Unity to swtich to from doing close alpha/beta to doing open alpha/beta

I think Unity should switch from doing closed alpha/betas to doing open alpha/betas.

lots of companies do it. and more more being done. for number of reasons. from lowering how much money they have to spend of their own money on risky development before selling it (since they charge for it) to getting people involved and using with what they are doing and away from competition (hey if they involved in yours likely they not using that other guys), plus make it available to people to help them shape what gets created (hey if they like what u did and how u did it they will more likely buy it)

Basically come up with bug / suggestion reporting system that you make available on the web for these betas. All public look how BIS did Arma 3 anyone could get the alpha/beta (small charge) and then they had website were you could report bugs/suggestions and vote on it (they had final say) and it worked pretty good...

It brings people in it gets them involve it helps u shape the development, it give feedback, again the bug/suggestion reporting system it really controlling the flow of things since it will all be there all public

i mean lots of people working on games using unity and some of those people would really like to gain access to unity 4.6/5 to use the new gui or to use the new features that are coming alone

also some people would like to gain access to learn them or to help shape them. and again the bug / suggestion report system is where they can go... im not talking about the current unity bug / suggestion system this one would be tied to a specific release. like 4.6 beta and people could report bugs they find there. people would be asked to provide like sample project that reproduce the bugs so its not just reprot the game crashes. you have to have a crash dump and a reproducible case all be bundled. it could be done by multiple people so one person reports the crash another gives more feed back like enters a crash report and another submits a reproducible case and people would vot on it the more votes the more it bubbles up

look at BIS site for Arma 3 i think it worked very well would be nice if unity went this way. oh by the way u can charge for it. why not charge for early access. I mean go to steam lots of stuff coming out early acces and them making money on it that goes to help with the development, i mean the investors would love it if they didnt have to fund so much of it up front (if u have investors) reduces risk, plys another way to reduce risk is to get people involved in shaping it cause if they got what they wanted in the way they wanted it more chances they would use it...

anyways i hope Unity will consider making all future alpha/beta open and come up with public website to control reports of bugs/ suggestion tied to specific alpha/beta

 

I don't think Alpha should be released, but beta I'd agree with. It seems after releasing a new version a whole load of new bugs come out of the wood works, you can't beat an expansive array of testing platforms and games.

 

Why new threads for these things instead of using the official one asking for feedback on specifically this kind of thing?

 

excellent question. cause i think this topic is so very important and i believe that it stands on its own worthy of being discussed and seen, it will get lost in that thread.. it is so important especially in light of what i saw today in video of 4.6 gui they just posted. i was so excited with the ui video that i said its like wrong not to get it the thing out to people even in as alpha/beta cause of people puttjng so much of their time money and effort using existing ui. because i felt that if u doing game that is not going to ship in a while and u going to be developing it for sometime to come u must switch to 4.6 u cant wait to start learning it to start playing around with it and mastering it. because the existing ui is hard to use compared to new ui, cause existing ui is not intuitive to use as new ui, cause existing ui looks awerful when looking at new ui and so many other reasons why new ui is so important to get ones hands on over having to continue to put a penny more of time and effort over new ui. so people who not shipping today,still in development i honestly think once they get their hands on new ui will dump existing ui and i cant see how they will keep using existing ui. because once u see the new ui, once u see what it can do, and when u see how easy it is to do things, how intuitive, how rich, how powerful, and once u think oh my god look at all the time and effort and money ive spent to date on existing and just how sad it is vs new ui. one would think i cant believe it. so i dont see how people dont need a way to get beta. so unity should honestly consider getting 4.6 in people hand in beta form. its just that improtant. its like the most important thing. its giant thing. i mean so big. u cant imagine just how much time i myself have spent on ui, ui is so important. and i still have tons of work to do on it. and i can only think of so many others out there like myself. so its like why have us all killing ourselves with existing ui when the beta is out there. even if unstable even if we cant release we could be learning it mastering it moving forward and not going in circles with current ui. i mean the current ui is bad, very bad, its like nothing ive really want to ever use again... honestly and ive done ui engines from scratch...

and same for unity 5 and going forward. i mean microsoft gives way to get early access cause it helps people come up to speed quicker on new os and dev tools and even office and it gives them feedback. its not forced just put link with md5 no support and email address to submit bugs/suggestions.

i honestly want to start using new ui. but there could be thing in 5 that if i had access to it just for playing around with it i could be learning all the new stuff more quickly so when it does finally get released im ready and running and infact most likely already using in my game.. and others i think would feel the same way. would have the same needs.

also unity have to lead not follow. and leading mean get it out there and go with what people feedback it. people if they are involved and put time and effort and money are not going to go elsewher cause they got what they wanted and they saw it happend and they were part of it. so if they are involved with ui or with shaping some aspect of 5 or in learning it and providing feedback and seeing those things as they are done they will be using it and licensing it and not the competition who did not play. u have to let people play. microsoft, does and so do many other companies. people want and have need to be part of it. even if tiny part, even if their part didnt really make difference in itself. but they are in that ecosystem not other... so unity should be driving unreal/steam/crytek nuts, not unreal,crytek,steam driving unity nuts...

i say make it all open, have website to manage it, and lead the charge... make the headlines, have the buzz happening party here... not reading about it at that other club... make this the club people want to go to. unity free / pro is great, but people wont hear about it or even know about it if u dont put it in their hands in front of them everywhere. alpha/beta access does that. putting it on steam does that. they need someone to hit the forums and everytime they post unreal/crytek post hey but did u know that is like c++ nightmare and unity has c#/javascript easy to use. i mean i dont see it i see crytek/unreal being buzzed and pricing of them and access to them.. it does not cost much to make it early access to all and put press release)

 

And do you think breaking the rules of the forum will make them more or less likely to take your suggestion?

