Open letter to the Testers!

[hi_leute_gll]

Dear Testers and Trial Testers,

As you might see the forum is full of maps. We have 31 topics in Map-Testing (+ Old Maps, + Other Mods) and Testing is very slow. I think there are a few reasons why it is like it is, except that there are not so much of you and that you have no time etc..

• One problem is that there are too many maps. So you don't know what you shall test and to keep it easy for you you just pick the first map in the list. So older maps won't get tested.
  
  There are 2 possibilities to solve this:
  
  • If a map is bad - then post it and make that clear, so this map can be removed. If we would remove all these maps, the list would be much shorter and you could focus more on the good maps.
  • If you search a map for testing, then don't pick the one wich was posted 3 minutes ago - Pick the one wich is on bottom of the list, or rather on second page.
  
  If you follow these 2 things the list would get much shorter and the old waste wich loafs around there would be removed.
  
  Another problem is that many of you don't finish testing a map - it means that you test a map once and after mapper post fixes you are testing the next new map instead of finishing this one. If you would just finish a map and make it releasable instead of running 10 projects at the same time, the single maps could be tested much faster and more effective - that's better for the mapper, and for you!
  
  Last but not least:
  If you find little bugs, don't make 10 screens of them, just fix them quickly. So you need less time, the mapper needs less time and all are happy.

Please think about that a bit, and try to help improving Map-Testing. Have fun while testing and cya on the servers!


With best regards,

hi_leute_gll

[hannibal]

honestly i think your behavior and turning this whole testing-thing into a serious business and creating this weird imtg scared many casual testers away.

don't take it too serious my friend!

(that's just my opinion / experience)

[Soreu]

His behavior is weird thing, but u just need to get used to it to understand that he just too often use dot at end of sentence ;D

iMTG was born mostly only because of how »insertwhateveruwantheremostwillbesarcasmanyway« DDNet testers were doing their job & how good that section were working - releasing maps with tons of bugs, mostly no improvements at all (just fixes), posting milions of screenshots instead of fixing less important things & showing them in real time with mapper so you can talk free about all parts (ofc it's not about everyone & every map ಠ_ಠ)

We saw some problems with the testing-system on DDNet, so we created our own one. And as you could see: It works fine.
[...]
the important things are the maps and that they will get released in a good state.
[...]
we will do our best to make them great as long, as mapper will care of his map
do you remember question "Quality or Quantity"?

But anyway, it's not topic about iMTG xd

[hi_leute_gll]

honestly i think your behavior and turning this whole testing-thing into a serious business and creating this weird imtg scared many casual testers away.

don't take it too serious my friend!

(that's just my opinion / experience)

Mmh, we have 2 Testers at iMTG who were official Tester at DDNet in the past. Also we got 3 requests of guys who aren't tester before.
These guys could be Tester or Trial Tester on DDNet, but they aren't. They joined us when they heard what iMTG is and why it is founded.

After almost 2 months we have a similar amount of Testers as DDNet has. Some of them thought about starting as Tester for DDNet or stopped to test there for certain reasons. We also have Core-Tester and Casual-Tester. (If you want to call it like this.) The one are testing much and working hard and also care about minor things. The other ones just join if they want to or if we need someone with special skills. They don't need to care about minor things or organisation, so they can just have fun.
But you still need a few guys who are organisating the whole stuff and with these very simple rules above, it would make it much easier for the Core-Tester and Mods on DDNet, without giving the Casual-Tester too much tasks.

Btw.: I also heard often that i'm scaring mapper. (Also while i was Tester at DDNet.) Interesting at this point is that many mappers come to us. And not only experienced ones, like Hindu. (He asked us for design-concept and support and i think the result The Trip is really great.)
There are also new mapper coming to iMTG, cause they heard that we can help them. And if i take a look at maps like Caventure or Day One or on their new projects they are working on, it seems like it is the right way for them. Instead of waiting months for a test in the forum they get directly tips, suggestions and support. Meliodafu and Vasten are learning very fast and they already take care of many points we showed them. I have my doubts that their new projects would be as good as they are, if they just got a basic test.

As same as all other player are doing, at the end of the day I just want to join the DDNet-Servers and play some good and fun maps with other people I like. But this can't happen if there aren't a few guys investing many many hours to make the maps good and fun. And at this point i just can repeat:

"Quantity or Quality?".

[hannibal]

appreciate your response, thanks. i'll just stay out of the discussions from now on ;p it's all too serious.

[Ama]

If i would get 2-3 good maps to test a week

without people crying in the forum when i say a map is bad

Yeah then it would be a easy job as a tester

[imp]

I've the feeling that some maps take longer to test/fix than to map.