To me, beta nowadays only has one real purpose. If I am unsure if I will buy a game or not it saves me about $60 if its bad. For example, STO offered a beta through gamestop if you preordered. So I did, played it, and after a couple tries canceled my preorder.
The one point (for me anyway) that counters all of these valid points is; There are too many bad MMORPGs out there and no refund policy.
I want some sort of taste of the game before I sink 60 dollars on it. And I can't very well wait for the game to go premium and get good reviews because I'm all about getting a well established foothold in the community from the earliest possible start.
This is the attiude I am finding annoying these days. You can't want to be competitive without that streak in you and if you can't take a risk, you don't have it in you.
I have been in many alpha and beta tests and IMO, a ton of feedback has been ignored from the test forums. I don't mean just the usual complaints about game direction but simple stuff like bugs and UI. No more alpha/beta test for me or at least for any game I might play.
#1 is apty assigned. I seen too many "dedicated" players fall victim of their 5th or 6th alt and the game hasn't even been a week on the retail shelves.
I don't mind a head start offer, but 30 days of open playtesting is asking for trouble. Sure you may get some kinks worked out, but I usually see it as a time period where power players form up and figure how to powerlevel or farm through the game. Content gets consumed too fast and then they cry foul when its week 2 and there is nothing worth doing.
Yes, a game needs to be stressed. Weekend events yes. Maybe a demo of instances. Do a week of open beta to see how the game is meant to be played works out. Shrug what do I know anyway
- No game is permanent, servers are closed down all the time. You can get the full experience before the game even launches (and move to the next game). So you have already tested all classes and startzones before "everyone else". A newbie would lose weeks trying to find the class that fits his gamestyle.
- Yes beta is a nice way to find the quickest path to level. Beta players always have the advantage even if they have to start over.
- Yes I do bugreports but most of the time it are already known issues already.
- Beta is more fun especially for the free to play games, as you get a whole set of Itemmall stuff which you would normally have to BUY.
- Beta is good to check if your system can take the stress.
- Closed beta should be secret, but it hardly ever is. Most people don't even realise you''re not allowed to post stuff about it all over the web.
- I think the open beta test character whipes hurts alot of casual players. Why not keep the open beta chars, the people who want to play it are already there...
I think that this is a good summary of why many players should avoid participating in a Beta.
If players are not interested in providing feedback to the QA group and being ready to help them to recreate the problem, they are not really being helpful unless the company is interested in doing stress test and just want plenty of warm bodies.
Foe me #1 has often been by personal concern. I deliberately avoided the WoW TBC and WotLK betas because I was had a lot of free time and was putting lots of time into WoW. I had the time to participate in the beta but I could see that if I did I would burn out on the expansion before the next one started.
Right now I am interested in the Cataclysm beta for WoW because I am not playing as much as I was then. I have a good idea of how much play time in a game I can do before start to burn out. Right now I do not see myself playing any MMO enough over the next two years to burn out of Cataclysm. But I doubt that I will be selected and offered a chance to participate in the Cataclysm beta.
I have also participated in several other MMO betas with mixed feelings. I do feel that I was lucky in the ones that I chose because in all cases I did feel that the developers were willing to listen to the beta testers.
Now that is not to say that they were willing to completely redo the game if that is what the beta testers wanted. The geme developers has to be allowed to delevope the game to their vision and then verify that their vision has a commercial posibility. So when I look at signing up for a beta I first check to see if what has been stated as the game that they want to present is one that I would actually consider playing. If it is not I do not sign up. If it is I participate to provide them feedback on bugs and game play while evaluating if I am interested in continuing the game after it is released.
All but 1 are horrible reasons. I mean really, if you got a beta key for your most hyped game, would you turn it down for any of these reasons? Maybe 1, but if thats true and it sucks right up until release, then you saved yourself $50.
All but 1 are horrible reasons. I mean really, if you got a beta key for your most hyped game, would you turn it down for any of these reasons? Maybe 1, but if thats true and it sucks right up until release, then you saved yourself $50.
