Why I think groups with non-PS experience would be useful in the beta - Page 3

SixShooter · 2012-06-15, 10:31 AM

In response to the title (sorry man, couln't get past the first paragraph), I totally agree that non PS players and perhaps even non fps player should be included in the beta. Feedback is important and getting feedback from different sources who might see things from a different angle could be valuable. That could be the reasoning behind putting beta keys in magazines, to get a broad base from different backgrounds.

shadow58 · 2012-06-15, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by DarkApothecary

I have not played ps1, but I have an alright understanding of what ps2 should act like and behave. It should be like call of duty (gay) or battlefield, it should be in a league of its own, creating new ideas. It should be fun to play and challenging but it has to be balanced. You probably think I have no idea what ps2 should be like, but trust me I know what a good game is and what makes one.

I get the impression he meant to say "It shouldn't be like call of duty or battlefield".

It seems a lot more reasonable that way.

And yeh, of course they shouldn't just have PS1 vets testing the game if they want to attract a wider audience.

Flaropri · 2012-06-15, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by Fanglord

(y)

Whilst making sense in one aspect, its a tad redundant to making sure the FPS plays like a good fps; after all 'minecrafters' might not really understand initially the mechanics of an fps.

I'm vaguely certain that the vast majority of "minecrafters" will understand the basic mechanics of an FPS. FPS isn't that complicated. Plus, technically, Minecraft is an FPS (albeit much in the same way that Breath of Fire 2 is a fishing simulator).

Anyway, I agree with the overall statement of the OP (though I wonder where point 8 went). In fact, I think that non-gamers can also provide worthwhile feedback on a game; albeit somewhat limited they can provide good feedback from a different perspective, much as subdivisions of gamers can provide different perspectives and feedback as well, whether they played PS1 or not.

cryosin · 2012-06-15, 01:58 PM

I would agree that non-FPS players make for great testing. Primarily on how much fun they would have and how easy it would be for them adjust.

I can see a lot of MMORPG players, who don't play FPS, trying out planetside.
My buddy was watching my outfit, Azure Twilight, capturing bases and he saw it as an awesome experience. He mainly plays RPG's, RTS and minecraft. The only FPS he actually played was Halo, on easy and just for the story. So that goes to show there is something for non-FPS players in a game like planetside.

I guess its just important to make sure that support roles are exciting and useful, and non-FPS players would be great for that.

With that said, however, many PS vets are actually non-FPS players. Many in my outfit as well. They end up flying gals, repairing MAX'es, reviving dead guys and still shooting a bullet or two when necessary. That's just what makes planetside awesome, and i think more people should be aware of that.

IMMentat · 2012-06-15, 02:42 PM

Read the first 5 lines (walls of text are BAD, even formatted ones).

Variety in the tester base only helps the game become more accessible to more players, and more players is GOOD!

I trust the devs to think carefuly about any changes before putting them onto a "live" server. (Never thought I would be able to say that about an SOE game again. Not after watching them self-destrust so many other titles).

Bruttal · 2012-06-15, 03:17 PM

Just to note that isnt always about the quality of testers either (though it helps) but providing stability over different PC builds from old to new is something that can only be done during beta, because its imposable for one company to build thousands of different pc combinations. but a good tester knows what he did to create the crash and can provide detailed explanation on how to reproduce it.

for instance in plantside1 for years id crash when getting out of a wall turret a bug that i had remembered happening during beta and reported it with vary little detail. but decided to report the bug once more after playing with the wall turrets agian. it ended up being a exiting sound issue when the turret was blowing up at the same time.

If I had noticed or payed more attention to how that bug was happening in beta then maybe I wouldn't have went years crashing getting out of wall turrets.

captainkapautz · 2012-06-15, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by DarkApothecary

You probably think I have no idea what ps2 should be like, but trust me I know what a good game is and what makes one.

95% of the time "Trust me, I know what I'm doing!" is said before royally fucking something up.

Ya know, just putting that out there.

Trafalgar · 2012-06-15, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by Flaropri

Anyway, I agree with the overall statement of the OP (though I wonder where point 8 went).

I deleted point 8 before posting. I apparently forgot to renumber the points after it afterwards.

Zulthus · 2012-06-15, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Wow ten PS1 accounts. This guy was loyal to the game! In hindsight very smart to do, his crystal ball must of seen this race for beta keys years in advance. He needs to play lotto.

Not sure if serious

Khellendros · 2012-06-15, 06:55 PM

I don't understand why there is this notion that Planetside players have never played any other games, so they have only Planetside experiences to draw upon and nothing else.

