And the one reason to be in beta: To help change the balance of the game for the better. Know which company you are testing for, and whether they listen to their user base. Know whether you want to put up with balance issues during beta, and make the point for fixing those. Then decide whether to participate.
As for 3), the impermanence of beta: This is A Good Thing. Take your philosophical framework of choice to justify that statement. Here are two frameworks applied:
It lends beta testing an aspect of Zen.
Suffering is good for the soul.
That last one actually also answers 1), if you'd want to be glib about it. And if you subscribe to that school of thought.
Those are 'reasons' to avoid the advertised 'beta testing stage' of a mmo. They are only problems if you don't understand what a Beta Test is, and fall for the marketing hype that usually offers Beta access as some sort of reward or free gift when it's meant to be fairly hard 'work' testing something so it's right when it is finally released.
In the modern mmo environment, you can't 'avoid beta' - every game released is still so far from completeness, balance and content that I can't think of one retail release that wasn't really a 'beta state' (or worse) product chucked onto the market to grab cash from the customers for a company more concerned about cashflow than content or quality. If you are lucky, maybe in a year and several patches later you get to see the 'real' game.
I think there's one thing you missed, I've actually seen it quite a bit in this thread. " Do they listen to their players", in reference to game changes during beta. Beta isn't a time to be changing the feature list, beta is for testing the features they've chosen to run with. To often do I hear the complaint "this system needs to be changed, and they aren't listening". Those systems were chosen during pre/early alpha testing when they were still building the core functionality of their features. Beta is to late a stage to be going in and messing with core function.
Now along with that when a system is bad, there's only one option at that point. Cut it... There's little time to replace it. Unless of course they are able to delay (which is rare).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Your point number one is why I never play a beta. You have ruined the mystery that you get joining at launch, its always fresh for me. I would not say it is hard work as so many treat beta as an extended F2P session.
Maybe the term "beta" needs to be redefined. Too many games have been released retail when in fact they were still in a "beta" state. Players then end up paying retail for what is actually a "beta game".
I think AOC got it right with the beta being limited to Tortage. Flipside was that Tortage worked out to be the best part of the game by far.
On another note can someone do an article on how the "top five reasons why...." articles are becoming a bit annoying
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW
I would be most intrigued to know from what exactly the OP takes his idea the GW2 beta is "right around the corner". While it certainly would be nice it doesn't sound like it so far, unless he means right around the corner of that wall that goes on for as far as you can see.
Also the list should've been titled "five things to think about before signing for a beta", as the reasons he gave aren't reasons why you shouldn't do it, but rather what you have to be aware of when doing so.
This is the exact type of area where Developers and studios can work with the Community.
Imagine....
A group of MMO websites get together with the studios and set up a 'Beta Database'
people sign up to the database and the studios and websites use a search criteria and send out applications to relevant people to join in a beta,
The beta Database shows these people and tehy are graded by developers and the websites on how they 'perform' in the Beta
(do they just whine in beta forums that XYZ is not in, do they give consturctive feedback, reports bugs etc)
as the database 'matures' the developers and studios will eventually have a portfolio of people that can be 'trusted' to actually assist in Beta rather than using them to set up walkthrough guides etc. by becoming dedicated beta testers the dev and websites 'encourage' beta testers with little 'incentives'
Long term objectives and pay offs
Feel free to use this idea, I take cash in brown envelopes only in lieu of royalities
This is the exact type of area where Developers and studios can work with the Community.
Imagine....
A group of MMO websites get together with the studios and set up a 'Beta Database'
people sign up to the database and the studios and websites use a search criteria and send out applications to relevant people to join in a beta,
The beta Database shows these people and tehy are graded by developers and the websites on how they 'perform' in the Beta
(do they just whine in beta forums that XYZ is not in, do they give consturctive feedback, reports bugs etc)
as the database 'matures' the developers and studios will eventually have a portfolio of people that can be 'trusted' to actually assist in Beta rather than using them to set up walkthrough guides etc. by becoming dedicated beta testers the dev and websites 'encourage' beta testers with little 'incentives'
Long term objectives and pay offs
Feel free to use this idea, I take cash in brown envelopes only in lieu of royalities
Euhm,
The whole point of an MMO is to get you hooked and make you pay monthly. Your idea may sound nice on paper but it will cost money somewhere. They don't care about getting good betatesters. All they need to do is spew out some keys to some big mmo portals, fire up the login server and wait for the freaks to write free bugreports.
