Good bye Changelogs: Good or Bad?

Back to on-topic land...

I think that balance changes (such as ore density changes, gun dps changes, and spear awesomeness-boosts), engine changes, and environment changes (acid raid no longer doing 6 damage per tick, or not appearing in Alpha sector, Meteors no longer showing up in Alpha Sector, Meteors always showing up in Alpha Sector, etc) should be given every time they are in a patch.

I think that being transparent with balance changes and environment changes will greatly help those willing to do "focused testing". For example, if they change ore density to be 50% current rate on surfaces, but 150% current rate in non-surface biomes, I would create a brand new character and try only surface skimming, and create a second character to only delve deep into planets, plunging to my fiery, fiery death. Knowing that this changed would be helpful to those willing to do testing like this, while it should not affect people unwilling to start new characters (chances are they already have the ore they need), and it should hopefully not discourage players from playing or starting new characters (nerf is balanced with a buff).

I think engine changes should be transparent as well, even if only hints towards what "component" of the engine changed. These hints (changed engine code dealing with pools of water and lava) should help modders quickly determine the answer to "Does this patch likely affect my mod?" This will let modders know if they need to do a lot of work right away, or if they should just change the patch name and hope things still work. I don't feel that fully-detailed logs of engine changes should be given, as they would be not useful for the majority of players and testers. Trade secrets, etc.

I do not think that "content" changes should be displayed, except maybe as hints. These hints would be things like "Added valentine's items!" or "Added new fishstick-flavored furniture" or "Floran are awesome and deserved more weapons". I do not think we need 100% content details, because knowing that "there are 14 valentines items added, 10 of which can be found in chests and 4 which must be found in the Loveboat biome" will not help anyone test. They would either accidentally encounter these items (like all other vanity items) or they would not accidentally encounter them.

 

what of when vanity items have a malfunctioning script, yet we dont know the item exists, so we do not know to test its script? what happens when content breaks the game? what happens when we find out that like "beta", tiy uses a different definition of "content" than most of the english speaking world?

we need full changelogs. people who dont like spoilers were warned against joining this stage of beta. the full changelog can also only be included as a text file in the game folder, there is no need to change the summaries we have been getting as news posts.

 

I don't understand what you mean when you say "what of when vanity items have a malfunctioning script", can you please explain?

Do you mean "What if that valentine's hat is actually coded as a gun, and can't be equipped in the helmet slot"? Or, do you mean "What if that valentine's hat can't go into the Vanity helmet slot?"

If those are the case, then the testing should be straightforward. The first person that finds them, posts that they did or didn't work. We don't need 100 people to equip the item, to confirm "Hey, the game still thinks my heart hat is a gun!"

I agree that "content" is a very vague term. In this case, I am going by what Tiy said in this post and also what @debugman18 said in this post. To me, "content" means "Armor, vanity items, seeds, saplings, blocks, costumes, weapons, back-slot items that do not add techs, and food items." Basically, anything that is a clone of something already existing in the game. These things are low-risk items, because they should be copy/pastes of existing (working!) things.

I disagree that we need full changelogs, simply because I don't feel that every single item requires the same level of testing. That would take way too much time and effort, for almost no gain.

I also think that the "spoiler alert" was added NOT to say "If you don't want to know what changed between patches" but instead to say "If you want to learn everything in a brand new game, and enjoy figuring things out on your own, don't play right now." Don't spoil the "new game" experience by testing the game before its release.

 

for example, the wizard's scroll back item. it "reacts" to proximity of certain things, frog merchants i hear. it is armor, but does not add a tech, and can possibly malfunction.

just because you feel that way does not discount the rest of the userbase. we, the userbase, are the ones testing the game so the dev team doesent have to do as much in that area. some of us are volunteering "professional" level testing. we need changelogs to better test the game. the dev team is only human, they cannot think of everything.

 

"just because you feel that way does not discount the rest of the userbase."

