Game not ready for release

[harmlesslittleflea]

No tutorial, no rules summary, and the Read Rules button in the Learn tab is a broken link. Several open bugs, including one (confirmed) that the game is not compatible with BGA's replay system, making it impossible to make a tutorial or replay games - both core functionality.

Why does this keep happening? How come games are getting announced in full release for competitive play before they're ready, when there are other games still waiting in beta that have none of these problems? Heck, there are games I'm playing in Alpha that are more ready for release than this. Come on BGA, games deserve better.

[pault111]

You'll be happy to hear that there's now a tutorial on beta. Also, there are videos available which are very good at explaining how to play. I think game was definitely ready for release.

[Boudica of Celtia]

including one (confirmed) that the game is not compatible with BGA's replay system, making it impossible to make a tutorial or replay games - both core functionality.

i thought core functionality is that the game can be played. Service on learning the game is just a little extra cherry on top, no? I mean - there is even rule enforcement so you can't even accidentally cheat by not knowing the rules too well? There's other gaming sites where you don't even have that...

[harmlesslittleflea]

You'll be happy to hear that there's now a tutorial on beta. Also, there are videos available which are very good at explaining how to play. I think game was definitely ready for release.

Sorry for the tone of my earlier post. Reading it back, it seems much more argumentative than it should have. The opinion stands, but I withdraw the arseyness.

I AM happy to hear that the game has had a tutorial approved, thank you - but I do find it baffling that that sort of thing isn't done the day BEFORE a game's big reveal, instead of a few days after. I'm sure I'm not the only player who likes to play a new game when there's a buzz for it, only to get put off when I can't find anything telling me the basics of how to play without being prompted to log into BoardGameGeek. (Some may love videos; some of us don't.) I'm sure there's a team at BGA selecting games for release and writing up the little blurb etc, and I can't understand why that doesn't involve a little last-minute quality check that everything's good to go.

[harmlesslittleflea]

including one (confirmed) that the game is not compatible with BGA's replay system, making it impossible to make a tutorial or replay games - both core functionality.

i thought core functionality is that the game can be played. Service on learning the game is just a little extra cherry on top, no? I mean - there is even rule enforcement so you can't even accidentally cheat by not knowing the rules too well? There's other gaming sites where you don't even have that...

I don't subscribe to other gaming sites. But I'm comparing with BGA itself. To move from alpha to beta, several alpha testers must each give their approval that the game can be played without tripping over bugs or errors. So "the game can be played" is a standard that games in beta should have already met. From my understanding of the beta phase, it's supposed to be for smaller reported issues to be ironed out, tutorials to be made and approved, a rules summary to be written up, and the game polished up ready for competitive play. Otherwise why do games spend months in beta? The process for alpha-to-beta is so stringent, but release from beta seems to happen at an arbitrary moment, ready or not.

[Jellby]

Tutorials, rule summaries and translations are written by the community, not by the developer. Release from beta is something that depends on the developer (I presume they at least have to say it's OK), but mainly on the publisher and BGA. Sure, BGA could wait for the community to do their "job", but it makes sense that they proceed without it.

[JudgeWhyMe]

Hello

No tutorial, no rules summary, and the Read Rules button in the Learn tab is a broken link. Several open bugs, including one (confirmed) that the game is not compatible with BGA's replay system, making it impossible to make a tutorial or replay games - both core functionality.

I just tried all the links for the rules, and they lead either to BGG files section for the game or the rules in PDF format. Where is the broken link you mentionned? Did I miss something?


There is a rule summary, I know that for doing it myself. Does it not appear to you? Did I miss a validation step somewhere?


For the replay bug, I don't know why it happened. I have replayed lots of games without problems. I couldn't find the source of this bug and I asked for support on the developer's forum, with no answer yet

For the other bugs, one is a feature that needs to be implemented and will be in the future, and the others were not raised during all through the alpha.beta testing stages, raised today (21st of November), I will investigate them soon

[Jellby]

There is a rule summary, I know that for doing it myself. Does it not appear to you? Did I miss a validation step somewhere?

Rules summary is language-specific. So having a summary in French doesn't help German speakers.

[harmlesslittleflea]

I just tried all the links for the rules, and they lead either to BGG files section for the game or the rules in PDF format. Where is the broken link you mentionned? Did I miss something?
...

There is a rule summary, I know that for doing it myself. Does it not appear to you? Did I miss a validation step somewhere?

Hello Judge, I recognise your name as the game developer. I'm going to repeat my earlier apology for my tone and further clarify that I was frustrated with BGA again releasing/announcing a game without checking that its tutorial/rules/homepage etc were sorted, it was not intended as a gripe at you or at game developers. (For context, there have been two games recently where the announcement itself referred to a handy tutorial that wasn't actually there. The tutorial had been written but BGA hadn't approved it.)

Sorry, your Imgur screenshots don't appear for me as the site is blocked in my region. But I think I can figure it out by your descriptions:

1. At the time of the game's release, when a user clicked the Learn tab, the button that then appeared on the right was "Read Rules". This button had a broken link, probably because there was no rules summary to display. Now that there is an official tutorial (pault111 wrote one after my first post here), that button has been replaced by a "Play Tutorial" button which works correctly.

2. The "Rules - EN Link" link in the game rules section links to a BGG page that requires a user to log in to that site to download the document - a BGA user without a BGG account wouldn't be able to use it. However, the direct PDF link to the rules at www.bluecocker.com is working correctly with no login required, thanks for that.

3. As of now, there is no Rules Summary showing up for me either on the game's home page or in the 'how to play' tab at the bottom of a live game. Both show a "page not found" error. I don't think this should necessarily be a dev's responsibility, but I do wish BGA would check someone has done it pre-release. Anyway, I'm using the English version of the site, so I understand from Jellby's comment that it may appear differently for French users. I can write one in English if it's still pending when I've learned the game properly.

Thank you for bringing the game to BGA.

[JudgeWhyMe]

Hello

I don't know why the game summary is not available to some players, it might be a BGA issue.

Rules summary is language-specific. So having a summary in French doesn't help German speakers.

The game summary is a direct link to the wiki page, and it is in english, not in french:
https://fr.doc.boardgamearena.com/Gameh ... ersdroides
It might not help German only speakers, but I guess it is the most common language aournd here