A few weeks back CIG started publishing their own internal production schedule with dates for major milestones and the planned release date for 2.6, which is more or less unheard of for a games developer to do.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report
However the 2.6 release, which is the one that will have the FPS module in it, has been pushed back from 8th December to 16th December to allow more testing and bug squashing.
But in an astonishing break from Internet tradition Star Citizen backers appear to have remembered that these dates are all provisional and a window into the uncertain world of game development. So they have NOT freaked out. Hard to believe but true. My faith in humanity is a tiny bit restored.
Now it's 22nd December, although I am a first wave PTU member so I'm buzzing about in my Caterpillar and Herald (and every other flyable ship for the PTU) smashing into bugs. Looks spectacular but certainly not ready for Prime Time
The FPS Star Marine is nice although I'm only managing to connect now and again as usually it crashes to desktop, like I said buggy :-)
Looking forward to this now ..... no more download caps to contend with gaming life vs kids vs work!
22nd December is a very tactical move. Its far enough back so they can say "cos Christmas" when things go wrong.
I agree, wise move to get some new content out for Christmas and in the next 4 days they can hopefully make the FPS stable and give everyone a great present.
Finally got around to copying across to the PTU and started the 30GB download. Will be trying 2.6.0K after some lunch.
with your internet speed tea, its had to be something quick, slice of toast?
I hope they have made the FPS join able. I tried about 8 times and got as far as the start of round countdown only once, other times I saw no in game view at all.
K downloaded, trying later.
I will try the PTU later tonight as well :)
Now I have the bandwidth, do I have the free disk space?
Hmmmm, I don't see an option to download it and PTU is greyed out on my account? But I'm sure I had PTU access before ....
you need to sign up for it, check your emails and if your allowed join then you should have one saying how to get on. i will be downloading it tonight
I got LOTS of lag when I tried Star marine today, the lobby/grouping up worked fine, but in game I was absolutely hammered by lag when I turned. Not sure if it is an SLI thing or not, but it was horrible. Clearly not everyone is having these problems though based on looking at some of the scores being put up, so I suspect it is related to my graphics setup.
yeah played a little star marine and even with my 1080 it lags,does feel like cod in space.
I will have a game of this tomorrow and will see how I get on weather it's lag
All around or just some systems. Cod in space sounds like something I might be good at Yay haha
Star Marine worked better than I expected. I managed 2 rounds out of 4 before I crashed due to server comms error. The game was smooth in 4K with a little stuttering from other players when they were supposed to standing still.
Marked improvement from pre-K.
Most importantly there a lot, a heck of a lot of ships there to test so I would say try that part as it's in good shape and 30 ships thick with fun.
Quote from: Sneakytiger;420447yeah played a little star marine and even with my 1080 it lags,does feel like cod in space.
Quote from: RogueTaylor;420448Cod in space sounds like something I might be good at Yay haha
They DID a COD in space, it was rubbish!!! :woot2:
Downloading a fresh 30GB as we're at 2.6.0L now! :roflmao:
It's about a 12GB update.
If they can stablise Star Marine in time for Christmas, we could have dMw vs dMw games on there.
It is visually amazing and you don't just die hardcore style with one kill because of the armor so you are better taking your time and playing as a team to get to the objective.
Seems the first game type is capture and hold style play.
Quote from: Chaosphere;420450They DID a COD in space, it was rubbish!!! :woot2:
Starting to think you've gone all Smilo on us and are negative about everything ;-)
yeah about 12gb update, updating now.
Quote from: albert;420452If they can stablise Star Marine in time for Christmas, we could have dMw vs dMw games on there.
Could do but i haven't received an invite for the new version
Show them da money! It's pay to play!
The PTU is not about playing Star Citizen it's about testing and QA.
There are enough bugs in this test build to make getting any sort of guaranteed multi player game a complete lottery. However for anyone bothered to stay up to date with the release schedule the PU build is planned to go live tomorrow so downloading the PTU build for a tournament is a complete waste of time, as baring another delay to the PU the PTU will disappear tonight/tomorrow.
People should be joining the PTU so as to test the build and post bug reports on the RSI website Issue Council not just to get an early go at 2.6.
Personally I think pushing the PTU out to Subscribers was a dumb thing to do. 1st Wave PTU testers get that privileged specifically because the are willing to download (often several times) PTU builds and test them. That's why PTU is normally invite only as it's a waste of time letting others simply fly about and do nothing useful. I'm guessing CIG need to stress test the build and so simply want bodies in the Universe rather than people who are actually willing to contribute to the bug testing process. There was a big test at about 8pm last night specifically for that reason.
