Alpha-1 testing

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Hail and well met glorious Ashes of Creation testers. My name is Sean Farrens. I am the manager of quality assurance on Ashes of Creation and on behalf of the Ashes QA team I would like to extend a deep and heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in testing Ashes of Creation during the weekend of May 14 through May 16th for our Alpha 1 build. In spite of instability and uncertainty you have all proven to be invaluable in regards to your feedback and bug reports; and for that I cannot express my gratitude enough. As many of you know, developing an MMORPG is an epic endeavor that is filled with trials and tribulations that no other game will ever encounter; and your illustrated dedication has proven to our team that we are on a high road to the best MMORPG gaming experience to date. During this most recent testing period we received over 2,600 bug reports, which have been an absolute boon to our testing process. We review each report individually and I continue to be impressed with how detailed and helpful each of these reports has been. Like seriously you guys give repro steps and everything. Super duper handy. I greatly look forward to your feedback in the future and hope you enjoy our content so far, so thank you so much everybody.[1]Sean Farrens

While we will have specific spot tests for certain systems as we develop them post the Alpha one month, it should be expected and understood that after this Alpha one month there will be probably a significant amount of downtime where there won't be spot testing as we break apart a lot of systems, take what we learned from alpha one month and implement and iterate upon those learnings. So there's gonna be several months probably worth of significant downtime where there will not be access to spot testing, where we are going to go in and really rejigger a lot of systems[2]Steven Sharif

Phase Release Estimated/Actual date
Alpha-1 Alpha-1 測試早期預覽直播[3] 2020年3月27日[4]
Alpha-1 小型 QA 測試 (保密)[5][6] 2020年5月28日[7][8]
Alpha-1 預覽初次測試 (保密)[9] 2020年12月18-21日[9]
Alpha-1 預覽二次測試 (保密)[9] 2021年2月19-22日[10][11]
Alpha-1 預覽不定期抽樣測試 (保密)[12][13] 2021年3月19-7月9日[12][13]
Alpha-1 預覽週末 (非保密)[12] 2021年7月9-11日[14][15][12]
Alpha-1 測試 (非保密)[12] 2021年7月14-8月15日[16]
Alpha-1 不定期抽樣測試[2][17] 2021年8月15日後[2][16]

Read more...

The term "alpha" is a tricky one, and it typically has 2 meanings in gaming. The development meaning for alpha is a point in the process where we are ready to test the fundamental systems in their core form, without polish and without much of the content. Then, there is the external or "marketing" term for alpha. This is typically applied to Eastern-ported MMORPGs, when in fact that is a completed game being localized for a region, and not really indicative of a true development alpha. As you may know by now, game development has many stages - from the initial tech demos to the pre-production and pre-alpha states, then on to the alphas and betas and eventually launch.[9]Steven Sharif

I want to make emphatically clear, our alphas and betas are true development alphas and betas, and some have said I am crazy to allow these phases to be seen without an NDA…maybe I am crazy? lol… But I am trusting the community of gamers out there to get a glimpse into the process, and understand the long road ahead for what will eventually be worth the wait. Given time and talent, amazing things can happen, so make sure you help us in communicating that we are in open development which means people get to see the bare bones before the meat. And look, I know people see our 4K footage and say, "This looks better than most released games!", but trust me when I say, you ain't seen nothin’ yet.[9]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 testing goals

Server deployment and performance testing
  • Stress-test our server deployments and player concurrency numbers with high volumes of player activity and interactions.[12]
  • Stand up multiple world server deployments across different geographical regions.[12]
  • Soak test server grid health over a continuous period of production use.[12]
  • Evaluate current networking architecture, and identify non-performant code and areas for additional optimizations or refactoring.[12]
  • Test our build strategy and hot-fix deployment procedures, account services, web-based systems, launcher and patcher stability, and cloud-based infrastructure.[12]
System functionalities and behavior testing (in their core state)
Player character systems (in their core state)
Ancillary systems (in their core state)

The above is not a comprehensive list of everything being tested in Alpha One, but it hits the primary points. There are many other data metrics being collected for our approach to the content production pipelines, system definitions, and refactoring as well. Not to mention a plethora of technical art implications and optimizations, but you get the gist. This is a very fundamental test that will impact the direction of development post-Alpha One, so you can understand the importance of testing and its need for player participation, attention, and feedback.[12]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 combat revamp

