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Is the tag BETA just an excuse to ship a crappy game now?
sacredcow4
Member UncommonPosts: 249
I see it time and time again. Company's sell open-beta, implement cash shops in a beta, or market their beta with the hopes of getting profit. Let's be honest, how many people in these "betas" are testing and how many are playing.
Too many people use the excuse, "Don't worry if it's buggy, bad, or broken... It is in BETA." It seems like any company can tag a BETA tag on a product and people will follow the game they want it to be. Has ANY game delivered in this situation yet? I miss when an open-beta was more of a preview or stress test. Open beta now means the game is over due, needs money, and is generally unpolished and bug riddled.
Sorry for the rant, and this isn't true of EVERY game, but it does apply to many. What do you guys and gals think?
I've been here a while...
Comments
This is usually only applied to indie games, like darkfall or mortal online but both those games have/had people that actually tested the game instead of free-loading. Major titles still use OB as a marketing/preview thing as you described.
Part of the problem is that many people that apply as beta testers on the webpage of the game just plays 10 minutes and says this sucks and moves on. Since the company is only getting a fraction of the testers they need they think they might aswell put a certain amount in as "sold" spots. Then they get money and maybe hire decent beta testers instead.
In the end beta is beta it indicates an unfinished product in need of testing.
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
There are way too many MMO apologists out there.
"Of course it's broken/buggy/incomplete. It's Beta!"
"Of course there are content gaps, it's Beta!"
"Of course there are key features missing, the game's just launched!"
"<insert game, usually WoW> sucked at launch too! .. all MMOs release with bugs!"
"Well, it's only been out 6 months .. of course it can't compete with 5 year old games!"
"Sure, the game sucks .. but it might get better .. we should support the indie developers!"
We only have to glimpse at other genres to see some of the masterpieces that are being turned out; Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain .. why some MMO gamers are so willing to gloss over shoddily made games, I've no idea .. but they do.
They'll pre-order based on concept art, pay life-time subs on games that haven't launched yet, and flame the b'jeezus out of anyone who dares offer the opinion that their Game-Of-The-Month isn't the best thing since the invention of streaming internet porn.
It's a golden age for MMO developers. Imagine if, in your daily job(s), you came to the sudden realisation that you could do everything completely half-assed and still get lavished with reward and praise. In that position, how many people would strive to turn out top-notch work?
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
I think too many people criticize betas as being unfinished or unpolished, it is a beta afterall, it is not supposed to be done yet, or it would not still be in beta testing.
But I also think the second they implement cash shop, or make you pay to get into a beta, it is not a damn beta.
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Well firstly i´m not a programmer so I can´t say for sure but have you tried connecting 4 computers at home some time? Weird stuff happens that shouldn´t happen. And in an mmo there are thousands of computers communicating. I can understand that it takes a really long time to beta test a game like that but I do agree with you it shouldn´t be an excuse to launch it early.
Many developers boast that their game has been 5+ years in development, and yes they have but they still have the same "configuration time" as those that have not. Developers try to hit a release window and at times they crash and burn missing that window completly. There comes a time when you just cannot spend more money on development and revenues must be had. Sadly this means that we, the mmo gamers, pay for that and for some reason we still do. If we never learn why would the developers care?
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
Check out these 2 articles about why beta is not an excuse to release unfinished games
www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3949
and
www.massively.com/2010/01/22/the-failure-of-the-beta-defense/
Well a large part of this is also player's expectation of what games should contain, and I mean this in a techical sense.
What do most people look for as a standard MMORPG game these days in terms of basic techical requirement?
3D, large persistent world, and hardware requirement easily comes to mind. Of course there are others too.
The trend is generally that large companies can deliver more polished and complete games in beta that fulfill all requirements. However indy companies simply do not have the type of resources required because the workload for a modern MMORPG have increased exponentially. Once they run out of funds, they are more or less done unless they can get more funds or investors.
