New SPCT team

[Latsha 71]

17 minutes ago, TheJellyGoo said:

Just think it would have given proof of more trust in SPCTs members.

quick LO there's no time to waste
rig SPCT members' houses with hidden microphones and cameras before anyone finds out about those super duper hidden plans

[pyru 4]

I'd personally trust any of them to iron my underwear

[TheJellyGoo 343]

9 minutes ago, Latsha said:

quick LO there's no time to waste
rig SPCT members' houses with hidden microphones and cameras before anyone finds out about those super duper hidden plans

To ridicule it and push it to the extreme won't make it less true. 

Also very far past the point but nt.

Take note: I'm not saying it. Just stating what the actions speak for.

Edited December 16, 2018 by TheJellyGoo

[MattScott 15242]

@Kewlin - It’s Saturday for me, and I didn’t keep up with this thread as well as I should have. In the future I’ll avoid lengthy responses when I’m in the middle of other things.

 

Let’s back up a little ways.

 

I don’t have the experience or history with the community or this game that many of you do. Yet I found myself needing to recruit some players to help us test some upcoming features. Sometimes you simply have to pick a starting point and run with it.

 

I chose many of these members based on my perceptions of them on our forums - but not necessarily their public posts. Many I have spoken to privately through PM. As Shini conveyed, some of these members reached out to me with feedback. Or in some cases I reached out to them. Others are active in the APB community outside of posting on our forums every day. And others were recommendations that were vetted by my staff.

 

At the end of the day, they are still all my choices, and I have chosen to share that information with the community. Right or wrong, the buck stops with me.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[greenfield 135]

good luck to everyone.

[ChellyBean 200]

Matt: "Hey guys! We chose some prominent members of the community to help us out with the game and test new stuff! We hope you guys like-"

 

Community: "REEEE! I don't like them! These choices suck! Post count! This company sucks! LO is giving special treatment! LO is ruining APB! The game is dead!"

 

 

[indi 175]

14 hours ago, MartisLTU said:

 

While I agree that more bodies being thrown at testing is a good idea, especially with some kind of PTR functionality that is maintained and updated, I also know this is a tiny company with an equally tiny player base which means they need to look hard for competent testers. SPCT strikes me as some sort of volunteer QA team that works with the one or two actual paid QA members of Little Orbit. This provides the company with (hopefully) active testers who are willing to put in the technical research behind changes made in the game and evaluating them as objectively as possible, plus they're volunteers who are doing it because they love the game, not for money.

 

Also, as flattering it is to be called a "known player", that doesn't automatically mean I provide the necessary prerequisites of being an effective tester that Little Orbit needs right now. It takes a lot of time and usually pretty boring research into changes once they go live into a patch, something very few people will do even in the short term, especially as a volunteer.

 

People should be happy the SPCT is back, even if some of the people may be more of 3D boob crafters than actual APB frag gods. You don't have to be a pro to test a mechanic or change to the game, only time and a willingness to come back for more work. They will provide this game with a lot of eyes on behalf of the community when it comes to future changes to the game as well. I would rather have that than no team at all.

 

Old Matt Scooter should probably make an official discord if he is going to use that platform to meet with the community. Just my two cents about the whole thing from someone who doesn't know anything.

Edited December 16, 2018 by indi

[Nessie 81]

Just a note, but I feel like this whole SPCT idea while useful (all games should have dedicated testers) is being handled wrong. Forum role alone is breaking apart the community, sort of "elevating" said members from the rest of the community when, in fact, they are exactly like everyone else.

I agree it is very important to announce now that a SPCT team is being created (it's a nonsense to keep it secret) but there is no need to specifically indicate the names. Especially since you talk about NDA, giving the names means we can now directly bother them to unofficially update us on upcoming changes.

 

BTW, what are the new registered players going to think? Whenever they will see a "SPCT" role posting on the forums with a comment, without any indication of their real role anybody sane will think of it as a moderator or a community rapresentative. Which is false and only abusable.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Nessie

[wHisHi 206]

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

@Kewlin - It’s Saturday for me, and I didn’t keep up with this thread as well as I should have. In the future I’ll avoid lengthy responses when I’m in the middle of other things.

