Edit: TL;DR
Alpha testers may need an indication of which Alpha game is worth their attention.
A correct solution would require the attention of admins and developers.
Below is a cut & paste from a discussion that happened here: https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=511 ... s583523576
It finds itself here following this suggestion, voiced twice: "I'm aware, though I'm merely a game developer, such a suggestion should go on the forum" & "But perhaps continuing this discussion on the forums may be better, because I think the whole community could benefit from what we're talking about here"
I post this because I care, but I think devs are the cornerstone stakeholders here.
I did my best with the formatting to make it intelligible and capture some TL;DR in bold.
Perduicitte » BGA reviewers:
I'll start with a disclaimer this time: I am looking for arguments that will help me understand. Please also understand my perspective and answer thoughtfully. Thank you. Now:
Why, if this is true, are these games kept in the Alpha roster?
See the following comment: "Games in "Alpha limbo" are more often than not there because of a rights issue. Either the publisher is no longer interested in a BGA adaptation, the publisher has stopped communicating with the BGA developer, or the publisher isn't happy with the product being presented to them." (TBC)
Perduicitte I've thought it may be candy: people (like me liking Xanadu) may want to play those.
I've thought it may be in case the rights owners may change idea, decide to push forward after all.
I've thought it may simply be, well, limbo. A sort of forgotten place.
I've thought many things, but I'm not sure, and I'm a curious person, so I ask you. If you have an insightful answer. Whoever you are.
Cheers!
Tisaac Games can be stuck in alpha for several reason, and the only one that would imply removing the game from the list is a hard no from publisher that won't discuss any further. In all the other cases, situation may change :
- games waiting from publisher approval that is slow to answer : maybe he will one day answer
Tisaac - some issues with license where the publisher may have overlook some legal aspect : we can hope the legal aspect to be cleared off
- developpers is no longer around to fix critical bugs or make the changes asked by publisher : maybe he will come back when he will have more free time, or maybe another dev will take up the task
...
Gad79 I understand the logic behind keeping these games in Alpha.
Maybe we can make the Alpha games more "friendly" by showing a hint as to the actual status of the game.
For example, time since the last Dev update, number of reviewers signed up, number of games played in latest period (2 weeks, month?).
These will all help potential players/testers to find which games could actually use a review.
SwHawk Well, the status is already accessible, the version string is in the form of YYMMDD-HHMM so you have a pretty good idea when the dev last deployed new features. Another indicator is the bug list, if there are bugs that are opened and not fixed for a few months it's a good indicator that the developer isn't working on that game anymore. (TBC)
SwHawk The number of reviewers who signed up is also shown on the https://boardgamearena.com/reviewer page... Although I'm not sure that is a good indicator, since a few hundred reviewer might have started a review, and only a handful might actually approve the game, for whatever reasons.
Perduicitte This is very, very satisfying information, thank you all!
What stemmed the question was: "Am I wasting my time?"
Yes, after seeing the bug list has stalled for years I understood something, and also because these games were very hard to find partners to test with. I'm just a guy playing mostly with random people and I like it that way. (TBC)
Perduicitte ... So there was little for me to know if I was wasting my time, albeit with good intentions.
I do not know what type of implementation effort this would require, but an obvious green/yellow/red tag would help me understand where to put my efforts, at a glance, as an amateur.
eg: I wouldn't even know where to look for "the version string is in the form of YYMMDD-HHMM", programming is arcane to me.
Perduicitte I guess I'm asking: Is there a way to dumb-it-down, so that even Perduicitte understands?
Tissac's explanation made it clear the "limbo" is created by issues way above my knowledge and outside my power to act. How can I be guided towards what will be useful?
Thank you again!
SwHawk The game version is displayed under the informations about game table on the game page (for example: https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=cosmosempires), there you'll see also when the game was first released, which will give you a clear indication about how long the game has been in alpha. (TBC)
SwHawk The YYMMDD-HHMM referred to Year, Month, Date, Hours, Minutes and is the "timestamp" when the developer took a copy of the code to deploy it to BGA (ie 221108-1340 would mean the snapshot was taken on November 8, 2022 at 1:40PM). Going into further details about how developers actually publish their code is outside the scope of this conversation, but feel free to PM me if you want to know more.
Gad79 The information is all available if you go and look for it.
I think that for many players/testers a summary that will quickly give them an idea of the current status of the Alpha game would be helpful.
Either gathering all the info to one place (one stop shop) or an indicator of the generalized state (red, yellow, green).
