RoundTable 1: Roundup

gregbert · **Posted:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:17 am

MustardJeep wrote:

threads done for now gregbert is going to make a pass later to pickup straggler questions.<time allowing/hopefully> Unless it is a game killer question think twice before tacking it on now that the meeting is over.

We want to keep the thread neat and tidy there will be more RoundTables, and more question threads!

final count 77 people made it to the meeting!!!!!!
Answers are under spoilers to maintain a slightly shorter reading experiance. Enjoy folks!

Gregbert wrote:

Quote:

The reason we are having the meeting in the Hood is because it isn't capped like the City is. We didn't want to cap the meeting, because I have a feeling that there will be a lot of people who wish to attend, if to just sit and listen. I think *think* we want to be able to let in everyone who wants to come. Maybe that will help us decide to maybe schedule two or three of these each version to cut down on numbers. I just don't want to frustrate anyone who really wants to be there. We'll see how it goes. This is just the first one...

GB

shameless Preview Hint/Plug
[spoiler]

(01/18 17:14:52) Greypiffle Fogg: no new? so something old then
(01/18 17:15:06) Donahoo shakes her head
(01/18 17:15:10) Ashtar: Pods, wheeee!
(01/18 17:15:21) GingerDiva gasps
(01/18 17:15:34) Moke: Yes, "Pods", as in, more than one.
(01/18 17:15:40) Moke: You'll see.
[/spoiler]

Questions[/b]
Self Improvement Question
1. How detailed do you like bug reports? Quite extensive, or bare facts?
2. Are there enough people sending in information to keep you happy? Could we do better?
[spoiler](01/18 17:19:12) Gregbert: As to what you could have done better? Well, there's always room for improvement, but on the whole I think we were very satisfied with this round. As we move into Live 3, we'll have more specific testing objectives, which should help a lot.[/spoiler]
3. How good/bad is our Beta testing in your eyes?
4. What should change and what should stay as it is on our testing?
(01/18 17:05:24) Gregbert: everything is going quite well with the testing. We are quite pleased with the calibur of testing you've shown so far.
(01/18 17:11:53) Gregbert: We have been quite pleased, as I said, with the calibur of testing. A big thank you to all who were able to participate on the group tests on such a short notice.

Bug Questions
1. When will the Kadish Hotfix be applied, or has it already?
2. Can you give timelines for fixing the stackdumps they are a serious bug. In D'Lanor’s case it happens based on population many times, something that is a serious issue as a bug trigger.
3. Is there anything that can be done client side to cut the chances of a stack dump?
4.We're still carrying several bugs that aren't new (like the firefly behavior). Is there a timeline for fixing pre-existing bugs? [spoiler]
(01/18 17:27:04) Gregbert: Basically, tes they should always be reported. If we already know about it and are working on it, it may still help to get new logs.[/spoiler]
5. If problems crop up in live can those errors be rolled back into the rehearsal server for testing? With some notice of course so we know which areas to really pound on.
6. 0 Second bug Progress?Please Please Please........[spoiler]
(01/18 17:55:29) Gregbert: This is one of those things that we are still looking at, but in generall it can be caused by quite a few things, most of which do seem connection related
(01/18 17:58:33) Moke: Yes, Ginger, there is hope![/spoiler]
7. How did the Kadish bug happen? Sure wasn't planned to be implemented surely.
8. any know animations or other thing that cause memory leaks in rehearsal?

Puzzle Questions
1. Has the tosgal/delin journey cloth issue of them not registering a press been worked out?
2. Could we get confirmed expected behavior for things like the journey doors that stayed open for weeks?
3. Do you know what is causing the non-interactive GZM's [spoiler]
(01/18 17:51:05) Gregbert: The ghost markers bug is assigned to a person for fixing. We have raised the priority on it
(01/18 17:51:18) Gregbert: so it's on the way[/spoiler]
4. Can a method me set to reset the explorers KI's which currently have 1515+ markers to find? [spoiler]
(01/18 17:34:22) Captain Gravy Boat:
(01/18 17:34:41) Gregbert: regarding the 1515 bug...
(01/18 17:34:55) MustardJeep: yes????
(01/18 17:35:03) MustardJeep snickers
(01/18 17:35:30) Gregbert: First of all, it's already fixed for new avatars, but for existing ones, we think we may be able to fix it from out end
(01/18 17:35:41) Gregbert: our end, that it
(01/18 17:35:51) Gregbert: in the Database
(01/18 17:36:08) Gregbert: so that bug won't be seen on Live
(01/18 17:36:14) MustardJeep: aw no trolling the city proper to find markers? shucks....
(01/18 17:36:23) gav: That's cool.
(01/18 17:36:28) Gregbert: unless someone has been to the GZ before they were supposed to...[/spoiler]

5. Any chance for Solo-Paths for things like the new journey doors? A second way to the cave?
6. Do the new journey door lights register properly now?

