CBT 3

Revision as of 13:43, 16 November 2010

The third Closed Beta-Test was the period between OBT 2 (Late 2008) and OBT 3 (August 15, 2009). During this private session, one had to ask cvet (developer of FOnline engine and of FOnline: The Life After) to be granted to play the game and see the game forums (located on www.fonline.ru at this time). Note that even if it was the third closed test of the FOnline engine, it was the first closed beta test of FOnline: 2238.

Setting

During OBT 2, three servers were available for players, but all the three with the same content, commonly known as vanilla FOnline, which would later become FOnline: The Life After. In the end of the beta test (December 2008), the rotators raised and created their own server with cvet's help, called factions mod. Among the players that decided to join the CBT when OBT 2 ended, most of the Russian testers went on the mostly Russian server vanilla, and most of the English-speaking testers went on factions mod - the future FOnline: 2238 whom developers were speaking English.

We will now focus on FOnline: 2238's view of CBT 3.

Testers

Initial commitment

When OBT 2 ended, there was an announcement about OBT 3, that would take place "next summer" (2009). By then, most of the players just thought that they would come back six months later to play FOnline again. However, a lot of players couldn't just stop the game so fast and decided to join CBT, for different reasons: the will to help the first real multiplayer Fallout game and the will to keep playing it. A huge amount of these testers had been greatly addicted by FOnline during OBT 2 and really couldn't stop playing it as violently.

January 2009, the first CBT month, was more like an OBT (with lessen server population) than a CBT. Most of the testers were just keeping playing as they had done during OBT 2.

The weariness and the following routine

After a few months, maybe even in early February 2009, the majority of testers went weary: they had enough of playing FOnline with only few players, or they realised the development of a new game was a long work. One by one, most of them stopped connecting to FOnline or posting in the forum, and remained unseen until OBT 3 in the best cases.

With only a few players left, the changes were made more often; only committed testers posted in the forum and were able to perform accurate tests. During months a routine was followed, with changelogs, tests and bug reports, until August 15, 2008.

Testers list

(to be updated later)

Development steps

During CBT 3, the rotators created a brand new game; they had to chose a name, to create a website - at first, a blog - and of course to bring new contents and to fight the new bugs brought with this new content! A major part of the developers work in the first time was to translate the game from Russian to English. During OBT 2, the only non-Russian texts were those from the Master.dat file from the players, like the name of the different attack modes and the interface (Skills index, character sheet, etc.). Bringing the game into English was then very important and above all very long.

Developers also implemented new features; the first huge new feature was the introduction of faction bases. A lot of new dialogues, characters and quests were also released. It is also during CBT 3 that town control, crafting and factions systems were implemented, and when the Fallout 1 towns (southern part of the map) were introduced.

Activities

Developers, as written above, coded new features, imported new graphics, wrote game manual, translated texts and fixed bugs.

Testers played the game, testing factions system for example, but also crafting system, town control, skills, weapons balance, safety level of guarded towns, strength of different NPCs, reputation system, etc