Alpha

=Overview= The Alpha phase of testing for Camelot Unchained is focused on the Unchained Engine, stability, and laying a solid foundation for later phases of testing. It came after the initial Pre-Alpha Tests or P.A.T. phase, and prior to the Beta testing phases.

Technical Alpha
Alpha is the second phase of development of Camelot Unchained after the P.A.T.s, when anyone with an Alpha account can play during scheduled or impromptu tests. This is considered an "old school Alpha", which means that it is a true Technical Alpha, and far from a finished game, unlike many modern definitions of Alpha. It opened on March 11th, 2015, and will continue until the first phase of Beta begins, called Beta 1.

NDA
Alpha is currently under NDA, which means, in brief:
 * No re-streaming (or streaming) content.
 * No posting information except in the appropriate CSE forum.
 * No screen-caps of the gameplay anywhere except in the permissible CSE forum (Some sections are restricted to Alpha, or IT).

City State Entertainment affiliated with the popular streamer CohhCarnage to share their first Alpha footage on March 28th, 2015, and he is expected to stream more gameplay. At some point the NDA will lift and other sharing will be possible.

The Basics
Alpha is held at scheduled times, during which anyone who has an account with Alpha access can play and test, which might mean anything from logging in and out, running around, or even participating in a control point game in a battleground-like area. The zone was enlarged to 25 times the Pre-Alpha size with all new terrain, and the size of the world and the Islands continues to grow. Numerous new features were added to enrich the game from the previous Pre-Alpha testing, such as keeps and structures around the control points, the ability system v1 and later "re-abilitiation", basic sounds, improvements to the PhysX system, and the engine rendering, the ability to drop a light in the world, sun and moons added, and C.U.B.E.. The C.U.B.E. environment is accessible 24/7 even when the regular servers are offline. Alpha tests usually take place on the Wyrmling server (the production server), on the stable build. Alpha tests have accommodated large numbers of players and bots, or rather CSE's Bots, which mimic player clients, without noticeable server lag. Many, many more features are constantly added to Alpha at this time, and can be found in the User Stories, which list the specifics of the features, and provide a detailed picture of the progress being made.