Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Another day, another no Alpha

    • 801 posts
    July 10, 2019 2:29 PM PDT

    zewtastic said:

    Crazzie said:

    Darch said:

    I feel that what a lot of people aren't realizing is where the actual "challenge" from EQ "originally" came from; and they are hoping to reproduce something that is not possible in our day in age.  I say it's not possible to reproduce the same challenges because a large majority of it came from player naitevy of how MMORPGs operate; That, combined with the insane RNG that required incessant grinding that would make most people /wrist if they were subjected to that combination again was the majority of the "challenge" in classic EQ.  If you go back to classic EQ now (using the knowledge people have obtained, the game is quite trivial... just time consuming).  With that said, if you consider overcoming a "challenge" simply beating the RNG god, then of course games with different loots systems will seem "less challenging".  Withholding/making gear exclusive isn't a "challenge" to some people... some people consider NPC encounters the actual challenge, which doesn't require withholding loot to successfully implement.  RNG should only be there to prolong gameplay (to an extent), not add a "sense" of accomplishment.  When you have to wait until you're level 50 to go camp a level 30 NPC for the FBSS (preventing players of appropriate level from ever attempting it), that's just poor design, and I hope VR doesn't go for that same model even though it seems a lot of people are hoping for that.

    To keep on the topic of the post, I hope they stay in Alpha as long as they need so that they can make a "challenging" game that doesn't rely on the combination of nearly impossible RNG and incessant grinding.

     

    I do agree with you on that statement about hoping to have the hardcore challenge, This is why the grouping thing works out well for many of us, progression can be hardcore too. I put 20 great years into EQ, the TLP was just that Bleh!!!! but i loved the classic so i tried it.

    I completely agree about staying in Alpha for as long as it takes. Guys like me will break the content and report the problems. Others are great at finding exploits, and we need them too.

    I am game just let me know when you want me to start testing, i have many backer games but this is my hope to make it really good. Not to put other games down, but i did have to back away from testing, because they failed to keep delivering and letting us testers know what was going on. It is what it is these days on Steam games etc...

    Length of time in alpha doesn't generally equate to a well QA'd game. Quality over quantity. Unless people understand how to look for unintended issues and test all parameters, bad code gets through. General public gamers are not QA testers. They don't understand coding, game design, functionality that can be exploited. They just played some games. The best they can do is finding glaring, game-breaking bugs, create load on servers and expose problems with spawn rates and bottlenecks. And as important as those are, it's not the kind of thing that kills a game. Cheaters and exploiters that try and break things do it largely to be malicious and gain advantage. They snoop the netcode, try to develop hacking tools, and look for poor security coding. When they find something, don't count on them to reporting it. Rather they will use it for maximum personal reward, secretly, and save it for release.

    A classic example will be a horrendous dupe bug that absolutely kills the economy upon release. It's happened before, it'll happen again. Those kind of bugs kill games. People get pissed, leave, and never come back.

     

    True length of time doesnt mean it will be perfect either, Alpha is to help game breaking problems, netcode, and most of all server load. Beta is more fixing all the bugs we reported in Alpha/Beta such as quest lines, broken mobs etc.. So the sooner we get into Alpha for those that do record and test, and report i think it is a must as soon as Pre Alpha has a stable client.

     

    So i am not going to dig too deep into Pre Alpha as i am not into it right now but mostly they are making sure the game gets to Alpha stages. If delayed more into Pre Alpha that means there is some zones not complete or working fully as intended yet. This is very important for us Alpha testers, especially todays day and age with the younger "I want it all" in alpha.

     

    Normally Alpha will be the center of all major problems, then beta to help sort it out for release. Today Early Access just means fix it all the best we can then release the Child..... Sucks to be a Dev today's day and age with little to no funding and having to use Platforms such as Steam etc...

     

    I hope to see Alpha soon, as i could not afford Pre Alpha package at the time...

    Yes i have thousands of hours testing junk, i call it junk because you dont always enjoy it.

    • 187 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:54 PM PDT

    I would love it if they let in some or all of the alpha backers in the next pre alpha tests.  Spread it out so it's not overloaded, half alpha supporters this day, the other half this day.  Wet the old palette for us and get even more bug reports!!  A different game I support did this.  Alpha is not out but come help us test!

    • 28 posts
    July 10, 2019 8:08 PM PDT

    Kastor said:

    I would love it if they let in some or all of the alpha backers in the next pre alpha tests.  Spread it out so it's not overloaded, half alpha supporters this day, the other half this day.  Wet the old palette for us and get even more bug reports!!  A different game I support did this.  Alpha is not out but come help us test!

     

    I would suspect a lot of the people that forked over the extra money to get into pre-alpha would be a bit upset over this. Maybe not

    • 801 posts
    July 10, 2019 11:34 PM PDT

    gertdoggy said:

    Kastor said:

    I would love it if they let in some or all of the alpha backers in the next pre alpha tests.  Spread it out so it's not overloaded, half alpha supporters this day, the other half this day.  Wet the old palette for us and get even more bug reports!!  A different game I support did this.  Alpha is not out but come help us test!

     

    I would suspect a lot of the people that forked over the extra money to get into pre-alpha would be a bit upset over this. Maybe not

    Ya they would be a 10k vrs 100 package, i would be fuming mad.. but it has to end pre alpha soon.