[57th]cneal
Veteran X
Imposter said:
We wouldn't have bought the game Imposter and if nobody buys the game then Sierra has no reason to spend more money. It's a pretty good deal IMO.
Anyone else think an open beta is a bad idea?
- Thread starter Imposter
- Start date
We wouldn't have bought the game Imposter and if nobody buys the game then Sierra has no reason to spend more money. It's a pretty good deal IMO.
I think the whole point of an open beta is to prevent a disaster in gameplay like Tribes 2 had.
I highly doubt Irrational's intention of an open beta is because of an increased chance of finding bugs. It was probably more along the lines of an increased chance to fix gameplay issues that made the game, *gasp*, not fun.
Having an in-house Q&A team is great for finding specific issues and testing for specific things. But in the end Q&A can do NOTHING to help balance a game.
Closed betas are great for both. Players are usually told what to do for a day, two or even a week. They are also capable of catching smaller balance issues in the immediate game. Closed betas are also great for finding those terrible show-stopper bugs and crashes.
However closed betas, in my opinion, can not effectively catch some of the more serious gameplay and game balance issues. This is why I think Irrational is choosing to have an open beta.
I highly doubt Irrational's intention of an open beta is because of an increased chance of finding bugs. It was probably more along the lines of an increased chance to fix gameplay issues that made the game, *gasp*, not fun.
Having an in-house Q&A team is great for finding specific issues and testing for specific things. But in the end Q&A can do NOTHING to help balance a game.
Closed betas are great for both. Players are usually told what to do for a day, two or even a week. They are also capable of catching smaller balance issues in the immediate game. Closed betas are also great for finding those terrible show-stopper bugs and crashes.
However closed betas, in my opinion, can not effectively catch some of the more serious gameplay and game balance issues. This is why I think Irrational is choosing to have an open beta.
[57th]cneal said:
They did try they where ignored.
[57th]cneal said:
Trust me there were tons and tons of beta reports. Nothing was done about them, or we where told the same thing everyone was told upon release "it works on the computer in our lab".
I saw very little that came up after the game was released that was not reported in beta. If I recall correctly at one point we where told to stop reporting the bugs.
Pogo makes a good point in that the engine the game is built on is already known to be pretty damn stable. So we shouldn't see too many UE's 
One of the things I didn't like when T2 came out was how every damn week the game CHANGED. Gravity changed, scoring changed, damage inflicted changed...it was a beta test we payed for.
T2's beta was closed but it had like 1000 people. The disaster it caused was not because the beta testers didn't submit bugs; bugs were submitted in droves. But the developers didn't fix them for whatever reason (probably not enough time) before the game shipped.
One of the things I didn't like when T2 came out was how every damn week the game CHANGED. Gravity changed, scoring changed, damage inflicted changed...it was a beta test we payed for.
T2's beta was closed but it had like 1000 people. The disaster it caused was not because the beta testers didn't submit bugs; bugs were submitted in droves. But the developers didn't fix them for whatever reason (probably not enough time) before the game shipped.
Void|deadjawa
Veteran X
I'd just like to throw in the fact that War3 is already the 2nd biggest game on battle.net (next to Starcraft) and is in position to take over as the #1 game on bnet after the expansion comes out.
Whoever said War3 sucked was just plain wrong, people love it
Whoever said War3 sucked was just plain wrong, people love it
Imposter said:Pogo makes a good point in that the engine the game is built on is already known to be pretty damn stable. So we shouldn't see too many UE's
One of the things I didn't like when T2 came out was how every damn week the game CHANGED. Gravity changed, scoring changed, damage inflicted changed...it was a beta test we payed for.
That was my main point. The engine is mature. Granted, Irrational is making changes, but they are minor enough that if there is a problem, they will catch them before the end of any alpha. The main thing I see Irrational having to concentrate on is the game itself, which is the best thing possible for a developer looking to make a good game. Look at the Quake games; they have all been PR campaigns for other people to buy the iD engines, not good games.
