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They don't fix most the bugs and exploits that get reported anyways. The number of items I have reported just for them to still be present in release is discouraging.
It’s how you present it, and with the deluge of thoughts and feelings that flood the forums, there is a massive sea of info they don’t need that the info they do need can easily be missed.
@ToastErickson i comment on the forums and submit bug reports. They send generic responses back and mark the tickets as resolved without resolving them. I provide a plethora of information so that they can recreate and resolve the issue.
Yep, I was fairly active insider Season 7-9 until I realized how poorly they responded to feedback. Not just mine, but major upvoted responses from community members either ignored or told they won’t change whatever is being discussed. They seem to have at least tamed their employees a bit more. The nasty attitudes toward players who had different opinions was getting old.
You could pay people to play Insiders and it still wouldn't help. Why? Because Rare doesn't listen to their players! I used to be one who actually played the latest Insiders build and would do my best to report any and all bugs I came across. I stopped after a huge bug made it into the main game even though practically every post in Insiders mentioned the bug. Then when I found myself blocked on Twitter for pointing this out, I said F them. I became the typical Insider who loads in and sits at the dock for an hour. Once I got my Silverblade ship trinket, I immediately uninstalled Insiders. The only thing that could save Insiders is for Rare to start listening, but I don't see that happening. I love this game so much it pains me to see it in the state that it is in now.
Back when it started , only limited people could sign up for it and be a part of it. It made sense to lock it down. Now that anyone can join it, I don't think it needs to be locked down.
Yeah... now, if partners could also participate in Insiders and give forum feedback, maybe it wouldn't be "the same five or ten people every week giving feedback". But then again, 10 % of the feedback given in the forums is taken into account, so... why bother ?
Finally? More like the game is on life support. You reep what you sow. Just as they have treated you they have treated their entire community negative when ever told ANY kind of criticism. Changing the game for the worst over the years. Watching the player count tumble every month. Meanwhile how long has this game been out and it still has cheaters? Meanwhile Valve can take care of Deadlock cheaters while still in early access. Insiders was a poor excuse for not hiring QA. Which makes me believe that ez anticheat was merely another Epic scam.
I think opening it up would help give better feedback for the devs. Most other games with features like this don't restrict people from talking about it at all, and it helps the devs massively with getting things polished before the finale build release. It also doesn't drive a downright bizarre rift in the community. One example I can think of, Dead By Daylight has a "Public Test Build", which you have to opt in for and provides the devs with passive and active feedback, with zero restrictions on talking about it, in fact it's encouraged.
The number of bugs/issues/concerns/etc that go unfixed (or even get acknowledged) and make it to retail is insane. While I would love to see the Insiders Program actually be used for improving the retail experience, I don't get the impression that MORE stress testing, bug discovery, and general feedback will change a single thing about the Insider to Retail experience.
I have 4000 hours and am not an insider - i really enjoy the ability to speculate on coming content and to be surprised. I also feel pretty bad for insiders as those i know tell me that they do a fair job of pointing out problems, which is their job, yet those bugs routinely end up in the live build, making them feel they are wasting their time. I also really dislike the assumption that everyone is an insider, as i have had more than a few folk threaten me on the discord when my speculation comes up close to the truth. The whole smugness and gatekeeping it instills is not a good thing.
We should point out that for a long time, insider forums allowed people to share information until Rare decided to remove all that and force players to answer to very specific questions, outside the range of things that needed to be said, which has been taken as a 100th betrayal of our trust and time. The issue is not the amount of people giving feedback, it's that they don't use feedback or that they probably don't have a proper workflow/methodology to do it. They surely have their reasons, but from our perspective, many, many, many issues had been pointed out in insiders months before the release and they just ignored it, only to come as a surprise on official release. And then once in a while they say in release videos "thanks to our insiders precious feedback" just to pretend we have some use. Insiders is to Sea of Thieves what the Pirate Lord is to whatever is happening to the world.
1- If anyone encounters the Shrouded Ghost on Insiders, it doesn't count nor will you get the title on retail. Just putting that out there in case someone on Insiders gets lucky one day. 2- Yes WoW has beta-testing, but they ignore almost all of the bug reports there, as it's mostly for streamers to showcase what's coming so they can get free advertising. Bugs and glitches end up in retail WoW, and people have posted links showing how they reported the issue(s) months ago, and it's ignored (much like SoT's Insiders).
Totally agree with everything you said. On top of that, they ask us to keep the content of the insider secret, but in the end they reveal almost everything before the new season is released
This could be really healthy for the game. Having a test server more publicly available would be great and it's quite a common feature among many popular games (War Thunder does this, for example). I have some friends who are Insiders but don't feel motivated to test out new features or even check the dedicated forum, so maybe they could add some extra rewards besides doubloons and the silver blade set. I'm thinking something like: TEST this X new feature (complete x new voyage, use x weapon 50 times, sail 20 miles to test the new sails) and you GET 100 ANCIENT COINS on your live servers profile, or 500k gold, or a gilded voyage. This way more people would actually want to become insiders and spend some time actually testing stuff!
they would rather the servers close down than lift their precious NDA so people wont make fun of their bad programming....... yet we launch a season with half its features missing because of their bad programming lol
I've been an Insider for years, and I also play Fallout 76 that has a PTS (Public Test Server) and it is exactly as you described. There is a lot more engagement about what's on the PTS and what's coming to the live build. So many more people offer input I can't imagine how that's not helpful as opposed to this secret society that is Insiders. And there's no spoilers in knowing what new features are coming, it's not a murder novel that spoils who-dunnit. I think it would help SoT immensely to go to this model of testing.
I was perma-suspended from Insider because I mentioned the blunderbuss changes. And now the patch came out with everyone hating it. With the leaked EOR changes being right after, there was a huge wave in insiders and they closed everything down. To me, the devs won't listen to insider feedback unless it's what they want to hear, or if it's leaked with everyone breathing down their necks.
By prohibiting people from talking about changes, developers shoot themselves in the knee. For example, people found out that SoT would reduce the damage of blunderbuss or add a grappling gun, but they didn't know about the accompanying changes, they didn't know how things would actually be, as a result, a bunch of hate immediately fell on the developers, but if the developers allowed people to talk about insiders, then I think there would be players who would write that the developers are not nerfing blunderbuss for no reason and that in addition to the grappling gun, they will also prohibit changing weapons on the enemy ship. Well, that is, everything is not as bad as it seems, but the developers are getting hate simply because there is no one to calm people down and explain the situation.
@OlegTsvetkoff Exactly. It makes game development far less stressful. Bugs are easily shown and talked about, the new mechanics are tested and all that, and it revives their transparency with their community. But they're too prideful and don't want any criticism, and insiders is full of people simply not testing the game.
I second this. If for no other reason, to simply have the ability to actually test it. In the past 4 weeks I've seen one ship that wasn't sitting at the docks like a big useless turd. I am basically limited to testing PVE, which will uncover 0% of the issues that the community will run into once it goes live. But hey... it just gave me a new sword to scroll by in my sea of unused cosmetics. Thanks for another great video Falcore.