 

Let’s back up a little ways.

 

I don’t have the experience or history with the community or this game that many of you do. Yet I found myself needing to recruit some players to help us test some upcoming features. Sometimes you simply have to pick a starting point and run with it.

 

I chose many of these members based on my perceptions of them on our forums - but not necessarily their public posts. Many I have spoken to privately through PM. As Shini conveyed, some of these members reached out to me with feedback. Or in some cases I reached out to them. Others are active in the APB community outside of posting on our forums every day. And others were recommendations that were vetted by my staff.

 

At the end of the day, they are still all my choices, and I have chosen to share that information with the community. Right or wrong, the buck stops with me.

 

Thanks,

Matt

You did great job with picking these players. Other players or community members that had contact with SPCT members know that they are more or less trustworthy.

[Knite 158]

3 hours ago, Nessie said:

Just a note, but I feel like this whole SPCT idea while useful (all games should have dedicated testers) is being handled wrong. Forum role alone is breaking apart the community, sort of "elevating" said members from the rest of the community when, in fact, they are exactly like everyone else.

I agree it is very important to announce now that a SPCT team is being created (it's a nonsense to keep it secret) but there is no need to specifically indicate the names. Especially since you talk about NDA, giving the names means we can now directly bother them to unofficially update us on upcoming changes.

 

BTW, what are the new registered players going to think? Whenever they will see a "SPCT" role posting on the forums with a comment, without any indication of their real role anybody sane will think of it as a moderator or a community rapresentative. Which is false and only abusable.

World of Warships has SuperTesters and Community Contributors, which have a special role on the WoWs forums, and are also under NDA. Nobody cares.

[Nessie 81]

1 hour ago, Knite said:

World of Warships has SuperTesters and Community Contributors, which have a special role on the WoWs forums, and are also under NDA. Nobody cares.

I don't think it's fair to compare with a massive company with an incredibly good reputation such as Wargaming. There is no care about the NDA because the devs themself post often all the informations about their current works and plans, leaving nothing to be guessed.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Nessie

[Chinook 144]

6 hours ago, Nessie said:

Just a note, but I feel like this whole SPCT idea while useful (all games should have dedicated testers) is being handled wrong. Forum role alone is breaking apart the community, sort of "elevating" said members from the rest of the community when, in fact, they are exactly like everyone else.

I agree it is very important to announce now that a SPCT team is being created (it's a nonsense to keep it secret) but there is no need to specifically indicate the names. Especially since you talk about NDA, giving the names means we can now directly bother them to unofficially update us on upcoming changes.

 

BTW, what are the new registered players going to think? Whenever they will see a "SPCT" role posting on the forums with a comment, without any indication of their real role anybody sane will think of it as a moderator or a community rapresentative. Which is false and only abusable.

I'm not too big on the e-peen features of the program either.

 

Beyond that, I'm fine-ish with the selection of people. Kinda hoped that there would have been more ppl that aren't so well-known for everyone, but then again, there is the "add more later on" card still on the table so who knows what the cat might drag in...

[Kewlin 692]

9 hours ago, MattScott said:

@Kewlin - It’s Saturday for me, and I didn’t keep up with this thread as well as I should have. In the future I’ll avoid lengthy responses when I’m in the middle of other things.

 

Yeah, lol, I realized that in the middle of the night and felt a little bad. Sorry dude.

 

 

9 hours ago, MattScott said:

At the end of the day, they are still all my choices, and I have chosen to share that information with the community. Right or wrong, the buck stops with me.

 

Yeah, I believe you on that for sure. I'm not trying to say there's some vast shadow government conspiracy and you're linked to George Soros, though that would be interesting.

 

 

9 hours ago, MattScott said:

I chose many of these members based on my perceptions of them on our forums - but not necessarily their public posts. Many I have spoken to privately through PM. As Shini conveyed, some of these members reached out to me with feedback. Or in some cases I reached out to them. Others are active in the APB community outside of posting on our forums every day. And others were recommendations that were vetted by my staff.