Really?

Trafalgar · 2012-06-15, 07:09 PM

I don't think that PS players have only ever played one game. I just think that every different kind of game played (and which you've had experience finding exploits and bugs in, especially if they're looked for deliberately) provides more perspective enabling you to more easily spot balance issues, bugs, and potential exploits. Obviously that doesn't mean you can do the same exploits in a different game; they won't be the same, but that's obvious. Knowing what dev teams often overlook, what tends to go wrong, common security mistakes, knowing about edge cases, etc, are all useful for beta-testing.

So the more things you've played, taken apart, beta-tested, or been a 'post release tester' due to companies releasing buggy games, the more perspective you will likely have and the better you are likely to be at finding issues and considering potential issues, assuming you aren't looking in the wrong places.

For instance, I would not make the mistake of assuming that any of hazeron's security flaws or exploits, or terraria's early security weaknesses or exploits, for example, were applicable to PS2, because that would be a foolish assumption. I would, however, check to see if I could glitch through walls by parking a vehicle next to one such that the place where I would normally get out would be on the other side of the wall or inside of it, or if this would cause other glitches, or if it was checked for and wouldn't result in problems at all. I would also consider that the kind of mistakes that were made by Re-Logic and originally by Origin/EA with UO could potentially be made by more recent MMO developers (too much client-side checking, little or no server-side checking, allowing trivially simple cheating by either modifying the client or inspecting and modifying the packetstream) - but I would hope that the PS2 devteam would not make that mistake, as they are more professional than Re-Logic and this is far more modern than UO was on release, and the devteam has the benefit of knowing what mistakes prior MMOs made. (E.G. It might be worth checking, but may not be necessary if input validation is performed everywhere and clients are not trusted)

Furber · 2012-06-15, 07:12 PM

As long as they're people who truly want to help better the game

Figment · 2012-06-15, 07:19 PM

I keep getting surprised by how people perceive and categorise gamers while being completely oblivious to the fact they themselves play various types and genres of games. >.> It's fairly simple though, this First Platoon isn't primarily about who's most suited for bug finding etc, it's about first impressions without an overdose of a particular KIND of first impression and a group with mixed sets of expectations.

The big question for a sequel is, what does a blank player think of it and what does a scripted player think of it. Both are important. The scripted have certain expectations, the blank do not.

To succeed, both groups must be satisfied. Thus you must get access to this group fairly cleanly, before the scripted muddle the test results. I mean, they already got PSU for the scripted side of things. Makes sense they'd want a clean sheet focus group elsewhere and isolated from us coming in and dominating their threads and impressions.

Because we would. We've got stronger passions and feelings about this game than newcomers after all or we wouldn't all be here waiting and discussing for over a year. On top of that, PSU folks have already influenced each other's opinion a lot. Rabble rabble.

What you need for proper testing in beta though primarily is creative people. People who think laterally when they are presented with a tool or object. These people are both found in PS and non-PS players, but you can't say "these are better than those". People are people and the distribution is roughly the same everywhere and you don't know who will be the first to figure out you can crash the server by placing X boomers on the floor and throwing one EMP.

In the end someone will. Could be you, could be me. Could be noob123. But that's not what First Platoon is for. They won't have enough time for that if beta is within a week from now.

Spiritbeast · 2012-06-15, 09:00 PM

humans scare the fuck out of me

Flaropri · 2012-06-15, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by Furber

As long as they're people who truly want to help better the game

I'm actually less concerned about whether it is their goal to help better the game or not, so long as they provide feedback and serve to help others do the same. I mean, there were a bunch of people that got upset that League of Legends expanded it's Testing server to including upcoming Champions because a lot of people weren't providing feedback.

Ultimately thought, they added to the number of instances that a given thing was tested, and even though a lot of them were focused on messing around, having fun, and seeing how the new stuff would likely work in Live, a lot of them still reported bugs when they found them.

Obviously, the content on PBE for LoL is also after (and during) internal testing, and in a near-finished state, so it's a different situation from going into Beta fresh from Alpha, but I think the idea still applies to an extent. Even those players that didn't report bugs created games and incidents where they were discovered, and provided fodder for those that are interested in improving the game to test balance and bugs on/with. Limited testing first of course, and when there is a small pool they should be focused on improving the game; but as it expands part of it is just wanting more bodies and it becomes less important if all of them are specifically looking for bugs, exploits, or to otherwise provide feedback rather than to mess around and have fun.