Too many people use beta as a free trial and think it's a finished game and give no feedback of any use.
Personally I love breaking stuff and giving constructive feedback on what I did to break it, but I was an in house game tester for a while during university (rough hours, crap pay, nice environment). I'm still careful about which games I will beta test though, games I would play casually through once would be pretty spoiled by a beta test. Games I would through to max level several times and intend to from the start are find for a good hammering though.
My personal favorite thing is how deceptive things are.
A Beta Test starts out, people complain about the bugs and problems. No one listens to the people. They listen to the company that says "X amount of people registered to our game, its great!" I mean it would take a gun to the head to make most developers to admit their games are littered with bugs and problems.
Nothing like following 90% of the same formula. introducing a fresh new graphic scheme and interface and blowing 1000s of hours to try to get at the 10% that is different which amplifies the other 90% making or breaking the game completely.
Originally posted by William Murphy:All too often I hear of folks signing up for beta just to get an early taste of “The Next Big Thing” and they forget that the beta experience is supposed to be something of a QA job for dedicated hobbyists.
This pretty much sums up all these concerns. If you're not playing a (closed) beta to help out trying to help make the game "the best it can be", you don't deserve the invite. Open betas are a different beast alltogether, often used as publicity or stress test.
#5:Of course i want my friends to know if i stumbled across something great. Often enough there's enough information on the web to satisfy just about any questions they have - and that, you're free to share!
#4:Ok, it's not finished. This is important to keep in mind especially if you're invited into early beta stages. See what goals they have with the beta. Are they listening to feedback from players? I have played many great betas that turned out to be flops but i have played just as many if not more terrible betas to start with (in terms of bugs etc) that turned out great.
Simply put; that the game is not finished is actually a chance for you to influence the end results. (though sometimes very little depending on comany and beta phase)
#3: Let's say they greatly change the flow of the leveling experience, or other content for specific level ranges. Let's say you have people go through that content again, see how they react to the changes. Many companies do very specific focus testing these days, trying out different itterations. Beta is not a free trial.
#2: I won't mention any names but certain companies tend to simply use BETA as an early, exclusive, hype building trial and publicity stunt. These tests tend to see only a little less input and feedback from players but more often than not, the response from devs is lacking or even non-existant, other than patch notes.
These betas can be very frustrating as sometimes even major concerns that the testers bring up go seemingly unheard by the devs. (again resisting temptation to name anyone!!)
#1: If you grow tired of a beta in the short time they usually last i see 4 overbearing possibilities as to why.
MMO's just not your thing? You can't really judge an mmo as a whole where endgame is a huge part of the game.
You expected to get a free working trial of the game? Just not gonna happen unless it's an open beta publicity stunt
Have you been a victim of the (almost)aforementioned companies betas where they simply don't listen to their testers? Let me tell you, it sucks - most likely just as much at release as in beta.
The game's just not for you? I've played plenty of betas that while not bad in any way just couldn't really rival my current favourite game, or two. Sometimes it's been a case of the game simply taking a different direction than i envisioned (and what initially got me interested)
Just because you don't end up playing the game at launch doesn't have to mean that the beta test was a failiure or that you simply wasted your time. Sometimes, however much you polish a turd, it's still a turd.
Since the invention of the internet the worlds rotation has been solely propelled by English teachers rolling over in their graves.
Having taken part in so many Betas since my first in DAoC, I find it annoying how many companies - especially in the last couple of years - who no longer use a Beta for feedback.
I wish they would stop mass inviting people to Betas, go back to when they actually meant something and acted on the feedback given. Restricted access to a small number of dedicated testers who they actually listen to and act upon the feedback given.
I am no longer one of those people, the days have gone where I could spend that amount of time. I occassionally take part in open betas if a game gets me curious. I still treat them as Betas, still report everything I can most of (which shouldn't even be there at this stage if closed beta testers are diligint and listened to)
I would be very happy if that were the case, I think the game would improve because of it.