SwHawk I'm aware, though I'm merely a game developer, such a suggestion should go on the forum or on the suggestion list of the bug report system (/bug), so that admins can actually see it. But I'm not sure the red/yellow/green indicator is a good thing... but that's my humble opinion
SwHawk Also @Perduicitte, I'm not sure I would qualify testing games that are in alpha "limbo" is a waste of time, if you actually take the time to write down any bugs you encounter, and suggestions you may have, and report those on the bug report system. You may feel like it's a waste of time, but it may help a future developer detect the problems in the code (TBC)
SwHawk It may also help them better pinpoint what is needed to change to push the game to beta, should the reason for the game to stay in alpha being the lack of a volunteer developer. Rights issue unfortunately is outside of any dev power as well...
Perduicitte Again, this is great, thank you!
"such a suggestion should go on the forum or on the suggestion list of the bug report system (/bug), so that admins can actually see it"
-> I did exactly that a few days ago, but with one vote it may stay in "bug limbo" for a while : https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=75760
(TBC)
ufm Actually the game list on the reviewer page can be sorted...
(most/least approvals, most/least times in alpha, most/least recently updated, most time since starting/ending the review, alphabetical order)
Perduicitte "You may feel like it's a waste of time, but it may help a future developer detect the problems in the code"
-> That is a perspective I did not see. To me, the output is a playable game. To a developer, the output is a functioning code (or program?), with a playable game as flavor (?).
I do think there is a need to dumb it down, to be raised to the admins by the devs, as they are the cornerstone stakeholders here.
SwHawk Well, from a developer standpoint, game and code are one and the same, because without code, there is no game. But as volunteers we all have our area of interests, and while I might not be interested in developing heavy strategy games for example, I do like some engine building game, so I will most likely turn my attention to those projects. (TBC)
SwHawk When the project is already in alpha and I need to fix bug or improve what my fellow developers have already done, I also need a sense of what state the game is in, and for that I would usually refer to the bug tracker. If the game is riddled with bugs, it will mean more time to spend on it for me, which I may not be able to at that precise moment. (TBC)
SwHawk Also the votes will help me prioritize which issues are the most problematic and will need to be worked on first. That's what I meant when I said in your previous post that we need meaningful reviews as developers. Otherwise, we just assume that the game is OK, and that we don't need to work on it. I'm not saying that we don't test games on the developer's environment, but we can only do so much..
SwHawk But perhaps continuing this discussion on the forums may be better, because I think the whole community could benefit from what we're talking about here, also it would mean having to unroll the whole comment thread to get a sense of what we're talking about.
------
... and here we are!
Alpha testers may need an indication of which Alpha game is worth their attention. A correct solution would require the attention of admins and developers.Below is a cut & paste from a discussion that happened here: https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=511 ... s583523576
It finds itself here following this suggestion, voiced twice: "I'm aware, though I'm merely a game developer, such a suggestion should go on the forum" & "But perhaps continuing this discussion on the forums may be better, because I think the whole community could benefit from what we're talking about here"
I post this because I care, but I think devs are the cornerstone stakeholders here.
I did my best with the formatting to make it intelligible and capture some TL;DR in bold.
Perduicitte » BGA reviewers:
I'll start with a disclaimer this time: I am looking for arguments that will help me understand. Please also understand my perspective and answer thoughtfully. Thank you. Now:
Why, if this is true, are these games kept in the Alpha roster?
See the following comment: "Games in "Alpha limbo" are more often than not there because of a rights issue. Either the publisher is no longer interested in a BGA adaptation, the publisher has stopped communicating with the BGA developer, or the publisher isn't happy with the product being presented to them." (TBC)
Perduicitte I've thought it may be candy: people (like me liking Xanadu) may want to play those.
I've thought it may be in case the rights owners may change idea, decide to push forward after all.
I've thought it may simply be, well, limbo. A sort of forgotten place.
I've thought many things, but I'm not sure, and I'm a curious person, so I ask you. If you have an insightful answer. Whoever you are.
Cheers!
Tisaac Games can be stuck in alpha for several reason, and the only one that would imply removing the game from the list is a hard no from publisher that won't discuss any further. In all the other cases, situation may change :
- games waiting from publisher approval that is slow to answer : maybe he will one day answer
Tisaac - some issues with license where the publisher may have overlook some legal aspect : we can hope the legal aspect to be cleared off
- developpers is no longer around to fix critical bugs or make the changes asked by publisher : maybe he will come back when he will have more free time, or maybe another dev will take up the task
...
Gad79 I understand the logic behind keeping these games in Alpha.
Maybe we can make the Alpha games more "friendly" by showing a hint as to the actual status of the game.
For example, time since the last Dev update, number of reviewers signed up, number of games played in latest period (2 weeks, month?).
These will all help potential players/testers to find which games could actually use a review.
