Dhurrin
Well-Known Member
Ok, I know Im not going to make a lot of friends with this post, but Im going to put it here anyway.
I joined the beta world just a few days ago, mainly because I wanted access to the betaforum and be able to react. Of course, having a bit more insight in whats coming up is nice as well. So I spent my days off browsing the forum, looking at the archives and in between posting a few things and doing some light playing on my beta city, though that never is going to be a mainworld for me. All fine so far one could say, except I think it is not.
Granted, its been quite a while since I worked with games, or to be more specific, worked with online games as it was only a small set-up we started with some friends. And of course back then the internet wasnt what it is now, but the principle held up even back when I made boardgames.
The whole idea of having a beta testgroup is (or at least was for us) to form a link between developers and the playerbase. This was used to test the game and the mechanics, to catch problems before going out into the world. And used to catch things that were deemed obvious by us, as developers, partly because we spent a lot of time on it, talking with each other, leaving us blind to how an outsider looks at things. A pretty common problem too.
It made beta always messy, buggy, relatively small, but also fun.
We did however have have some very strict standards. The first beta group consisted of friends and some familymembers, one has to start somewhere.
But our beta world ran at about 8-10 times the regular speed, so one wouldnt have to wait for days or weeks to catch up to a point where something new was put in or a change was made.
The prices of paid functions also were much lower (actually, the first set up it was free because we didnt want to charge friends and family for helping out, but later on, it was about 1/5 of the normal price).
The beta world was a lot smaller than the real one would be (remember, back then 5 gig was deemed to be a huge harddrive).
The players on beta were required to give feedback regularly. We didnt have a forum, so that mostly was email, or by phone, or someone dropping in after work (yes, we did this mostly after work, with only the real designer fulltime on it).
When we expanded our testgroup we had regular players apply. They would get a bonus on the regular game for being a testsubject. It meant we could select active players, because irregular players dont contribute as much, if at all.
Now why do I mention this? Not because I like reliving the old days, but because I seem to miss the purpose of this beta world and forum.
The world is way too much like the other liveworlds, with just a little early warning for new stuff. And there are way too many inactive players.
As with the other liveworlds, way too few players make it to the forum. I guess thats partially because there are many international players, so language may be playing a role too.
I miss a longterm view of changes, because the speed is the same, it takes just as long here to encounter things as on the liveserver.
Most of all, it seems like a LOT of feedback is ignored. There certainly is not a lot of communication about it, nor answers from innogames.
A message like ' this has been forwarded to the dev team' actually doesnt say anything. Just a separate issue where regular updates about such things are given would be nice, even if its like 'under consideration/revision' or 'planned to be discussed in june' or 'discussed and rejected' (preferably with reason) etc. At least players would have some idea of whats going on.
Minding the feedback of your testers AND your customers is critically important if you want to survive. You can have a grand vision of where you want to go, but if your players dont want to go there you'll be left alone with that vision. Of course, in my eyes the whole point of having a testgroup is to catch that BEFORE going to spend a huge amount of time and effort in going there. One more reason to discuss ideas with that testgroup beforehand.
Talking about communication; tech really has advanced since those days. Remember most of your players dont make it to the forum. They just want to play. Sending an ingame message with a link to the forum releasenotes a few days before implementing isnt that hard.
Now for those who havent quit or fallen asleep while reading this, Id like to hear some of their views on the use of a beta group.
I joined the beta world just a few days ago, mainly because I wanted access to the betaforum and be able to react. Of course, having a bit more insight in whats coming up is nice as well. So I spent my days off browsing the forum, looking at the archives and in between posting a few things and doing some light playing on my beta city, though that never is going to be a mainworld for me. All fine so far one could say, except I think it is not.
Granted, its been quite a while since I worked with games, or to be more specific, worked with online games as it was only a small set-up we started with some friends. And of course back then the internet wasnt what it is now, but the principle held up even back when I made boardgames.
The whole idea of having a beta testgroup is (or at least was for us) to form a link between developers and the playerbase. This was used to test the game and the mechanics, to catch problems before going out into the world. And used to catch things that were deemed obvious by us, as developers, partly because we spent a lot of time on it, talking with each other, leaving us blind to how an outsider looks at things. A pretty common problem too.
It made beta always messy, buggy, relatively small, but also fun.
We did however have have some very strict standards. The first beta group consisted of friends and some familymembers, one has to start somewhere.
But our beta world ran at about 8-10 times the regular speed, so one wouldnt have to wait for days or weeks to catch up to a point where something new was put in or a change was made.
The prices of paid functions also were much lower (actually, the first set up it was free because we didnt want to charge friends and family for helping out, but later on, it was about 1/5 of the normal price).
The beta world was a lot smaller than the real one would be (remember, back then 5 gig was deemed to be a huge harddrive).
The players on beta were required to give feedback regularly. We didnt have a forum, so that mostly was email, or by phone, or someone dropping in after work (yes, we did this mostly after work, with only the real designer fulltime on it).
When we expanded our testgroup we had regular players apply. They would get a bonus on the regular game for being a testsubject. It meant we could select active players, because irregular players dont contribute as much, if at all.
Now why do I mention this? Not because I like reliving the old days, but because I seem to miss the purpose of this beta world and forum.
The world is way too much like the other liveworlds, with just a little early warning for new stuff. And there are way too many inactive players.
As with the other liveworlds, way too few players make it to the forum. I guess thats partially because there are many international players, so language may be playing a role too.
I miss a longterm view of changes, because the speed is the same, it takes just as long here to encounter things as on the liveserver.
Most of all, it seems like a LOT of feedback is ignored. There certainly is not a lot of communication about it, nor answers from innogames.
A message like ' this has been forwarded to the dev team' actually doesnt say anything. Just a separate issue where regular updates about such things are given would be nice, even if its like 'under consideration/revision' or 'planned to be discussed in june' or 'discussed and rejected' (preferably with reason) etc. At least players would have some idea of whats going on.
Minding the feedback of your testers AND your customers is critically important if you want to survive. You can have a grand vision of where you want to go, but if your players dont want to go there you'll be left alone with that vision. Of course, in my eyes the whole point of having a testgroup is to catch that BEFORE going to spend a huge amount of time and effort in going there. One more reason to discuss ideas with that testgroup beforehand.
Talking about communication; tech really has advanced since those days. Remember most of your players dont make it to the forum. They just want to play. Sending an ingame message with a link to the forum releasenotes a few days before implementing isnt that hard.
Now for those who havent quit or fallen asleep while reading this, Id like to hear some of their views on the use of a beta group.
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on live servers, we deserve to know more! 
