Betas are a must wether they are open to the public or not. The primary goal in beta is to fix issues, nothing more nothing less. It shouldn't be used to form an opinion of the game or used as advertising. How can one possibly form an opinion of a game that doesn't even work right ? Thats why we have beta, to fix issues.
What about content and game play? Beta is more that 'bug' fixing especially in the open beta.
By the time the game get to open beta the majority of the bugs should be 'known' and have fixes coming at least. New bugs do pop up but are usually made known by either a bug report or someone screaming that the game is a pile of crap in the beta forms. Either way the developers get to hear about it.
Why shouldn't a solid open beta be used for word of mouth advertising? The MMO field is plagued with horrid launches. The MMO community is aware of the posibility of a buggy launch.. why so?? Why is the concept of a buggy console game not a thought. If an MMO has a solid product and goes into open beta why not get people excited enough to talk about how great the game is going to be?
There is a flip side.. if the game is in an open beta state and is still riddled with bugs...well, it shouldn't be in open beta at that point.
Closed beta needs to have a core group selected for true testing. If the company wants to add fluff testers on top of that so be it. It will result in more feedback at the least and doesn't cost the company any more than extra bandwidth at that point.
How many betas do you actually know that went extremely well ? We have failed mmos because devlopers do not fix the import issues before launch. Perhaps I look at it from a compuer standpoint because I worked in that field for quite awhile. In the real world when you work in betas/tests its to test the product and fix it. I'm not quite sure you can actually make beta into a marketing tool when only serveral few mmos have had excellent launches.
To your first point about major issues not being fixed before launch --- this is most likely not a tester issue this is a issue with money and the investors wanting a return on the money. Games are getting pushed out the door before they are finished or ’polished’ because the games development costs are insanely high.
Those few games that you have mentioned had good launches also had great public beta's... so I’m not seeing the correlation between the open beta process and bad launches. WOW and LOTRO had great launches and they have very public beta programs. I'm down for getting the serious testers based of the 'on my honor' applications for previous beta work as well as getting your name known with the company as a good tester.. those are needed and should be included. But i'm not sure why it's detrimental to have fluff testers to get other feedback as well - as far as random bugs, game play, content, level progression. The feedback that these people will provide will let the developers know what a causal player thinks of the aforementioned items.
I'm not saying only rely on the public fluff testers -- companies still need a solid group of testers doing the hardcore testing. MMO's are very dynamic and need to make sure all aspects are covered. Why only focus on fixing bugs during beta when content might be sub par, advancement might be poor for leveling and geographical advancement might not be intuitive. Getting this feedback from fluff testers is going to make the devs more aware of how general players will perceive their game.
Also, games keep track of each quest that is done, how many of X item are floating around. More testers can give developers data on what’s working what is not / what is being utilized and what is not.
WoW had a horrible launch and yes Lotro had a pretty good one but that is a dime a dozen. You also can't use betas as a marketing tool when most mmos since WoW have been mediocre at best. --- is this one of the 10 commandments? Oh riiiiight..... it's number 7 and 3/4ths...
Uhh... Why can't someone use a beta for a marketing tool because of WoW?
WoW's launch was not bad....There were a few issues with too many people being in the same area all at once and peoples computer couldn't handle the load. I think there was a hardware issues as well due to under estimation of the player base... but the game ran smooth after people started getting out of the starting area.
I was in the open beta for WoW... tested the game out - after two weeks all I had found was 2 small issues. Not bad for an open beta. After I tested it I got 3 other people to play WoW that were not interested in the game - which we played for a year or two. (good marketing?)
As far as other games using beta marketed and since they came out after WoW they were mediocre... well, WoW had nothing to due with the beta process of other games so I'm not sure how we moved to that subject................ Testers don't design the games - if the game were mediocre after release its the company's overall design, content, art that made the game mediocre.
i see the closed beta as the real testing phase for the little missed things that cant be caught by the devs, but putting more players out gives more buffers over each area to make sure there acually are bugs. as a beta we expect it to be clean, its a beta and not a alpha of course. as for the open beta i think of this more as a stress test more then anything else. they also cover things the closed beta may have missed or fallow p on hardware incompatabilities
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What about content and game play? Beta is more that 'bug' fixing especially in the open beta.
