I also understand and agree with having a very small and limited amount of Alpha Testers. It is not for the faint of heart or the fickle game player, at all. Having some free for all in an alpha stage of the game because someone kicked in $20 bucks would be far more harmful than good.
I'm content to take a wait and see approach to how this will be handled.
The old Team Lead program from DAoC was mentioned a few posts above, and considering how that was handled by Mythic and by the players, I would caution that poster to be careful of what they wish for.
The TL program was good in theory, and many great players and great people spent hours upon hours upon hours of listening to their fellow players, writing posts like Larian's, and contributing their efforts and voices to address the issues of their respective classes, only to be mercilessly flamed by their fellow players because they were continuously shot down or ignored by the Developers.
I had about 2 or 3 TLs in my guild over the years, and I witnessed the bullshit they had to go through first hand.
They were usually rewarded for all of their efforts by being constantly PM'd in the game to the point where they had to turn the feature off entirely, messaged in game and out, flamed in the game and on forums, etc. that they "knew nothing" or were "doing nothing" to promote what some random players who did not have the maturity or thoughtfulness to be a TL wanted for their class.
I don't want another repeat of that. Not now, not ever. Having another Team Lead style of program would need some serious thought and revamping of how it would be handled, and the expectations of that program from BOTH sides of that equation, Developers & Team Leads first and foremost, and players themselves after that. Nobody should be treated the way that the TLs were treated when they are standing up to volunteer for such a position because of their true love of the game and class, but that's exactly what would happen and that thought gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. So many of the best players were burned by that program, and burned out on the game.
I am also not a fan of players being able to purchase their way into Alpha Testing, although I am sure that it will be an upper eschelon tier reward. A fat wallet does not equal ability, but, again, not my call to make and if it goes that way I will understand because it makes sense from a business perspective. At least they have the money to put where their mouth is, and for that, I'll be thankful!
I would like to see the best of the best chosen from an inside 'Backers Forum' where people's post history and contributions are laid out for all to see and add to, and where their collective contributions count. I believe that there will be people chosen like this too from Mark's Post.
I would also love to see a few volunteers or even 1 or 2 staff members as Community Managers or something similar to Sanya's old role, although I'm not necessarily nostalgic for Sanya (or Tweety) herself as I think fresh blood and perspective would be the way to go here.
I think that role was possibly more vital than even the Team Lead role. What made Sanya so good was that she could handle the heat from the players and the Devs alike and retained the skill to tactfully dish it back out to both sides and be that intermediary between the Development Team and the Players on the forums. That's not a skill to take lightly considering the cesspool we all know today's forums can devolve into these days.
Regardless, as much as I want in, the limited amount of people is the ultimate way to go however they're chosen.
I also understand and agree with having a very small and limited amount of Alpha Testers. It is not for the faint of heart or the fickle game player, at all. Having some free for all in an alpha stage of the game because someone kicked in $20 bucks would be far more harmful than good.
I'm content to take a wait and see approach to how this will be handled.
The old Team Lead program from DAoC was mentioned a few posts above, and considering how that was handled by Mythic and by the players, I would caution that poster to be careful of what they wish for.
The TL program was good in theory, and many great players and great people spent hours upon hours upon hours of listening to their fellow players, writing posts like Larian's, and contributing their efforts and voices to address the issues of their respective classes, only to be mercilessly flamed by their fellow players because they were continuously shot down or ignored by the Developers.
I had about 2 or 3 TLs in my guild over the years, and I witnessed the bullshit they had to go through first hand.
They were usually rewarded for all of their efforts by being constantly PM'd in the game to the point where they had to turn the feature off entirely, messaged in game and out, flamed in the game and on forums, etc. that they "knew nothing" or were "doing nothing" to promote what some random players who did not have the maturity or thoughtfulness to be a TL wanted for their class.
I don't want another repeat of that. Not now, not ever. Having another Team Lead style of program would need some serious thought and revamping of how it would be handled, and the expectations of that program from BOTH sides of that equation, Developers & Team Leads first and foremost, and players themselves after that. Nobody should be treated the way that the TLs were treated when they are standing up to volunteer for such a position because of their true love of the game and class, but that's exactly what would happen and that thought gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. So many of the best players were burned by that program, and burned out on the game.
