KaiyonAlatar graciously asked a few of the alpha testers to be guest bloggers to share some experiences from our point of view. Hope you enjoy our articles from the “other side”.
I have to say, I distinctly remember when one of the Alphateers entered the game for the first time, and I was chuckling with glee as they posted to global (and frankly was also shocked at the time that the game did not crash since global was still being a bit persnickety at the time). The global chat box was filled with OMG’s and Squee’s at the total excitement of this new player. I think I enjoyed it so much because it was it was exactly the way I felt the first time I entered Eleven, but I did not vocalize it to the group. Truth be told, it is how I feel whenever there is an update with new stuff for us to test; except now, I am trying to be a bit better at sharing it with the other players and developers (devs) in global (which, by the way, is much more stable now – the game has come a long way in a few months).
So to write this article, I pondered back to my first day in the game. I remember choking up as the loading screen displayed and I heard that familiar tune. First, I was floored that I was a second round draft pick in Jan 2015. Since I did not really know this dev team, I honestly did not think I would be chosen until maybe closed Beta at the earliest. Second, I still could not believe that the game was being rebuilt. Third, I was excited beyond words since in a few moments I was going to experience the game again.
While waiting for the game to load, I remembered the “’Two Years Past’ or ‘Welcome Home’” blog by KaiyonAlatar that talked about being able to “roam a single street”, “having a long way to go”, and “the most minimal of functions” when they allowed the original alpha testers into the game in Dec 2014. So I thought when I got into the game, I would just see Gregarious Grange and that would probably be it. Maybe, if we were super fortunate at this stage (only a month later), they might have all of Groddle Meadow rebuilt. I remember being a late Alpha tester for Glitch and all we had was Groddle, Ix, and Uralia. So, being in early Alpha for this rebuild, I was expecting that we would all be predominately running around the one street, and just happy to see the game working and having fun with the other testers. It would be a big bonus if we could interact with the various items in game, and huge if we could roam around all of Groddle Meadow. I was nervous because I did not want to be disappointed with my grand expectations.
Holy moly!! Did I completely underestimate the progress this dev team has made – silly me. I could not believe that most of the persistent part of Ur was available to us to run through – not just Gregarious Grange, but ALL of the main map and the Ilmenskie areas. WOW! And then I had my own first day OMG and Squee moments…
OMG, I could change streets, and explore most of Ur again!
OMG, I could water trees.
OMG, I could pet trees.
OMG, I could harvest trees.
Squee, there were cool sounds (some that I didn’t remember) when harvesting trees.
OMG, I could plant seeds in community plots.
OMG, I could dig for peat and scrape barnacles.
OMG, the vendors were around, and I could purchase things from them.
OMG, bags, bags and more bags…and toolboxes too!
Squee, I could jump!
OMG, skills.
OMG, upgrade cards.
Squee, I could make food and drinks!
OMG, mining worked too!
When I started, we were not able to collect quoins. Oh how they taunted us. Hanging there so pretty. We could jump, but it did not have any effect since “collisions” were not implemented yet. Eventually with one of the updates, the quoins did not taunt us any longer, and we were able to interact with them, along with various other portals. It was amazing to see how many things were interconnected based on the way we interacted with them in the game.
Squee, I could jump for quoins again.
OMG, I could now jump into the Big Hole to Ix.
OMG, I could climb the ladder to Groddle and get into Groddle instead of being stopped at the top.
OMG, I could now jump into the snow storm and enter the Wintry Place.
OMG, the dust traps now worked…which meant…Squee we now had herb seeds!!
In the early days of testing, we did not have animals (so sad), and the devs would drop us resources in Gregarious Grange. There were piles of meat, milk, and bales of grain that had to be regularly dropped off so we could test out recipes. Boy, we hated bugging the devs for more stuff to be dropped off since we all knew they had more important things to do to get the game running. At one point, they provided us a tester tool and one of the menu choices was “items” which provided us a stack of that item (meat, milk, grain, emblems, fiber, etc) into our inventories. Finally, the devs no longer had to babysit us for our perpetual resource demands. Eventually, when animals were added to the game, it brought a whole new set of OMG’s and Squee’s.
