There is no bad critique. There is just critique. You may not share the point of view, but that's another matter. EVERY critique has a chance to improve a game. Every one is a voice of one potential customer. Again, you may not agree with it, but it is still saying something about the game. It is the blind fanboyism which has done endless damage to the MMORPG genre and the sole reason we have 4 years of failures.
Yes, YOU guys are to blame. You will know who I am talking to.
YOU who always flame those who critizise, YOU who always praise games beyond reason, YOU who always ridicule those who "don't get it".
YOU ALONE are the bane of MMO and it entirely falls into your pocket that MMOs are as bad as they are. You lull developers in a false sense of accomplishment and silence the voice of reason and scepticism and thus prevent improvement.
You fanbois are the reason we are in this misery for so many years.
You and you alone!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think some of you are GROSSLY overestimating your worth as a "beta tester" for these games. And quite frankly most of you who say things like "people that suck at beta testing suck because they play and don't TEST" are probably the worst ones as you really really just don't get it.
The days of players being useful as beta testers are LONG since past. Probably the last game where players were actually valuable testers was Everquest. Testing games is VERY methodical and most people have no clue how to do it, it requires tons of documentation and repetition and being able to write a detailed bug report that means something to the devs.
MOST importantly is that it requires inside knowledge, ie. how is this system actually supposed to work. which can usually only be garnered by an in house testing team.
Now imagine during a beta if everyone was submitting bug reports. imagine how useful those reports would be. And i say that with as much sarcasm as possible. Your signal to noise ratio on useful reports to garbage would be incredible. Probably 99% of the reports you would get would be pure unusable worthless trash. Do you REALLY think the devs or anyone for that matter has time to sort through all that shit to find those few useful reports. Not going to happen.
Probably the only reports that get read are the ones posted on beta forums that are thoughtful and constructive as other players add to it and it ends up being useful. But even those posts from what i've seen anymore are extremely rare.
Your job as a play tester involves nothing more than logging in, playing the game as you would live so the devs can collect metrics about how fast you level, any player trends where they are doing something that they didn't expect, noticing any exploits and just other general gameplay issues as well as being a live body for stress testing the server.
Your job ends there for the most part, you are a play tester, not a beta tester in the traditional sense of the word. So the ones that are just logging in to play ARE in fact doing their jobs. To the ones that get all high and mighty and feeling important about being a tester? Get off your horses, you aren't squat.
There is no bad critique. There is just critique. You may not share the point of view, but that's another matter. EVERY critique has a chance to improve a game. Every one is a voice of one potential customer. Again, you may not agree with it, but it is still saying something about the game. It is the blind fanboyism which has done endless damage to the MMORPG genre and the sole reason we have 4 years of failures.
Yes, YOU guys are to blame. You will know who I am talking to.
YOU who always flame those who critizise, YOU who always praise games beyond reason, YOU who always ridicule those who "don't get it".
YOU ALONE are the bane of MMO and it entirely falls into your pocket that MMOs are as bad as they are. You lull developers in a false sense of accomplishment and silence the voice of reason and scepticism and thus prevent improvement.
You fanbois are the reason we are in this misery for so many years.
You and you alone!
Oh please SHUT UP.
If game is riddled with bad design choices no amount of beta feedback can fix it. The only option is to shut down the whole thing and go back to the drawing boards. Beta is for squashing bugs and some improvements to the game, not to make radical changes to game. there is no such thing as a MIRACLE patch.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no? Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
Fanboys don't really make games bad, bad developers, coders, and companies do. Often times when you enter a beta, the core design is already set in place. So even if you tell them "hey, this really doesn't play right, you should do this and this instead"....often you get the answer "well we'll think about changing it after launch, but the design will stay the same for now as it's done".
Or if you tell them "hey this game hitches a lot, it's too laggy for the general population to enjoy". They'll come back and say, "well there's a lot of debugging codes in the game, things will get better after launch". Or "newer hardware & drivers should come out and things will get better after launch". *cough* Vanguard *cough*
Fanboys are just part of the problems on the forums, but that's about as far as their influece will go. It's the over-their-head developers that need smacked, or project managers that mismanage their time & budget. Thus we see so many games that don't get finished on-time. While you do have bad beta testers, people that don't really care to beta test, they just want to get a sneak peek of the game. They really aren't responsible for how the game really turns out. Majority of the time beta testers, no matter how serious you are, have little say, little influence, and almost nothing to do with how games get launched buggy, unplayable, or 2 years ahead of being finished.