 

what rule(s) did i break when i created this thread...

i did not see a thread that discussed

"Unity should swtich to from doing close alpha/beta to doing open alpha/beta"

should now everything be merged into their thread.. this is good enough of a topic for its own discussion...

should we put it all now in "How Can We Serve You Better?" i hope not since then u have like thread that has multiple discussions going on its a thread of threads. hard to follow a single discussion... so there is lots of stuff happening in that thread. this one is good enough i think...

they should create a forum area just for How Can We Serve You Better and it could have lots of thread on each of the ways they could server us better...

 

who knows. they did start making unofficial releases available... i mean i did see a thread from unity with a link to a release that you could not get off the download page off the mean website it had number of things in it that 4.3.4 did not have and if they could do that they could do 4.6 and even 5.

and here they been doing public stuff since like 2012
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/126769-Public-testing-of-the-Unity-3-5-1f1-WebPlayer

so they are doing some stuff like this.. why not do it for 4.6/5 cause of new ui and of new things in 5. honestly people need to start moving to new ui no reason to write one more line of code in old ui

 

im looking for thread they did the other day...


here is old one i found on Unity 4.0 Public Beta
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/156937-Unity-4-0-Public-Beta

but they did one like week ago about like 4.3.5 or some strange released and that is one im searching for but the search feature and looking to lots of thread take time...

plus the thread order is like last post not by date created so i gets lots of very old posts with some post that bubbles it up ....

 

wow thanks so if they could do that they could do 4.5/5 cause they want to get it into people hand so they will start learning / mastering it and using it (better than alternative they continue using existing ui or worse go to compeition)

 

i dont think new gui will be removed and/or change all that much. its basically done deal i would think and just ironing out the bugs... perhaps they are not geared to have alpha/beta open to public. but i think they should restructure themselves to do so as quickly as possible. from having a website where public could posts their bugs/suggestions for a release that is being worked on to having the public have access to the daily builds or even periodic builds, to having documentation and other stuff all working this way so its hot off the grill, not cold left overs...

the benefit is that you start marking money on it earlier, so u reduce number of risks of doing something new. u dont have to put so much of your money upfront into it. you also get buying / involvement earlier better you than the competition and u get benefit of feedback virtuous cycle not just echo chamber of your handpick friends and like minded, kiss of death...

also it switched power from when someone gets access. right now unity makes that determination by doing an official release. this way developers make the choice when they want to start using a technology. they could wait when its stable and perhaps be left behind or they can risk it get involved in lets say the new ui and benefit / reap the rewards from being early adapter by delivering a game with better interface that could potentially require less work and make more sales cause it looks nicer and and make more money caue it tooks less of an effort, made more sales so cosst less to develop so even if not more sales u made more since it cost less.. by giving early access unity shifts and empowers the consumer the users in thsi game the game developers and perhaps gains some more who want the new ui over what compeition offer. so u beating competion to market on things instead of making them wait long time and perhaps competition beats u n u have to sell at lower price if sell at all...

also normalt release should be for production code. not for development. if someone has project not being in production anytime soon why not use the latest that may result in less effort and being done better way and being able to produce a better product. i mean the new ui just taking that without any of unity 5 is definitively worth jumping on cause u will be able to deliver a better ui, less effort and cost. so its no brainer. i would think unity should get it out early open access make sure everyone on it. that can be on it. dont make decision for them let them make the decision. lots of time between beta and production that people could be safely on. perhpas it may not be stable enough to be able to do full development but with like new ui there is time needed to learn and master it to be able to play even with a beta its well woth the ttime even if all the examples dont work or no examples exists it still time on it that shrinks the time to master it even if not abel to fully use and people should be able to use it early access even before release and with some bugs. at some point it really dont change all that much ui api will just be needing bug fixing and documentation and people could be using it at that point every easily for those who know c# u know u can find api even without documentation u have good guess u can look at all the public name spaces, clases, attributes, properties, constructors, methors and play with them... so time to master is reduced. and u can provide feedback if u find bug that votes on which bugs more people find. better to do it this way than u do release and then people find the bugs that they most hit... and they dont provide the mass feedback that is needed to know what apis should be like else u end with api that are less than useful where u have like add but no remove and then everybody complaingi where is remove.. cause dev did not think they needed to have remove cause clear was good enough, but they didnt figure out how people were going to really be using it. im not saying add/remove but i think people understand when u look at some of the api u say oh my god they forgot this how obvious... so it helps shape what becomes public api and how it functions and which bugs everyone hits and must be fixed before release so release is better...

but i dont discount that others may feel differently. or that this may not be possible in short term. still management should explore all options. this being just one of them...

