Is work on page 6 ongoing or stalled?

[HelenCarnate]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

The usual way: incantations, ritual sacrifice, flagellation, etc.

 

Can you expand on that?  I am doing all 3 but clearly I must be missing a step somewhere. 

[Myrmidon]

3 hours ago, HelenCarnate said:

Can you expand on that?  I am doing all 3 but clearly I must be missing a step somewhere. 

Evidently, there are other ways covered under “etc”. If we start a suggestion thread on what to attempt, who calls dibs on radioactive spiders?

[Pzn]

14 hours ago, FoulVileTerror said:

I wish I knew.  The most we got was from Jimmy a little while back:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19111-is-work-on-page-6-ongoing-or-stalled/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-241660

Thank you for the respectful response.

[Pzn]

16 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

The usual way: incantations, ritual sacrifice, flagellation, etc.

 

So incredibly hilarious.  You should do stand up instead of passive aggressively mocking people over the internet.

[ScarySai]

You said stand-up twice.

[FoulVileTerror]

Was that a "Whoops, tautology!" joke, @ScarySai?

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Did anyone notice the bug with the clown car if you didnt summon the t1 pets fi.... oh crap wrong forum

[HelenCarnate]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Did anyone notice the bug with the clown car if you didnt summon the t1 pets fi.... oh crap wrong forum

[Jimmy]

On 9/11/2020 at 12:38 AM, josh1622 said:

How are players selected for the closed beta?

Generally if we need specific in-depth testing for something specific, we'll go and find people for that thing. Normally that'll be based on useful feedback / reports during previous rounds of testing or knowledgable posts elsewhere on the forums (eg: the feedback section). It's entirely possible we may use an application form in the future, but it's not needed right now.

 

As said a few times in this thread - it's entirely down to the needs of the developers.

[RageusQuitus2]

On 8/12/2020 at 8:15 PM, dopeninja said:

Freakshow MM Primary? Summoning Freaks would be a fun time!

I hope this turns out to be true.  Could be done for a number of pve foes to be honest.  Eventually leading to this game being called City of MMs.

[Bionic_Flea]

On 9/11/2020 at 12:44 PM, josh1622 said:

So incredibly hilarious.  You should do stand up instead of passive aggressively mocking people over the internet.

I'm so happy you understand humor and passive aggressiveness so well!

[0th Power]

57 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I'm so happy you understand humor and passive aggressiveness so well!

I see what you did there...

[Hew]

I heard there is cake?

[Super Atom]

I don't really get this keep it in the dark, hush hush stuff. Whats the harm in just saying whats coming up so people get excited

Edited September 16, 2020 by Super Atom

[OtterSeaborne]

2 hours ago, Super Atom said:

I don't really get this keep it in the dark, hush hush stuff. Whats the harm in just saying whats coming up so people get excited

Sometimes, things go wrong and changes have to be reverted once they hit a bigger server or a tester who didn't have alpha but did have a good idea. People get very upset when they lose things they were told they'd get, but a mystery mostly makes people curious. So it's safer to keep things vague until you're at the "we're definitely doing this, but the numbers might change a little" stage.

[Myrmidon]

3 hours ago, OtterSeaborne said:

Sometimes, things go wrong and changes have to be reverted once they hit a bigger server or a tester who didn't have alpha but did have a good idea. People get very upset when they lose things they were told they'd get, but a mystery mostly makes people curious. So it's safer to keep things vague until you're at the "we're definitely doing this, but the numbers might change a little" stage.

This. Closed testing would be even more fluid and constantly subject to change (with those that I have been in for pre-Snap City of and other games changing day-to-day). Better to keep all of that under the hood rather than having 100+ pages on why having the visual effects of Kinetics changing into  neon purple has ruined the set forever.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Myrmidon

[FoulVileTerror]

From the perspective of someone who's been on the other side a few times, I have to say my experiences lead me to safely conclude that is not the case.

A secretive development cycle doesn't change the amount or intensity of complaints, just defers them until later and does harm to the trust between developers and players.