Closed Beta is also becoming more and more like the mess of an Open Beta these days, which I find haertbreaking.
Feedback from testers is rarley listened to or acted upon in any stage of beta, but especially open.
Open Beta in particular is simply a disaster area of epeen stroking idiots who want to massage their egos by saying they have taken part in one and know all about the game prior to release, have zero idea what a Beta is meant to be and treat them all as free trials where the forums decend into a morass of polarisations "I love this game v I hate this game".
I entirely blame the companies for turning them into this mess. "Can I keep my character" really does sum up the mass of people in these so called Betas.
Most of the titles that failed recently are due to said company ignoring feedback from real Beta testers.
Most of the reasons cited by subscribers after launch of why X game sucked are the exact ones raised months earlier by testers, who were summarily ignored by the devs, and on top of that, their feedback was immediatley set upon by the hordes of "fanbois" who are in the Open Beta stages.
This is why so many MMO fail these days.
In summary, Betas are no longer Betas, feedback is ignored, they are just marketing tools to promote hype and fanbois. Result = many more MMO fail hard and fail early than used to be the case.
agreed for once good work, but the 2 good reasons that you actualy participate in the beta are so much bigger than this. 1. You get a feel of the game which is the most important thing ever. 2 you have the ability to fix problems in the game so that when it is acctualy live it is a better game.
This is the exact type of area where Developers and studios can work with the Community.
Imagine....
A group of MMO websites get together with the studios and set up a 'Beta Database'
people sign up to the database and the studios and websites use a search criteria and send out applications to relevant people to join in a beta,
The beta Database shows these people and tehy are graded by developers and the websites on how they 'perform' in the Beta
(do they just whine in beta forums that XYZ is not in, do they give consturctive feedback, reports bugs etc)
as the database 'matures' the developers and studios will eventually have a portfolio of people that can be 'trusted' to actually assist in Beta rather than using them to set up walkthrough guides etc. by becoming dedicated beta testers the dev and websites 'encourage' beta testers with little 'incentives'
Long term objectives and pay offs
Feel free to use this idea, I take cash in brown envelopes only in lieu of royalities
Euhm,
The whole point of an MMO is to get you hooked and make you pay monthly.But if an MMO is pants then your hook is not gonna work Your idea may sound nice on paper but it will cost money somewhere. Server space and someone to code a poratl, hence why i said incentives etc would be needed to make this work, Dev's give sites access to info and stuff They don't care about getting good betatesters You would be surprised, this is why many MMo fails IMO these days, because Studios are using Beta testers wrongly, and this needs to change. All they need to do is spew out some keys to some big mmo portals, fire up the login server and wait for the freaks to write free bugreports.
We know there are certain studios who user Beta testers simply to try and hype up a game, beta tests that are treated as marketing exercises.
This is why I am saying a Beta Database like this would eb useful, imgaine your a dev, you want people in Closed Beta who willa ctually test the game, teh database would allow you to see if someone has done lots of betas, reproted issues or jsut free loaded through the game.
marketing teams need to lay the hell off using Beta as marketing, sadly this wont happen until someone in the industy stands up and goes ' WHOAH NELLY'
I never understand why people want to get into beta. Its basically slave labour. Your working on an unfinished game, helping the company to complete it and not even getting paid for you time. Of course the main problem with not paying people is you get people who play rather than actually try to break the game and find bugs. Hence games are often released with bugs and problems that frankly should never have been in a retail version. But of course the bugs are there because the testers didn't do their job. And they didn't do their job because 99.9% of beta testers are regarding playing the game before release as a way to learn the game so they can be better than everybody else at release and hence not looking for bugs.
The simple fact is the willingness of so many people to be beta testers means we all have to put up with poor buggy game releases. I for one much prefer a game to be released for at least 6 months before playing it. By then its got rid of many of the obvious bugs and imbalance. Plus I dont have to put up with the leet players right at the start who are so brilliant because they max out their character in a few days. To those people all I can say it; Get a life
What's with all the obvious lists that i keep reading these days? 5 reasons of this, 5 reasons off that, 5 reasons why not to... List goes on an on but this is really a good post so i comment for once.
