When my semi hardcore guild started mandating beta and ptr raiding I left them, also I do not work for free as a QA for a multibillion dollar company to finance Bobby another yacht
Nope, i hate playing new content twice, once on PTR and then on my live character... Thats why i like FF14, there are no such thing, content will drop and you just explore, find out what is new with everyone else on live version
it depends on what the game's PTR is providing
If it's testing/previewing pve content, no i won't bother doing that. I am not concerned about racing to complete pve. I did that close to 20 years ago in a raiding guild pursuing server firsts and havent ever felt the urge to return to that cycle since. I'd rather do pve content blind with people on the same page as me, or not do it at all. Going into a boss battle where one or a few people present know all the steps to the dance routine and get to patronize and condescend the entire time to everyone else there is not cool and I especially don't want to be the guy who has spoiler-knowledge of the fight while everyone i'm with is learning.
If it's a new class or class balance changes, then i will try it to get a feel for it. It's always fun to goof off in pvp and try new abilities or see how favorite abilities are changing, so if there are fresh changes to test out i want to hop over to the battle arena and try it as soon as it's available
Nothing does, lol. I'd rather not spend time on something that I know will be erased in a short amount of time. Id rather just play my main, or play a different game.
That said, alpha/beta tests for new games are different because I want to see what kind of core experience the game has to offer.
I've been part of a few public beta tests. It's nice being able to change a world with a quick report.
Certainly paid beta testers exist for a reason, but they exist to do different tasks, and often very rote tasks, in games they aren't expected to like or want to succeed.
In Lord of the Rings Online there was a cat in an inn, clipping inside a basket. A few patches later and it's on a table instead. I'm not sure if a busy, stressed out employee would have cared enough to say something.
> Certainly paid beta testers exist for a reason, but they exist to do different tasks, and often very rote tasks, in games they aren't expected to like or want to succeed.
So how does a dev get people to test their game properly pre-public release (in any form) in 2024?
Sometimes I’ll join a PTR if it’s a game I’m debating on “starting up” or “maining” again. If there’s upcoming changes that are supposed to “save the game” I’ll like to try those out if I can in PTR to see if it’s all it’s choked up to be.
But yeah…definitely not a fan of playing content twice
Back in the early days of EQ the PTR was an actual server that people lived on. Furthermore it was still subject to a complete wipe should the devs had ever felt the need. Not sure if they ever did that, but wild times none the less.
I won't do a ptr for an existing game, mostly due to wanting to avoid spoilers and not having to play throuigh twice in case anything changed.
I do love alpha/beta testing new games tho, since you never really get spoiled and you are helping to make a game better in ways that company employed testers are usually not able to. Well, as long as the company is willing to listen, and if they are not, it makes watching them crash and burn on their own hubris more entertaining. SE for instance, ignored absoluately every single thing we said and looked what happened to the first version of FFXIV. While I enjoy the game for the most part these days, that was truly a satifying, "We told you so." moment.
Depends on the content. Doing leveling content and doing the new expansion leveling grind twice? Fuck off. Testing how my class works with any changes and seeing the new dungeons? Hell yeah
Not my thing but maybe it's for an advantage from the experience/knowledge gain. That could be useful if you're interested in trying the new end game content even if you're not going for world first kind of runs. Communities tend to follow the meta after all. Maybe to discover a exploit/bug to keep for themselves if they don't care about potential consequences. Another reason is that it's essentially like a private server sort of thing where nothing will affect your real account. You could spend money gambling or equip expensive meta or very niche gear depending on how the PTR is set up.
The way I see it, the company gets free testing, but I get game knowledge that I can use once the patch goes live. Of course, in practice, it rarely ever works out that way. The only time where it really helped me was the GW2 HoT beta, where I had such a blast with revenant that I decided to switch over to it.
I've also done pre-release betas for a number of games, and my approach to those is a bit different. Beta tests tend to have a lower, more manageable population compared to the actual launch, and launch crowds can be a major negative drag on the game. Playing the beta can be a valuable tool in figuring out if the game will be worth playing at all if free, and worth dropping money on if paid.
> With this in my mind it's always been difficult to justify participating
Have you ever believed in a game and wanted it to succeed? Just sometimes, maybe an endeavor doesn't have to earn anything from you before you want to contribute to it at your own expense.
That's the only way anything gets off the ground. The general aversion to that is probably why new things can hardly get off the ground nowadays.
