Testing Tips

Creating Your Beta Account

  1. Try logging in. If you already have a regular Sanctum account, it may already exist on Beta. Try logging in with your normal login and password. (Note: If you changed your password recently, you may need to use your old password, not your current one.)
  2. Create anew. If your account doesn't exist yet, create it here. NOTE: Accept the certificate. We are testing a secure system using our own certification.

Don't abuse this by creating redundant Beta accounts. They do you no good, and they consume our resources.

Getting Hosed (4 of Every Card, Free!)

Send an e-mail to gilmoy@nioga.net or the Beta list with subject “Beta Hose”, and your account name.

These free cards exist only on the Beta server. (Of course.)

Logging In - With a Demo Account

Use login “demo1” to “demo8”, password “demo”.

These demo accounts are already hosed with 4 of every card.

Testing Bug Fixes

Your purpose here is to help NIOGA by testing bug fixes. It's a chance for you to help improve Sanctum's quality.

We (NIOGA) fix bugs. You (testers) test our fixes. Your tests have two possible outcomes:

  1. “Confirm”. The fix works. The bug no longer happens.
  2. “Deny”. The fix fails, or is not complete. The bug still happens. Or, a new problem happens.

You test several bug fixes, and report your test results.

Analogy (Baseball): A Bug Fix is like a Batter

A bug fix is like a batter in baseball. Every “confirm” is a strike. After three strikes, the bug fix is “out” (closed).

NIOGA's Beta policy is to close a bug fix after three strikes.

When we close every bug fix, we ship the current build. (Then we start working on the next one.)

Strategy: Choosing Your Targets

Not all bugs are created equal. Some of them are easy to test. Others require more effort (but are worth more points).

Browse the current bug list, and pick a few easy/interesting/high-value entries.

Harder bug fixes are worth more Beta Reward points.

Playing - Against Others

You may freely play games against anybody else in the Beta lobby. (If there is nobody in the Beta lobby, play yourself.)

You may play ranked or skill, on any map. (Don't worry about your ranked record. Your Beta record has absolutely no effect on your real record.)

You may play competitively, or cooperatively to test bug fixes. Be courteous to your opponent, and tell him or her before the game whether you're playing to win, or playing to test.

Playing - Against Yourself

You may play Beta games against yourself. Just run a 2nd copy of Sanctum Beta, and log in again with a different account. (You may create a 2nd Beta account for this purpose. Or, you can use one of the demo accounts.)

Playing against yourself is the fastest way to earn Beta Reward points.

Sending a Test Report

Send your test reports to the Beta list.

For each test, write the bug ID number, your test result, and any details or notes.

Here's an example of a decent test report:

Subject: Joe's Friday Tests
0512: Confirmed.
0513: Confirmed. I used Demon's Tongue, Beast's Embrace, and Bedlam.
0527: Denied. I did this and that, and I saw X instead of Y.
0531: Confirmed. A Demon's Tongue on a 5/5 guy with two attacks is sick.

Sending a Log File

If you crash, or find a new game bug, send us your game log file.

If your opponent crashes, send us your game log file, too.

Send log files to bugs@nioga.net. Don't send logs to the Beta list!

Zip (compress) your log files before you send them! (An unzipped log file fills up my inbox and blocks my e-mail.)

To find a log file, look in the Logs\ folder in your Sanctum installation directory.

Sending a Screen Shot

A picture is sometimes worth a thousand words. (But it costs ten thousand bytes to send it.)

Before you send us a screen shot, make sure it's useful.

Good Screen Shots

If it's a crazy graphics error that you can't describe in words, then a screen shot is useful. For example:

  • The whole map is shifted to the left/right/upward.
  • The map is scrambled (like one of those sliding-block puzzles).
  • There's graphics junk on the map.
  • Your cards are upside-down.

Bad Screen Shots

Please don't send us these.

If it's just a picture of words, then we need the words, not the picture!

  • A pop-up error message window, like a Debug Assertion or network error. Just copy the words, and send them as text.
  • An animation error that has already ended. A movie might be useful in this case, but a static image after the fact probably isn't useful.

Compress your screen shots and send them to bugs@nioga.net (same as for log files).

How to Capture a Screen Shot

  1. Activate. Click on your Sanctum window to activate it.
  2. Copy. Press Alt-Print Screen to copy the active window's bitmap image to the clipboard.
  3. MSPaint. Open MSPaint, or any other program that can receive a bitmap (.bmp) file.
  4. Paste. Press Ctrl-V (or use the Edit/Paste command) to paste from the clipboard into MSPaint.
  5. Save. Do File/Save As ... and choose GIF (.gif). Don't save as BMP (.bmp)!