Since there’s apparently a large enough demographic that doesn’t want to have an Early Access program because they’d be put behind in content, levels, and money, would it be a good idea to just make the first server that people pay to be on be the default test server? I mean Ragnarok had Sakray(I think) and League of Legends has PBE, I think it would help introduce changes to the games that not everyone would be okay with as well as making sure they don’t just accidentally post something huge to the main game without people being aware.
Two things to address:
People who want to test the game, find the bugs, and make it better would literally be in the best position to do so. You’d be the front line of letting IMC and the community know what changes work, what doesn’t, and offering suggestions as to how the game could be improved. Access could be limited to the initial founders and then by application if there aren’t enough people getting on to test the content so that IMC could gate how many people were on at a time to not have to worry about spending a ton on server costs for it. Maybe there could even be a title offered account-wide to people who help test the game enough, for people who like that thing.
People who want to get a head start on everyone else and play in a less populous environment, this is literally the server for you. You’d be the first to know about every change, figure out every advantage you could gain, and bring all that knowledge into the more populous servers to get ahead of the general public. Or you could just live mainly on the test server, mostly only interacting with other friends who made it onto the server as well as other testers who are either really enthusiastic about making the game better for everyone or other testers who are really enthusiastic about exploring every nook and cranny of the new update to see what they could gain from it.
If there is anything I’m missing, let me know. I like playing with ideas and I felt that this one was a good enough suggestion to merit some publicity. I was looking for a good existing thread to put this in, but they’re mostly so heavily bogged down with negativity I decided to make this one. If there’s already something like this out there… Oops? 