 

Well, that might be more a case of the forums coming to you Matt.  : P

 

I guess that makes sense, I do have to disagree with you on the "posting on our forums" every day bit, as that only applies to two of the members, one of whom has harassed you in many places (not dissing him, I consider him a friend.) I'm kinda' confused why you'd stick with that when it's provably false.

 

I still think it's weird though having PMing the CEO of a company be essentially one of the major means of communications, and that doesn't really feel healthy in the long run, but I guess I'll try and trust you on that one. Anyways, sorry, I have to rush so this post will be far from perfect, but short version is I understand why you did things the way you did I guess, but I don't ultimately think it makes sense.

[Genobee 143]

On 12/15/2018 at 1:13 PM, Genobee said:

 

Though I don't quite agree with how things are being approached

The response to this makes me think I should say a bit more. Last time around the SPCT suffered tremendous problems from inviting popular figures into the program. Their opinions carried more weight simply because of who they were. Not because of what they were saying. Meaning less than ideal solutions could be implemented over more rational ones. That to me was a massive issue that helped lead to the old programs downfall. Then again these are my views on it. Most certainly not what all other people from the old program felt.

 

I do not believe a tester program should be a popularity contest. It should be those of whom are willing to put forth the effort without feeling it necessary to try and garner extra attention. Me a whole lot of others worked our butts off under the previous incarnation without any kind of thanks. In-fact we were mostly yelled and screamed at - despite being the reasons why a lot of good even happened with many of the updates. We pushed hard for things the community wanted without ever giving a damn about wanting anything in return. Sometimes there had to be compromise but we did are absolute best to suggest hat middle-ground. All while testing every little thing anytime there was even the slightest of changes. That's what I feel like this new program should aim for, and what I do not believe Matt's intentions have conveyed properly. 

 

Now I know what I just said may come across as inflammatory. Not my intentions. I merely chose to use the most extreme possible outcome (odds are not the one that is even happening) I could think of to get my point across. Why? Because I'm afraid of seeing yet another volunteer program go belly up. I don't want that. That just hurts a game I want to see something done with some day. There's an absurd amount of potential from both the community and this game. I want it to get there. Which is why I've chose to express my views here in the manner I have. 

 

Apologies if I came across as an a-hole. 

[speee 90]

15 hours ago, MattScott said:

At the end of the day, they are still all my choices, and I have chosen to share that information with the community. Right or wrong, the buck stops with me.

Not to sound brash, I think you should approach these things with more confidence and start trusting your own decisions. Don't get me wrong, It is nice to see your communication and presence on the forums. But, I think what you have said here is very important. You are the final say and you should not let a few voices in the community alter the direction or plans you and the team have for the game. The selection process seemed reasonable and well thought out, regardless of the opinions of some posts on here.

[Tysa 9]

I think this choice looks pretty decent. Personal feelings about PlayerX don't matter on this.

You got high level players in as well as more casual ones. Thats all that matters when it comes to testing upcomming events n stuff.

 

For the upcomming engine upgrade testing i just hope that they are technically versed enough to test it properly.

[Nev 200]

On 12/16/2018 at 10:44 AM, indi said:

While I agree that more bodies being thrown at testing is a good idea, especially with some kind of PTR functionality that is maintained and updated, I also know this is a tiny company with an equally tiny player base which means they need to look hard for competent testers. SPCT strikes me as some sort of volunteer QA team that works with the one or two actual paid QA members of Little Orbit. This provides the company with (hopefully) active testers who are willing to put in the technical research behind changes made in the game and evaluating them as objectively as possible, plus they're volunteers who are doing it because they love the game, not for money.

 

Also, as flattering it is to be called a "known player", that doesn't automatically mean I provide the necessary prerequisites of being an effective tester that Little Orbit needs right now. It takes a lot of time and usually pretty boring research into changes once they go live into a patch, something very few people will do even in the short term, especially as a volunteer.

 

People should be happy the SPCT is back, even if some of the people may be more of 3D boob crafters than actual APB frag gods. You don't have to be a pro to test a mechanic or change to the game, only time and a willingness to come back for more work. They will provide this game with a lot of eyes on behalf of the community when it comes to future changes to the game as well. I would rather have that than no team at all.

