Dev's You better answer!

[Starlord]

If the laughable theory that they invited inactives in order to lure them back into the game

If the Alpha is good enough, sure it can lure people back into be Interested in the game. SE already has us no matter what they do from now till release. So why not send Invites to people that haven't played for the longest time, If it's that good enough, those inactives will spread the word and it will be more Believable, than if you had an Active tell other people... they will just think your a fanboi ( as they call it).

I agree with Strall on this one.

[Abriael]

so wait they only want the opinions of the players who stayed this whole time? not the higher majority that left? lol k.

Not on an extremely limited alpha that shows just a fraction of the game, otherwise those opinions will majorly be "there's nothing to do, it sucks!". That's why there's a NDA to begin with.

If the Alpha is good enough, sure it can lure people back into be Interested in the game. SE already has us no matter what they do from now till release. So why not send Invites to people that haven't played for the longest time, If it's that good enough, those inactives will spread the word and it will be more Believable, than if you had an Active tell other people... they will just think your a fanboi ( as they call it).

Because if those people ragequit the game when when it was an incomplete product, but still offered a TON more content than the alpha, and had more features than the alpha, an extremely limited alpha that, as good as it may be, offers much less than the game they ragequit, isn't gonna get them excited. As a matter of fact, will turn them off.

If Square Enix intended the alpha as, even partly, a promotional product, we wouldn't have an NDA, which is the geometric opposite of promotion.

There are a lot of games with testing phases that have the very visible purpose to act as promotion (mostly because they are just localizations of finished products), and guess what? they don't have a NDA, because their purpose is building the buzz, and they have the level of completeness to do that effectively.

Anyone with an even limited knowledge of marketing would know that an extremely limited alpha is not effective promotional material. It's more easy for it to turn off people than to get them hyped. That's what advanced betas are for.

Of course this is besides the point that whatever the motive is, it doesn't make setting rules and then not honoring them kosher or acceptable.

If they ever had the intention to use the alpha as a promotional vehicle to people with inactive accounts, they simply wouldn't have put the rule that excluded inactive accounts to begin with.

[Starlord]

Not on an extremely limited alpha that shows just a fraction of the game, otherwise those opinions will majorly be "there's nothing to do, it sucks!". That's why there's a NDA to begin with.



Because if those people ragequit the game when when it was an incomplete product, but still offered a TON more content than the alpha, and had more features than the alpha, an extremely limited alpha that, as good as it may be, offers much less than the game they ragequit, isn't gonna get them excited. As a matter of fact, will turn them off.

If Square Enix intended the alpha as, even partly, a promotional product, we wouldn't have an NDA, which is the geometric opposite of promotion.

There are a lot of games with testing phases that have the very visible purpose to act as promotion (mostly because they are just localizations of finished products), and guess what? they don't have a NDA, because their purpose is building the buzz, and they have the level of completeness to do that effectively.

Anyone with an even limited knowledge of marketing would know that an extremely limited alpha is not effective promotional material. It's more easy for it to turn off people than to get them hyped. That's what advanced betas are for.

Okay, but I still believe that adding inactives is the right call, time will tell which end is correct. Now I do believe that in Beta we should have a more increased chance of getting in. That's how I will feel. alpha is chip change compared to Beta is the big dollar bills. That's why I didn't mind Inactives getting into Alpha ( it's only a stress test mainly anyways). Beta is where the "actual" testing starts for the content and what not.. in which I firmly believe the people that stood here through thick and thin should get in before inactives.

I hope that was their way of thinking.

[Abriael]

Okay, but I still believe that adding inactives is the right call, time will tell which end is correct.

Adding inactives would be a good call in an advanced beta. In a early alpha it's an awful one that will bring more harm then good.

This, of course, beyond the undeniable fact that making a rule and then not honoring it in the face of your paying customers is *never* a good call.

Now I do believe that in Beta we should have a more increased chance of getting in. That's how I will feel. alpha is chip change compared to Beta is the big dollar bills. That's why I didn't mind Inactives getting into Alpha ( it's only a stress test mainly anyways). Beta is where the "actual" testing starts for the content and what not.. in which I firmly believe the people that stood here through thick and thin should get in before inactives.

People that stood here through thick and thing should get in before inactives always. It's a simple matter of customer satisfaction and fidelization. Taking your existing customers for granted and disadvantaging them in favor of new customers is a very basic marketing mistake.

I hope that was their way of thinking.

If it was they wouldn't have put in the rule against inactive accounts to begin with.

This story is too full of contradictions to find a logical justification to it. It's a blunder. Simple as that.

[Starlord]

Adding inactives would be a good call in an advanced beta. In a early alpha it's an awful one that will bring more harm then good.