I'm fairly certain that neither of us speaks for the rest of the userbase. I'm fairly certain we speak for ourselves, and some people may or may not agree with each of us, or even both of us (some people are just confused).

I don't quite understand how you jump from "professional" level testing to needing changelogs, though. If you are interested enough to test every single item and every single possible reaction, then you should be going through the game code like Merlin and manually spawning every item that didn't show up on last week's item list, and then manually spawning every single NPC just to check for reactions.

It's a bit odd to hear you are willing to spend a ton of time and effort testing, but you won't do so unless the Dev Team gives you a head start.

 

this may come as a surprise to you, i'm not the one testing in such a manner. other users are, however. for example, i have seen not one, but two users who have made claim to having been employed by a testing firm.

such testing as you describe is unnecessary, providing changelogs. having a changelog provided means you dont have to use up any time actually compiling a list of what has changed. i am sure we both can agree that the developers can give a detailed list of changes faster than any user. it also prevents a lot of redundant testing. if i know i have tested everything up to X, i only have to test representatives of X against new changes Y, rather than the entire base of pre-tested material.

again, there are very good reasons why almost every piece of software written for money has a changelog. it is foolish to ignore this.

 

You're in the same boat buddy. Stop talking for other people before you preach to others about that

 

I don't have any idea what you mean by "testing you describe is unnecessary".

I don't understand why you brought up "not one, but two users who have made claim to having been employed by a testing firm." If they actually cared about this, they should post themselves, rather than asking you to champion their cause without their participation. I also don't understand how this has anything to do with this discussion.

I also don't understand how a testing firm actually changes any of this discussion. If Chucklefish hired testing firms, then they wouldn't need to use these forums to ask CF to make changes to their patch process, they would have direct lines of communication. If Chucklefish did not hire testing firms, then anyone from a testing firm, playing the game, is doing so as a Player, and not as part of their job duties.

I don't understand why you would mention a focus on preventing or reducing redundant testing. The entire point of a beta is redundant testing, otherwise there would only be a single player. And even then, there will be redundant testing because that single player would repeat actions.

I don't think that Starbound, as a game, can be "tested up to X". I think that a lot of bugs are caused by interactions between objects or NPCs or even mods. If you had checked an item off your list, you could be missing future interactions that were added.

I also don't understand why it matters that another company handled their beta in one manner, therefore Chucklefish needs to do it that way as well. I think Chucklefish should be given the benefit of the doubt, and let them handle their beta the way they want to. It's only Stage 1. Simply because something worked for other people in a different situation with a different community does not mean that it will guaranteed work here. It may be more likely to work here, but that's an opinion. Chucklefish has more information than we do, let them, as the most informed party here, make the decision.

 

I would argue in this case Chucklefish is not the most informed party in a significant way to the problem. They don't have personal experience with their product from /this/ point of view. All for the simple reason of having available /everything/. So regardless they will have -any- information necessary, while testers on the other hand will not. Even spriters can PM coders if something creeps up they need information on or email I am sure. Testers have no such luxury, but they do usually have changelogs posted frequently, up to date, and with a good deal of information. You can't say thats been going on.

 

But how are people who don't overplay the game, supposed to know what is knew and what isn't?

 

I think it's a good move, but not for obvious reasons. First, the change has sparked several unofficial changelogs which catalog asset changes in much, much greater detail than Chucklefish ever have. That by itself is a net win.

But there's also the more subtle, arguably more valuable effect on the community: these changelogs are maintained by users. The changelog author(s) are free to discuss what the new content means, what it might indicate for the next patch, etc., which is something else Chucklefish has historically refrained from doing.

I approve.

 

reply does not compute. please rephrase.

