Hi all, As many backers of Atom Universe will know, codes are now being sent out for the PS4 alpha test to backers who request stage 2 access, so what better time to give you all a preview of how the alpha build is coming along on the PS4.First off you can tell the interface and menu system as been made with VR in mind, why it might work great for VR i'm not to sure it works for everyday controller use with some users having reported it makes them feel motion sick using the menus with a controller, due to fact the hand icon stays center of the screen and the background moves. As you can see from the images above you can now pick to go between the public space, personal space or to the shooting gallery, you can also pick your outfits highlight color (whats a neon glow on the outfit), you can not yet pick your gender or edit your display name. Once in world, the graphics are good for a social platform, even if it does seem to have too much lighting effects at night time, but the day and night cycle is nice to have. Right now you can only play using the Eve avatar, and why she does have good detail and moving hair, i personally feel it's a real shame that Atom do not plan to support being able to edit your avatar's look to after the game is launched. As of typing keyboard support is broken in the PS4 build, but with having had access to the steam build for a few month now, i feel the chat system still as much work to be done to make it much better, due to fact you can not move with the chat log open and that you can only type about 5 words at once and can not scroll the log, but after all it is still a alpha so is loads of time for everyone to give feedback on just how it should work. Looking around the main Hub space, you will see a number of the planned games from Bowling to water slides and shooting galleries, you will also see many seats where you can take a rest and talk with friends, plus a few ball's you can kick about the space. Right now only Crowbots (Disco space) & the Shooting Gallery work, with the other games still being work in progress. But to get a better feel of how it's coming along, be sure to watch our video tour below and like always be sure to comment and give your feedback on Atom Universe and give your likes and dislikes, along with ideas on how to make it better, because the alpha stage is the perfect time to help shape the final outcome of Atom Universe. Disclaimer: These images or video represent a Pre-Release Build of the game Atom Universe in it’s Alpha stage of development. This build is incomplete and full of bugs; it is by no means representative of the final quality of the game at the time of release. It is an exclusive reward to thank Atom Universe backers, and to test the gameplay functionalities. Content is not final.
Yeah, I did felt a bit disappointed with not switching to a male gender (I thought my controller was suddenly broken or had no power). I also experienced the same with what Carla has posted - chat doesn't work, only two games work, etc. Of course, this isn't a final project, but it felt like a huge disappointment at first glance. However, the backgrounds were nice, the daylight/night time features were cool, and having the disco room was like having a past version of their Discotheque private/club space back from the PS Home days. The shooting gallery was fun as well, and the animations of the rides around me was very well detailed too. I've also noticed that we couldn't see what we have on our possession - like those VIP collars when we're testing the alpha version. Not sure if the collars we have already were the VIPs or not. I did check but it wasn't engraved. Also, as for rewards go, they haven't planned on making any yet, so don't expect something out of Halloween for you. In addition, my PS4 fan had been going nuts whenever I moved into a new space. Have any of you experienced that as well? It looked as though the system was going to malfunction at any moment. Going back to the hub or main menu did stop the fan's power though. Maybe it had to go through all those loading processes that caused it. Right now, I'm giving this a 5 out of 10 stars. Still needs more improvement, of course, but that's to be expected.
Very nice video! I just have a quick question though. I had seen Dena, AU's Community Manager, mention something about making gameplay videos "unlisted" on YouTube, so they were not listed to the general public on YouTube channels, but still accessible by the public if the URL to the videos are provided, which would be the case if you embedded the unlisted video here for users to view, i.e. the video would still appear here just fine, but just would not appear under the list of videos on the YouTube channel. Here is the quote from Dena from the AU forums that was in response to someone posting a video to report a bug:"We would like to ask you if, in the future when you video bugs for reporting, you can please make sure they are not listed and made available to the public on YouTube during the closed alpha stage of testing."Now understood this video was a review and not dedicated to showing bugs/glitches, but within it, you may be showing some bugs/issues indirectly even if you don't explicitly state that. Or viewers may derive that themselves. This recently came up on the AU Forums as well and it seems there are some grey areas here and wanted to ask about if you had maybe gotten some special permission that would be the exception to the aforementioned instructions from Dena. I have contacted her just now to confirm, but wanted to reach out to you as well. Still, great video and thank you for sharing your review of the AU Alpha here.
