Hey tant33! Thanks for the suggestion! I saw a similar thread about this topic, wrote up a response that took an hour, then when I thought XenForo saved my draft, it didn't
In case you weren't aware, before a game is released, it goes through testing through the product team (which is myself and
@Camezonda, but tends to involve more people than just Cam and I), then we move to testing with our entire staff team. Everyone is invited, and we try and make staff testing as open as possible so that even when we aren't there to control what's happening, they're still able to playtest for bugs & feedback.
However, even with extensive testing from our team, bugs will naturally slip under the cracks! After a game is released, we're aware that some bugs will come about with ranging severity. From games being a little bit laggy, to servers crashing, to little exploits, we tend to patch all of these when reported. To put in perspective, there have been 30 (documented & public) changes to Colony Control since release - all can be seen in our #changelog channel on
our Discord! Kudos to
@Palombo and
@libraryaddict for getting these out so quickly!
As for the idea itself, a beta testing team seems a bit redundant, considering we
technically have a beta testing team already - our staff. Adding 20-30 members as designated beta testers won't make bugs appear or disappear unfortunately - although they may find more. 30 members versus 4000~ players at peak on Bedrock alone is basically what we're comparing to here, and likelihood is that these 4000 players may find more complex and game-changing bugs that would need to be fixed before others.
With this beta testing team, there is also a few legalities we'd need to arrange. Would these people need to sign an NDA? Probably. Would this mean an age limit, or would we require parental consent? Would that delay the process too much? How would we bring these people on? Is there an application process? How do we pick people? Would there need to be a trial? Who would deal with these? Who would be in charge of the beta testing team? Do they (both the person in charge, and the team itself) get rewarded? How would we deal with someone who is inactive?
We're essentially creating an entirely new division in Team CubeCraft, which requires a lot of work that may have limited effectiveness.
Hope you understand where I'm coming from with this! If you have any questions, let me know!
