For the record, I’m only a Veteran backer and I got alpha access this week.
Not sure what that says about either my good charms or the state of the alpha, but either way there’s absolutely tonnes of workload still to go and the competitive scene is already jumping as seen the last two nights. Can’t wait till it finally comes out, it’ll be one of my top 3 most played no problem between Star Citizen and Shroud of the Avatar/PSO2/Maybe something else
more than likely luck because we need a big wave of new players to get more feedback
I think we have enough now, we were just 27 yesterday for the draft … xD
Except for those of us who can’t play in these drafts, the public servers are empty. I’d love to play in these matches but I can’t commit a whole evening, I tend to get half an hour here and there and it’s very hit and miss at the moment if there are other people on besides those who are playing in these matches.
I respect Potty and the rest of you for what you’re doing, but I wonder how much it’s helping the Alpha right now?
i was just about to post that i had one game last week and it was okay but for the last few days the only populated server i see is always passworded. just started the launcher and there’s a full server 16/16 and one with 13/16, both unlocked, so that’s something at least.
[QUOTE=Kendle;457612]Except for those of us who can’t play in these drafts, the public servers are empty. I’d love to play in these matches but I can’t commit a whole evening, I tend to get half an hour here and there and it’s very hit and miss at the moment if there are other people on besides those who are playing in these matches.
I respect Potty and the rest of you for what you’re doing, but I wonder how much it’s helping the Alpha right now?[/QUOTE]
I did mention this to Seanza, it’d be nice if you folks could ensure a healthy mix between scrims and pub play, at least until we get to the next phase of alpha/beta ramp up.
[QUOTE=Kendle;457612]Except for those of us who can’t play in these drafts, the public servers are empty. I’d love to play in these matches but I can’t commit a whole evening, I tend to get half an hour here and there and it’s very hit and miss at the moment if there are other people on besides those who are playing in these matches.
I respect Potty and the rest of you for what you’re doing, but I wonder how much it’s helping the Alpha right now?[/QUOTE]
It’s great because it actually allows ECHO to record match with different team compositions and another context and use of skills than in pub games. It provides good data to analyse. Also most of the regular members are playing the drafts and we can actively search for bugs/feedback, probably more efficiently than pubs because we discuss these points during and after the games, and post on the forum the result.
As Anti said, we need both pub and comp, yet I’m sure I will play nice games when the drafts are organized. No need to sit idle in a server till it gets 7 players for like 20 minutes and die …
And the other way around: how is it not?
We don’t force people to sign up, we welcome everyone regardless of skill level or origin and it has mostly been the same people each night.
The yesterday’s draft cup happened due to the huge number of sign ups, not because of a pub sabotage campaign.
I don’t buy that just because there isn’t a scrim it will mean the public servers will be full from noon to midnight, nor that the players who usually play them will be on.
SD acknowledged the game had flaws at the moment, those often cripple pub games and coupled with some players mentality (mid-game leavers, stacking, ignoring objs, etc) it has become absolutely horrible to play pub for more than a map on a 16 obj server.
It’s extremely lazy to always rely on the most dedicated players to play the roles of servers fillers instead of dragging back the people who don’t play anymore or who barely played at all and ask them to do their testers jobs.
[QUOTE=MrFunkyFunk;457638]And the other way around: how is it not?
We don’t force people to sign up, we welcome everyone regardless of skill level or origin and it has mostly been the same people each night.
The yesterday’s draft cup happened due to the huge number of sign ups, not because of a pub sabotage campaign.
I don’t buy that just because there isn’t a scrim it will mean the public servers will be full from noon to midnight, nor that the players who usually play them will be on.
SD acknowledged the game had flaws at the moment, those often cripple pub games and coupled with some players mentality (mid-game leavers, stacking, ignoring objs, etc) it has become absolutely horrible to play pub for more than a map on a 16 obj server.
It’s extremely lazy to always rely on the most dedicated players to play the roles of servers fillers instead of dragging back the people who don’t play anymore or who barely played at all and ask them to do their testers jobs.[/QUOTE]
Amen to this
I kinda think we should probably have more testers on the game. I went on and only saw like 60 players online, and thought it might have been a bit low even for an alpha…was thinking around the 100+ line really, hehehej.
[QUOTE=MrFunkyFunk;457638]And the other way around: how is it not?
We don’t force people to sign up, we welcome everyone regardless of skill level or origin and it has mostly been the same people each night.
