Beta Testing - Hidden Hands: The Anomaly

[JackFarmer]

Hello ladies & gentlemen,

HHTA is ready for beta. The mission length is ca. 2,5 hours.

This time, no cryptic clues and no complex puzzles.

For the highly sensitive beta testers, this mission includes

Spoiler

spiders.

So, if you have problems with

Spoiler

spiders

then you probably should not sign up for beta testing.

 

It would be great to have several non-native English speakers (I am neither, as most of you know) as the mission includes lots of spoken comments - none of them essential to finish the game, but practically all of them shall add to the atmosphere...and this mission is more about atmosphere rather than gameplay. Thus we would like to make sure that everybody understands the lines and can enjoy them.

Jack

 

[joebarnin]

Excellent! Sign me up!

[JackFarmer]

@joebarnin

I knew that you would not let me down!

Thank you very much!

 

[ate0ate]

I'd be more than happy to give it a go as well.

[datiswous]

Why didn't you place this in the beta testing section? https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/59-tdm-mission-beta-testing/

Btw. I think it's a shame there aren't larger (like giant)

Spoiler

spiders

available in TDM

Edited April 19, 2021 by datiswous

[JackFarmer]

22 minutes ago, datiswous said:

Why didn't you place this in the beta testing section? https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/59-tdm-mission-beta-testing/

 

Here you can learn more.

 

 

[datiswous]

Ah sorry, I misunderstood. Good to know how it works here.

[Zerg Rush]

I would like to take a look at it

Spoiler

Dark Messiah has more and bigger spiders, no problem

 

[datiswous]

If you need more testers, I could also take a look. I am non-native English speaker, but I think I can read and talk the language very well, so I don't know if I'm enough help in that department.

[JackFarmer]

34 minutes ago, datiswous said:

If you need more testers, I could also take a look. I am non-native English speaker, but I think I can read and talk the language very well, so I don't know if I'm enough help in that department.

Yeah, that would be great. I will send you version 2 once ate0ate posted his/her comments.

[datiswous]

Btw. I peeked into the beta thread (without reading the reports) and you posted this:

Quote

Hm....you have never done beta testing before, right?

What do you expect from a good report? Because I didn't do beta testing before (at least not for TDM), so more info on that subject could be useful.

[JackFarmer]

3 hours ago, datiswous said:

Btw. I peeked into the beta thread (without reading the reports) and you posted this:

What do you expect from a good report? Because I didn't do beta testing before (at least not for TDM), so more info on that subject could be useful.

I dont't have a master plan for that either, but if you try to do it like joebarnin did with the screenshots (and maybe enhance the visibility and name exact locations if not clear to identify), that would be great.

Look out for:

• floating objects
• frobable items that cannot be frobbed or are difficult to frob
• texture glitches
• defective switches
• defectives doors
• weird AI behaviour (running against walls or other items, walking in circles, unable to operate doors, walking to close to walls and other things)
• ambient sound/fx: too loud?
• voices: clear and understandable?

 

Play style:

a. First run: It is a stealth, so try to sneak past all enemies and let me know if there are spots where you did not manage this or where you consider it extremely unfair. Check if the use of resources helps to ghost the mission or not and report if it does not.

b. Second run (if you have time for that): try to break the mission, play like a berserker, do things you should not do in a stealth game (or I did not foresee players could do), see how AI and environments react if you try crazy things, destabilize as much of the environment as possible and report if the results make the game unplayable.

hm...ja, something like that.

I confused Zerg Rush with another long time forum member that has a similar name and thus did expect he knows what to do...don't get me wrong, I am happy that he likes my mission...but this is not really helpful for beta testing.

Edited April 21, 2021 by JackFarmer

[kin]

Any screens to look at? Thanks in advance.

 

[JackFarmer]

6 hours ago, kin said:

Any screens to look at? Thanks in advance.

 

Hello kin,

I think I will release the mission this week. The relevant topic will include screenshots.

Regardng the screenshots: This time with maxed out soft shadows and other stuff as I finally bought a new graphics card!

[kin]

On 4/24/2021 at 11:47 PM, JackFarmer said:

Hello kin,

I think I will release the mission this week. The relevant topic will include screenshots.

Regardng the screenshots: This time with maxed out soft shadows and other stuff as I finally bought a new graphics card!

Thanks.

I use maxed out stencil shadows, in almost all missions curently availiable with a gtx760 (too old card). Had no problems with it.

Got to say that this soft shadow thing makes TDM a new game in the looks.

Edited May 16, 2021 by kin