This week we ask... As a superhero MMORPG developer, what would you require before officially launching your Alpha build?

I'm not entirely sure but I would want to make the game feel and play as polished as possible before player tests to make a good impression on people who test it, considering this game is going to be an early access title, it's important to make that good first impression "hey this is amazing for an alpha" to get people more interested and thus bringing in more funds to develop the game.

AEGIS wrote:
A selected group of about 50 payed professional testers which will be the only ones testing.

When you are done with that and ironed out all the kinks and polished it up based on that groups feedback and you think you are done now you are in Beta. That is where you make clear for even the most mentally handicapped who logs in "Its Beta; as in not finished and not released. At release your Beta character gets deleted!**" (regardless of your Logic telling you "hey, it finished, release it" because its not and its not your Logic, its your Ego dressed up like your Logic) and open the floodgates to the unwashed masses like me.

**I think that was up for debate once; I'm not sure. But here is why its important: You might want to also Beta test cash shop stuff at some point. Some of that might just not work out and if its then already tied to somebody who payed big time you might start fighting fights at fronts you totally do not need when preparing the games clean up and launch. So the stuff would be free for beta (also you show credibility by not releasing a armed and loaded cash shop to any form of testing phase).

If you read this you did not already waved it of as nonsense at the fist line I wrote; that also speaks for your credibility

Anytime I've seen your previous videos, I always wished the animations, sound effects and particle effects were more polished. When you see the reactions of mobs and the timing is off when hit or when a power animation plays but there is a small delay when the power effects launch or when the power effects are obviously placeholders, these are all turnoffs even in an alpha state. Your run, jump and travel powers should look polished. Mobs should react appropriately and not 'slide walk' or some other broken animation when attacking or being attacked by your hero. Acceptable glitches are things like being unable to complete a mission or story arc(not all of them obviously), some clipping of costumes, unfinished costumes and the occasional animation glitch like getting stuck on something in the world or maybe freezing in the middle of the occasional animation, incomplete zone such as missing textures from a building, sparse or no NPCs(people or vehicles), etc.

tldr, when it comes to combat/powers, I don't want to see a ton of placeholders in the sound, animation, mob ai and special fx departments. UI, missions, other systems(chat, inventory, etc) and zones can look unfinished.

I would want to demonstrate as much functionality as possible. I get players wanting things to look "polished" and feel "smooth" but it is alpha, not release. If everything was polished and ready to go, why have alpha and not just release? Alpha should be to test out functionality, not seeing if it is pretty. You want logging in, character creation, navigation of the first zone or two, quest handling, combat, and resurrection to work and to be stress-tested. There are some thing you will only discover after a few hundred people are all using them at once.

I'd like to see some form of crowd control and working functional effects in the game as well as some buffs/debuffs which make a difference. Mostly honestly just polish.

Crowd control and a chance to see where pet archtypes are starting out at. And a chance to I guess to see a chance to form a baseline for proper support(as in far more than just healing and more healing) and pet builds.

Frosty3579 wrote:
I tend to agree with this one--mainly about the principle of an alpha--although I do believe the movement and collision mechanics should be pretty complete (i.e. the game engine should be solid).

For me, a big part of the answer depends on what your release plan looks like after alpha launch, e.g. if you're going to be on weekly sprints rolling monthly epics, because knowing the frequency of improvement would affect my tolerance for unpolished/underdeveloped content.

I tend to favor quality over scope in my projects, so I'd rather see less stuff of better quality initially.

What I would consider must-haves:

• At least one complete story arc (or equivalent)--meaning approx. 3-5 character levels worth of content in a cohesive plot
• At least one of each type of mission/quest, e.g. delivery, escort, retrieve/collect, map clear
• A meaningful amount of character progression--maybe 25-33% of the planned cap, with at least a basic version of the associated NPC (e.g. trainer) interactions
• At least one power/ability set within each of the typical archetypes (close-range offensive, close-range defensive, mid-/long- equivalents)
• Some basic version of the game economy
• A close-to-fully-expressed HUD--not necessarily with underlying functions, but I'd like to have a rough idea of the UI
• A pretty good representation of the game's ultimate vision (meaning I can kind of picture what the future state will look like)

Like, I feel an alpha is appropriate when you're at the point where the problem is more about scale and user satisfaction than core functionality. It would be way better for people to think, "Man, I can't wait for more content," than to think, "Man, I can't wait for this thing to get fixed." Of course the latter is inevitable, but I think it would be a good idea to hold out until it's more likely people will be excited about growth prospects.

what id look for as a developer and what id look for as a producer or sales manager are 2 different things, 3 different things really

as a dev id be looking for stress testing all the various things like a Auction house if you have one or party interface raid interface lag issues between power synergys login issues issues with patching, issues with game launcher and various OS working out the optimal instance cap sizes if instancing, workign out a user interface that people find intuitive, stress testing power balance, finding any spots that you fall through ground walls roofs extra, identifying any issues with falling through maps with slow loading optimizing out que systems so they work as well as possible, extra, the stuff you need a pile of randoms to test.

as a sales manager id want all that tested and polished before i launched to public and as a producer id want it all polished before i launched but also want as much alpha testing before launch as possible and would have to take a middle ground, if your doing the early access style alpha you probably need to walk "producers" line which isnt very easy, try to get some polish and content before launch to satisfy the sales bit and hopefully get que kinks and such worked out ASAP as early acess proceeds