Anyway too many people play mmorpgs just to be first to try it and learn all the secrets and stuff.. They should really get selected group off betatesters that for their work get endless subscription or atleast a year. Hell it might mean 100-1000 people who don't pay but it also means 100-1000 people looking actively for bugs and such. Quality above quantity says i!
Anyway, most mmorpgs would need to pay me to play them, however if they would promise me something in return for ironing their game in and out to find bugs and suggesting couple usable ideas for here and there then i would do betas. Since the games still do the idiotic oppen beta shyt I stay away.
Some of us who sign up to betas enjoy the work. It's not "slave" labor if we volunteered. We get enjoyment out of finding those bugs and helping a game we are interested in succeed. That said, points 3 and 4 really stand out. Sometimes the beta is better than release. I can think of quite a few betas that were fun, but before release they made a few tweaks here and there that took all of that fun out. Other times, beta actually is pretty much the same as release - the things that beta players scream about don't get fixed in time. This is very frustrating.
Also, about permanence. Even though I know in my mind I wont get to keep my character, after a certain amount of time, that attachment still grows. Even though I knew at the start it was beta, sometime down the line it feels pretty bad that I will have to lose all of that work. I don't know why devs can't make a shard where beta characters can continue. Separate it from non beta players if you must, but at least let us romp about and remember the memories.
I have little interest in participating in beta, because I feel that other than fixing an odd floating object here or there, development is usually far too late in the process to actually fix any of the games glaring issues that the players are noticing. It's like being thrown in front of a freight train and told to try and stop it from hitting you.
Not to split hairs, but this really should have been called 5 things to keep in mind before you decide to be a beta tester. They aren't all negative points, and in no way will any of those reasons keep someone who is interested in a particular game from trying it out.
5 Things Not to Do as a Beta Tester
5. Tell the world about it when you're not supposed to, jackass
4. Expect it to never change--this is an MMO, and they all change, even after beta
3. Expect that you get a head start, and get to keep all the stuff no one else had the opportunity to get
2. Expect all aspects of testing to be fun, like the game will hopefully be when it's finished--this is really tied into #4.
1. I've got nothing here. If you're burned out on a game from playing beta, either you played more than anyone should play the game, or it just isn't that dynamic. In either case, you've learned for free what may take others months of fees to figure out.
The points are well taken and for the most part I wouldn't get involved.....but
I would love to be part of the GW2 beta. Its a chance to get a flavor for the game and as, or more importantly, be part of what the finished game will be.
I think Arenanet is a rare bird in today's MMO marketplace and believe they will listen to suggestions and work to make the game the best it can be.
Yup, I'd be more than willing to put in time tp be a tiny part of the finished product. I enjoyed GW1 so much that giving time and effort to gw2 would be ( for me) a payback I would very much enjoy.
I always report the bugs. I always give suggestions, I just wish people would do the same. Even if I don't play the game after beta, I always try to make it the best expirience for fututre players (:
Comments
And the one reason to be in beta: To help change the balance of the game for the better. Know which company you are testing for, and whether they listen to their user base. Know whether you want to put up with balance issues during beta, and make the point for fixing those. Then decide whether to participate.
As for 3), the impermanence of beta: This is A Good Thing. Take your philosophical framework of choice to justify that statement. Here are two frameworks applied:
It lends beta testing an aspect of Zen.
Suffering is good for the soul.
That last one actually also answers 1), if you'd want to be glib about it. And if you subscribe to that school of thought.
In the modern mmo environment, you can't 'avoid beta' - every game released is still so far from completeness, balance and content that I can't think of one retail release that wasn't really a 'beta state' (or worse) product chucked onto the market to grab cash from the customers for a company more concerned about cashflow than content or quality. If you are lucky, maybe in a year and several patches later you get to see the 'real' game.
