Hi Jeremy, That's pretty much what I have discovered as well. By opening the game up to public review and testing I've gotten a lot of feedback on what works and doesn't work and what people like and don't like.
For Instance, in some prior betas I tested out FMOD Ex as a possible replacement for DirectSound on Windows and OpenAL on Linux. That testing showed that the majority of gamers weren't satisfied with the end result because it didn't pan as smoothly or as well as say DirectSound. I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't tested it with the general public and might have licensed it for my engine and released it in v1.0 not knowing my customers' thoughts on the matter. By that time it would have been too late to remove it as FMOD costs hundreds in licensing fees, and after paying that much to use the API it wouldn't be a simple matter to take it out and use DirectSound or something else. So I'm very glad I found out early on that it wasn't going to work, and I didn't have to spend money on licensing it. On the flip side I introduced true analog jumping in beta 18, and while a few people still have issue with it most are at home with it. Especially, Dark and a few other guys who have some vision and play some mainstream console games and are familiar with the concept. So I have found out through testing that analog movement and jumping similar to mainstream games can be done in audio only. Public testing has really given me a clear idea of what works and what doesn't. Cheers! On 8/2/11, Jeremy Kaldobsky <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm close to releasing my 16th beta, and it hasn't even been a month I don't > think. I believe Thomas has the right idea with releasing betas for the > community to give feedback on. This is not only a good way to catch bugs > that show up on different people's systems, but it also allows people to > voice concerns about things he may consider changing or tweaking. I am a > strong believer, that involving the community during development, will lead > to a better product. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