Gotta say I agree here, And please MMORPG.com staff.. no more of these silly lists. I know the journalistic pickins' are bad with the MMO dorught and all but please, rehashing forums discussion into some sort of top 3/5/10 good/bad list is just lazy. And please dont tell me the top 5 reasons why we should play in beta is the next article. . .
Gotta say I agree here, And please MMORPG.com staff.. no more of these silly lists. I know the journalistic pickins' are bad with the MMO dorught and all but please, rehashing forums discussion into some sort of top 3/5/10 good/bad list is just lazy. And please dont tell me the top 5 reasons why we should play in beta is the next article. . .
Well, there are thousands of people who read these lists on a weekly basis who would disagree with your opinion, so I don't think we're going to stop writing them any time soon. The have been and continue to be a well performing weekly feature, intended to be read for fun and entertainment.
Seriously, if you don't like them for whatever reason, don't read them. You're not obligated to click on the links, and they are very clearly labelled as "The List".
Gotta say I agree here, And please MMORPG.com staff.. no more of these silly lists. I know the journalistic pickins' are bad with the MMO dorught and all but please, rehashing forums discussion into some sort of top 3/5/10 good/bad list is just lazy. And please dont tell me the top 5 reasons why we should play in beta is the next article. . .
Well, there are thousands of people who read these lists on a weekly basis who would disagree with your opinion, so I don't think we're going to stop writing them any time soon. The have been and continue to be a well performing weekly feature, intended to be read for fun and entertainment.
Seriously, if you don't like them for whatever reason, don't read them. You're not obligated to click on the links, and they are very clearly labelled as "The List".
100% agree. Its pretty sad how many people come on here basically claiming "i dont like something, so that means nobody else does either, stop doing it". If they werent doing well, they wouldnt waste their time doing them.
Like you said, it clearly states "The List"... its kind of like watching a dimwitted kid repeatedly touching something like a hot stove after they burned their hand once or twice, and then crying because their hand hurts more every time they do it instead of just not touching the stove.
I'm pretty down on Betas largely for reason # 1.If a game interests me I'd just as soon wait for Launch and see what the Devs have come up with and play it for a month. If I don't like it then it's as if I bought an RPG ( which rarely have a months game-play in them anyway)-so what, big deal. If I like it then I haven't gotten all burnt out playing the first 10 levels over and over.
I think the main reason to avoid a Beta is that it can be very off putting . I remember Age of Conan , in the beta I had huge problems with the client that I put down to my computer specs . It was'nt untill a year later that I got to try it for free on using the same PC only to find it was fine . On the flipside Lord of the Rings Online beta was quite enjoyable . Normally I play a class I know I would never play long term so as not to ruin it .
The problem I have seen with betas, even ones for succesful games, is they focus more on the early game testing. This is obviously a key area for the game, and will go a long way to drawing in a player for the longer-term experience. However, with the focus on the "end game" from so many people, I think more time needs to be spent showing the end-game and having it tested in some phase of the beta. More often than not, the "end game" isn't complete at launch and companies hash something together over the first few weeks of release (with the inevitable complaints from those people who managed to hit level cap in 2 weeks).
Until companies go back to actually spending some of that development money on paying PROFESSIONAL game testers and QA teams, instead of depending on little kids and clueless morons looking to do nothing more than play for free before everyone else, there is no such thing as a "beta test".
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
The one point (for me anyway) that counters all of these valid points is; There are too many bad MMORPGs out there and no refund policy.
I want some sort of taste of the game before I sink 60 dollars on it. And I can't very well wait for the game to go premium and get good reviews because I'm all about getting a well established foothold in the community from the earliest possible start.
This is the attiude I am finding annoying these days. You can't want to be competitive without that streak in you and if you can't take a risk, you don't have it in you.
