A lot of us are forming up into guilds that have a lot of members with pre-alpha / alpha access and during testing these members would like to meet up and conduct testing together and get to know each other better in-game so I'd like to make a simple request for a feature that should be in pre-alpha / alpha.
Please have very basic guild functionality. By that all I mean is a tag under the players name showing their guild and a guild chat channel. That is all that is required for pre-alpha / alpha but it would make things so much easier to organise when it comes to testing within a guild. I'm sure also that some guilds will be proud of the fact that they have been in the game right from the first day of pre-alpha :).
I know people have made a lot of (very good) feature requests for guilds in the Guild Discussion thread found here:
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1787/guild-discussion/view/page/1
but all that is really required during pre-alpha / alpha is the ability to add people to the guild and a guild chat channel and the ability to set some people as a guild leader / guild officer so that they can invite other people to the guild as it becomes available.
Is this something that could be done by the time pre-alpha comes out? I'm sure it would help you get better testing information as guilds will be able to co-ordinate testing amongst themselves.
skitarg said:Pre-alpha isnt according to me a place for people to get to know each other.
Thats me though :) but ofc guildstuff needs to be adressed aswell.
We've been recruiting quite a few members to our guild since we announced it in the guild recruitment forum. Although you can get to know people somewhat on our guild forums nothing comes to close to getting to know each other in-game while testing the game as the developers want. Also in order to properly do the required testing you need some sort of centralised organisation which is why I'm requesting guild features so that guilds can work together to find bugs and other problems. One person on their own can only do so much testing but a guild together can do so much more.
I think This idea, and i think they said they were alrdy doing so, but if you do this you have to make it to where we can't reach max level, or even close to it, i would even say we can see not even kill mini bosses (not really a raid but takes more than a group to kill) and where we can't even enter the zone or are connected to it, just to be safe, it needs to be remain a mystery of what were up against even after it comes out in stores, but yes i have to agree having a simple guld mechanic like forming/chat would be great for some of the dungeons up ahead to see if there is bad pathing/ glitched through walls, insta teleports to you while being stuck on objects, things of this nature. Also see see what great work, and promising features we have awaiting for us too......me just typing on this thread is making me wish it was already out and ready for play.
Cromulent said:skitarg said:Pre-alpha isnt according to me a place for people to get to know each other.
Thats me though :) but ofc guildstuff needs to be adressed aswell.
We've been recruiting quite a few members to our guild since we announced it in the guild recruitment forum. Although you can get to know people somewhat on our guild forums nothing comes to close to getting to know each other in-game while testing the game as the developers want. Also in order to properly do the required testing you need some sort of centralised organisation which is why I'm requesting guild features so that guilds can work together to find bugs and other problems. One person on their own can only do so much testing but a guild together can do so much more.
yea i understand what you mean :) i dont mean its a bad thing so dont get me wrong. But pre alpah for me is more one open place you all meet and there mobs and dummies are to test skills. Prealpha i dont see dungeon explore etc. I like what crowfall been doing whit prealpha like for 8 months. test test test on a small hub that has nothin gto do whit ingame. Though i wish VR will do as you wish then it means alot more closer to alpha ;)
skitarg said:Pre-alpha isnt according to me a place for people to get to know each other.
Thats me though :) but ofc guildstuff needs to be adressed aswell.
This. Also, I'm sure they are prepared to have these basics for testing when needed. This isn't the first rodeo for a lot of VR staff.
We do not currently have any guild related functionality and it may not be in game by Pre-Alpha release, it is more about raw testing and data than guilds forming mate, I understand where you're coming from but it may have to be the good old fashioned way of just meeting up in game and talking in general chat or TS3, Vent, Skype, Discord to organise into guild groups but testing in early stages for Pre-Alpha and Alpha will be pretty tough to organise and have any meaningful guild gameplay sessions, our testing isn't going to be fancy polished early releases like most recent games, it will be frustrating and interrupted testing sessions with server outages and devs asking for specific testing to be done on any given mechanic, system, or feature.
Guild functionality may not be in until Beta or closer to release, it is more about core mechanics and focused testing until then.
Guild features are usually at the end of the pipeline. Cant recall any ATM but im pretty sure there has been some games that even launched without guild features but were quickly patched in. Could be wrong tbh. I know AoC launched without an AH during the first week or at least up until the very end of beta.
Kilsin said:We do not currently have any guild related functionality and it may not be in game by Pre-Alpha release, it is more about raw testing and data than guilds forming mate, I understand where you're coming from but it may have to be the good old fashioned way of just meeting up in game and talking in general chat or TS3, Vent, Skype, Discord to organise into guild groups but testing in early stages for Pre-Alpha and Alpha will be pretty tough to organise and have any meaningful guild gameplay sessions, our testing isn't going to be fancy polished early releases like most recent games, it will be frustrating and interrupted testing sessions with server outages and devs asking for specific testing to be done on any given mechanic, system, or feature.