Na, Fanboys and girls are good testers, most of them actualy test the game.
the problem lies in the closed view they got after x weeks of testing, when this new tester makes a forum post about someting he considers odd or a bug . alot of fanboy/girl forum refresh guru's tend to tell those new people to shut it whit arguments that might be logical to them but no longer being whitin the view of whats good for the game in the long run.
A true Beta test, is a closed beta test whit a testing focus of max two weeks for a player, then they should be replaced or atleast moved to a diferent testing zone/server. you need a constand suply of fresh views to build the game that stays fun in every aspect of it.
The people that aswers "Its a beta, they add it later" should be kicked on the spot. its your job to be critical about the game and its design not to cover it whit marketing glue.
Na, Fanboys and girls are good testers, most of them actualy test the game.
the problem lies in the closed view they got after x weeks of testing, when this new tester makes a forum post about someting he considers odd or a bug . alot of fanboy/girl forum refresh guru's tend to tell those new people to shut it whit arguments that might be logical to them but no longer being whitin the view of whats good for the game in the long run.
A true Beta test, is a closed beta test whit a testing focus of max two weeks for a player, then they should be replaced or atleast moved to a diferent testing zone/server. you need a constand suply of fresh views to build the game that stays fun in every aspect of it.
The people that aswers "Its a beta, they add it later" should be kicked on the spot. its your job to be critical about the game and its design not to cover it whit marketing glue.
Beta testing isn't just about finding bugs and being critical about the game. It's also about telling them what works. What's good. Honest feedback whether good or bad is the best thing a Beta Tester can do.
op has it all wrong. the worst beta testers are the one's going into games just to *try* them instead of test them and do anything n everything possible to break the game and find n report/bugs/give feedbacks on gameplay/pve/pvp etc. Yes fanboys do fit in this catagorey sumtimes but then i do see the ops point of they love it no matter wat. But on the other hand the fanboys some do report problams and just have fun playing the game. Now just because they enjoy a product that you or many others doesnt enjoy doesnt makem the worst beta testers ever. Just means they enjoy the game and if its the rite bunch they will help reshape the game and make it better. It takes fanboys giving feedback to take a crappy game and make it better (ofc on the other hand takes the haters feedback also to draw other crowds) but do not forget not all dev's are going for all crowds instead sum only target certain ones and sumtimes its a small 1 n sumtimes it isnt. So the worts beta tester is the ones who try a game n not help it out at all and instead spend their beta session bashing it and compairing it to other games while doing nothing actually useful.
Beta testers aren't there to give opinions on gameplay. No company has ever listened to "This won't work, because its not fun." They listen to "This won't work, because its bugged." Too many people think its opinion time, and then are upset that no one heeded the advice. Once a game is in beta the gameplay is set. They are just hammering out working code and server stability. There is no way they can go back to add or change core features. They have to follow a budget.
Beta testers aren't there to give opinions on gameplay. No company has ever listened to "This won't work, because its not fun." They listen to "This won't work, because its bugged." Too many people think its opinion time, and then are upset that no one heeded the advice. Once a game is in beta the gameplay is set. They are just hammering out working code and server stability. There is no way they can go back to add or change core features. They have to follow a budget.
If you feel otherwise you're simply naive.
LOL! you so f'n wrong that wrong needs to be changed to the word brostyn now!
Trion has proved you completely and utterly wrong. COMPLETELY.
After Beta 1 +8000 word patch notes, all from our feedback of bugs and what wasn't 'fun'
After Beta 2 +4500 word patch notes, detailing the same.
In fact because the game is so bug free, most of the changes were because something wasn't fun or enjoyable or didn't work how players would like. Yeah Trion basically kicks ass as a Dev team. Best communication I have ever had with a company.
I kind of think the worst beta testers are the people that don't actually TEST.
There is a difference between a free trial and a beta TEST... One day maybe people will get it...
Certainly those who provide bugs and feedback are more valuable than those who don't; but especially in an MMO everyone is providing a certain level of testing simply by being there.