I have been in many alpha and beta tests and IMO, a ton of feedback has been ignored from the test forums. I don't mean just the usual complaints about game direction but simple stuff like bugs and UI. No more alpha/beta test for me or at least for any game I might play.
This is the same thing I said video games are a hobby for me one I do enjoy much and for the things I like to do it is easily the cheapest and most accesible for me. Havig said that I just won't beta test a game that I know I will have an interest in playing post launch. Now the beta testing I have done I have certainly tried to do my part and take my role seriously, take a notebook with me and jot down every single thing I see as a problem and make sure to log it in before I leave but out of the few betas I've done I can honestly say I've never come across anything that wasn't very obvious (meaning they would have found it anyway) and often as mentioned when the testers notice things wrong in directionetc. we are hardly ever listened to.
Only games I will ever beta test now are games that I can honestly say I would not have even purchased without having played it and discovering it to be something I might enjoy. On the horizon I am certain to try TOR,GW2, and DCUO so those games are out of the running for even the chance I would accept a beta invite to them.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I don't have a problem with anything on that list. I love beta testing, I've even been accepted into some Alpha tests too. Which is less polished than a beta. I'd love to get a Q&A tester job for a game developer or game publisher company.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
I agree with most of this. I don't do betas unless I really want to help the game. I remember playing Global Agenda beta, I played it to find bugs and whatnot. But when the game came to live, I didn't want to re-do everything. So I was pretty burnt out.
But a lot of people are like, "OH EM GHEE! BETA! PLAY GAME FOR FWEEEEEEE! THIS SHIT SUCKS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! RAAAAGE"
Beta testing should not equal playing a game. It should be to balance and find bugs.
Points 1 and 2 are definately why i stayed away for beta. Occasionally I do OB test just to see how the game is before buying or commiting my time into it.
I can personally shoot down these reasons not to beta test with one phrase: It's just a game.
5.) So you can't someone about the game you're playing, big deal. Talk to a pet or something, it's not going to kill you to wait a little while until it's released or the NDA is up.
4.) Beta is quite obviously not the full game, if it was they wouldn't need you to test it or as some have said give it publicity. I remember the Lineage 2 C4 beta test I was in, despite the game being mostly grind-based everyone was given massive boosts so they could actually get to testing the new content, a definite game-breaker if they did that on live.
3.) Pretty much the same as #1, it's a beta, if you don't want to spend time for no gain or you don't want to burn out, it's just a game and doesn't require playing if it's just going to frustrate you. I personally avoid reviews and "sneak peeks" prior to games I'm anticpating because I'd rather have my perspective first, then see what others say.
2.) Advising gamers not to beta test is like telling construction workers to stop building. If the developers have to test games themselves who's going to end up paying more money for the finished product?
All of these points were right on the mark, period.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain. (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Comments
Burnout is the number 1 reason I no longer beta test... that is beta test a game I'm interested in, or at least purchase at launch.
To me, beta nowadays only has one real purpose. If I am unsure if I will buy a game or not it saves me about $60 if its bad. For example, STO offered a beta through gamestop if you preordered. So I did, played it, and after a couple tries canceled my preorder.
#1.
DEFINITELY #1. Why I don't apply for betas anymore.
"TO MICHAEL!"
This is the attiude I am finding annoying these days. You can't want to be competitive without that streak in you and if you can't take a risk, you don't have it in you.
I have been in many alpha and beta tests and IMO, a ton of feedback has been ignored from the test forums. I don't mean just the usual complaints about game direction but simple stuff like bugs and UI. No more alpha/beta test for me or at least for any game I might play.
#1 is apty assigned. I seen too many "dedicated" players fall victim of their 5th or 6th alt and the game hasn't even been a week on the retail shelves.
I don't mind a head start offer, but 30 days of open playtesting is asking for trouble. Sure you may get some kinks worked out, but I usually see it as a time period where power players form up and figure how to powerlevel or farm through the game. Content gets consumed too fast and then they cry foul when its week 2 and there is nothing worth doing.