General Questions
1. What's the general mood and optimistic level at Cyan HQ?
-Your running the tail end of open beta, got Uru ported over to Mac, and your running Rehearsal have to ask; Are you guys frazzled yet?
2. Any plans to lower or increase the number of testers in rehearsal?
3. Could someone please post in the Dev section a couple of days before hand when to expect Rehearsal to start back up.
4. The Mac people are going to love the port, do you need/want any Rehearsal testers to go Mac when it is available? Also any hope for Linux??? PLEASE

(The Penguin is making me ask this...

)[spoiler]
(01/18 17:44:51) Moke: Yes, MustardJeep, we even have a signup page for the Mac testing right now.
(01/18 17:45:07) Moke: The more, the better.
(01/18 17:45:31) MustardJeep: got to love them forum questions
(01/18 17:45:38) gav: Where can I find that page? And is it Intell MAC only?
(01/18 17:45:56) Drahcir: feel the breeze as all the mac user run out to the signup page
(01/18 17:46:12) MustardJeep: hey that's my line!!!!!
(01/18 17:46:20) Gregbert: was 'user' singular on purpose?
(01/18 17:46:39) Captain Gravy Boat: http://www.mystonline.com/macsignup.html
(01/18 17:46:52) Moke: Remember, this is for Intel Macs only.
[/spoiler]
5. Any plans for Uru to work under Vista it's been released to the manufacturers? Or should we hold off testing under Vista till GameTap supports it.
6. Can these things be scheduled just a teensy bit further ahead of time please??????<Begging><Hands and Knees><Puling Hair Out Typing This Fast><Just a half hour more please?????>[spoiler]
(01/18 17:48:22) Gregbert: For the rehearsal schedule, yes the two week timeframe is still acurate. <editor's note Yipe better scheduling!>[/spoiler]

P.S. Sorry if I reworded anything as I retyped it.

Ok, so now: on to the unasked questions. Here goes:

Self Improvement Question
1. How detailed do you like bug reports? Quite extensive, or bare facts?

This is a tricky question. The simple answer is 'both'. We want them long on facts, observances, and sometimes even speculation if you think you're on to something. We *always* want logs that will hopefully support that. "Extensive" is a word that we are both familiar with and haunted by - it hasn't always provided usefull stuff. For instance (and this *mostly* pertains to the larger Beta-wide community and not necessarily this Rehearsal group), we get tickets that almost quite literally begin with (think "Beatles, A Day in the Life"):

"I woke up, got out of bed.... ran a comb across my head (short piano riff)"

I'm nearly positive that having bacon for breakfast has nothing to do with your bug. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. We get tickets that are dangerously close to that kind of thinking. Again, not really from the Rehearsal group, but I'm using it as an example to illustrate the point, which is to be extensive and detailed when it calls for it, and give the bare facts when it calls for that. And always include logs (.zip) and screenshots (.jpg).

3. How good/bad is our Beta testing in your eyes?

(this reads in the original post as unasked or unanswered, but see the answer to #4 in that post)

Bug Questions
1. When will the Kadish Hotfix be applied, or has it already?

(This brings up several good questions which were asked and are sort of related, but are not in the first post here. I'll put them in and answer them (1a and 1b) after this question)

Per a discussion we had today, we will not be adding the hotfix to the Rehearsal server for this, since there is no need for it. The bug is already fixed in the current build and on Live, so simply resetting your Kadish will do the same thing, since the fix does not repair your Age. If you are reading this in a panic after the Rehearsal server has been shut down, it's OK. Just reset your Age when the server comes back up and you'll be fine. Just don't report a bad Kadish if you haven't reset it since we asked you to.

1.a - Why are fixes being rolled out to Live that we haven't tested? (Kadish, for example) It strikes me that there could be bugs hiding in the fixes that might not be obvious without wider testing.

Good question. The simple answer is that we tested it ourselves, on a server we have that is one step between the Rehearsal server and Live - logically speaking (and no, you can't have access - sorry. :wink:

). It would be impossible for you to test the fix if you've already seen the bug, and spending the time to find one of you who had not even logged into the Rehearsal server since the update which caused the bug was not a good use of our time (and we did try that at first), since we have many test accounts on said server which were in exactly the condition that we need. So it did get tested and verified before it went out.

1.b - When does Cyan Worlds shut down the Rehearsal server for testing?

Probably tomorrow (1/19/07) between 9am - 12 noon Pacific (GMT-8), 10am - 1pm Cavern time (GMT-7).

2. Can you give timelines for fixing the stackdumps they are a serious bug. In D'Lanor’s case it happens based on population many times, something that is a serious issue as a bug trigger.

Ah yes. This is from D'Lanor (How could it have happened that a serious bug which causes a stackdump was rolled out to the Live shard?...). If D'Lanor will forgive me for being presumptuous, I believe this is an indirect way of asking his original question (confuzzled?