I think there's one thing you missed, I've actually seen it quite a bit in this thread. " Do they listen to their players", in reference to game changes during beta. Beta isn't a time to be changing the feature list, beta is for testing the features they've chosen to run with. To often do I hear the complaint "this system needs to be changed, and they aren't listening". Those systems were chosen during pre/early alpha testing when they were still building the core functionality of their features. Beta is to late a stage to be going in and messing with core function.
Now along with that when a system is bad, there's only one option at that point. Cut it... There's little time to replace it. Unless of course they are able to delay (which is rare).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Your point number one is why I never play a beta. You have ruined the mystery that you get joining at launch, its always fresh for me. I would not say it is hard work as so many treat beta as an extended F2P session.
Maybe the term "beta" needs to be redefined. Too many games have been released retail when in fact they were still in a "beta" state. Players then end up paying retail for what is actually a "beta game".
I think AOC got it right with the beta being limited to Tortage. Flipside was that Tortage worked out to be the best part of the game by far.
On another note can someone do an article on how the "top five reasons why...." articles are becoming a bit annoying
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW
I no more sign for closed betas becouse of these reasons.
sorry can't edit... but I like the listings articles, if someone is getting anoyed by these just skip them.
I would be most intrigued to know from what exactly the OP takes his idea the GW2 beta is "right around the corner". While it certainly would be nice it doesn't sound like it so far, unless he means right around the corner of that wall that goes on for as far as you can see.
Also the list should've been titled "five things to think about before signing for a beta", as the reasons he gave aren't reasons why you shouldn't do it, but rather what you have to be aware of when doing so.
My Signature
This is the exact type of area where Developers and studios can work with the Community.
Imagine....
A group of MMO websites get together with the studios and set up a 'Beta Database'
people sign up to the database and the studios and websites use a search criteria and send out applications to relevant people to join in a beta,
The beta Database shows these people and tehy are graded by developers and the websites on how they 'perform' in the Beta
(do they just whine in beta forums that XYZ is not in, do they give consturctive feedback, reports bugs etc)
as the database 'matures' the developers and studios will eventually have a portfolio of people that can be 'trusted' to actually assist in Beta rather than using them to set up walkthrough guides etc. by becoming dedicated beta testers the dev and websites 'encourage' beta testers with little 'incentives'
Long term objectives and pay offs
Feel free to use this idea, I take cash in brown envelopes only in lieu of royalities
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
Euhm,
The whole point of an MMO is to get you hooked and make you pay monthly. Your idea may sound nice on paper but it will cost money somewhere. They don't care about getting good betatesters. All they need to do is spew out some keys to some big mmo portals, fire up the login server and wait for the freaks to write free bugreports.
Great article.
Too many people use beta as a free trial and think it's a finished game and give no feedback of any use.
Personally I love breaking stuff and giving constructive feedback on what I did to break it, but I was an in house game tester for a while during university (rough hours, crap pay, nice environment). I'm still careful about which games I will beta test though, games I would play casually through once would be pretty spoiled by a beta test. Games I would through to max level several times and intend to from the start are find for a good hammering though.
My personal favorite thing is how deceptive things are.
A Beta Test starts out, people complain about the bugs and problems. No one listens to the people. They listen to the company that says "X amount of people registered to our game, its great!" I mean it would take a gun to the head to make most developers to admit their games are littered with bugs and problems.
Nothing like following 90% of the same formula. introducing a fresh new graphic scheme and interface and blowing 1000s of hours to try to get at the 10% that is different which amplifies the other 90% making or breaking the game completely.
This pretty much sums up all these concerns. If you're not playing a (closed) beta to help out trying to help make the game "the best it can be", you don't deserve the invite. Open betas are a different beast alltogether, often used as publicity or stress test.
#5: Of course i want my friends to know if i stumbled across something great. Often enough there's enough information on the web to satisfy just about any questions they have - and that, you're free to share!
#4: Ok, it's not finished. This is important to keep in mind especially if you're invited into early beta stages. See what goals they have with the beta. Are they listening to feedback from players? I have played many great betas that turned out to be flops but i have played just as many if not more terrible betas to start with (in terms of bugs etc) that turned out great.