Additionally, I think to be fair to the AU Community, everyone should be treated equally and so if other members are asked to make their videos unlisted, I think everyone should. I just wanted to bring that up as well if the response is going to be that an exception was made for YPSH because I already have a member of the AU Community saying he thinks that would be unfair to have any exceptions. Hopefully this makes sense and thank you again for sharing the video and testing the Alpha!
Sorry tbaby, but Dena has never said anything to me and knows about the video and as you can guess i speak direct to both Dena and Tanguy also, so they are welcome to ask me to edit if they wish. I really don't need you trying to tell me, what i should and should not be doing, not with your history/background.
Ok, I understand Dena didn't say anything to you directly about it and there is nothing wrong with the content. I was only asking about making the video listed or not listed because that is what she said on the forums. I also talk to both Tanguy and Dena about things. As I posted here previously, I helped design the default avatars, Adam and Eve, and so I have worked with them on Atom Universe. I wasn't telling you to do anything, I was merely asking if that made sense based on quotes that Dena posted to the AU Forums and so that came from her not me. As you can imagine, she is very busy and doesn't have time to reach out to everyone directly about every issue. As one of the Cosmic Pathfinders for AU, I was just trying to help as other community members are asking about it and also emailed her too. So all I was asking if Dena said something to you about an exception being made for YPSH versus other community members like the one Dena posted to on the forums telling him to make his video unlisted. If you go on the AU site, I can show you the posts there so you can see them and see that I'm not just making things up. When this was mentioned to another community member, the 1st thing he said was: well YPSH did it so why can't i?" And that has caused some disruption and we don't want that among our Community members and that is my primary concern here. I think we should all either make them unlisted or not. Hopefully you understand what I am saying. The other AU community member I just mentioned is also a member of this site and I was just now going to refer him to my posts here as we have been messaging each other this morning. Please understand we just want fairness within the AU Community and think we all need to follow the same "rules". I understand you cannot take my word on it's own, which is why I quoted Dena for you so you would see it was not my words. In any case we have both reached out to her for clarification on this and hope to hear back soon. My initial though was an exception was made for YPSH and that's all I was really trying to ask you if that was the case.
I think the listing videos is ONLY for videos that are directly being made to report bugs and not of videos being made to help promote the platform, listing a video that's made to promote as unlisted would greatly remove its value of being made to promote. Because unlisted can only be viewed via a direct link, so you lose the value of people coming across it via a search what is a lot more traffic. As for fairness within the community, the same could be said for you in helping design the default avatars, I don't recall others getting a say in how they looked, so you could say that's not fair to the community. You will never make a 100% fair community and trying to do so will lead to more problems than good with people becoming self made mouths of the community, going around trying to police a community, that's one of the big problems Home ended up with, self made police who tried to control and tell others what they could and could not do, both inworld and on it's forums. Again let's talk fairness in community, is it fair others get more of a say into how things get made than others based on how much money they give? See you can never be 100% because things get based on benefits they bring to the table.
Understood about the promotion piece. What I am saying is that there could be grey areas as to what would be considered promoting versus reporting an issue. For example, I could entitle the video as "AU Tour" and for the first few minutes, I give a tour of some space and then a few minutes later, I start showing bugs and glitches, which would seen like more of a "bug report". That is my point in saying that where do you draw the line so that you can enforce a rule about a video being listed versus unlisted so that it can be enforced. To me it seems like it is asking for trouble like a loop hole waiting to be abused or exploited. Yes, I understand your video has been up for a while, but this issue just came to light today when another member uploaded a video of gameplay for the alpha and based on what know and what I seen Dena say to others, I thought he should have made the video unlisted. So we then had a discussion about it and he brought up your video as an example saying that yours was not listed and so his shouldn't be. That's how the discussion started and ambiguity began and why we both reached out to Dena to ask her what we are supposed to do. I understand they knew about your video and they