I think one common problem/issue with Insiders is that not all new features require an hour to test. It might be better if there were 'missions' to complete in Insiders to get the Insiders rewards instead of using a time-limit. That being said, Rare seems to want to really surprise the main player base of Sea of Thieves with the new features, hence the closed doors for Insiders. I think it'd be interesting to see what they could do to increase testing engagement before opening it up to the public if their goal is to surprise the main player base. Missions instead of time limits could be a step in the right direction.
the problem with public test realms is they would have to actually release the test builds. they dont even let insiders test the upcoming patch. they add in one or 2 features at a time. like traps and ledge hanging i imagine werent ever added to insiders till the very last minute at which it was too late to realize how buggy they were so they had to disable them for the season launch. i gave up on testing in my first year of trying because they kept adding 1 feature set at a time to test then pulling that content to test adventures. their focus on testing adventures which was only meant to be temporary content took priority over testing new seasons. and even then they botched the testing of adventures. a perfect example is the battle for golden sands. an event hyped to be all about player choice and how we could impact the world. we know rare loves to post their wall of data points. how many bananas were eaten, canons fired, treasures sold, money made etc etc.... i dont think i was the only one eagerly awaiting the data for the battle of golden sands..... and that data never came... why? because it was one sided and they didnt realize how they screwed up until after the fact and revealing the data would have egg on their face. they would actually have to start pushing out the actual internal build they are using since they have all the feature sets. they dont understand how testing SHOULD happen. they care too much about not sharing too much info even on insiders for the sake of microsoft event reveals as well as not wanting their spaghetti code being as visible because whenever they add stuff its really rough. and never polished by the time it even hits live let alone insider build
I agree with you completely. The reward system sounds like it needs to be changed. Most just sit in the server for an hour than log off. You actively need to complete objectives set by the devs and the submit feedback. If the work continues to be subpar and it looks like you are just farming then you are removed from the server and no cosmetics for you. Let streamers get involved and actually stream the test realm with their chat base. They can actually play together and if they find stuff the streamer can reward them with a unique unique drop for actually finding a bug that can be reported or issue that might seem exploitative. The other glaring issue is that the players below are upset that they have been reporting the same bugs and it doesn't seem like they get addressed so why do anything at if its not going to get fixed. Why not just sit, docked at a port and wait your hour.
There would be a. Time where when the update features are given shown to the public for the first time is when people in insiders can talk about it and give people more info this could grow the community
I recall when the Breath of the Sea came out, and when you sold one, it counted as two for commendations, showing that NO ONE on insiders bothered to sell the darn thing. Either that, or they were told and didnt care.
League of Legends uses the same system, with "PBE" servers wich is always a patch or two ahead of the live version. However it works a bit different, the timeline usually being: -> New feature, season or event is announced -> Hype -> Test Servers -> Full Official Reveal -> Live servers For example the latest season 14 trailer would have dropped before it hitting the test servers in this case. But this is GOOD as it mantains community hype surrounding videos posts etc about this changes, without being a massive spoiler for everyone since the majority of players don't bother playing the test version. Insiders just feels like a less enjoyable option
Honestly one of my biggest issues with Insider is that is requires a whole extra download of Sea of Thieves, and an extra 111GB is asking a lot for a test build where there's no real incentive to play it other than for cosmetics and if you want to see stuff early. I used to do Insiders but stopped because I needed that extra storage space, and I just didn't have fun because there's no real progression and nothing to keep you there except for cosmetics that (in my opinion) are waayyyyyy too infrequent.
They should make an in game tab server option. They could put it right next to safer seas and have text saying it’s exclusively to test new features and provide feedback. They’d probably have to make a separate character or have zero gold or lock up all achievements/progression. I think this would help so that it’s ready for launch.
I’ve been playing the game for almost 6 months and I did not know about this feature!! I constantly said I wish they had a test server. Or a way that I could put in my two cents on bugs, issues or ideas.
Will admit I too only joined for the rewards, then I looked at the rewards and realized how long it would take to get it all and that it would take far longer than the game will be alive for.
i feel the current insider program have some flaws like the AFK Farming for rewards But i feel a public test server isn't either the solution because it's litteraly sea of thieves with more content, so players would constantly play here instead of the main game, also sometime things drastically change between the insider program and the in-game release (i can probably speak about the loading/searching for opponent area of the hourglass without breaking too much the NDA for exemple) that some people could be hyped on and disapointed later (i have several exemples in the current build that should'nt be told yet) the solution would maybe be to keep the insiders program as it is, but, from time to time doing an event a bit like community weekends on a more public build, but to try out the beta and the key features of upcomming updates with incentives to attract player but maybe more locked behind objectives related to locations/event/tools that need to be tested
I can understand not wanting to spoil story , but they don't add big story elements. I can't remember the last big story thing they added that was a surprise. Open testing worlds are great for adding new game features.
I believe that instead of giving players the reward after an hour of playtime, they should give a reward after players complete a weekly insider commendation that Rare updates to be about what they want tested for that week.
Almost all of the features this update have been leaked by Rare anyway. It's also hard to test some things when you can't find other players to test them.
In insiders i was so exited when i saw another player, but instead of being willing to test the new features, THEY RAN. I dont understand these people, avoiding player interaction and what not. the guy was just at a sea fort, I cannoned over but missed and got stuck in mermaid hell, then he set sail and ran.of course I gave chase, as any pirate would. and after 40 minutes of sailing, he went into the red sea. I followed because why not. and when both our ships blackscreened us, we BOTH got teleported and marooned on booty isle. to his dismay (swinging wildly with his sword), I tested the features all over him.
@@captainshelf7 not everyone runs though. I'm very chill on Insider build and I actually enjoy interaction with players, just because they are so rare.
@@TheMysteriousgirl9 Yeah, every player interaction I've had in insiders after that have been full of friendly curiosity and good times. That example was my first experience in Insider and made me think it was a common thing, thankfully I was wrong!
I agree with everything said. Maybe they could even combine both and have a first release in Insiders to get the main feedback and change that and then use PTR to get more detailed feedback from the wider audience. This would keep Rare from being bombarded by a ton of the major stuff and get it out of the way in a sense then be able to focus on the other more detailed feedback they would get from a PTR. Something has to change in the testing and not letting things hit retail. This would also hold Rare more accountable in the public eye should they ignore the community which I believe would create a more transparent and closer knit community with the devs like the old days.
I have absolutely no idea why I can't talk about the stuff I see on Insider nor stream it to others. Dead by Daylight and War Thunder have player test servers completely opposite of this, encouraging discussions and sharing the beta content, and they are able to bring the updates in a much more balanced and healthy way into the game
They need Private insiders build maybe looking at season 16/17 or work in progress content (isn’t know why we were sailing to the maiden voyage island 6 months before A Pirates Life), a public test build looking at season 14/15 and the live build which currently is 13 but will soon be Season 14
It would effectively end Insiders being solely a testing ground for the next wave of exploits. Which is my personal theory on why Rare stopped listening to Insider feedback explicitly. A lot of badwill perceived between the devs and the community because of the bad actors doing that and mixed in with the numbers Rare can surely see of active Insider players vs active Insiders forum users it probably looks bleak. Bringing it public should help fix that. And at the cost of what? Spoiling things roughly 2 weeks earlier than currently?
I would love to test new features on insider, but as ive seen on the forums 2 different people encountering the shrouded ghost and being told to bad for you i don't want to chance that happening to me, pretty much the only thing that keeps me on the outpost
Have public access and be able to talk freely and stream it should definitely be a thing. Fallout 76 does that as well and it only fuels the hype and greatly helps reducing seasonal launch bugs.
