Alpha Testers Need a Dev Console!

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hey! :D

So the alpha is coming out soon, and that's a good thing. I'm almost trembling with anticipation honestly, but there is one problem.

Presumably, Stardock is releasing the alpha to the public so the really dedicated/gullible Galactic Civilizations fans such as myself can tear the game to shreds and point out its every flaw in minute detail and suggest improvements. This will produce, ultimately, a damn fine game if I have anything to say about it (which I do, and I'll be complaining loudly, believe-you me!). This is a great idea, and I'm glad Stardock is pursuing this avenue.

The problem creeps in here; the alpha, strictly speaking, isn't being released for the alpha tester's sake, and it's not supposed to be "good" or "fun" in the traditional sense. It should be a soul-crushing and harrowing experience for everyone involved, and it should be considered a "job" in the sense that we are loosely obligated to help the developers with feedback. To this end, the alpha testers need to be given the tools to examine and properly investigate various mechanics without fiddling around and playing the game to get a convoluted situation in order to test.

I would propose that the alpha release have an integrated development console for inputting various commands and executions. This could do many things;

 

- Enable you to spawn stars, planets, anomalies and other stellar objects.

- Spawn ships, and assign them to the desired teams.

- Build planetary improvements instantly and in unlimited numbers.

- Research specific technologies or all of them simultaneously.

And there would also more technical things you could do for those slightly more knowledgeable;

- Display FPS

- Display file paths for selected items or sequences of items

- Read code lines applicable to whatever you have selected

- Other things a tech illiterate such as myself couldn't hope to understand

 

I feel having this dev console available would allow us to give us better feedback and enable us who are testing the game early to make really good recommendations beyond what we could do before without more extraordinary effort. Any thoughts on this idea?

 

37,605 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I agree, this would definitely let us test more situations and therefor give better feedback.However, I'm already dieing waiting for alpha(P.S. Stardock My birthday is march 3|-) ) and I cant program very well so dont know exactly whats involved, so id say its a good idea but not to waste too much effort

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Given the game would be in alpha a lot of the tools used by developer are usually REALLY rough and generally not suitable for 'general consumption'. They may involve complicated pipelines, or custom tools, or licensed tools that simply can't be made available to users. Or the tools are so utterly obtuse as to be unusable for most people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_%28game_engine%29#Development

An extreme example but gives you an idea as to how weird developent pipelines can be.

Then they'd be supporting both a SDK/toolset and the alpha of the game itself.

It's not a bad idea. but keep your ethusiasm in check. It may not be possible depending on several factors.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'd like to ask for it too however in the form of a trainer more like.  You press the ~ icon and the console pops up.  A command like show_fps could function to show the fps in a situation.  Another command could be spawn_shipname or research_techname (insert ship names or techs) to spawn the ship for testing.  Another option would be to have a hotkey for all research completed.  Spawning planets and stars COULD also be done this way but the alpha testers would need names like they would for the ships.  I am in favor of allowing alpha testers to take advantage of tools in the game BUT when alpha is released and/or the tools are used, DISABLE achievments and in release (assuming you have cheats as a DLC), WARN the user that achievments will be disabled before implementing.  Whatever they decide to release for alpha testers to use, it should come with documentation of what to use in the functions for shipname and if implemented, system formation (that would probably not be a good way to test.  Something like set_planetquality (planet) (x) would be a better way to use it.  Adding a star/system might cause more problems in a alpha leading to a BSOD.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Achievments are not likely to be in the alpha. That's something you'd be working on near the end of the pipeline.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The problem creeps in here; the alpha, strictly speaking, isn't being released for the alpha tester's sake, and it's not supposed to be "good" or "fun" in the traditional sense. It should be a soul-crushing and harrowing experience for everyone involved, and it should be considered a "job" in the sense that we are loosely obligated to help the developers with feedback.

Frogboy seems to disagree with you:

However, this time around, we are striving for the alpha to be playable even though it’ll be extremely limited. But we are going to try to treat each phase of the game’s development as a test of the game’s fun. We are not going to treat it as a painful crapfest (which is what we’ve done in the past with our other games).

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

First I am not sure what language is being used developing the game but I assume C++ and Visual Studio seeing the game will use Direct X 11. There are some tools that I use when I develop programs but those are not very newbie friendly and cost money distributing. Thus the only thing they could do would be to have a game console (as they probably will anyway, atleast in single-play) and add some debug commands to it. Commands to dump the current gamedata to a file, commands to send in crash logs, display gameinfo like fps and so on. The other suggested commands are more like cheatcodes that would be handy to have in the finished single player game.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I use a mouse and don't have a console.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting admiralWillyWilber, reply 8

I use a mouse and don't have a console.

Sometimes I have major difficulty telling if you're serious or not.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This time I'm serious I game with a mouse.

Ok I'm thinking about a console is not a game controller is it. A computer can be a console. Is that the right terms for what you are talking about.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What does playing with a mouse have to do with anything about A dev kit?

 

I think we have a case of not understanding one another here.  With a game console I meant a command window that opens up where you can type in commands. 

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What you mean is cheat codes and diagnostic tools.

"Dev kit" has a specific meaning in game development, and this isn't it.

(Admiral - a console in this case is a box to type commands in to the game, like enabling cheat codes or tools to debug the current game state. It's not a piece of hardware.)

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Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the clarification!

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 12

What you mean is cheat codes and diagnostic tools.

"Dev kit" has a specific meaning in game development, and this isn't it.

(Admiral - a console in this case is a box to type commands in to the game, like enabling cheat codes or tools to debug the current game state. It's not a piece of hardware.)

I have to say, you're always very knowledgeable and quick-to the point Tridus. Much appreciated sir, the thread was updated. 

However, do you have any thoughts on this matter? Your opinion seems more valid than most.

Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'd love to see cheats for things like revealing the entire map. It's much easier to talk about things like the AI behaving oddly if you can see what it's doing. Cheats to speed up the building and research would make it easier to try things out, but can hinder testing the overall game flow. Still handy for testing certain scenarios. 

Most of your list is pretty good, honestly. :) The code lines thing wouldn't help us, though, as we don't have code. Their debug tools would make that available to them. 

We can really make use of multiple auto saves being kept, both for reporting single player bugs and to have on hand in case of a MP desync. Those are super hard to troubleshoot without a save that can reproduce it. (Auto saves aren't a silver bullet for that, but they so help.)

Reply #16 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 15
Cheats to speed up the building and research would make it easier to try things out, but can hinder testing the overall game flow. Still handy for testing certain scenarios.

 

Sorry for off-topic, but I just remember X-Rebirth related discussion. Egosoft (devs) removed SETA (basically "time compression") for some reasons, because there would be no need to use it to shortcut the time wasted on waiting or traveling (BS, actually). Anyway, they couldn't detect flaws in AI behavior... because their testers used time acceleration cheats, to speed process up. I think clapping Joker picture asks to be added. :)

GC-wise, sped-up could probably be achieved via buy-out system, where you get results next turn. It still will be long process, but in case we're afraid of AI misbehavior, it could be safer than instant results. Probably some universal faction, similar to Cities XL Omnicorp could be used to buy tech from them, in case Stardock would implement that feature - to prevent money used on research being redirected to another side in conflict.