A mod should release...

Seriously, does anyone read anyone else's posts?

BETAS DON'T COUNT!

We're talking about releasing 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 in rapid succession.

Everyone knows that a beta is for testing, but released versions should be for playing.

It can be very difficult for a mod team to be able to fill, organise and run a closed beta test team before their first release. With out the publicity of a first release, many mod teams find it difficult to gather an active and helpful pool of testers.

Dystopia was very lucky that we could rely on a collection of people from the Australia gaming scene who had known the dev team members from many previous online games. Not every team has this luxury.

From the player's side of it, of course regular releases are prefered. But with my experience being on the other side of the fence, as a developer I think it's much better to run closed beta testing until you have a stable update. This makes all public releases a higher quality which cuts back on the amount of frustration your players have trying to play your game.

The balance is that developers need to make sure that the most hardcore and active fans are involved in the closed beta. By having a closed test team filled with people who understand what "beta" means, removes a lot of the pressure on today's mod teams.

It should be polished before release. Known bugs should not be included, and then a beta should be released after all known bugs have been fixed. After that, offer a quick turnaround on a patch for the beta, fixing the newly discovered bugs. Continue doing this until the mod is completely fixed, then release it, and continue supporting it through patches fixing the variety of conflicts and bugs that will show up on a large portion of different PC configurations.

A first release should be as carefully combed out as possible, but humans have their limits, of course. After that, you smooth out the wrinkles as you go. Fixing ALL the bugs should not be your highest priority, as most can be overlooked easily enough, or avoided, etc. But a mod/game that doesn't release and update often enough, is one that soon loses attention and players.

I think for the first release then you should have extensive testing, because first impressions always are big :p. For the smaller updates then you don't have to have as much testing.

fix the bugs!!! unless you want little kids going crazy and yelling at you saying that the game isn't good enough

Yeah fix them, too many people dont understand the concept of a Beta release.

Hell, there shouldn't be any bugs in the first place - and the ones that do slip in, should definitely be found and fixed before release.

We have closed beta testing for a reason ;)

I think there should be something between these. Releasing not too rarely and not too often.

@Ancientpanda

Those little kids are just stupid then, because everyone knows it's a BETA, and why bringing out a Beta if you already know it contains no bugs ? What is a Beta for then ? Finding the bugs right ?
Yes of course it can be annoying (for example) when the game crashes all the time, or you can walk through certain walls.
But that's what game testing is all about !
People should see the joy of being able to even test the game before it's official release. And often things are being added after the Beta, because of those tests.

I think it's good to see how the public thinks about the mod.

fix bugs

Fix before they release very few people will report back even if it's a BETA, take the Empires Half-Life 2 modification for example "lol dis gme iz bud filld in beta da gam is shity n ill nevr ply agn" I've seen that response a lot more then I've seen anything meaningful.

I think it all depends on the kind of mod that it is (and how severe the bugs) In somthing like Gmod, Give it to us earlyer, we can work around the bugs, somthing that you want to be like CS, you better slow bake that... with out letting it die as much as possible.

I don't think that the poll question was referencing betas at all. Beta is sorta a release, but not really. Beta's intention is to find and fix bugs.

The question is refering to full releases (like 1.0). I'd much rather the bugs be fixed, as many mods are rather large downloads and it's a PitA to have to re-dl them each time a new bug pops up, even with 7mb cable (though, I have a wireless router, which accounts for a majority of my frustration with dling stuff...).

i want the bugs to be fixed so when the mod is finaly released will be great!

I find that unless the mod team is huge and dedicated, a premature release (BETA) will find more bugs than an internal beta will. I think the n00bs who say a BETA game is crappy because of its' bugs really need to shut up. Unless of course it hasn't been updated in the past year...

Also, internal vrs external BETA's:
- If a MOD is single-player, or multiplayer story-driven, it should be an internal BETA. Nobody likes making it all the way to the final boss of a sequential game only to find that the final boss is unkillable because someone accidentally typed "100hp regen" instead of "10hp regen".
- If a MOD is multiplayer (like deathmatch or CTF), it should be an external BETA with frequent re-releases. Having the general populous find the bugs and bring them to a MOD team's attention will often find more bugs than an internal BETA. It also helps the MOD team gauge what the acutal people playing it want to see in the MOD.