The yesterday’s draft cup happened due to the huge number of sign ups, not because of a pub sabotage campaign.
I don’t buy that just because there isn’t a scrim it will mean the public servers will be full from noon to midnight, nor that the players who usually play them will be on.
SD acknowledged the game had flaws at the moment, those often cripple pub games and coupled with some players mentality (mid-game leavers, stacking, ignoring objs, etc) it has become absolutely horrible to play pub for more than a map on a 16 obj server.
It’s extremely lazy to always rely on the most dedicated players to play the roles of servers fillers instead of dragging back the people who don’t play anymore or who barely played at all and ask them to do their testers jobs.[/QUOTE]
+100000
I would rep albeit I can’t.
Well, you’re kinda new but right now there are much more players than maybe 2 weeks ago. You are part of the new batch of victims 
Anyway, it’s the alpha and SD already said they don’t want too many players for this stage, I think we have enough for the moment as we can get drafts with 4 teams and games running almost every nights
The drafts aren’t really scrims though right?
Just pre-arranged pubs with comms basically, in so much as we agree a day, a time and see if enough people will be around.
I like it because rather than having not enough people to pub for several days and wasting my evening waiting for enough I can be out with friends, enjoying the nice weather, catching up on some work, doing some house chores, etc. then know X day is DB night and we’re definitely going to have enough to play some games.
The current way is interesting. Makes me wonder how many shoutcasters there are? If there would be like 1:12 ratio for shoutcasters vs players on earth, maybe this could be a big hit. A game made for shoutcasters and players. Well I guess I am just day dreaming.
I’m not trying to undermine or belittle anything you guys are doing, it’s great and I wish I had the time to join you, please don’t take it that I’m on some anti-comp crusade, I’ve played comp for almost all the time I’ve played online games, I just don’t have enough time to do so at the moment …
But the problem is avoiding playing on pubs doesn’t help improve the situation, and this game will most definitely need to work as a pub game if it’s to succeed at all, so I can’t help thinking we should be doing more to make pub work rather than writing it off as a bad deal before we’ve even got to Beta let alone final release.
Presumably SD have data about who’s playing and who isn’t. Perhaps Alpha privileges should be removed for those who aren’t contributing (after fair warning of course).
Yeah remove alpha privelige for not having enough time to play a mediocre game. LOL
I’d say the game is not mediocre, but your experience of it seems to be since you say it yourself. This is alpha, and players still can’t understand that this is not playing for the fun only ! It’s about finding bugs and get annoyed a lot by the problems of the game so that the final players, the ones who will play it once it’s done, won’t have to get annoyed by anything else but their own mediocrity.
[QUOTE=Kendle;457697]I’m not trying to undermine or belittle anything you guys are doing, it’s great and I wish I had the time to join you, please don’t take it that I’m on some anti-comp crusade, I’ve played comp for almost all the time I’ve played online games, I just don’t have enough time to do so at the moment …
But the problem is avoiding playing on pubs doesn’t help improve the situation, and this game will most definitely need to work as a pub game if it’s to succeed at all, so I can’t help thinking we should be doing more to make pub work rather than writing it off as a bad deal before we’ve even got to Beta let alone final release.
Presumably SD have data about who’s playing and who isn’t. Perhaps Alpha privileges should be removed for those who aren’t contributing (after fair warning of course).[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t even call it “comp” honestly, like Mustang said it’s more like organized pub (with late people, with others leaving after one map, etc).
Usually there’s also pub going on before & after the event.
I don’t like to relentlessly bash SD with a stick to point out the game has issues, they know it already and I’ve come to terms that the balance overhaul isn’t for now.
So between the ever longer times between the patches, a bit of silly pub for testing’s purposes and the forum activity running in circle, the drafts have become a moment of “much needed” fun where we can just play the game for playing’s sake and relax.
Also I think removing access is a bit much, I had in mind what I’ve said a dozen times: reach out to the leavers and communicate better. Send emails asking what went wrong in their experience, more polls and detailled content updates in newsletters; plan more specific gaming sessions; direct the feedback etc
That’s what I’ve been asking to remedy the lack of involvement and people leaving but they don’t have the time to do it … (eg: Russian alpha …)
Some of us are already welcoming new comers, replying to their questions, directing them to the right forums and trying to get them adopt the community so they come back to the game to help shape it all along the alpha process. So Anti post irked me to the maximum and felt more like a “yeah you guys make sure the servers are running each day for the random people who bought the demo, once there are more you can just do whatever you like”.