PTR back in the day made me so Hype, people testing Starcraft II, the next hero in heroes of the storm, next big World of Warcraft update and class balance, next diablo update, and new possible build. i would defenetly say that test reals makes at least me hyped, and excited to test the next thing, and voice my opinion online, and have been an insider myself, since everything has to be so hush hush, sometimes they playtest things in sutch a way, you dont eaven know how to queue for the new thing, or not sure whats new, i dont know if it`s weirdly designed, or the causious choice in case it leaks. Overall it`s a small part of the playerbase that search for videos about updates to the game, if they dont want gameplay spoilers, they most likely dont eaven know whats new, before the season launch, so giving people who are intrested the chance to see Insider topics without being Insiders, they kinda did it already, with the harpoon gun, they showed it in a early test phase, and got lot`s of feedback just from the announcment video it self, people theory crafted how it would be used, and they reponded before launch. Think about, that ,but in every update, i think it`s worth it, and i got tierd to logging in every week to see if they added something new or go and read the forus, but only after i loggen in so i could actually see the forum post to prove i was in insider, idk. PTR seems like a great idea, and content creators would also do it for content, and i think that would creat more hype for the "harder" core comunity that activly engage in whats happening in SoT. Of you read this word vomit, thanks for you time, have a nice day. These are not facts, only my first opionion, thinking about this, you are more then welcome to dissagree :3.
I have mixed feeling about the idea. I tested a game that was amazing in the beta, but because it was an open beta there were people openly opposed to the game filling complaints and errant bug reports to get the game nerfed to a nearly unplayable state (Halo Reach) I think the focus needs to reward better reward system in Insiders. Maybe give in game currency, cosmetics, or titles to players that actually help squash bugs and exploits
This reminds me of when Jeff Kaplan, former game director for Overwatch said that his greatest regret was adding golden weapons for playing ranked. Since it lead to a lot of people not playing ranked to be challenged and become better but to get those sweet sweet golden weapons; resulting in the quality of rank games becoming worse.
-As Falcore says Insiders should public and have public discussion available -They have to change the way you get Insiders cosmetics, maybe actively playing the test builds could get you more cosmetics or accelerate your progress for the silverblade stuff -Maybe hold votes for active members that give good feedback to incentivize giving as accurate feedback as possible
Release Public test serves: New players join Insiders to play this new test server. Play as normally. Month later, it released to public. Those who test will find, all that "Hard work" does not transfer over....so they will request/demand it does so time isn't wasted :p
Like you said, most people on insiders aren't testing anything. You have to be able to attend to dedicated test gatherings if you actually want to try stuff out, which has been impossible to me in the past (ex.: at 18h in EU means afternoon for me in NA, which also means I can't 'cause I work). The fact that you can't talk about it has been a huge challenge for me... Tried once. Had so much trouble containing the news (hourglass before release) that I decided to never try again... Another factor is the lack of interactions with devs. For example, I would really love to see devs discuss / explain why adding timer / arena point system to HG hasn't been done. It worked in Arena, is huge request, yet we only have silence for answer. I mean, like, you want our feedback but why is it hitting a wall? At least if we could get insight on why maybe we'd be able to try to see the same challenges with the same restrictions on solutions and try to figure out a way together... But then, I understand rare of being protective on how they do things with unashamed cheating developers looking over their every moves... I think situation is complex, yet needs to be addressed. Your video is right that Insiders is dead and not that useful in it's current state.
Some features released in insiders patches are completely experimental and in my opinion can remain the same. There should be a "final build" released publicly that anyone can play about 1-2 weeks before the PLANNED official update. Giving full public time to find all bugs and exploits prior to release and keeping spoilers to a reasonable time period
Rare hurts themselves with this system. They need to allow public discussion about new changes and more. Imagine if people on Twitter actually got to talk about it. So many more would login and check it out and get it themselves. I'll be honest, I've sat at the outpost for the majority of my Insiders career. I get on after work and watch TH-cam videos and eat dinner. Then maybe I'll do a fort to kill time. Check out the emporium. Etc.
I tried many times to give feedback on bugs several times i was told my mods that the bug i found didnt exist and my feedback has been deleted many times and before you ask yes i always try and keep it respectfull i loved this game but now i dont care anymore they have zero interest in hearing feedback or anything.
I played insiders exactly once. It was the test build for season 8. I was like, Oh, what is this shiny thing on the table. Activated it dove and then got say their in matchmaking untill I got board and when to the retail game.
I think opening up Insiders would benefit for the game in the long run. I do worry that early on, most people will flock to the Insiders build and tank the player base of the main game for a while.
I think that I'd be wonderful if you could use your life server skins on insider servers and could get your insider-server achievments on the live server
So much stupid stuff wouldn't make it to live (like the sail nerfs) if Insiders was public. It likely won't help with bugs (because of how often reported bugs make it to live), but it'd help the game's direction a lot, I think.
I think league of legends does this kind of concept the best. Not only is it open to anyone and you can talk about it, but there are a ton of content creators who exclusively make content through it, helping spread the knowledge of upcoming content much easier, and allowing more people, even those not playing, to give feedback.
If you flip hg, you get pvp supps or clean up getting supps from barrels, why must I stop every minute to take out worms and fireworks. It would make it so much more enjoyable.
As much as I agree as an insider myself it makes sense that the developers don’t want to make it public although you have my support with it nonetheless.
Have you considered that they only do closed testing so that it's not as blatantly obvious that they don't actually fix most (any) of the reported issues until half way through the new season? Seems like they don't really care about the feedback, it's more of a box to check off on the "things a live service game does" list so that they can say they have it.
I like the idea of PTR server for SoT At the same time, I don't want to see videos and screenshots on social media from randos that shows the upcoming features before its released. It's a rough area.
I haven't played since Flameheart ship launch but if it can help fixing bug I'm all for it. That's one of the main reason I quit many time in the first place and do not play it at all until it's playable again. (or a new Arena with distinct mod and yes I'm dreaming but let me dream)
As a solo-slooper, who uses most of his time collecting and farming commendations and cosmetics on the sea, i would love to help the devs with feedback on upcoming features to smooth out the experience for all players BUT that has to be basicly like falcore sais on an integrated test realm. AFAIK playing current insiders means a new pirate or at least no progress is tracked for my main pirate. I dont want to start a fresh pirate on insiders and do not have my commendations and deeds there be unseen to my main account on the regular servers. If i for example farm for nautical miles as gold hoarder i want those numbers to be farmed further while i am on insiders. Also i would accept not keeping new commendations that are tied to upcoming features (like graying them out but notify my on the insiders, that i would have unlocked it or something like that) so i can see: ok this is necessary to unlock this commendation but i will have to wait until full release to really unlock those again. In this vain: If the release happens the commendations should then be permanent unlockable on that test realm as well. Also all features and unlocks should behave that way so that i can not use new unlocks like for example the new announced treasure hide mechanics while on different regular servers. As i am thinking about that topic, development wise, it basicly needs to be implemented as the switch to safer seas. There you got limited commendations and different mechanics that are not possible or hidden away from you because there is no multiplayer (like there is no burning blade there) but a lot of the regular basis commedations and activities can still be done and count towards your main pirate. From time to time i enjoy playing there just for the lols and for tense-free familiy gaming. Insiders could be the same but on a different ruleset. I get slightly less stability and therefor get to test the new stuff early which is absolutely ok for me. If you guys would put a cherry on top give us easy ingame reporting mechanisms to give short feedback without the need to go forum-crawling. A simple bug tracker input field hidden in an submenu of the settings only visible while on insiders servers would do the trick( allthough would make sense on regular servers as well). If done this way, you could be cheeky and track the current position of the pirate as well to better pinpoint where the error was found (or at least where the reporter was while it happened). The only reason i am not interested in insiders is because that the things i do there are meaningless to my main account (afaik) except the nice cosmetics of course and i simply do not have time to play "wastefull" due to me being family father. My time invested into sea of thieves should always feel well spend (which it does on the open seas and safer seas) even if it more or less mainly serving the community than my own account (but don't make that balance favor the community too much gaining no progress for my main pirate). Please rare consider building it like a new "mode" just like safer seas. That would seriously wake interest in me and could result in me nearly allways choose the insider servers instead of the regular ones even though i would have to unlock new commendations again on full release.