In my past professional experience, the only group who legitimately benefit from this format are publishers, who exploit fears from both the devs and players to increase employee retention and player spending.  Not every publisher is necessarily skilled at this, of course, and we have a few delightful examples of it blowing up in their face . . . but usually when they screw up, it's still the devs and/or players who end up suffering.  

 

Homecoming represents an opportunity to get away from that.  The Dark Melee experimental content is the only foray I've seen so far, and I still contend that clearer communication of it being an experiment and what the devs were looking to achieve would have largely mitigated the issues.  

Issues which, unless I missed something that got moderated out of the forum, were significantly less severe than the waves of complaints, concerns, and ensuing backlash to changes made in a vacuum and released without warning.

[Apparition]

8 hours ago, Super Atom said:

I don't really get this keep it in the dark, hush hush stuff. Whats the harm in just saying whats coming up so people get excited

 

Remember the Rage and Dark Melee changes?  Exactly.

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, FoulVileTerror said:

From the perspective of someone who's been on the other side a few times, I have to say my experiences lead me to safely conclude that is not the case.

A secretive development cycle doesn't change the amount or intensity of complaints, just defers them until later and does harm to the trust between developers and players.

In my past professional experience, the only group who legitimately benefit from this format are publishers, who exploit fears from both the devs and players to increase employee retention and player spending.  Not every publisher is necessarily skilled at this, of course, and we have a few delightful examples of it blowing up in their face . . . but usually when they screw up, it's still the devs and/or players who end up suffering.  

 

Homecoming represents an opportunity to get away from that.  The Dark Melee experimental content is the only foray I've seen so far, and I still contend that clearer communication of it being an experiment and what the devs were looking to achieve would have largely mitigated the issues.  

Issues which, unless I missed something that got moderated out of the forum, were significantly less severe than the waves of complaints, concerns, and ensuing backlash to changes made in a vacuum and released without warning.

 

That's what the Homecoming developers tried.  The Rage and Dark Melee changes proved that it doesn't work and that closed testing was necessary.

[Lines]

I think closed testing is essential. Open testing everything would way too much to handle, especially when a whole lot of stuff could end up on the cutting room floor anyway.

 

HC just gotta work however they find works for them.

[ABlueThingy]

3 hours ago, FoulVileTerror said:

From the perspective of someone who's been on the other side a few times, I have to say my experiences lead me to safely conclude that is not the case.

A secretive development cycle doesn't change the amount or intensity of complaints, just defers them until later and does harm to the trust between developers and players.

In my past professional experience, the only group who legitimately benefit from this format are publishers, who exploit fears from both the devs and players to increase employee retention and player spending.  Not every publisher is necessarily skilled at this, of course, and we have a few delightful examples of it blowing up in their face . . . but usually when they screw up, it's still the devs and/or players who end up suffering.  

 

Homecoming represents an opportunity to get away from that.  The Dark Melee experimental content is the only foray I've seen so far, and I still contend that clearer communication of it being an experiment and what the devs were looking to achieve would have largely mitigated the issues.  

Issues which, unless I missed something that got moderated out of the forum, were significantly less severe than the waves of complaints, concerns, and ensuing backlash to changes made in a vacuum and released without warning.

 

From the perspective of someone who's been on the other side a few times, I have to say my experiences lead me to safely conclude that this is the case.

 

You need a space you can work without judgement, without dozens if not hundreds of people second and third guessing your every move before you're even sure if what you're doing is what you're going to be doing.  This is even more true when the only thing fueling you is your own passion for the work.  There's no paycheck in this for the homecoming team encouraging them to come back.  They're working because they want to.

 

Game development is not something that can be done by committee.  By having all the players get a say during the build process.  I've seen that tried.  I've been part of teams that tried to do that. (I wouldn't call us professionals mind you) Game development never moves fast enough for The Beast.  You have to come up with an idea, spend time figuring out how to even do the idea, work on the idea and then find out the idea is actually crap and you need to scrap it.

