Why I hate full public betas

17 replies · 2,829 views · Started 24 December 2002

DarkDragon 24 Dec 2002, 00:24

Before you start the flameage, let me assure you that I love looking at new features, and that I heartily appreciate Dark Nation's continued work. I believe, however, that full public betas are hurting Zelda Classic.

Here's why. On my hard drive, I have, among others, three quests. The first refuses to load on anything but build 163. The second loads on 163, but, as you find out after hours of playing, is impossible to complete without build 152. The last loads on everything, but is only playable on the official 1.90 release.

This is ridiculous.

I am disturbed by the fact that, in order to play the multitude of great quests so far released, I must keep the original 1.90 public release along with three public betas, and that I must use pure guesswork to determine which quest requires which version.

Backward compatibility is a vital component of programs such Zelda Classic, and while I realize that Dark Nation should not have to ensure that every old quest runs on every new build, it is high time for this issue to be resolved. Perhaps it is the quest makers' faults for using what Dark Nation clearly indicated was a possibly incompatible beta.

Regardless, I do not believe that I am being too demanding when I say I want only one copy of Zelda Classic on my computer in order to run all the quests. Perhaps the quests based on the beta builds are unredeemable, but, for God's sake, at least the 1.90 quests should be salvageable. I thus respectfully suggest the following course of action:
Temporarily halt the deluge of new features. Take the time to fix all the bugs in 180 (Aquamentus, diving animation, hammer sprite), then have the testers go back and play a large sample of 1.90 quests. Find all the problems (spike balls moving across entire screen instead of half-way is one, off the top of my head.) If possible, repeat with quests from betas. Once everything has been fixed, release, say, 1.93, as a full release. Doing so would not only reassure quest authors that they have been provided with a stable base off which to build, but would also solve the version fiasco plaguing players.

Blonde799 24 Dec 2002, 01:02

While I don't like the compatibility guessing game either, I have different reasons why I think the PB tide should cease.

1.Quest compatibility(what you stated)
2.Editor ranting(only occurs in some PBs)
3.Overall interest(not as significant)
4.Burden on DN to WLH(work like hell)

Of course, I copy all the blah blah in DD's post in terms of appreciation, but ZC may end up like OZ in some areas, and that's not a good thing.

Jigglysaint 24 Dec 2002, 01:09

We could make asking/ranting about betas a warnable offense, and all topics relating to how much they want the beta will be closed. Also, the beta report thread will be archived and no news will be posted and every single cool addition will be kept secret untill a release. Then again, either way we will have complaints and such so maybe it's easier to just give them what they want.

Blonde799 24 Dec 2002, 01:23

Hey, that's a great idea!!!😃 :kawaii: :tongue:

DarkDragon 24 Dec 2002, 01:34

Originally posted by Jigglysaint
We could make asking/ranting about betas a warnable offense, and all topics relating to how much they want the beta will be closed. Also, the beta report thread will be archived and no news will be posted and every single cool addition will be kept secret untill a release. Then again, either way we will have complaints and such so maybe it's easier to just give them what they want.

Very true. There is, however, a difference between showing people the new features, and allowing them to distribute quests utilizing these features. Making the 180 beta player-only was, in my opinion, a wise step in the right direction; the mire of older betas, however, still present a problem, one I hope will be dealt with in the next full release.

fatcatfan 24 Dec 2002, 02:12

All betas, including the public ones, come with a warning that using them for quest-making is risky. Now, depending on how you wound up with the beta, you might've missed those messages, but the disclaimers still stand. If you choose to make or play quests which have compatability issues, you have no right to complain. When the next full version (i.e. non-beta) is released, compatability issues will be addresses, but the point with betas has been and always will be that quests made using them are not guaranteed to work on the full release or even the next beta. If there's been a change in that policy, I missed it.

DarkDragon 24 Dec 2002, 03:10

Originally posted by fatcatfan
All betas, including the public ones, come with a warning that using them for quest-making is risky. Now, depending on how you wound up with the beta, you might've missed those messages, but the disclaimers still stand. If you choose to make or play quests which have compatability issues, you have no right to complain. When the next full version (i.e. non-beta) is released, compatability issues will be addresses, but the point with betas has been and always will be that quests made using them are not guaranteed to work on the full release or even the next beta. If there's been a change in that policy, I missed it.