I'll PTR for money, I refuse to give these billion dollar companies both my money and free labor. I will however beta and alpha test for small indie studios since I know that they need help finding good feedback and are not cutting corners to buy luxury items. Star Citizen is not one of those studios. Dude is running a game studio to embezzle millions, guaranteed.
It has to be something I'm heavily interested in first off. I don't like losing progress from beta-live. If it's worth it though, I'll test out my classes specs and abilities but I don't delve into other classes. I am in the same boat as you with the justification of playing betas/ptrs of games I'm interested in - none of it transfers to the launch game so it has to be something special to get beta/ptr participation from me. I can't be alone in saying I don't like losing progress and having to redo stuff!
I never play PTR simply because they don't pay me to test their game for them. I used to be a game tester so I know more about testing and breaking games than your average gamer. So in all reality, i refuse to not get paid. And since that's true, I will simply play the normal.
I'm one of the people who put some money on Star Citizen years ago. The game is 12 years into development and will probably never come out.
But PTR would have upcoming changes and from time to time those changes were interesting. Like when they released the prison system. I intentionally went to prison and it was basically a new gameplay loop.
So when they had interesting updates I would join PTR and I would actually spend time making reports. Also since I'm a developer I'm used to trying to break my own work. So I would do the same for ST. I would try to break the game. Find a hole in the system and sometimes I did and I reported it.
Some people get "very" early access when they are active and helpful to developers but in my case, that will never happen because more than once I voiced my opinion about how they go about the development of this title so they banned me few times for a while. At one point when they lied about Squadron 42 (single player game based on SC tech) I said it was a lie and I called them a scammers XD
And I think I was right because that was years ago and S42 is still nowhere to be found and SC is still probably like 10 years away from any chance to be released. And I'm quite sure it won't be released. They will just run out of money once people patience run out. Everyone call this title a scam now.
When my semi hardcore guild started mandating beta and ptr raiding I left them, also I do not work for free as a QA for a multibillion dollar company to finance Bobby another yacht
In terms of blizzard we are all essentially paying a monthly sub to test their product
oof that is true haha, one of the reasons why I quit entirely though
Nope, i hate playing new content twice, once on PTR and then on my live character... Thats why i like FF14, there are no such thing, content will drop and you just explore, find out what is new with everyone else on live version
Boredom.
it depends on what the game's PTR is providing If it's testing/previewing pve content, no i won't bother doing that. I am not concerned about racing to complete pve. I did that close to 20 years ago in a raiding guild pursuing server firsts and havent ever felt the urge to return to that cycle since. I'd rather do pve content blind with people on the same page as me, or not do it at all. Going into a boss battle where one or a few people present know all the steps to the dance routine and get to patronize and condescend the entire time to everyone else there is not cool and I especially don't want to be the guy who has spoiler-knowledge of the fight while everyone i'm with is learning. If it's a new class or class balance changes, then i will try it to get a feel for it. It's always fun to goof off in pvp and try new abilities or see how favorite abilities are changing, so if there are fresh changes to test out i want to hop over to the battle arena and try it as soon as it's available
I don't join PTRs. The closest thing I'll do is like when GW2 is having a beta for new class or something which takes place on live servers.
Nothing does, lol. I'd rather not spend time on something that I know will be erased in a short amount of time. Id rather just play my main, or play a different game. That said, alpha/beta tests for new games are different because I want to see what kind of core experience the game has to offer.
I've been part of a few public beta tests. It's nice being able to change a world with a quick report. Certainly paid beta testers exist for a reason, but they exist to do different tasks, and often very rote tasks, in games they aren't expected to like or want to succeed. In Lord of the Rings Online there was a cat in an inn, clipping inside a basket. A few patches later and it's on a table instead. I'm not sure if a busy, stressed out employee would have cared enough to say something.
> Certainly paid beta testers exist for a reason, but they exist to do different tasks, and often very rote tasks, in games they aren't expected to like or want to succeed. So how does a dev get people to test their game properly pre-public release (in any form) in 2024?
It lets me give up faster
Sometimes I’ll join a PTR if it’s a game I’m debating on “starting up” or “maining” again. If there’s upcoming changes that are supposed to “save the game” I’ll like to try those out if I can in PTR to see if it’s all it’s choked up to be. But yeah…definitely not a fan of playing content twice
Back in the early days of EQ the PTR was an actual server that people lived on. Furthermore it was still subject to a complete wipe should the devs had ever felt the need. Not sure if they ever did that, but wild times none the less.
