World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

During the very beginning years of the graphical MMORPG movement, getting into early beta tests was as close as some of us may every get to being on a true development team. At this point in the late 1990s, the Internet was still the “latest new technological fad” and those gamers that had the tech savvy and intelligence to meander the often confusing spiderweb of download links, forum posts, and instruction manuals were greeted with games that were far from completion and teams that were eager to hear the opinions of their players. Countless stories were told on forums about how gamers were hired by companies simply because the individuals were intelligent and understood the systems behind these games.

However, beta testing in that era was often a challenging experience. These were unfinished games with incomplete rules and unpolished content. Hardware upgrades were often necessary to simply run many of these titles, especially games like the 3D-accelerator necessary EverQuest. Game installation seldom went smoothly, and many players found themselves wondering if they would ever find a way to get into beta. Once gamers were playing in the new world, they’d often fall through the landscape, zone into a “nothing” space, or simply experience other strange issues due to the relatively new technology powering these titles.

For those players that were lucky (or unlucky) enough to get into the very first stages of the beta tests for games like Ultima Online, EverQuest or Asheron’s Call, these individuals found immense worlds that were almost devoid of players and provided the gamers with little direction on what to do after they created their character. It was truly up to the players to discover the ins-and-outs of the title, more often by trial-and-error than anything else.

But if you were active on the forums, played through the client often and tried to help the development team with in-game issues, you were often rewarded for your efforts with lengthy conversations, emails and forum responses from the developers. These initial testers were the first “game consultants” to the development teams of that era, and many of the most passionate gamers sought out (and found) jobs with MMO companies.

If you don’t believe me, just have a chat with Evan Michaels (System Designer for Age of Conan) or Sean Dahlberg (Community Manager for BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic). Both of these individuals got their starts as forum junkies and fan site operators/participants for Anarchy Online and Shadowbane before moving on to find jobs in the industry. They were active members of their communities, and the development teams at Funcom and Wolfpack Studios took notice. In the current market, forum denizens are often lucky if they see any posts from their development team, and rarely get the chance to join forces with the studios they follow.

In fact, some modern gamers have even found that the beta forums for upcoming games provide them with nothing but stress and heartache. Forum trolls and flame artists aside, the development teams for many MMOs are often quick to squash any user that speaks out against their game or their beta testing procedures. A number of the Ten Ton Hammer premium members, many of whom are veteran MMO junkies, reported a variety of recent incidents that occurred during notable beta tests, where they were either harshly handled, had their “complaint” posts removed completely, or were simply insulted.

“Warhammer was frustrating because you could not voice anything in the closed forums, anything bad would be deleted immediately,” RawGutts answered.

“While in [the Age of Conan beta forums] I spoke up, respectfully, about the class merges, about not testing sieges or PvP cities, and I wasn't just ignored or had a thread locked, I was flat out told by a developer on the forums to 'Shut up,'” Arkane reported. “I was shocked and I ended up returning my beta invite to them. The game launches and I find out that they still never tested those and when people finally got to do them on live it was a horror story.”

“While in the Warhammer beta, I had a developer flat out call me stupid and ignorant,” centrik responded. “There was a mix up, on their end mind you, and I received an email from them that caused some confusion. I brought it to their attention on the forums, to see if anyone else received this email. When no one did, I made a pretty harsh response. Mind you, the email was about being removed from the beta for NDA breech, so I was very, very concerned.”
 
These hardships are certainly nothing new for veteran gamers, but during the trials and tribulations of the "golden era," most gamers merely accepted the hardships that were presented to them as part of the testing process and did their best to help the development teams resolve their issues. By contrast, current gamers have become far less lenient with issues that show up in their testing experience. In an early interview during EverQuest’s final phase of beta testing, Brad McQuaid extolled the virtues of his beta community and how they surprised him:


In comparison, when asked similar questions during Vanguard’s later beta phase, McQuaid had this to say about his crop of beta testers:

“It’s okay,” he answered honestly. “I wish there were more people submitting bug reports, but that’s the way it goes with beta, and we’re still finding them regardless. Besides, I need all types [of players]. I need the exploits so we can find them...I need the jerks.”

The differences in the words, tone and attitude of the two statements is subtle, yet striking. In one interview, it was apparent that McQuaid was ecstatic with the response he had received from his testers; the other had him supporting the actions of “jerks” and issuing his “need” for these types of gamers to help him squash the bugs in his game. What occurred to the MMO player base between 1999 and 2006 that caused such a change of heart for this MMO developer?