"Beta 1Z" ?

Honestly Frogboy, you're just making up letters now  

"Z" is a made up letter splits?  

Seriously, I can't wait to vote, but I have a feeling my vote will be no. This game needs to be the best game i've ever played, and if that means it needs to stay in production for 3 years I'll wait patiently.

It was a facetious response expressing my desire for Elemental to leave beta.

so if everybody votes "No" does that mean you'll find a letter after "Z"?

After 'Z' its 'GT'. Everyone knows that

Basically, at the end of the day, the question boils down to: Do beta testers believe the game is ready to go into the multiplayer beta.

I am excited about the next version, All bugs that I have run across have been noted/reported in the forums. As a beta tester I am in a holding pattern until the next version. Every bug fixed now is one step closer to a finished product. As in any beta test, the quicker we provide accurate feedback and error reports with detailed information. The quicker they can fix them.

Something I would like to see is the ability to play a complete single player game (start to finish)  before moving to multiplayer.

"The mouse who sits still, finds no cheese at the end of the maze"

For me this would be not earlier then after I have played on whole game from start to end with out a crash...

It makes no sense to test multiplayer, if you cannot play two turns in a row, because of the players had CTD and the game needs to restarted, so that he/she can join again.

So stability is most important think before going to phase 2...Especially as Multiplayer will add one more layer of reasons for crashes...

Hmmm, I have a question. (maybe a stupid question) When we get done with the Final Beta will we have a finished game and downloading the release version will just be a formality or will there be a lot of content added between the final beta and the release version?

I would say in order for any stage of beta to move forward all the content relevant to that "stage" needs to be in game and working as intended, tested for bugs, stability, and balanced. From what I've seen in the beta's a LOT of content still needs to be added. On top of that all that content needs to be balanced. Balancing is something I'm giving more and more thought to as the beta's progress.

Back in the day when I worked on UO we had a private test server. This was back before MMO's had public "test" servers and it was only open to developers and their families. Our biggest internal debates (lets face it, they were flat out arguments) were over balancing skills, spells, and items. Every time we would introduce something new to the game it would take months of testing to find the proper balance to make sure these things didn't over-power one class against another or one play style over another. Achieving a proper balance can take MONTHS of play testing alone and in order to balance these things they ALL need to be in game. In Elemental's case this means we'll need ALL the spells that will be in the final game. We'll need all resources and things that can be made with them. Basically we need to have whole, complete, system to work with and test. A lot of what we'll need to do this properly we don't have. Hell, we've only got three types of monsters walking around on the map. All the various monsters need to be in game and every spell that is in game needs to be tested against them, their armor and health needs to be balanced, there are a million little factors that need to be adjusted.

Until all that is done I don't think I could vote "Yes" in good conscious and still call my-self a professional tester. I actually have a name in the beta testing community to uphold as from time to time I still get paid to test games and other software. I won't put the "Raven Stamp of Approval" on something that's not finished to my high standards.

How much time will we devote to Balancing out the spells and stats of all the creatures and items in game?

One last question. When Elemental plays it's "credits" will we be listed as Beta Testers? If so I'd like to know so I can send my Real Name to the person responsible for adding it to the Beta Testers List.

@ Raven:

So you vote no to safe face, we will vote yes and keep things going. Balancing is something that needs to be done in multiplayer since the AI clearly poses no challenge yet. Balancing things out right now is a wasted effort since the 1Z build is not the final build. Wasting effort to balance the few things we have right now is something we may as well not do yet. You can vote yes. You know you want to. It needs not your 'Raven Stamp of Approval', it just needs a yes. Let us not get ovelry dramatic here...

You can't properly test balance right now no matter what you do, going by that standard. Any spell intended to be used in tactical combat won't be in the game until tactical combat is also in the game, and that's beta 4.

When something this size is still in active development, it's not practical to wait for all the content. You're testing systems. Content will get added throughout the process, because people like artists and writers can only work so fast, AND they can work in parallel to the developers. Speaking as a software developer myself, that's the only practical way to get it done. Balance in particular is pointless in beta 1, because multiplayer will completely throw it out of whack again anyway, and AI improvements will do the same.

If you really expect all the quests and spells targetted for release to be in the game and balanced before we get out of beta 1, we'll be in beta 1 for the next five months.

(A friend of mine is a professional game tester currently working in the industry, and he goes through the same thing. There is no such thing as an early build that's content or feature complete. Content creators simply can't work that fast, but they *can* keep working on content while coders are adding multiplayer and modding support. Of course he also wouldn't call what we have a "beta", since it's more like an "alpha", but that's okay.)

For beta 2 this is easier, because the standard is if multiplayer works correctly. You can measure that. For beta 1, the standard should be things like "does the quest system work?", not "is every quest for release already in the game and balanced?"

