You're not getting my point.
My point has NOTHING to do with the limited manpower available for the game's development, nothing to do with the fact that this is an alpha.
It has everything to do with proper processes for software development. The processes you follow whether you have 1 guy on your project, 2, 10, or 100.
As for volunteering my time, if you'd like to let me take a peek at your QA/best practices manual, I'd be happy to poke around with it and see what can be improved.
I mean, you guys are following a standardized guide as to how changes are implemented, tracked, and chosen, right?
That document, your bible, doesn't have any line in it that says "Don't let the player pick a skill that hasn't been put ingame yet"?
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On a side note, a point as to my tone/attitude.
In case you haven't noticed, this forum, and many of your "New Player FAQ" documents, etc., all take a very imperious tone with newbies. Things like "If you've asked a question that's already been answered 100 times, prepare to be ignored".
"That's more than a little condescending," I thought to myself, "But hey, they've got a serious development process going on here, I suppose it's fair of them to be harsh with the newbies about etiquette and the like."
And then I pop into the game, ready to alpha test, put my QA skills to work, contribute my part to continued development - and after playing the game for only 10 minutes, it hits me that the devs are completely out to lunch when it comes to utilizing their alpha testers for valuable feedback.
This is so much more important because of the limited dev resources, not less! Why squander the few resources you have by implementing changes in a way that make them difficult to test?
I feel like if I'm willing to take the role of tester seriously by putting up with the condescending tone spelled out toward newbies here, the devs should take their role seriously by implementing changes in a way that's convenient to test.