Sort of weird to see people act like it's even a vague possibility that "people will get it". The inefficiency of 80% not giving bugs/feedback is just part of the process.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There's an important difference between critical feedback and negative feedback.
Warhammer Online's beta was perfectly fine.
which would this statement be?
Dude seriously the WAR beta was horrible
Buggy poor running game
Basically they only tested T1 and T2 (over and over again) The very few times they tested t4 it was a horrible laggy mess.
Plus they way they had their feedback set up you really couldn't make suggestions or be critical or they would lock/delete your post. (on the forums) and the in game feedback cut off after a paragraph or so. So you realy couldn't give honest feedback as mythic were too busy sticking their fingers in their ears going "nya nya nya can't hear you our game is awesome"
That being said tho giving feedback like "this game sux Game x does it better" helps nobody. I see a lot of "feedback" like that...
Beta testing is a two way street. It is important for players to report all bugs but it is also very important for developers to recognize and address all submitted bugs as well. I've been in a ton of betas where you really had no idea if the bugs you submitted were being looked at (and some of the bugs were pretty bad).
I've been beta testing MMOs since Third Dawn for UO. By far the best beta test (not game but how the test was run) was for Fallen Earth. Every bug report I submitted I got a personal dev response emailed back to me - every one (And I submitted a lot of bugs and feedback). They addressed the problem i submitted and gave me a time table for when it was expected to be fixed.
Trion is also doing a fantastic job with the RIft Betas. Every beta has a ton of fixes. I am amazed at the number of changes they are able to implement in a week's time.
This is funny. MMOexposed misunderstood maplestone, and Vegetta misunderstood MMOexposed misunderstanding.
Maplestone meant that there is a difference in the two following statements:
"There is quest in this game which deadends when it isn't suppose to, you get to the third quest giver in the line of five, but are not offered the quest which will take you to completion of the line"
-and-
"The quests in this game suck ass".
The first is critical feedback, the second is negative feedback.
MMOexposed was trying to indicate sarcastically that WAR's beta was in fact problematic and underlying that joke is that fanboy criticism by calling 'perfectly fine' helped to derail the games success. Which incidently doesn't address maplestone's point.
So, Vegetta, MMOexposed agrees with you actually.
___________________________
I think maplestone has a valid point to this discussion, there is a class of beta testers the OP (mmoexposed) is missing, the yin to a fanboys yang is the hater. The beta forums are always filled with people who's 'constructive' criticism is "This game sux ass" -and this is every bit as harmful as the rose colored glasses of a fanboy.
A fanboy and a hater is made from game to game it seems on these forums.. So regardless of beta status, a fanboy will support while a hater will deter.. A fan of anything will encounter stiff resistance from a fan of competition effectively making them a "hater".. The only difference in the MMO genre is that some "haters" will even go as far as to pay for a game just to shout around on the chat and annoy people. I guess they see this as a personal victory or something, but in every new MMO that I have played at launch, there are always people who will sit in game and constantly spam or ruin the chat with arguments that "MMO #1" is better than "CURRENTMMO"..
Some of them even go on to get banned for spamming the bullshit.. Pay for the game, spam the chat and get banned? Just to try and "convince" so called "fanboys" that you think their game sucks?
A fanboy and a hater is made from game to game it seems on these forums.. So regardless of beta status, a fanboy will support while a hater will deter.. A fan of anything will encounter stiff resistance from a fan of competition effectively making them a "hater".. The only difference in the MMO genre is that some "haters" will even go as far as to pay for a game just to shout around on the chat and annoy people. I guess they see this as a personal victory or something, but in every new MMO that I have played at launch, there are always people who will sit in game and constantly spam or ruin the chat with arguments that "MMO #1" is better than "CURRENTMMO"..
Some of them even go on to get banned for spamming the bullshit.. Pay for the game, spam the chat and get banned? Just to try and "convince" so called "fanboys" that you think their game sucks?
For some reason I think in their mind if one person quits because of what they said/did, it was worth it. <shrug>
I kind of think the worst beta testers are the people that don't actually TEST.
There is a difference between a free trial and a beta TEST... One day maybe people will get it...
Maybe if games started to offer free trials people wouldn't have to use the beta tests as such.. its your only chance to preview the game BEFORE you blow your money.. lets face it, the only ones who are trying to actively find every bug in the game are the ones who intend on staying and playing after launch.. people who find out they aren't interested, just move on..