Guild functionality may not be in until Beta or closer to release, it is more about core mechanics and focused testing until then.
Good to hear. Especially the underlined part. This direction has been sorely lacking in alpha/early-access testing in two other recent MMO titles I had the displeasure of trying to test in development. Succintly, there was no direction of any kind, and this was reflected in the results when the switch to persistence was flipped. They didn't even have level-up or equipment NPC's to interact with for focused content testing.
Specific QA deliverables, feedback forms, web surveys, all of that stuff? Without it, testers are just 'playing' which is of limited value. The * caveat for pre-alpha tester access / participation does say:
"
Pre-Alpha Tester Expectations: Be ready and able to help us with any type of game testing and be willing to spend time submitting detailed bug reports. All of those who participate in this pledge must sign a Non-disclosure Agreement ( NDA ) and cannot work for any other game company. If at any time we feel it is justified, your access can be removed by the development team.
"
And in my opinion, a similar caveat should be extended to alpha and beta testers.
I understand that the earlier stages are more about testing than playing with fellow guild members.
That said, even if guild function isn't implemented, it would be neat if they allowed you to tag yourself with some sort of command. The people who have already created and joined guilds could have the tag next to their name, even if guild chat isn't functioning.
Discord is my vote.
Reasons behind it
1. VR can make multi channels 1 for pre Alpha testers 1 for Alpha testers, Beta will have to be handled diffrently due to the amount of people that will have access.
2. Devs can talk to the Players Directly and as Kilsin stated there will be interupted game play Issues with connectivity chat errors in game the list goes on. with discord these losses and issues will not effect cummunication between devs and testers.
3. Also issues can be Pinned that are being looked into so we dont have multi posts about them.
4. Has voice capabilitys if a group is testing something specific they just ask a dev to set up a channel for them or create there own server as its free and very easy to use/organise.
5. This will also help with people posting about false bugs/issues that are working as intended as they can ask in chat.
There maybe other good reasons behind this but i think they are the main points.
Porky said:Discord is my vote.
Reasons behind it
1. VR can make multi channels 1 for pre Alpha testers 1 for Alpha testers, Beta will have to be handled diffrently due to the amount of people that will have access.
2. Devs can talk to the Players Directly and as Kilsin stated there will be interupted game play Issues with connectivity chat errors in game the list goes on. with discord these losses and issues will not effect cummunication between devs and testers.
3. Also issues can be Pinned that are being looked into so we dont have multi posts about them.
4. Has voice capabilitys if a group is testing something specific they just ask a dev to set up a channel for them or create there own server as its free and very easy to use/organise.
5. This will also help with people posting about false bugs/issues that are working as intended as they can ask in chat.
There maybe other good reasons behind this but i think they are the main points.
Discord would be a good way to organise people but I'm not sure if VR would allow people to post things in Discord if everyone is under NDA. If something like that did happen it would probably have to be run by VR staff to make sure that no one without the proper access got access to privileged information. That's kind of why I wanted to organise in-game because if you did it that way you can be sure that everyone who is logged in is allowed to hear / see / play everything you can.
Cromulent said:Porky said:Discord is my vote.
Reasons behind it
1. VR can make multi channels 1 for pre Alpha testers 1 for Alpha testers, Beta will have to be handled diffrently due to the amount of people that will have access.
2. Devs can talk to the Players Directly and as Kilsin stated there will be interupted game play Issues with connectivity chat errors in game the list goes on. with discord these losses and issues will not effect cummunication between devs and testers.
3. Also issues can be Pinned that are being looked into so we dont have multi posts about them.
4. Has voice capabilitys if a group is testing something specific they just ask a dev to set up a channel for them or create there own server as its free and very easy to use/organise.
5. This will also help with people posting about false bugs/issues that are working as intended as they can ask in chat.
There maybe other good reasons behind this but i think they are the main points.
Discord would be a good way to organise people but I'm not sure if VR would allow people to post things in Discord if everyone is under NDA. If something like that did happen it would probably have to be run by VR staff to make sure that no one without the proper access got access to privileged information. That's kind of why I wanted to organise in-game because if you did it that way you can be sure that everyone who is logged in is allowed to hear / see / play everything you can.
That is what i meant a VR run server access Limited to pre alpha people so you can talk freely and not break the NDA and channel locked for anyone else on the server that does not have access then the same can be done for Alpha and so on. if it is needed by that point.
If Pantheon follows a traditional development cycle, and basic guild functionality is planned for release, I imagine guild features will be added before the game leaves Alpha.
Keep in mind Brad has suggested a long Alpha so there is a lot of time for features to be added during that phase. It should make it in sometime during Alpha but before Beta.