Well, that's my 2.5 cents :)

-DaMaN

Quote- "I find that unless the mod team is huge and dedicated, a premature release (BETA) will find more bugs than an internal beta will. I think the n00bs who say a BETA game is crappy because of its' bugs really need to shut up. Unless of course it hasn't been updated in the past year...

Also, internal vrs external BETA's:
- If a MOD is single-player, or multiplayer story-driven, it should be an internal BETA. Nobody likes making it all the way to the final boss of a sequential game only to find that the final boss is unkillable because someone accidentally typed "100hp regen" instead of "10hp regen".
- If a MOD is multiplayer (like deathmatch or CTF), it should be an external BETA with frequent re-releases. Having the general populous find the bugs and bring them to a MOD team's attention will often find more bugs than an internal BETA. It also helps the MOD team gauge what the acutal people playing it want to see in the MOD.

Well, that's my 2.5 cents

-DaMaN "

I do not think the question was refering to betas, rather it was refering to full releases (it was referencing mods that release 1.00, 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.06, 1.07, 1.08, 1.09... all in a short span of time.

kids dont ******* know ****. i say release early and release often. use the community as your beta testers. i happily would beta test anything that came my way. but yes, kids will yell, but dont yall modders listen. we pc game aficionados will give you the real rundown on your mod. we may critisize you, but we wont say **** like "TH15 M0D 5UX0R5"

In my experience releasing rarely, with a polished product is the way to go.

the same people who say they want a release sooner, will be bitching you out when they find it's ridden with bugs. DONT give in to peer pressure. Take your time, be meticulous, and come out with a slick, polished release no matter how long it takes.

If someone is telling you otherwise, they obviously haven't run a mod for very long (through more than one release)

Either or either.. I am not particularly fazed. Although it is somewhat annoying to wait for something to download only to find out that it's got more bugs than a dead cow.

Counter-Strike was released very early and it was a really shity mod back then... Now look what it has become! Just release 0.1 and 0.2 and keep doing this with small fixes in between like 1.2 and 1.34. This way you'll have a community very early and they'll be playing your mod and let them find the bugs. Devs go to work and players test the **** out of the game. That's how it used to be, before everyone started immitating Valve... No disrespect btw, I love HL!!!

If you're using a version to test though, just call it an f-ing BETA so everyone knows that it's meant as a test version.

Don't release something called 1.0 or .1 if it's merely a test version. Betas are for testing, released versions are for playing.

A Rare release makes no bugs.

As long as you fix the bugs quickly after they are found, that's good. Have new, smaller releases every other week! Unlike a game like The Specialists, which has been working on TS3.0 for like two or three years now. :|

who cares what state it's in... release it sooner! You release later versions to FIX bugs and no matter what,there will ALWAYS be bugs.

Ever wonder why we have less & less mods? Because 5/10 years ago it was released when the authoer said "hey, I wanna release it!" Nobody cared about bugs? There's hundreds of Quake 1/2/3 *RELEASED* mods simply because authors didn't wait until it was perfect, they just released it. Almost all (90%?) of those were fun and highly playably. What do we have now? A few handfulls of mods for dozen's of games with ~ a handfull of those even released & most will never see the light of day simply because they don't want to give "a bad impression"! I'd say there's less mods out there today for Doom 3, HL2, UT2K4 & FarCry then Quake 1 alone.

I've seen enough "in development" mods get "almost done" but never released because "we can't find a coder to make this cool feature" or "we can't find a modeler/animator to do that special model we wanted." Then, amazingly, instead of letting people actuatly play a 99% completed mod they just run "format c:" & that's the end!

you guys sit there & **** & moan over a free addon, I want to play. Any modders who want to let someone who ENJOYS mods play the one they plan on trashing, please, send me an e-mail!

I would personally recommend most modding teams aiming for a professionally presented product, and as TheHappyFriar pointed out, that is the trend, they should wait on releasing a professionally presented product. Almost a\ny member of this community with any form of intelligence would be usable for a large-scale internal beta test.

However, other mods, like Garrys Mod, as mentioned, should release often and quickly as it allows the community to get behind the mod and understand what future versions, which are not likely to be polished products or aiming to compete with professional offerings anyway.

At the end of the day, whatever suits the mod, and whatever the developer feels should be what is decided upon.

At Sands of War we did not want to try and act like the next big professional super polished hit, so we have gone with the strategy of releasing early and often. I can't exactly say that this has been a success though, as it haven't.

