Why do content creators get early access to the seasons and expansions.

Us regular players paid the bucks to get early access to the pre release game already so having to put up with them playing the game ahead of us all is just darn mean.

You can say oh, they are influencers and promote the new version. As a player who has for the most part bought Supporters Packs every league for both POE I and II to support GGG and in many cases have have been playing longer then some of the content creators have been playing.

You may say why don't create content yourself. But as a 64 year old guy I am too old and ugly to do that, plus as a software developer myself I am still working fulltime, no time.

I think you should give earlier access to people who but early supporter packs to reward them, like you did with the keys.

I am sure this comes across as whining, but after seeing it league after league, expansion after expansion it is just frustrating. OK, I am done...with the post, not playing of course.

ShavedDome

I'm struggling to think of an example where an influencer has played a new season before it was available to everyone else. Do you have a specific influencer or example where this has happened? Or are you referring to something outside of new seasonal content?

Of course now that you asked, I have tried to find one by searching YouTube and I am not finding it. Lately when I see the thumbnail of one and the person says they got to play the new version I don't click on them because I want to see for myself.

I swear I have seen it in the past. I will look again and will post the video link. It seems that the content creators get a version of the game ahead about 7 to 10 days before the regular players.

Again, if I am wrong I apologize.

Regardless, after looking at the two full supporter packs I have decided to get both of them. A first for me. I have bought both smaller ones some leagues but never the full ones. They are sweet looking this time.

ShavedDome

Yes the supporter packs are sweet looking! They did a great job on these and I'm excited for this league to launch.

If you find where a creator gets early access make sure to post it and I'll be on the lookout as well. I have seen a few people who acted like they did but then were faking it. I want to encourage you though that I don't think that is a common thing and that at the start of a new league everyone should prettymuch be in the same boat. For me that's part of what makes new league launches such a good time.

The only way I can think of a content creator getting to play before us was when they play tested Path of Exile 2, is that perhaps what you mean? If that's the case, that was uploaded to YouTube to explain the game and its early mechanics, but they weren't allowed to play outside of the GGG offices for showing it off, they had to wait for its release like everyone else.

If you mean being more efficient and getting to endgame faster than the average player, that's to be expected when they're playing 20+ hours on release day. Either way, they would be able to get ahead. Never in my entire time playing this game have I heard of streamers playing 'earlier' than anyone else, except for the debacle shown here, in Ultimatum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOg317nIuto

That went about as well as you'd expect! https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/msbud0/ggg_streamer_priority_in_queue/

Because every league there is inevitably a thread along the lines of "DO YOU NOT EVEN TEST THIS BEFORE IT GOES LIVE WHAT ARE YOU DOING GGG" and "X STREAMER DID THIS ON STREAM AND ITS REALLY DISRUPTIVE" so if a streamer did that on test and it wasn't reported or anything and it was legitimately disruptive they can eat a ban about it.

So I understand the economy of it, they get testers, they get hard data, they get early feedback, they get to basically do a confidence run. Don't know if I like it.

there used to be an alpha realm right? you could see who was an alpha tester on here it had the title beneath their name and they played some stuff early. but i dont think it was a full league expansion type thing, they alpha tested some changes. im fairly sure i saw a ziz video on youtube recently where he spoke about testing something in the past?

some of the alpha testers were also content creators. im not sure its a thing any more. but ggg is also quite vocal about not letting people solve metas and such before day 1 so that everyone is on an even playing field so i presume whatever gets tested is not critical stuff?

dunno. my memory is absolutely shite so i might have just made all that up but afaik thats all true? maybe?

Ziggy gets to do some first hand playtesting, but he's part of the interviews and provides us with previews of some things. You probably mean that. I honestly don't mind it. It's a privilege he earned.

It's literally also the only thing i can think of.

Ziggy D has been around POE since the early 2010s and it's a coordinated sneak peak first playthrough with some mild spoilers which you could just not watch.
I would be surprised if the guy would content milk that with a dozens videos before everybody else gets the chance to play. it's probably just one video that everybody else then uses for their content or to react comment on.

I mean isn't he basicly a GGG employee? So he does his job basicly?

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Strickl3r#3809 wrote:

it's probably just one video that everybody else then uses for their content or to react comment on.

It's like one or two or so. I watched a few of his videos and what he mainly does is talk about a skill and how it plays during the campaign and stuff. That is also what got Kinetic Rain nerfed.

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Strickl3r#3809 wrote:

I mean isn't he basicly a GGG employee? So he does his job basicly?

I'm not up-to-date on this, but as I recall, he was offered but declined at first. I think he has since moved to New Zealand and is working for/with GGG now. I'm not interested enough to verify.