1.0 roundtable

[psi29a]

There will always be bugs. Holding out for perfection, as Holgar similarly noted, is an exercise in futility.

Feature completion is the goal for 1.0, bug fixes along the way. The massive influx of the users, if/when it happens, will be a positive thing and people running into bugs is also a good thing. Unlike commercial projects, we're transparent with bugs and offer ability for those so inclined to fix the problems themselves.

Many eyes/hands make short work, whether it be development, documentation or playing/bug-testing. Regular users are bug-testers, whether you like it or not. We just need to give them ability to painlessly report the problem.

This leads into a must-have feature, a crash-reporter. It is great that we have something people can post about in the forums. Now we need a way to report the problem in just a few clicks.

[Holgar]

There will always be bugs. Holding out for perfection, as Holgar similarly noted, is an exercise in futility.
(...)

Please do you not have this *too* serious

Anyways, I'm pretty sure, you understood me right

[lysol]

I strongly beg to differ, because:
<people will find bugs when 1.0 comes out>

I also beg to differ, again. I don't think we need to be that concerned really. People on reddit report that they spent countless hours (I mean like level 40+ chars) on OpenMW without any significant bug encounters. Small bugs? Probably. But all software has that on release.

What I'm trying to say is that sure, we can always have a more extensive RC phase before version 1.0, but OpenMW isn't a very buggy software to begin with, at least not so buggy that people will think "meh, I'm going back to Morrowind + MCP + MGE because of all these bugs" when playing it for the first time. If anything, it's the lack of shadows that scare people off. And those are already being worked on now.

Just my opinion, obviously.

[Atahualpa]

Regarding bug and crash reports: SureAI -- the development team behind Arktwend, Nehrim, and Enderal -- recently created a bug tracker which allows users to report problems in their TC without the need of creating an account (they only want you to fill in your nickname along with the bug report).
-> http://sureai.net:9898/secure/Dashboard.jspa

Would it be possible to do this in Redmine -- or, at least, link such a tracker to our real bug tracker?

[psi29a]

They use JIRA, which is OK, but closed source. Do they have a freebie-license for FOSS?

[Atahualpa]

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[raevol]

What I'm trying to say is that sure, we can always have a more extensive RC phase before version 1.0, but OpenMW isn't a very buggy software to begin with, at least not so buggy that people will think "meh, I'm going back to Morrowind + MCP + MGE because of all these bugs" when playing it for the first time. If anything, it's the lack of shadows that scare people off. And those are already being worked on now.

I think we agree: what you call an "extensive RC phase" is what I have been calling a "beta". The important thing to me is that, whatever we call it, we publicize it widely to get lots of people running it.

[lgromanowski]

Regarding bug and crash reports: SureAI -- the development team behind Arktwend, Nehrim, and Enderal -- recently created a bug tracker which allows users to report problems in their TC without the need of creating an account (they only want you to fill in your nickname along with the bug report).
-> http://sureai.net:9898/secure/Dashboard.jspa

Would it be possible to do this in Redmine -- or, at least, link such a tracker to our real bug tracker?

As far I remember it is possible in Redmine (I have to check it).

[MrAnonGuy]

In terms of bugs, I can speak a little to what I've experienced with OpenMW. I started playing OpenMW a couple of years back, but after a while, I abandoned playing. The main reason was that I got stuck all the time and couldn't move, like inside terrain, rocks and other things, which was very frustrating.

A few months ago, I saw where V0.39 had been released and it has ran very well. I also have an on-line friend and she started playing V0.39 about the same time. Both of us have currently completed all the Mage Guild quests (Arch-Mage now), along with lots of side quests and quests for several other guilds and great houses. In all of that, there have been very few bugs to speak of, and of the few issues we have had, they can mostly be traced to conflicts with .esp addons.

Actually, I'm currently running 12 addons, along with numerous texture replacers, without issue. I really like the way Open-MW handles addons and texture/mesh replacers, without requiring any overwriting of data within the Data folder. That's so much better than Vanilla. Now with the release of V0.40, Open-MW is even better.

I'm sure there are remaining bugs needing to be fixed, and perhaps shadows and distant lands are required eye candy for V1.0. I'm actually running a machine with minimal gaming hardware, so shadows, distant lands and hires normal maps might actually slow me down, perhaps to the point I'd want to disable them. Although, it's about time for me to upgrade my nVidia 210, which is just an entry level video card anyway.

I'm certainly not suggesting that OpenMW V1.0 should be rushed out the door. Sounds like you guys are on track here, with the core team deciding what the minimum goals will be for a V1.0 release, and making those known to all involved. My only point in the OP was to suggest that it's understandable to want your baby to be perfect, but perhaps a bit unrealistic.

[raevol]

My only point in the OP was to suggest that it's understandable to want your baby to be perfect, but perhaps a bit unrealistic.

Just to drag this thread back on topic, my original post was about clearly defining what tasks are left for 1.0, and coming up with a strategy for actually getting it done. This was never a discussion about "perfecting" the project.