) wondering if we got the release notes wrong when we said we fixed the pesky stack dump in Teledahn (better to just ask that question, though

). The answer is that the conditions for that stack dump to occur (something about the sound buffering) were present in Live 1. It was just much more prevalent in Live 2 (i.e. the Rehearsal Shard). Someone else could tell you much more intelligently exactly why this was, but not me. I can tell you that we did get stackdumps reported from Live 1 that were just like the ones from Rehearsal. I hope that answers that (even if my presumption was wrong). But as to timelines for fixing the stackdumps, we hope that each new build brings a lower potentiality for them. Best answer I can give, really.

3. Is there anything that can be done client side to cut the chances of a stack dump?

I'll ask Chogon, but my hunch is it'll probably be the standard "Don't have a whole bunch of 3rd party apps and unnecessary processes running at the same time as you're running Uru" advice. But I'll ask, nonetheless.

4.We're still carrying several bugs that aren't new (like the firefly behavior). Is there a timeline for fixing pre-existing bugs?

(this is already generally answered, but specifically:)

Firefly behavior is fixed in Live 3. Woot.

5. If problems crop up in live can those errors be rolled back into the rehearsal server for testing?

Good question. The answer is 'sort of'. Not a rollback per se, but see the answer to question 1.a. We'll test the hotfix on site and push it if/when we're satisfied with the fix.

7. How did the Kadish bug happen? Sure wasn't planned to be implemented surely.

What? Who asked this question?

In all seriousness, though, how did it happen? Someone pushed the wrong buttons on their keyboard. And I'll have to check the design documents and the rollout schedule to be absolutely certain, but I'm going to risk shooting from the hip here and say that yes, it "Sure wasn't planned to be implemented." Surely. :lol:

8. any know(n) animations or other thing that cause memory leaks in rehearsal?

If there are, you can bet your bottom dollar that the ones that are known will be fixed by Live 3.

Puzzle Questions
1. Has the tosgal/delin journey cloth issue of them not registering a press been worked out?

We are looking at this carefully. As far as our QC testers have been able to determine so far (so far), this happens when you click on the next cloth before the animation on the door from the previous cloth-click is done fading out. When we have seen this, clicking on the cloth once again when the fade animation is truly complete has registered the click every time so far. That doesn't mean it's not a bug, however. We're still trying to find a case where the cloth truly doesn't register outside of the condition I've outlined above - and we'll present our findings to Design even if it's just the 'fade animation isn't done yet' thing. Our axiom in matters like this is that if it feels like a bug, it's a bug - even if it's not really a bug.

2. Could we get confirmed expected behavior for things like the journey doors that stayed open for weeks?

I'll see what I can do. Ultimately, as least early on each cycle, we need to stay within Lbell's guidelines-for-not-giving-you-guidelines which will affect your testing methods, but in cases like the above 'timed door' where the door never closes I think we can safely rely on the Customer Support folks to let you know that the timer isn't 2 weeks long (yes, you can contact Customer Support from the Rehearsal server).

5. Any chance for Solo-Paths for things like the new journey doors? A second way to the cave?

Feature Request...

6. Do the new journey door lights register properly now?

Is this the same as #1? But yes, they do. We think so, anyway, so prove us wrong.

General Questions
1. What's the general mood and optimistic level at Cyan HQ?
-Your running the tail end of open beta, got Uru ported over to Mac, and your running Rehearsal have to ask; Are you guys frazzled yet?

Why no, we're *twitch* doing just fine.

2. Any plans to lower or increase the number of testers in rehearsal?

As I understand it, the number of Rehearsal teaters will grow by the number of Intel-Mac testers accepted from the signup sheet. Whether that means adding more to replace current rehearsal testers moving to the Mac side or something else I really can't say at this time, but no, the rehearsal group will not have a staged growth period like Beta did.

2.a How many people are in Rehearsal?

Roughly five hundred. Give or take.

3. Could someone please post in the Dev section a couple of days before hand when to expect Rehearsal to start back up.

Yes. Me. And not only when to expect it, but exactly what to expect when it does start back up, as promised. I'll also throw in the notable bugfixes you'll find in that version. That list is already growing.

5. Any plans for Uru to work under Vista it's been released to the manufacturers? Or should we hold off testing under Vista till GameTap supports it.

I am unable to answer that at this time. Not 'prevented from' or 'forbidden to', just unable to. I'm certain it's on someone's table. Somewhere. I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer than that at this time. Sometimes you just have to say "I don't know". I'll get a better answer for you when it is available... how about that?

We had a great time a the round table, and we'll do it again. Kudos to Dadguy for the Idea, to JWPlatt for the fine moderation at the meeting, to Mustardjeep for the well done organizational post to gather all of the information and to everyone who submitted the great questions! We're looking forward to the next one.

GB

RoundTable 1: Roundup

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