A Look Inside WC Saga’s Beta Testing (Part 2)
FROM: Colonel IceFire, TCN ONI
DATE: 2011.24.12
Hello fellow fans! I am back again with another Beta Testing update. This time I will be mentioning some of the progress made to date as well as talking about the “Green Lighting” process.
Beta Testing Progress
The beta testers and the WC: Saga team are as busy as ever as all of the crucial come together.
The latest round of testing takes us into the back half of the WC: Saga campaign featuring both small and large scale engagements. Larger numbers of fighters and sometimes epic capital ship battles are just some of the treats in store.
The increase of scale also means that testing is vital to ensure that the gameplay experience works well. If the player will be called on to make meaningful contributions to every mission and objective and that has to work no matter what is happening in the mission.
The last couple of weeks have seen a new build released to testers including several new missions featuring the Excalibur. The elite Confed heavy fighter is truly a fantastic weapon and players will enjoy flying this space craft when it becomes available. The WC: Saga Excalibur features everything from aim assisted guns to auto-slide and a judicious number of missiles – just what is needed to complete the next set of missions.
A couple of new issues to share since the last update:
- One of the capital ships in the game had a missing floor on an observation deck inside one of the launch bays. Geometry fixed and model updated.
- Your wingman on one of the missions decides not to fire on remaining Kilrathi fighters after achieving a main objective. Problem solved.
- During a convoy escort the Kilrathi tend to ignore some of the transports. The solution was to add some additional bombers to beef up the attack. This will force the player to take action to defend the convoy.
Green Lighting
As testing continues there comes a time when the content has to reach a completed stage. For WC: Saga this process is called “green lighting”. When a mission reaches a certain level of polish then testers check the fine details to look for any lingering problems.
Here are just a few things that testers are checking:
- All objectives are present.
- Wingmen are behaving appropriately to the situation.
- Voice and message text match.
- Autopilot cameras work correctly (i.e. no ships fly through the camera for example).
- The debriefing is correct and matches the end scenario.
- Your wingmen don’t bump into you while taking off.
There are many more hurdles that must be completed before a mission has been fully checked out. Once a mission has passed all of the checks it can be green-lit and considered finished barring any last minute adjustments.
The Saga Continues
Progress continues on WC: Saga as testers continue to fly missions and discover bugs. Sometimes that means replaying the same mission over and over again to expose bugs or take different actions to test the mission outcomes.
That's it for now. Enjoy some great new screen shots and I'll be back with a third update on beta testing progress in the near future. Until then!
-IceFire
Great stuff as always from the Saga Team! I expecialy like the pic of the Jutland Class, that is one sexy ship :-)Before I depart for a few days of skiing, I would also like to wish you guys all the best of luck in the coming year, expecially with the beta testing, and may 2012 bring the final mod release (along with some hard earned rest for the crew)! :-)
Happy 2012!
One thing that really irritated me with any Wing Commander game so far was that in the landing videos you see ships in the hangar, stuff laying around on the sides and the hangar floor has some distinct lighting.
However: when approaching the craft in-game, or when taking off, the in-game model features none of it. The whole deck is equally lit everywhere, the texture of the flight deck floor has very little detail. The floor looks sterilized with no other ships and little (or no) equipment to be seen anywhere. You can make out no holding bays or anything that you see in the cut-scenes. It looks as if ships just appear out of thin air.
This is esp. weird if you have seen the movie, which suggested that there was some kind of force field between outer space and the hangar: thus there would be normal atmosphere inside and always ships and even people standing around on the sides. While the in-game experience actually suggests that there is no such force field, as the hangar deck looks like open space and is (almost) completely empty.
It's not important or anything. But it really gave me a strange feeling about there being "2 worlds". Cut-scenes vs. "in-game reality".
Especially as the hangar deck of your own carrier is about the only part of a ship you ever get to see up close in-game: before and after each and every mission. Ergo: making the effect very noticeable.
But maybe this is just a personal impression or I'm totally getting this wrong.
Anyway: merry Christmas to you. Your team has done a great job! Can't wait to see the results.