doing, PM me.

The future of Ares (if there is to be any future at all), is contingent on fixing these problems. It is, as the old cliché says, in your hands.

Nighthawk.
Project Manager.

[reaperrr]

I'm not sure whether I'm actually on that list, but if I am, you can remove me.

Except for a few hours of boredom-killing, I haven't touched any mod for 9 months due to lack of motivation, and if I'm not even motivated enough to mod you can imagine what that means for my motivation to test Ares.

That being said, I know how to get the latest build from SVN and all, so should my motivation return I'll just resume voluntary testing.

[hotrods20]

I can spare a few hours a day with my new High Speed internet.

[Beowulf]

I'm still testing 0.2.

[~Guest~]

i can still test, but for some reason the ares chat room banned me permanently...? O,o

[Black Shadow 750]

I would like to continue, but a large strings of computer failures and poor AS results has my time limited. I'll still test from time to time (unless the delivery method's changed), but not frequently enoguh IMO.

[Deformat]

2 Things:

1. Which are the remaining features/bugs to be done for the final release of 0.2?

2. As for PR job, I suppose I can go up and hit the forums and try as much as possible to promote Ares.However, I don't know if this post was taken already.

But then...since it's a 3 month development break, I suppose that promoting Ares would be just informing that it exists on other sites, right?

[Graion Dilach]

Well, on paper I signed to be the PR, but IIRC I gave that back months ago due to being overcrowded.

Stability is the issue. At the moment online stability is a bit fragile, but the issue is that only one mod tests that (MO) with high player counts (3-5) and it's a bit hard to figure out if it's the mod or Ares because no other mod does this.

[Nighthawk]

Well, on paper I signed to be the PR, but IIRC I gave that back months ago due to being overcrowded.

And on paper, I don't remember limiting the post to one occupant...

[MRMIdAS]

Well, on paper I signed to be the PR, but IIRC I gave that back months ago due to being overcrowded.

Stability is the issue. At the moment online stability is a bit fragile, but the issue is that only one mod tests that (MO) with high player counts (3-5) and it's a bit hard to figure out if it's the mod or Ares because no other mod does this.

Um, I test semi-frequently LAN with my mod, so it's not just the MO guys.

[WoRmINaToR]

I test my mod on LAN as much as I possibly can.

For that matter, we haven't had a single issue besides my friend's computer being a piece of crap .

[eva-251]

Well, on paper I signed to be the PR, but IIRC I gave that back months ago due to being overcrowded.

Stability is the issue. At the moment online stability is a bit fragile, but the issue is that only one mod tests that (MO) with high player counts (3-5) and it's a bit hard to figure out if it's the mod or Ares because no other mod does this.

I've tried to test my mods with Ares online but my testing base right now is small and getting them to be on and willing is nearly as challenging as stress-testing Ares.

[Mig eater]

I pay LAN games of D-day often & haven't come across any issues, what sort of problems are the MO team having?

[Graion Dilach]

If there's 4+ players or 2+ AI, the possibility of recon is pretty high. Sometimes, one player recons, the rest lose connection to him and can continue after the timeout... which makes collecting recondumps much tougher.

Besides that, I know of at least three instances when the game just quit to desktop without a notice but they're impossible to reproduce intentionally.

Also this is pretty visible.

Tho I dunno where are the sources. A player of us loses connection to the server everytime a game ends and only reboot can bring it back () and another broke his YR last week.

[WoRmINaToR]

Interesting. I've had up to 3 players and 3 AIs and while it lagged quite bad due to the laggy nature of AIs in multiplayer, not a single recon error occurred.

However I have been noticing the same thing Graion has with the crashing: sometimes it just freezes or quits out, no crash dump, error report, and like he said they are impossible to reproduce intentionally. Relatively rare in SP but happens a bit more often in MP.