 

Old Matt Scooter should probably make an official discord if he is going to use that platform to meet with the community. Just my two cents about the whole thing from someone who doesn't know anything.

 

The whole official discord thing is something I suggested before when there was the whole issue going on about Lixil and her many mistakes she has made since becoming the community manager. It makes no sense for a company to promote a discord channel run by some random guy and actively take part in it and make important decision based on that discord. I am sure there is a lot of people who never joined that discord solely due to the fact that it's not run by the company and just some random guy. Why would a company promote a discord channel which they can't control?

 

I am happy that people are willing to help out the game and the future will tell if their input will bring good changes and better patches in the future.

 

 

 

 

[Seadee 107]

since when was forum posts the benchmark for actively playing a game? if anything, going by some of the more frequent posters here, i'd say its a good indicator of NOT playing the game.

most of the choices have clear reasons to me and they are more to do with ability in game and their wealth of extensive knowledge due to the amount of no-lifing they do (no offence guys) if they quoted their total hours of APB played then i'm sure it would dwarf the majority of people here right now, especially when you consider that some of those names have been around since the very start.

And tbh, you'd probably want to balance the game around a team that knows what they are doing together, avoids problems with combinations that you cant see from just numbers.

[CookiePuss 5378]

38 minutes ago, Seadee said:

and their wealth of extensive knowledge due to the amount of no-lifing they do (no offence guys)

Friggin Seadee dropping truth bombs.

 

[Kewlin 692]

2 hours ago, Seadee said:

since when was forum posts the benchmark for actively playing a game? if anything, going by some of the more frequent posters here, i'd say its a good indicator of NOT playing the game.

 

Uhh, what? What's the correlation here? I'm confused.

 

 

2 hours ago, Seadee said:

. . . if they quoted their total hours of APB played then i'm sure it would dwarf the majority of people here right now, especially when you consider that some of those names have been around since the very start.

 

First off, how many people here honestly haven't been around since the very start? Lol. Second, playtime also doesn't necessarily correlate to game knowledge any more than forums posts do.

[Lord Cashpoint 269]

I never thought this kind of issue was to rear its ugly head in APB's community again.

 

I have no doubt that the vast majority of the players listed (as well as any future SPCT members) will do a fine job of providing feedback - many of them have played this game for far longer than I have, and I know they will come up with some great ideas and suggestions.

Nor do I think MattScott was necessarily making the wrong decision with his method to choose these members; when you've only been familiar with the game for less than a year there are far worse people to pick for these types of programmes than those already shown.

However I guess what's just a bit unsettling to me is that feeling that I've seen these concerns from the wider player-base before, that certain members of the community receive preferential treatment (Again not that the current SPCT team don't deserve the roles they're in).

I suppose for me it's the lack of transparency of these processes, that the decision making is done all behind closed doors in private messages and such, that there's nowhere to go to simply apply for these types of positions, and instead it's based on somewhat arbitrary requirements - I could very well be wrong, but I'm struggling to overcome the feeling. Of course this isn't me bemoaning that I wasn't picked for something like SPCT - but when I don't even receive a response to some of the applications I have emailed in the past, it does make me less invested in the game as a whole. 

[MattScott 15242]

Hi all,

 

For clarity, the SPCT uses a company Discord server.

 

I have previously stated that we don’t want to interfere with the various community channels. Players need non-LO spaces to vent about us.

 

We haven’t opened an official Discord to the general public because we need to demonstrate that we can properly moderate the existing channels and districts before we start adding new places for players to interact.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Skullwar 4]

On 12/15/2018 at 1:11 PM, MattScott said:

Hi all,

 

Despite some of the negativity, there has been a lot of good discussion here around the new team and its members. Given this game’s history I expected there would be some criticism.

 

I’ll try to address some of the concerns.

 

1) The new SPCT is primarily focused on testing unreleased content. We test things internally as best as we can, but as we saw with some of the recent events, we could have used some help finding issues. These aren’t necessarily bugs. They can just be abusable mechanics for a minigame. We want to do more public tests, but engagement on OTW can be pretty hit or miss these days. In order to be involved in the SPCT, these members have agreed to participate in closed tests and write up feedback.

