Alpha / Beta definition

We won't be forcing people to sign NDAs. We will not be releasing the server during alpha though so we will have complete control over who can access the game. We can always cut ban people who do bad stuff.

We will probably have some watermarking on the screen at all times that tells us which account created any video as well.

Probably a big flashing alpha across the screen too (just kidding but maybe in the corner).

Sounds Legit.

Mike

Pretty much what I expected.

Thanks for the info Neutrino!

Keyed watermarks, that's evil-genius level stuff there.

that'd have to be a fairly large watermark to be effective...

Not reall,y as far as Uber is concerned all that's needed is that they can read the Watermark that's all they need.

Mike

GET YOUR FANCY HTML 5 TECH OUT OF MY GAME MAVOR.

Not exactly hard to cover up an ID number. Unless it's only there to catch people unintentionally breaking rules, it's a waste of effort.

Its really easy with the UI tech.

Didn't mean to imply that it'd be hard. I'm just saying: For an ID to be useful for catching people intentionally breaking the rules, it'd have to be obtrusively large.

I'm all for a flashing "THIS IS ALPHA FOOTAGE/THIS DOESN'T REFLECT THE FINAL PROJECT/BLABLA" text at the top of the screen, and sending warnings to people accidentally breaking the rules.

Rather than a watermark (which people might obscure), use an abstract element that seems harmless, like the name of planets.

^

I find nick's suggestion good enough.

I've been in alpha tests before, everything but the loading times were optimized, there were no units, and the economy was nonexistant. This was wargaming's ides of an alpha. My idea of one... "YES, I GET TO SEE WHITE BLURRY CUBES SHOOTING UNTEXTURED LASERS!" We all don't know what to expect until Friday. I think everyone will appreciate the game in alpha, no matter how "ugly" it is.

I'm not for an NDA... And I have a simple way to solve these problems. A webpage on the PA website with a flashing "this is alpha footage and does not reflect..." And a community alpha video collection. This way, nobody must leak videos, uber can moderate them on their own website.

It's too bad WebKit doesn't support <blink> tags.

This higly depend on the watermarking technology used.
A friend of mine was working on that for a big compagny, and watermarked videos.
The info was scattered in the picture data, and absolutly invisible.
To get the ID back, you had to take a screenshot of the video, pass it trough a special soft and "tadaaa", you got the ID of the leaked video.
And this watermark was easly obtainable even after some very heavy compression.

Can I use that GIF as a signature? I think it's brilliant.

As long as you don't mind me blocking it...

Works with 144p?

That's just steganography. I have a few ideas on how to extract watermarks. I know exactly how I'd get around them too, but I won't be sharing that.