OMG, I could pet piggies.
OMG, I could nibble piggies.
OMG, I got bacon as an alternate drop to meat from piggies.
Squee, I could squeeze chickens.
Whoa, I could butter up chickens (when did that happen?).
OMG, I could massage and milk butterflies.
Squee, I can pet the helikitties!
Aw, the helikitties purr when you pet them!
However, even though we had animals, we were not able to interact with them in the ways we were used to because we still had some issues with the skills trees. So, the developers provided the testers a special option on our tester tool to be able to complete formerly uncompleteable skills (long story for another blog post maybe). We are now able to learn the higher level animal skills, and even more OMG’s and Squee’s were introduced.
OMG, I could name a whole street of piggies after famous Bacons – Kevin, Sir Francis, Nathaniel (yes, that is usually me).
OMG, I could name the butterflies “Flutter By” again (guilty).
OMG, I could name the chickens evil names because they still will not incubate our eggs yet.
OMG, I can finally get snails by feeding metal to sloths!
Squee, the sloths spit snails again!
There is so much that works in the game now. I cannot really begin to list everything. I still marvel at all the things we CAN do. In just the past few months, so many more things are working than when I first got into the game. While there are still many things for the devs to implement, they have come a long way to piecing Ur back together again for all of us. It is a glorious sight to behold, and they have done an amazing job to get Eleven to where it is today.
But, I am just wondering, what do you think will be your big OMG or Squee when you get back into the game?
EVERYTHING IT WILL BE EVERYTHING OMG OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
This made me smile! What a wonderful post. I’m excited all over again. Omg omg omg!!
Glad you liked it. Hope some of our Alpha tester / Alphateer posts help to keep your excitement high. It really is a marvelous effort that the devs are doing to get our Ur back to all of us!
I forgot to leave my thoughts. Lol I think just seeing that loading screen and hearing the music will be squee-worthy to me. 🙂
Swimming :3 :3 :3 and whistling for fireflies!!
Ooh, yeah, there likely will be swimming, because swimming. So peaceful.
I didn’t know seeds came from dust traps! :O That will be one of the first things I do/make? when I get to play!!!
Looking forward to lots of OMG and squee worthy moments. BTW, who is this guest blogger?
It’s b3achy, one of our alpha testers! http://www.glitchthegame.com/profiles/PCRNB5U8VNS19Q4/
b3achy b3achy b3achy! Go b3achy!
Aw thanks!
Thanks KaiyonAlatar for answering so quickly. Yep, just a humble tester. Honored to be able share some experiences with the Eleven community.
Man, I thought for a second you were opening to more testers. But now that my heart has stilled again…
Mining sparkly in… oh, god, the name escapes me, but the one place where we would get a group and a ton of high level food and jump from rock to rock mining as a group for the max amount of sparkly. And someone always told you when you started to leak sparkly and there was always someone to mourn you when you died.
That’s when I’ll know that the Glitch experience is real again. 🙂 And I can’t wait.
Ajaya Bliss!
Yes!
I had much the same experience. I was absolutely floored that so much was available! The whole world seemed to be Open! I have been playing for some time now and still have not been everywhere, still am not a bit tired of exploring and discovering. I was floored that I could actually learn skills. I figured it would be many months before that would happen. I was an Alpha tester for Glitch and just about the only thing I could do there that I can’t do in Eleven is ride the Sub. When I entered the Alpha in March 2011, the Sub was very new, less than a month I think. I knew almost nothing about Glitch and was hesitant to play a game with a Subway – Lol! I figured if it had a Subway that is must be some sort of Urban Exploring/Living game and that held no interest for me. Was I so wrong! Now Eleven has brought to us, to me, much of that same excitement and wonder that I found in 2011. There is literally a World of things to do and see and I congratulate the Eleven Devs on all of the amazing work they do to bring back this World. I could go on and on about this but I must sqeeze some chickens. They are waiting for me because they remember their “Chicken Queen”!