Yes, a game needs to be stressed. Weekend events yes. Maybe a demo of instances. Do a week of open beta to see how the game is meant to be played works out. Shrug what do I know anyway
- No game is permanent, servers are closed down all the time. You can get the full experience before the game even launches (and move to the next game). So you have already tested all classes and startzones before "everyone else". A newbie would lose weeks trying to find the class that fits his gamestyle.
- Yes beta is a nice way to find the quickest path to level. Beta players always have the advantage even if they have to start over.
- Yes I do bugreports but most of the time it are already known issues already.
- Beta is more fun especially for the free to play games, as you get a whole set of Itemmall stuff which you would normally have to BUY.
- Beta is good to check if your system can take the stress.
- Closed beta should be secret, but it hardly ever is. Most people don't even realise you''re not allowed to post stuff about it all over the web.
- I think the open beta test character whipes hurts alot of casual players. Why not keep the open beta chars, the people who want to play it are already there...
0.) You aren't invited.
I think that this is a good summary of why many players should avoid participating in a Beta.
If players are not interested in providing feedback to the QA group and being ready to help them to recreate the problem, they are not really being helpful unless the company is interested in doing stress test and just want plenty of warm bodies.
Foe me #1 has often been by personal concern. I deliberately avoided the WoW TBC and WotLK betas because I was had a lot of free time and was putting lots of time into WoW. I had the time to participate in the beta but I could see that if I did I would burn out on the expansion before the next one started.
Right now I am interested in the Cataclysm beta for WoW because I am not playing as much as I was then. I have a good idea of how much play time in a game I can do before start to burn out. Right now I do not see myself playing any MMO enough over the next two years to burn out of Cataclysm. But I doubt that I will be selected and offered a chance to participate in the Cataclysm beta.
I have also participated in several other MMO betas with mixed feelings. I do feel that I was lucky in the ones that I chose because in all cases I did feel that the developers were willing to listen to the beta testers.
Now that is not to say that they were willing to completely redo the game if that is what the beta testers wanted. The geme developers has to be allowed to delevope the game to their vision and then verify that their vision has a commercial posibility. So when I look at signing up for a beta I first check to see if what has been stated as the game that they want to present is one that I would actually consider playing. If it is not I do not sign up. If it is I participate to provide them feedback on bugs and game play while evaluating if I am interested in continuing the game after it is released.
All but 1 are horrible reasons. I mean really, if you got a beta key for your most hyped game, would you turn it down for any of these reasons? Maybe 1, but if thats true and it sucks right up until release, then you saved yourself $50.
(Akiraosc)
Gotta say I agree here, And please MMORPG.com staff.. no more of these silly lists. I know the journalistic pickins' are bad with the MMO dorught and all but please, rehashing forums discussion into some sort of top 3/5/10 good/bad list is just lazy. And please dont tell me the top 5 reasons why we should play in beta is the next article. . .
Well, there are thousands of people who read these lists on a weekly basis who would disagree with your opinion, so I don't think we're going to stop writing them any time soon. The have been and continue to be a well performing weekly feature, intended to be read for fun and entertainment.
Seriously, if you don't like them for whatever reason, don't read them. You're not obligated to click on the links, and they are very clearly labelled as "The List".
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
100% agree. Its pretty sad how many people come on here basically claiming "i dont like something, so that means nobody else does either, stop doing it". If they werent doing well, they wouldnt waste their time doing them.
Like you said, it clearly states "The List"... its kind of like watching a dimwitted kid repeatedly touching something like a hot stove after they burned their hand once or twice, and then crying because their hand hurts more every time they do it instead of just not touching the stove.
I'm pretty down on Betas largely for reason # 1.If a game interests me I'd just as soon wait for Launch and see what the Devs have come up with and play it for a month. If I don't like it then it's as if I bought an RPG ( which rarely have a months game-play in them anyway)-so what, big deal. If I like it then I haven't gotten all burnt out playing the first 10 levels over and over.