I am sure more open minded players have played or tried a few current 2D MMO and found that some of them actually had much better gameplay and core system design beyond their 2D graphics. Yes, 3D itself actually can be considered a resource monster as it eats up high amount of production time and fund, but yet it is considered the most basic part of modern MMO. The scariest part about 3D is that it also increase proportionally with the amount of content included in the game. This directly links back to the resources of a big company being a very important asset when developing a modern MMO.
Generally what I want to say is this, companies do not create crappy games intentionally, but they do turn out crappy when a dev team don't have enough resources to achieve both the basic requirements AND rich contents. This is why we see so many games that feels largely incomplete in BETA. It is not so much that they lacked vision or talent, it is more like they lacked resources. (Money, personnel, and time)
I think that is also why players can always see that a game have so much "potential", but very few are able to push enough complete content out the door to attract the players to keep playing.
The genre is desperate, that's why.
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EAT ME MMORPG.com!
make a profit in beta lol. Do you even know how much it costs to make an MMO nowdays? I highly doubt you will make over $1,000,000 in pre-orders or pay for beta programmes.
As for the excuse of it's a beta. It is a viable excuse, the thing that brings it down is 1. devs who don't listen (STO). 2. Publishers who don't listen (Every majorly buggy game ever). Those 2 things stop a beta from being useful as instead of fixing as many of the problems in the beta as possible they tend to rush a release and patch later (a failed formula)
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Warhammer and Age of Conan may never recover from the bad reps they got for the state of their games at launch.
Both WoW and LotRO had smooth launches comparitively and both WoW and LotRO are doing well.
EQ2 never recovered from its lack luster launch.
So I'm going to disagree.
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Warhammer and Age of Conan may never recover from the bad reps they got for the state of their games at launch.
Both WoW and LotRO had smooth launches comparitively and both WoW and LotRO are doing well.
EQ2 never recovered from its lack luster launch.
So I'm going to disagree.
You're assuming there is ANYONE in the industry that has learnt or is willing to learn from that.
I think you need to actively participate in testing process of the game from alpha to release to understand how development porcess work.
Or just at least do some research about software development.
The funny thing is, even if the majority of beta testers decide the developers are idiots and do not buy the game, enough shmucks will pony up for early access, special editions, and lifetime subscriptions, based on desperation alone, to cover the cost of development. Beta has become a joke in my opinion. Just another ploy.
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It really isn't anything new. The only difference is some companies do a good job fixing things quickly or providing ways to appease the customers while they work through the kinks, while others think they can do or launch whatever and whenever they feel like.
Can't completely blame them though when you consider the jackasses that will defend the company regardless how jacked up a launch goes or how little customer service/support a company provides. My favorites were the ones defencing Funcom even after six months saying that those that were upset simply expected too much, powerleveled to 80, or must not realize how launches go. Of course, every single one of them when you got down to it hardly played the game or just started playing the game so had no idea what a cluster fuck the game turned into at higher levels - on top of all the other issues the game had.
Works out in the end anyways. Companies that handle their games well such as Blizzard, Turbine, and possibly Icarus will do well. Companies with their heads up their asses such as Mythic (Warhammer), Funcom (AoC), and Cryptic (Everything they touch) will suffer the consequences soon enough.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
This does NOT only apply to indie games, and to suggest that places those in the category of mmorpg apologists, and even to garner a 7 range rank of this game, as mmorpg.com has, places them in the similar category of mmorpg cop-outs.
Cryptic/Atari are the latest partners that sold a grossly incomplete and non-compliant mmorpg, masking it as a comprehensive product for the mmorpg market, and even distancing themselves from the term mmo, but rather attempting to claim their game is a mmorpg. Global agenda is a mmo, and a Team Fortress 2 lackluster third-person shooter game at that, where they are pitching enough content and persistent world, game-play, and elements to warrant a monthly charge; but I disagree and digress.
