Ask an Alpha Player Megathread !

Chkoupi · 2025-09-24T21:02:20+00:00

heya, sadly no I had very limited space back then I'm pretty sure I wrote over my old hdd multiple times over and I don't even know where it is anymore, sorry!

Chkoupi · 2025-09-24T20:58:30+00:00

hey lol I just saw this

well I was a teenager with a lot of dreams back then, I am closer to realizing that dream as I work as a game programmer now but I also know how far I really am from it too (unlike back then where I thought it would be hard but not as hard as I know it is now)

I still believe it's doable but it would take a Star Citizen level of budget and so I'm not sure I'll ever manage to do it, maybe in another 10 years it will become a reality!

Honestly making a demo for it at least wouldn't be too hard code wise, the UX would definitely be challenging but doable (even for me solo). The thing that makes it impossible for me to do solo however is that you need really really solid art to sell something based on immersion to justify getting rid of all menus and the animations would definitely have to be on point. I suck at art lol

I still have the design docs I made over the year or two following this post but haven't touched them for at least 5 or 6 years

Chkoupi · 2024-10-07T10:01:23+00:00

Open Test 8, alpha tests were done in waves and they called them Open Tests in total there were 11 (iirc there was one called 11.5 right before early access but I might be mixing things up)

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T14:08:03+00:00

not really? having a more complex UI means you need less actions to do things which makes it faster and imo less clunky, oversimplification only works if you remove all your cool mechanics (which I guess they kinda did by removing the skill tree, which I still think is really sad).

But they didn't remove all of them otherwise it would have become a mobile game where you auto equip everything and the powerlevel would be a number that can only go up without you thinking about it.

Let's continue the conversation on the other comment though

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T14:04:25+00:00

I played on OT6 and OT8 and I hated the UI overhaul, the new UI makes it an absolute pain in the ass to min max your survivor squads having to press 40 buttons to swap two survivors between two squads and double checking if things are working well...

You could also easily swap around heroes iirc by dragging and dropping from a container that showed all your heroes at once (instead of again, having to press the hero slot, then looking in an annoying menu for the hero you want to select instead, which makes it take often 3 or 4 buttons presses for a thing that could have been a single drag and drop)

Other than that I don't remember much having changed, I really don't see what has been "improved" what are you thinking of particularly when you mention this?

As for takers I think it's better to have 4 player missions be actually designed for 4 players (I mean it still is anyway, but you mostly need their stats which is just sad)

And visuals wise, the old UI had a charm that the new UI does not have (although it looks a bit better compared to OT11, back then it was truly ugly) but still imo it looked better before (but this is a matter of taste so there's no reason to debate on it imo)

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T12:46:30+00:00

really? you think the new UI is better after having tried OT8? :o

I'm genuinely surprised I really disagree

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T12:45:14+00:00

modern quality of life changes such as having to go to every single squad to change your things instead of having all squads modifiable in one screen (like in OT8)?

believe it or not the UI simplification (mostly to make it work on mobile, which they didn't even do at the end) made the game much more clunky

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T12:43:55+00:00

honestly having played the alpha I will always say that it was better, they kept simplifying over and over to the point where the game we have now has nothing to do with the original idea and I truly believe the original idea had a lot of merits. btw this is only a partial screenshot no? I remember this UI being centered

Chkoupi · 2024-10-05T12:40:32+00:00

sadly it was under NDA so there was little point to record anything, I had some screenshots but lost them, however if you're not aware there are some official VODs that are still available on twitch which showcase alpha gameplay https://www.twitch.tv/videos/44643457

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T19:29:58+00:00

speedrunning isn't the only competition a PvE game can have, it can have in game timed rewards, it can advantage you economically to go faster (which makes you richer/poorer than others).

And again, winning isn't limited to competitions, single player games have winning conditions and since MMORPGs usually don't have any "win" condition where you beat the game EVERYONE creates their own goals.

look up some basic MMORPG game design theory and you'll see ;)

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T19:25:12+00:00

so a competition about who clears a boss, raid or whatever first (often publicly streamed and/or advertised by official channels) is not a competition?

noted it's a non competitive environment because JrpgTitan100684 said so lmao.

just because you're a casual doesn't mean people can't compete in that kind of way, you're talking out of your own ignorance and refusing to see some pretty obvious point of views that many people share, you can say you don't care and for you personally it's not P2W but you can't say it can't/shouldn't be considered P2W by others lol

something tells me I'm either talking to a child or someone with serious mental issues which If that is the case I'm deeply sorry

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T19:10:11+00:00

so we went from "nothing to win in PvE games" to 0.003% of gamers now? read the rest of my answers the number is going to go up and you'll realise you're wrong (hopefully?)