That's not to say that all Subscribers will not bother to submit bug reports. I'm just guessing the vast majority won't be bothered. Just because someone pays a few pounds a month doesn't mean they will automatically contribute to the testing process.
just followed the procedure for getting it and the option is grayed out for me. Ill have to wait then
My "Show them da money" comment was sarcasm, I seriously hope they are not just giving PTU access to subscribers.
As for reporting bugs, I seriously hope they have data gathering and crash reporting coming in from each client as a matter of course in an Alpha. Depending on people to actually do it is so unreliable and since they have a piece of software on each client machine they have access to all the data they need from the client and PC that is running the software.
My point about dMw vs dMw wasn't about doing this on the PTU but on the PU when it is released tomorrow. I would expect them to put out a PU with star marine that actually works most of the time otherwise players will lose interest.
I personally would rather see them release an end product or a Beta of some part of the game and then develop the other parts of the game into that but CIG are using a rather waterfall approach to their development of the game where nothing is delivered for users to test in terms of end product and they are trying to deliver lots of big buggy things simultaneously but no real cohesion. Very old skool.
The Evocati (approx 800 players) have been testing and bug reporting in 2.6 for some time now, and have gone through iterations a-i. 2.6j was released to subscribers and an undisclosed number of "others" to stress test the servers, as Smilo said. Patch 2.6k went out a day or so ago to even more testers, and 2.6l has now dropped (as of last night) and I'm seeing lots of reports from some very happy people concerning how much more stable it is, how much smoother it is and, most importantly I guess, how much fun it is!
The live release is slated for 22nd (so probably early hours of 23rd for most of us).
In the meantime, have any of you seen the "Emergent Gameplay" video put together by CIG? It's staged, of course, but played out in the style of two teams online in the PU and showing off some of the new assets, visual effects and gameplay improvements, interspersed with some previously video - it's a lot of fun:
[video=youtube;e9JgXvBX73s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9JgXvBX73s[/video]
Yep the PU is the place to play :-)
I have to disagree with the comments about open development. The open way CIG are developing the game and allowing players to be part of that process is very unusual. It's for some a real eye opener as to how a AAA game is created. Even stuff that comes out as early access on Steam is mostly in a far more complete state than Star Citizen. I applaud CIG for how they are creating this game, pity them for the ignorant flack they seem to get from time to time and am glad to be able to take part in shaping the game and am really enjoying being part of the process.
Normally no one would see these builds except internal testers. We would indeed all sit and wait for a Beta to appear. I'm glad CIG are not going down that typical route. The down side to creating a game in the open and allowing backers to play and try to break the bits that are done, is that some and especially the web based press seem to think the PU etc are a beta and fit for public consumption which they are not. No matter how many times CIG try to explain the process some web sites and a lot of non backers don't get it.
There are going to be plenty of backers who want to back the game financially but who don't want to see the 'Verse until it's all polished and done. That's absolutely fine, they just don't download the PU builds, simple.
Got an invite to PTU today, but if it's slated for live tomorrow then I won't bother downloading.
I think you misunderstand me Smilo. I applaud their open involvement in shaping the game, that's unique. I work in a company where we use an agile development approach and the main principle of agile is to deliver fast and often engaging the user and feeding back regularly, then retrospective review, and improve. I think that works best when you actually have products to deliver in smaller chunks. CIG are trying to deliver large products then as a result take a lot longer to get something out to the user base. Now perhaps the 800 main testers are seeing this progress and the rest of the Alpha backers don't get that insight but that in itself goes against agile as they're excluding the majority of users or customers. I think it's commendable they added more testers from 2.6j onwards but maybe they would move faster with more data from more test client machines (not the manual bug reports method).
Quote from: albert;420470Now perhaps the 800 main testers are seeing this progress and the rest of the Alpha backers don't get that insight but that in itself goes against agile as they're excluding the majority of users or customers. I think it's commendable they added more testers from 2.6j onwards but maybe they would move faster with more data from more test client machines (not the manual bug reports method).
I disagree albert - I think the Evocati is a great idea, as it is made up only of players who are actively testing and reporting bugs, vs the main bulk of the community who, as Smilo says, think they're in beta and the game should be playable. CIG view the Evocati as an extension of their in-house test team, and they have a good amount of people who are focused on hunting for bugs, reproducing and documenting bugs in a controlled manner.
Simply throwing the latest build on the PTU for all to download would not accomplish anything more than driving up CIG's bandwidth costs and causing the servers to topple over every time they inadvertently ship a networking bug.
Add to that that the community have proven time and again that they are not fit to bear witness to the state of the game between major releases, and I can understand why they stop the agile process at the Evocati stage. They will whine that they signed up to
test the game, bugs and all, but then whine yet again if they encounter something that stops them from playing, sorry testing!, for more than 5 minutes before crashing. Poor old CIG can't win either way!
