New SPCT team

[CookiePuss 5377]

Just now, Kewlin said:

 

I don't love you anymore Cooky, you're dead to me.

 

*Commits scooter ankle*

[Nessie 81]

43 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

I feel where you are coming from, I really do. And while it's still early days for SPCT, I think you may be overestimating our level of influence. LO has their own Quality Assurance people who handle the majority of that work. The SPCT members (again, as I understand it) are just there as a safety mechanism assuring that the QA members haven't overlooked anything that a veteran player might not miss. On top of that I can assure you that aside from still adding members to SPCT, the employees of LO are constantly monitoring the forums and listening in game for general player feedback and suggestions. 

If the SPCT has so little impact what was the point to publically create a role on the forums? It entirely misleads the purpose of the team and provides no use other than create a target for griefers to harass and blame issues on others.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Nessie

[CookiePuss 5377]

2 minutes ago, Nessie said:

If the SPCT has so little impact what was the point to publically create a role on the forums? It entirely misleads the purpose of the team and provides no use other than create a target for griefers to harass and blame issues on others.

That's above my pay grade I'm afraid. 

But it may simply be about transparency, especially since unlike a GM, we can't really have a direct impact on your gaming experience.

[Kewlin 692]

3 minutes ago, Nessie said:

If the SPCT has so little impact what was the point to publically create a role on the forums? It entirely misleads the purpose of the team and provides no use other than create a target for griefers to harass and blame issues on others.

 

experience  𝓽 𝓻 𝓪 𝓷 𝓼 𝓹 𝓪 𝓻 𝒆 𝓷 𝓬 𝔂

 

But yeah, I don't get why they'd do that, 'cause it'll just create drama TBH.

4 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

That's above my pay grade I'm afraid. 

But it may simply be about transparency, especially since unlike a GM, we can't really have a direct impact on your gaming experience.

 

Boi everything's above a $0.00 paygrade.

[Tobii 346]

Oof. 

[CookiePuss 5377]

10 minutes ago, Kewlin said:

 

 

Boi everything's above a $0.00 paygrade.

True dat. 

[TheJellyGoo 343]

On 12/13/2018 at 6:01 PM, SkittyM said:

SPCT being public was something we kinda pushed for after Lixil had wanted to make it all private and some things we didn't agree with.  Really it was more of a "It worked during RP, so why not?" thing.  Also Matt agreed with us though his opinion on the NDA was mildly amusing.

[..]

 

43 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

That's above my pay grade I'm afraid. 

But it may simply be about transparency, especially since unlike a GM, we can't really have a direct impact on your gaming experience.

But part of the group obviously made the decision? This already seems very disconnected and not very communicative.

And it seems weird to push for it because this thread is proof of what it would cause which was just plain obvious to predict.

Just to much malice that has been built up in the community over the years and to many individuals that can't get past it.

As Matt said there is no community interaction required and it shouldn't even be a position of representing LO which in itself is already a contradiction with how the program is presented.

Can't really have one without the other.

[CookiePuss 5377]

3 minutes ago, TheJellyGoo said:

 

But part of the group obviously made the decision? This already seems very disconnected and not very communicative.

 

Yes, we were allowed to weigh in on the subject.

 

3 minutes ago, TheJellyGoo said:

And it seems weird to push for it because this thread is proof of what it would cause which was just plain obvious to predict.

Just to much malice that has been built up in the community over the years and to many individuals that can't get past it.

I feel you Jelly. I really do.

Edited December 15, 2018 by CookiePuss

[TheJellyGoo 343]

Just now, CookiePuss said:

Yes, we were allowed to weigh in on the subject.

 

I feel you Jelly. I really do.

Same... with all tentacles at my disposal 

[Rolpack 99]

2 hours ago, MartisLTU said:

Hmm ...  i would improve list with those names : Rolpack, Revoluzzer, Nessie, TheJellyGoo, indi, NotZombieBiscuit, AsgerLund, Kewlin, Sadira, Kiida, BXNNXD and others well know ppl. 

