Call for testers: Paragon Chat Prerelease Testing Program

Started by Codewalker, March 17, 2016, 04:44:23 PM

KatAtonic


Codewalker

Added the last few.

Quote from: Jeff Anderson on March 19, 2016, 08:01:02 PM
I've been coding a bunch of extensions on top of Titan icon, to turn it into a virtual RPG desktop, and would love to move those efforts on to paragon chat. So count me in for testing as I am passionate about helping move the project along

That's something I've been following with interest, and I'd be more than happy to have you participate. Creating hooks for things like that are something that's on my wish-list, and once you see the new architecture in action and think about how it's being accomplished, I think you'll see why I'm excited about the potential of this line of development.

Stitchified

I'll glady help if you'll have me.

I do not have tons of experience with programming but I'll still try to help if possible :D

Azrael

Hello Codewalker,

I think opening Paragon Chat to Alpha testing is a good thing.  It may speed up bug testing and adding features to the platform.  It also adds to the community tradition of CoH and involving them in the 'rebirth.'

I'm offering to help.

Also, I'm intrigued by your excitement regarding the new architectural improvements.  Sounds like you're laying the groundwork for bigger things to come...  ;)

Azrael.

Codewalker

Quote from: saipaman on March 19, 2016, 02:07:58 AM
Is this solo testing or interaction testing with other players?  If with other players, what time of the day would you be targeting?

Either/both. Mostly it's stability testing, since there are a ton of internal changes. So while it's useful to test interaction with other players, it's not the only thing I'm testing.

saipaman

I can certainly provide a group of machines to for installation testing.   I could help you with the stability testing -- either free form or scripted.

Thunder-Puncher

How could I refuse? Let me know what you need and I'll screw my courage!
"Yer 'bout ta find out why they call me 'The Melee Blaster'!!!..."

chuckv3

Quote from: Codewalker on March 18, 2016, 05:50:51 PM
Bit of a tangent that you reminded me of -- I've had a lot of PMs and such from people who want to help out, and it is very appreciated, though most of what's going on right now requires a very specialized skillset (C [not C++!], x86-32 machine language, reverse engineering large pieces of software without always having reference points, and intimate familiarity with internal COH data structures).

I'm trying to avoid situations where I spend more time helping people figure out exactly what they can do than actually getting stuff done. That's something nemerle has had trouble with on SEGS, lots of people who are enthusiastic at first but vanish once they start trying to work with the actual code.

I do have some components in mind for later on that won't require that level of prior experience, so to anyone who does have coding skills, keep an eye out! I especially am on the lookout for self-starters who already have ideas of how they can contribute and don't need a lot of handholding to get started.

Understood! I have 30+ years of experience, have done C and various assemblers (x86, PICS, Scenix, 68000, Z80), but I'm definitely unfamiliar with CoH data structures, and have only minimal experience reverse-engineering x86 compiled code. Just curious if you can see any compiler tags in there to know what the original programming language or compiler might have been (2004 I would suspect Borland C or an earlier Microsoft C). Also, I did 3 different 400-level 3d courses recently as part of my Bachelor of Computer Science (one using jMonkey [Java], another in C++ using OpenGL [glut] and another for Android [Java]), but it seems like that wouldn't necessarily be relevant to your efforts.

Codewalker

Quote from: chuckv3 on March 22, 2016, 09:44:50 PM
Just curious if you can see any compiler tags in there to know what the original programming language or compiler might have been (2004 I would suspect Borland C or an earlier Microsoft C).

Not really tags, but based on the features in use and some other fingerprints, I'm fairly confident that it's MS Visual C 2005, with an upgraded Platform SDK from sometime in 2007 or 2008. The vast majority (98%) of the code is almost certainly C. I've identified a few spots that use C++ calling conventions, but all of them are in places that have to do with talking to the authentication server. We know the auth protocol is a variant of Lineage II's (and later used for Tabula Rasa), so the C++ code most likely came from NCSoft rather than Cryptic's codebase.

Whole-program optimization and link time code generation were turned on for the I23 and I24 client builds (they turned this on sometime around Issue 18 or 19 along with duplicate string elimination), which makes reverse engineering fun. By fun I mean "fun", since LTCG lets the compiler make up whatever calling conventions it wants and inline things across module boundaries. Most functions calls are not cdecl or stdcall or even fastcall, but use whatever random combination of registers and stack the compiler decided was best for that function. I ended up writing some automatic analysis tools to identify and categorize these so that interface adapters could be generated.

There are a number of debugging messages left in the executable, and a couple instances I've concluded must have been debug call wrapper macros that got missed and included __FILE__ and __LINE__ arguments. Those have given me quite a collection of source file names, so I have a fairly good idea of what the build tree looked like. It's not a complete picture, but a decent overview.


Codewalker

I *think* I've added everyone who's expressed interest up to this point. Just check for the 'Prerelease Testing' board under Paragon Chat and see if you can see the topics there.

SuburbanHell

I'd be happy to help out if you're still looking for assistance here.

crashpositron

Me please, Codewalker!  I did beta for Wildstar & have a twenty-five+ year technical background.

Pengy


Codewalker

3 more added, check out the testing board for instructions, etc etc.

I did mention that it's open to anyone who wants to participate and understands what's involved, right? You don't have to impress me with your résumé. :D

lexicon

Count me in too if you still would like more stress testers...
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zopharshinta

I am willing to help.
Done many beta tests and currently do testing for the software company I work at.

I dabble in code too but manly C#. I have very little C and C++ knowledge but I'd love to learn more.

themamboman

If you are still taking test volunteers, I'd like to be added.  21 year software development engineer with several years of QA/Diagnostic test tool development.

Thanks again for making Paragon Chat!

Bustem Up


Sixpence

I can test whatever you need.  I'm in the Chat everyday and currently an Alpha tester for another MMORPG.