Alpha-1 角色上下身分開 近戰 戰鬥預覽。[18]

角色揮動武器的同時可以移動,也可以一邊退後一邊繼續攻擊。攻擊的同時玩家可以完全控制角色。[18]Steven Sharif

改良後的戰鬥系統將根據玩家意見在 Alpha-1 測試中推出。[19][20][21]

  • 改良的目標是希望給予玩家更多主導權,施放技能時可以更靈活流暢地戰鬥[22][23]
  • 目前的 Tab 鍵和無鎖定混合戰鬥系統在改良後仍會保留。[22]
  • 改良後的版本並不是戰鬥系統的最終設計,但會反映日後開發方向。[24]
  • 此版本會持續更新,並在不同階段開放予玩家測試。[23]

改良後的戰鬥系統中,角色的動作上下身分開角色的上半身會被揮動武器的動作鎖住,而下半身可以自由行動。[18][25][26]

揮動武器的同時,角色將可以自由行動,讓玩家近戰攻擊時完全操作角色。[18]Steven Sharif

初期 Alpha-1 測試的重點是核心系統的運作,而不是戰鬥平衡[26]

我留意到很多人在談論傷害數值和生命值之類的東西。這方面有兩點:一,我再重申這不是為了測試遊戲內容,目前只進行了初步的平衡調整,大多的平衡會在特定系統日後實際測試時進行。我們目前的重點是這些系統的核心運作,而不是細微的調整。因此我不會太在意目前的平衡性。[26]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 availability

Pre-order pack upgrades are possible for current pack holders for the difference in price.[27][28][29] Upgrades to Kickstarter and 夏季众筹 packs are also available in the store for the difference in package price.[30]

Alpha-1 participation

Alpha-1 testing was available to the following participants:

There were approximately 9,600 participants in Alpha-1 testing as of August, 2018.[34][35]

  • As of May 31, 2021, just under 5k additional participants have been added since Alpha-1 sales resumed. Less refunds and unclaimed codes, leaves a total of slightly over 13k testers.[34]
  • The weekend test of May 27, 2021 saw 5,300 unique logins over the 3 day period.[34]

There were roughly 9600 if I recall A1 participants prior to my closing the preorder packs in 2018. Since opening them up again there have been just under 5k additional participants added. And prolly around 300 refunds give or take. Of the roughly 14,000 a1 testers, there are still about 1k unredeemed ks codes which leaves a little over 13k testers? The weekend test saw 5300 unique logins over the 3-day period. And I think discord flags stand around 4k roughly?[34]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 攻城戰

Trebuchets in the Alpha-1 preview castle siege attackers headquarter camp.[37]

Alpha-1 攻城戰 are based on Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges.[39][33]

  • Players will be able to join guilds. These guilds can register for the siege events.[37]
  • Castle siege events will be 100v100 battles that occur daily and will last for three hours.[37]
  • Attackers will start on the opposite end of the map (from the defenders).[37]
  • Attackers will be able to use trebuchets to drive to and assault the castle.[37]
    • Trebuchets have a single primary fire that does a small amount of damage to players and heavy damage to buildings.[37]
    • Trebuchets will be fully physical when they are being driven.[37]
  • When the attackers have breached the castle they will be able to channel a cast on the relic in the throne room to try to capture the castle from the defenders.[37]
  • The victors of castle sieges will receive benefits, such as cloaks, flying mounts for guild leaders and potentially also for guild officers.[37]
  • Alpha-1 攻城戰 are in a separate zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.[40][41][42]
    Currently the siege zone is actually in the open world, but separated by mountains and off in the sea a bit. There is actually no instancing in A1, although the siege zone will only be accessible in A1 through a registration NPC teleporter.[40]Steven Sharif
  • The opposing team is notified when these raid bosses are being attacked.[39]
  • Teams who get the last hit on these bosses will receive buffs that will help them in the siege battle.[39]

