Am just going to come out and say it. Alpha 2 sooner rather then later.

So last stream was great imo, am a bit sad i went to bed and woke up to a new tank preview.
Whould have watched them both, anyways!

The game too me seem pretty good now.
Its enough there to test and i hope they launche the Alpha 2 sooner rather then later.

It whould be best for us, to get hands on now and give valuable feedback in a early stage.
And not have Intrepid hold off and be stuck on a path when we get Alpha 2.

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Voxtrium

Blip wrote: »

Voxtrium wrote: »

@blip it takes resources to have meaningful testing, resources that would normally be deployed towards developing the things that are being tested.

If resources are being allocated to that, that means they are fixing a issiue they whould have had to fix anyway. So the net amount is the same just used at a earlyer point in development.

That in turn saves them from more issiues down the line so they whould save resources / money in the long term.

You don't design periphery systems before core systems

WHIT3ROS3

I do wonder what the internal goals are for Intrepid to launch Alpha 2. (Although I am sure that we are some ways off them being reached).

They really need all 9 races with 2 genders each, represented in the character creator.
That Nodes and their related facilities are able to level from Wilderness to Metropolis.
Ideally, all 8 Classes and their secondary Archetypes are present (They won't be complete, but having at least several skills for each to see how they interact is such an important part of testing.)
Responsive gathering.
A decent environment and selection of NPC's.
Functioning UI

Everything else, from Caravan's to Monster Coin events, to Sieges, Quests, Animal Husbandry, Sailing etc are all of secondary importance. If the game gets core movement, functionality and combat gameplay down in well-represented customizable character models in a responsive environment ala Node progression, they are golden. Everything else can be built on top.

Blip

@WHIT3ROS3 Well said and very true. I always expected the Alpha 2 whould get iterations with added content anyways.

sternzy

I have to agree that it shouldn't come until Intrepid thinks it's ready. I don't care what Steven says about the game already being funded and not needing people to buy in early. The office is in SF, everyone knows how expensive it his to do business there. Linkedin reports 107 employees, I'm guessing there are more by now. One listing for Audio programmer is for $98,000-137,000/year. If the average income there is $100,000/year it means whoever is bankrolling this is paying out more than $10,000,000/year not including any potential benefits for payroll. I highly doubt they want this alpha stage to last any longer then it has to. It will be here when it's ready, I am sure.
Also, bring back the Bard. That guy was awesome.

Ludullu

sternzy wrote: »

I have to agree that it shouldn't come until Intrepid thinks it's ready. I don't care what Steven says about the game already being funded and not needing people to buy in early. The office is in SF, everyone knows how expensive it his to do business there. Linkedin reports 107 employees, I'm guessing there are more by now. One listing for Audio programmer is for $98,000-137,000/year. If the average income there is $100,000/year it means whoever is bankrolling this is paying out more than $10,000,000/year not including any potential benefits for payroll. I highly doubt they want this alpha stage to last any longer then it has to. It will be here when it's ready, I am sure.
Also, bring back the Bard. That guy was awesome.

Steven dumped around $50mil of his own money (iirc) already and from what he said in the last stream, they've made, at the very least, $25mil from alpha2 alone. And that's not counting all the alpha1 purchases and any potential cosmetics sales over the years. And he's ready to pay more if the development stretches out for longer.

In other words, at the very worst they'd be riiight at the end of their money (not really, cause they didn't start with 100+ employees).

Voxtrium

@nikr nah they are probably closer to 40 million in revenue, probably 50 million in the hole. They are chilling, with
25 mill for just 100k at 250 for A2, not including alpha 1 and kickstarter and cosmetics

novercalis

Don't expect A2 for this year. My original assessment was Summer of this year but the November Video gave me all the indication it wasn't going to be met. Solidified on the Dec Stream and judging this month - on just NPC mobs alone - we are far from touching A2 this year.

Technically, it is still on track my original timeline of 2026 Launch Date.

Throne and Liberty has been in production since 2011

Voxtrium

novercalis wrote: »

Don't expect A2 for this year. My original assessment was Summer of this year but the November Video gave me all the indication it wasn't going to be met. Solidified on the Dec Stream and judging this month - on just NPC mobs alone - we are far from touching A2 this year.

Technically, it is still on track my original timeline of 2026 Launch Date.

Throne and Liberty has been in production since 2011

Dido, originally thought this summer, feeling a lot less certain these days.

Kilion

novercalis wrote: »

Don't expect A2 for this year. My original assessment was Summer of this year but the November Video gave me all the indication it wasn't going to be met. Solidified on the Dec Stream and judging this month - on just NPC mobs alone - we are far from touching A2 this year.

Technically, it is still on track my original timeline of 2026 Launch Date.

Throne and Liberty has been in production since 2011

Got to agree with that, it would be (to say it diplomatically) highly ambitious for Intrepid to try and start Alpha 2 this year in light of all the features they want to test. And while it is true that some of the features could be added later, I think to seriously assess them they have to be working all at the same time from the very beginning, instead of being implemented bit by bit, which basically pushed Alpha 2 at least into mid 2024.

With that being said - I think they mentioned there would be "persistent" Alpha 2 servers and to this day I haven't quite figured out what they meant by that. Sure, it probably means there will be more than just spot testing and then they shut the thing down again, but it kind of sounds like they want to run these Alpha 2 servers for a considerable amount of time, maybe even until shortly before the Beta phase? I don't know, this just got me confused.

