It’s getting closer to the time when I will run the final playtesting round on Fallen Hero, just need to code the achievements and fix the grammar suggestions from my proofreaders.
So what I am asking, is it possible to create private threads on this forum? I would prefer to do the playtesting on here, since that means that my playtesters can see each other’s comments as well, thus saving us all a lot of time finding the same mistakes, and me a lot of time sending out mails to everybody.
The reason why I am wondering if it is possible to have it private, is that I don’t want people getting spoiled beforehand, which will inevitably happen if we start talking about the issues openly.
First, I start a thread asking for testers. Then I click on one of them for “Private Message,” putting “Private Beta Testing” or something like that in the subject line.
Then I go ahead and invite 9 more people (I think the limit is 10?) before I actually send the private message.
Then once you have the private message set up, you have an option under the Original Post to keep adding people. That’s what I do.
It keeps all of your testing on the forum as you want, and it lets testers read each others’ comments, which can cut down on duplicate responses.
If you use dashingdon.com to host, you can obviously also set your “almost done” game to private only so that the only way to access the game is through your private beta test.
The only negative aspect to this (that I have encountered) is that sometimes a poster might be shy or intimidated to voice their opinion if their opinion deviates from the majority.
I also remind my PM testers to keep their comments confined to the PM thread itself. It’s a pain in the neck to have people send separate PM messages to you.