I think you're completely blinded by what the suits are telling you. "This game would have been better had fanbois... blah blah blah"
So let's start with EXAMPLES:
Matrix Online - Beta was FULL of people. For the most part, some of the bugs were caught. At the very end of Beta, they killed the world in a fairly MEH manner. Suddenly, when you logged in for launch everything was changed. Everything that was awesome about MxO was completely different. Had ZERO to do with the Beta testers and 100% to do with what the developers had planned the entire time. While some people stayed, the majority fled the sinking ship.
FFFXIV - Even the most hardcore fanboys had complaints about OB. They complained about the UI, the lack of Alt-Tab, the grindfest. They were told repeatedly there was more content. At launch, where was the content? Heck, months later where is all the content? While there are some of the most devoted playing right now, I think it's because it's F2P. If they tried to charge for their current content, there would be NO ONE left.
Champions Online - Hahaha. Fanboys... LOL. Champions was PLAGUED by bugs, the inability to download the patches, and by a strong lack of content. People TOLD Cryptic about these issues and nothing changed. People told the developers they needed a quick was to respc, and Cryptic originally had the token available ONLY in their cash shop. CRYPTIC... not FANBOYS.
Star Trek Online - This takes Fanboys to a level previously unseen. These people GENUINELY WANT to make a game that didn't suck. They were THE best people to test stuff out. You want to know what I remember about Beta? Day 1 I couldn't get the stupid installer to work. Cryptic forwarded me to a torrent so I could get everything I needed because their patcher was BEYOND broken. Simple stuff in the write-ups for quests didn't have capitalization, punctuation, proper grammar. Now mind you, this was OPEN BETA... RIGHT before launch. This is the stuff that should have been ironed out MONTHS in advance. Sector space LOL. Fanboy's asked for ship interiors and got them. Fanboys complained that Klingons were being rushed and weren't a very good second class but of course did the developers listen? NO.
Your entire premise is off because you throw the entire gauntlet of suckage at the feet of 'fanboys'. My problem is that fanboys aren't wearing rosey-tinted glasses. THEY are the ones who want to see the project succeed the MOST. They are perhaps the ones most likely to report bugs, game breaking abilities, inaccuracies in storylines, etc. On the OTHER hand, developers tend to have a view of the game that DOES tend to be seen through the rosey-tinted glasses. Even if a game totally blows, they think that it's the best thing ever. Kinda like a mom with an ugly baby. THEY know their kid is ugly but they just can't see them that way.
You are my fu-kin hero...well said my good man. Well said indeed!
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I think people in this thread has two different notions of what a fanboy really is. To me there are two types of fanboys.
1. The fan.
The one that cares about the game and is interested in getting things fixed.
2. The fanboi.
The one that only cares about attacking every critisism made about the game by other players. They spend the majority of their time on the beta forums claiming everything is fine. If you dare critizising a poor design feature/choice they are quick to defend it. If there is noticable lag then it's YOUR machine because they play it just fine ..etc. etc.
It's the second kind that is damaging, assuming the devs actually listens to the second group, which I have a good feeling happens more often than not. Hellgate London was a great example of big egos being stroken by the fanboys and dwelling down every critical post made on the beta forum. We all know what happend to that game.
If you see yourself as the first type then obviously you can't see where the OP is coming from.
I think people in this thread has two different notions of what a fanboy really is. To me there are two types of fanboys.
1. The fan.
The one that cares about the game and is interested in getting things fixed.
2. the fanboi.
The one that only cares about attacking every critisism made about the game, by other players. They spend the majority on the beta forums claiming everything is fine. If you dare critizising a poor design feature or choice they are quick to defend it. If there is noticable lag then it's YOUR machine because they play it just fine ..etc. etc.
This. For example i am a fan of guild wars 2. In the beta i will be looking to find as many problems as i can, i won't be found defending a bug in the game or huge server lag. But i may be found defending a feature talked about by arenanet which sounds awesome but others are basically saying 'zomg crap' without even reading about it or playing it. However, legitimate flaws when playing the game are a different ballpark altogether
The Worst Beta Testers, are those that care less if the game fails, and could care less if the game succeeds, aka the Fanboys
Fanboys are the worst type of beta testers.
why?
because, they are blinded by Fanboism in most cases when it comes to issues. many cases they will shrug off major issues, because they see everything through rose petal fanboy glasses.
