Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

Internal dev crews should, in theory, be the best at testing raid content (or any content for that matter) because they already know the underlying mechanics and can easily set up and repeat testing conditions. The problem is very often devs seem absolutely terrible at playing games, even their own. Sure, they could give them time to play/practice on the clock, but shit costs money, and short term goals are more important than long term ramifications of player testing that have already been discussed.

I know a couple people who have actually worked as QA supervisors or testers at companies like Nintendo and Microsoft mostly bug-testing games, but for some reason mmos with huge budgets don't seem to want to pay for this kind of thing? or is that just my assumption/perception and they are paying for it, it just isn't enough?

Then again, maybe I'm just naive because I also don't understand why studios like Bethesda release incomplete or boring games that modders will have to fix for free, and can't seem to just hire those modders before release on the cheap. Legal issues? Insead of letting a modder work for name recognition alone, they have to pay the same guy a shit-ton to develop something that is shit until a modder comes along and fixes it for free?

Internal testers would have the lowest possible ping to the test server, most of the issues that crop up with timing and reaction need to be tried on real world scenarios where latency is more similar to true game play.

I made a comment in another thread that I think is somewhat relevant to the points you bring up, popsicle..

so here goes a first for me: quoting myself, then elaborating on my own quote...

""it used to be that beta for most games was an extremely selective process, with the sole intention of selecting the most dedicated players with communication skills and experience to find and squash bugs, and to contribute towards improved mechanics, content, and gameplay.""

nowadays it seems that the intention of beta skews more towards marketing than quality control. (especially considering games that release in alpha phase for near full box price, which is what I was originally referring to in the other thread)

though clearly closed beta is primarily to squash bugs, I don't see the same scrutiny being applied to those who are accepted that I used to see in the past..

""does anyone remember when we used to have to basically provide a beta resume to get into beta for games? devs dont care anymore.. it's all a gamble to get the most money upfront, and it usually fails.""

it has been a long time since I've seen a beta that made me answer a questionnaire, cite my previous beta experience and specific contributions, or write full sentences in order to be considered for participation.. it seems that all we do is throw our email address in a lottery.

""the same core of well-intentioned players still exist, yet companies do this alpha/beta pay-in as a cash and marketing ploy which may give them some funding and traction, but seems to usually just contribute to premature bashing and a general shitshow""

the quality of closed beta testers has, in my opinion, gone way through the floor... most people just want to play early and satisfy their need for instant gratification, often at the expense of the community's early impressions of the game, and often at the expense of the quality of the launch product due to inferior testing

Nemesis_sl said:

I made a comment in another thread that I think is somewhat relevant to the points you bring up, popsicle..

so here goes a first for me: quoting myself, then elaborating on my own quote...

""it used to be that beta for most games was an extremely selective process, with the sole intention of selecting the most dedicated players with communication skills and experience to find and squash bugs, and to contribute towards improved mechanics, content, and gameplay.""

nowadays it seems that the intention of beta skews more towards marketing than quality control. (especially considering games that release in alpha phase for near full box price, which is what I was originally referring to in the other thread)

though clearly closed beta is primarily to squash bugs, I don't see the same scrutiny being applied to those who are accepted that I used to see in the past..

""does anyone remember when we used to have to basically provide a beta resume to get into beta for games? devs dont care anymore.. it's all a gamble to get the most money upfront, and it usually fails.""

it has been a long time since I've seen a beta that made me answer a questionnaire, cite my previous beta experience and specific contributions, or write full sentences in order to be considered for participation.. it seems that all we do is throw our email address in a lottery.

""the same core of well-intentioned players still exist, yet companies do this alpha/beta pay-in as a cash and marketing ploy which may give them some funding and traction, but seems to usually just contribute to premature bashing and a general shitshow""

the quality of closed beta testers has, in my opinion, gone way through the floor... most people just want to play early and satisfy their need for instant gratification, often at the expense of the community's early impressions of the game, and often at the expense of the quality of the launch product due to inferior testing

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I'm sure they have qualified people testing the game who are their employees and are paid. MMOs have such a diverse range of players/pc specs/etc these days that they might as well just invite anyone and throw enough shit at the wall and hope that it sticks. Maybe I'm optimistic but I see plenty of chat and discussion of bugs going on, Im sure plenty of people report issues when they come across them. NDA stuff strikes me as being somewhat archaic though.

