Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
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.
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.
But, first, it must be ready
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.
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.
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.
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.