Volity Tester Resource page
Welcome, Volity beta testers! This page will help you get set up and underway in your efforts. Thank you for your willingness to help make this strange and wonderful new platform for digital games as good as it can be!
Software you need
All you really need is Javolin, our Java-based client application. Visit Javolin's page and follow the download links on that page.
Once you've got a copy, look under Window→Game Finder to see a list of games currently available on Volity.net, and go from there.
What you'll be doing
Basically, we'd like you to download Javolin, and start using it as described in the Javolin Quick Start Guide. Play the handful of games currently available online, and can try doing other stuff too; it's a no-frills Jabber chat client as well as a Volity game system browser, after all.
In between actually enjoying yourself by playing games, we ask that you be very unkind to the system. Try to break things. Do bizarre things, trying to find edge cases. This applies to both the client and the games; try to find actions that confuse or wedge the games' UIs or referees.
(A word of warning, if you're inclined to care: as you play games, you will generate permanent game records, building up a history of game play for every distinct username you use. So if you plan to play a game differently than you normally would for the purpose of testing, consider creating a "test" account specifically for this purpose, separate from your "real" account with which you play games in your normal manner.)
As of this writing, Javolin and Volity are... well, "rough around the edges" is an understatement. It's software (and an entire protocol) that almost nobody except for the core designers have used much, so we expect y'all to find a lot of issues at first.
Reporting Bugs and Other Feedback
When you find a bug with anything, or have a suggestion about how something ought to work differently, or if you just have a general comment to make based on your testing, please submit it as an item on our bug tracker by selecting Debug→File Bug Report from within Javolin. (If that command doesn't bring up a web page for you, you can visit the bug form directly, but we'd prefer if you went through Javolin since it provides us with additional information about the versions of Javolin and the game you were playing when you found the bug.)
You can also just drop one of us a line, but don't be surprised if the first thing out of our mouths is a request that you please enter the item onto the tracker. :)
Finding other players
We plan to offer some cool matchmaking services with Volity.net that will assist you in finding opponents of the appropriate skill level (and social aptitude), but these aren't ready yet. In the meantime, there are a couple of ways you can scare up some folks to play games with.
Devchat
The volity developers' chat usually has several Volity hackers hanging around, and you can always challenge one of us to a game. There's a link to the devchat at the bottom of every page in the Game Finder, so feel free to drop by at any time. (You can also come by just to talk about Javolin or Volity.)
Bots
Volity supports "bots", game-playing programs that you can ask a game's referee to summon to the table. Some of the games currently available support them, notably Martian Go. To call in a bot, select "Request Bot" from Volity's "Game" menu. If a bot appears in the table window's seat list, you can have it join the game by dragging its name into a seat box, or (if there are no predefined seat boxes at that table) dragging it onto the "Sit" button. Note that it's perfectly legal to play a game with mixed human and bot competition.
Contacting the team
The three members of the core Volity team will endeavor to be available for contact at any time. Here we are in approximate order of likelihood to be online and available:
| Jabber ID | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jason McIntosh | jmac@volity.net | zendonut@gmail.com |
| Andrew Plotkin | zarf@volity.net | erkyrath@eblong.com |
| Andy Turner | turner@volity.net | turner@mikomi.org |
As stated earlier, we all tend to hang out in the devchat, which is a click away from the Game Finder window.
If you just need to email someone and it doesn't matter who, email jmac.
The Mailing List
We have a mailing list that you should go join. It contains testing-related announcements from us, and general discussion about the whole testing process.
