[WarInEur] CWIE beta testers

[sgminfo]

Latest version is up and running to download ...

Current iteration is 0.978


(In indirect answer to the relevent proddings from other  interested 
parties)

We are getting through rechecking lots of minor code tidying up...so bug 
fixes are more the norm than major rwrites of sections, if that can give 
you an impression of how far from release we are.

'Minor' code issues tend to be things like,
a control button does not appear where it should, on demand,
in in some obscure combinations this or that does not perform the way it 
is expected to.

In playtesting unexplained lockups and crashes are not now appearing, 
and the code tends tobe pretty stable,considering the complexity of the 
task.

What is taking the time , as always, are the number of iterations of 
actual games in progress, each with differing combinations of options 
and 'features'
Some are being tested in closed loops,
others are being tested in live gaming mode
others again are being run in live internet pbem modes

If you remember the golden days down in New York, playtesting was where 
most of the grief was, nearly always messing up productions schedules, 
and always, because it was near the end of the production process, 
robbed off time by delays elsewhere in the system. You will remember the 
battles to get things sorted at the late stage, that had been glossed 
over at earlier stages. Well we are not quite in that degree of chaos!!!

The code could be shipped tomorrow, but one risks the blank cheque of 
bugs no one has come across yet, and those which are unforseen in 
unusual circumstances...

i.e. Recent testing revealed a bug where when one country threw all its 
forces against a member of the alliance, and _all_ his forces left his 
home country, in a victorious rampage, the game, strictly interpreting 
the rules, worked out that since there were no friendly units left in 
its home country, it must have been overrun, and decided to surrender...

As you will appreciate, odd quirks like this remind us of the 
fallability of design, in a complicated environment, and make the issues 
raised in thefilm "2001" over the programming of the Hal 9000 model 
supercomputer all to easy to follow...simple, innoculous cross 
combinations of factors causing seemingly unfathomable behaviour.


Testing for these is both massively time consuming, and a huge consumer 
of personnel resources.

But bearing that in mind, you will all appreciate, that we must be near 
the end of the tunnel, but still, if you are 'road testing' in the dark, 
the pothole you may hit, and where and when, is impossible to predict. 
When a number of games have run through without a showstopping glitch, 
you canbe certain that we are ready.

Bearing in mind how long an iteration takes to play through,
You will understand what makes progress neither predictable,nor linear.

However, one can say we are not far from the end of the gestation process...

-|steve|-
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