I've been thinking about alpha/beta a lot, and I'm sure most of you have also! A few nights ago, I was telling a friend about Pantheon, and mentioned my idea of trying a few to several classes out to see how they play and work together, with the explicit exclusion of the class that I currently intend to main. My reasoning being that, I may find something that I'll enjoy even more than I anticipate enjoying an enchanter...because I am primarily a Main player, and seldom if ever seriously play an alt unless a game has been out for years...alting for me is usually a sign of boredom.
After hearing that, he raised a very interesting point, saying "That sounds like a better idea to me than what I've done in past betas, which was pushing as far as I could go on one char, and pretty much being burned out on a game at or soon after release." Now, these games, I believe that Rift was one, another may have been Terra, weren't particularly hard to level in, but apparently (either at once or in stages, I didn't beta them) released almost if not all of their content during testing.
I can in some ways see why they would do that, seeing as how easy it was to level in these games. But, being that Pantheon isn't being designed to be a rush to endgame, I wonder if there are plans to just release portions of the game during testing/alpha/beta phases? Along those lines, if tradeskills are to be tested during these phases, will there be a cap in how high they can go, or what recipies you can discover, etc? It seems to me that it would be a good idea to test just enough of the game to ensure that systems are working properly, without opening up too much of the mystery...especially since (at least, I think/hope that) there will be wipes between each of these phases and before release.
Thoughts/ideas?
Since they have explained their 'methodology' in terms of development structure already, albeit in 'broad strokes', there are some things we can 'imagine' likely.
1. Since they plan to develop classes to level 10 initially :
Alpha will likely test the startup and functionality of the 'already designed' classes from levels 1-10. It will likely be about looking for 'fine tuning' feedback for many aspects of those characters - perhaps about 'loot rates', 'spell costs', 'aggro patterns' etc. It may be also be about the environment, from ease of use to 'perceived' frequency of inns.
There are likely to be a few iterations of this testing as they 'tweak' setting based on the feedback they get, perhaps even revamping any they feel seriously 'borked'.
2. Beta testing likely to be more 'continuous' than episodic.
If you were going to burn out - THIS is where you woold do it. By Beta, they are more likely to be testing 'known quantities' than the kind of radical changes to methods you can see in Alpha. It is unlikely that some major change would occur, so the testing is closer to QA than 'oops i fell through the world'. How well did it work? How much more difficult is it to spot the new 'body types' the armour colours are meant to hint at? etc. Oh, and playing characters. Lots.
Every games company does things a little differently, but these guys have *lots* of experience under their belts, so suspect they will do this part well.
PS: There will be wipes any time they need to clear the database. Or if the server hamster gets tired.
The testing we did in Vanguard as far as location and early dungeon was concerned was not even an area in the release version of the game. The mechanics, game play, etc... were all the same. That was the test. The feel of that game was revealed during the testing, but the actual starting areas were not.
I do not know if this will be the case for Pantheon testing or not. Every game is a little diff and the team building a little diff as well.
I will say that I enjoyed the idea of not being way ahead of others when we started the game. Everyone jumping in on the exact same page leveled the playing field.
Time will certainly tell.