"If I were a Civ3 beta-tester, the first thing I'd do is..."

yin26 · February 19, 2001, 05:46

[Preliminary steps...]
A. Call work Monday morning and tell them I have a strange 125-hour virus that can only be cured by staying at home with the phone disconnected.

B. Call the week after and request vacation time.

[First thing after that...]
1. Test Civ3 for an infinite-ranged missile. (If you don't know what I'm talking about or why that would be the first thing I look for, don't worry. The people at Firaxis know.

)

PLEASE NOTE: Contrary to my wishing otherwise, this post is NOT a hint to a public beta. Though many a wise man has said that to do it, you must first think it!

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited February 19, 2001).]

Jeje2 · February 19, 2001, 08:35

... buy myself a new computer

(Firaxis is proud of making games that don't need the newest, fastest components, but my old CPU is running very old and I'm waiting for Civ3 before updating. Currently I have no need to update

)
[This message has been edited by Jeje2 (edited February 19, 2001).]

Grumbold · February 19, 2001, 10:22

...install the game

Then I'd try and work out how you get any kind of missile in 4000 BC, shrug and found my first city. If it takes me 24 hours to remember to phone into work to explain why I haven't been there, I know Civ III will be a smash even if there are some bugs

The diplomat · February 19, 2001, 10:52

First, I would check that the game loads properly. Then, I would check for the obvious bugs like crashes, buttons not working, dissapearing gold etc...
Last, I would test the AI. I would see how it attacks and how it defends. I would try to find any instances where the AI does something really stupid. I would also take a look at the how the AI behaves in diplomacy.

Hey, Yin, are you sure this thread isn't a secret firaxis interview to recruit beta testers?

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

Zealot · February 20, 2001, 01:22

First, I yould make a sexy dance to turn my computer ON. Then, it warms up. Then, I "insert" (load) the CD's data into my PC's RAM. Well, after that is just plaaaayng all night long!!!

Sabre2th · February 20, 2001, 01:37

You paint a colorful picture, Zealot. After I installed the game, I would drop out of school, quit my job, and play civ3 for about 4 weeks straight.

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"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-Thomas A. Edison

Theben · February 21, 2001, 03:47

I'd call up all my friends and gloat.

Biddles · February 21, 2001, 07:59

Touche.

Henrik · February 21, 2001, 14:29

I'd stay home from school and not leave my computer untill the game was released.

I would ofcourse spend the rest of my days (atleast untill the relise) enyoing playing/breaking/beating the game.

Boracks · February 21, 2001, 19:19

When the beta CD arrived in the mail, I'd make two pots of coffee and tell my wife not to wait up (the mail arrives around 9:30 A.M.).

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"Treat each day as if it were your last. Eventually, you'll be right."

February 21, 2001, 20:00

*sigh*

Save every turn. Take out pen and paper, note any bug I came across. Try to see if the bugs are reproducable. Note down all reproducable bugs. Once those are ironed out by the nth beta release, I'd start doing extreme things like ICSing forever with all opponents turned down, playing on a map with no land except single-dot islands, etc. Writing out detailed reports from my notes about the reproducable and non-reproducable bugs.

I'm not a biggie on judging game features, though... Not strategy-savvy enough, I guess.

Shadowstrike · February 21, 2001, 22:36

Call school and tell them of a long term vaction. Manage to get back on graduation day. Then disappear again.

Move into room in Silicon Valley. Buy fridge. Lock all doors. Do nothing but play, eat sleep and recording bugs for the next 2 months.

Cyclotron · February 22, 2001, 01:07

Good grief... It sounds like releasing Civ3 would take down the world's economy due to massive amounts of poeple leaving their jobs... I can just see the headlines now:

STOCK MARKET TAKES NOSE DIVE
CEOs say "no workers left after Civ3 release"

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

The Viceroy · February 22, 2001, 04:57

Oh I think Firaxis surely wouldn't give me the beta .. as the first thing id do is stress my CPU to 100% and start the game

..

Important to beta it on the min spec and lower .. Im developing software which originally we thought would be min spec P166 64Mb ram (NT4.0) .. got it running happily on a P75, 16Mb

... Its saved us Millions in replacing 1600 workstations

In terms of Civ3 .. acheiving a workable game on a low spec = £££ millions $$$ .. as it allows more people to buy the game, who don't want to upgrade.

OK .. other stuff to test for, Screen resolutions, different Graphic cards, Key pressing (I let my 7mnth old hit the keyboard and see if any key combo's like ALT-SPACE, throw the game into the background and mess the colours up etc.. Play music with WinAmp and block the sound card before I start up the game !! ha ha .. pull the CD out and odd points, and see if it crashes, or requests it back again ... (you can tell I support mission critical software, "MUST NOT FAIL" is my middle name)..

Can the software recover if your in the middle of a network game and the comms goes down ?? Save & load, Save & load, Save & load ... see if anything happened ??

Then finally, once convinced that the game is crash proof ... I will play the game, and test out all combinations of events .. Ticking them off as I go along, making sure everything does what it says it will, and looking for the predictable nature of the AI ... to see if its rule based AI ..

Well, its a nice dream .. im pretty sure Firaxis can happily carry out all the tests we suggest..

My advice to them is .. play CTP2 for a night .. it will focus your minds to what happens when testing isn't properly carried out.