Thank God we finally have a name for it... the MMO-Burnout! Been searching for sth like this for ages! Thx!
Actively playing: EVE primarily
I think the main reason to avoid a Beta is that it can be very off putting . I remember Age of Conan , in the beta I had huge problems with the client that I put down to my computer specs . It was'nt untill a year later that I got to try it for free on using the same PC only to find it was fine . On the flipside Lord of the Rings Online beta was quite enjoyable . Normally I play a class I know I would never play long term so as not to ruin it .
The problem I have seen with betas, even ones for succesful games, is they focus more on the early game testing. This is obviously a key area for the game, and will go a long way to drawing in a player for the longer-term experience. However, with the focus on the "end game" from so many people, I think more time needs to be spent showing the end-game and having it tested in some phase of the beta. More often than not, the "end game" isn't complete at launch and companies hash something together over the first few weeks of release (with the inevitable complaints from those people who managed to hit level cap in 2 weeks).
Until companies go back to actually spending some of that development money on paying PROFESSIONAL game testers and QA teams, instead of depending on little kids and clueless morons looking to do nothing more than play for free before everyone else, there is no such thing as a "beta test".
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
This is the same thing I said video games are a hobby for me one I do enjoy much and for the things I like to do it is easily the cheapest and most accesible for me. Havig said that I just won't beta test a game that I know I will have an interest in playing post launch. Now the beta testing I have done I have certainly tried to do my part and take my role seriously, take a notebook with me and jot down every single thing I see as a problem and make sure to log it in before I leave but out of the few betas I've done I can honestly say I've never come across anything that wasn't very obvious (meaning they would have found it anyway) and often as mentioned when the testers notice things wrong in directionetc. we are hardly ever listened to.
Only games I will ever beta test now are games that I can honestly say I would not have even purchased without having played it and discovering it to be something I might enjoy. On the horizon I am certain to try TOR,GW2, and DCUO so those games are out of the running for even the chance I would accept a beta invite to them.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I don't have a problem with anything on that list. I love beta testing, I've even been accepted into some Alpha tests too. Which is less polished than a beta. I'd love to get a Q&A tester job for a game developer or game publisher company.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
I agree with most of this. I don't do betas unless I really want to help the game. I remember playing Global Agenda beta, I played it to find bugs and whatnot. But when the game came to live, I didn't want to re-do everything. So I was pretty burnt out.
But a lot of people are like, "OH EM GHEE! BETA! PLAY GAME FOR FWEEEEEEE! THIS SHIT SUCKS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! RAAAAGE"
Beta testing should not equal playing a game. It should be to balance and find bugs.
Points 1 and 2 are definately why i stayed away for beta. Occasionally I do OB test just to see how the game is before buying or commiting my time into it.
Well I have to agree with number 4. For the most part what you see in beta is live. Now days beta has become a publicity stunt.
I can personally shoot down these reasons not to beta test with one phrase: It's just a game.
5.) So you can't someone about the game you're playing, big deal. Talk to a pet or something, it's not going to kill you to wait a little while until it's released or the NDA is up.
4.) Beta is quite obviously not the full game, if it was they wouldn't need you to test it or as some have said give it publicity. I remember the Lineage 2 C4 beta test I was in, despite the game being mostly grind-based everyone was given massive boosts so they could actually get to testing the new content, a definite game-breaker if they did that on live.
3.) Pretty much the same as #1, it's a beta, if you don't want to spend time for no gain or you don't want to burn out, it's just a game and doesn't require playing if it's just going to frustrate you. I personally avoid reviews and "sneak peeks" prior to games I'm anticpating because I'd rather have my perspective first, then see what others say.
2.) Advising gamers not to beta test is like telling construction workers to stop building. If the developers have to test games themselves who's going to end up paying more money for the finished product?
One man's guts are another man's glory.
I actually didn't expect to be Black...
All of these points were right on the mark, period.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.