Ludullu

Kilion wrote: »

With that being said - I think they mentioned there would be "persistent" Alpha 2 servers and to this day I haven't quite figured out what they meant by that. Sure, it probably means there will be more than just spot testing and then they shut the thing down again, but it kind of sounds like they want to run these Alpha 2 servers for a considerable amount of time, maybe even until shortly before the Beta phase? I don't know, this just got me confused.

They want to run them through the beta and then make it the pts iirc.

novercalis

honestly - they should re-open A1 in stages again NDA. Then later A2 with stages (mostly NDA, near the end NDA is removed), then Beta 1 persist into beta 2 into launch.

daveywavey

Blip wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Hopefully, it'll be: Alpha 2 when Intrepid say it's ready, and not a second before.

If they wanted too they could say that now, and some benefits to integrating testing early on in the software development and delivery process is.
• Identifying logical oversights.
• Avoiding bugs and exploits.
• Bridging the gap between testers and evolving client expectations.
• Providing first user feedback.
• Helping you understand user needs.
• Allowing you to make better design decisions.
• Helping you enhance your product.
• Enabling you to find and fix issues with your product before release.
• Helping you gauge how users interact with your products.

There are no benefits to testing a system that isn't ready yet. You don't release software until you're happy for it to be released, no matter how badly your customers are complaining. That just causes more issues.

Blip

daveywavey wrote: »

Blip wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Hopefully, it'll be: Alpha 2 when Intrepid say it's ready, and not a second before.

If they wanted too they could say that now, and some benefits to integrating testing early on in the software development and delivery process is.
• Identifying logical oversights.
• Avoiding bugs and exploits.
• Bridging the gap between testers and evolving client expectations.
• Providing first user feedback.
• Helping you understand user needs.
• Allowing you to make better design decisions.
• Helping you enhance your product.
• Enabling you to find and fix issues with your product before release.
• Helping you gauge how users interact with your products.

There are no benefits to testing a system that isn't ready yet. You don't release software until you're happy for it to be released, no matter how badly your customers are complaining. That just causes more issues.

Am not saying too test systems that are not ready am saying test the systems that are there and add the other in, incrementally.

WHIT3ROS3

novercalis wrote: »

honestly - they should re-open A1 in stages again NDA. Then later A2 with stages (mostly NDA, near the end NDA is removed), then Beta 1 persist into beta 2 into launch.

Nah, that's a terrible idea. Opening, running, maintaining, updating and developing a game all at the same time? It would be so much more work and would significantly impact development.

Vaknar

We're just as excited as you are to play Alpha Two with everyone! I can assure you that as soon as it's ready, we will get it into the hands of all of our Alpha Two testers! Our team is hard at work making the best possible MMMORPG they can.

But, first, it must be ready

WavesOfTime

As far as i know, usually in game dev, by the end of the alpha time window of development, all core systems should be in place, so, yes while i do agree that the sooner people actually play and test in alpha2 the sooner the devs can really get a feel of how the systems work, i think that if all core systems were not in alpha2 they would have to have an alpha3 before they "freeze" the features and systems and start with debugging and polishing in the 2 betas.

There's also a problem to consider for play testing before launch: people won't play in the same fashion as they'll play when the game actually launches so a certain % amount of the feedback that'll come out of alpha2 might be incorrect.

Atama

The game is looking really good.

I had fun in Alpha 1, I thought the classes were still okay as limited as they were. Things looked pretty nice. I actually looked forward to logging in and playing rather than doing it as an obligation because I wanted to help the developers. (When they had Apocalypse running, that wasn't fun at all and I only logged in to be a helper.)

But Alpha 2 is making Alpha 1 look like garbage in comparison. I can't wait to get in and test it.

It would be a disaster if they opened it before it was ready, but I plan to devote a lot of my free time to playing this game once A2 is open, so I'm antsy.

My Alpha 1 experience made me a mage fan and I am very eager to see it revealed. I tested all 3 classes that were available in Alpha 1 (Tank, Cleric, Mage) and Mage by far was the most enjoyable. (Which was a bit of a bummer because I had initially planned to run a Tank as my main character, now I'm totally Team Mage.)

No frustration from me even though I've been around since the beginning (obviously), and I have been waiting a long time. Just seeing how much progress there has been just makes me excited rather than discouraged.

Strevi

Liniker wrote: »

people say a long alpha 2 will kill the excitement and discovery and burn the testers, this is just stupid,

The game should be pretty much done (at beta stage) and final polish and stuff like that being put in. We don't want people to get totally burnt out on the game before we actually release. So once we get to the beta phases it should be short and sweet.[1] – Jeffrey Bard

I was hoping the quote was from Steven

Anyway, the game is less than 10% done by your estimation so the release date is really far.
I wouldn't mind you and a small group of players who support the game buying cosmetics to play a few days / month on a test server. Just like I don't mind mayors having flying mounts.

However I would not like streamers getting such access.
Imagine them highlighting all bugs and all poor decisions.

Spif

Spot testing is hopefully already going on, it was talked about a couple months ago.

The main reason for widespread testing is to test content. While yes, we are all eager to play the classes and whack some mobs (and each other) that's only a small part of testing.

It's testing all the quests (so many quests), POI events, world boss events, dungeon boss drops (like that pair of pants missing a stat in the 2nd tank run, that Steven quickly closed), node upgrade/downgrade events and triggers, caravan stuff, gatherable accessibility, does crafting everything work, etc, etc, etc.

So, I'd expect to see Alpha 2 testing phases rolled out by areas of content. We could see a first Alpha 2 that only allows up to level 15, and node upgrade is limited. Extensive node L1-L2 content testing. And if all the classes are not ready yet. Maybe just 4-6 classes available. If all professions are not ready yet, maybe crafting is disabled and they just allow some professions and all gathering.

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