I think we should test what we are asked to when we are asked to. Especially early on in the pre-alpha experiences like VoxElyria, I am sure there will be things they want feedback on at that time and things that are far better to wait until there are more systems in place and interacting together.

So yes, when the time is right we should all grief each other as much as humanly possible, I am just not sure that time will arrive in pre-alpha.

I'm leery to post in a Voxelyria discussion at all outside of early access forums but I agree with Victoria... The time to try and break things and bug hunt is in Beta... in pre-alphas and alpha there will likely be too many bugs and known issues to exploit, to the point you're just griefing, not pointing out any flaws that the devs don't already know about and have on their list to fix.

The most lame act of grieving will be destroying player houses. Especially the ones they have bought in the shop. I expect measures will be taken immediately. Or maybe there will be a clear statement that it's part of the game.

But that will be bad for business though.

In theory I agree, but in practice I agree with Victoria in that I think we should do it in the bounds of the direction we told to be testing.

If we are asked to test specific systems, the focus should be on trying to grief/break those specific systems in as many ways as possible to ensure proper vetting.

However, I also think that is pretty much common sense and "game testing 101". Meaning, that's what people will be doing anyway.

Very good suggestion to keep in mind.

FWIW, destroying something has been said to take at least as long as it took to build it so that's a pretty significant deterrence for destroying things just to try to annoy others.

Posted By Hieronymus at 08:47 AM - Thu May 17 2018

Very good suggestion to keep in mind.

FWIW, destroying something has been said to take at least as long as it took build it so that's a pretty significant deterrence for destroying things just to try to annoy others.

Well, this is almost certainly untrue or you'll never be able to assault castle walls... I mean, maybe if they include the time gathering and assembling the siege weapons necessary... but once made those can attack lots of structures.

Posted By Dekul at 09:31 AM - Thu May 17 2018

I mean, maybe if they include the time gathering and assembling the siege weapons necessary... but once made those can attack lots of structures.

Yes, that's the idea. To destroy a castle wall would require a siege engine and that's going to take time, effort and resources to create. The point is, it's a non-trivial task to destroy a castle wall.

This is an important discussion to have, but I believe that it is best to conduct it out of public eyes. The flamers will have a roast reporting every bug and exploit as they are identified. There is a time for that (flamers have a positive function too), but it is after NDA has been lifted. If SBS is as honest as they should be, they will not avoid testing for bugs and exploits that we in the general community think of.

Agreed, but only when SBS tell us they are ready for us to try that. Most of the alphas/betas I have played it was very easy to grief people - but often the devs knew it, and pieces of the puzzle were simply missing as they had not been added yet, making such testing premature and distracting.

Good example is Star Citizen; some folks there were all about getting kills, including suicide crashing into ships on landing pads, even when the devs wanted focused testing on the latest flight model - and defense turrets had simply not been added to the game, so there was no counter at all to suicide crashing.

Timing is everything.

Posted By Lady Grace at 02:29 AM - Fri May 18 2018

Agreed, but only when SBS tell us they are ready for us to try that. Most of the alphas/betas I have played it was very easy to grief people - but often the devs knew it, and pieces of the puzzle were simply missing as they had not been added yet, making such testing premature and distracting.

Good example is Star Citizen; some folks there were all about getting kills, including suicide crashing into ships on landing pads, even when the devs wanted focused testing on the latest flight model - and defense turrets had simply not been added to the game, so there was no counter at all to suicide crashing.

Timing is everything.

I have no disagreement with you. But should the time never become "right" before launch, then that will be dishonest, IMO.

As someone experienced with alpha testing other games... Test all the things.

One person can make a real difference in the alpha stage.

Posted By Lady Grace at 7:29 PM - Fri May 18 2018

Agreed, but only when SBS tell us they are ready for us to try that. Most of the alphas/betas I have played it was very easy to grief people - but often the devs knew it, and pieces of the puzzle were simply missing as they had not been added yet, making such testing premature and distracting.

Good example is Star Citizen; some folks there were all about getting kills, including suicide crashing into ships on landing pads, even when the devs wanted focused testing on the latest flight model - and defense turrets had simply not been added to the game, so there was no counter at all to suicide crashing.

Timing is everything.

This isn't wrong. But a prevailing trend in early access is for testing of security/general failsafes against griefing to be put off "until the game is more polished" - which generally means the devs put it off until they realise it's too late and too complicated for them to do anything about, slap one of the many half-assed anticheat clients in the market on the game and hope the holes they left in the game's integral structure aren't big enough for people to exploit. Generally, they are. Wildcard's a great example of this with Ark. They never managed to stop the tidal wave of international griefers from pillaging their official community (led by streamers who profited off the act), and even after release they lack the capacity (or inclination) to actively punish cheaters.

SbS has shown good sense in their game plan so far, and I'm confident they have factored security into the testing process. But it does need to start early. It can't be left too late, or the pressure to release the game is going to get in the way of thorough testing and likely leave issues that could break their momentum if the company can't address them quickly. Prevention is always better than treatment where stuff like this is concerned.

hmm reading this thread makes me think of the law and order threads from a few months ago. in which we both proved the fact that time & Effort spent on somthing did not always require same effort to distory it.

Cows and live stock for example you could have spent generations or RL years building up the qualty of your stock only to have a bandit come in spend 10-15 mins and wipe out all ur stock.

no matter how you look at it there is no way to prevent this other then braking all the other machanics in the game to make it inpossable to kill a cow which will ruin the game.

so like i proposed to SBS for said issues it should be left into the hands of nobilty to set the punishments for the crimes to beable to have the flexabilty to deal with Unique situations like this.

having to have Admins jump in and estential interfer with our world is not a good aproch

and thats what we all need to remember this will be our world. and just like in RL should not have god step in every 5 seconds as they see issues.

Freedom of Choice is just that.

also btw i am quite dispointed to see down votes on a few the people here that i can see no valid reason for. please dont down vote people just because u dont like them, it can be seen as bullying.

also remember there must always be balance... there can be no light if there is no darkness after all