Irrational has a prime opportunity to continue their history of great games (I still play Freedom Force). The fact that they will have an open beta which will, by default, focus on gameplay only reinforces my belief that T:V has the chance to be the best version of Tribes yet.
Void|deadjawa
Veteran X
This is a very aggressive policy by irrational, thats for sure.
They must be supremely confident. Especially since they announced it this early on. Well, at least we know if this policy changes the game sucks.
They must be supremely confident. Especially since they announced it this early on. Well, at least we know if this policy changes the game sucks.
Iced said:
I think some of the destructive whining that comes with these betas can be overcome with a well constructed NDA. The beta testers will have a forum to vent their concerns so there is no need for them to whine in a public forum.
When my company does a beta we do a progressive rollout. We start with 100 users in a private beta to get some different configs other than our engineers' and QE people's home setups. Then we move to a 1000 user beta and we keep some users at a consistant software level to do a stability soak, while we update others weekly to fix bugs. Then finally we move to early access (about 5-10k) a couple of weeks before final rollout.
People in the first 2 betas are only allowed to use our beta forum and are not allowed to talk about the software or their participation in the beta.
It's been a good structure for us, granted we are not doing a game.
Interesting debate.
My experiences with games over the last couple years definately has changed how I look at a game. I will never again buy a game before having tried it first, beta, demo or otherwise. I have bought too many games based on hype that really sucked (T2 and UT2K3 for example)
Now, the bar might have been set a bit high with Tribes, but a game that I am really wanting to play for only a couple weeks after I buy it is bullshit. I want a game that I want to play for hours on end, for months or years to come. Tribes gave me that, nothing since has.
If there isn't an open beta or demo of T:V, I will not be buying the game. T2 (and Sierra) really pissed me off, and I was even in the original beta, but not the meta. I thought that when the game was released, that all the issues we sorted out. Holy fuck was I wrong.
It's pretty simple for me, no beta or demo, no sale. I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
My experiences with games over the last couple years definately has changed how I look at a game. I will never again buy a game before having tried it first, beta, demo or otherwise. I have bought too many games based on hype that really sucked (T2 and UT2K3 for example)
Now, the bar might have been set a bit high with Tribes, but a game that I am really wanting to play for only a couple weeks after I buy it is bullshit. I want a game that I want to play for hours on end, for months or years to come. Tribes gave me that, nothing since has.
If there isn't an open beta or demo of T:V, I will not be buying the game. T2 (and Sierra) really pissed me off, and I was even in the original beta, but not the meta. I thought that when the game was released, that all the issues we sorted out. Holy fuck was I wrong.
It's pretty simple for me, no beta or demo, no sale. I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
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They are handling it the correct way, small closed testing sessions to weed out the really bad issues, then an all out open beta testing period to weed out gameplay issues. Most bugs should be squased during the closed sessions, so when beta is declared they should only be dealing with minor bugs and game balance issues.
But imo they really need to push a demo of the game out prior to release, I think that is very important.
But imo they really need to push a demo of the game out prior to release, I think that is very important.
GimpyLamer
Veteran X
Well I like the open beta ideal for several reasons. The more testers that you have the more the game will be debugged and that cuts down on patches every time you load the game . It also gauges the overall playability of the game . I am a beta tester on PlanetSide now and the game has steadily improved .I don’t think it deserves the negative comments that it is getting after all it is in beta .
GimpyLamer said:.I don’t think it deserves the negative comments that it is getting after all it is in beta .
Thats one of the problems I have with big open beta, people start talking smack about an unfinished product. Ya, people like me shouldn't listen to that, but we gotta listen to someone, and it ain't like the developer is gonna come out and say "hey this game sucks."
L
Limbo
Guest
What if their servers can't handle enough people like when T2 first came out, if you're only gonna let a couple hundred ppl in the beta, it isn't exactly gonna be stressing the servers at all. IMO, that's what happened to T2, their servers were simply hammered and with all the browser problems and shit. They were down every other day.