Rather than calling out a issue, these fanboys would jump to the change to congratulate developers, even on failure.
There is a reason why I said they can care less if the game fail or succeed. Lets be real here people. 9 out 10, the fanboys will play the game no matter how shitty piece of crap the game is.
Which is why I say developer should take their feedback with a grain of salt.
the trick to making a successful MMORPG, is to appeal to the non Fanboy crowd which is much bigger. these individuals wont bite the hype so easily like a fanboy does, which makes critics' feedback that more valuable than the fanboys, when it comes to beta and testing your product.
I seen this same trend over and over.
Warhammer- check
AoC- check
list goes on, with a few I dont want to mention.
When will developers learn this lesson that Critics arent trolls, but actual valued informants.
just imagine how much better Warhammer and AoC would have been today had the developers listened to the Critics over the blindy fanboys... and just look. the Fanboys still play, like I said. No matter how shitty a game will be, the Fanboys will play!!! no need to continue to cater to their blind fanboysim.
APB, and TabaRus-- again fanboys will play. in those games, the fanboys were the only people that would play. they were just that crappy. fanboys alone just cant support most massive multiplayer online role playing games. They flop. This is why The Critic's feedback is much needed.
Having previously worked as a professional software tester (i.e. as a job), I really feel that I have no obligation to devote actual "work" to testing a game in beta. I think the only real responsibility in beta testing a game to be to play the game if you find it enjoyable, and if you randomly encounter a bug, report it. Even then, if the developers make it a pain to report an error, I won't do it.
I don't think any professional game studio would "depend" on unpaid beta testers to do the majority of functionality testing of their game, that would be crazy. You aren't going to find an unpaid beta tester willing to run up against every wall in a game to test for collision problems etc. etc... Unpaid betas are great for stress testing and marketing, that's about it.
Comments
There is no bad critique. There is just critique. You may not share the point of view, but that's another matter. EVERY critique has a chance to improve a game. Every one is a voice of one potential customer. Again, you may not agree with it, but it is still saying something about the game. It is the blind fanboyism which has done endless damage to the MMORPG genre and the sole reason we have 4 years of failures.
Yes, YOU guys are to blame. You will know who I am talking to.
YOU who always flame those who critizise, YOU who always praise games beyond reason, YOU who always ridicule those who "don't get it".
YOU ALONE are the bane of MMO and it entirely falls into your pocket that MMOs are as bad as they are. You lull developers in a false sense of accomplishment and silence the voice of reason and scepticism and thus prevent improvement.
You fanbois are the reason we are in this misery for so many years.
You and you alone!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think some of you are GROSSLY overestimating your worth as a "beta tester" for these games. And quite frankly most of you who say things like "people that suck at beta testing suck because they play and don't TEST" are probably the worst ones as you really really just don't get it.
The days of players being useful as beta testers are LONG since past. Probably the last game where players were actually valuable testers was Everquest. Testing games is VERY methodical and most people have no clue how to do it, it requires tons of documentation and repetition and being able to write a detailed bug report that means something to the devs.
MOST importantly is that it requires inside knowledge, ie. how is this system actually supposed to work. which can usually only be garnered by an in house testing team.
Now imagine during a beta if everyone was submitting bug reports. imagine how useful those reports would be. And i say that with as much sarcasm as possible. Your signal to noise ratio on useful reports to garbage would be incredible. Probably 99% of the reports you would get would be pure unusable worthless trash. Do you REALLY think the devs or anyone for that matter has time to sort through all that shit to find those few useful reports. Not going to happen.
Probably the only reports that get read are the ones posted on beta forums that are thoughtful and constructive as other players add to it and it ends up being useful. But even those posts from what i've seen anymore are extremely rare.
Your job as a play tester involves nothing more than logging in, playing the game as you would live so the devs can collect metrics about how fast you level, any player trends where they are doing something that they didn't expect, noticing any exploits and just other general gameplay issues as well as being a live body for stress testing the server.
Your job ends there for the most part, you are a play tester, not a beta tester in the traditional sense of the word. So the ones that are just logging in to play ARE in fact doing their jobs. To the ones that get all high and mighty and feeling important about being a tester? Get off your horses, you aren't squat.