never said anything. But maybe at the time, Dena didn't think about it until she saw the bug report videos. Also, in past discussions with Dena, she told me that she thought it was better to NOT have "grey areas". For example, one of the rules the AU Community has is to not post external links in the shout box for advertising purposes. When I posted a link going to my Extra Life donation page which is obviously a charity and not for profit or to benefit me in any way. In discussing that with Dena she said she could make an exception for this situation, but she said if she did, then she may have to make other exceptions in the future and wanted to avoid that and thought it better to stick to the rule being black and white no matter what the external link was and how good a cause is, etc. And so I agreed to it and that was that. I bring that up as an example because in this case we are faced with a similar situation. should there be exceptions? Or should it be black and white? Exceptions being, "tour" video versus "bug report videos. So to make it black and white, I would think any Alpha gameplay video should be unlisted. That to me would make it easier to enforce and not have to worry about the debate of... "oh but my video is really a tour video not just reporting bugs so can I have mine listed on my YouTube channel?" Do you see how some people could abuse that? Maybe they want to make sure they can get the video listed so they can have it public to get more hits or subscribers on their channel without having to do as much work as you did for your tour video? Idk, something like that or other reasons I can see people trying to exploit it. So instead of going thru all that, simply make a black and white rule: all videos of Alpha Gameplay should be unlisted. Easy to understand. No room for interpretation. And you're done. As far as promoting the game, does that need to be done during the Alpha stage when its still buggy and all that? IMO no. That seems more appropriate for an open Beta. We are lucky that the Alpha testers aren't under an NDA like those in the pre-alpha. That was considered but since this was a reward for qualified backers/donators, Atom Republic decided not to have an NDA for the Alpha. Yes, what you are saying is true about the assistance of designing the avatars. I was asked if I could help based on my knowledge and modeling experience and so I accepted. There are many different members who have been asked to do different things. Not everything can be decided by committee and allow everyone to have a say. That would be virtually impossible and very time consuming. Then with all the extra time it would take, how about all the people demanding the game to be delivered yesterday? Wouldn't that further hurt that cause? So yes, sometimes you have to select certain individuals to do certain things based on their skills, knowledge, or experience. So in the case of the default avatar design, that is exactly what was done. Could they have also asked for input from everyone? They certainly could have. Would that have made the process take longer? Probably. And with all the extra time taken and the money that might cost, that would probably impact the project severely. So which is the better approach for that? Design by committee or selected individual? Therefore in this case, I don't think it is a question about fairness. I think it is a matter of efficiency, time, and cost in the interest in meeting demands of customers and a planned timeline. That's just business and so I think the approach was IMO correct. As far as the donations allowing access to the alpha so they can test. Yes, that is a reward for backing the project. Maybe some think that is wrong, but IMO think it is a good reward. Development costs money and isn't free and so my opinion is that the approach being taken is also a good one. Others who didn't support the project via donations but in other ways may feel that they could still help with testing and that may seem unfair to them that they aren't given a chance to test in return for all their supportive efforts. I understand that too. But I guess like you said, nothing can be 100% fair. I think in this case, IMO it is closer to fair than not.
Promo videos in this stage can help for a number of factors. It shows the projects moving forwards. It highlights the project to people who then might donate to atom via paypal. It keeps the project in people minds, thats why Nebula seem to put news out right after Atom do as they try and put Nebula back in peoples minds. As for promo vs bug reports. Its clear what ones are for what use and personally i feel people are trying to add to many controllering factors to Atom and i have stressed this to Tanguy before. To many rules will lead to problems and to many to control little details will kill a community as people become to scared to do stuff incase they break one of the 1000 rules set up. Like all this unlisted vs listed. Why control it? Whats the point. The video can still be seen by people, unlisted just makes it that little bit harder. Whats to gain from a video being unlisted if say i made a new video and tweeted it and did a youtube message, it would still be seen by 1000's. If its about control of showing bugs then all bug videos should be private and shared direct with tanguy.