Insiders is open. Every single player can signup with 2 button clicks and then its the same as public. This video is an attempt to open up the HypeBait that content creators have. Period. As to wow and its test server and content creators. What normally happens is that content creators get to create a certain view with the videos created and then their community push for that change and then it happens. EVEN if the other players dont agree with the change, because, they don't have an opposing content creator to show the same level of pushback.
100% should be public. Half the time I log onto insiders it just feels like I have no idea whats new unless I'm directed towards it or check the forums. Its just kinda out of the way to go their site sometimes and would just prefer to use social sites for discussions.
A big problem with Insiders is the time commitment and effort of playing there is not rewarded enough to justify the time/effort. Public Insiders would be good, but it also needs a better reward system. Insiders feels like I am wasting time when I could be making gold, earning rep and progressing my seasonal renown on the public version of the game.
Definitely one of their biggest problems is not utilizing the insiders realms to actively take feedback. The weapon changes with quickswap had a ton of negative feedback regarding the buggy results it had on ADS and the response was essentially just “we’ve made our decision” so… why ask people to test it?
It would be cool if we, people that create content on TH-cam, Twitch, etc. can share some information about it or are allowed to stream some hours of it for testing things with or without viewers. But they can add a big markt to it that its in development and some things can be changed. A big SPOILER WARNING could also help. So where you click on a video or livestream that with a popup that shows that people could be spoilered about new things which will come into the game. Or we need to write it down in our titels. So viewers know that we testing some things to help improving the game. Maybe this will also help to find bugs easier in the game to report them to the devs.
Is there no checklist of interaction to justify the insider access? Use this new feature X amount of times, test feature Y for for bugs and balance issues, and so on. If you aren't going to participate for what you signed up for you shouldn't get the rewards like you did.
Captain Falcore The Movie Book Four “The Iceberg Biome!” The falcore said, “I love The Iceberg Biome!” In fact, Captain Falcore and Escape, his best friend, were on their way to said Iceberg Biome. Their mode of transport: the mechanical megalodon. “What’s this?” Escape asked, picking up a cylindrical cylinder that was metal. It was a Star Wars Sword. Suddenly, the falcon man became frightened. His beard hairs tingled (his beard still hasn’t grown back yet from the first episode). There was a stowaway stowed away on their ship. He ran in the other direction. Suddenly, he ran into a small rabbit, F=ma F=136*3 F=408 newtons The rabbit was obliterated with 408 Captain Falcore newtons of force. The rabbit was a Jedi, as Captain Falcore now knew after absorbing its power. “Bet you didn’t see that one coming” the falcon man said, asserting his dominance. Captain falcon was a Jedi now, and an honorable one at that. Now it was time for a spiritual cleansing and a breaking away from his bad habits. The captain Falcore turned to Escape, a tear in his eye. “When we return from the Iceberg Biome, I vow to uninstall league of legends from my personal computer.”
I'd be more interested in Insiders if I didn't have to use of what little Xbox HD space I have left on a parallel SoT build. I'd need to uninstall a game to install it, which makes it too "expensive" at the moment. I do like the cosmetics, honor NDAs, and wouldn't mind "double-grinding" (once in the sandbox and once on release), but the install is what keeps me away. If they could set it up like other Xbox Live games where you can play over the cloud without installing, it would be tempting.
OK Lets talk!. I think it should stay separate and private, but I also think it should it needs to go back to how it used to be. Also as an Insider, Id love to talk about why we aren't as keen on participating like we used to, and of course I'll keep it spoiler free. For Insiders, there was a time where it was easy for us to show up and test new content together with our Insider friends on other crews **which made testing and exploring far more fun**, and we could easily hang out too, thus why it was somewhat an unrealized incentive to show up and engage. This turned out to be a far better incentive than some cosmetic set we will hopefully receive one day in the distant future lol. Because of how we could get together, Insiders would show up in groups and be on for far more hours than Rare probably expected. BUT one day, we simply couldn't meet up anymore. Now in order to have fun testing, we had to spend extra hours trying to hunt down other players to help who often just log off when you get near them. To what Falcore said, people now just log in to run the clock and leave, why stay for anything else? I dont do this myself, but I also dont blame them either. Think about it: Lets set up a hypothetical scenario if you log in to test a new weapon coming out that makes players vomit and explode, I log in to a lonely vessel, no friends on the opposing crew.. so who am I testing this gun on? If there's a new event that will be PVP driven, whose coming to stop me in the test?? You mean I have to go find someone to care first? No thanks. Its not fun anymore, its no longer a pleasure to test new content.
Bethesda does this with Fallout 76 too. There's increased hype surrounding new content and it stays in momentum as they continue to update their public test servers before release. Fallout 76 is pretty buggy too, but at least the devs listen.
I always found it a bit daft that Insiders is completely open to join, but we cannot talk about it publicly... and the NDA does nothing to stop leaks when it's an open programme. Either it should revert to the old more-exclusive programme, or it should be public. Having it somewhere in between doesn't work well at all and only creates tension in the community when anyone even touches on something that could be Insider information, even if it's just a lucky guess. Other games, like you said, have set the template for how to do these kinds of test programmes properly and effective, and it just makes Rare look naïve and inexperienced by sticking to their iteration.
The problem with having public test worlds is that these servers will become more hostile and people will just start playing it like normal just with new features meaning it will be harder to actually find bugs.
You need that when testing content as that’s the live game experience. Look at how they have changed the grapple gun so multiple players can’t board a sloop from every angle, nice pirates playing fair might never have been in that situation.
I initially did insiders to try to help with bugs and provide feedback, but the community is pretty toxic. I made a post in the forums about what I thought was a bug on my end, but everyone was like "obviously that's intentional because it's not finished bla bla bla" so now I just farm the cosmetics.
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They don't fix most the bugs and exploits that get reported anyways. The number of items I have reported just for them to still be present in release is discouraging.
Literally this is so relatable
It’s how you present it, and with the deluge of thoughts and feelings that flood the forums, there is a massive sea of info they don’t need that the info they do need can easily be missed.
@ToastErickson i comment on the forums and submit bug reports. They send generic responses back and mark the tickets as resolved without resolving them. I provide a plethora of information so that they can recreate and resolve the issue.
Yep, I was fairly active insider Season 7-9 until I realized how poorly they responded to feedback. Not just mine, but major upvoted responses from community members either ignored or told they won’t change whatever is being discussed. They seem to have at least tamed their employees a bit more. The nasty attitudes toward players who had different opinions was getting old.
I reported a bug in the main game over 2 years ago that let you hide loot *inside* the galleons walls, guess what you can still do, even by accident?
You could pay people to play Insiders and it still wouldn't help. Why? Because Rare doesn't listen to their players! I used to be one who actually played the latest Insiders build and would do my best to report any and all bugs I came across. I stopped after a huge bug made it into the main game even though practically every post in Insiders mentioned the bug. Then when I found myself blocked on Twitter for pointing this out, I said F them. I became the typical Insider who loads in and sits at the dock for an hour. Once I got my Silverblade ship trinket, I immediately uninstalled Insiders. The only thing that could save Insiders is for Rare to start listening, but I don't see that happening. I love this game so much it pains me to see it in the state that it is in now.
Unfortunately true. I used to leave feedback a lot, but they cared less and less about it, so I stopped giving it and just became a reward logger.
sad reality we live in
Back when it started , only limited people could sign up for it and be a part of it. It made sense to lock it down. Now that anyone can join it, I don't think it needs to be locked down.