I am also not a fan of players being able to purchase their way into Alpha Testing, although I am sure that it will be an upper eschelon tier reward. A fat wallet does not equal ability, but, again, not my call to make and if it goes that way I will understand because it makes sense from a business perspective. At least they have the money to put where their mouth is, and for that, I'll be thankful!
I would like to see the best of the best chosen from an inside 'Backers Forum' where people's post history and contributions are laid out for all to see and add to, and where their collective contributions count. I believe that there will be people chosen like this too from Mark's Post.
I would also love to see a few volunteers or even 1 or 2 staff members as Community Managers or something similar to Sanya's old role, although I'm not necessarily nostalgic for Sanya (or Tweety) herself as I think fresh blood and perspective would be the way to go here.
I think that role was possibly more vital than even the Team Lead role. What made Sanya so good was that she could handle the heat from the players and the Devs alike and retained the skill to tactfully dish it back out to both sides and be that intermediary between the Development Team and the Players on the forums. That's not a skill to take lightly considering the cesspool we all know today's forums can devolve into these days.
Regardless, as much as I want in, the limited amount of people is the ultimate way to go however they're chosen.
Good post. I have always been vocal when it comes to quality assurance. You want an individual that is, well, a gamer, but objectional and functionally professional. You have to be able to truly want what's best for the game, your realm, and your class, but understand that your favorite ability actually is overpowered. On top of that, you need a strong foundamental understanding of game design theory, programming, engine dynamics, network infrastructure, game art, and nearly the most important, an amazing communicator. You can teach someone practically anything, but you can't fix stupid.
What you don't want is someone that can't form a sentence, fill out a bug report, post meaningful discussion regarding issues, suggestions, or focus groups; a lot of people think Alpha is a cake walk to see the game in the beginning and leave a lasting imprint of yourself within the game for bragging rights. Unfortunately, that's the case in most situations.
If you were applying for the job posting "[URGENT!] Alpha Tester Needed! at City State Entertainment located in Fairfax, Virginia"... do you think you'd get it? If so, you're probably qualified to actually test the game legitimately versus playing to "see the game".
My name is Plastic-Metal and my name is an oxymoron.
If you were applying for the job posting "[URGENT!] Alpha Tester Needed! at City State Entertainment located in Fairfax, Virginia"... do you think you'd get it?
Sigh. Probably not. I live in Washington State... =P
(Which is kinda too bad. I'm actually a recently graduated CS student, who is looking for his first industry job.)
I mean... I'm not AGAINST commuting... but that might be a bit over the top...
Well I chose other like myself and the handful of folks I knew that were on-going testers for DAOC for six+ years. When DAOC went live we were all on Pendragon long before it was a copy/paste server. Those were the days. Spent considerable amount of time in WAR. However, with that said MJ doesn't give two rats about any of us I am certain. On top of that I won't KS to any game let alone this one.
Certainly wouldlike to know were all his money from the EA sale went too. DAOC was a great game before key ppl left. I have more faith in Matt and TESO to be honest. perhaps MJ will surprise me just like he did when he sold out to EA <sarcasm off>
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb
The ability to suck up to a dev has never been a good quality in a tester so....I think they should ignore the forums and get paid people to test it.
Then once you allow public in, it's really just a roll of the dice. Everyone is hard working and honest on a resume. If they start letting people in based on donations, that is purly a perk of doing it. It in no way gives higher odds of better testers. Lots of people with money are idiots and have unpopular opinions on games.
I see a lot of concern here about an overly large number of alphatesters, some throwing numbers to the tune of 20k people. Looking at the Pathfinder MMO kickstarter, they got $1.1 mil from 9k backers. Expect a successful kickstarter for CU to gather 20-30k total backers, much less 20k alphatesters. From that number, the upper 10% of backers would make a manageable alpha tester population. Also, some people in this thread assume that you need to have designer-level testers to give feedback (aha, like anyone at CU is gonna have to time to sift though forum threads like this one to cherry pick best posters). Do note that we are talking about an alphatest here so they are gonna be looking at simple things that any gamer would be able to provide feedback on - are there are bugs, which systems suck and which don't, etc. At an alpha stage they will not care about stuff like "AoE ability X of class Y needs its radius reduced by 6 feet because when you stack two of class Y with three of class F and two of class Q, classes T and R are 15% less effective during sieges."
