You are right, but the thing is, this mode only seems a good idea because their internal beta is not working properly, otherwise it would not be necessary at all, but an entire DLC missing from PS4 clients for some days?
And the recent rocket/ railgun exaggerated stats ?
It might have something to do with the Pandemic…but it´s not some minor bugs .
As a (web) developer myself I thought about the update cycles of this game a lot lately. I know that web development cannot be compared to game development even by a long shot. But some general things apply on both.
Development cycles are one of those things in my opinion.
As development tasks are different for different targets, tasks are prioritized according to their importance and development time required to reach the targets. Usually new features take the longest time while feature expansion is usually less time consuming and bug fixing is the one that has varying time requirements depending on the bugs.
When it comes to priority, bug fixing always has high priorities. While some bugs may have less significance most bugs usually have a high priority and therefore are fixed prior to feature development or at least get more attention then the latter one in the same time frame.
One (and usually the last part) of development is the deployment. Features are deployed when they’re tested and cleared for deployment. One may set a date for release for features and deploy them accordingly. This is usually an internal process definition.
When it comes to bug fixing it is common that the fix is released when the bug is repaired and this is confirmed by tests.
I urge you, the project management, to reconsider your deployment cycles. While new features may take months and therefore the release can be adjusted to an internal deployment process. I think bug fixes should be released way more often then new features or feature improvements.
My suggestion is, after an update there should be a hotfix one week later and an additional hotfix if necessary after one or two more weeks. Then you can develop as long as you want/need on features, feature improvements or content upgrades (DLC, more regional features etc.). I think nobody needs features every month but wait for a month (or longer) to have some bug fixes applied is somewhat unnerving.
P.S.: My development and deployment experiences come only from web development and may be not totally appicable. Since English is not my mother tongue it is possible I did not express my thoughts as I would have wished.
but there is one thing and so far i know (Correct me if I am wrong) its only for consoles players important but still i want you to know that the Devs need to pay for every update they do for consoles players
sorry for the confusion i fix my mistake
someone that is in charge for that from Xbox or sony i guess
Do you have a source for that? I didn’t find anything for PS4 but for XBOX I found this.
What will it cost me?
There are no fees to apply to ID@Xbox, to submit a game to certification, publish, or update your games. There is a very modest one-time cost associated with development for the Universal Windows Platform.
Source: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/id (General Frequently Asked Questions section)
Console games need a certification process - the developer has to submit their patch, then the patch is certified. Sony is pretty fast on turnaround, but Microsoft takes a week or so usually.
Steam doesn’t require a certification process, so the developers could update Generation Zero whenever they like - it may just be they don’t feel like having one platform have instant hot fixes and another platform on a different version.
But keep in mind, even in a worst case scenario, if the console patch and the pc patch drop on the same day, it means the pc patch was actually ready about a week or more earlier - it just was not released to pc players.
i wish the devs would have watch this before releasing GZ
I don’t know about PS4 but I read, that Xbox certification process can take up to one week. This is surely not good.
For the sake of the argument just say the GZ team would push patches as soon as their ready to the different platforms. Since there is no cross play this wouldn’t mean players from different platforms couldn’t play together. They can’t even if they had the same patches/updates.
So wouldn’t it make sense to release patches as soon as they’re ready and gain instant response from PC players (and PS4 if the certification process is faster there) which could lead to earlier additional bug fixes?
The whole 1-week-delay for every update sums up a lot if there is a 1 week gap between patch completion and release. The whole development > patch completion > patch release > development … cycle would be vastly improved without any delay in my opinion.
Hello developers!
I want to be a beta tester/bug-hunter, and i guess that there are others on the forum who also would like to contribute.
There are a number of reasons why this would be a good idea for you as a company, and from what i understand, there is already a mechanism for this in Steam.
I think it would also provide a better experience for the general gamers, since they would be spared most of the game-breaking bugs that sometimes slip thru your own quality control (probably because of limited time for testing).
If there were a beta-period before the updates go live, many of the obvious bugs would be found, giving the developers a chance to release a better, more stable and properly tested update/dlc, witch would in turn increase the game quality for the general public.
I have already paid for the game, have no intentions of recieving any freebees and im willing to sign a NDA, even tho it wouldnt be neccesary in my case(integrity is my blood and bones). Also, i speak swedish…
A private section on this forum could suffice as a feedback/bug-report channel, to keep beta content away from public eyes.
So outsource your bughunts to allow the developers to concentrate on the development.
And finally, if you dont want my help for free, i may be able to accept a per-found-bug-based fee of femti öre!
There is already a closed beta for testing upcoming content. Though I don’t know the number of actual active testers. It’s good of you to offer help with it though, my advice is to message @Avalanche_Pontus, the Community Manager about it, see what he has to say.
Merged several topics where people have offered their help for testing unreleased content (to iron out bugs) in one form or another.
//Mod
I always send in my reports in the hopes it does make a difference. I don’t ask for daily thank yous, but access to a super secret alpha or beta of machines to take a peek would be nice.
It’s like a curse though, because you’d be legally bound to not tell anyone about it. The devs put their trust in beta testers to keep future content up to snuff, but also secret and hush-hush
How far in advance did you get to Beta test… prior to the 23rd release on Steam
Eh. I can keep a secret. Knowing the secret > gossip.
And for that reason alone, devs can’t put out public beta testing. Even when devs announce that they are looking for new beta testers, 90% of the people, or even more, would apply just to see new, yet to come content, rather than helping out with testing.
Even if you get selected as one of the beta testers, you’ll have to sign NDA and if you happen to leak upcoming content, they can and most likely sue you.
Of course, that isn’t all. Being a tester is tedious since you have to test one specific part over and over, without any enjoyment of the game. And create in-depth and detailed bug reports as well.
If you want to try your hand on being a tester, testbirds .com is one such crowdtesting site for additional income.
I, personally, wouldn’t mind being a tester for GZ, as long as i don’t get to see new content in the game. Since i, for one, don’t want to spoil my surprise. I can do current mechanic testing but i figure that upcoming content testing is the main part of the testers.
I wouldn’t mind getting involved with the beta testing. I created a few maps for Unreal Tournament III. Covering every einch of the map is…time consuming lol. Agreed on the spoilers, though. Playing what you tested/crafted can make you think more of its inner workings than the actual enjoyment of the game.
I consider bug-reporting ‘helping’ in a sense. I’m just under the impression that it takes an inordinate amount of time to get them fixed. I think I’d appreciate if some dev team members would occasionally chime in with a ‘yes we can’, ‘that’s odd’ or ‘wontfix’ - it’d at least set a baseline understanding of priorities.

I think I’d appreciate if some dev team members would occasionally chime in with a ‘yes we can’, ‘that’s odd’ or ‘wontfix’ - it’d at least set a baseline understanding of priorities.
Watch weekly dev streams. From there, you can see devs pitching in and explaining their priorities;
link: https://www.twitch.tv/generationzerogame/videos?filter=archives&sort=time