Due to the vapid, ADD nature of current gamers, open betas are just stress tests these days.
Oh please SHUT UP.
If game is riddled with bad design choices no amount of beta feedback can fix it. The only option is to shut down the whole thing and go back to the drawing boards. Beta is for squashing bugs and some improvements to the game, not to make radical changes to game. there is no such thing as a MIRACLE patch.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
It holds the same value as "Warhammer Online's beta completely sucks."
Both statements are empty, not of any value.
QFT, I agree completely.
Fanboys don't really make games bad, bad developers, coders, and companies do. Often times when you enter a beta, the core design is already set in place. So even if you tell them "hey, this really doesn't play right, you should do this and this instead"....often you get the answer "well we'll think about changing it after launch, but the design will stay the same for now as it's done".
Or if you tell them "hey this game hitches a lot, it's too laggy for the general population to enjoy". They'll come back and say, "well there's a lot of debugging codes in the game, things will get better after launch". Or "newer hardware & drivers should come out and things will get better after launch". *cough* Vanguard *cough*
Fanboys are just part of the problems on the forums, but that's about as far as their influece will go. It's the over-their-head developers that need smacked, or project managers that mismanage their time & budget. Thus we see so many games that don't get finished on-time. While you do have bad beta testers, people that don't really care to beta test, they just want to get a sneak peek of the game. They really aren't responsible for how the game really turns out. Majority of the time beta testers, no matter how serious you are, have little say, little influence, and almost nothing to do with how games get launched buggy, unplayable, or 2 years ahead of being finished.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I find that fanbois of other games that Beta test the competition to be the worst. But that's just me.
Na, Fanboys and girls are good testers, most of them actualy test the game.
the problem lies in the closed view they got after x weeks of testing, when this new tester makes a forum post about someting he considers odd or a bug . alot of fanboy/girl forum refresh guru's tend to tell those new people to shut it whit arguments that might be logical to them but no longer being whitin the view of whats good for the game in the long run.
A true Beta test, is a closed beta test whit a testing focus of max two weeks for a player, then they should be replaced or atleast moved to a diferent testing zone/server. you need a constand suply of fresh views to build the game that stays fun in every aspect of it.
The people that aswers "Its a beta, they add it later" should be kicked on the spot. its your job to be critical about the game and its design not to cover it whit marketing glue.
Beta testing isn't just about finding bugs and being critical about the game. It's also about telling them what works. What's good. Honest feedback whether good or bad is the best thing a Beta Tester can do.
i deal with fanboys since '95
op has it all wrong. the worst beta testers are the one's going into games just to *try* them instead of test them and do anything n everything possible to break the game and find n report/bugs/give feedbacks on gameplay/pve/pvp etc. Yes fanboys do fit in this catagorey sumtimes but then i do see the ops point of they love it no matter wat. But on the other hand the fanboys some do report problams and just have fun playing the game. Now just because they enjoy a product that you or many others doesnt enjoy doesnt makem the worst beta testers ever. Just means they enjoy the game and if its the rite bunch they will help reshape the game and make it better. It takes fanboys giving feedback to take a crappy game and make it better (ofc on the other hand takes the haters feedback also to draw other crowds) but do not forget not all dev's are going for all crowds instead sum only target certain ones and sumtimes its a small 1 n sumtimes it isnt. So the worts beta tester is the ones who try a game n not help it out at all and instead spend their beta session bashing it and compairing it to other games while doing nothing actually useful.
Beta testers aren't there to give opinions on gameplay. No company has ever listened to "This won't work, because its not fun." They listen to "This won't work, because its bugged." Too many people think its opinion time, and then are upset that no one heeded the advice. Once a game is in beta the gameplay is set. They are just hammering out working code and server stability. There is no way they can go back to add or change core features. They have to follow a budget.
If you feel otherwise you're simply naive.
LOL! you so f'n wrong that wrong needs to be changed to the word brostyn now!
Trion has proved you completely and utterly wrong. COMPLETELY.
After Beta 1 +8000 word patch notes, all from our feedback of bugs and what wasn't 'fun'
After Beta 2 +4500 word patch notes, detailing the same.
In fact because the game is so bug free, most of the changes were because something wasn't fun or enjoyable or didn't work how players would like. Yeah Trion basically kicks ass as a Dev team. Best communication I have ever had with a company.
