Should all KS backers of AoC get alpha access?

ArchivedUser

Should all KS backers of AoC get alpha access?

I for one say we should !

https://strawpoll.com/7w2agzg

ArchivedUser

If you bought at least the founder pack than yes... they have set up the alpha and beta access pretty well.

ArchivedUser

The simple answer is no.

 And here's why. The Alpha can't be a large scale event as it an in all reality a testing phase where plays go around looking for bugs or problems before the beta and then submit them to the devs. 

What most people forget is that the alpha will only be able to hold so many people at a time. If you want to have large scale testing then you start a beta as that has most of the alpha problems fixed and then players can see the game and help here and there.

ArchivedUser

If it was part of your pledge then sure, but if it wasn't, then no. It's what people paid for and all backers should get what they paid for. I wouldn't even advocate that all $500 + pledgers should get alpha at the same time because there's simply too many.

ArchivedUser

Alpha is not meant to be a large scale test, so no.

ArchivedUser

And it's not a democracy. They'll test how they want to test. Testing is about the project itself not who gets to play tester. It sucks, but that's why it's testing and not playing. Testing is just a synonym for the dirty work.

ArchivedUser

Of Course not !
Young Squire

ArchivedUser

I think they should get exactly what they backed, having more and more people in an alpha isn't always a good thing.

Some people just simply aren't cut out for playing during the alpha phase of development and I hope that having at least that higher price point for the alpha packages will mean a lot less of these types of players.

ArchivedUser

Rosco said:

I think they should get exactly what they backed, having more and more people in an alpha isn't always a good thing.

Some people just simply aren't cut out for playing during the alpha phase of development and I hope that having at least that higher price point for the alpha packages will mean a lot less of these types of players.

      Agreed.  
The truth of the matter is that many people don't have any concept of what alpha testing actually is about.  They think it's their chance to get a jump start on everyone else.    It's not about simple play,  but testing the state of game and working out the  bugs.  Not everyone carries a can of Raid ya know.

ArchivedUser

no

ArchivedUser

OneWingedAngel said:

no

simple, sweet and straight to the point I like it

ArchivedUser

CylverRayne said:

Rosco said:

I think they should get exactly what they backed, having more and more people in an alpha isn't always a good thing.

Some people just simply aren't cut out for playing during the alpha phase of development and I hope that having at least that higher price point for the alpha packages will mean a lot less of these types of players.

      Agreed.  
The truth of the matter is that many people don't have any concept of what alpha testing actually is about.  They think it's their chance to get a jump start on everyone else.    It's not about simple play,  but testing the state of game and working out the  bugs.  Not everyone carries a can of Raid ya know.

That's the thing - a lot of people come and essentially think they are getting an opportunity get into the game early and treat it as such, they aren't prepared for the probably crappy and buggy experience that they are going to get.

Inevitably that means complains about silly things and useless bug reports (if any) that don't give the developers suitable information to work on.

The alpha phase of development is about helping identify bugs for the devs to work on, hundreds of people playing the game and not relaying information back isn't useful to the developers at all.

ArchivedUser

Hm. So, the devs should change the KS-exclusive right of some of the contributors to be handed out to everyone, including those who didn't contribute at that level.

Why?

ArchivedUser

Please no.  It was set as a way to entice people to purchase higher tiers of KS package.  It also ensures more participation in bug reports and such.  If someone drops more money on an unlaunched game, they have a higher stake on it turning out as close to perfect as possible at launch

ArchivedUser

nagash said:

The simple answer is no.

 And here's why. The Alpha can't be a large scale event as it an in all reality a testing phase where plays go around looking for bugs or problems before the beta and then submit them to the devs. 

What most people forget is that the alpha will only be able to hold so many people at a time. If you want to have large scale testing then you start a beta as that has most of the alpha problems fixed and then players can see the game and help here and there.

^This. 

There is a practical limit to the size of an alpha test.  Besides, Beta access  will still allow you to figure out what to do at launch.

ArchivedUser

with the live servers only holding a concurrent player base of 10k, having all 16k backers on the test server would probally cause issues, and how many of those 16k would actually be there to test the game, other than use it for a way to play the game early