 

 

 

I mean more testers better feedback ?

more like a well known ghost considering the current game is just pretty bland for my old taste rip

2 hours ago, BXNNXD said:

-image-

 

 

being well known shouldn’t even be any kind of consideration for spct imo

well they missed that target with the current selection of people, cus i would say they are all pretty well known to a degree

[TheJellyGoo 343]

I mean selecting publicly known people is also a way for LO to protect themselves at least to a certain degree.

Being "known" usually comes with the trait of being active which is required to be of use in SPCT.

I'm sure LO picked candidates that peaked their interest in some way or form somewhere and came out clean/viable in their checkup.

For the start of the program definitely a logical way to handle things.

Also has nothing to do with favoritism... it proves willingness of involvement over some "random person silently playing their game".

[Glubbable 41]

Shoving testers under NDA goes against the point of giving any form of transparency. Plus it's pretty common these days for people to just leak stuff... so why not just avoid giving them access to stuff that you don't want them to talk about? Like, this game is only holding on thanks to LO, so the last thing we need is for them to repeat the same mistakes Reloaded did.

[ChellyBean 200]

5 minutes ago, Glubbable said:

Shoving testers under NDA goes against the point of giving any form of transparency. Plus it's pretty common these days for people to just leak stuff... so why not just avoid giving them access to stuff that you don't want them to talk about? Like, this game is only holding on thanks to LO, so the last thing we need is for them to repeat the same mistakes Reloaded did.

I mean if they've got a small list of people to watch over, I can't imagine it would be very hard to figure out who's doing the leaks. 

 

[Rolpack 99]

1 minute ago, ChellyBean said:

I mean if they've got a small list of people to watch over, I can't imagine it would be very hard to figure out who's doing the leaks. 

 

unless if spct tells friend A, then friend A tells friend B who has no idea where friend A got the info from, and then friend B tells like 3 other people, you would never know where it started from aaaaaand then you have a wildfire

 

especially if you have more people testing, then it becomes incerasingly more difficult too

 

this whole NDA thing was just something tiggs always used as an excuse to never talk of the engine upgrade, it was pretty bad lol

[MidnightQ 11]

wonder why Bungmonkey didn't apply yet i trust a guy to run the game with long hair on stream xD

[CookiePuss 5377]

1 minute ago, MidnightQ said:

wonder why Bungmonkey didn't apply yet i trust a guy to run the game with long hair on stream xD

Don't forget he has the cutest bottom in all of APB!

[MidnightQ 11]

Just now, CookiePuss said:

Don't forget he has the cutest bottom in all of APB!

BABOOM!!!!

[Kempington 295]

5 hours ago, ThrowawayAccount said:

 

As much as I hate to specifically target people, I feel that this individual is probably the easiest to describe what I mean when it comes to poor behavior with the community. Kempington is one the SPCT members who fits in this category of poor behavior. I have played missions with him and he the worst when it comes to positive interactions with the community. He is the type of individual who will bash and blame his teammates for a loss in a mission if he feels it is warranted, so basically majority of the time. The only times where he does not blame his teammates is when he is playing with individuals he knows or thinks is good at APB. From what I have seen and experienced with Kempington is that if you are not associated with certain cliques (theme makers/lovers, "good" players, or subscribers), you are going to be undeniably mistreated by him. If you have watched his streams over the years, you will notice this. Besides his negative attitude with the community, he has definitely been more than helpful with regards to information and gameplay of APB. He has probably done the most out of all the current SPCT members if we're talking from an informative perspective about APB. So as much as I am probably bashing him, I am glad to see him on this team because I believe he will be able to help connect the community and LO. Though, he has to fix his attitude.

 

@MattScott

Well, you're not wrong. I'm terrible when it comes to that sort of stuff and it's incredibly frustrating to be in a position where you have to attempt to carry your team. However, the way I approach it is not acceptable. It's been going on for too long and I need to get better at not doing this. It's not fair on those I call out and completely undeserved. Apologies.

 

Some day, I'm hoping the matchmaking system will drastically improve so the chances of this go down substantially. I feel bad when I get low rank silvers who are completely inexperienced and basically can't play the mission at all, due to taking too long to get to the objective, or simply outclassed in every gameplay aspect of this game (shooting, positioning, reaction, etc). It's not a fun experience for them and definitely not for the more experienced that get grouped with them for a mission.