Yes, everybody was given a warning. And everybody disregarded it. Problem is, many good quests were released using betas, creating a problem that should be addressed for the good of Zelda Classic, despite the fact that Dark Nation is not under obligation to care since he did issue that warning. If older beta quests will no longer work, that will be extremely unfortunate, but we will learn to live; more disturbing is that so far none of the betas have been backward compatible with 1.90.

Thus either
1) All betas should be backward compatible with all other betas
or
2) Quest makers and players should be protected from themselves by disabling ZQuest in public betas (or at least making those quests nondistributable.) Which is what DN did in older betas as well as the most recent one.

And, more importantly, all future releases should be backward compatible with past public full releases, especially 1.90.

These two points are essentially what I argued for in my original post. (Where I also acknowledged DN's disclaimers.)

fatcatfan 24 Dec 2002, 04:30

I will say this. From what I've seen (and I'm now something of an assistant coder for ZC) the code is in place to allow you to open any quest version in ZQuest. Where changes have been made to quest file formats, ZQuest updates the old quest as it loads. You can then save the quest in the new format. There may still be bugs in this area of the code, but it's there. I imagine the code will be left in place for a full release. There are some cases where an old quest will require some editing to maintain the original appearance, but quests should always be playable without editing - there just might be some graphical glitches.

The specific case I can think of is where a quest designer used a combo page change to give a "special" dungeon door a different appearance from others. The elimination of combo pages invalidated such designs, and resulted in "special" doors created this way appearing as normal doors from the template page - they should in all cases appear like a door, just not the desired door. It wouldn't be random unaligned graphics. DN offset this problem by adding door combo sets, which allow you to recreate the previous behavior broken by eliminating combo pages. Requires some editing on the part of the quest author, but is otherwise a good compromise.

When similar problems surface, they will be addressed.

Anywho, when a release version is available, if there are still issues, then complain. Otherwise, don't gripe about having to keep several ZC versions on your PC just because people chose to ignore DN's warnings. For reference, I have 8 unique ZC installations on my hardrive. I don't mean that I have the archives stored away, I actually have 8 directories with different ZC versions installed in them.

DarkDragon 24 Dec 2002, 04:58

Worse than having to keep a bunch of different versions on the HD is having to guess which version must be used with which quest.

Specific examples of things going badly wrong when using wrong version:

Spike balls travelling too far in all betas after 1.90: ALTaDD, others
Some weird layering hocus-pocus that only works on 152: DoY

IceMan2x 24 Dec 2002, 06:35

people want a beta, when they get it, the bitch and whine like there is a twig in their ass, they wonder why they dont get more

Blonde799 24 Dec 2002, 09:03

Heh, good thing I don't fit there, as I'm not very eager to get a beta(like I said in the BRs, I'm happy with those).😊

fatcatfan 24 Dec 2002, 14:21

As "extended" beta testers, you all have a responsibility to bring problems (i.e. bugs) to the attention of DN in the appropriate forum. If his isn't aware of an issue, he can't fix it.

Happyman 24 Dec 2002, 14:32

Unless of course it's by accident, but we already knew that. And I doubt it's ever happened.

What do you mean by "extended"? :confuse2:

fatcatfan 24 Dec 2002, 15:14

I mean that you aren't official beta testers, but you're using betas. So you're testing betas in much the same way the official ones do.

Blonde799 24 Dec 2002, 15:15

We're the ones who test the compilation of his work, and check for last minute bugs. In other words, the QA(Quality Assurance) department.😊

MottZilla 24 Dec 2002, 23:46

You know DN is the one that decides to release a public beta or not. So you would want to tell him that it's bothering you.

Anyway, you do have a valid complaint about quest compatability. Right now it's like, the quest is 1.90, 1.92 b152, b156, b163, bwhatever. I wouldn't doubt this turns people off to ZC.

Blonde799 24 Dec 2002, 23:49

And it makes me hate 3 digit numbers.😛

MottZilla 25 Dec 2002, 18:03

Also know as bytes. Also, I wasn't entirely clear in the last post, I meant, quests tend to be a variety of versions.