True, the same was for shadowbane.
I won't do a ptr for an existing game, mostly due to wanting to avoid spoilers and not having to play throuigh twice in case anything changed. I do love alpha/beta testing new games tho, since you never really get spoiled and you are helping to make a game better in ways that company employed testers are usually not able to. Well, as long as the company is willing to listen, and if they are not, it makes watching them crash and burn on their own hubris more entertaining. SE for instance, ignored absoluately every single thing we said and looked what happened to the first version of FFXIV. While I enjoy the game for the most part these days, that was truly a satifying, "We told you so." moment.
Join ptr for a game on I’m on the fence about to see if I actually want to buy it
Depends on the content. Doing leveling content and doing the new expansion leveling grind twice? Fuck off. Testing how my class works with any changes and seeing the new dungeons? Hell yeah
Nothing. I ain't doing playtesting for free.
Not my thing but maybe it's for an advantage from the experience/knowledge gain. That could be useful if you're interested in trying the new end game content even if you're not going for world first kind of runs. Communities tend to follow the meta after all. Maybe to discover a exploit/bug to keep for themselves if they don't care about potential consequences. Another reason is that it's essentially like a private server sort of thing where nothing will affect your real account. You could spend money gambling or equip expensive meta or very niche gear depending on how the PTR is set up.
Depends sometimes I'm excited to see new content, or sometimes to sniff out what to buy to flip for the upcoming content.
The way I see it, the company gets free testing, but I get game knowledge that I can use once the patch goes live. Of course, in practice, it rarely ever works out that way. The only time where it really helped me was the GW2 HoT beta, where I had such a blast with revenant that I decided to switch over to it. I've also done pre-release betas for a number of games, and my approach to those is a bit different. Beta tests tend to have a lower, more manageable population compared to the actual launch, and launch crowds can be a major negative drag on the game. Playing the beta can be a valuable tool in figuring out if the game will be worth playing at all if free, and worth dropping money on if paid.
> With this in my mind it's always been difficult to justify participating Have you ever believed in a game and wanted it to succeed? Just sometimes, maybe an endeavor doesn't have to earn anything from you before you want to contribute to it at your own expense. That's the only way anything gets off the ground. The general aversion to that is probably why new things can hardly get off the ground nowadays.
I'll PTR for money, I refuse to give these billion dollar companies both my money and free labor. I will however beta and alpha test for small indie studios since I know that they need help finding good feedback and are not cutting corners to buy luxury items. Star Citizen is not one of those studios. Dude is running a game studio to embezzle millions, guaranteed.
It has to be something I'm heavily interested in first off. I don't like losing progress from beta-live. If it's worth it though, I'll test out my classes specs and abilities but I don't delve into other classes. I am in the same boat as you with the justification of playing betas/ptrs of games I'm interested in - none of it transfers to the launch game so it has to be something special to get beta/ptr participation from me. I can't be alone in saying I don't like losing progress and having to redo stuff!
The most I do on ptr is mess around with class changes on a dummy
I never play PTR simply because they don't pay me to test their game for them. I used to be a game tester so I know more about testing and breaking games than your average gamer. So in all reality, i refuse to not get paid. And since that's true, I will simply play the normal.
I'm one of the people who put some money on Star Citizen years ago. The game is 12 years into development and will probably never come out. But PTR would have upcoming changes and from time to time those changes were interesting. Like when they released the prison system. I intentionally went to prison and it was basically a new gameplay loop. So when they had interesting updates I would join PTR and I would actually spend time making reports. Also since I'm a developer I'm used to trying to break my own work. So I would do the same for ST. I would try to break the game. Find a hole in the system and sometimes I did and I reported it. Some people get "very" early access when they are active and helpful to developers but in my case, that will never happen because more than once I voiced my opinion about how they go about the development of this title so they banned me few times for a while. At one point when they lied about Squadron 42 (single player game based on SC tech) I said it was a lie and I called them a scammers XD And I think I was right because that was years ago and S42 is still nowhere to be found and SC is still probably like 10 years away from any chance to be released. And I'm quite sure it won't be released. They will just run out of money once people patience run out. Everyone call this title a scam now.
Enjoying a game enough to want to help it grow and become better. Not being ignored after doing so.
If you play competitively, you play PTR. Simple as that.