Tutorial status and Closed Alpha Test - your opinion required

Well, i think that it would be nice to release the game for testing even at this early stage, because it can help your team at finding bugs that you couldn't find yourself, and it could be used to let the players tell if they like the style of TT2, just to tell how the game feels.

Don't need content. Just want to kick @Lover's ass. Take my money and let me in!

I'd love to be in the game at an early stage of development, as I like to watch a game progress from there. Doesn't matter if it may still be a bit unstable, or if it's only a short part of the whole game. I want to get the feel for the next generation of TT as soon as possible. And as Hadouken said, it may even help to improve the game, or give you some feedback, what's liked by us and what not so much. (i.e. I'm still working on those two *beeeeeeep* scrambled egyptian pictures in TT Gold. NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!!! lol ) So let the show begin! :))) Sounds a bit anxious? Yep, that's me! *g* Oh, and trust me, you don't want to know what this *beeeeep* stands for! ;)))

Part 1:

I agree with part of what Hadouken said. Showing it at an early stage for bug reports and things is great, but for those who want to simply see how the game feels wait for Beta or maybe a Pre-Game launch party if they have one. 

I think alpha should be no more than 50-100 testers total (more like 25 of the top people who give great feedback to the community to start with then add more as you see fit). If you set up guide lines on what you are currently working on (as listed above) that will help testers focus on what you need feedback on the most. If there are some major glitches, be sure to have a bug report button handy in game, and maybe an in-game comments/suggestions area as well. 

What I don't agree with Hadouken on is this -- If you have too many players who are inexperienced in what is needed of an Alpha Tester (especially those players just looking to see if they would like the play style) you will get a lot of people who complain and give little or no helpful comments to improve the game itself. and may even choose not to play the game when it goes live because they will think "i saw that in Alpha and is was not fun so I wont play it". And they will only think it is not fun because it isn't a fully finished game. Be very careful of who you let into Alpha Testing. Letting just anyone in or letting too many in will just bombard your crew with a lot of comments that might actually slow down your ability to fix the bugs and polish what is needed. Plus, if you do get that bogged down then the testers might start to think you are not listening to them and all their complaints, suggestions, bug reports, etc. They might think the developers are not listening or don't care.

It is not an easy thing to be a Game Tester. It is hard to know what the developer needs to know, or how to say it so that the developer understands what the tester is seeing. Testers need to say things like: where the bug happened? when it happened? what you were doing when the glitch happened? does the glitch happen repeatedly each time you try to do a certain task, or does it only happen once in a while?, etc - just to name a few. And it can be very frustrating for a Tester to make a report and not see anything happen right away. You need testers that know your developers are real human beings that need to sleep and eat and talk a walk.  

Being a tester is more like a job, than play time. If you want the game to come out the very best, than as a tester you need to work hard along side the developers to make it happen. If you are lucky you will get a really great set of testers that can work well with the developers to make the whole experience fruitful. 

Part 2:

As for the other stuff in the post:

Wow, a 2 hour tutorial. It must be very involved with a lot of quests to get the player started. I am excited to see the design of the updater. Some game updaters are very simple, just a box with loading bars and a space for recent news. I hope yours has a little more pizzaz to it. 

The marketplace, is that going to be a singular place where players can buy and sell their farmed/dropped items to each other without having to interact with the individual players 1 on 1? Like the Bazaar in Wizard101 or Pirate101? Will you have regular vendors set up in each area that you can buy and sell standard in game items that don't involve other players at all? 

Trading between players, will that be by clicking on the player you want to trade with, and then that other player can accept or deny the trade? I don't trade much with strangers and i really dislike it when players are constantly sending trade requests while i am busy doing stuff in game. So i hope you will have a feature in the settings that let you turn off/on the trade function as needed. 

Please do not have personal stall shops. There have been other mmo's that do this and it just clutters up the area with a bunch of players that sit all day with a stall open trying to sell stuff to other players that are hugely over-priced, plus that always makes the game run slower for me.

What do you mean by "generated town location"? 

For the Unit stats and Hero Stats, is there going to be a book icon that we can click to bring up a screen with all this information? Or will in be various key-bindings like C for Character screen? Or will we be able to use both on screen icons as well as key-binding short cuts to bring up the information?

