Game Development Giant

The conversation with Zhang Lean ended quickly, and in order to avoid suspicion, Jester would not meet with him in the short term. After all, casually participating in such political turmoil was not the right choice for Jester, but When a person does things, it is impossible to always make decisions based on what is right or wrong. He wanted to make Bai Lang as a friend, and his business in the mainland really needed someone to take charge of it, and Bai Lang, who was bound to repay his kindness, was the best candidate. Most importantly, Bai Lang's official relationship in the mainland was also It should not be underestimated, after all, his uncle was once the vice-principal of the party school.

So this time he was impulsive. It might be a little troublesome for him, but he didn't care much. In the United States, there is no trouble that money can't solve.

The rest of the time passed quickly. Although there was so much work that Jester barely had a chance to breathe, he always enjoyed it, watching the game he made being constantly improved and becoming a finished product step by step. Although the content of the game is still mostly plagiarized, it always makes him feel a sense of satisfaction involuntarily.

Jester himself had no interest in this kind of nihilistic satisfaction, but he couldn't help this instinctive reaction. For November, the most interesting thing for him was actually his company's first external alpha test. Many players who had applied for "game" and obtained the test opportunity traveled thousands of miles to California. When looking at the information of these people, it turns out that there are people from Florida and Canada, and there are even a few enthusiastic players from abroad.

This surprised Jester.

This time the test invitation was actually just a gimmick for Jester to spend money to stabilize the sales of "game", so he adopted a strategy of free travel and all-inclusive food and accommodation for the participating players. , of course, the number of people cannot be too large. The second issue of "Game" sold more than 200,000 copies, and the magazine received more than 100,000 letters, and eight were selected from the 100,000 letters for the expression test. One hundred people is a very large workload.

For this reason, his young editor-in-chief complained to him frequently, and said that he would not hold this kind of event again in the future because it was too much effort.

Anyway, all the games currently being produced are intended to be released as soon as possible, and Jester has no plans to engage in any hunger marketing ideas. It’s not that hunger marketing is a bad method, but his main purpose now is to compete with Nintendo for time. , use your time to grab the market, use your works to grab players, rather than whet the appetite of players. If you give up the most precious time in order to whet the appetite of players, it will be more than worth the loss for Jester. This is not the time to whet players’ appetites.

Jester only showed up at the first meeting with these players from all over the world, and told some interesting things about game development, such as sometimes finding a bug during smoke testing, but after fixing it, When I discovered this bug, I suddenly discovered that it could actually be played like this. After getting the unanimous consent of the entire R\u0026D team, the original bug was retained as a formal feature.

Then it’s time to start alpha testing.

The alpha testing of this era is completely different from the testing of various game companies that Jester has experienced in mainland China.

In fact, this word is no different in this era and in the future. The only difference is that there is no systematic process for software testing now. It just varies according to the preferences of the R\u0026D company or R\u0026D personnel. In later generations, , this is already a very complete mechanism. All software will be accompanied by different tests during the development process, especially games, which pay special attention to this kind of test.

Therefore, as far as Jester is concerned, it is understandable that "et", a shitty work that destroyed a company, appeared in this era. After all, pre-release testing of software in this era was very primitive, but later generations can make "et" A game like "Blood Lion" is difficult to understand.

The so-called testing can be roughly divided into three processes based on the mature mechanisms of later generations, which is what Jester is promoting in his own company.

The first is the testing of the development process. This test is called smoke testing. In fact, this cannot be called a test. It is just that during the development process, the developers found a better code that can replace the previously completed part. This new A test to see if there are compatibility issues when the code is embedded into the source program.

This kind of testing basically exists all the time during the development process, and it has nothing to do with functions. It is just a pure code test.

Then, there is alpha testing. This is a bit complicated to say, but to describe it in simpler language is that it is a test conducted in a controlled environment to simulate the usage status of real users. As the name suggests, this process is performed by developers or Friends invited by the developer conduct testing in an environment that can be controlled by the development team.

