Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
No, we aren't. QA is a very broad term that includes actual gameplay testing.
Well i dont think a2 will be "playing normally" tho. You will have moments where everything on the map is locked and only 1 thing is open for testing, or sometimes this wont be necessary since when they put something new most players will want to test it. But this too is a form of "being told what to test", even if it is indirectly
That means you must have a contract with Intrepid Studio?
Maybe they already have such internal or external payed testers...
Cannot be that some testers want to be payed and others want to pay to test.
IS is taking the money from some testers and gives it to other testers?!
What happened to this world?
Or they could say after every 4th Alpha key sold, the money goes to the 5th. Risk vs Reward
And all these will receive 1 month time to test.
IS has nothing to lose, they just move the money from one tester to the other and they'll be happy.
New cosmetic packs when...
Well not familiar with QA on other sectors, but for Programing (which includes AOC) - QA will include unit testing, integration testing and ofc manual testing and ect. But big part of it will be connected with the code.
Well usually people dont pay to test games, Guess AOC is special and can make whatever they want since there are people willing to pay to test.
They have said that for the most part people will just be playing like normal. There will be periods where they ask players to test specific things if they want to, and will set up focused testing that will restrict what players can do or where they can go if they run into a scenario where they're not getting the player engagement that they want. And the way Steven worded how that will work sounds more like if they have to go that route they'll set up specific testing environments separate from the main alpha 2 instances with incentives to help and there will be no requirement for players to participate or provide feedback. This is still nothing like how actual, paid testing is conducted for software.
I think this is a marvelous suggestion.
That's part of it, sure. They will also be responsible for testing the game at a higher level making sure that systems are designed intuitively and are fun and engaging, UX is intuitive and user friendly, and that the overall gameplay loops are fun and satisfying. All of that is part of QA.
I am sure that at the beginning of A2 Intrepid will be satisfied by players playing the game normally since there will be a lot people, But after the count drops, you will see more and more focused testing.
Unlikely. For the most part through all of alpha 2 players will generally just be playing like normal.
From everything I've heard they're making it explicitly clear that this won't be the case.
You could be a streamer, get keys from developers and money from people
And you all test.
Yep... Shame that my communication skills are below average, and i doubt i will be able to entertain the viewers
If they have to explicitly mention that there will be periods where they want and will ask for more focused testing then it's blatantly clear that means other than those periods you'll just play like normal. This is how basically every game that has followed this same structure has worked as well.
This is correct. It's a true Alpha and is probably going to be painful at times. True Alpha means features are being added/fixed/updated with critical bugs being squashed and generally becoming "functional" at a basic level.
From what we've been told, I get the impression that every few weeks they will add/update a feature into Alpha 2. This will help keep people interested as it goes along, and gives a focus to what is being tested each period. However, a lot of people will drop off anyway when they realize it's not a beta or early access or just burning out on things being broken when they log on. Players will be "playing like normal" in the sense that it is not spot testing. The realm will be (semi-)persistent and players are free to do what they want with what they are given.