PC-Engine said:
That's why you have inhouse game testers or even beta testers...
Sure, but those periods aren't nearly as long or have as much "eye-time" in them as much as release will.
3 months of beta with 10K players vs. 1 year release with 100K players. Beta will probably give you more feedback per increment of time/person but in the end it will pale in comparision to the information gathered by players after release.
PC-Engine said:
Yeah but Guerilla is asking basic stuff like how many grenades and what the throwing arc should be. Shouldn't the inhouse game testers be giving answers to these kinds of simple questions from developers?
Frankly no, I'm going to say that in-house testers (which few places have since they're expensive to keep around) shouldn't be the ones to determine how many grenades should be given.
I think that should be done by the developers using data mining (if they have it they could simply check, what % of players died to grenades, does the forum mention complaints of 'nade spam'?). Without that, I think it's fine to ask the community though for that. The grenade arc thing imo, does seems to be a bit trivial
to me. Then again, maybe it was really "off"?
My company has 500+ employees and we have our own in-house testing department. Permanently assigned to us during development was the magic # of *2*. You can't trust that your testers will be of sufficient quality/quantity (much like Beta participants).
SugarCoat said:
so i guess there were no good games before company X came up with the bright idea of asking its fanbase via internet commentary then right?
I said, "getting is right is tough", not impossible.
SugarCoat said:
I find developers that try to satisfy everyone, end up screwing the majority that they had pleased. Since those people enjoyed what they had before they dont speak up and get screwed in the process. This does nothing good for the fanbase or developer other then looks great for PR.
You will get no argument from me that "too many cooks spoil the stew". GG will need to refine
their vision, yes. But that said, are they asking input for everything or relatively minor details?
SugarCoat said:
Game developers read their forums quite often believe it or not. They dont need to make it open forum for ideas, that, as pointed out, shows that they lack imagination or are looking to kiss ass. This thread has followed the kissing ass route.
Yes I know that since at my company we have people just for that. In fact our CRM established a nice little process whereby he would email topical discussion to us.
SugarCoat said:
Guerrilla Games is still a sub par game developer no matter how you cut it. At least to many people. If your one of the very few people that liked some of their games, good for you. Dont forget some people liked Daikatana too.
That may be the case (I don't have Killzone - never played it. Nor do I own a PS2) but if all they've asked for is input on grenades, then I personally don't see the big deal. In other words, for games judge it by the end product, not the development cycle.
PC-Engine said:
Like has already been said, input from fans is a double edged sword, the key is picking what you "think" will work and ignoring what you "think" wouldn't. At the end of the day it's still guesswork and doesn't guarantee the game will be "better" just because there was input from fans. You still need a "judge".
And this is 110% true. It will be GG's responsibility to weed throught he chaff and find the kernels of truth.
) - getting good gameplay better ( Wouldve been useless though if it were bad from the start )