"unnecessary" - you shouldent have to "reinvent the wheel" every iteration.

they have posted themselves, and have not requested anything of me. i menation them because they HAVE posted that the level of changelogs described (and that we've been getting) is insufficient for their testing. i'm pretty sure you've directly quoted at least one of them before. i'm not sure, off the top of my head, but i think it was either this very thread, or the "how to give users a way to provide usefull feedback" one. the relevance of them (why i brought it up) is because they have posted that the level of changelogs described (and that we've been getting) is insufficient for their testing.

your paragraph about testing firms makes no sense, i cannot divine the meaning.

it's called "efficient use of time", as we all paid to test the game, it would make sense that you wanted to get your money's worth out of the time you have available to test.

you dont know much about how programs work then? the wonderful thing about code objects is that for most purposes, if the attributes of one object are the very same as another, they can be interchanged. this cuts down repeat testing of existent elements to one example per population when testing against new additions.

CF is a brand new company, run by those with no experience in running a company. when "everyone else does it another way", there is probably a very good reason for it.

 

The amounts of unprofessionalism in these few words is almost as astonishing as the blatant mod censorship to any dissenting opinion of the almighty Tiy. It also sheds a lot of light on the choices made in the past, and what the entire development process of starbound has been like behind closed doors.

Withholding any information on changes within the game is obstructing our ability as testers to effectively point out flaws in the game both in design and implementation, as well as functionality. To willfully neglect having such a strong asset in the palm of your hand is a tragedy, and a serious disservice to the current state and future of the game.
Just because Tiy, or any of the other developers for that matter think a feature isn't worth testing, being recorded, or made public; is completely absurd. Its just opening the door for mistakes to be made, and problems go unresolved, and is an exceptional waste of time. [which in my honest opinion, CF does enough of on its own.] The fact that it even needs to be discussed or mentioned shows how little the developers, Or Tiy in particular- knows of the development stage they thrust themselves into the middle of. the "grand state of mystery and discover" should be dictated by the players who want that, Some people don't see this as just merely playing a game- There is work to be done and the people are capable of providing a positive influence on the condition of the game. Obstructing that is only prolonging this incomplete state of the game, Which still to this day suffers from an insane amount of feature creep.

To further beat a dead horse:

Why even make such bold statements if you only intend to do a complete 180 and the core concepts later down the line? The gross amount of underutilization of the alpha testers who have preordered the game is disappointing to say the least.
That said, if you don't want to make a changelog public, By all means. Create a .txt, put it in the starbound folder, and let people gaze into it at their own discretion. To do anything less is only holding things back, and complicating the process needlessly.

 

it's nice to be noticed, and even nicer to know that you understand my motives. if there is one thing the army taught me, it is "negative feedback" is a far greater motivator than anything positive. it restores a lot of my confidence in you that you are able to recognize my challenge for what it is, rather than simply writing me off as a troll.

 

My god, you people need to CHILL.



Personally, I don't mind content change logs not being included. It makes exploring and finding new stuff more fun!

 

I'd like for extensive changelogs to be made avaiable, people who like to explore it on their own can still do so at their own discretion.

 

I'd prefer seeing the change logs so that I know actually how much was added so I don't go around worlds searching for something that isn't there.

 

The simplest advice I can give, which probably isn't a whole lot, is expanding upon the idea of when you brought up huge internal change logs the development team keeps in-house, so to speak. For those who want a mystery, keep the changelogs as they are, but also take as many changes as possible from the internal set of change logs and have it placed in a new file in the base game folder. Call it something obvious like Full Change log with Spoilers.txt or similar. That way those who want to explore are happy, those who want to test the game by looking at changes and seeing what they can break to report later, and modders are all happy.

 

My words... exactly my words.

That would satisfy all sides... those who want to know everything, those who eager to test everything out in full length and correct/fix possible bugs on their own before reporting them (people like me, basicly want to get an impression how hard it is to fix a certain bug), those guys who just want to explore the game on their own (they just do not look into the textfile), those people who dislike certain balance changes and want to reverse them and finally modders.

If the Changelog is included in a .txt file with an obvious name everyone should be satisfied then