Finally a SOT partner says it, thank you 🙏
Yeah... now, if partners could also participate in Insiders and give forum feedback, maybe it wouldn't be "the same five or ten people every week giving feedback". But then again, 10 % of the feedback given in the forums is taken into account, so... why bother ?
Finally? More like the game is on life support. You reep what you sow. Just as they have treated you they have treated their entire community negative when ever told ANY kind of criticism. Changing the game for the worst over the years. Watching the player count tumble every month. Meanwhile how long has this game been out and it still has cheaters? Meanwhile Valve can take care of Deadlock cheaters while still in early access. Insiders was a poor excuse for not hiring QA. Which makes me believe that ez anticheat was merely another Epic scam.
pretty sure i saw your account on insider forums, cool that your participating in the game like that W
The next best thing would be more people playing insiders - and then more people *actually* playing insiders.
I think opening it up would help give better feedback for the devs. Most other games with features like this don't restrict people from talking about it at all, and it helps the devs massively with getting things polished before the finale build release. It also doesn't drive a downright bizarre rift in the community. One example I can think of, Dead By Daylight has a "Public Test Build", which you have to opt in for and provides the devs with passive and active feedback, with zero restrictions on talking about it, in fact it's encouraged.
The number of bugs/issues/concerns/etc that go unfixed (or even get acknowledged) and make it to retail is insane. While I would love to see the Insiders Program actually be used for improving the retail experience, I don't get the impression that MORE stress testing, bug discovery, and general feedback will change a single thing about the Insider to Retail experience.
I have 4000 hours and am not an insider - i really enjoy the ability to speculate on coming content and to be surprised. I also feel pretty bad for insiders as those i know tell me that they do a fair job of pointing out problems, which is their job, yet those bugs routinely end up in the live build, making them feel they are wasting their time. I also really dislike the assumption that everyone is an insider, as i have had more than a few folk threaten me on the discord when my speculation comes up close to the truth. The whole smugness and gatekeeping it instills is not a good thing.
We should point out that for a long time, insider forums allowed people to share information until Rare decided to remove all that and force players to answer to very specific questions, outside the range of things that needed to be said, which has been taken as a 100th betrayal of our trust and time. The issue is not the amount of people giving feedback, it's that they don't use feedback or that they probably don't have a proper workflow/methodology to do it. They surely have their reasons, but from our perspective, many, many, many issues had been pointed out in insiders months before the release and they just ignored it, only to come as a surprise on official release. And then once in a while they say in release videos "thanks to our insiders precious feedback" just to pretend we have some use. Insiders is to Sea of Thieves what the Pirate Lord is to whatever is happening to the world.
1- If anyone encounters the Shrouded Ghost on Insiders, it doesn't count nor will you get the title on retail. Just putting that out there in case someone on Insiders gets lucky one day. 2- Yes WoW has beta-testing, but they ignore almost all of the bug reports there, as it's mostly for streamers to showcase what's coming so they can get free advertising. Bugs and glitches end up in retail WoW, and people have posted links showing how they reported the issue(s) months ago, and it's ignored (much like SoT's Insiders).
This is why I never leave outpost on Insider. I would be heartbroken if I would encounter Shrouded there.
Totally agree with everything you said. On top of that, they ask us to keep the content of the insider secret, but in the end they reveal almost everything before the new season is released
This could be really healthy for the game. Having a test server more publicly available would be great and it's quite a common feature among many popular games (War Thunder does this, for example). I have some friends who are Insiders but don't feel motivated to test out new features or even check the dedicated forum, so maybe they could add some extra rewards besides doubloons and the silver blade set.
I'm thinking something like: TEST this X new feature (complete x new voyage, use x weapon 50 times, sail 20 miles to test the new sails) and you GET 100 ANCIENT COINS on your live servers profile, or 500k gold, or a gilded voyage.
This way more people would actually want to become insiders and spend some time actually testing stuff!
Honestly, I would do anything for a gilded voyage from Rare 😂
they would rather the servers close down than lift their precious NDA so people wont make fun of their bad programming....... yet we launch a season with half its features missing because of their bad programming lol
I never understood why insiders cant share details with anyone when insiders is literally available to anyone.
Hell, insiders aren't even allowed to discuss insider things with other insiders 😅
@@pleiades1853 cant even talk about past insider stuff that has made it to the public build
I've been an Insider for years, and I also play Fallout 76 that has a PTS (Public Test Server) and it is exactly as you described. There is a lot more engagement about what's on the PTS and what's coming to the live build. So many more people offer input I can't imagine how that's not helpful as opposed to this secret society that is Insiders. And there's no spoilers in knowing what new features are coming, it's not a murder novel that spoils who-dunnit. I think it would help SoT immensely to go to this model of testing.
I was perma-suspended from Insider because I mentioned the blunderbuss changes. And now the patch came out with everyone hating it.
With the leaked EOR changes being right after, there was a huge wave in insiders and they closed everything down. To me, the devs won't listen to insider feedback unless it's what they want to hear, or if it's leaked with everyone breathing down their necks.
By prohibiting people from talking about changes, developers shoot themselves in the knee. For example, people found out that SoT would reduce the damage of blunderbuss or add a grappling gun, but they didn't know about the accompanying changes, they didn't know how things would actually be, as a result, a bunch of hate immediately fell on the developers, but if the developers allowed people to talk about insiders, then I think there would be players who would write that the developers are not nerfing blunderbuss for no reason and that in addition to the grappling gun, they will also prohibit changing weapons on the enemy ship. Well, that is, everything is not as bad as it seems, but the developers are getting hate simply because there is no one to calm people down and explain the situation.
@OlegTsvetkoff Exactly. It makes game development far less stressful. Bugs are easily shown and talked about, the new mechanics are tested and all that, and it revives their transparency with their community. But they're too prideful and don't want any criticism, and insiders is full of people simply not testing the game.
Having an NDA for a publicly available test server is ridiculous. No other developers do this
I second this. If for no other reason, to simply have the ability to actually test it. In the past 4 weeks I've seen one ship that wasn't sitting at the docks like a big useless turd. I am basically limited to testing PVE, which will uncover 0% of the issues that the community will run into once it goes live. But hey... it just gave me a new sword to scroll by in my sea of unused cosmetics. Thanks for another great video Falcore.
I think one common problem/issue with Insiders is that not all new features require an hour to test. It might be better if there were 'missions' to complete in Insiders to get the Insiders rewards instead of using a time-limit.
That being said, Rare seems to want to really surprise the main player base of Sea of Thieves with the new features, hence the closed doors for Insiders. I think it'd be interesting to see what they could do to increase testing engagement before opening it up to the public if their goal is to surprise the main player base. Missions instead of time limits could be a step in the right direction.
the problem with public test realms is they would have to actually release the test builds. they dont even let insiders test the upcoming patch. they add in one or 2 features at a time. like traps and ledge hanging i imagine werent ever added to insiders till the very last minute at which it was too late to realize how buggy they were so they had to disable them for the season launch.
i gave up on testing in my first year of trying because they kept adding 1 feature set at a time to test then pulling that content to test adventures. their focus on testing adventures which was only meant to be temporary content took priority over testing new seasons. and even then they botched the testing of adventures. a perfect example is the battle for golden sands. an event hyped to be all about player choice and how we could impact the world. we know rare loves to post their wall of data points. how many bananas were eaten, canons fired, treasures sold, money made etc etc.... i dont think i was the only one eagerly awaiting the data for the battle of golden sands..... and that data never came... why? because it was one sided and they didnt realize how they screwed up until after the fact and revealing the data would have egg on their face.
they would actually have to start pushing out the actual internal build they are using since they have all the feature sets. they dont understand how testing SHOULD happen. they care too much about not sharing too much info even on insiders for the sake of microsoft event reveals as well as not wanting their spaghetti code being as visible because whenever they add stuff its really rough. and never polished by the time it even hits live let alone insider build
I agree with you completely. The reward system sounds like it needs to be changed. Most just sit in the server for an hour than log off. You actively need to complete objectives set by the devs and the submit feedback. If the work continues to be subpar and it looks like you are just farming then you are removed from the server and no cosmetics for you. Let streamers get involved and actually stream the test realm with their chat base. They can actually play together and if they find stuff the streamer can reward them with a unique unique drop for actually finding a bug that can be reported or issue that might seem exploitative. The other glaring issue is that the players below are upset that they have been reporting the same bugs and it doesn't seem like they get addressed so why do anything at if its not going to get fixed. Why not just sit, docked at a port and wait your hour.
