Who needs professional QA testers when gamers will just volunteer their labor for free? That’s basically what Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has been doing ever since developer Visionary Realms announced its focus tester group program back in May. And apparently that volunteer test group has been doing some good work.
The MMO’s dozen focus testers have logged over 300 hours of testing time since the beginning of June, filing 150 bug reports for the studio to act upon immediately and generating over 72 pages of targeted feedback when testing for terrain and collision issues. These volunteers have been so helpful to Visionary Realms that it plans to expand the pool this fall; those who can carve out two to three hours of unpaid testing over the course of three months can sign up here.
Meanwhile, lead designer Chris Perkins has penned a dev blog about Pantheon’s design tenets to once again clarify what it considers “not just as lofty ideals but as grounded design positions.” That includes making a group-centric MMORPG, rewarding risk, leaning into item rarity as a major facet of its economy, and “forge bonds that matter” among players, which Perkins asserts has been lost in the modern MMO landscape.