These people who participated in the test discovered various problems that may exist in the game by simulating how various players play the game, not just bugs. Because it was conducted in a controlled environment, Any problems found can be corrected immediately.

Generally speaking, alpha testing is conducted after the coding of a game has just finished and the developer has completed white box testing. At this time, for a game, it is only 40 to 40 percent completed. The content of Fifty is definitely full of bugs and not optimized properly. Therefore, the game version at this time can be called a semi-finished product. To be more precise, it is a playable semi-finished product.

After the alpha test, there is the beta test. Alpha and beta are the first two letters of the Greek letters. They have no additional meaning except the order of testing. They can be replaced by anything. For example, the alpha test can be called a. Test, call beta test b test, you can also follow domestic customs to call alpha test a test, beta test called b test, this is actually meaningless.

Beta testing is conducted relative to alpha testing. After a game has completed alpha testing and has been modified and improved based on the feedback from the alpha testing, the beta testing is much larger than the alpha testing. In uncontrolled situations environment testing.

It has the same purpose as the alpha test - to further improve the game's mechanics and functions.

The difference is that this version is conducted in an environment that is not controlled by the developer. It truly simulates the process of various users using this game. However, because it cannot be controlled by the developer, problems discovered No immediate changes will be obtained.

The biggest difference between beta testing and alpha testing is here. Alpha testing only simulates reality, while beta testing is a real simulation. It is easier to understand that the alpha testing environment is closed, while beta testing is open under certain conditions. .

After collecting problem feedback from beta testing, the technical testing of a product will end. After final modifications, optimization and debugging, a game that can be released for sale will be officially released.

Due to the limitations of the times and types, there will generally be a process called public beta in later generations of online games. In fact, this has little to do with the perfect production of the game. It is more regarded as a means of marketing and promotion, rather than Can be used as a real test.

Due to the difference in game modes between single-player games and online games, it is impossible to conduct public testing. However, many game manufacturers in later generations will also release demos in advance, that is, game samples. Generally, the process is incomplete, or many game functions are eliminated. The unofficial version is free for players to experience.

Let players try the game before buying it to see if it is worth buying.

For example, in order to increase the sales of "Game", Jester included the demo version of "City of Battle" with the issue. This was actually a very common method in later generations, but in this era, it was a pioneering work. Now Many game companies are also learning from Jester's promotion method. After all, free games are free for players to play.

The candidates who came to participate in the test this time were all senior players selected from a large number of letters from players. Most of these people have their own understanding of many games. Even Jester just flipped through the list. , and discovered many game designers who would become famous in the future.

For example, Rob Pardo, this young boy was very enthusiastic during the meeting. He seemed to have endless questions, and many questions about the game also inspired Jester a lot, making him unable to help but Sigh, it won't be the one recognized as 'all-the-best' by future Blizzard employees.

Although this test is Jester's gimmick, in addition to stabilizing magazine sales, it is also to ensure the popularity of the company when no games are released. However, because there are too many games to be released this time, their own people in the company tested them. However, it is also true, so this time, each game development team also attaches great importance to the reports submitted by these players after testing.

There is no shortage of constructive suggestions, and there is certainly no shortage of more imaginative products.

In the past, they were doing testing by themselves. Because of the small number of people, the scale of the testing was not large enough. There would definitely be many errors and omissions, and there would definitely be many bugs that were not found. After all, games in this era were all burnt cassettes. , something is wrong, it is simply wrong, and it is impossible to fix it through patches like later generations.

The entire testing process is divided into three days, and five or six games need to be tested. For these players, time is still very tight. Basically, there are no other activities except eating and sleeping.

But no one expressed dissatisfaction. After all, those who can come here to participate in the test are all fans who are extremely passionate about video games. They come here just to experience these games that have not yet been released and see if these games are as good as Mars Entertainment’s previous games. Game" is so awesome.

Jester didn't know if these people were all die-hard fans of Mars Entertainment, but he knew that at the meeting where these players first came, they gave him a very warm cheer as soon as he came out, and even There were many people cheering his name loudly, including young and beautiful players.

This gave Jester a sense of accomplishment.

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