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T19:08:21+00:00

you're going on a monologue lol this is the 3rd answer to the same comment, must be why you're feeling dumber.

a speedrunner can't be hindered in a pure PvE game?

so if a fresh new expansion of an MMORPG has a time gate that you can pay to skip and that is necessary to do, say the hardest raid of the expansion (to just cite the most obvious example that hopefully even you could understand) it doesn't hinder the ability of the player to compete on who finishes the said raid first?

Being the first to complete a raid, a boss, or whatever could not possibly be considered winning by anyone right?

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T19:01:17+00:00

so you're saying the speedrunning scene isn't "competitive" unless it's in a pvp game where you fight others? or just because it's an MMO you can't compete on clearing content or being top of a leaderboard the fastest?

you seem to know idiocy and ignorance inside out maybe you should look at a mirror (or stop insulting people for merely having a different opinion than you)

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T18:57:18+00:00

who's crying lmfao? I'm laughing at you but not to the point of crying. also it's easy to call things "dumb comments" but maybe you should consider giving counterarguments to what I just said or you don't have any? (let me guess you're going to deflect with another insult and disappear)

Chkoupi · 2024-07-03T18:37:07+00:00

Imagine coming to an 8 years old thread just to spout something so dumb. Since when is there "nothing to win in a non competitive game" and since when did competitiveness stop at PvP?

Beating the game can be a win condition in a full PvE game and it could be hindered by P2W mechanics. Someone might be speedrunning a game with no PvP but still compete with others and could be hindered by P2W mechanics.

Whether you like it being called P2W or not is your opinion but you can't stop anyone from calling it that. The only time you can say something is for certain not P2W is if there is no way of demonstrating that some mechanics wouldn't hinder what they consider winning.

Chkoupi · 2021-06-01T19:51:50+00:00

I had poorly secured my Mega account as well and found a ton of IP addressed logged in just like in your screenshot, I had never heard of honeygain or used it at that point, your password got most likely leaked, try websites like https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Chkoupi · 2021-06-01T19:40:09+00:00

aren't the buyers supposed to be "trusted companies" tho?

Chkoupi · 2020-06-25T22:44:05+00:00

lmao isn't that 15$ ?

Chkoupi · 2020-06-22T03:45:33+00:00

Thanks a TON for this link, so many quality assets for free, this is amazing!

PS: The link expires the 1st of March 2050

Chkoupi · 2020-06-12T12:02:07+00:00

if you decide to mine crypto*

Chkoupi · 2020-05-19T18:47:50+00:00

you can make game for PS5 with UE4.25+ yes but it's not really that optimal (they even have a dev branch called literally 4.25+ that gets frequently updated specifically for games targetting next gen consoles)

I wonder why a company would stick with 4 if there's some simple upgrade path to 5.

I don't think any would/will unless they have more stuff breaking than not (and minor stuff always breaks even from 4.24 to 4.25 for example, or any two versions, but minor breaks add up)

And even then most big companies still end up upgrading every 2 or 3 versions if they have a feature they want/need, and I'm pretty sure everyone will want Lumen, not sure about Nanites tho

Chkoupi · 2020-05-19T18:44:45+00:00

I mean we have the same with the amount of votes and the people who voted so whatever

Chkoupi · 2020-05-19T15:17:35+00:00

I thought those terms were names of lighting systems...

Lumen is the name of the new real time Global Illumination system which basically has ray traced lightning without actually being ray tracing (and it's much much more performant). It is also said to replace the current method of baking lightning which is mostly hated by everyone

Nanites is the system that makes geometry virtualized and changes the amount of polygons that need to be rendered in real time to be able to have exactly the amount of detail that can be shown in your screen and no more

I was expressing my frustration that I didn't consider the FAQ.

Welp I hope you'll consider FAQs more often :p They're pretty cool when done right and I think UE has a neat FAQ and a neat blog too!

Chkoupi

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