Malakriss_sl said:

Internal testers would have the lowest possible ping to the test server, most of the issues that crop up with timing and reaction need to be tried on real world scenarios where latency is more similar to true game play.

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It would not be very hard for them to generate a suitable delay though. Or packet loss as well for that matter.

why hire people to test when you can get people to do it for you for free or in new terms, pay you to do it?

I mean that's really the crux of it.

You could pay some guys to do QA. But that involves more than a rockstar watchmeplay youtube investment. To really do QA you'll need access to just about everything. Texts to proof (for typos), spreadsheets to proof, and obviously the client to proof. If a person is doing it right... it's actually ajob. It is not an armchair dev creative process, it is an editorial one.

Or you can get a few thousand hobbyists, and maybe they only catch 1 bug each but even if so you've caught a few thousand bugs for free. And you also have a metric now on how often one bug is encountered, which is a piece of information that the guy you pay can't give you.

Hopefully they're doing both.

Iannis_sl said:

Or you can get a few thousand hobbyists, and maybe they only catch 1 bug each but even if so you've caught a few thousand bugs for free. And you also have a metric now on how often one bug is encountered, which is a piece of information that the guy you pay can't give you.

Hopefully they're doing both.

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you have a few thousand hobbyists with a handful of people your actually paying to go through the thousands of bug reports. the hobbyists do the running, the payed guys do the actual job.

So what's the deal with streaming this fucking game on Twitch (I fucking hate that site and everything to do with it, you're not getting $5 of money from me a month just to be able to type a fucking sentence into chat). Do I have to have a subscription button and people donating money to me to be able to hit the stream button or what? I have a bunch of old friends of mine who were avid mmo players long ago who want to see some actual gameplay.

Vilmz_sl said:

So what's the deal with streaming this fucking game on Twitch (I fucking hate that site and everything to do with it, you're not getting $5 of money from me a month just to be able to type a fucking sentence into chat). Do I have to have a subscription button and people donating money to me to be able to hit the stream button or what? I have a bunch of old friends of mine who were avid mmo players long ago who want to see some actual gameplay.

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Just use adblock plus and it eliminates commercials and you can watch everything just fine. You don't need to subscribe to anything. You can go to the official wildstar twitch stream and watch videos of the previous streams if you want.

WildStar - Twitch

Abefroman_sl said:

Just use adblock plus and it eliminates commercials and you can watch everything just fine. You don't need to subscribe to anything. You can go to the official wildstar twitch stream and watch videos of the previous streams if you want.

WildStar - Twitch

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I've seen enough of the promotional videos being forced down our throat since the first beta. I'm trying to show some actual gameplay to some friends of mine at this point but apparently you need to have some sort of permission on twitch to do so. This NDA has gone on for far too long.

make a private stream, dont give out the link to anyone but your friend and noone will ever know.

Byr_sl said:

make a private stream, dont give out the link to anyone but your friend and noone will ever know.

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Twitch disabled private streams a couple months ago.

Cantatus_sl said:

Twitch disabled private streams a couple months ago.

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they also arnt the only streaming site out there, im sure you can find a way to make one somewhere.

Vilmz_sl said:

I've seen enough of the promotional videos being forced down our throat since the first beta. I'm trying to show some actual gameplay to some friends of mine at this point but apparently you need to have some sort of permission on twitch to do so. This NDA has gone on for far too long.

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The nda is pretty stupid this far along. For what is worth the nda is supposed to be ddropping early next year.

Isnt the game is half a year or so away? I think an NDA at that point is normal. Once it's gone alot of people will put some time in to build their bias on wether the game is good or not without ever playing it, so if you drop it too early those purchase decisions are made for reasons that have been removed later on. You've lost a share of customers that wrote off your game too early then.

One example would be the UI. Is it final? From watching some stuff I'd say I am no fan, seems cluttered. But I dont know if they'll streamline it in February or whenever before dropping NDA.

Games is 3-4 months out from being released.

Draegan_sl said:

Games is 3-4 months out from being released.

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Smartest move from them would be releasing the game after May 4th, if you see what I'm talking about.

game needs more than 3-4 more months.

Byr_sl said:

game needs more than 3-4 more months.

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I 50% agree with that. They can pump out a game in 4 months with more playability than most MMO's at launch in last 5 years, but if they wait 8+ months they could launch a really spectacular game.