 

Sadly, experience is not something matchmaking takes into account, because it's practically impossible. How do you tell a system how well someone knows the shortest routes to an objective or what the optimal positioning is, given the weapon load-out and possible methods of approach on an attacking team? Due to how long the threat system has been in disaray, there are playing punch above their weight when it comes to their threat level, so they're treated as "just as good" as other golds who are far more versed in the plethora of weapons in the game, as well as optimal loadouts, methods of approach, gunplay, etc. They know the game inside and out and then have more Timmy over here who just achieved gold, going up against powerhouses who will shoot him down from angles he didn't know existed.

 

I don't mean to steer away from the main claim you've made. You're completely right about me and I'm sorry again for that. I'll do what I can to better myself as a human being and not lash out like I do when frustrated.

[MattScott 15242]

Hi all,

 

Couple more points of clarification:

 

Announcing the members of the SPCT was my idea.

 

1) Why did we announce who is in the SPCT?

 

I don’t like secrets for the sake of secrets.

 

People always find out anyway, so unless there is a good business reason, why bother creating that landmine? Imagine if you found out months from now that we had reformed the SPCT and we didn’t tell the player base. How would that feel? Better or worse than how we handled it? 

 

My guess is that any reaction you’re having right now would be 10x down the road. On top of that there are concrete reasons to reveal the team members. For instance, we are video capturing some of the playtest sessions so we can start creating marketing assets in time for the launch of upcoming features. In my opinion, it’s going to be pretty obvious who those players are in the videos.

 

2) Why do we need NDAs?

 

This should be a no brainer. Testers get context about internal business issues that we don’t necessarily share publicly. Most importantly, we are sharing some information with them that is under NDA from external partners. 

 

Testers will see incomplete, broken features. We don’t want that shared with our players till it’s working correctly. Having said all that, I do want the testers to be able to share the good, the bad, and the ugly sometimes about what we are working on. I have already commited to finding opportunities for that.

 

3) Why did we choose these specifc people?

 

There is no science to this. I read the forums. I chose people with opinions that participate a lot. These people had to pass our own internal standards, and I also chose people that could work together.

 

For this initial group, I wanted a smal set of testers that we could manage properly. I don’t expect that all of our choices will be perfect. They just need to be ‘good enough’ to keep us moving forward. I want the team to be bigger, and there are plenty of other people on my list that I will likely approach in the future.

 

4) What are some tasks of the SPCT?

 

Let’s use Slay Bells as an example. The members of the team have access to an internal Discord channel and to a private forum channel. 

 

We coordinated several tests on a closed server for them to get on and work through the event. They were given times and testing items. Each build was at various stages of completion ranging from late Alpha to Beta. After the playtesting they would write up feedback on the forums or discuss points over Discord. In several cases, we had Beastie get on to answer questions or respond to feedback.

 

During the process of testing, the SPCT discovered various bugs within the gamemode. For example, vehicles could kill players in early tests, and we made adjustments after seeing some

of the crazy stuff testers did to abuse things.

 

To sum things up:

 

I’m less interested in spending a lot of time second guessing and anticipating problems with our current team. I’m far more interested in holding this team accountable and revisiting this topic as time goes on to make sure we are meeting the goals of the game and the community.

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

edited to include examples

[vsb 6171]

1 minute ago, MattScott said:

it’s going to be pretty obvious who those players are

 

WHO COULD IT BE?????????????

[Nite 261]

2 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

 

WHO COULD IT BE?????????????

Kemp's character is the Master Chief of APB - everyone who plays knows who the look comes from.

[Kempington 295]

8 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

 

WHO COULD IT BE?????????????

Whoever it is has an impeccable taste in headwear,

[Knite 158]

14 minutes ago, MattScott said:

My guess is that any reaction you’re having right now would be 10x down the road. 

This is really the crux of it; from closely following other major/minor game development/community interactions, I can say that whenever the devs are forthcoming about things that players might not necessarily like, the playerbase reaction is always more tempered than when things come out suddenly.

[Nite 261]

Guarantee people would be tripping over themselves to call MattScott "Tiggs 2.0" if we found out about this after the fact.

[CookiePuss 5377]

16 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

 

WHO COULD IT BE?????????????

Thats that one butler guy isnt it?