beta testing

[supagu]

Im working on my first indie game:
http://www.blackcarbon.net/explosive/index.php

and its multiplayer so im at the stage where i need to do some serious beta testing of multiplayer and what sort of pc my game works on.

Any ideas on how to go about this. The thing is i need to organise some planned multiplayer games so i can be in there to resolve any issues as they occur

How do you go about this? any one with experience here?
Also if your intrested in helping out let me know.

[supagu]

no one does product beta testing? surely this cant be!

[Dan MacDonald]

A long time ago when I was doing some network programming I would load the server on a remote machine and then run several clients on my dev machine using a packet sniffer to observe the traffic. This would probably be more difficult for you since your clients look graphically intensive and may slow down if you run several copies windowed.

A lot of people here do beta testing, but beta testing a multilayer game is a specific type of testing problem and not one that too many people here have to tackle.

[Cartman]

I think a lan party type situation may work for you. Have your friends and their friends bring different machines over. Hook them up and walk around the room taking notes of problems, observations, and game behavior. You'll get lots of data.

Provide free pizza and beer.

We had the guys who created Trash and Land of Legends over at one Lan party. I think it was beneficial for them.

[MrQ]

Lan party is definatley a good idea. I would also setup a testing forum on your site and try and get a team of friends and testers to play regular games after each build is released. post feedback and bugs on the forum.

The last mp game I worked on we used an ingame bug system that let people type the bugs in chat with a prefix that would be logged straight to our bug tracking system. Very handy for mp testing.

[supagu]

well im setting up a forum, but im wondering where i should adversise the beta, i'll probably make it a closed beta as i think if it were open beta people would just download it just to try it then not contribute.

[MrQ]

Yeah probably a good idea to get a team for closed testing. I would be happy to help, but I'm located in Australia so timezones may be a problem. The game looks cool, reminds me of bomberman.

[supagu]

eheheh I'm Aussie so no problems with time zone ;)

heres a link to the news thread:
http://www.blackcarbon.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4