There are so many people out there who got no life and is just waiting for some non-perfect mod to flame. To be honest we have been quite dissapointed with the feedback we have received from certain parts of the community. We do now realize why nobody dares to release a mod today as you will be flamed to hell if it is not 110% polished and bug free.

You should find the bugs when you play the mod so u can email MODDB (the greatest) to fix em

play the game a lot before you release
you will catch all the big ones
for example: (just an example, don't say"oh, they have a bigger budget!")
when dod:s came out, it had bugs. even cs:s. but they weren't that big. when you go prone on top of another guy you get stuck (that is what you get for humping a guy in the battlefield). big deal. everyone reports it and in a few months or less it is fixed.
all the major ones should be fixed before beta. so when it comes to the final release, you don't have bigger bugs.
so basically, its like cleaning a house. if you don't clean up the big **** first, vaccuming the little **** on the floor will become much harder.
simple as that ;)

If the game keeps crashing, fix it first. You can't ask your players to live with constant crashes, neither do the server admins who are kind enough to host a free server.

The one huge advantage that a mod has over a retail game is that it can release incomplete products in order for people to bug hunt and offer feedback for future content. When people take months and years to do public releases of mods they are killing the only advantage that they have and treating their project more like a retail game than a mod. Don't take your projects so seriously, release often. Release with things that are still in the works. Let people find bugs, let people give feedback. Also, the more releases you do, the more press you can gain from each release, and therefore the more people you can get playing your mod.

There sould be a beta description somewhere to explain to peoples who don't the purpose of a beta

Totally skewed poll.

In another poll the site took a while back, it was confirmed that the vast majority of people visting the site are here to FIND or PLAY mods . not actively developing them.

Hm...Wonder what a player would choose in this poll??

I've released 50+ patches in a year and a month, sometimes up to 3 patches per week, and it doesn't really work. The problem is that if you patch too often, the players will fall off the train. As long as their copy of the mod runs, they usually can't be bothered to download the whole thing again just to fix some minor problem. Especially balance problems, and especially overpowered content are rarely a good reason to download a patch. After all, when you can blow up everything on the screen in 2 casts of a particular spell, why install a patch to nerf said spell?

......

Also, I don't know about other games but a problem with Diablo 2 mods is that players try an early, bugged version (or even a beta), find something they don't like and delete the mod forever, regardless of any progress made afterwards. It sucks to have people tell you they don't like your mod because . You better make sure your mod is good right off the bat or you'll lose all your players, get a lot of bad reputation, and your cheery release degenerates into an uphill battle to win back your market share.

A probably very D2-specific problem is that third-party sites will take your bugged beta and mirror it without your permission, then ignore your cease and desist emails. These sites are usually backwater hack sites, but nevertheless often manage to attract more downloads than the official site, ruining your reputation in the process.

......

The two above problems often come together. People get hold of an early beta, discover something ridiculously imbalanced, and then don't install the patch that fixes said balance issue. Afterwards, they proceed to tell everyone just how imbalanced your mod really is. There go your dreams of popularity.

"I've released 50+ patches in a year and a month, sometimes up to 3 patches per week, and it doesn't really work. The problem is that if you patch too often, the players will fall off the train. As long as their copy of the mod runs, they usually can't be bothered to download the whole thing again just to fix some minor problem. Especially balance problems, and especially overpowered content are rarely a good reason to download a patch. After all, when you can blow up everything on the screen in 2 casts of a particular spell, why install a patch to nerf said spell?

......

Also, I don't know about other games but a problem with Diablo 2 mods is that players try an early, bugged version (or even a beta), find something they don't like and delete the mod forever, regardless of any progress made afterwards. It sucks to have people tell you they don't like your mod because . You better make sure your mod is good right off the bat or you'll lose all your players, get a lot of bad reputation, and your cheery release degenerates into an uphill battle to win back your market share.

A probably very D2-specific problem is that third-party sites will take your bugged beta and mirror it without your permission, then ignore your cease and desist emails. These sites are usually backwater hack sites, but nevertheless often manage to attract more downloads than the official site, ruining your reputation in the process.

......

The two above problems often come together. People get hold of an early beta, discover something ridiculously imbalanced, and then don't install the patch that fixes said balance issue. Afterwards, they proceed to tell everyone just how imbalanced your mod really is. There go your dreams of popularity."

-BrotherLaz

And thus, the moral is test your mod with internal (team), external (closed), and then finally open (literally open) betas thoroughly (if you take the time to do it, most of the bugs should be caught in internal, and what's not caught there should usually be found in a rigorous external).

