I bite my tonque
It's not even quite a beta, yet.
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Well, I just raised a support ticket to try and get some feedback to the right place, at least:
Hi there,
Just thought I'd give a little feedback on the beta testing process to date. I have raised a thread on the forums here: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=479168#post479168 to gauge responses from other players, but from being around the forums a fair bit over the last few weeks in particular (since the start of the Premium Beta) there seems to be a large number of players perhaps uncognizant of just how early a beta version the game is in. Perhaps I'm feeling a little run out at the attitude of some players, but...!
One particular suggestion that springs to mind is a gentle reminder to players that they are only testing an early version of the game, perhaps with information on what exactly we should be testing at this stage. This could be deployed via a simple block of text on the same screen as the spinning sidewinder - lord knows we've all seen plenty of that screen!
Thanks,
Commander Reload
A way to instantly stop a ton of whining would be to give people unlimited money to play with everything possible.
Then no one would care about their 'progress'.
Why are we even grinding to work our way up to the better and large ships?
The cash injection in one of the Alpha phases did provide valuable feedback in that almost everyone found it extremely difficult to fly the larger ships around the station.
Then no one would care about their 'progress'.
Why are we even grinding to work our way up to the better and large ships?
The cash injection in one of the Alpha phases did provide valuable feedback in that almost everyone found it extremely difficult to fly the larger ships around the station.
To test to see if it works and if any changes are required. Testing HOW the grinding is experienced is also very important. Funny how people don't see that, I thought that was obvious. This game will all be about balance, this is the only way to find it.
A good question, and one I have considered myself. I am sure that somewhere along the line we'll probably get a similar cash injection, but in the meantime...
From what I've been able to gather, this round of the Premium Beta is largely a network load and stability test - which means you need lots of players generating different instances on the "encounters" (Fed distress, stations for docking/takeoff, unidentified waypoints, etc etc). This means forcing us to go out and look at these encounters - be it via the limited trade architecture in place, or going out guns blazing.
Forcing us to grind in this fashion is generating plenty of traffic to test the network architecture - so job done from their end.
This is one of the main problems. Sorry, but at the moment we are not here to 'PLAY'.
How do you expect the game to be balanced correctly if all the testing is done with unlimited money, and everyone is simply flying around with pimp-ships?
I've read posts from the devs stating that if they need testing done on the high end stuff then they will give us a cash injection.
You didn't buy a game, you bought into the opportunity to participate in helping to develop and test an unfinished game. And at the end of the process you'll get the finished product + all expansions.
I think the problem is that many people don't understand what they got for the money. In this case it might be indeed FDs fault to communicate that better.
There is no specific definition of what a "beta" has to be, there is no ISO or RFC for that either that defines it. But some people insist and demand that they had to get a full game based on their expectations. Which is completely wrong.
For example we do continuous integration, there is no alpha or beta, there are just milestones and 4 different development branches the software has to go through. develop -> qa -> stage -> master. When the code is merged to master you can think of it in terms of a release, stage could be considered as something like "beta". As you can see there is no "beta" phase at all. We're using a slightly modified version of this http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
I guess that's similar to what ED does internally as well. As a developer I would like to know more about how ED works. Are they using git for example? Are they doing milestones and sprints?
I think the problem is that many people don't understand what they got for the money. In this case it might be indeed FDs fault to communicate that better.
There is no specific definition of what a "beta" has to be, there is no ISO or RFC for that either that defines it. But some people insist and demand that they had to get a full game based on their expectations. Which is completely wrong.
For example we do continuous integration, there is no alpha or beta, there are just milestones and 4 different development branches the software has to go through. develop -> qa -> stage -> master. When the code is merged to master you can think of it in terms of a release, stage could be considered as something like "beta". As you can see there is no "beta" phase at all. We're using a slightly modified version of this http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
I guess that's similar to what ED does internally as well. As a developer I would like to know more about how ED works. Are they using git for example? Are they doing milestones and sprints?
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+1 to the above post (really good one by the way).
I'm patiently waiting for the game to progress through the test phases, as I am want to play it via a high-end iMac (moved from Windows 8 to Mac, so blame MS!). Otherwise, I would probably be on the Beta phase helping the testing of the game and to help finalise it through the life-cycle to release, as it's quite an interesting process to go through.
Being in software development myself as an Agile PM, I am surprised by some people's desire to want to "play" the game now and want to be able to progress. You're doing FD testing for them (at least quite a lot of it), so you shouldn't expect to be trying to play the game for real, just testing particular elements of it that FD want to be tested.
Roll on the end of the year, and hopefully, the release will be as scheduled. But, I know that the more that gets built in the code, the more likely regression bugs that will arise, so I wouldn't be surprised to see things slip. But fingers crossed!
Been waiting for a new game for 20+ years, so I suppose I can wait a bit longer. Just going through and reading the DDA and there is a lot of stuff I am sure that is still be developed - looks really good though.
Agreed, very good post (hoping it's not aimed at me!)
But yes, to my mind it'd be worth beating people around the head with the fact they're not playing the game yet, by a long stretch. They're testing an early version of the engine with about 1% of the final content.
I don't know any of the details, but as far as I can work out I think they're using subversion for version control. Nothing more than a cursory glance through the game dirs as investigation though.
+1. Bravo.
Nope FD have been very clear and what you are getting, people don't see or read very well even when stuff is in front of them.
Case in point two weeks ago I went to a signing event and there were signs in huge text and somebody constantly shouting if you want a photo you needed to go left and right for autographs and yet people still were unable to see the large signs and hear the person giving instructions and getting in the wrong queue and asking where they should go and moaning when they got to the wrong place.
And that happens all the time when I go to conventions etc.
Right on.
I agree with OP that we CAN all do a better job of communicating and understanding the critical information about the game, but....
If anyone that spends $100+ on something they aren't clear about what they are getting, then I got an vapourware Elite Dangerous clone to sell
There are quite a lot of information out there, so people just need to take 10 minutes or so to search this forum or the web.
I think the core issue is that there is such a high expectation and such a long wait, people jumped into 'premium' beta thinking that it's a typical MMO beta experience and that it's 'premium'.
Elite Dangerous rewards those that take the initiative.