 

2) They are not representatives of Little Orbit, nor are they meant to be community ambassadors or player-facing helpers. We started the team to address a specific problem, and that’s it. We need to walk before we run, but if this works well, then we may start other community teams for other reasons.

 

Hopefully we will be expanding the SPCT over the coming months. I’d like to have a much larger pool of reliable players that we can use for testing more complex features as they come up.

 

Thanks,

Matt

Is there a place to sign up for SPCT or will there be one sometime soon?

 

[yood 345]

On 12/16/2018 at 1:03 PM, Kewlin said:

SPOILER ALERT: This post is going to sound really salty. Think what you may, I don't care if people think I'm salty or not, I'm just going to say what I see.

 

So get your tinfoil hats on folks!

 

 

Simply put, this is. . . uhh. . . well that simply isn't true, or almost even possible? Because I wouldn't call these people "active" on the forums. Let's do a count of the posts each member has made up until this point on the new forums:

 

Shini - 87 (Total - 4065)

Kempington - 117 (Total - 2255)

SKay - 50 (Total - 1304)

Frosi - 194 (Total - 1384)

Rooq - 4 (Total - 145)

Skitty - 55 (Total - 7459)

CookiePuss - 4290 (Total - 6729)

Shakespade - 1 (Total - 205)

Kevkof - 482 (Total - 1048)

Elanih - 4 (Total - 50)

Speedz - 41 (Total - 374)

 

 

So look, we both know now that what you said isn't true, so what's the deal? You couldn't even be mistaken, since you absolutely are not under the impression that you found and recruited someone with 1 post on the new forums and 205 posts total because they're active on the forums. I'm not throwing shade on these SPCT members, I have no idea if they do their job well and that's none of my concern at the moment, but saying you recruited them because they're active on the forums, or honestly anywhere is bullshoot, 'cause the only person here I'd call active is Cooky, seeing as rarely visit the forums and I have 841 posts on the new forums. I'm not even active on the forums and I have almost double the posts of the second most posts on your SPCT list.

 

No, before anyone says I'm just trying to get on the SPCT, I have a general idea that being an annoying pleasant fellow to Matt every time he says literally anything is probably not the best way to make a good impression.

 

 

So where'd you find these people? Skay, Kemp, and Skitty post enough on the "unofficial" APB discord, Kevkof could have been from there or the forums, Speedz is obvious, and I know you've had a lot of interaction with Cooky in lots of places. So I guess that leaves Shini, Frosi, Rooq, Shakespade, and Elanih? Where have they been active that you saw them? And I can't even give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you looked at the old forums too because very few people in the SPCT were really active there either. Does streaming and making YT montages count as being active? because if so what people are saying about this being a celebrity show is basically just true.

 

From what I can tell Kevkof is the only one you could have possibly recruited because you found him on the forums, but even then it's just as likely you found him on Discord. Doesn't that seem a little off? Recruiting as few as 0 people through your actual official means of communication with the playerbase? And I get that the SPCT isn't an honor or anything, which is why you get a big badge under your name, but seriously, taking everybody from third party sources is a horrible PR move at best.

 

If you're going to use Discord as an official interaction platform, make an official Discord: don't just use a controversial server run by some random dude that tons of people have ran away from due to drama with its staff.

 

I don't even know what to say, this is just weird, it's bizarre, and I don't even want to think you're lying because I don't see a clear motive (you could have just. . . actually recruited people from the forums, after all.) I was going to let the fact that these people weren't from the forums slide but then you said this and. . . yeah. Anyways, I could go on making minor edits to this post forever, but I've already spent too much time on this conspiracy, so if there's some glaring mistake, whatever, someone just tell me about it.

 

So what say you Mister Scott?

there's logic . 

4 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

Same.

there same  

CookiePuss JoinedApril 7, 2017 Content Count6774 .

 

CookiePuss what do you know about the game ? it's good to have nine lives .

Edited December 18, 2018 by Yood

[CookiePuss 5378]

25 minutes ago, Yood said:

CookiePuss what do you know about the game ?

MB1 make gun go boom.