/off

You are an UO developer?    That is pretty awesome, it was my first MMORPG, and I loved that game.

/on

Here's the link to the Elemental beta schedule:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/363845

I think it'll clear up a lot of questions if people take a look at it.

I've really got to applaud Stardock's level of user involvement in the development of Elemental.  That said, after 5 years in the game industry myself, I really don't feel this is a good place for that user involvement.  Voting on whether or not the game is ready to move into the next phase of development is asking us to say whether or not we think it's ready, and opinion should not matter for this aspect of development.  Each milestone has set goals.  If you can go down a checklist and say, "Every item we said should be in beta 1 is in and relatively functional," then it's time to move on.  If it isn't, then it's not time yet, no matter what the forums say.

I realize Stardock is taking a very different approach to Elemental's development than most studios take (certainly different than where I work), but allowing development to move forward when there are incomplete goals for a milestone would be a mistake.  Likewise, holding it up because customers envisioned the beta 1 having this or that, when that wasn't a beta 1 goal, would be a mistake.

I whole-heartedly encourage Stardock to continue listening to us, hearing what we want from a game like Elemental, and working to satisfy its customers.  I'm less enthused about Stardock letting us decide when the next phase of development should begin.  Unless a publisher is breathing down developers' necks, or funding is running out (neither is the case here), moving on to the next milestone should happen when every goal for the previous milestone is met.  No sooner, no later.

I look forward to seeing this Major update!

I wont say how im going to vote untill i see it, because that would be very silly wouldnt it!

Well, I'm not actually a Tester (YET!), and as such probably don't have much of a place commenting on this, but here's what I've gathered...

Elemental: War of Magic is, obviously, incomplete.  Here are, what I have observed to be, some of the more common problems with the beta in its current state, as well as how that relates to moving on to Beta 2.

[Minor - Major] Bugs - Obviously...  I mean, it's a freakin' Beta...  But there are TONS of things that fall into this category, so some will be defined in greater detail further on.

[Intermediate] Quests and Heroes - Wouldn't say it's the biggest issue on the block, but it certainly seems to be getting people here and there a little frustrated.  Should be fully, or at least closer to, done and implemented before moving on, in my opinion, but as far as the game itself goes, it's a small thing.

[Major] Stability - Biggest problem, by far.  While I can't say if a majority or a minority of testers experience this issue, even just a few testers is too many.  Some testers are reporting much better stability over the earlier versions of the first phase, but it's still a problem that comes up far too often.  As far as moving on to Beta 2, this one's a deal breaker.  In my opinion, no go until Stability gets at least more solid.

[Major] Data Management - The Saving and Loading features still seem to be giving lots of people lots of problems.  Another obvious must-have before allowing in the next wave of testers.

[Intermediate/Major] Map Generation - Still getting the odd-ball reports of people spawning on top of mountains or surrounded by them or in the middle of oceans, etc etc.  Obvious game-breaker, but this one can be phased out throughout the course of the Beta if need-be, and doesn't seem to be a common enough issue, or pressing enough, to delay Beta 2 further.

As you can see, those are some of the larger problems plauging the Beta.  I'm sure I've missed some, as I don't have the time nor patience to go sifting through ALL of the threads on these forums.

My opinion:  Before fixing the Stability and Save/Load issues, Elemental, as it stands, isn't ready to move forward yet.  There are just a couple basic needs that must be addressed first before it's prepared to be opened to myself and the rest of the next wave of testers.

......As one of those waiting 'Psuedo-Testers' however, I wish it wasn't so...  =(

EDIT: In response to Locklear's comments...

I think it's very good they're asking us.  While I'm sure Stardock has their own milestones and what-not in regards to the development of their game, I also think they wouldn't have asked us if they didn't need or want our input.

From a Development standpoint, your logic is flawed.  As I've said, I'm sure SD has their own milestones, but nothing about this game, major or minor, has been left completely untouched.  SD's been listening, really listening to their players/customers, and trying to tap us for additional ideas.  By that same token, it's the players, not the developers, who decide if a game is good or not.  Since SD's sales rely, more or less, on whether or not the game is good, finding out if we think the game is ready to move forward with or not is a very smart move on their part.  If a majority of us say yes, then they're doing their jobs perfectly, and now they have an indicator that the game will sell, at least to folks similar to those in the Beta.  At the same time, if we say no, then SD knows that something, whatever that may be, is in need of being fixed/re-done/etc, and our responses to those changes will tell them if they're back on track or not.  I seriously doubt whether or not the Beta moves forward, in the long term, is a Tester-Made decision, and that SD will keep things in check based on whatever criteria they use for this kind of thing.

