Natural Selection 2 News Update - NS2 Playtesters Wanted
Hugh
CameramanSan Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
CameramanSan Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
Comments
DAMMIT ANDI
LIES! ALL LIES I TELL YA!
--Cory
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmm, Hugh might be onto so something here as that was way too defensive!
Personally, my favorite aspect of playtesting is helping shape a product I love for the better, one annoying bug/issue at a time!
Seeing upcoming/prototype/secret stuff in the works is a bonus, along with coordinating with awesome people.
Won't lie though, playtesting isn't just playing the game you love, its breaking it again and again and continuously writing up reports for the devs in our bug tracking system, providing pictures and videos with reproduction steps etc. Sometimes its boring, sometimes its hysterical, sometimes its stressful crunch-time. But imo its something any fan with the time to make our scheduled meetings would enjoy, if you had that founding motivation to constantly make it better. :)
<img src="http://iforce.co.nz/i/pjwomrwy.er5.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
not sure if timezone (aussie) will be factor
EDIT: From Australia, timezones might be a problem then.
Naah not really, just need to have access to your computer alot and be avaliable when requested (doesn't have to be always)
Also you need to post your computer specs,
Anyway
Taking any more australians on? or just na people?
Did anybody else notice, that.... that's charrie in the TSF helmut?
Good luck everyone :).
Not really. Suggestions might be listened to but no more than suggestions made on the forums. But if there are serious problems with a feature which becomes apparent in playtests then it would be because of the playtesters that it gets addressed I suppose. But no, in general.
<!--quoteo(post=2056908:date=Jan 6 2013, 01:32 PM:name=princess)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (princess @ Jan 6 2013, 01:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2056908"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not really. Suggestions might be listened to but no more than suggestions made on the forums. But if there are serious problems with a feature which becomes apparent in playtests then it would be because of the playtesters that it gets addressed I suppose. But no, in general.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is true to some extent, but not fully. Yes, balancing the game is not the job description for being a playtester, and we don't make changes based on feedback from PTs simply because they are PTs, but we do listen to their feedback, and have made many, many, MANY changes to NS2 on the balance and gameplay side based on PT feedback. We respect their opinions and understand that they play the game a lot and have many valid opinions regarding how to improve it, and they do have a direct line to the UWE developers for the most part.
However, that shouldn't be someone's main reason for wanting to be a PT.
--Cory
I've made my feelings about the PT team quite clear in the past but I should like to reiterate that I do think NS2 has really suffered from not having a <i><b>play</b></i>tester team. The fact that the <i><b>bug</b></i>tester team has had UWE's ear with regards to balance at all has never sat well with me, especially looking at its composition.
A quick search online yeilds:
<i>"In the video game industry, playtesting refers specifically to the process of exposing a game in development (or some specific parts of it) to its intended audience,<b> to identify potential design flaws and gather feedback.</b> Playtests are also used to help ensure that a product will be commercially viable upon release, by providing a way for consumers to play the game and <b>provide their opinions.</b> Playtesting should not be confused with Quality Assurance (QA) testing, which is the process in which professional testers look for and report specific software bugs to be fixed by the development team."</i>
I highlighted the aspect that doesn't sit well with you, Tweadle, but the degree of effect you seem to think we have is not accurate i would say.
An example would be some lifeform like the Onos is given four times it's armor or something extreme for a certain build. We play it, and then immediately realizing how skewed this change is, typically scream our heads off in chatrooms and teamspeak, being very serious about it. That's about the highest degree of influence we have - in those certain edge cases where something is completely and totally wrong, something very obvious - essentially breaking a build.
When it comes to the smaller stuff like X number of energy used for X ability.. we participate by one or two of us giving our opinion sometimes, but its something that's given in passing and while it may be taken into account by the developers, its usually seen as equal or inferior feedback given our small sample size that we are limited to supplying. (believe me i've been on a personal quest to change the Lerk for some time, due to my own opinions, hehe) This isn't to say we aren't asked our opinions every now and then about a certain element, or even that we as playtesters aren't immediately available to provide our opinion on a certain matter and because of this, we try to pick the best people possible for PT, with a variance of ns1 vets, pubbers, forumites, and some comp members - despite this not being our primary role.
So as that last sentence in that quote i provided says, we are technically more QA, with a slice of playtesting.
We are the ones who intercept the game breaking bugs and balance issues, the builds you receive publicly are typically magnitudes better and playable, (speaking for pre launch days) and this gives you all, the community, to have the bigger influence in those small balance details. Especially moreso now than ever with these new processes for taking feedback from the community.
Hope that clears some things up on what entails being a Playtester for NS2. :)
Going to be a lot of reading for Obraxis, Wasabi and I. :-P