Yes, I can see how promo videos at this stage can help. I guess I'm not against it. I was surprised when I saw Dena make that comment to the member on the forums about making his video unlisted. The member actually misunderstood and made it private instead of unlisted, giving permission only to Dena using her email address, which I tried to explain to him wasn't necessary, but he hasn't replied yet lol >.< Making it private would be tough because then you have to give all the email addresses who need access to the owner of the video. I'm not sure if all the developers wish to give out their email addresses even if Tanguy and Dena or other staff members have theirs publicized. It just seemed kind of tedious and so I think making the bug report videos unlisted seems like an easier approach IMO for everyone involved. But yea, all the reasons you listed about promo videos at this stage being helpful during this stage do make sense to me. It's ultimately not my decision so I guess I'll wait to hear back from Dena to see what she says. I didn't discuss this with Tanguy as I know he has been very busy and I've been going through Dena for most things recently as we were told she has been empowered to answer most of our questions on his behalf. So I hadn't spoken directly with Tanguy in a few weeks now. As far as being able to tell the difference between a promo video and a bug report video, in general I agree with you that it should be easy to tell and with most people who know what they are doing, it would be. But you know how that goes. There are always these other people that don't fully understand and mix the 2 together or might (as I mentioned in my previous post) try to abuse/exploit that, which I understand is the case with many rules in general. I guess that's why I thought it would be easier to just make it cut & dry so to speak and just require all Alpha gameplay videos to be unlisted so no one would have to worry about making the distinction in the one-off situations when it is unclear. For example, I could make my video appear as a promo one via a title or description, but then within it show all these bugs and glitches. I'm not saying everyone would do that. I'm just saying it's a possibility and so if there are any concerns about such situations, it might be easier to just have one rule that applies to both. Personally I wish I had seen your video earlier so if anything were to change with making it listed or not, it wouldn't be as big an impact. The video has over 1800 views and so what you are saying about getting the game on people's radars is entirely valid with as many members that YPSH has and the popularity of it amongst the community. I watched the video and it is done very well IMO and if it wasn't for the "Alpha" text, I would think we were watching a true promo video. As far as too many rules being added for Atom, I have seen this come about more recently around the Alpha. For example, we are not allowed to discuss the Alpha in the shout box on the site and many new users aren't aware. I didn't even know about it until one day I happened to be in the shout box and Dena signed in and typed in the shout box that we weren't supposed to be chatting about it there. It's weird though because it's not mentioned anywhere on the forums so I actually created a topic today about it asking if it should be temporarily added to the Shout Box rules. One of the issues I saw is some of these rules are "unspoken" and so not everyone knows. You would only know if you saw a certain post or word of mouth or if a staff member happened to tell you about it. And I agree with what you are saying about too many rules in general and how that could cripple a community if they become scared to break one if there become too many. I really hope that doesn't become the case with AU. Really I only started to see it becoming more of an issue recently around the Alpha. Maybe Atom Republic is just trying to be cautious about it since an Alpha is a testing stage and they are worried about people getting the wrong idea. Remember what happened with the PS4 demo several months ago and how it was removed from the PlayStation Store? I understand they thought it was too much time consuming for them to keep updating it in parallel with the PC demo since they had to go through Sony's QA each time, but they also mentioned how the community totally misunderstood the purpose and criticized the PS4 demo (which wasn't even a pre-alpha build) beyond it's actual intent. My thought is that they are worried that similar things could happen with the Alpha and I raised that concern when it was announced that the Alpha was going to be opened up to any qualified backer/donator (as long as they donated enough money). As you know an Alpha is typically only accessed by a very small group and is typically more private and so what is being done now is probably not what you would consider "normal". But due to things taking longer than expected (which has unfortunately seemed to have happened a few times) the original plan for the qualified backers/donators to get access to the Beta was changed. I was concerned about this and expressed that on the AU Forums (didn't mention it directly to staff). As I mentioned to your previously, I (and I'm sure several others, including Atom Republic) appreciate our feedback and input very much and thank you for your help in testing the game and sharing your video. Again, I wish to apologize for coming across as saying you were doing anything wrong or telling you to had to change something immediately. I was only trying to inquire based on what another community member asked me as I mentioned in my previous post. No worries though and again, thank you for all your support of the AU project and assistance in testing.
You needed to have been a kickstarter of paypal backer of the project, the alpha is a very limited closed test for them people only right now.
Donations for gaining access to the Alpha stopped being accepted on December 31, 2015. However, Atom Republic are holding trivia contests for which the prizes are codes to access the Alpha. They hold Tuesday Trivia contests every week on their Twitter account (http://atomrepublic.com/AtomRepublic) and Facebook page (Atom Republic). Winners are announced on the following day. Also, last month they started trivia contests on their forum site (AtomUniverse). Last month's winners were just announced on January 22, 2016 (January Forum Trivia Contest - WINNERS ANNOUNCED!) This month's contest on the forums hasn't been announced yet.
No release date has been announced yet. The game is still in Alpha, but the goal was to have the Early Access (open beta) released in the 1st quarter of this year. There have been delays though and so that may not happen. The latest update from Atom Republic as far as the release can be found in the their latest dev blog: Welcome to Atom Republic's blog: DevBlog #5 The Arcade Plaza