Quote from: albert;420470I think you misunderstand me Smilo. I applaud their open involvement in shaping the game, that's unique. I work in a company where we use an agile development approach and the main principle of agile is to deliver fast and often engaging the user and feeding back regularly, then retrospective review, and improve. I think that works best when you actually have products to deliver in smaller chunks. CIG are trying to deliver large products then as a result take a lot longer to get something out to the user base. Now perhaps the 800 main testers are seeing this progress and the rest of the Alpha backers don't get that insight but that in itself goes against agile as they're excluding the majority of users or customers. I think it's commendable they added more testers from 2.6j onwards but maybe they would move faster with more data from more test client machines (not the manual bug reports method).
Aha corrected I stand.
Regarding the Evocati, they do have to sign an NDA as mentioned and I believe, often start with a game that will not actually play. Basically the Evocati start with very cut down versions that have a large number of game breaking bugs. A lot more than I would be willing to tolerate. At the very least I'd want to pick my way through the various elements of the game and find something I could load and try. While Crusader, Arena Commander and Star Marine were all borked for me on day one of the PTU at least I could get to Arc Corp and the Hanger to do some bug hunting there.
Much like the early build of 2.6 which dumped a very large number of players out of Star Marine and Arena Commander. Normally CIG won't release a version to the wider world until these 'Blockers' are fixed. To their credit though I've not seen many backers ranting on Reddit etc about how messed up the PTU was on day one (it's quite slick now).
I actually agree with what albert is saying.
Generally speaking the agile philosophy should be something along the lines of "short iterative cycles". It seems the main time this is done is when the PTU is spooled up and people are thrown at it. CIG is well aware of a crash, I would very much hope their bug reporting code would give them some good analytics to work off. I can see what you're saying, but the way I see it, if they wanted to have different experiences (ie - a more polished experience for some in the form of the PU) they should have something more permanent.
Either way you slice it though, workplaces will often take a particular version of agile, or customise it to their needs. I think you've gotta take some of this with a pinch of salt. They're making a vast sum of money, and as such should perhaps bring in some proper QA process, but then the paying backers will complain. Alternatively they could use the people that have paid to play it to test, they'll still whine, but they'll save them money. As said though, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
new update for 2.6 on the ptu has gone out this morning only about 9gb tho .
Tried for about an hour last night to "play test" Star Marine but it kept disconnecting every 2-3 minutes, almost always before the games had started. Hopefully they have resolved that because it's not even testable at the moment.
Quote from: Galatoni;420486I actually agree with what albert is saying......
They're making a vast sum of money, and as such should perhaps bring in some proper QA process, but then the paying backers will complain. Alternatively they could use the people that have paid to play it to test, they'll still whine, but they'll save them money. As said though, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Every dev should be working with a high enough level of craftsmanship to a) care about their rollout and b) be able to monitor accurately during deployment and know when it makes positive or negative impact. Small group A/B testing with data driven rollout decisions works better.
Our website makes 15x what CIG crowdfunded every quarter in net income and we know innovation comes at a cost (yes outages but you make them small enough to measure and not impact the customer but meaningful enough to act upon confidently) but in the long term keeps you ahead of your competitors. We do have over 1000 developers I suppose. Then again the salary market for top Java and Perl devs is far lower than Top gaming devs and designers. Maybe CIG need a mix of both service oriented devs and creative devs/ designers. As usual it's the hard working devOps guy who gets all the pressure and 1/10th of the headcount.
Quote from: Jamoe;420488Tried for about an hour last night to "play test" Star Marine but it kept disconnecting every 2-3 minutes, almost always before the games had started. Hopefully they have resolved that because it's not even testable at the moment.
They sent out another update over night that was supposed to reduce the network disconnect errors.Good netcode you would think they could get right faster than this, as you say it reduces the test effort data to a bunch of net issues.
Still nothing for the peasants....checked this morning
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Yea, I was just lucky with the PTU invite :)
Star Marine is a lot more playable now. Managed a few games although all ended in disconnects it seems to last a lot longer.
just wondering if we could have a ptu section under sc on ts for us guys on the ptu.
As a "peasant" I still do not have access to 2.6 either yet :(
Build 'o' is out and this one is slated as a live release candidate, so I suspect you'll see this one imminently. The builds have been rolling out on almost a daily basis now.
and 2.6 is a GO!
Quote from: smilodon;420528and 2.6 is a GO!
Nooooooooooooooo! Now the peasants can join us :devil::flirty:
Not yet too hungover from xmas party to care....oh the life of a peasant
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk