OcDS 2.1 PRE RELEASE 5th

[thongology]

Guys take it easy

T_3 is working hard on the next release. Currently its already in a very stable condition with most bugs ironed out. Trust me, its well worth the wait

Why and how do you know this? And if this is true, why not release it? Sounds more stable than 2.1

Take it easy? Worth the wait? No need for condescension...

[Spectralis]

Guys take it easy

T_3 is working hard on the next release. Currently its already in a very stable condition with most bugs ironed out. Trust me, its well worth the wait

Why and how do you know this? And if this is true, why not release it? Sounds more stable than 2.1

Take it easy? Worth the wait? No need for condescension...

I don't understand why these beta updates aren't being released like they are with other OTOY plugins. Why sell beta software if it remains an exclusive development?

[sikotik13]

As much as I know this line of reasoning will go precisely nowhere (again), I kind of wonder the same thing. I don't recall having an option to opt in to a closed beta, so I'm curious why there is one. Realistically, if the point of betas is to catch bugs, and these same people are the ones who have been beta testing every release thus far... then there will be a slew more bugs the rest of us find when we finally get, which could be at least on the radar now. Which, ironically, is the entire point of beta software, last time I checked the definition. Seems someone somewhere really needs to learn how to market things.

I still don't particularly mind waiting, as the current release does what I have time to play around with, but with the aforementioned thought process in mind... the random posts claiming it's worth waiting for are borderline insulting, as we shouldn't have to, or everyone should have to. Period. Unless there is an option somewhere to (I presume) pay Otoy more for this closed beta privilege, which should be noted somewhere prominently, we all paid the same for the same thing and should all have the same access to said item. I certainly don't expect it to be perfect, but if it's even remotely more stable, why don't we have whatever release was clearly built for the "special" testers that keep saying it's worth waiting for?

[Hydra]

I don't understand why these beta updates aren't being released like they are with other OTOY plugins. Why sell beta software if it remains an exclusive development?

Quick releases may be more dangerous in terms of bugs. i.e. an update that doesn't properly lockout the GPU drivers which causes your PC to hard crash necessitating a reinstall of the requisite device drivers. (That's actually happened to while testing software.)

As much as I know this line of reasoning will go precisely nowhere (again), I kind of wonder the same thing. I don't recall having an option to opt in to a closed beta, so I'm curious why there is one. Realistically, if the point of betas is to catch bugs, and these same people are the ones who have been beta testing every release thus far... then there will be a slew more bugs the rest of us find when we finally get, which could be at least on the radar now. Which, ironically, is the entire point of beta software, last time I checked the definition. Seems someone somewhere really needs to learn how to market things.

We're not getting alphaware here. Its pretty debugged. Near as I can tell there's a slew of people waiting for the final feature set. I don't see anyone with critical bugs.

I think I've mentioned this before, but the weaselly correct response in this situation is to define the feature set, and release versions (Octane, and Daz Studio). That gets results, but people get miffed that they only have support for the old versions of everything.

[sikotik13]

While I greatly appreciate the points you made, you are giving very particular scope in your answers. This scope is also conveniently ignoring the context of the questions. We have now had two people post claiming they have a very stable build. If its stable (which bypasses your stability point), why don't we have it? I also never said it was alphaware, but if it's bug free enough to be a final release, it would be, or there wouldn't be a point in calling it beta at all, so I fail to follow your logic there. And all of that bypasses the entirety of the frustration expressed in mine and the two posts before. Why are some people getting releases and some not, unless there's something I'm missing about paying the same price for less access to the same software as being standard?

[leblancd]

Waiting for weeks/months/years for a stable product that was paid for is one thing... we can certainly all agree on that point.

Waiting for weeks/months for a stable product, while seemingly random people claim what we're waiting for is stable only exacerbates the problem.
Either put up, or shut up.

It is, and always will be, up to the customer to determine if the product is satisfactory. Your baseless claims, with zero evidence to back your statements about what the rest of us consider to be vaporware, only raise more questions. Instead of clouding the issues, either share what you know IN DETAIL and how you arrived at this conclusion, or make no mention of it at all.
You are only making a difficult situation worse.

[Xertyos]

I don't know whether it's been asked/said before, but I have a question:

Any idea how many DAZ Studio plugin licenses have been sold by Otoy?

Knowing the figures involved might help focus our reasoning better.

[SimonJM]

I am as frustrated as everyone else over the delays in getting a polished, finished product, and am not all impressed with the lack of input and communication mainly by OTOY but to a lesser degree by t_3.
What I (and everyone else?) would like would be a stable plug-in that includes a (reasonably) up-to-date version of Octane, and not a sporadic series of beta releases that fix a problem here, a bug there, adds a feature, etc., etc. As we have seen with previous releases it can often happen that something 'breaks' with backward compatibilty which fosters angst and anguish, or a cherished feature (animation, anyone?) suddenly has issues. A closed beta with dedicated testers will find these (hopefully!) before a product meets it's public.
I have faith that t_3 will come through with a product that I, and others, will be pleased to have. And whilst the delays, niggles, etc., may still rankle a little they will fade into the past!

[Spectralis]

I don't own a crystal ball but I can predict with some certainty that any update will involve at least a month of bug fixes when it's released outside of a closed beta. So I really don't believe that cutting everyone out of the beta process except a select few is very helpful.

[leblancd]

I am as frustrated as everyone else over the delays in getting a polished, finished product, and am not all impressed with the lack of input and communication mainly by OTOY but to a lesser degree by t_3.
What I (and everyone else?) would like would be a stable plug-in that includes a (reasonably) up-to-date version of Octane, and not a sporadic series of beta releases that fix a problem here, a bug there, adds a feature, etc., etc. As we have seen with previous releases it can often happen that something 'breaks' with backward compatibilty which fosters angst and anguish, or a cherished feature (animation, anyone?) suddenly has issues. A closed beta with dedicated testers will find these (hopefully!) before a product meets it's public.
I have faith that t_3 will come through with a product that I, and others, will be pleased to have. And whilst the delays, niggles, etc., may still rankle a little they will fade into the past!

It is a rather silly notion to think that a small number of people can test a myriad of features, under every situation, on a variable list of supported hardware combinations, in different (versions of) operating systems...
...unless the few testers have clones of ALL of our hardware with all the same drivers and try to perform the same functions under the same conditions we do, and expect the exact same results.

In the software world, there is "regression testing" that tests if new features introduce new bugs. Developers that perform accurate and efficient regression testing have very little or no need for beta testing at all. Creating a regression test suite for this plugin, which attempts to hit two moving targets (Octane and Daz Studio) would, in itself, be a multi-year project.

A beta fleshes all this out by getting the software to as many testers as possible so that bugs and glitches are found, and resolved, to produce a final release.
Anyone that tells you differently either doesn't really know what they're doing, or they are fooling themselves.

A "closed beta" typically comes very early in a software project because only the concepts have been coded into software.
(Does the software terminate prematurely, or when you click EXIT? When you click a button, does the button do ANYTHING?)
This is because a software developer does not want to look like a fool in releasing laughable software that clearly does nothing it was intended to do, and also wants to avoid the deluge of complaints about very basic functionality, which would be a complete waste of everyone's time and effort.
Instituting a "closed beta" after years of having open betas would be indicative of starting again from scratch.