Simply put; that the game is not finished is actually a chance for you to influence the end results. (though sometimes very little depending on comany and beta phase)
#3: Let's say they greatly change the flow of the leveling experience, or other content for specific level ranges. Let's say you have people go through that content again, see how they react to the changes. Many companies do very specific focus testing these days, trying out different itterations. Beta is not a free trial.
#2: I won't mention any names but certain companies tend to simply use BETA as an early, exclusive, hype building trial and publicity stunt. These tests tend to see only a little less input and feedback from players but more often than not, the response from devs is lacking or even non-existant, other than patch notes.
These betas can be very frustrating as sometimes even major concerns that the testers bring up go seemingly unheard by the devs. (again resisting temptation to name anyone!!)
#1: If you grow tired of a beta in the short time they usually last i see 4 overbearing possibilities as to why.
MMO's just not your thing? You can't really judge an mmo as a whole where endgame is a huge part of the game.
You expected to get a free working trial of the game? Just not gonna happen unless it's an open beta publicity stunt
Have you been a victim of the (almost)aforementioned companies betas where they simply don't listen to their testers? Let me tell you, it sucks - most likely just as much at release as in beta.
The game's just not for you? I've played plenty of betas that while not bad in any way just couldn't really rival my current favourite game, or two. Sometimes it's been a case of the game simply taking a different direction than i envisioned (and what initially got me interested)
Just because you don't end up playing the game at launch doesn't have to mean that the beta test was a failiure or that you simply wasted your time. Sometimes, however much you polish a turd, it's still a turd.
Since the invention of the internet the worlds rotation has been solely propelled by English teachers rolling over in their graves.
MMO player since Meridian 59
Having taken part in so many Betas since my first in DAoC, I find it annoying how many companies - especially in the last couple of years - who no longer use a Beta for feedback.
I wish they would stop mass inviting people to Betas, go back to when they actually meant something and acted on the feedback given. Restricted access to a small number of dedicated testers who they actually listen to and act upon the feedback given.
I am no longer one of those people, the days have gone where I could spend that amount of time. I occassionally take part in open betas if a game gets me curious. I still treat them as Betas, still report everything I can most of (which shouldn't even be there at this stage if closed beta testers are diligint and listened to)
I would be very happy if that were the case, I think the game would improve because of it.
Closed Beta is also becoming more and more like the mess of an Open Beta these days, which I find haertbreaking.
Feedback from testers is rarley listened to or acted upon in any stage of beta, but especially open.
Open Beta in particular is simply a disaster area of epeen stroking idiots who want to massage their egos by saying they have taken part in one and know all about the game prior to release, have zero idea what a Beta is meant to be and treat them all as free trials where the forums decend into a morass of polarisations "I love this game v I hate this game".
I entirely blame the companies for turning them into this mess. "Can I keep my character" really does sum up the mass of people in these so called Betas.
Most of the titles that failed recently are due to said company ignoring feedback from real Beta testers.
Most of the reasons cited by subscribers after launch of why X game sucked are the exact ones raised months earlier by testers, who were summarily ignored by the devs, and on top of that, their feedback was immediatley set upon by the hordes of "fanbois" who are in the Open Beta stages.
This is why so many MMO fail these days.
In summary, Betas are no longer Betas, feedback is ignored, they are just marketing tools to promote hype and fanbois. Result = many more MMO fail hard and fail early than used to be the case.
agreed for once
good work, but the 2 good reasons that you actualy participate in the beta are so much bigger than this. 1. You get a feel of the game which is the most important thing ever. 2 you have the ability to fix problems in the game so that when it is acctualy live it is a better game.
We know there are certain studios who user Beta testers simply to try and hype up a game, beta tests that are treated as marketing exercises.
This is why I am saying a Beta Database like this would eb useful, imgaine your a dev, you want people in Closed Beta who willa ctually test the game, teh database would allow you to see if someone has done lots of betas, reproted issues or jsut free loaded through the game.
marketing teams need to lay the hell off using Beta as marketing, sadly this wont happen until someone in the industy stands up and goes ' WHOAH NELLY'
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
I never understand why people want to get into beta. Its basically slave labour. Your working on an unfinished game, helping the company to complete it and not even getting paid for you time. Of course the main problem with not paying people is you get people who play rather than actually try to break the game and find bugs. Hence games are often released with bugs and problems that frankly should never have been in a retail version. But of course the bugs are there because the testers didn't do their job. And they didn't do their job because 99.9% of beta testers are regarding playing the game before release as a way to learn the game so they can be better than everybody else at release and hence not looking for bugs.