IMO, SD's just got a rough skeleton of their game, and like any normal person who's looking at a skeleton, they don't really know what to do with it.  They aren't sure if they should just throw a party-hat on its head, a cigar in its mouth, and hit the town, or if they should buy it a suit and some nice Italian loafers first.

LoL I think you took my reply a little too dramatically my friend. I wouldn't vote no to save face, I would vote no if I thought it wasn't ready. As for this current stage of beta I don't see a problem with moving forward. The goals that were set for this particular stage of beta I think Have been met. This beta was to get the foundations of the mechanics in, to get the outlines of how the individual systems will work, I.E. the economics, the diplomacy, the Quests system, and to make sure the game will run on as wide a range of systems as possible without errors. Those goals have been met for this stage of beta.

Most of the examples I give in my reply refer to things that will be important in the next few stages of beta. Things that can and have taken companies years to get right. I have faith in Stardock's ability to do this as I haven't found a game of theirs I didn't like, but, in a true beta testing environment when you're on the inside of a company things are a lot more involving from a testers standpoint. In many cases when I was a internal tester we would receive new beta builds on a almost daily basis. The developers had all the concepts locked down and the testers didn't have much say in changing them. The testers job was to play and look for bugs in gameplay, graphics, game performance, etc etc.

In this case Stardock has given it's customers the chance to be testers and actually have input on how some of the systems will work in the game. It's a great move on their part and I'm glad to be a part of it, but we aren't truly "beta testers" when you compare that to what a paid tester goes through. As such I'm just wondering how much say we'll have when it comes to some of the examples I give in my first reply. When you get down to the nitty gritty of the core concepts there's a lot we don't know and won't find out until the systems are fleshed out. As Brad has stated making a game, when it comes to the actual work, is 80% engine, 20% actual "game". With as fast as the schedule is going some of the upcoming steps in the build process will see loads of content added at once. Many different unit types, wandering monsters, spells, items, quests, champions, races, skills, I could go on and on. How much say will we get into these things and how they work? It's conceivable those details could be argued on forever and of course, none of us want that and I'm sure Stardock already has a set time limit on when the final word will be. It's always possible at one point that a 75% consensus won't be reached or agreed upon and that point Stardock will have to say "Well, it's been fun but we think it's ready. It's fun, it's awesome, it's done.".

Of course there's always the great modding features for those people who simply can't be agreeable. If they don't like the final say on something they'll just have to mod it in themselves. I know more then a few people who are already planning their Elves and Dwarves and Orcs.

You're quite right, Tridus. Of course we all know the things I mentioned aren't in This stage of beta. In the next few stages though those things (all the spells, items, quests) will be extremely important when it comes to balancing and gameplay.

That would be "was" a UO developer. That was quite a few years ago. One of the first jobs I got after college but I started as a player and then was a "Volunteer" staffer. Origin did a lot of groundbreaking work but sadly having non company employees working as official staff members on a MMO back fired in their faces. The Volunteer System was shut down after a man was caught using the game and his staff member abilities to stalk his ex-wife in the game. Origin got sued, more then a few people got fired, and the volunteer staff program was shut down. I was lucky enough to be kept on when program was cut as was one other person. I worked from home and logged in through a special client to answer pages, help players with housing issues (before the system was automated), get people un-stuck. As a employee though, after the fiasco that happened, all GM's and Seer's in game had to follow a preset "script" of answers. If a player asked us to do something we weren't supposed to we had to say "I'm sorry I can't help you with that. If you need further assistance or help please contact a Admin or Origin tech support..etc etc. Thank you for playing Ultima Online".

After doing that for two and a half years I went over to a free shard we used during testing called "The Forgotten Lands" which was the longest running UO free shard in the world up until it shut down recently. There I was known by my player name "Raven Xavier" and my GM name "Thanatos". I also portrayed a bunch of other "Gods and Goddesses" for RP reasons during live quests and events.

Those were good times. Probably some of the happiest of my life.

The problem with that is that beta 1 isn't release. The critera to judge if it's "good" or not are completely different from a retail product.

Also, your premise that the players have to decide is also wrong. The players here are a very small, very non-random sample of the market. If you leave decisions up to this group entirely, you'll wind up with Master of Magic. There are pleanty of times when (speaking as a software developer again) players simply don't know what they actually want. What they say they want and what is really good for the game can diverge drastically, and it's up to the developers to say "yes, the 75 forum posters who represent the hardcore TBS audience want this, but the other 150,000 people buying the game don't."

Multiplayer is a great example. If you listen to the group here, MP wouldn't exist because the forums don't want it. From a sales standpoint, that is entirely the wrong decision.

You see a similar dynamic on something like the World of Warcraft forums, which are heavily slanted towards the best and most hardcore players. While that's a group that knows it's stuff inside and out, it's also a group heavily biased towards a certain kind of content. The group that Blizzard doesn't hear from so loudly is a couple orders of magnitude larger then the hardcore people, and it's that other group that made the game so successful.

I agree that the players are a good group to listen to, and take suggestions from. But Locklear93's right, players are not really the ones to be asking if the development process should move forward or not. That's what project managers are for.

and

Stardock usually releases on thursdays

and

next thursday is April 1st

um....prepare for some fun?

I'm very curious to what "major gameplay update" means. More radical than any other beta?

Well... the release of a new major gameplay feature is always radical. And every prior beta release has given us new gameplay features. So what can possibly be more radical than a new gameplay feature?

Unless by "radical gamplay update" they mean an entirely new game...

OMG! Stardock is going to give us all Starcraft 2 beta keys!!

I called it.

lol.

We just mean significant game mechanic changes.

I think some of you guys are worry too much about some of this.

I've been designing and producing PC games for almost 20 years now.  

Certainly the beta group is a non-random sample of people.  And we aren't forced to obey any vote if we feel it's unreasonable.

Here is how it's going to go down:

We will put beta 1Z out. We will read the forum posts. If the game is fundamentally unstable, saved games don't work, etc. then there won't even be a vote as it won't be ready for beta 2 until the game is stable enough to go to the next phase.

If it does seem stable enough, saved games work, etc. Then we'l have a vote.  If 75% of users concur with our recommendation, we'll go to beta 2.  If not, we'll read the discussion about it and see what needs to be addressed.  If the points raised are irrational or not germane to what beta 1 is about, we'll still go forward with beta 2.  If, however, the discussion results in us seeing issues that we hadn't thought of, then there will be a subsequent beta 1 release.

That is the point of the system, to provide a reality check to the beta schedule to make sure we're not missing something.

There is also the other point: For a lot of us, the beta process is a major part of the enjoyment. We enjoy making the game and for us, this process is part of what makes us enjoy it.

Thanks for chiming in Frogboy. Some people seemed to be reading way too much into this.

Frogboy,

Will Beta 1Z be avaiilable to everyone who preordered (even me that I placed the order this morning)? I think it should, but since I'm new here a word from above would be awesome

No, it's not, because we're not judging whether or not the complete game is good, we're judging whether or not what we have access to up to this point is good enough to move forward with.

I already ceded that this wasn't the best market sample with my first post.  "If a majority of us say yes, then they're doing their jobs perfectly, and now they have an indicator that the game will sell, at least to folks similar to those in the Beta."

I also mentioned that SD will obviously have the final say in this.  I'm starting to get the feeling you've completely misread and misunderstood what it was I was saying.  All I've been saying is that, as far as the Beta is concerned, I think SD's doing a really good thing, asking us.

And to this I say, whether or not you ask the players doesn't matter.  We've already established that SD has the final say, and we also know the testers aren't the ones rooting around in the cogs and wheels of the game and making changes.  With those two things known and in place, then asking the players has no real impact.  Either you get some good ideas out of them, or you don't.  In this particular case, either they decide the Beta is ready to move on, or it's not.  We can't hurt anything, so why not ask us?  SD's going to move forward and release the game, with or without us, and they won't let us hold them back more than is necessary, or at all if they feel like it.  While asking, or not asking, the players doesn't hurt anything, having an open dialogue with them about whether or not they feel the Beta is ready to move forward can tremendously help Stardock feel out their little sample, as well as tell them if they're doing a good job or not so far.

Also, using the WoW Forums and Development as a reference?  Bad example.  Completely different game, different company, different genre, different everything.  While the WoW forums may be slanted to the Elite and Hardcore players, I tend to doubt Blizz listens to anyone other than themselves about what to do with their games.  The most cooperation I've ever seen between Blizz and its community has been with the SC2 Beta, and even then, it's obvious Blizz isn't listening, or else they'd stop nerfing the Protoss, at least for a little while.  (Even the guys who don't play Protoss, like me, think the Protoss nerfs are getting to be too much.)

SD's obviously different.  Elemental is obviously different.  To compare Blizz/SD, WoW/E:WoM, is absurd to say the least.  SD listens to their community, they brainstorm suggestions made by their community, and if they get a good idea that works well with their game, they'll go ahead and see what they can do with it, if anything.  But comparing their business and development models is not only a faux pa(SP?), but fallacy, like comparing two different sets of ideals.  They can both be good, but to a third person entirely, they might both seem absolutely ridiculous, but in the end, that's all just opinion and speculation.  It's about what works best for them and theirs, and this is what they've decided on.

In the end, whether or not SD should use us as a tool in deciding if their game should move forward or not is purely a matter of opinion, and as I've stated, I think it's a good idea.