Last year, I spoke of attempting to incorporate sieges into the Alpha One experience. This has obviously been a goal of mine because it provides considerable data and a consistent event within the world that players can participate in to help stress test the deployment. Well, I am happy to say that it is appearing more and more likely by the day! Initial implementation of the Apocalypse siege code has been migrated into the Alpha One client, and we should begin internal testing next month. I will caveat this expectation with the fact that we are cutting it a bit close from an internal QA standpoint, but I have some confidence that the system will be online and capable of inclusion for the Alpha One test in the month of June. The siege component will obviously not be representative of what the siege system will be at launch, or even in Alpha Two.[33]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 PvE 內容

PvE content in Alpha-1:

There's over 200 quests in the game right now. There's a bunch of dungeons. We've retooled all of the boss fights. Those dragons that you see in the siege are also in the world- part of the open-world too. There will be a slightly different- there are some extra mechanics in the siege versions versus the ones that are in the world, but there's plenty of cool things to get on both of them, so make sure you check them out and hunt them down.[41]Jeffrey Bard

Artisan classes in Alpha-1

匠人職業 (採集加工製造) 將於 Alpha-2 及其後 Betas 測試全面實裝。[44][45]

In Alpha One the core basics of what crafting represents as a gameplay loop that is represented. So that means that there are gatherables out there. You will have to have tools in order to service those gatherables. There will be processing that's necessary; and then there's crafting stations that are available and can be constructed by the players. This is in Alpha One. You have to collect the recipes, you have to collect the materials, and you have to refine the materials; and then you have to create the reagents and then use those to create the final crafting component of that you're trying to create. So that in and of itself is present, but it is a very very small piece of really what will be the larger crafting puzzle for Alpha 2 and betas.[44]Steven Sharif

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting.[45]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 servers

Alpha-1 servers were provisioned in the following regions.[47]

info-orange.png以下某些信息最近尚未得到开发人员的确认,可能不在当前的开发路线图上。

Alpha-1 servers will support 1,500 concurrently connected users per server.[49][50][51]

刪檔

Alpha and Beta servers will be wiped prior to launch.[52]

As a general rule, if the testing phase contains the word Alpha, it is safe to assume there will likely be wipes.[55]Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 NDA

Alpha-1 testing prior to the full release of Alpha-1 was covered by 保密協議.[56][6]

  • NDA review and acceptance is done via the game client.[57]
  • The text and voice NDA was lifted from the PI QA testing phase on May 28, 2020.[56]
  • The verbal NDA was lifted from Alpha-1 preview testing, and future testing, on May 17, 2021.[58]
  • The NDA was lifted on July 9, 2021 for the three day Alpha-1 preview weekend test.[15][12]
  • The NDA was lifted on July 14, 2021 for Alpha-1.[59]

We are extremely excited to invite folks to this glorious milestone of our development journey with NO NDA as we want everyone to be able to provide feedback unfiltered. During Alpha One testing, we'll be looking for your feedback specifically on the following things: download and installation process, client performance, and server performance.[59]

Alpha testing system requirements

Alpha-1 stress testing, March 17, 2021.[60]

These are fully operational NPCs. They have behavior trees, they have AI blackboards; they are functioning as an NPC would; and to my surprise, to everyone's surprise actually, the server handled it quite well: 5000 entities all within a very dense area.[61]Steven Sharif

Minimum and recommended computer specifications for Alpha-2.[62]

Minimum Specs - 1080p
  • Processor: Intel i5 8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 2600
  • Memory: 12GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070 or equivalent
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 100GB SSD Storage
  • Windows 10/11
Recommend Specs - 1440p
  • Processor: Intel i7 8700 | AMD Ryzen 5 3600
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3070 or equivalent
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 100GB SSD Storage
  • Windows 10/11
Please note that these requirements will change throughout our testing phases.[62]

Alpha testing zone

Map of Alpha-1 testing zone.[63][64] 圖片來源: Axiom: Angelcry

The Alpha One map including nodes, dungeons, quest givers, POI, teleporters, and camps will be explorable! Note that this is only a small portion of the world of Verra.[59]

Alpha-1 testing tropical zone featuring a war beast and a tribe of pigmy goblins.[65]

This is a rather large tropical area; and what we use some of the creatures for is establishing character for different parts of this tropical place. So that even though it's the same biome, it feels different when you are going from place to place based on what's there and how those things are interacting with the environment.[66]Jeffrey Bard

Alpha-1 testing took place in a zone to the north west of the world map.[67] This zone has many islands and a mainland area.[68]

其他

引用

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