@GamerSeuss That's a pretty big claim to be making. The issue with claiming that you've tested MMO's like Ultima and Everquest is that given the "nature of the beast" anyone can claim to be anything. Has anyone ever questioned the legitimacy of your testing history and have you been able to prove that you have indeed tested such MMO's? Then again, how would you even prove that?

Did Ultima even have an open beta? To my knowledge (and correct me if I am wrong) the first MMO's were rather primitive and didn't see the light of day until release, I don't think it was until EQ or WoW that open Beta's even became a thing and even those were exceptionally hard to get into I believe.

@Ostaff They have a good reason to allow regular players to test their game if we're talking budgetary reasons, the issue like I said previously is that player logs must be recorded and kept with every single game interaction being logged. If someone finds a glitch or exploit it needs to be reported regardless of the player being aware that his game logs are being sent directly to a dev or not.

Trust need not apply in this case, they shouldn't trust us to report bugs and exploits at all. I could easily be an exploiter and so could anyone on this thread.

@GreatValdus A player isn't a developer, I am not a coder I am not a hacker. If I test a game I will not know exactly what transpired and what might happen if they fix that particular glitch. A hacker or developer will, hence the reason alpha and beta testers used to be paid professions.

We as players are not testers, we are incapable of testing their product sufficiently. We'd only be able to find surface level bugs and exploits, nothing more.

@Ostaff The issue with players testing an alpha is that players are not programmers and they are not white-hat hackers. They don't have the fracking tools or programming tools required to crack the game and find bugs and exploits. This means that they're relying on a large quantity of players to just happen upon bugs which occur during regular play, there are certain bugs that occur from specific causations which can be exploited. I guarantee that when this game launches there will be a black market on Discord for illicit exploits, dupes and botting software as well as gold/currency selling due to the amount of exploits and bugs that will go unpatched.

The other issue with relying on the community is that this also allows bad actors to pay for alpha/beta access and then use their own tools to find exploits which they will then use to manipulate the devs. IE, "This is a serious, bug you should patch this" only for the patching of that bug to then break ten other scripts which the exploiter will now abuse if it makes it past the beta. This happens often in Runescape and WoW where an exploiter will post a video of an exploit in the hopes that Blizzard patches it because it will actually break some other scripts which they will then proceed to exploit.

Closed alphas and PAID full time testers are a MUST in the gaming industry, you have to pay a salary to a person who's sole job is to break the game and find as many bugs and glitches as possible whilst also highlighting the causations of it. Unpaid testers simply don't have the time, skills, tools or commitment to do this effectively. A programmer has to be delegated to doing this or things go south quickly.

I would go on to argue that games and MMO's back in the 2000s were actually much higher quality then what we get now since back then closed alphas were used to eliminate over 90% of the exploits and bugs found in-game. This was done simply because back then the average user wasn't an amateur programmer and the assumption was that they wouldn't understand why a bug occurs or if it even is a bug. The ones that made it past the alpha and beta phases of these games were actually usually added in later by accident, like the infamous "reck" bomb in classic WoW which was actually just dev oversight when the ability was added in after the alpha/beta phases as well as other blunders.

Meanwhile, in a particular game there was a guild that had a moderator. This guild found a gold/silver exploit and kept it hidden from the devs during the alpha, beta and live phases and then proceeded to exploit it for over a year before it was finally patched three times. There's still a black market for duped gold on Albion Online to this day because of this.

If the devs for Fractured are wise they will have player-side client logs uploaded to their servers after each playthrough as to avoid deceit. This means every interaction should be logged and recorded so that a dev can look through suspicious player logs during the alpha and beta phases to see if they're trying to create exploits.

@GamerSeuss That's a pretty big claim to be making. The issue with claiming that you've tested MMO's like Ultima and Everquest is that given the "nature of the beast" anyone can claim to be anything. Has anyone ever questioned the legitimacy of your testing history and have you been able to prove that you have indeed tested such MMO's? Then again, how would you even prove that?

Did Ultima even have an open beta? To my knowledge (and correct me if I am wrong) the first MMO's were rather primitive and didn't see the light of day until release, I don't think it was until EQ or WoW that open Beta's even became a thing and even those were exceptionally hard to get into I believe.

@Logain

I would hire a second programmer, there's no need for QA when the game is in development nor should an Alpha be open to backers or anyone really.

They shouldn't announce an alpha if they don't announce a date. The issue here is that since they're a small team it could be half a year before an alpha is actually ready. If they can't announce a date, they shouldn't announce an alpha. Testing phases generally should occur once the majority of the game has been created and has been tested internally, relying on the community to test the game is generally a poor decision as this can lead to bugs and exploits not being reported (so cheaters can exploit them later) or being missed altogether. In some cases, exploiters will report specific bugs and glitches with the intent that when the devs fix that particular issue it will lead to a new host of issues which the exploiters may use.

Unity is a stable engine but like any other game engine it can be exploited. Announcing an alpha phase with a given date is essential, if this cannot be done then an alpha should not occur until a stable date can be given. Basically, everything on their plate must be finished before they can take on more.

When does the winter alpha start? It's stated that it's suppose to start in march but it's already march tenth. There's been no specific date and time that I am aware of either. An announcement should be in order with a clear date posted for when the winter Alpha is to begin, "promises" should not be made if they cannot be delivered.

A game studio of any caliber should and must be punctual and precise, if a month is given instead of a specific date then it's generally seen as being a maybe and not a definite, that is to say there "might" be a winter alpha or there may not be. For that reason, there may be a game launch but most likely there won't be a game launch.

Not being hostile if I'm coming off that way, what I'm trying to get at is that a specific date must be given and delivered on or we as a community cannot be certain that this game will even happen. Look at Yandere dev if you need any further references, though comparing this studio to him is a far stretch at the moment.