Zelda Classic [2.future] is coming along nicely, and we've reached a point where we need some community aid, in ensuring that it will be as solid an edition for ZC as anyone can want. Therefore, given that this new versionis going to need four distinct types of testing, we're looking forthree to fivepeople (initially, although if we need more, so be it)who are interesting in assisting us with these processes.
Here is an outline of the types of testing that are mandatory:
Quest Compatibility
We need people to play existing quests, from 2.50.x, 2.10, 19.2, and so forth, and report any bugs that occur in 2.54 that are related to things that may have changed. This consequently may reveal bugs in 2,.50.3, that we can fix at the same time. Bugs ranging from minor to major, or esoteric; are all important to fix, even for older quests. We certainly want 2.54 to be able to play the full ZC quest library.
If any LPer is interested in doing this, and posting videos of bugs, that would be exceptionally helpful.
New Feature Testing
testing the programme, via Quest Building: We need people to test new features, by making quests using them. Report if any bugs exist, and if the features work as documented. These can be simple demos, or fully-playable quests. That's up to you. Should you choose to build a playable quest, we will do our best to support it in future builds.
This includes testing editor features, and ZScript features, including language extensions, should we implement any.
This further includes Implementation Change Testing: When we change something, we need people to test if the implementation breaks anything that we had already done. In most cases, the change is fully documented, so behavioural changes will be easy to find, but once in a while, a minor change can cause major headaches.
Stability Testing
There are two main branches for 2.54: One, uses Allegro 4.2, as 2.50.x has done, and the other, uses Allegro 4.4.3, which is ?much newer?, uses DirectX 8, fixes many long-standing issues, but may introduce any number of unknown problems. At present, it has a critical stability bug when trying to play any non-MIDI/non-WAV sound file, that we are trying to solve.
We need testers who are willing to cope with these stability problems, test the programme, and report anything that causes hangs, or crashes. Unstable betas are not released in the main thread.
Cross-Platform Testing
We will need users on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX, to test the above three categories across these platforms. If we for any reason expand the covered platforms, we will need testers for anything new, too.
Allegro 4.4.3 supports BeOS, QNX, and PSP's OS. I've no idea yet if our other dependencies can run on any of those, though.
Testers will receive top-priority support, change documentation,latest builds, notification of daily builds, and prioritised consideration for suggestions/requests.
Any user who is interested, please reply to this thread; not by PM. Thank you, on behalf of the [2.future] Dev Team.
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