Hooray! Well done, fellow Alphateer.
Cannot wait to fall seemingly forever down The Drop in Ilmenskie Caverns! And play in the snow under the moonlight on the streets of Nottis and Drifa.
Jumping!!!! I can’t wait to jump again!! Waves to b3achy and Brib!!
Omg why cant i just be patient … well its worth a wait but
Congrats with all youv’e done! its been a long way and my OMG sqee will be everywhere when the game is finally released lol
Geez can’t wait for my own sqee moments, you did fab job writing this my friend 🙂 And I would love to OMG OMG with you too soon , thanks for the update 🙂
Thanks for all the kind words, and thanks to everyone who has posted some of their anticipated OMG moments already! ~Waving to Friends~ Look forward to reading more posts of other’s moments too. It’s a wild ride with some phenomenal devs, wonderful Alphateers, and I think I can safely say, we all look forward to more of you joining us in game in the future. Squeee!!
Is there following? My favourite things in Glitch usually involved following.
It’s not yet available in the current game server (if I remember correctly, it requires some pathfinding functions that aren’t yet implemented), but we definitely plan to get following working.
I feel like since I found Eleven, I am remembering more and more things that I want to do: writing notes, petting trees, scraping ice nubbins, blending aforementioned ice nubbins (+ hooch and elements) into sno cones, emoting, mining, getting all the gems from mining, fighting the rook (once my stats and skills are up to snuff), dying, mourning and celebrating the dead… just so many things. I feel like everything will be an OMG moment. Even just hearing the startup music and seeing the demos is exciting.
BUT I think the biggest OMG moment will be getting a response from someone in game. Like, “Wow, there are people here and they are talking to me! WOW!!”
Awww thanks so much for sharing what it feels like in game. I really miss that feeling of excitement EVERY time I logged in.
In the early days my OMG was to see what my newly learned skills meant I could now do – like mining quickly (Ah, Ajaya Bliss), and petting ALL the piggies.
In the later days, exploring all the new lands, swimming, tincturing (I still love the tinkly tune played while my concoctions, well, concocted), finding the quirks and beauty in every street.
Secret quoins – those hard to find quoins that hovered just out of sight but were worth LOADS of img, or energy, or favour.
Even just the Level Up screen – that little fanfare which made my tummy jump with excitement.
The thing is, Glitch for me was every bit OMG, and that’s why I can’t wait to join Eleven – and I’m so grateful to you all for bringing us any snippets you can to keep that spirit alive. Thank you so much <3.
OMG omg… how do I get into the Alpha. I’m totally here to help.
Squeeeeeee
Like many others here -it’s to do everything again , with my friends. do not think i can choose only one fave thing. I seriously need some glitch hugs ( totally mean that in a serious, real, way!) . I really miss my house and decorating it. and parties- any of them ,in a party room , or an invite to just meet up somewhere and have a street party, or a block party in the housing areas. the crazy costume party contest was awesome . Naming critters funny things. I miss all the beautiful places to go , (so many streets and places that were just so lovely to look at) . I loved the snow areas! giving to others- loved to walk by a sleeping glitch and shove something in their pocket. or meet a new glitch and give them a bag of stuff, or drop presents on all my neighbors doorsteps. 😉 thank you for the updates !
omg… Three years in and no apparent strategic plans or targets; it’s still a sandbox. Need less folks in alpha and more folks creating beta.
Right now my OMG Squeeee moment would be hearing the loading tune and watching the loading screen, ummmm, load! There are so many things I want to do when I get in world. but I can wait. Thank you for sharing what it’s like. Hi b3achy, Hi Brib!