By the time the game get to open beta the majority of the bugs should be 'known' and have fixes coming at least. New bugs do pop up but are usually made known by either a bug report or someone screaming that the game is a pile of crap in the beta forms. Either way the developers get to hear about it.
Why shouldn't a solid open beta be used for word of mouth advertising? The MMO field is plagued with horrid launches. The MMO community is aware of the posibility of a buggy launch.. why so?? Why is the concept of a buggy console game not a thought. If an MMO has a solid product and goes into open beta why not get people excited enough to talk about how great the game is going to be?
There is a flip side.. if the game is in an open beta state and is still riddled with bugs...well, it shouldn't be in open beta at that point.
Closed beta needs to have a core group selected for true testing. If the company wants to add fluff testers on top of that so be it. It will result in more feedback at the least and doesn't cost the company any more than extra bandwidth at that point.
How many betas do you actually know that went extremely well ? We have failed mmos because devlopers do not fix the import issues before launch. Perhaps I look at it from a compuer standpoint because I worked in that field for quite awhile. In the real world when you work in betas/tests its to test the product and fix it. I'm not quite sure you can actually make beta into a marketing tool when only serveral few mmos have had excellent launches.
To your first point about major issues not being fixed before launch --- this is most likely not a tester issue this is a issue with money and the investors wanting a return on the money. Games are getting pushed out the door before they are finished or ’polished’ because the games development costs are insanely high.
Those few games that you have mentioned had good launches also had great public beta's... so I’m not seeing the correlation between the open beta process and bad launches. WOW and LOTRO had great launches and they have very public beta programs. I'm down for getting the serious testers based of the 'on my honor' applications for previous beta work as well as getting your name known with the company as a good tester.. those are needed and should be included. But i'm not sure why it's detrimental to have fluff testers to get other feedback as well - as far as random bugs, game play, content, level progression. The feedback that these people will provide will let the developers know what a causal player thinks of the aforementioned items.
I'm not saying only rely on the public fluff testers -- companies still need a solid group of testers doing the hardcore testing. MMO's are very dynamic and need to make sure all aspects are covered. Why only focus on fixing bugs during beta when content might be sub par, advancement might be poor for leveling and geographical advancement might not be intuitive. Getting this feedback from fluff testers is going to make the devs more aware of how general players will perceive their game.
Also, games keep track of each quest that is done, how many of X item are floating around. More testers can give developers data on what’s working what is not / what is being utilized and what is not.
WoW had a horrible launch and yes Lotro had a pretty good one but that is a dime a dozen. You also can't use betas as a marketing tool when most mmos since WoW have been mediocre at best. --- is this one of the 10 commandments? Oh riiiiight..... it's number 7 and 3/4ths...
Uhh... Why can't someone use a beta for a marketing tool because of WoW?
WoW's launch was not bad....There were a few issues with too many people being in the same area all at once and peoples computer couldn't handle the load. I think there was a hardware issues as well due to under estimation of the player base... but the game ran smooth after people started getting out of the starting area.
I was in the open beta for WoW... tested the game out - after two weeks all I had found was 2 small issues. Not bad for an open beta. After I tested it I got 3 other people to play WoW that were not interested in the game - which we played for a year or two. (good marketing?)
As far as other games using beta marketed and since they came out after WoW they were mediocre... well, WoW had nothing to due with the beta process of other games so I'm not sure how we moved to that subject................ Testers don't design the games - if the game were mediocre after release its the company's overall design, content, art that made the game mediocre.
https://www.youtube.com/user/NemsGaming
i see the closed beta as the real testing phase for the little missed things that cant be caught by the devs, but putting more players out gives more buffers over each area to make sure there acually are bugs. as a beta we expect it to be clean, its a beta and not a alpha of course. as for the open beta i think of this more as a stress test more then anything else. they also cover things the closed beta may have missed or fallow p on hardware incompatabilities