Just curious how this process of creating Novus with help from the Internet is coming?
Pretty good so far.
I see there are "only" 79 members. Is that "good", "bad" or "a non-issue"? Are there "too many cooks in the kitchen"? Or not enough cooks?
Not really an issue. I expect that the numbers will go up as more and more folks find out about Novus and/or want to participate more. Things will also pick up once I start getting more products out there, especially the setting that is in development.
Is the game forming the way you had hoped?
For the most part yes. Feedback from the playtesters has been great and speeded up initial development immensely. Right now we are simply going through a few tweaks. At some point, however, I have to stop and say enough tweaks (I am a tinker by nature, so I have to force myself to actually stop doing that).
Are you getting enough feedback, and enough good feedback?
All honest feedback is good feedback. And I can always use more feedback. More information gives me a broader viewpoint, and helps to find where there might be issues that the playtesters miss.
That is one of the dangers of playtesting. No matter how good your playtesters are (and the playtesters for Novus have been excellent), there is always the chance that they missed something - usually because of being too intimate with the material (i.e. their minds fill in things and thus they don't realize something is missing), or their play style just doesn't happen to come across something that might be an issue (for example, it was only recently that it was noticed that the equipment lists were missing instruments, and we realized that ONLY because one playtester decided to give the Minstrel class a try and couldn't find them).
One of the main reasons for having an Open Beta is to make provide the general public the chance to find those things that we might have missed (I am far, far from perfect, so the backup is welcome).
How many people are actually playtesting Novus?
The alpha playtesters are listed on the credits page. Everybody who has gotten Novus since it was released slightly over 2 months ago could also be considered a playtester (and those who provide a good amount of feedback can be added to the playtester list). So, we currently have a potential playtester pool of well over 1,000 people, and it grows almost every day.
