D&D 5E (2014) Mearls doing new playtest today

[Szatany]

A little part of me died today

 

[gyor]

I got more bad news according to twitter no new Full Packet before Gencon, but more material for the current one.

 

[jadrax]

I don't blame you if you all hate me now.

I am going to hunt you down and do unpleasant things to you with lemon sherbet...


(not really)

 

[Blackwarder]

I am going to hunt you down and do unpleasant things to you with lemon sherbet...


(not really)

*gasp* you'll force him to eat it?!!!!!

Warder

 

[gyor]

*gasp* you'll force him to eat it?!!!!!

Warder

Noooooooooooo!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

When life hands you lemon sherbet, you know what to do ...

 

[Li Shenron]

I got more bad news according to twitter no new Full Packet before Gencon, but more material for the current one.

That sounds strange and counterproductive... there are many heavy changes being done at the moment to skills, feats and classes, why holding them for 3 months until releasing the book which, at that point, will contain a lot on un-playtested stuff (they can playtest internally of course)? It would be more understandable the other way around, that they would playtest those heavy changes before making a book with them, and let the book introduce more feats/subclasses/spells.

 

[Ichneumon]

When life hands you lemon sherbet, you know what to do ...

...Suck it up.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That sounds strange and counterproductive... there are many heavy changes being done at the moment to skills, feats and classes, why holding them for 3 months until releasing the book which, at that point, will contain a lot on un-playtested stuff (they can playtest internally of course)? It would be more understandable the other way around, that they would playtest those heavy changes before making a book with them, and let the book introduce more feats/subclasses/spells.

I talked to one of the "closed beta playtesters" at GenCon last year. It really sounds like all their real playtests are going out to the smaller, more controlled group. They are getting new packets every 2 weeks or so.

I'm fairly certain he wasn't supposed to say as much as he did, but I know at that time he was annoyed that they had only given the Warlock to them 2 days before they released the public playtest package with it in it. He made it sounds like the process is supposed to be: They get a packet, they give their feedback, if the feedback is mostly positive and no one points out any glaring errors then they release it as a public playtest. However, if a bunch of people complain, they redo that section and release another packet to the "closed beta testers".

It sounds like with the number of new mechanics and a nearly complete overhaul of the skills, classes, feats, exploration, and possibly more.....that this packet is going to be huge and so they are giving their closed beta testers more time to help them iterate.

It's frustrating, but I really do get the impression that all the real playtesting gets done by the closed groups and whenever they feel they've reached a milestone they release a packet mostly so they can get poll results from a larger audience.

 

[Dausuul]

I talked to one of the "closed beta playtesters" at GenCon last year. It really sounds like all their real playtests are going out to the smaller, more controlled group. They are getting new packets every 2 weeks or so.

I'm fairly certain he wasn't supposed to say as much as he did, but I know at that time he was annoyed that they had only given the Warlock to them 2 days before they released the public playtest package with it in it. He made it sounds like the process is supposed to be: They get a packet, they give their feedback, if the feedback is mostly positive and no one points out any glaring errors then they release it as a public playtest. However, if a bunch of people complain, they redo that section and release another packet to the "closed beta testers".

It sounds like with the number of new mechanics and a nearly complete overhaul of the skills, classes, feats, exploration, and possibly more.....that this packet is going to be huge and so they are giving their closed beta testers more time to help them iterate.

It's frustrating, but I really do get the impression that all the real playtesting gets done by the closed groups and whenever they feel they've reached a milestone they release a packet mostly so they can get poll results from a larger audience.

Sensible system, really. It's much easier to collect feedback from a small, dedicated group where you can talk to them face to face or in a chat room. When the group is big enough that you have to rely on automated surveys, getting meaningful input is much more difficult. So you use the closed playtest groups with frequent updates to work out the obvious bugs, and then use the open playtest to gauge community response and suss out more esoteric problems that might not come up in the closed groups.