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Are We Testing The Game Or What?

Discussion in 'Release 50 Feedback Forum' started by Jaanelle DeJure, Jan 28, 2018.

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  1. Koss

    Koss Avatar

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    Its the asteroid in the sky drawing closer.... :)
     
  2. Jaanelle DeJure

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    LOL- It's not a wipe!

    Maybe I really didn't do a good job explaining myself. What I was thinking was more along the lines of flagging the gear so that it couldn't be repaired anymore. Or at least no major repair.

    So the effect would really be more of a slow phasing out of the items as they get used up. Depending on one's playstyle and how often they use an item, this could mean maybe it is still good for 3 months, or 6 months, or even a year. So it wouldn't be at all like a "wipe" where everybody just logs in and all their stuff is gone.

    It would give people plenty of time to get more resources, or gold, or to farm a replacement item, etc. Who knows could even spur a new type of "rare" since all of those items would be "Limited Edition"
     
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  3. Dominor666

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    What people have bought in the past = Old Money - they have already spent their money, if they wipe the game these people have option's, buy the items again, don't buy the items again or don't play and leave.

    From Portalarium's viewpoint and i'm sure this has been debated, is having a lot of people already geared, already high level in both adventure and crafting skills, already sitting on the prize positions in towns and already rich enough to control the economy, going to influence new players on if they should pay money to join this game or another one that may have a level playing board at the start of the game launch.

    I know what game i'm going to go and play and it isn't Shroud of the Avatar.
     
  4. Traveller13

    Traveller13 Bug Hunter

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    Nibiru?
     
  5. Jaanelle DeJure

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    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z-svq1OvcZwViqGxFCKdjH3NCn2LTfLuGny5qaAqjTM/pub#h.2gi8r5xkvkgc

    So that's paragraph 2 of the Instructions. ;)

    I'm still a little in shock that some people would pop out of the woodworks to even try and refute a basic claim that our primary purpose here is to test the game. I guess some people will try to argue just about anything.

    The only OTHER reason I can think of why people would be here playing this game right now is because they have some Mr. Burns-type plan to lord over Novia with their ubergear come Launch Day.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2018
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  6. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    Well, I hope - at last - people who enter will understand things in an easy way.
    Sure, that they are on the path of love, because of their given answers to the Oracle.

    But will they know, if they decide to be a "Mage", they are now on the path of Truth?
    And will they understand, if they decide to take the "Path of the Sword" means, this is the "Path of Courage"?

    And do you believe, a new player knows, that a mage has the greatest starting disadvantage "by Design"?
    You can find my feedback here - in Release 50 only the Light spell was included to the "Path of Courage" ...
     
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  7. Bubonic

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    Im guessing thats about 90% of the current population
     
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  8. mass

    mass Avatar

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    The OP, whether intending to or not, comes off as a little self-righteous and with an unrealistic sense of ownership in the game. I'm not sure anyone is being paid to be here, most have paid to be here, and the Devs have the experience (there are none with more) to know how to incentivize any kind of testing they want to accomplish with player testers (they have done this throughout development). Admonishing the community at large for being 'customers' rather than 'testers' seems like a questionable judgement and a non-productive avenue for expressing your concern.

    For me, I've tested the story and given detailed feedback: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/quest-feedback-spoilers.107475/

    I would like to reserve my quest reset until they say, 'Totally done, no more changes, we've moved on." I doubt that will occur within the expiry time frame you suggest. I think it would penalize people like me who used their first play through for...testing.

    I've clocked more than a 1,000 hours in SotA (which for me is probably more than or at least equal to any other game) and have zero sympathy for anyone that spent real money on stuff that was stated to be 'intended' to be persistent, but not 'guaranteed'. I would be fine with a wipe. I say this so that you realize my next comment isn't based on preserving acquired gear. I simply don't think your repair moratorium mechanism will inspire any further testing. People who are here for that will simply stop playing if they feel like they cannot accomplish their goals. If the Devs really want pickpocketing tested, they'll incentivize it. They always do.

    Most actual bug hunting/programming errors are usually picked up in QA. The persistent server is more suited for testing balancing, player behavior, exploits, the economy, etc. This is best accomplished by players playing how they normally would, selfishness intact. There are more ways than one to participate in a test. Sometimes the Devs really just want you to 'act natural' and collect your data.

    Sure there are some people contributing to testing more than others; but anyone interacting with the game at all is contributing. Why don't we just let everyone do that at the level they're comfortable with?
     
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  9. Addison

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    No, what you support is RMT under your terms. How can you be so duplicitous? According to you it's okay if I buy gold, but buying gear with "real money" isn't? How does that work? What if I bought that gear through the Aerie Fund, should all that be phased out as well? I think you are being very shortsighted in your point of view here. If you allow for RMT it has to be equitable across the board not just for what benefits you!
     
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  10. Elwyn

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    Not with gear, with uber-economy-fu. Last month I had 1 miiiiiillion gold net income. And none of that was from selling pledge/telethon rewards. Exxxcellent. Capitalism-ho!
     
  11. redfish

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    Only if they make it so each ep scales up all the content over the previous... But that would be a horrible decision imo
     
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  12. Elwyn

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    I still have trouble trying to imagine the usual power creep of expansions on top of what we've got now.
     
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  13. Jaanelle DeJure

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    Nope. Never said I care if people buy gear with money. In fact, I distinctly said that I put in 1 mil worth of cash to buy the gear for Jaan's store. Which btw all the unsold gear in it would be phased out too. So my suggestion WOULD affect me negatively, in the personal sense.

    I do like your use of the word duplicitous though! ;) Too bad you used it in the context of an attempted strawman argument.
     
  14. redfish

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    I dont want Tier-25 zones. Adv Level is in my opinion more important than it should be right now.

    I hope with each episode, it has a mix of difficulty that approximates what we have in Ep 1.
     
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  15. amaasing

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    My suggestion would be to Test on the QA server and Play on Production. QA should be left up for us to do that testing. That way we could try things we don't want to risk trying on Prod since we know there are no more wipes and even though the game is not 'launched' our characters and their belongings are here to stay - so basically we 'launched' when we went to Persistence some time ago. Having the QA server (or some different server for Testing) up all the time would allow us to really do the testing that we want to do but not willing to do in Prod. We could delete characters and try different things with them with no risks to our "launched" environment. We would also have the opportunity to really give valuable feedback to Port.

    It is important to note that the "launch" date is really not a "go-live" date in the true sense. This "Launch" is for marketing the game and not bringing the game to a "go-live" state. As mentioned more than once, Port will continue with the Releases and changes as they have been doing throughout persistence which means that even at "launch" many of the quests will still not be working / built completely. In my mind, Episode 1 will only be complete when Port officially starts work on Episode 2.

    Not sure when I will reset my quests - but am aiming to wait until I know for sure that all is complete for Episode 1 - which will not be at Launch or even 30 days after Launch.

    So to answer you question - yes, many of us are testing - but we need a Test Environment up and running all the time to do a good job at that. We can't test many of the new changes to older quests without deleting a character and starting from scratch since the game just won't let us redo those without resetting quests - and we only get one reset in Production.
     
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  16. Beaumaris

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    SOTA would really benefit from a level-scaling zone difficulty system, considering that there are many zones to explore without any real natural lead in to most of them. This might greatly extend the feel that there is more content in the game. As is, its a bit too easy to level in just one Tier 1 and one Tier 2 zone, then feel I never have any compelling need to go back to explore any of the others except to sight see.
     
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