Before I see any more "nitpicking ARR" threads.

[Ingolf]

I really hate to play the pessimist, but this right here should give you pause. I'm more than willing to accept that they accomplished a miracle and rebuild the game engine from the ground up in 2 years. But do it in two years and not have it need one of the most rigorous shakedowns of all time? Unlikely. This is a time that we, as fans, should be at our most critical. I'm not saying we should be negative. I love ARR so far, and everything we've seen from it. But this is a perfect chance for us to help them get it right.

Sadly, the forum has already been over this.

If we're not in alpha, none of our feedback matters.

I guess we just have to see problems and ignore them completely, it wouldn't be fair to hurt the poor dev teams feelings. When Yoshi-p stated he wanted feedback, you could tell he was actually recoiling in fear from the concentrated wrath.

Because it is completely impossible to point out issues in a constructive way, and any issue means you hate the game and you want it to fail and you're a hater who should go back to FFXI or wow.

[Preypacer]

Sadly, the forum has already been over this.

If we're not in alpha, none of our feedback matters.

I guess we just have to see problems and ignore them completely, it wouldn't be fair to hurt the poor dev teams feelings. When Yoshi-p stated he wanted feedback, you could tell he was actually recoiling in fear from the concentrated wrath.

Because it is completely impossible to point out issues in a constructive way, and any issue means you hate the game and you want it to fail and you're a hater who should go back to FFXI or wow.

I think the problem is that not many people are actually giving feedback on actual technical issues. They're voicing opinions on how "I don't like how the animations look. The game will not be good if those animations aren't improved". That's not constructive feedback on a technical issue in the game, that's personal opinion on an aesthetic aspect of it.

Saying "the grass looks terrible, the game will not be good if they don't fix that grass" is, again, someone asking for something aesthetic to be changed to their personal liking. That's not helpful feedback for testing of a game.

What we see in a limited quality video showing very limited gameplay in short snippets is hardly enough to go on for any kind of truly helpful feedback.

Actual Alpha/Beta testing feedback looks something like this (just a very basic, made-up example; real feedback forms usually request system specs and other stuff as well):

Issue: Character gets stuck in environment if switching between active/passive mode while standing close to certain boulders or convex surfaces.

How to replicate: Find a location with a sloping hill, or other convex geometry (I was at position x, y and x,y in Northern Shroud, when it happened for example), and then switch between active and passive mode in quick succession. You will find the character becomes stuck and you are unable to move.

When Did it Happen? Various times on Jan 6 2012

That is helpful and useful feedback about an actual issue that could potentially affect everyone playing, and that can be objectively tested, replicated and resolved.

Saying "I don't like the animations. They need to be fixed, or the game will suffer for" is not "alpha feedback". It's someone voicing their opinions on something, based entirely on their own personal preferences.

This is why people are saying "we can't really give good alpha feedback until we're actually testing the game". Because, frankly, we can't.

And if someone is selected as an Alpha tester, and is submitting bug reports saying stuff like:

Issue: The grass is ugly

How to replicate: Just look at it. It's ugly. It needs to be improved. Seriously. I won't play this game if this is how the grass looks at release.

they should be removed and replaced with someone who actually understands and respects what an Alpha/Beta test is for; for someone who's eager to help the devs by giving helpful feedback about real issues to improve the game for everyone, not just make it "prettier" for themselves.