There would be a. Time where when the update features are given shown to the public for the first time is when people in insiders can talk about it and give people more info this could grow the community
I recall when the Breath of the Sea came out, and when you sold one, it counted as two for commendations, showing that NO ONE on insiders bothered to sell the darn thing.
Either that, or they were told and didnt care.
Yes yes yes. Knowing what is coming will be enough hype. Give us public test realms now please!
League of Legends uses the same system, with "PBE" servers wich is always a patch or two ahead of the live version. However it works a bit different, the timeline usually being:
-> New feature, season or event is announced -> Hype -> Test Servers -> Full Official Reveal -> Live servers
For example the latest season 14 trailer would have dropped before it hitting the test servers in this case.
But this is GOOD as it mantains community hype surrounding videos posts etc about this changes, without being a massive spoiler for everyone since the majority of players don't bother playing the test version.
Insiders just feels like a less enjoyable option
Honestly one of my biggest issues with Insider is that is requires a whole extra download of Sea of Thieves, and an extra 111GB is asking a lot for a test build where there's no real incentive to play it other than for cosmetics and if you want to see stuff early. I used to do Insiders but stopped because I needed that extra storage space, and I just didn't have fun because there's no real progression and nothing to keep you there except for cosmetics that (in my opinion) are waayyyyyy too infrequent.
Idk about Insiders but beeing able to tesr tuff that not there jet wuld be awesome
They should make an in game tab server option. They could put it right next to safer seas and have text saying it’s exclusively to test new features and provide feedback. They’d probably have to make a separate character or have zero gold or lock up all achievements/progression. I think this would help so that it’s ready for launch.
I'm just stoked they still support this game. I don't want it to end!!!
I’ve been playing the game for almost 6 months and I did not know about this feature!! I constantly said I wish they had a test server. Or a way that I could put in my two cents on bugs, issues or ideas.
Agreed! The more community feedback, the less time for devs to have to think more time to dev.
Will admit I too only joined for the rewards, then I looked at the rewards and realized how long it would take to get it all and that it would take far longer than the game will be alive for.
weekly hour of insider= hour of tdm with your friend
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thank you for saying that, now we down have cringe kids saying it :)
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i feel the current insider program have some flaws like the AFK Farming for rewards
But i feel a public test server isn't either the solution because it's litteraly sea of thieves with more content, so players would constantly play here instead of the main game, also sometime things drastically change between the insider program and the in-game release (i can probably speak about the loading/searching for opponent area of the hourglass without breaking too much the NDA for exemple) that some people could be hyped on and disapointed later (i have several exemples in the current build that should'nt be told yet)
the solution would maybe be to keep the insiders program as it is, but, from time to time doing an event a bit like community weekends on a more public build, but to try out the beta and the key features of upcomming updates with incentives to attract player but maybe more locked behind objectives related to locations/event/tools that need to be tested
I can understand not wanting to spoil story , but they don't add big story elements. I can't remember the last big story thing they added that was a surprise. Open testing worlds are great for adding new game features.
I believe that instead of giving players the reward after an hour of playtime, they should give a reward after players complete a weekly insider commendation that Rare updates to be about what they want tested for that week.
You see the player base on Insider? Things to look forward in live.
Almost all of the features this update have been leaked by Rare anyway.
It's also hard to test some things when you can't find other players to test them.
In insiders i was so exited when i saw another player, but instead of being willing to test the new features, THEY RAN. I dont understand these people, avoiding player interaction and what not. the guy was just at a sea fort, I cannoned over but missed and got stuck in mermaid hell, then he set sail and ran.of course I gave chase, as any pirate would. and after 40 minutes of sailing, he went into the red sea. I followed because why not. and when both our ships blackscreened us, we BOTH got teleported and marooned on booty isle. to his dismay (swinging wildly with his sword), I tested the features all over him.
@@captainshelf7 not everyone runs though. I'm very chill on Insider build and I actually enjoy interaction with players, just because they are so rare.
@@TheMysteriousgirl9 Yeah, every player interaction I've had in insiders after that have been full of friendly curiosity and good times. That example was my first experience in Insider and made me think it was a common thing, thankfully I was wrong!
I agree with everything said. Maybe they could even combine both and have a first release in Insiders to get the main feedback and change that and then use PTR to get more detailed feedback from the wider audience. This would keep Rare from being bombarded by a ton of the major stuff and get it out of the way in a sense then be able to focus on the other more detailed feedback they would get from a PTR. Something has to change in the testing and not letting things hit retail. This would also hold Rare more accountable in the public eye should they ignore the community which I believe would create a more transparent and closer knit community with the devs like the old days.
I have absolutely no idea why I can't talk about the stuff I see on Insider nor stream it to others. Dead by Daylight and War Thunder have player test servers completely opposite of this, encouraging discussions and sharing the beta content, and they are able to bring the updates in a much more balanced and healthy way into the game
They need Private insiders build maybe looking at season 16/17 or work in progress content (isn’t know why we were sailing to the maiden voyage island 6 months before A Pirates Life), a public test build looking at season 14/15 and the live build which currently is 13 but will soon be Season 14
It would effectively end Insiders being solely a testing ground for the next wave of exploits. Which is my personal theory on why Rare stopped listening to Insider feedback explicitly. A lot of badwill perceived between the devs and the community because of the bad actors doing that and mixed in with the numbers Rare can surely see of active Insider players vs active Insiders forum users it probably looks bleak.
Bringing it public should help fix that. And at the cost of what? Spoiling things roughly 2 weeks earlier than currently?
I play insiders and actually enjoy not having 3 reaper ships show up to an otherwise empty island and sink me while catching pondies
I would love to test new features on insider, but as ive seen on the forums 2 different people encountering the shrouded ghost and being told to bad for you i don't want to chance that happening to me, pretty much the only thing that keeps me on the outpost
As a person of insiders I would find it much better if I could stream insiders so I could talk about opinions and bugs
Have public access and be able to talk freely and stream it should definitely be a thing. Fallout 76 does that as well and it only fuels the hype and greatly helps reducing seasonal launch bugs.
there are so many bug that make their way in to the real game, and this may be a good solution to that. 8/10 idea
PTR back in the day made me so Hype, people testing Starcraft II, the next hero in heroes of the storm, next big World of Warcraft update and class balance, next diablo update, and new possible build.
i would defenetly say that test reals makes at least me hyped, and excited to test the next thing, and voice my opinion online, and have been an insider myself, since everything has to be so hush hush, sometimes they playtest things in sutch a way, you dont eaven know how to queue for the new thing, or not sure whats new, i dont know if it`s weirdly designed, or the causious choice in case it leaks.