EVERY single player.The PURPOSE of a Alpha test should be to get feedback from the entire community,that is if you care what the potential customers want and MOST all devs seem to pretend they do.
This is VERY important because we all know Beta tests are nothing more than pre order and PR gimmicks,they do nothing to change or improve the game's quality.
So at the Alpha stage,there is still time for the developer to either overhaul a poor design or make tweaks as given in feedback.YES games do this,Archeage for example has been on Beta for over a year ,other games example Aion had an overhaul and a long beta.
What i have seen is that 99.9% of fanbois,like those that pre order,will offer NOTHING for feedback,instead they treat both Alpha and beta as free game time.They will never say one bad thing about the game,thereore incredibly poor reason to have an Alpha and of course nothing gets fixed or improved.
I find the community leaders for all dev teams to be really poor at dealing with negative feedback.
A simple example could be for the community manager to say something like "Well we agree that part of our game design is not the best,this is the way we wanted it for a certain type of player".In otherwords they were designing the game for a certain demographic.However no community rep is going to do that,instead they work on telling people their game is designed for EVERYONE,which sends up a red flag immediately.
If they want this game to be the best it can be,take all feedback from everyone,or more so NOT the fanbois,they will only paint roses and tell everyone how great it already is.Then anyone who offers legit feedback ,they say "Oh you know it's only Alpha right?".
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
I also understand and agree with having a very small and limited amount of Alpha Testers. It is not for the faint of heart or the fickle game player, at all. Having some free for all in an alpha stage of the game because someone kicked in $20 bucks would be far more harmful than good.
I'm content to take a wait and see approach to how this will be handled.
The old Team Lead program from DAoC was mentioned a few posts above, and considering how that was handled by Mythic and by the players, I would caution that poster to be careful of what they wish for.
The TL program was good in theory, and many great players and great people spent hours upon hours upon hours of listening to their fellow players, writing posts like Larian's, and contributing their efforts and voices to address the issues of their respective classes, only to be mercilessly flamed by their fellow players because they were continuously shot down or ignored by the Developers.
I had about 2 or 3 TLs in my guild over the years, and I witnessed the bullshit they had to go through first hand.
They were usually rewarded for all of their efforts by being constantly PM'd in the game to the point where they had to turn the feature off entirely, messaged in game and out, flamed in the game and on forums, etc. that they "knew nothing" or were "doing nothing" to promote what some random players who did not have the maturity or thoughtfulness to be a TL wanted for their class.
I don't want another repeat of that. Not now, not ever. Having another Team Lead style of program would need some serious thought and revamping of how it would be handled, and the expectations of that program from BOTH sides of that equation, Developers & Team Leads first and foremost, and players themselves after that. Nobody should be treated the way that the TLs were treated when they are standing up to volunteer for such a position because of their true love of the game and class, but that's exactly what would happen and that thought gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. So many of the best players were burned by that program, and burned out on the game.
I am also not a fan of players being able to purchase their way into Alpha Testing, although I am sure that it will be an upper eschelon tier reward. A fat wallet does not equal ability, but, again, not my call to make and if it goes that way I will understand because it makes sense from a business perspective. At least they have the money to put where their mouth is, and for that, I'll be thankful!
I would like to see the best of the best chosen from an inside 'Backers Forum' where people's post history and contributions are laid out for all to see and add to, and where their collective contributions count. I believe that there will be people chosen like this too from Mark's Post.
I would also love to see a few volunteers or even 1 or 2 staff members as Community Managers or something similar to Sanya's old role, although I'm not necessarily nostalgic for Sanya (or Tweety) herself as I think fresh blood and perspective would be the way to go here.
I think that role was possibly more vital than even the Team Lead role. What made Sanya so good was that she could handle the heat from the players and the Devs alike and retained the skill to tactfully dish it back out to both sides and be that intermediary between the Development Team and the Players on the forums. That's not a skill to take lightly considering the cesspool we all know today's forums can devolve into these days.
Regardless, as much as I want in, the limited amount of people is the ultimate way to go however they're chosen.
