It’s very difficult sending feedback into the void as I used to call it.
Spending hours upon hours of playing a game thoroughly, sometimes time after time, poring over the code, writing down extremely detailed feedback, and offering suggestions, only to not even receive a response. That makes me feel unappreciated. Even more-so if once the game is released it contains issues that I specifically pointed out during my own testing of the game. I wonder what’s the point.
Now, not all testing’s like that. Personally I’m not that interested in a back and forth with the author anymore. My feedback is my gift to them and they can do with it what they want. I don’t want to have them defend their game to me or explain their reasons. I’d just like an acknowledgement, and a thank you, and if they want any further clarification on any points I’ve made that’s fine too.
I’m not good at the providing feedback in a group setting. I don’t like other forum members questioning my feedback either. I guess I don’t mind the silence.
I do think some better communication would be appreciated though. If it’s marked on the beta test threads when a beta test is closed. I’d like to see some change logs of what gets changed because otherwise we’re going in completely blind and I might just be repeating work I’ve already done. It’s also valuable to know whether I should run through the game again or not.
The lack of change logs is really, really frustrating, and limits me in whether I can test a game multiple times or not.
I do understand the frustration of people not following instructions. We’d frequently have people in the beta test threads posting things that showed they’d not read them. But hey, that’s sometimes how it goes. They see one person do something and everyone else assumes that’s the correct way and they jump onboard. But sending to the wrong email address could be the result of an email auto-completing the wrong email.
That leads me to believe that beta-testers are important. So an acknowledgement and a thank you would be nice.
I’ve been doing online beta-testing for various games for over 15 years now. The ones that win my loyalty, where I’m actually extremely passionate about the games, are those who actually respond to my feedback. Even if it’s just a personal note and a thank you. When they don’t answer with so much as an acknowledgement of the time I’ve spent trying to help them that leaves me disappointed.
Not that I’ve had the focus to test anything as of late, which is extremely frustrating.
I’d suggest give the forum testing a trial run. We could probably create private locked forum categories for every single separate beta-test game. That way people can still be limited to one test at a time if that’s expected. And it doesn’t have the same limitations as a group PM would.
I’d say if testing is done on the forum then please also continue to allow for email feedback. For the people like me who sometimes can’t provide public feedback. I can’t count the games I’ve actually paid for beta access to and then not actually taken advantage of it because they wanted the discussions on a forum instead of via email. 