(and thanks superpig for the link that was the one i was looking for)

but if they could do it for unity 4 open beta access there is hope for 4.6 / 5 they stuff have to get off their duffs and make the decision to stop delaying and put their hats in the ring...

sure apis could change, sure documentation could be better and people who play with latest and greatest should know that.. but professional programmers are not babies or children that need coddling/ protecting from shifting tectonics and api changes should not be problem. since if after all people can be developing device drivers for hardware while microsoft is developing the device driver interface, surely this is a piece of cake.. i mean when u crash on alpha / beta os wen developing device driver for new hardware now that is a mess. u have no idea is it the board that has some issue, or perhaps the new chips is where the problem is or what about the new os that is still in alpha with new device driver interface that is still not debugged or properly documented or even the device driver that is being developed. even with an hardware ice its no fun.. so this cant be that bad. the way to manage is have some website where it can all go in an be voted on and have anyone who wants the risk / reward have access and make some money off of them. microsoft msdn costs, so do all those games on steam early access. sure its less expensive then going out and buying it when it gets released and sure they give u access to the releases, but u get to be part of it and u get to help shape the tools u will need or the game u want to play and the companies gets some money to pay for development and gets feedback to shape the software for their customers..

 

Agree. If there were public betas, you would have tons of YouTube videos "shining light" on new stuff :mrgreen:

Yet, if you have some space left, taking some voluntaries in your closed-beta testing may be a nice idea.
People working with passion tend to do a good work.

 

Just listening to less people is hardly a *democratized* way of solving the poor quality of bug reports. At my last company, we got a lot of success by having a very fast bounce-back process, reviewing bugs very quickly and bouncing them back to reporters as Incomplete for the slightest infraction.

Generally, the sooner you respond, the more able and willing the reporter is to either provide the missing report content or concede to closing the bug.

 

This is such a tough subject. On one hand I do see im's point and there are additional reasons. For example, the 4.3.3 release broke my asset for Windows Phone due to Unity trying to add things to Windows Phone that already existed (*ahem* I believe I tried telling one of your developers that WinRT on Windows Phone was not the same as Windows Store Apps) and 4.3.4 did not fix it (it's finally fixed in 4.5).

For that very reason I did some digging and made some inquiries and got myself on the beta drop group for 4.5 / 4.6 (this is entirely separate from 5.0). I certainly will provide feedback for any bugs I find but my primary reason for getting on the beta drop was to make sure that my asset was going to work properly in 4.5 and 4.6. I want to make sure that the transition is as smooth as possible for my customers and I believe that is in Unity's best interest as well.

However, Thomas is exactly right. The signal-to-noise ratio has to be maintained and a public beta does not lend itself well to that. For releases such as Unity 5 there are features that they want to keep under wraps. I take less stock in the features that might not make the final product. Microsoft is notorious for that but it still works out. However, it's not just about having a high volume of beta testers. It's also about having the right testers that are going to provide valuable feedback.

That's not to say that Unity is judging any one individual. They are just taking the number of testers that they need. If it were a public beta you can bet there would be loads and loads of reports for things that aren't really bugs but rather complains about why feature x works the way it does or why feature y isn't there.

Now I think once it's close to RC stage, a public beta wouldn't be a bad idea. 4.6 is probably pretty close to a stage where that can happen, but I will tell you, without giving away any details, that breaking changes do happen and happen often between beta builds which is a big reason they don't want you too invested in the technology. Unity 5 on the other hand, as much as I'd love to get my hands on it, shouldn't be a public beta because it is likely going through some massive changes still as well. The YouTube argument I don't think holds much water because if it's a public beta anyone can get their hands on it and see it anyway.

 

My previous contract was that way as well. It didn't take long to train the product team. They stopped trying to report unimportant things, or sneak in "feature requests" as bugs and started filling them out properly the first time because they got tired of them getting bounced back for incomplete repro steps. However, an established team is trainable. A random mass of people not so easily.

 

Don't you think that "just listening to less people" is a bit of a trivialisation, though? The selection of people who they solicit the reports from is important, and even the "rapid bounce back" thing takes time. If anything I'd say the best result would be to do both, optimising the dialog with an appropriate group of people selected based on their usefulness as a bug reporter.

Spot on. Opening this stuff up to the public may mean more info, but that's a double edged sword - it may contain little or no extra data, but all data is now harder to find because there's more noise around it.

 

thank you very much for your most thoughtful post...

 

hi thank you for your thoughts on this

i was thinking that the signal-to-noise ratio would be handled by voting system. people would report bugs / suggestions, people would vote on them and unity would pick which would be done / fixed. it worked well for bis and arma 3 i thought and it was all openly done in full public view..

still thanks, cant wait for 4.6 and the new ui