Good post. I have always been vocal when it comes to quality assurance. You want an individual that is, well, a gamer, but objectional and functionally professional. You have to be able to truly want what's best for the game, your realm, and your class, but understand that your favorite ability actually is overpowered. On top of that, you need a strong foundamental understanding of game design theory, programming, engine dynamics, network infrastructure, game art, and nearly the most important, an amazing communicator. You can teach someone practically anything, but you can't fix stupid.
What you don't want is someone that can't form a sentence, fill out a bug report, post meaningful discussion regarding issues, suggestions, or focus groups; a lot of people think Alpha is a cake walk to see the game in the beginning and leave a lasting imprint of yourself within the game for bragging rights. Unfortunately, that's the case in most situations.
If you were applying for the job posting "[URGENT!] Alpha Tester Needed! at City State Entertainment located in Fairfax, Virginia"... do you think you'd get it? If so, you're probably qualified to actually test the game legitimately versus playing to "see the game".
Sigh. Probably not. I live in Washington State... =P
(Which is kinda too bad. I'm actually a recently graduated CS student, who is looking for his first industry job.)
I mean... I'm not AGAINST commuting... but that might be a bit over the top...
Well I chose other like myself and the handful of folks I knew that were on-going testers for DAOC for six+ years. When DAOC went live we were all on Pendragon long before it was a copy/paste server. Those were the days. Spent considerable amount of time in WAR. However, with that said MJ doesn't give two rats about any of us I am certain. On top of that I won't KS to any game let alone this one.
Certainly wouldlike to know were all his money from the EA sale went too. DAOC was a great game before key ppl left. I have more faith in Matt and TESO to be honest. perhaps MJ will surprise me just like he did when he sold out to EA <sarcasm off>
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb
The ability to suck up to a dev has never been a good quality in a tester so....I think they should ignore the forums and get paid people to test it.
Then once you allow public in, it's really just a roll of the dice. Everyone is hard working and honest on a resume. If they start letting people in based on donations, that is purly a perk of doing it. It in no way gives higher odds of better testers. Lots of people with money are idiots and have unpopular opinions on games.
I see a lot of concern here about an overly large number of alphatesters, some throwing numbers to the tune of 20k people. Looking at the Pathfinder MMO kickstarter, they got $1.1 mil from 9k backers. Expect a successful kickstarter for CU to gather 20-30k total backers, much less 20k alphatesters. From that number, the upper 10% of backers would make a manageable alpha tester population. Also, some people in this thread assume that you need to have designer-level testers to give feedback (aha, like anyone at CU is gonna have to time to sift though forum threads like this one to cherry pick best posters). Do note that we are talking about an alphatest here so they are gonna be looking at simple things that any gamer would be able to provide feedback on - are there are bugs, which systems suck and which don't, etc. At an alpha stage they will not care about stuff like "AoE ability X of class Y needs its radius reduced by 6 feet because when you stack two of class Y with three of class F and two of class Q, classes T and R are 15% less effective during sieges."
EVERY single player.The PURPOSE of a Alpha test should be to get feedback from the entire community,that is if you care what the potential customers want and MOST all devs seem to pretend they do.
This is VERY important because we all know Beta tests are nothing more than pre order and PR gimmicks,they do nothing to change or improve the game's quality.
So at the Alpha stage,there is still time for the developer to either overhaul a poor design or make tweaks as given in feedback.YES games do this,Archeage for example has been on Beta for over a year ,other games example Aion had an overhaul and a long beta.
What i have seen is that 99.9% of fanbois,like those that pre order,will offer NOTHING for feedback,instead they treat both Alpha and beta as free game time.They will never say one bad thing about the game,thereore incredibly poor reason to have an Alpha and of course nothing gets fixed or improved.
I find the community leaders for all dev teams to be really poor at dealing with negative feedback.
A simple example could be for the community manager to say something like "Well we agree that part of our game design is not the best,this is the way we wanted it for a certain type of player".In otherwords they were designing the game for a certain demographic.However no community rep is going to do that,instead they work on telling people their game is designed for EVERYONE,which sends up a red flag immediately.
If they want this game to be the best it can be,take all feedback from everyone,or more so NOT the fanbois,they will only paint roses and tell everyone how great it already is.Then anyone who offers legit feedback ,they say "Oh you know it's only Alpha right?".
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.