STO is little different in its lack of persistence, other than character development really, and where the static and shallow nature of small boxed maps, heavy instancing and redundant quests leaves nothing to be desired really, unless you like global agenda type third-person shooters, but in space. They knowingly and intentionally delivered a crappy game, imho, as a money grab on the IP.
It’s not the people that apply for beta and then depart that’s problematic; that’s utterly ridiculous. The developers know how the mmorpg genre has progressed over the last 5 years, and know what mmorpg staples must be implemented in 2010, and there are many breadth and depth of elements that warrant anything resembling a complete game for launch.
Even mid-level or end-level content that’s lacking is enough to give companies slack on a launched product if comprehensive mmorpg content is available for the beginning half of levels and game-play, but Crytpic couldn’t even get that accomplished.
So no, it’s not players’ expectations that drive criticism, but complete lack of fundamental mmorpg elements that is the catalyst for criticism.
Then there are those that have no expectations at all, and are contributing to the shallow nature and dumbification of mmorpg’s by making excuses like
- “it’s only beta” followed by
- “its only open-beta”, followed by
- “it’s only pre-launch”, followed by
- “any mmorpg is always launched incomplete”, followed by
- “it just launched”, followed by
- “you really need to play 30 hours to review this game”, followed by
- “there’s a big content patch coming”, followed by
- “no game should be review until its been in the market for 6-months”
The continued excuses and support of developmental complacency is tiring and stupid.
The community of SWG bailed after horrific changes, but as to on-topic, Tabula Rasa, PotBS, AoC, WAR, and now STO player-bases bail because of it. Responsibility falls on the shoulders of developers and publishers.
While that's true, if you go into beta expecting a smooth, complete game, you're an idiot. Don't deny that 98% of people use beta as a free demo. They play a bit, realize that the game "sucks" because it hasn't been out for X number of years, and then proceed to spam Internet forums about how much it "sucks". MMOs are not like single-player games; I'm sure we all know that by now. I think companies should only hire professional testers instead of wasting their time with us. For every good tester in this community, there are a hundred bad ones who either play it as a free demo, find out exploits to use when the game launches and don't report them to be fixed, etc.
Closed Beta and Open Beta are different too, and I think we should keep that in mind. Excluding the possibility of a "miracle patch", what you see in Open Beta is probably what you're gonna get at launch. Closed Beta, however, can be very different from what actually releases, so bashing a game in Closed Beta (if there's no NDA) warrants the, "Well, it is a beta" reasoning. Open Beta, though, should be no excuse.
I have to agree. The term "Beta" and "Headstart" are synonymous now and beta has become something of an excuse for players who find problems with the game before it's released. No longer do people enter betas with the intention of squashing bugs. They enter them to get further in the game compared to people who aren't in Betas.
While it is also true that many bugs are squashed during beta, it is usually well-known and easy to find bugs that are squashed. Still, a bug is a bug, and if you see one, *kill it*.
A perfect example of betas gone awry is GMail, which was started in 2004 and remained in beta until 2009. Of course, I'm comparing an E-mail system to a video game, but the similarities are there none-the-less. Google kept it's system in beta as an excuse to allow for "constant feature upgrades" to the system without actually launching the service. Imagine if a MMORPG stayed in "beta" just so it could evolve at a moment's notice without ever reaching 1.0.
Still, that's borderline Tin-Foil hat.
I've only "Paid" for beta acccess (the act of "Pre-ordering" the game to gain beta access) in RF Online and regretted it since I hated the beta so much and canceling my pre-order was not possible. I since learned my lesson and no longer participate in any betas, free or otherwise as they generally ruin my impression of the game before the game even has a chance of coming out in full-release.
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In all fairness though, I cannot totally blame players that are doing this now or at the least I would say the way betas are treated anymore is as much to balme on the companies as it is the players. The reason being that companies are basically using open beta and sometimes even the later stages of closed beta as a marketing tool anymore so of course it is going to lead to people using beta as more of a demo than anything else, and when you have people preordering just so they can get into a beta you know how that is going to pan out.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.