Overall it`s a small part of the playerbase that search for videos about updates to the game, if they dont want gameplay spoilers, they most likely dont eaven know whats new, before the season launch, so giving people who are intrested the chance to see Insider topics without being Insiders, they kinda did it already, with the harpoon gun, they showed it in a early test phase, and got lot`s of feedback just from the announcment video it self, people theory crafted how it would be used, and they reponded before launch.
Think about, that ,but in every update, i think it`s worth it, and i got tierd to logging in every week to see if they added something new or go and read the forus, but only after i loggen in so i could actually see the forum post to prove i was in insider, idk. PTR seems like a great idea, and content creators would also do it for content, and i think that would creat more hype for the "harder" core comunity that activly engage in whats happening in SoT.
Of you read this word vomit, thanks for you time, have a nice day.
These are not facts, only my first opionion, thinking about this, you are more then welcome to dissagree :3.
You 100% relied on insider information when you spoiled the location of Glitterbeard’s hideout, directly against the stated wishes of the devs.
I have mixed feeling about the idea. I tested a game that was amazing in the beta, but because it was an open beta there were people openly opposed to the game filling complaints and errant bug reports to get the game nerfed to a nearly unplayable state (Halo Reach)
I think the focus needs to reward better reward system in Insiders. Maybe give in game currency, cosmetics, or titles to players that actually help squash bugs and exploits
This reminds me of when Jeff Kaplan, former game director for Overwatch said that his greatest regret was adding golden weapons for playing ranked. Since it lead to a lot of people not playing ranked to be challenged and become better but to get those sweet sweet golden weapons; resulting in the quality of rank games becoming worse.
-As Falcore says Insiders should public and have public discussion available
-They have to change the way you get Insiders cosmetics, maybe actively playing the test builds could get you more cosmetics or accelerate your progress for the silverblade stuff
-Maybe hold votes for active members that give good feedback to incentivize giving as accurate feedback as possible
Release Public test serves:
New players join Insiders to play this new test server. Play as normally.
Month later, it released to public. Those who test will find, all that "Hard work" does not transfer over....so they will request/demand it does so time isn't wasted :p
Like you said, most people on insiders aren't testing anything. You have to be able to attend to dedicated test gatherings if you actually want to try stuff out, which has been impossible to me in the past (ex.: at 18h in EU means afternoon for me in NA, which also means I can't 'cause I work). The fact that you can't talk about it has been a huge challenge for me... Tried once. Had so much trouble containing the news (hourglass before release) that I decided to never try again... Another factor is the lack of interactions with devs. For example, I would really love to see devs discuss / explain why adding timer / arena point system to HG hasn't been done. It worked in Arena, is huge request, yet we only have silence for answer. I mean, like, you want our feedback but why is it hitting a wall? At least if we could get insight on why maybe we'd be able to try to see the same challenges with the same restrictions on solutions and try to figure out a way together... But then, I understand rare of being protective on how they do things with unashamed cheating developers looking over their every moves... I think situation is complex, yet needs to be addressed. Your video is right that Insiders is dead and not that useful in it's current state.
Some features released in insiders patches are completely experimental and in my opinion can remain the same. There should be a "final build" released publicly that anyone can play about 1-2 weeks before the PLANNED official update. Giving full public time to find all bugs and exploits prior to release and keeping spoilers to a reasonable time period
Easy to implement. Release the NDA on specific builds noted in the patch notes and by removing the watermark on that build
Rare hurts themselves with this system. They need to allow public discussion about new changes and more. Imagine if people on Twitter actually got to talk about it. So many more would login and check it out and get it themselves.
I'll be honest, I've sat at the outpost for the majority of my Insiders career. I get on after work and watch TH-cam videos and eat dinner. Then maybe I'll do a fort to kill time. Check out the emporium. Etc.
I completely agree with the idea of making tests public.
PTR seems like a no brainer. So many games do it.
I tried many times to give feedback on bugs several times i was told my mods that the bug i found didnt exist and my feedback has been deleted many times and before you ask yes i always try and keep it respectfull i loved this game but now i dont care anymore they have zero interest in hearing feedback or anything.
I played insiders exactly once. It was the test build for season 8. I was like, Oh, what is this shiny thing on the table. Activated it dove and then got say their in matchmaking untill I got board and when to the retail game.
*chuckles in outsider*
I think opening up Insiders would benefit for the game in the long run. I do worry that early on, most people will flock to the Insiders build and tank the player base of the main game for a while.
I would say do that and have a system showing how much grinding you need to do until get the cosmetics.
I think that I'd be wonderful if you could use your life server skins on insider servers and could get your insider-server achievments on the live server
Yes I think it should be opened up for all the reasons you laid out. Have thought that for years now.
So much stupid stuff wouldn't make it to live (like the sail nerfs) if Insiders was public. It likely won't help with bugs (because of how often reported bugs make it to live), but it'd help the game's direction a lot, I think.
I think league of legends does this kind of concept the best. Not only is it open to anyone and you can talk about it, but there are a ton of content creators who exclusively make content through it, helping spread the knowledge of upcoming content much easier, and allowing more people, even those not playing, to give feedback.
If you flip hg, you get pvp supps or clean up getting supps from barrels, why must I stop every minute to take out worms and fireworks. It would make it so much more enjoyable.
They need to make it public and Rare needs to actually listen to their players!
As much as I agree as an insider myself it makes sense that the developers don’t want to make it public although you have my support with it nonetheless.
Have you considered that they only do closed testing so that it's not as blatantly obvious that they don't actually fix most (any) of the reported issues until half way through the new season? Seems like they don't really care about the feedback, it's more of a box to check off on the "things a live service game does" list so that they can say they have it.
Maybe this video should have just been uploaded to an insiders forum
I like the idea of PTR server for SoT
At the same time, I don't want to see videos and screenshots on social media from randos that shows the upcoming features before its released.
It's a rough area.
This is the way and a great idea so Rare will obviously completely ignore it.
Me and my friends some times played insider just to match faster for the sake of tdm
I haven't played since Flameheart ship launch but if it can help fixing bug I'm all for it. That's one of the main reason I quit many time in the first place and do not play it at all until it's playable again. (or a new Arena with distinct mod and yes I'm dreaming but let me dream)
As a solo-slooper, who uses most of his time collecting and farming commendations and cosmetics on the sea, i would love to help the devs with feedback on upcoming features to smooth out the experience for all players BUT that has to be basicly like falcore sais on an integrated test realm.
AFAIK playing current insiders means a new pirate or at least no progress is tracked for my main pirate.
I dont want to start a fresh pirate on insiders and do not have my commendations and deeds there be unseen to my main account on the regular servers. If i for example farm for nautical miles as gold hoarder i want those numbers to be farmed further while i am on insiders.
Also i would accept not keeping new commendations that are tied to upcoming features (like graying them out but notify my on the insiders, that i would have unlocked it or something like that) so i can see: ok this is necessary to unlock this commendation but i will have to wait until full release to really unlock those again. In this vain: If the release happens the commendations should then be permanent unlockable on that test realm as well. Also all features and unlocks should behave that way so that i can not use new unlocks like for example the new announced treasure hide mechanics while on different regular servers.
As i am thinking about that topic, development wise, it basicly needs to be implemented as the switch to safer seas. There you got limited commendations and different mechanics that are not possible or hidden away from you because there is no multiplayer (like there is no burning blade there) but a lot of the regular basis commedations and activities can still be done and count towards your main pirate. From time to time i enjoy playing there just for the lols and for tense-free familiy gaming. Insiders could be the same but on a different ruleset. I get slightly less stability and therefor get to test the new stuff early which is absolutely ok for me.