Certainly those who provide bugs and feedback are more valuable than those who don't; but especially in an MMO everyone is providing a certain level of testing simply by being there.
Sort of weird to see people act like it's even a vague possibility that "people will get it". The inefficiency of 80% not giving bugs/feedback is just part of the process.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This is funny. MMOexposed misunderstood maplestone, and Vegetta misunderstood MMOexposed misunderstanding.
Maplestone meant that there is a difference in the two following statements:
"There is quest in this game which deadends when it isn't suppose to, you get to the third quest giver in the line of five, but are not offered the quest which will take you to completion of the line"
-and-
"The quests in this game suck ass".
The first is critical feedback, the second is negative feedback.
MMOexposed was trying to indicate sarcastically that WAR's beta was in fact problematic and underlying that joke is that fanboy criticism by calling 'perfectly fine' helped to derail the games success. Which incidently doesn't address maplestone's point.
So, Vegetta, MMOexposed agrees with you actually.
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I think maplestone has a valid point to this discussion, there is a class of beta testers the OP (mmoexposed) is missing, the yin to a fanboys yang is the hater. The beta forums are always filled with people who's 'constructive' criticism is "This game sux ass" -and this is every bit as harmful as the rose colored glasses of a fanboy.
A fanboy and a hater is made from game to game it seems on these forums.. So regardless of beta status, a fanboy will support while a hater will deter.. A fan of anything will encounter stiff resistance from a fan of competition effectively making them a "hater".. The only difference in the MMO genre is that some "haters" will even go as far as to pay for a game just to shout around on the chat and annoy people. I guess they see this as a personal victory or something, but in every new MMO that I have played at launch, there are always people who will sit in game and constantly spam or ruin the chat with arguments that "MMO #1" is better than "CURRENTMMO"..
Some of them even go on to get banned for spamming the bullshit.. Pay for the game, spam the chat and get banned? Just to try and "convince" so called "fanboys" that you think their game sucks?
For some reason I think in their mind if one person quits because of what they said/did, it was worth it. <shrug>
This.
But I think most developers these days understand that most tests, especially open beta, are nothing more than free-trial/stress test.
Maybe if games started to offer free trials people wouldn't have to use the beta tests as such.. its your only chance to preview the game BEFORE you blow your money.. lets face it, the only ones who are trying to actively find every bug in the game are the ones who intend on staying and playing after launch.. people who find out they aren't interested, just move on..
True story.
You are my fu-kin hero...well said my good man. Well said indeed!
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I think people in this thread has two different notions of what a fanboy really is. To me there are two types of fanboys.
1. The fan.
The one that cares about the game and is interested in getting things fixed.
2. The fanboi.
The one that only cares about attacking every critisism made about the game by other players. They spend the majority of their time on the beta forums claiming everything is fine. If you dare critizising a poor design feature/choice they are quick to defend it. If there is noticable lag then it's YOUR machine because they play it just fine ..etc. etc.
It's the second kind that is damaging, assuming the devs actually listens to the second group, which I have a good feeling happens more often than not. Hellgate London was a great example of big egos being stroken by the fanboys and dwelling down every critical post made on the beta forum. We all know what happend to that game.
If you see yourself as the first type then obviously you can't see where the OP is coming from.
This. For example i am a fan of guild wars 2. In the beta i will be looking to find as many problems as i can, i won't be found defending a bug in the game or huge server lag. But i may be found defending a feature talked about by arenanet which sounds awesome but others are basically saying 'zomg crap' without even reading about it or playing it. However, legitimate flaws when playing the game are a different ballpark altogether
Having previously worked as a professional software tester (i.e. as a job), I really feel that I have no obligation to devote actual "work" to testing a game in beta. I think the only real responsibility in beta testing a game to be to play the game if you find it enjoyable, and if you randomly encounter a bug, report it. Even then, if the developers make it a pain to report an error, I won't do it.
I don't think any professional game studio would "depend" on unpaid beta testers to do the majority of functionality testing of their game, that would be crazy. You aren't going to find an unpaid beta tester willing to run up against every wall in a game to test for collision problems etc. etc... Unpaid betas are great for stress testing and marketing, that's about it.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
That's my opinion, as well.