Of all that Laz said, I most agree with the part about people finding some bug they don't like and saying, "Screw this," and everyone in here knows it's human nature to do that.

I find this subject rather funny.

When developing a mod or a game, sometimes it is best to first test the game yourself and release a beta (which alot of people do), what the beta allows is much better bug reports than that of those who are in the mod or game development...
It is just commonly natural for a develop to not as efficiently find the faults in their mod or game, and alot of things seem like they are normal and should be like they are.
But when the end user tests the game, alot of things are found....we are like voltures, picky big beaked, pain in the arse, annoying, noisy, voltures, who will pick at anything...even the bare bones just to find something raw to pick apart.
This is a good thing and a bad thing, I'll go with the bad thing first.
The bad thing is that if a mod is released too soon without any proper testing...people whinge rather than be constructive. If the mod is released after intense internal bug testing, people will whinge rather than be constructive about the bugs. And if the mod is released to the public for a public beta test....even then...there are still those whiney little children who still don't have a clue about mod or game development and yet still continue to whinge, EVEN though, it is a beta TEST, where bugs are found and reported to the devs, so that they can be fixed.
So overall...the bad thing is that no matter what...people will continue to whinge, whether the mod is amazing for some, whether it is flawless to some, whether it is made by one person, and it is yet a huge project done fairly well for just that one person, people will whinge...no matter what. And it's annoying, very annoying, can we stop it... yes and no....we can't stop those people whinging, but we can do things like ban them from mod sites, or we could simply just ignore their stupid comments like they werent even made, no matter how bad the comment was.

Now...the good thing is that, we are the voltures, we have our big black picky beaks of death, and will pick at any barebone project we can, even if it doesnt have any flesh on it, and so those people who are actually willing to help and understand the words "constructive criticism" DO help out, and DO contribute to the overall development of the game in terms of bug finding and testing, as these voltures...we will find alot of bugs that don't appeal to the developers' eye, because the developers arent voltures, they are god, they get to manipulate their game world or mod world, they get to change anything within the game/mod to whatever they want, but when they see an idea and want to make it...they will stick to that idea, and they will do their best to make it, which also makes it very hard for them to see any negatives in their ideas, and because they can't see that...us voltures were made (so to speak) and us voltures don't know much about this new world...and so we go fly around in it and pick at any thing we find, which in most cases is a bug.

I don't know why I wrote all of that, but, there is more...and I don't want to write more, because I kinda just woke up.

I chose to keep the testing internal, because I'm thinking that this poll is a little on the underside of informing. And so I chose to keep it internal as it is quite obvious that those smarter ones chose to keep it internal, and those who just want to play mods (the crows and picky people) are the ones and want the mods now. They'll get the mods, then they'll whinge about them, move to the next one, repeat, etc.

Have a good day.

Rarely. Fix all of the reported bugs from your beta testing staff (If you have one) before releasing.

let people more public better test stuff, so more bugs will be found and can be fixed :D

Do internal betas until you have the major bugs ironed out. These are the ones that will be major turn-offs to people, and these will be the ones that will make people hate your mod. Internal beta, even solely among team members, for even just a couple of weeks, can catch a lot of stuff.

After you've caught the major stuff, then you can release the external beta and continue to look for bugs, but also accept the aide of others.

Thus, you should be left with only minor bugs if you follow this. I still think it's more preferable to do a much more extensive internal beta over a longer time and attempt to fix at least 95% of the bugs/imbalances before releasing an external beta. External betas are really only meant to find small, tiny, elusive bugs that smaller, internal teams would have trouble finding alone.

Initial release should not have any crashes or any truly MAJOR bugs... There should be as little of those bugs as possible...

Gameplay wise though, that's something that should always constantly be tweaked and those sorts of releases should get released often, get feedback from community, update, rinse, repeat...

should be released to a small group of beta testers

Fix the bugs first, cus one mod called MoveIn! for Half-Life had ALOT of bugs that should had been fixed.

I think the issue lies in how early on you publish your project, not that you publish early. People want to play it, but they also want to be impressed. That's why they tend to jump all over mods that feel incomplete, or that use placeholders. Mods are about new experiances, and in the past years they've grown into what are essentially, free games. So if you come out with something that doesn't feel fresh, or is painfully incomplete, then the community is likely to reject it, since for all intents and purposes it's not so much a game but a hassle/waste of time.