Vike91
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mrimer wrote:

Vike91 wrote:
Can i test it, if i am not available to beta testing?

Yes, the game demo would be publicly available and the full game up for sale just like DROD, and this would have nothing to do with CaravelNet in particular.

So, can i test it now?

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Jatopian
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You should make it very clear to people that they're buying a beta.

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Fafnir
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Open beta sounds absolutely wonderful! (Although I agree that you should make sure people know what to expect.)

As for incorporating stuff cleanly into CaravelNet, I have no idea how things are currently implemented for demo uploading and so on, but whatever you decide to do bear in mind that you might run into the same problem again later as you develop more games - it might be a good idea to do something that could extend to a fairly large number of distinct games without breaking rather than using a situation-specific kludge.

User interface-wise for the forums, your options seem to be either making a new category for DROD RPG, or dividing H&S, Holds, Challenges and so on into subforums - one for each line of games. The latter sounds more extensible, but barring a good idea it looks like it might require a fairly radical layout change. I'm not sure what you'd do with the High Scores section.

It's quite a difficult problem, really - good luck!

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slimm tom
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mrimer wrote:
One option for boards is to have a completely new Boards section dedicated specifically to DROD RPG. So, we can think about either releasing the game before CaravelNet features are in place, or wait to release until these are implemented. If anyone has ideas for how to cleanly incorporate this and future different Caravel games into the existing forum space, including functionality for developing and publishing holds, hints, scoring, etc., please share your ideas.

Nah, no new board section, the forum is crowded already. I would suggest a slight change in the Hints and Solutions system, a menu before you can choose a hold in which you can change the game for which you need help. If it is possible to make sub-boards or if it is easy to implement, I would also suggest a sub-board for RPG threads, to keep the board understandable and easy to determine if a hold is for the RPG or the regular DROD series.

Same goes for hold architecture and publishing, have sub-boards if possible to keep the different holds apart from each other.

About the question to release before the CN features or after, I would suggest before, so we first can concentrate on fixing bugs and making behavior changes, and after that implement the scoring system to avoid demo breaking through behavior changes.

Just my 2 cents

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[Last edited by slimm tom at 06-14-2008 06:47 PM]

zex20913
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I think we should definitely have separate boards for separate games.

Even though the worlds are the same, the games are totally different. The person who comes here just for a hint on DROD might see a ton of DROD RPG hints on H&S and think that there's nothing there for them, and same if someone's looking for DROD RPG hints and sees DROD hints.

I would say that a sub-section (like DROD Boards, Bureaucracy, Other Boards, and F&M Issues) would be ideal. Those who wish to ignore them can, and those who wish to see both can.

I think Holds, H&S, Challenges, and Architecture should be duplicated in the new board, if there is going to be a new board.

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Blondbeard
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Public Beta sounds fine And I think Zex's idea ought to be the best. Another possibility would be to have it compleatly seperate, but you can click on a logo in the top. Rather like the link to Caravel homepage (or whatever it's called). This might be the easiest depending on how many seperate games you plan to make.

Briareos
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I'd rename the board category(?) "DROD boards" to "Caravelgames boards", create new board categories for "DROD" and "DROD RPG", move the original Holds, H&S, Challenges, Architecture, Feature Requests, Bugs and perhaps Development boards to the "DROD" category and create new ones for DROD RPG...

Just my 0.02 EYPO.

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vittro
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Thoughts?

RELEASEREALEASERELEASEREALEASERELEASEREALEASERELEASEREALEASERELEASEREALEASERELEASEREALEASE

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mrimer
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Vike91 wrote:

mrimer wrote:

Vike91 wrote:
Can i test it, if i am not available to beta testing?

Yes, the game demo would be publicly available and the full game up for sale just like DROD, and this would have nothing to do with CaravelNet in particular.

So, can i test it now?

Sorry, maybe I miscommunicated. I'm not saying I'm going to make it available for sale immediately. We're going to finish the game first and release it when it's done. We're pretty close to that point, actually. I'm just saying that there might still be bugs in the game at that point that we haven't uncovered, so we can either release it at that point, or we can just keep it under wraps so our team can spend more time testing it. But we're not going to be selling a beta version. When I said "open beta", I meant we take the same approach as with TCB: the game was technically done when it was released for sale to the Caravel forum community (but not marketed to the general public). As people tried things out -- mostly in the editor -- it was observed that some details needed to be hammered out and we took another year to deal with all of these issues. (One big reason it took so long is because people are still finding new ways to use the level editor. As they do, more and more obscure bugs invariably come to light.) We could have taken another few months to try to have the testing team unearth those issues themselves, but I'm not sure how much it would help with all the situations of rare combinations of game logic that people have found. Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 06-14-2008 10:41 PM]

Pinnacle
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Will it be added to the Prize Pile when it's done?


