Game Development: Under Pressure

[lachlaan]

It's still a valid response for the rest of the community demanding that two people dish out perfectly functioning content without the content needing to be tested .. by .. the beta testers. Worst thing you can fault the devs on is picking a generic name to describe the development stage they're in and not respecting the actual format of the development stage, as described by predominant definition for it. Future devs should just adopt the Blizzard motto, as rude as it might seem towards customers, it's for the good of the game. "It'll be ready when it's ready"

[BubbaMKII]

>2013
>People have no idea wtf beta is.

I have no idea wtf im talking about

Yes this is true.

Yes, i haven't been coding java since sun released it in 1995.
I also haven't written any games and contributed code to a java mmo game server.
I have no idea what i'm on about.

[derlaid]

Regardless of whether or not the game is released or in open beta you need people to actually test things, and well.... yeah.

[MagicManICT]

Went completely over my head, wournos... le sigh. Trying to be serious too often does that to you. But sometimes serious answers need to be given even if the question was tongue in cheek.

No, BubbaMKII, we have no idea who you are around here. I suppose if we were to Google that handle, we might come up with something other than posts here (found 263 results including anything you've posted here), but if you want your credentials considered in part of your posts, you have to give us some background as to where you're coming from.

Regardless of whether or not the game is released or in open beta you need people to actually test things, and well.... yeah.

I've had a lot of experience beta testing games (and even some late alpha level testing). Massive changes like this always turn people off of the game because they've come to expect that this is the way the game functions. It's a tough decision, but when the overall health of the game and community is at stake, sometimes the arm must be amputated to save the body.

[derlaid]

I'm glad purity is back and the game has some more depth to it but uh, this game is barely alive as it is. They need to figure out a way to bring in more people before you can really test anything. Most beta tests for MMOs have thousands if not tens of thousands of people because that's how you effectively test a game, not three servers with maybe a few hundred active people.

The problem is this: it is more difficult to grind up purity. Fine. Great! Purity maps and fiddling with alchemic properties is an interesting system that rewards exploration. But you've got the randian supermen wandering around who benefited from the old system that are even more untouchable with the new one. To carry your analogy further, they've amputated and bandaged the wound without checking for gangrene.

[lachlaan]

To take the analogy even further, they amputed the arm of the corpse they're using to further their technique as doctors, and the corpse's gangrene doesn't really concern them as much as perfecting that technique does. So that when the time comes for them to have a live patient, they can keep it alive due to the fact they didn't chicken out every time their initial med school corpse had some sort of post-mortem spasm at the procedures. People keep complaining about the humor monsters playing, but the point of the beta is to try stuff out, not to try and keep your stuff forever and ever, and perhaps even whine your way into potential new servers launched on release. Dumbing down the game to attract more players so that you can then make the game harder again is silly. This is the game, or part of it, and as it grows you have a chance to test it as the devs intend it to be. Sure, there might be tweaks, but you get to see what direction they're taking the game in. If they just made beta into easymode to get more testers, then released a game 5 times harder than beta, people would freak even harder than they did after the purity changes.

[MagicManICT]

Most beta tests for MMOs have thousands if not tens of thousands of people because that's how you effectively test a game, not three servers with maybe a few hundred active people.

You're confusing some things here and maybe making some bad assumptions. First is that this isn't a stress test scenario. That's when MMOs do tens of thousands (if not millions) of invites to try to pack their servers as full as possible to see what breaks. This usually only occurs a month or so before release on games where the expected population is to be in the tens or hundreds of thousands so that the developer/publisher can have an idea on how many more server clusters to get installed for release. The other scenario on this is when the game mechanics are 95% finished (even though the balancing part, the last 5%, is 90% of the work), some companies just want to create as much hype as possible and invite a large number of players to play for free for the free publicity that it should generate.

Second, the assumption I'm reading in here is that there will be tens of thousands or more players at release. Odds are this game will never see more than a few thousand because it's open PvP. EVE is an anomaly in this genre because they've developed the non-PvP aspects of the game up to where it isn't even the same game it was at release. That's 10 years of development time there with a very large development team. In Salem, if you're not a part of a town, this will likely always be a lonely game.

[ysbryd]

Oh for fudge sake, whining about changes in a beta game is SO last Thursday, get over it guys

[dreadlus]

Oh for fudge sake, whining about changes in a beta game is SO last Thursday, get over it guys

I stopped complaining days ago, saving strength for the next update

[lachlaan]

Inb4 next update adds a feature from HnH, cheese making. The update post shall be called "Some cheese with your whine?" xD