The simple fact is the willingness of so many people to be beta testers means we all have to put up with poor buggy game releases. I for one much prefer a game to be released for at least 6 months before playing it. By then its got rid of many of the obvious bugs and imbalance. Plus I dont have to put up with the leet players right at the start who are so brilliant because they max out their character in a few days. To those people all I can say it; Get a life
I would Beta Test Guild War's 2 in a heart beat, that is just me though i don't care about the other game's coming out.
What's with all the obvious lists that i keep reading these days? 5 reasons of this, 5 reasons off that, 5 reasons why not to... List goes on an on but this is really a good post so i comment for once.
Anyway too many people play mmorpgs just to be first to try it and learn all the secrets and stuff.. They should really get selected group off betatesters that for their work get endless subscription or atleast a year. Hell it might mean 100-1000 people who don't pay but it also means 100-1000 people looking actively for bugs and such. Quality above quantity says i!
Anyway, most mmorpgs would need to pay me to play them, however if they would promise me something in return for ironing their game in and out to find bugs and suggesting couple usable ideas for here and there then i would do betas. Since the games still do the idiotic oppen beta shyt I stay away.
Thank you for reading.
Kindest regards,
DKW
Some of us who sign up to betas enjoy the work. It's not "slave" labor if we volunteered. We get enjoyment out of finding those bugs and helping a game we are interested in succeed. That said, points 3 and 4 really stand out. Sometimes the beta is better than release. I can think of quite a few betas that were fun, but before release they made a few tweaks here and there that took all of that fun out. Other times, beta actually is pretty much the same as release - the things that beta players scream about don't get fixed in time. This is very frustrating.
Also, about permanence. Even though I know in my mind I wont get to keep my character, after a certain amount of time, that attachment still grows. Even though I knew at the start it was beta, sometime down the line it feels pretty bad that I will have to lose all of that work. I don't know why devs can't make a shard where beta characters can continue. Separate it from non beta players if you must, but at least let us romp about and remember the memories.
I have little interest in participating in beta, because I feel that other than fixing an odd floating object here or there, development is usually far too late in the process to actually fix any of the games glaring issues that the players are noticing. It's like being thrown in front of a freight train and told to try and stop it from hitting you.
Point 3 is so stupid....geez....how old are you, 20?....
Please do us a favor and quit your job dude...or some1....fire this guy let him start making pancakes or something...
When you signup for a beta....you already know that you gonna lose all your progress so...this is so STUPID
Not to split hairs, but this really should have been called 5 things to keep in mind before you decide to be a beta tester. They aren't all negative points, and in no way will any of those reasons keep someone who is interested in a particular game from trying it out.
5 Things Not to Do as a Beta Tester
5. Tell the world about it when you're not supposed to, jackass
4. Expect it to never change--this is an MMO, and they all change, even after beta
3. Expect that you get a head start, and get to keep all the stuff no one else had the opportunity to get
2. Expect all aspects of testing to be fun, like the game will hopefully be when it's finished--this is really tied into #4.
1. I've got nothing here. If you're burned out on a game from playing beta, either you played more than anyone should play the game, or it just isn't that dynamic. In either case, you've learned for free what may take others months of fees to figure out.
The points are well taken and for the most part I wouldn't get involved.....but
I would love to be part of the GW2 beta. Its a chance to get a flavor for the game and as, or more importantly, be part of what the finished game will be.
I think Arenanet is a rare bird in today's MMO marketplace and believe they will listen to suggestions and work to make the game the best it can be.
Yup, I'd be more than willing to put in time tp be a tiny part of the finished product. I enjoyed GW1 so much that giving time and effort to gw2 would be ( for me) a payback I would very much enjoy.
I always report the bugs. I always give suggestions, I just wish people would do the same. Even if I don't play the game after beta, I always try to make it the best expirience for fututre players (:
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...