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN ... YOU PLAN TO FAIL ...

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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon

tniem · February 24, 2001, 17:03

"If I were a beta-tester, the first thing I'd do is..."

Thank my lucky stars. Then I would play one game straight through to get the feel for the game. After that, I would attempt every possible strategy I can think of. Try anything I can think of to have the game crash. And play, play, play. Each time getting closer to my goal of filling up two notebooks of bugs.

"If I were to buy the game months before it was expected to be released, the first thing I'd do is..."

Thank my lucky stars. Miss the next month of school. Play the game straight through for a week. Come to Apolyton to talk about my experiences. See the doctor to get rid of the flu that I have come down with now that I am not getting any sleep. Write to my Senator to outlaw anyone attempting to make a Civ IV...

Father Beast · February 26, 2001, 17:43

I think I would play a perfectionist game, just to see how different the gameplay is. see if the settler cheat works, while I'm there. send some camels and make some notes about differences between trade routes, see if it affects my science rate, etc.
try an OCC game next and crank it way, way, up!

not cry too much when it crashes, just report it and try again, after all, I'M PLAYING CIV III!!!!

Father Beast · February 26, 2001, 17:50

actually, if I were serious, I would go over to the Great Library, get mings big, big list of cheats, and that compilation of ways the ai cheats and start documenting.
see if I can still do xin yu's trick for transforming a square in one turn.

Truth is, if I were seriously doing this, I would spend a LOT of time at the Great Library. people have seriously played civ2, and some outstanding stuff is there.

but first... I would go down the EC3 list and see what made it.

airdrik · February 26, 2001, 18:01

I'd wish they hadn't sent it to me because I have no time and no computer to play it on

.

If I had a computer and the time to play it...

OmniGod · February 26, 2001, 20:49

I'd crash it... complain... get an update... and crash it again... bring it on

Steve Clark · February 27, 2001, 12:40

First thing?.....to check which scenarios I can load and test and how I can get Capt Nemo to create custom Civ3 units to play with.

Sirotnikov · February 27, 2001, 14:04

I would fire up the must-have WWII scenario and play it as Germany.
See if it is a fun as playing germany in the Civ 2 scen.

Taliseian · February 27, 2001, 19:41

The first thing I'd do is.....

READ THE F'N MANUAL (If the beta ships with one, of course)

After that, check the install to insure it installs.

Then, play and play and play and play...noting any abnormalities then sending a big long email (or fax or whatever is necessary) to Firaxis to help them make the absolute best Civ game ever.

If Civ3 is even half of what I've read about on the boards, I'll be playing it for quite a while....

Taliseian

March 1, 2001, 00:41

Just play the game and have fun playing it.

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tniem · May 9, 2001, 18:01

Been a while since this thread was responded to. Thought there would be a few of you out there that would like to say a few things. Boy oh boy do I wish I was a beta-tester.

BeBro · May 9, 2001, 18:12

- pray to God that this is not a dream

- then, if the CD still appears real, then I would make a copy of it, and put the original in a holy shrine, next to the Sid Meier statue

... oh, and yes, I also would play the game...

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Civ2000 hosted by CivII Universum

EnochF · May 10, 2001, 16:31

Play for about a week: First play once through, to the end, on a normal random map. Then start a bunch of brief games, including several small island and water maps.

At the end of the week, I'd start fooling around with the text files. Then I'd send them my version of the text files, with a little note saying, "Just a suggestion."

I'd also spell-check their work. There were errors all over the place in the Civ 2 files, ditto with Alpha Centauri.

"Generousity"?

DrFell · May 10, 2001, 17:25

Consider myself lucky. Reserve a few weeks for civ3 playing using whatever means necessary

Install the game, look for bugs in the installer. Try as many ways as I can think of to crash the game especially using the cheat menu (the game hasn't been made that can withstand my crashing attempts

). Play a few games on a random map, with the lowest, highest, and 'average' no. of civs. Look for obvious loopholes/bugs in the program (e.g. something like incremental rushbuying in civ2).Test all difficulty levels, make sure Deity (or whatever it is) is hard enough to get me killed on the first go, but is possible to win, and make sure Chief is easy enough for me to win on the first go.

Try out more extreme cases i.e. odd maps etc. Look for super wonder/improvement combinations that seem unbalanced. Look at how the AI civs do in my games... make sure one civ doesn't consistently jump far into the lead while the other civs get left behind, for example, or make sure the AIs can't be easily tricked/crushed by my huge military. Look for agression in the AIs, if they never attack you or poorly defend their cities then there's a problem. Make sure all the ways of winning work.

Send off my 100-page bug report to Firaxis. Sleep.

Sabre2th · May 10, 2001, 20:24

1. Die of excitement.
2. Inspect the game for game-stopping bugs.
3. Play for 13 days straight.

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"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-Thomas A. Edison

Russian King · May 11, 2001, 09:30

If i was a civ3 beta-tester, the first thing i would do is...
Test the damn game!

LOL

Comrade Tribune · May 13, 2001, 16:49

I would closely study the manual for a method to beat their supposed ICS-solution with a new modified ICS-expansionist strategy, invent that strategy, then go about beating the game with it, because they have still not fixed ICS, they just THINK they have...

Half-joking, just want to scare You a little, because everybody has been so over-optimistic lately...