...they still keep calling everything pre-alpha when it is clearly not pre-alpha. I feel like this is a new way of tempering excitement while also building unwarranted excitement for games.
"This game already looks amazing and it's pre-alpha?! No way! Pre-ordered!"
There's no real consistency on what alpha means. I learned in school (University of Alberta, BSc Specialization in Computing Science) that alpha was when no new features are intended to go into the game. Wikipedia defines alpha as when it is ready for testing (although I consider that outdated, since agile development involves testing from the first day, which would mean the entire project is effectively "alpha"). It also defines pre-alpha as:
Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, and unit testing. In typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete.
I agree with everything except for the first sentence, because agile development specifically negates it - testing starts in earnest before lines of code are even written, starting with defining and reviewing feature acceptance criteria between developer and customer (in my work, usually a producer or designer is the customer) to make sure all parties are clear on what the feature request entails. As the developer iterates on the feature, I provide white box testing to the system to ensure that it's in alignment with what the customer wants, and then provide QA verification that the task satisfies the specified acceptance criteria. The task is considered complete when all parties agree.
This continues and eventually we create "alpha signoff" checklists. I have fellow QA staffers now that are literally creating those lists for their respective scrum groups. Some of them are done, depending on the feature, but for example Luke Barrett is creating the one for Combat with our scrum master/producer (I also work a lot with the combat team - usually the programmers). They do this so we can agree that the features of the game have been implemented and are reasonably working.
We don't spend much time in "alpha" because we'll then transition to beta testing, with the features being feature complete and polish/bug testing being applied. In super rare instances, new features get added/removed, but decisions like that are heavily triaged with the potential risk factors assessed. They are literally approved/rejected by Mark Darrah at that point. In fact, all bugs at this point tend to get approved by senior leads, ensuring that the team is getting the most benefit out of their effort (which means that something that can fix a lot of minor bugs can still be approved if it is done small enough).
The game is definitely still pre-alpha. I know for a fact that we're actually waiting for a code drop from the frostbite time to help with rendering, so it's entirely possible that we'll still see incremental improvements in graphics (which is primarily what was shown off today with the environments). Our goals are to hit alpha soon, enabling us to focus on stability and polish down the stretch leading up into release. So yeah, in that sense it's "not as pre-alpha" as stuff we may show a year ago, and it's certainly closer to "almost done." And we'll have an inclination to show levels that are the most done, so I wouldn't expect a world of difference between what you saw today and what will see at release, but things are still not fully locked in for a lot of things yet.
Retour en haut