As far as content available for Alpha goes, the 2 hour tutorial seems like a good place to start. Plus it will also have the character creator to play with, and your base location to set up i assume as well. I think that is plenty for an alpha test. I am sure we will all be eager for more content after the tutorial, but if you give testers too much right away it might make things a little harder. Tester A, B, and C might play faster than Tester D, E, and F -- if that happens you will be getting bug reports from various areas of game content all at once. IT might feel like a lot of back and forth between bug reports. I say release just a little bit at first, and see how the testers react, and then add more as your developers get a handle on the issues that need fixing/polishing. 

I think you should hold off on the lengthy single-player content for the Beta Phase Testers. That way you have picked through as many bugs and other things with the Alpha Phase and testers wont be going over the same stuff from alpha phase while in beta phase. This is how it seemed to be in my Beta Test of Pirate101 at least. I know people from the Alpha testing of P101 and they said the game was very bare until Beta started up.

So that is my two-cents for now, hope it helped.

Hugs to all, An81angel

I also think 2 hours is plenty especially if you could start over once completed.

I also think that too many people will spoil the bug reporting as I tend to make sure something hasn't already been reported before I say anything about a problem so that I can confirm someone elses findings or see if it is only happening to me. So if there are too many comments that have nothing to do with fixing problems I loose interest and so don't report.

Hope to be first but also not sure that's the best choice for me as my time to play is limited but again that's why I think not to many people in the beginning.

 Looking forward to progress and was happy to see some new news today. Woo Hoo

Hiya,

I agree with Anangel and brendatimj.  Limited 'outside' people testing.  2 hour tutorial should be PLENTY to whet people's appetite, and more than enough to give you guys an idea of how the game works with outside people involved. 

Everyone's going to have their own idea on what's good and what works well, so as long as you guys are in a position to handle the influx of comments from people testing, it will be fantastic.

The only down side I see is if people are 'testing' to just play the game, they could be disappointed with lack of 'spit and polish'.  If you get 'testers' who test, it can only be of benefit.  For this reason, I would suggest making the tutorial only available for Alpha test.  Besides, 2 hours a LOT more than offered to test a game anywhere else!

Just remember to enjoy the journey guys.  :)

I am in! I can play it over and over I bet. I can bug you with all kinds of comments, I can have another game to take up all my time and keep me from cleaning the house. I am ready to rock and roll. 

This all sounds good to me, except that of course now I'm disappointed that I have to wait until later in the year to try it. :(

On the other hand the next month or two will be busy workwise, and my deadline for completion will be November. So hopefully TT2 will be a nice little present to myself for finishing my work.

2 hours will be short though. But considering I plan on spending lots of time playing as the game gets bigger, that will do fine for me. More concerning than how much can I play in the beta is how much can you guys pull off before then and if you think doing more would be stretching things then I'm fine with it.

I'd like to see the game relased as soon as it's a little playable, but still with the ``in upcoming versionsґґ model you say above. Relasing the tutorial and upgrading it by, per example, adding chapters or whatever its supposed to have  untill it becomes the final and complete version of TT2 looks good for me.

I think it is een good idea for testing the game in a early stage. The base of the game is important to work properly, so it is better to test the game for the first time without too much content.

Well  Berserker
I'm far from being first to comment on this link simply because when I checked the site 6 times yesterday this thread was not showing in the "News" on my machine :(.  So maybe that is a glitch in itself. 

 Anyway I completely concur with what Anangel.  The fewer people beta testing in the first few weeks the better for you as  you don't want people testing who assume that it is more or less the finished article and give up before the "finished" game has even been launched.  When I'm beta testing games I like to keep a pen and paper beside me to log all problems/glitches, I come across and the more skeletal the beta the better for you.  Love Masons idea of the bug counter, vey practical for both the player and you guys.  It would be a bit of a bummer if you don't have the Beta ready for release till November, but I'm a patient person and another 12 weeks to wait wont kill me  (assuming I'm going to be a tester). 

The ~2 hours of tutorial is ~2 hours of pre-scripted experience similar to what you used to play in original games. The tutorial is not boring excercises of what to do and how, it's fused with quests and conversations and hints add up in a natural way, so it's basically 2 hours of playing, not 2 hours of learning. After those 2 hours the game will not end. It's like in TT1 you can continue playing the island after completion, except this time around you will be able to research/build/train anything you whant and interact with other alpha testers. So after 2 hours there will be unlimited sandbox experience. But naturally there will be no storyline and quests in it, so it might not be fun for everyone.

But, those sandbox experience is integral to the core of the game and we need to have it tested and working well before adding the rest of the storyline and quests, hence the need to test it out extensively.

Sorry, there was a misunderstanding. I understand now... it's not 2 hours of gameplay, just 2 hours of tutorial. Silly me! :)