What Influence would we have at Alpha

Nathaniel Shylock

N
Hi!

I just wanted to check what sort of actual influence we have if we upgrade to alpha, are the devs on the alpha forum as well as the DDF? I'm almost sold on upgrading but only if our feedback will count (apart from bug reports of course!)

Cheers,

Mark
 

Sir.Tj

The Moderator who shall not be Blamed....
Volunteer Moderator
Sir.Tj
The Developers have said they take most of the ideas from the DDF.

They will be scanning the Alpha but there won't be as much interaction as the DDF.

The Alpha testers influence will be from the ticketing system reporting bugs etc.

A vital step towards Beta. :D
 

Nathaniel Shylock

N
I thought that may well be the answer, thanks for the quick reply, I will await the newsletter/ Dev diary to see how long the Alpha may last.

Cheers,

Mark
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Nathaniel Shylock said:
Hi!

I just wanted to check what sort of actual influence we have if we upgrade to alpha, are the devs on the alpha forum as well as the DDF? I'm almost sold on upgrading but only if our feedback will count (apart from bug reports of course!)

Cheers,

Mark
Click to expand...

What do you mean with influence? You can't change game play at fundamental level (Too late for that and DDF was place to do that). However you can suggest improvements, and point out at game play bugs. You can also describe what you like or don't like, and it's taken with context to evaluate some changes if they want to do them too.
 

ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
does anyone know who the correct contact is to get access to the Alpha forum? I upgraded on Tuesday night and still can't access it.
 

Nathaniel Shylock

N
Pecisk said:
What do you mean with influence? You can't change game play at fundamental level (Too late for that and DDF was place to do that). However you can suggest improvements, and point out at game play bugs. You can also describe what you like or don't like, and it's taken with context to evaluate some changes if they want to do them too.
Click to expand...

This is what I mean, I wouldn't expect to have a say over design as I did miss out on DDF, but I would like to think that opinions on what decisions have been made would still be taken into consideration. Maybe in terms of how easy or difficult something is to do.
 

Michael Brookes

Game Director
Nathaniel Shylock said:
This is what I mean, I wouldn't expect to have a say over design as I did miss out on DDF, but I would like to think that opinions on what decisions have been made would still be taken into consideration. Maybe in terms of how easy or difficult something is to do.
Click to expand...

Yes, we do want peoples experiential feedback as well as bug reports.

Michael
 

humbleton

humbleton
Nathaniel Shylock said:
Hi!

I just wanted to check what sort of actual influence we have if we upgrade to alpha, are the devs on the alpha forum as well as the DDF? I'm almost sold on upgrading but only if our feedback will count (apart from bug reports of course!)

Cheers,

Mark
Click to expand...

Well one thing that I didn't like was the HUD brightness because on a big tv it sort of sits on your periphery and puts me off what I'm looking at. I mentioned this ... this was the first thing I mentioned in the Alpha forum. When 1.1 came out there was a slider for this in the options.

Do we have an effect? Do FD listen?

I think this is solid proof that if you have a good idea they're willing to listen.
 

ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
Nathaniel Shylock said:
This is what I mean, I wouldn't expect to have a say over design as I did miss out on DDF, but I would like to think that opinions on what decisions have been made would still be taken into consideration. Maybe in terms of how easy or difficult something is to do.
Click to expand...

I can't imagine that they are completely ignoring the discussion forum. There is only a core group of players and they would surely gage feedback and find out what really isn't working. If you posted on the Alpha forum that you hate something and find it unplayable because of it they would take that on board I'm sure.

I think the point of the DDF is to have a separate core community that has a two way conversation with the game designers, rather than trying to manage a huge amount of FEATURE REQUEST ideas from everyone which tends to be a bit noisy and difficult to manage.
 

Chock

Chock
From a strictly-defined standpoint, alpha testing is acceptance testing, i.e. you try out a version of the software (or a part of it) and then report back your findings in terms of how you liked it. This is as opposed to beta testing, where the software you are testing is a bit more finalised and you're testing the robustness of it rather than the likability of the content and features themselves.

So in short, the alpha is likely to mean things are still at the point where you could influence matters, although if there are a thousand people testing and only one says that such and such a thing is crap and the other 999 think it is fab, you can probably work out where your influence is going to go on that matter, since ED is not only crowd funded, but also intended to be crowd pleasing. No bad thing when it appears that the crowd on these forums seem to have their heads screwed on right from what I've seen.
 
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Slawkenbergius

Slawkenbergius
ZeeWolf said:
I can't imagine that they are completely ignoring the discussion forum.
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The DDF is relatively quiet at the moment. Not quite on hiatus, but definitely subdued during the alpha stage. Discussion about the alpha pretty much all takes place in the alpha and general forums, so there's no real distinction between players who are on the DDF and those who aren't.
 

Xaragon

X
Nathaniel Shylock said:
Hi!

I just wanted to check what sort of actual influence we have if we upgrade to alpha, are the devs on the alpha forum as well as the DDF? I'm almost sold on upgrading but only if our feedback will count (apart from bug reports of course!)

Cheers,

Mark
Click to expand...

The "devs" (as a whole) may or may not browse the alpha pages, there are a couple that do post and they certainly do take feedback from the issues and suggestions there. The influence you have is on what already exists and the bugs it has, not what is yet to be written.
It's more tweaks and fixes, not fundamental game changers.

As to how much influence anyone there will have as more stuff is introduced, we don't know yet, it's all pew-pew and it's working pretty well.
 
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Chock

Chock
Although frankly, if you had a good idea which could be relatively easily implemented, and mentioned it on this forum, which lots of people then commented favourably upon, agreeing it was a good idea, it's likely to get noticed anyway. Because any developer who ignored a gift like that would be silly to do so. But of course without being in on the alpha, you've very little way of being in a position to have such a good idea in relation to the state of things, except maybe visually or audio-wise off perhaps a screengrab or video.
 

Andrew Sayers

A
ZeeWolf said:
I think the point of the DDF is to have a separate core community that has a two way conversation with the game designers, rather than trying to manage a huge amount of FEATURE REQUEST ideas from everyone which tends to be a bit noisy and difficult to manage.
Click to expand...

An interesting way to think about the difference between the DDF and the alpha forum is to look at a DDF shield discussion. It came in much earlier and went into much more detail, but was also very directed and theoretical (because it was a paper design examined out of context).

I tend to think the DDF lets designers get their ideas close enough to correct that they won't have to throw away months of code, whereas the alpha forum is there to really get the fine details correct.
 
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