When they use “long time players” as a factor to see who gets an invite. I wish they would base that on total months actively playing the game, not just account creation date. I feel like not having your sub drop since BC should count for something.
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I think for Alpha they should only invite the top % of players from each category, which I am not included. That way you can get feedback from players who tend to put forth the most effort into the game.
I don’t care if player A has been playing since day one. If they are casual in any category of the game, I wouldn’t want them testing things. Get high pvpers to test PVP and classes and then high level raiders to test PVE and classes. Get the folks who have high activity with pet battles to test those. Exc exc.
Make the tests focused with players who excel at the things they’re testing.
Also content creators to drive up hype and let out little tidbits of info for the general public. I’d like to imagine this is how they’re doing it.
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Being selective about invitations is not a way to get good data. You want data from all kinds of players during testing. All of it is useful.
Because they’re not just trying to make a functional game, they’re trying to make one that appeals to everybody. Not just high effort players. They need feedback from each demographic.
The long time player invite thing is just a “hey, here’s a little thank you for sticking around” deal.
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If memory serves, I believe they said even if your character is standing around doing nothing, you are still providing data for the developers. You are a “point” that helps gauge server stability and technical things like that.
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Blizz should let more vet players in the early part of alpha/beta process.
Being selective is really not a bad thing, for the first round of invites. I know players that have been playing since 04 that have been doing end game raiding and pvp. So is having those kind of players bad?
isn’t it always mostly streamers?
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No /10char
Beta can serve for that. The avergae joe who does nothing but LFR and heroic dungeons will do nothing but muddy the feedback water.
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This is valid. Alpha is mostly just for testing the stability of the game, and making sure that clicking on a squirrel doesn’t cause a server meltdown.
Beta is where more people are useful.
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Meh, they should base it off what they do in game…all of it arena, bg, m+ and raids
Plus how long you been playing and make sure your computer specs is not a potato…
FYI Also I dont fall in above category so I would not get an invite…
I think it’s random, my mate said he got an invite and played BFA a month on release…
Excuse me i upgraded to a squash thank you.
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Not good enough has to be atlest a cucumber
I thoroughly disagree with just picking “elites” to test. Elites are fine for some things, but they lack perspective. WoW is a very large game, with a vast player base. I have seen first hand how hardcore myopia negatively impacts the wider player base.
The skill sets needed aren’t how well you can do a thing as much as it’s how well you can do what is asked of you and clearly communicate issues you are seeing in a way that the developers can actually act on the data. I would take a dozen mid-skilled players who know how to open proper bug reports than even one elitist player whose feedback is basically “boss fall down the hole, Blizzard you stink!”
There are absolutely times where you need mad skills - raid testing, for instance. But we know that elite players cannot extrapolate for, say Normal raids or even LFR – where Blizzard’s bread and butter is. Hardcore raiding is a significantly small percent of the player base. Normal raids (with Heroic progression) is intrinsic to many players who increasingly find themselves time constrained. And LFR is necessary for those who can’t commit to a regular raid schedule, but still want to see the story play out. If LFR is bad, it’s because it’s not been properly tested for its target audience. And that has everything to do with the “elites” dismissing anything that isn’t their preferred gameplay as inconsequential.
MMORPGs work when there are a lot of people playing. But you’re not going to get 1 million, much less 6 or 10 million people to all agree that the same content is a priority. So you need people who understand the purpose of a particular type of gameplay to be testing it, to be able to tell Blizzard if that content is working for the intended audience, and that included both hardcore and casual content. A professional minded person would absolutely be able to test multiple venues and be able to asses those venues in context to its target, but frankly I don’t expect the average player to approach testing professionally – not unless those individuals do so for a living.
I think Blizzard’s choice of testers should run the gamut and be a cross section of the total player base, while selecting specialists for specific content (raid boss tuning, arena gameplay, pet battles, etc.).
BfA is clearly designed and tested by folks only interested in a specific type of gameplay (spreadsheet raider, IMO). I think we need a wider range of voices, more eyes evaluating and reporting. Tunnel vision testing should not be the be-all, end all of alpha/beta.
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Usually the alpha invites go out streamer Blizz rump swab types. Would be nice if us regular folks could try it out, too.
Actually if you have potato specs you’re likely to get in because they also collect the data on how low end computers run the game.
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That’s more beta
I agree 100% Averax so very true. Cheers.
Let’s not forget that there are people who love to explore and do quests and find treasures and hidden things. Those things are just as important to test for broken terrains, missing textures, broken quests, misspelled stuff, etc. I’m not sure if they can quantify that the same way we do with raiders and PvPers and pet battlers to choose in that manner.
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