"Gamestar" Interview with Bernd

[Lyth]

Personally, if my content was used I'd be more likely to be chuffed than upset. YMMV.

And this is why I fear that this is their model.

Egosoft KNOWS any good modder would LOVE to have their feature, or modification implemented into an official release. Because of this, I fear that egosoft's mentality behind it is "Meh, what we don't do they will"

Speaking entirely for myself and the things I want to mod into the game, I can tell you that they went out of their way to make sure many things could not be modded in so afraid that doesn't hold up if they wanted modders to do their work for them.

I suppose you have a point there, but to be fair, it's only a matter of time before the modder get their hands on the more important files.

Egosoft will never release source code, which is what it will take. Rebirth was just never meant to be the game that people want or think it is.

I know where you and most people are coming from, we all share the passion for wanting Rebirth to be a great game and the next generation of the X series, it's just not. It's (to be cruel to kind) a children's version of X.

- Add: This is why I have been harping on and trying to get a head of steam built up for Rebirth 2/X4. This Rebirth is an evolutionary dead end. Only thing I am glad of is the new engine.

[Pharoah]

Personally, if my content was used I'd be more likely to be chuffed than upset. YMMV.

And this is why I fear that this is their model.

Egosoft KNOWS any good modder would LOVE to have their feature, or modification implemented into an official release. Because of this, I fear that egosoft's mentality behind it is "Meh, what we don't do they will"

Speaking entirely for myself and the things I want to mod into the game, I can tell you that they went out of their way to make sure many things could not be modded in so afraid that doesn't hold up if they wanted modders to do their work for them.

I suppose you have a point there, but to be fair, it's only a matter of time before the modder get their hands on the more important files.

Egosoft will never release source code, which is what it will take. Rebirth was just never meant to be the game that people want or think it is.

I know where you and most people are coming from, we all share the passion for wanting Rebirth to be a great game and the next generation of the X series, it's just not. It's (to be cruel to kind) a children's version of X.

Which saddens me more than if this was their business model. Simply because of the potential. But like I've stated, if nobodies given access to that potential that wants to see it truly realized, it's worth nothing.

[Ryan390]

This is what happens when you don't write unit tests..

And / or work in a waterfall style developmental culture.

[BigBANGtheory]

Unit tests serve a purpose for functional testing which tbh Egosoft has always had a good reputation for fixing in the long term.

What I would find more interesting is at what point did testers get an opportunity to feedback on the gameplay?

[Ryan390]

The whole point of unit tests is to create a fast feedback loop, and catch defects/issues early in the life cycle.

EDIT: Actually there are far more benefits to writing tests than just preventing defects.
For example: Emergent design / simpler design, de coupled code,
better separation of object responsibilities, easier/safer re factoring (IMO you can't safely re factor production code if it doesn't have any test coverage) - In fact I'd go as far as to say it's just bad practise..

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This way there are less defects reaching the outer feedback loops(QA, customers/users). Actually, it can catch them before you even release the source code to your integration environment, provided you actually have one and run tests as part of the build configuration..

Of course you still need a good level of integration tests, just to check features end-end are working as expected.
(Outside-in tests or even automated tests)


In the words of Uncle Bob - Tests make you go faster, not slow you down. They allow you to spend less time debugging and fixing issues, and more time on implementing new features.

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If you adopt something like TDD (properly) you will find the quality of your code base vastly improved, and code more de coupled. Not to mention far less defects.

If Bob comes along and changes a line of code, but inadvertently doesn't realise it's just broken some other part of the system somewhere else, who will know about it? (No tests)

When actually, Bob checks in his source code, the unit tests run as part of the build, and the unit test that covers the external section of code that's broken, now fails. (With tests)

This way, you have stopped it reaching QA, or even worse, slipping through QA and into live.

[Nanook]

Old information in an old thread. And now it's dead.