I’m gonna try to avoid the “doom and gloom” around this sort of topic.
IE: OMG YOUR GAME IS GONNA DIE IF YOU DON’T LISTEN TO ME!!?1!;"aj;flkas;djfkla
So instead, lets look at it logically and get straight to the point.
Like many others here, I’ve noticed how seemingly “pointless” it is to test or provide feedback.
- Something highlighted by our Moderator “Chemile0n”
That particular comment was from the “why is respeccing gated?” topic.
Essentially, despite the desire from players to fix something they have an issue with. The problem might and likely already has been addressed on internal builds.
IE: The respec statue was moved to the watchers tower and now costs a single goats blood for each “use”.
However, due to a lack of transparency.. players don’t “know” this and continue mindlessly giving feedback along with personal justifications on why it needs to change while others refuse and defend it “as is”.
Same goes for the borderline drama surrounding “ledges”.
On one side of the coin, there’s nothing wrong with this.
- Active feedback keeps the community engaged.
This is especially true in longer development cycles where there’s barely anything keeping players around.
So this begs the question: What can the devs do about it?
As stated above, this might not even be an issue to resolve for Thomas.
So he may elect to just throw us a bone or two (teasers) or perhaps do another interview to keep us “engaged”.
- Every development team is different and will address feedback in a way they think is appropriate.
However, there are still those of us that have wanted to provide more time sensitive feedback that contributes to the current development cycle.
One of the easiest solutions to this “problem” is to make a demo-realm with a hub world and release content in packets.
If the game is designed well (modular) this option becomes a lot easier to implement/execute.
- Additionally, this also gives devs the ability to release a version of this “hub world” as a demo for players thinking about buying into early access.
Of course, even a proper “testing ground” for active players has it’s own issues.
1. Who is testing?
- If the only testers (or mass majority) come from a specific genre of gaming or skill level, their feedback will be “tainted with it’s stench” compared to more pure feedback by those of other persuasions.
This is a common problem for games that also had potential for eSports.
IE: Devs listen to “Pros” rather than the casuals (most of their actual playerbase).
2. Failed Reception.
- The devs think they hit a home run and put it on the testing server so players will shut up or at least have something to talk about but it backfires and players hate it demanding change.
Extremely common problem, evident from the initial release of “The Breach”.
*Imagine Thomas’ relief if that whole mess had only affected the “testing realm” rather than an actual content release.
3. Leaks and Spoilers.
- Data mined content that the players aren’t testing but is in the testing realm because it has to be for testing other features to work properly.
This problem gets easier to avoid the more “modular” a game is, so you don’t have to put in supporting systems or features/items/ect for players to test the desired content.
4. Feedback Overload and Resource Drain.
- Players testing time sensitive content can generate an overwhelming volume of feedback, much of it contradictory or poorly thought out. Sorting through this to find something usable can massively slow down decision making or lead to devs cherry-picking feedback that aligns with their biases.
IE: There’s nothing wrong with this feature, the devs are doing a good job and shouldn’t listen to the haters/casuals/tryhards/no-lifes/ect!.
- Likewise, this can put a severe drain on dev teams with smaller budgets if they pick incorrectly or indiscriminately (hoping for the best because they aren’t sure or are unable to judge an idea properly).
Regardless, if we get a testing realm or not.. more transparency from the devs going forward would be appreciated.
Not just that.. but get involved with the community, do some fun things to engage with us beyond corpo habits.
Perhaps contests or cross over events?
Hype up the community and inspire the creatives!
*Even bad mechanics can be made into lighthearted fun.
To anyone reading this, do you have a game community you remember in a good light?
- What did they do right?
- How would you tweak it to fit current gaming trends?
If not, what would you like to see from @thomasmahler or the rest of the devs going forward?