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NiroZ
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I'm not sure which is better, sub forums or a separate board, but it definitely should be done before DROD RPG is released.

eytanz
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Jatopian wrote:
You should make it very clear to people that they're buying a beta.

One clarification - people won't be "buying a beta", as that implies that they will have to pay again once the final release is made. What people will be doing is buying the game but they should understand that in some sense, they're pre-ordering and getting the beta before the release.

I agree that Caravel needs to make it a bit clearer that this is the case than they did with TCB.

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AtkinsSJ
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Sounds good!

However, the thing with releasing the editor when it's in beta... I know it's much easier to test the editor in this way, but it could result in the same thing as what I think happened with TCB: Many inconsistencies cannot be fixed because there are already too many holds that might become broken. I don't suppose there's a good middle option though.

eytanz
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AtkinsSJ wrote:
Sounds good!

However, the thing with releasing the editor when it's in beta... I know it's much easier to test the editor in this way, but it could result in the same thing as what I think happened with TCB: Many inconsistencies cannot be fixed because there are already too many holds that might become broken. I don't suppose there's a good middle option though.

That will probably be a far smaller problem this time - one of the main reasons for the inconsistencies in 3.x versions was that everything also had to be consistent with the 2.x versions. So there was a much stronger likelihood of breaking an old hold, because there won't be any legacy holds.

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Jatopian
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In that case, I hope the devs are thinking ahead to make sure everything's consistent on the first try.

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eytanz
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Jatopian wrote:
In that case, I hope the devs are thinking ahead to make sure everything's consistent on the first try.

Well, that's certainly the goal. But with very few exceptions, the inconsistencies weren't put in by choice, but either because A - there was a bug or other type of problem that needed to be fixed, but fixing it caused incompatibility with holds created before the fix, or B - people thought of combining elements in a way that the developers/testers didn't think of.

In a game the complexity of DROD, it's just not possible for the devs (which are few and working part-time) to think of everything. DROD:RPG is in some ways simpler than DROD, but it's still complex enough that I'm sure some problems will arise sooner or later.

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BeefontheBone
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Jatopian wrote:
In that case, I hope the devs are thinking ahead to make sure everything's consistent on the first try.

Flawlessly, of course.

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The spitemaster
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They don't always care about the old legacy holds. Fool's Challenge was broken by the down blue doors.

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eytanz
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The spitemaster wrote:
They don't always care about the old legacy holds. Fool's Challenge was broken by the down blue doors.

No. Fool's Gold was made less interesting, but that's not the same as being broken.

A "broken hold" is one that was conquerable under an older version, but is not conquerable under the new version. A hold that is conquerable but no longer masterable will probably also count, depending on the circumstances.

Fool's gold's trick was spoiled, but the hold is still A - solvable, B - using the original solutions. I don't think it's reasonable to count it as broken.


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zex20913
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eytanz wrote:

The spitemaster wrote:
They don't always care about the old legacy holds. The Fool's Challenge Errand was broken by the down blue doors.

No. The Fool's GoldErrand was made less interesting, but that's not the same as being broken.

Fixed.

Also, found out that Ctrl+(letter) allows holds to be found from the main list, quicker. Neato!

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Stoney
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Will this also be released for Linux and Mac again? Looking forward to it.

NiroZ
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IRT Stoney

mrimer wrote:

Hikari wrote:
Just to be totally sure... Is this getting an OSX simul-release alongside the Windows release?

'cos, y'know, I'm still worried about that with Frogs and Mice.

Yes, I'm developing the game simultaneously for OSX. I'm planning to release it the same days as the Windows release. With trick's help, we will have a Linux release as well.

trick
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Stoney wrote:
Will this also be released for Linux and Mac again? Looking forward to it.

Yes.

13th Slayer
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He, put me in, i wanna betatest!

chinook
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I see a 2% bump. Progress!

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Blondbeard
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chinook wrote:
I see a 2% bump. Progress!

It always makes me happy to see someone post after a long quietness

chinook
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Blondbeard wrote:

chinook wrote:
I see a 2% bump. Progress!

It always makes me happy to see someone post after a long quietness

Haha, thanks. How could you tell?

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Blondbeard
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chinook wrote:

Blondbeard wrote:

chinook wrote:
I see a 2% bump. Progress!

It always makes me happy to see someone post after a long quietness

Haha, thanks. How could you tell?

I remembered your topic about buying the main holds and lots of SMS hold And you can check when someone last posted. I knew I haden't seen you around lately, so I checked it up. Well... Enough of a thread hijak from me.

I look forward to DROD RPG too!

The Architest
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Wink Wink!

Beta testers needed?!!

i WANNA!

Pinnacle
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13th Slayer wrote:
He, put me in, i wanna betatest!

The Architest wrote:
Wink Wink!

Beta testers needed?!!

i WANNA!

Have you heard of the Anti-Aladdin Principle?

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