 

If you do this behind closed doors you can, without judgement, cycle through dozens of ideas without creating and weird expectations.  Players remember every screw up, every broken promise, every half-cocked idea you ever mention.  They will build cargo cults to these ideas.  You can absolutely poison a playerbase by letting them see how the sausage is made. 

 

Programing is taking pure ideas and folding and cutting them until they fit in a set of 0s and 1s.  But players live in the ideas, they don't understand the compromises and considerations that must go into getting those ideas to live.

 

Dr. Frankenstein was horrified by his monster, because his original idea in his head was a perfect man.  But he could never create that, that was never an option. It was only a spark that started him down the path.  If he had accepted what he COULD make, this patchwork being of pure tabula rasa, he could have done something amazing.  If he didn't have this idea of the perfect Adam.  He could have appreciated that he literally created life from death, he defied god and nature.

 

They don't need to hear about how the perfect man you're going to build is going to have flawless skin and be 7ft tall with rockin' abs and he's gonna be the smartest bestest boy.  They don't need see you skulking around graveyards hacking off parts from dead people either.  Both of those dull the appreciation for the creation in the end.  And that'll kill anyone's motivation quick.  I've watch it happen.

 

...So at the end of this metaphor Powerhouse ends up chasing the Dark Melee changes into the depths of the arctic and dies tragically?  Also don't build the rage changes a wife.  I think that's my point... ya...

 

 

 

[Jimmy]

11 hours ago, Super Atom said:

I don't really get this keep it in the dark, hush hush stuff. Whats the harm in just saying whats coming up so people get excited

See also:

On 7/20/2020 at 6:55 PM, Jimmy said:

Yep. This isn't an Ubisoft marketing ‘beta’. It’s highly unfinished work that needs serious testing.

However, public testing is also really important, and it's vital that everyone engages in the testing process when patches hit the public beta server - and I'll explain why!

 

If we went straight to public testing then there would be a wave of interest (and testing) immediately - which may seem useful - but in actual fact it would be mostly wasted as everyone would be encountering the really obvious showstopping issues. All of the smaller, harder-to-find (but still important) issues would be eclipsed by the obvious ones. Finding those smaller issues generally requires a much larger amount of time (and therefore players), which is why we don't want to waste that large wave testing wave on the obvious problems. Splitting the testing phases up allows us to 'save' that large testing wave to be used when it'll be the most effective.

 

This isn't a marketing exercise designed to generate interest or engagement - and as cynical as it may seem, it's not about making testers happy. It's about helping the development team produce the best work possible for the live servers.

 

I know it's been said a lot, but it bears repeating: This is a volunteer operation. We're professionals operating in a decidedly unprofessional environment with zero resources and zero in-house testers, so this is about as atypical as it gets - and therefore not something you can compare to most other testing experiences you may have had.

 

With that in mind, we're quite happy with how it's worked so far. To date only been two serious issues that have slipped through the testing net:

1. Brute taunt auras not working in farms - this was on Homecoming's test server for months, but the players it affected didn't engage in testing, so the issue wasn't found
2. A really bad mapserver crashed caused by character transfers - Resurgence has only one shard, and our Beta server also only had one shard at the time, so it simply wasn't possible for this to be found

#1 tells us how important it is that players engage in testing every step of the way, and how important it is for us to focus public testing at the time it will do the most good. #2 tells us we should have two beta shards set up so we can test character transfers (which we now do 🙂).

[Super Atom]

Well that's pretty much the opposite of how i took previous comments. That's all well and fine when explained and pretty much what i was saying should be done anyway. thanks 🤗

Edited September 16, 2020 by Super Atom

[0th Power]

Is an announcement coming soon or soon(tm)?

 

Not trying to be rude, I'm just excited.

Edited September 16, 2020 by 0th Power

[DMW45]

Yeah, I'm mostly interested in a timetable, myself.

 

Like, is this going into beta this year?

 

Not like, mad or impatient, just curious on when to expect news.