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    • Making the Best of the Beta



      With Shattered Fates, our forthcoming third set, now revealed and Beta testing in progress over at http://test.shadowera.com, it's a very exciting time to be a Shadow Era player!


      For those of you who backed the Kickstarter, we really hope you are enjoying playing with the new cards so far. There's still a ways to go before the set goes live, but, with your help, we will get there sooner and with better quality. This article is aimed at helping you to help us get the best from the Beta phase.


      What actually is Beta Testing?

      The aim of all our testing is to arrive at an excellent set of cards, implemented with as few bugs as possible, to be released as soon as possible. Getting to that destination is an iterative process, where we continuously improve what we have to gain more and more confidence in it and progressively share it with more and more people, leading to a virtuous feedback cycle.

      We start out with a relatively unproven set of cards and an initial implementation and test with a relatively small group, clearing the most obvious issues out of the way so that what we have is at least usable. This is known as Alpha Testing and really needs to involve experienced testers as opposed to customers.

      Once we are reasonably happy with what we have, we can add in more testers for wider coverage to try to find any further issues. It's at this point that we let some players loose on it, within the Players' Focus Group, and their playing inevitably unearths a lot of bugs to fix and they give direct and indirect balance feedback along the way. Bugs tend to get fixed very quickly, since they will otherwise interfere with balance testing.

      When we *think* we're in a great spot, in terms of balance and apparent lack of bugs, it's time for wider Beta Testing to happen and that's where you, our esteemed Kickstarter backers, come in! The next section covers how you can help us.


      What should I do during Beta Testing?

      First and foremost, you can play lots of games. As you encounter anything that you think is a bug, you can report it on the forum, giving as much detail as possible. The developers will need to investigate your report and try to reproduce it before they can fix it.

      Second, you can try lots of different decks. If you just play the same deck for a month then it is somewhat useful, but nowhere near as useful as you trying out a variety of cards. That's why you are given a complete playset of every card in the game to use!

      Third, if you are unsure about how a card works, please use the Card Rulings section to ask a question about it. We will do our best to give you a quick answer, so you can then more easily identify bugs, and, of course, have a better playing experience.

      Besides bug finding, you should let us know if you think any cards or combinations of cards are overpowered, since, as a Design Team, we aim to avoid power creep and we want to at least retain (and hopefully increase) the high level of balance that we already have.

      You can also provide other balance feedback about cards that you think are weak, or any other kind of feedback (e.g. poor card wordings). Obviously, we need to prioritize tackling bugs and overpowered cards since they can ruin the game, but we do still read your other feedback as we get it and address what we can as we go.

      One final thing you can do is remember that this is a Beta version, where bugs are expected, and you have been invited to play with it because we believe you have the creativity and passion to find them! Whilst some of that passion might be killed by seeing bug reports stacking up, please do not let it dishearten you; it's actually just what we need from this phase and should be not taken as indicative of the final product. It's kind of the opposite really, since the more we find now, the fewer surprises we get later on when we are gearing up for Live Release.


      When does Beta Testing end?

      As I mentioned earlier, this is all about increasing our own confidence in the upcoming live release, so this will depend on us having tackled all the known bugs and having achieved some great coverage. When we get to that point, we can then open up to the public Test Server, seeking confirmation on that confidence, with the expectation there are very few bugs still hiding, but being ready to tackle them if they do.


      I hope this has helped you to see how you can make the best of being a Beta Testing for Shattered Fates. Quality has always been paramount in Shadow Era, so everything you can do to help us increase it is very much appreciated.
      Comments 18 Comments
      1. Jo3yb0i's Avatar
        Jo3yb0i -
        In summary, PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY
      1. udy's Avatar
        udy -
        Aside from bug fixing & balancing the game. Can you tell us how many new SF art have been acquired so far?
        And would you guys add more art to cards on beta server before it actually go to Live server, pls?

        thanks in advance
      1. Arikiro's Avatar
        Arikiro -
        In order to play I need more art in the cards...Is very annoyed for me to play only with the text.
      1. captain planet's Avatar
        captain planet -
        Quote Originally Posted by Arikiro View Post
        In order to play I need more art in the cards...Is very annoyed for me to play only with the text.
        I agree! without the art, you can't see which card are in your hand without reading all of them which is super annoying and takes speed and pleasure out of the game. Also making a deck becomes a pain having to go over all the new cards without being able to recognize them again.
      1. Spiritmonger187's Avatar
        Spiritmonger187 -
        play play test test ofcourse, thats what we do... but we deserve card art imo i dont understand why aramia's card art got changed while there are so many other cards that still need art.. but we keep playing and reporting bugs.. but card art i a real must
      1. Shadow Mann's Avatar
        Shadow Mann -
        pumped for the future of SE...this set will be a nice addition!
      1. Palestitch's Avatar
        Palestitch -
        Happy to see your opinion has changed since the garth nerfs .
      1. Shadow Mann's Avatar
        Shadow Mann -
        Quote Originally Posted by Palestitch View Post
        Happy to see your opinion has changed since the garth nerfs .
        My comment has nothing to do with Garth's change...I still don't feel that a change to Garth was needed and definitely think removing his poison hurts his flavor...but we don't have to agree on everything...I still love SE and think SF is a good set (props to the DT on this addition)
      1. BP JinT's Avatar
        BP JinT -
        PLAY PLAY PLAY.... oh did I forget to mention PLAY?
      1. tinkvader's Avatar
        tinkvader -
        I would love to beta to help out. Been trying to yet no luck. If not beta if there's a way to help I like to. Love the game and been trying to spread the word in my area to get more to play... And trying to spread on some social medias.
      1. lykos1991's Avatar
        lykos1991 -
        Where do we post bugs? I think i ran into one that causes my unity player to crash...
      1. Alien Fungus's Avatar
        Alien Fungus -
        The latest news letter announced the availability of Anthology Decks and Unopened Decks .
        As yet there is no sign of these. Any idea of a release date
      1. Gondorian's Avatar
        Gondorian -
        Quote Originally Posted by Alien Fungus View Post
        The latest news letter announced the availability of Anthology Decks and Unopened Decks .
        As yet there is no sign of these. Any idea of a release date
        You need to be on v2.80, as stated in that newsletter. So the web browser version and Android versions are the only ones so far that you can get at them. v2.80 for iOS is on the way, but not released yet.
      1. DukeDemonKn1ght's Avatar
        DukeDemonKn1ght -
        Now that the cards are available on mobile platforms, which is awesome and hey thank you (but the cards can only be obtained in packs, not as singles, which is sort of annoying...) how much longer until they will be available for regular purchase in the merchant?? I'd like to make a few new decks without having to pony up too hard. I mean, really, the amount of packs you'd have to open to get 4 copies of any given rare or epic in the set is astronomical!
      1. Shadow Mann's Avatar
        Shadow Mann -
        They are available as singles now...just not yet on iOS
      1. Maximont's Avatar
        Maximont -
        Buy the singles on the web version, buy all the singles you want/need, then log back on to your iPhone.
      1. Holyweak's Avatar
        Holyweak -
        Quote Originally Posted by Jo3yb0i View Post
        In summary, PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY
        Some one know how to get the rewards for the prepaying on december?
      1. Holyweak's Avatar
        Holyweak -
        Some one knows how to get the rewards for the prepaying on december 2013?
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