If you guys would put a cherry on top give us easy ingame reporting mechanisms to give short feedback without the need to go forum-crawling. A simple bug tracker input field hidden in an submenu of the settings only visible while on insiders servers would do the trick( allthough would make sense on regular servers as well). If done this way, you could be cheeky and track the current position of the pirate as well to better pinpoint where the error was found (or at least where the reporter was while it happened).
The only reason i am not interested in insiders is because that the things i do there are meaningless to my main account (afaik) except the nice cosmetics of course and i simply do not have time to play "wastefull" due to me being family father.
My time invested into sea of thieves should always feel well spend (which it does on the open seas and safer seas) even if it more or less mainly serving the community than my own account (but don't make that balance favor the community too much gaining no progress for my main pirate).
Please rare consider building it like a new "mode" just like safer seas.
That would seriously wake interest in me and could result in me nearly allways choose the insider servers instead of the regular ones even though i would have to unlock new commendations again on full release.
il be honest ive not played insiders for years, not since i got all the rewards. it seriously needs new rewards
Insiders is open. Every single player can signup with 2 button clicks and then its the same as public.
This video is an attempt to open up the HypeBait that content creators have. Period.
As to wow and its test server and content creators. What normally happens is that content creators get to create a certain view with the videos created and then their community push for that change and then it happens. EVEN if the other players dont agree with the change, because, they don't have an opposing content creator to show the same level of pushback.
100% should be public. Half the time I log onto insiders it just feels like I have no idea whats new unless I'm directed towards it or check the forums. Its just kinda out of the way to go their site sometimes and would just prefer to use social sites for discussions.
I only have enough videogame time each week to play the actual game. If i could stream insiders, I would.
A big problem with Insiders is the time commitment and effort of playing there is not rewarded enough to justify the time/effort. Public Insiders would be good, but it also needs a better reward system. Insiders feels like I am wasting time when I could be making gold, earning rep and progressing my seasonal renown on the public version of the game.
Definitely one of their biggest problems is not utilizing the insiders realms to actively take feedback. The weapon changes with quickswap had a ton of negative feedback regarding the buggy results it had on ADS and the response was essentially just “we’ve made our decision” so… why ask people to test it?
It would be cool if we, people that create content on TH-cam, Twitch, etc. can share some information about it or are allowed to stream some hours of it for testing things with or without viewers. But they can add a big markt to it that its in development and some things can be changed.
A big SPOILER WARNING could also help. So where you click on a video or livestream that with a popup that shows that people could be spoilered about new things which will come into the game.
Or we need to write it down in our titels. So viewers know that we testing some things to help improving the game.
Maybe this will also help to find bugs easier in the game to report them to the devs.
Is there no checklist of interaction to justify the insider access? Use this new feature X amount of times, test feature Y for for bugs and balance issues, and so on. If you aren't going to participate for what you signed up for you shouldn't get the rewards like you did.
Hey guys. There is zero differences between insiders and the real game. It’s like a season or two you get to preview.
They could do limited time testing like before the game came out
Honestly dead by daylights system of 1 week PTB > 2 week waiting > patchnotes listing changes to PTB > 1 week later update drops
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! Laughing in insiders! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! I'm sorry guys…
Captain Falcore The Movie
Book Four
“The Iceberg Biome!” The falcore said, “I love The Iceberg Biome!”
In fact, Captain Falcore and Escape, his best friend, were on their way to said Iceberg Biome. Their mode of transport: the mechanical megalodon.
“What’s this?” Escape asked, picking up a cylindrical cylinder that was metal. It was a Star Wars Sword. Suddenly, the falcon man became frightened. His beard hairs tingled (his beard still hasn’t grown back yet from the first episode). There was a stowaway stowed away on their ship. He ran in the other direction. Suddenly, he ran into a small rabbit,
F=ma
F=136*3
F=408 newtons
The rabbit was obliterated with 408 Captain Falcore newtons of force.
The rabbit was a Jedi, as Captain Falcore now knew after absorbing its power.
“Bet you didn’t see that one coming” the falcon man said, asserting his dominance.
Captain falcon was a Jedi now, and an honorable one at that. Now it was time for a spiritual cleansing and a breaking away from his bad habits.
The captain Falcore turned to Escape, a tear in his eye. “When we return from the Iceberg Biome, I vow to uninstall league of legends from my personal computer.”
@@woognome8615 Can I fight Harry Potter in the next one?
@@CaptainFalcore It will be done, my lord
I'd be more interested in Insiders if I didn't have to use of what little Xbox HD space I have left on a parallel SoT build. I'd need to uninstall a game to install it, which makes it too "expensive" at the moment. I do like the cosmetics, honor NDAs, and wouldn't mind "double-grinding" (once in the sandbox and once on release), but the install is what keeps me away. If they could set it up like other Xbox Live games where you can play over the cloud without installing, it would be tempting.
OK Lets talk!. I think it should stay separate and private, but I also think it should it needs to go back to how it used to be. Also as an Insider, Id love to talk about why we aren't as keen on participating like we used to, and of course I'll keep it spoiler free.
For Insiders, there was a time where it was easy for us to show up and test new content together with our Insider friends on other crews **which made testing and exploring far more fun**, and we could easily hang out too, thus why it was somewhat an unrealized incentive to show up and engage. This turned out to be a far better incentive than some cosmetic set we will hopefully receive one day in the distant future lol. Because of how we could get together, Insiders would show up in groups and be on for far more hours than Rare probably expected.
BUT one day, we simply couldn't meet up anymore. Now in order to have fun testing, we had to spend extra hours trying to hunt down other players to help who often just log off when you get near them. To what Falcore said, people now just log in to run the clock and leave, why stay for anything else? I dont do this myself, but I also dont blame them either.
Think about it: Lets set up a hypothetical scenario if you log in to test a new weapon coming out that makes players vomit and explode, I log in to a lonely vessel, no friends on the opposing crew.. so who am I testing this gun on? If there's a new event that will be PVP driven, whose coming to stop me in the test?? You mean I have to go find someone to care first? No thanks. Its not fun anymore, its no longer a pleasure to test new content.
I think they should have it public that would help rare a lot more than current insiders just not helping at all
Bethesda does this with Fallout 76 too. There's increased hype surrounding new content and it stays in momentum as they continue to update their public test servers before release. Fallout 76 is pretty buggy too, but at least the devs listen.
It's a no brainer
Anybody can join insiders, your candidacy is automatically approved, so there's really no reason for any of it to be secret.
Thought that was a WoW sponsorship for a second there xD
I always found it a bit daft that Insiders is completely open to join, but we cannot talk about it publicly... and the NDA does nothing to stop leaks when it's an open programme. Either it should revert to the old more-exclusive programme, or it should be public. Having it somewhere in between doesn't work well at all and only creates tension in the community when anyone even touches on something that could be Insider information, even if it's just a lucky guess. Other games, like you said, have set the template for how to do these kinds of test programmes properly and effective, and it just makes Rare look naïve and inexperienced by sticking to their iteration.
The problem with having public test worlds is that these servers will become more hostile and people will just start playing it like normal just with new features meaning it will be harder to actually find bugs.
@@GoldenEclipsed People actively greifing provides great feedback to Rare of ways to tackle what they're doing before release.
You need that when testing content as that’s the live game experience. Look at how they have changed the grapple gun so multiple players can’t board a sloop from every angle, nice pirates playing fair might never have been in that situation.
I initially did insiders to try to help with bugs and provide feedback, but the community is pretty toxic. I made a post in the forums about what I thought was a bug on my end, but everyone was like "obviously that's intentional because it's not finished bla bla bla" so now I just farm the cosmetics.