SwHawk Well, the status is already accessible, the version string is in the form of YYMMDD-HHMM so you have a pretty good idea when the dev last deployed new features. Another indicator is the bug list, if there are bugs that are opened and not fixed for a few months it's a good indicator that the developer isn't working on that game anymore. (TBC)
SwHawk The number of reviewers who signed up is also shown on the https://boardgamearena.com/reviewer page... Although I'm not sure that is a good indicator, since a few hundred reviewer might have started a review, and only a handful might actually approve the game, for whatever reasons.
Perduicitte This is very, very satisfying information, thank you all!
What stemmed the question was: "Am I wasting my time?"
Yes, after seeing the bug list has stalled for years I understood something, and also because these games were very hard to find partners to test with. I'm just a guy playing mostly with random people and I like it that way. (TBC)
Perduicitte ... So there was little for me to know if I was wasting my time, albeit with good intentions.
I do not know what type of implementation effort this would require, but an obvious green/yellow/red tag would help me understand where to put my efforts, at a glance, as an amateur.
eg: I wouldn't even know where to look for "the version string is in the form of YYMMDD-HHMM", programming is arcane to me.
Perduicitte I guess I'm asking: Is there a way to dumb-it-down, so that even Perduicitte understands?
Tissac's explanation made it clear the "limbo" is created by issues way above my knowledge and outside my power to act. How can I be guided towards what will be useful?
Thank you again!
SwHawk The game version is displayed under the informations about game table on the game page (for example: https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=cosmosempires), there you'll see also when the game was first released, which will give you a clear indication about how long the game has been in alpha. (TBC)
SwHawk The YYMMDD-HHMM referred to Year, Month, Date, Hours, Minutes and is the "timestamp" when the developer took a copy of the code to deploy it to BGA (ie 221108-1340 would mean the snapshot was taken on November 8, 2022 at 1:40PM). Going into further details about how developers actually publish their code is outside the scope of this conversation, but feel free to PM me if you want to know more.
Gad79 The information is all available if you go and look for it.
I think that for many players/testers a summary that will quickly give them an idea of the current status of the Alpha game would be helpful.
Either gathering all the info to one place (one stop shop) or an indicator of the generalized state (red, yellow, green).
SwHawk I'm aware, though I'm merely a game developer, such a suggestion should go on the forum or on the suggestion list of the bug report system (/bug), so that admins can actually see it. But I'm not sure the red/yellow/green indicator is a good thing... but that's my humble opinion
SwHawk Also @Perduicitte, I'm not sure I would qualify testing games that are in alpha "limbo" is a waste of time, if you actually take the time to write down any bugs you encounter, and suggestions you may have, and report those on the bug report system. You may feel like it's a waste of time, but it may help a future developer detect the problems in the code (TBC)
SwHawk It may also help them better pinpoint what is needed to change to push the game to beta, should the reason for the game to stay in alpha being the lack of a volunteer developer. Rights issue unfortunately is outside of any dev power as well...
Perduicitte Again, this is great, thank you!
"such a suggestion should go on the forum or on the suggestion list of the bug report system (/bug), so that admins can actually see it"
-> I did exactly that a few days ago, but with one vote it may stay in "bug limbo" for a while : https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=75760
(TBC)
ufm Actually the game list on the reviewer page can be sorted...
(most/least approvals, most/least times in alpha, most/least recently updated, most time since starting/ending the review, alphabetical order)
Perduicitte "You may feel like it's a waste of time, but it may help a future developer detect the problems in the code"
-> That is a perspective I did not see. To me, the output is a playable game. To a developer, the output is a functioning code (or program?), with a playable game as flavor (?).
I do think there is a need to dumb it down, to be raised to the admins by the devs, as they are the cornerstone stakeholders here.
SwHawk Well, from a developer standpoint, game and code are one and the same, because without code, there is no game. But as volunteers we all have our area of interests, and while I might not be interested in developing heavy strategy games for example, I do like some engine building game, so I will most likely turn my attention to those projects. (TBC)
SwHawk When the project is already in alpha and I need to fix bug or improve what my fellow developers have already done, I also need a sense of what state the game is in, and for that I would usually refer to the bug tracker. If the game is riddled with bugs, it will mean more time to spend on it for me, which I may not be able to at that precise moment. (TBC)
SwHawk Also the votes will help me prioritize which issues are the most problematic and will need to be worked on first. That's what I meant when I said in your previous post that we need meaningful reviews as developers. Otherwise, we just assume that the game is OK, and that we don't need to work on it. I'm not saying that we don't test games on the developer's environment, but we can only do so much..
SwHawk But perhaps continuing this discussion on the forums may be better, because I think the whole community could benefit from what we're talking about here, also it would mean having to unroll the whole comment thread to get a sense of what we're talking about.
------
... and here we are!
