Monday, May 5, 2008

The critical beta phase

So it's started! For the first time since several months, fresh eyes have seen the game. Quite some bugs have already been found too but nothing really hard to fix.

The more you work on something, the more you get buried by it, having a hard time to get back a little to see the big picture and revisit systems you implemented at the beginning. That's why beta is so critical. You need some help to point you the obvious that you're not able to see anymore.

Tonight, I'd like to be able to fix the current list of bugs that have been found which include players being able to pick props in zone where they shouldn't be able, putting buildings in mines and the chest that doesn't show all items in it. More are on my to-do list and considering there's nothing really big, it should be possible to get all of this into tonight's update.

On another note, I filled a request to upgrade a bit the memory of the server. I guess it should be filled around the beginning of the week. More memory should mean better speed. It's only this week-end that I learned that VPS can't access virtual memory so I was stuck with 416 MB which was borderline with SQL running.

In the best of world I'd have 1 server for the web site and forums, another for SQL and another for the game server but well, maybe one day.

And some good news... I should receive the new art for the characters this evening or tomorrow! Can't wait to put this in place as the artist did a really good job.

So to all testers, keep up the good work and thanks for your help!

2 Comments:

Micha said...

Since the forum now has an external section to it, is it time to unleash links to both the website and the forum? Maybe you are waiting for open beta?

Over00 said...

Well, gonna wait a bit until I get some time to put some doc on the web site since there's currently not much to see anyway.