This, of course, beyond the undeniable fact that making a rule and then not honoring it in the face of your paying customers is *never* a good call.



People that stood here through thick and thing should get in before inactives always. It's a simple matter of customer satisfaction and fidelization. Taking your existing customers for granted and disadvantaging them in favor of new customers is a very basic marketing mistake.



If it was they wouldn't have put in the rule against inactive accounts to begin with.

"The Code is more like "Guidelines to the Actual rule"

Like I said before, they shouldn't have said that as that is bad business practice. However, Damage is done and you can't change it now. So what do you do now? Well lets look at the Positive that came from this:

1) Inactives get to see this Beautiful World ( and it is)
2) they get to Listen to the New Soundtrack ( Battle theme is amazing.. if that doesn't pump you up idn what will :P)
3) Test out the Battle system( 1000tp at start could be an eye catcher)
4) See the New Dungeon ( Tam Tam Deepcroft)
5) Test out Gathering/Crafting
6) Testing the Quest system ( those Slugs that came from the tree was a nice touch to the quest as I didn;t know they were going to pop out at you, those quests are what I like, something "Unexpected)
7) See the "Fog map" in action

There is more just giving you some examples as to what to be positive about.

There are quite of few things in Alpha, and Yes it's not Content filled.. but All MMOers should know anyhow that Alpha isn't Content packed anyhow.

Edit: nothing is as simple as it seems to be :P

[Abriael]

"The Code is more like "Guidelines to the Actual rule"

Like I said before, they shouldn't have said that as that is bad business practice. However, Damage is done and you can't change it now. So what do you do now?

The good marketing practice, when you blunder, is to admit it and make amends instead of sweeping it under the rug. It tends to avoid hard feelings, and there are a lot of those around due to this mistake.

1) Inactives get to see this Beautiful World ( and it is)
2) they get to Listen to the New Soundtrack ( Battle theme is amazing.. if that doesn't pump you up idn what will :P)
3) Test out the Battle system( 1000tp at start could be an eye catcher)
4) See the New Dungeon ( Tam Tam Deepcroft)
5) Test out Gathering/Crafting
6) Testing the Quest system ( those Slugs that came from the tree was a nice touch to the quest as I didn;t know they were going to pop out at you, those quests are what I like, something "Unexpected)
7) See the "Fog map" in action

ALL of that can be conveyed with gameplay videos, which is in fact what they're doing promotion-wise.

Videos allow to show all the "good" things in the alpha to the general public, and in the meanwhile to hide the incompleteness, the lack of content, the glitches, how small the world is and so forth.

[Starlord]

The good marketing practice, when you blunder, is to admit it and make amends instead of sweeping it under the rug. It tends to avoid hard feelings, and there are a lot of those around due to this mistake.



ALL of that can be conveyed with gameplay videos, which is in fact what they're doing promotion-wise.

Videos allow to show all the "good" things in the alpha to the general public, and in the meanwhile to hide the incompleteness, the lack of content, the glitches, how small the world is and so forth.

Making "Professional Videos" do cost money yeah know . In a Business perspective to save money Just let the people come and see it for themselfs. and also it would be in better quality on our computers ( assuming they have good computers). Nothing beats doing it yourself, then watching it.

[Aldora]

The good marketing practice, when you blunder, is to admit it and make amends instead of sweeping it under the rug. It tends to avoid hard feelings, and there are a lot of those around due to this mistake.



ALL of that can be conveyed with gameplay videos, which is in fact what they're doing promotion-wise.

Videos allow to show all the "good" things in the alpha to the general public, and in the meanwhile to hide the incompleteness, the lack of content, the glitches, how small the world is and so forth.

Isn't that the whole point of releasing a vid containing footage from an Alpha build? To show fans/media the good side of the game, what to "expect" when the game is officially released? If you would see a vid from an Alpha build, full of bugs, glitches, lack of content, etc... Would you be interested, as a customer, in the end product?

An Alpha build usually contains the "bare" minimum so that testers can test the core mechanics and the general feel/atmosphere of the game. These builds usually have only a small part of the actual game implemented, because they are still developing, bugfixing, testing a lot of the mechanics, area's, content, etc internally. A lot of the things we've seen in vids can be changed dramatically.

A good example would be the new Character Creator they've introduced during the Beta phase from 1.0, or the introduction of the Stamina bar and the way XP was gathered.

A Beta version is basically a version of the game where all mechanics, area's and content have been added, but still needs to be tested thoroughly and thus are susceptible to change before the game is released officially.

An Alpha vid, screenshot, etc is a good reference point of what kind of (basic/core) things you can expect. An Beta vid, screenshot, etc is more of a reference to what game should be when it's released. And the vids, screenshots, etc from the official release build are used to show everyone what the game has become.