Reporting issues in a beta is one thing, bitching about them incessantly to anyone in earshot is another. Too often what we hear is the latter, to which the proper response is: "STFU its beta".
Well said, and, to expand a little.
Proper BETA (a long time ago it seems to me :P )- testing for bugs, steps to reproduce said bug, report to developer all info - normally done to a test schedule, etc.
These days - BETA = a chance to race through content, ignore all and any bugs & bitch like Hell over forums later......PROPER Beta testing is a complete pain to do tbh and doesn't seem to exist anymore - this is after multi closed betas and countless hours testing a SINGLE game mechanic
(Beta testing games for 20+ years :P )
Beta testing hasnt changed at all.
Its just being called something different.
Beta testing now is all Inhouse professional testing.
the public beta stuff we know now days is only marketing. aka a Paid Trial.
People on sites like this, are way to easily brainwashed by marketing gimmicks that they cant see past developer's marketeers.
first people need to learn how to spot an actual beta, and how to spot a marketing beta.... both are vastly different...
a real beta, the devs actually post things they want tested they ask for players views on changes before saying the change is 100% in final build..
marketing beta, they make you sign up or spam links to people to join.. and basicly say "go nuts" aka play the game not test..
a good example.. is stuff like the GW2 beta going on, that is more of a marketing beta and not a beta test.. as you arent really testing its just boosting popularity for it.. may as well call it a demo..
while people love to throw out the "its beta" alot of the time its BS.. once a game enters "gold" status its not a beta. sure MMOs are nothing like single player games.. in thatthey are always having new content and patches... its safe to assume the minute they start charging money.. or the patches take long periods of time to come about.. its not a beta.
games try to sucker people in to thinking they are betas when they arent. i can throw a beta tag on WoW ... but does that make it a beta?? nope... even if it keeps getting patches its a "gold" game. GW2 is pretty much "gold" now as well.
you see beta used alot for games that are f2p or on facebook alot.. doesnt make them betas... people use it way to much to cover up for game failings... rather sad
Uh, GW2 BWE is a REAL BETA. There were surveys asking you about difficulty/rewards/story/mechanics after almost every story instance/major event. Servers were tuned for lag after the fiasco on Friday. Devs promised to address issues with melee/ranged balance as well as the difficulty of various mobs/events. There were a decent amount of bugs/issues posted in the beta forums, with devs addressing a majority of them.
Not to mention a lot of armors are still using placeholders, 2 races are missing, and there IS NO LAUNCH DATE. Plus, you had to buy the game to be in the BWE, so it's definitely not a marketing event as who are they marketing to? People who already bought the game full price?
im sorry but "beta weekends" are not proper betas. at most it is just a server stress test. a proper beta is like what is happening with DoTA 2 or archeage. they last for a long time so changes can be actually be made.
the fact that you can pay to get it suggests its not a real beta, its just another pre purchase incentive. it is a marketing event, its just an expensive one. arena net/ NC soft are aware of the hype gw2 is generated and they are using it to sell a game which people have not yet played or heard player opinions about due to NDA. this is clever but despicable marketing and looks like you have been fooled like many others.
devs respond to questions and "address issues" in fake betas as well. they can only make small changes-- take note of this-- because their fake beta is very short and close to release so any large changes cannot be tested or even implemented.
Most betas are the standard "oh yea its beta, wait for miracle patch 2 weeks before release" nowadays.
NOT so with the GW2 beta.
This beta weekend was a proper beta that i havent seen in a long time. Yes its point was not to find every single bug in the game (which mind you i havent seen many if any at all) but to provide a ton of feedback to the devs and to test the servers.
The sole fact that it was this short and that they closed the forums 3 days later so they could actually read the feedback must have escaped you somehow.
GW2 beta is marketing pal. thats all. all their testing is done inhouse, by professionals. Trion Worlds did the same thing for Rift. Most of the testing was done by private Alpha testers that were still on NDA, during the public beta. They test builds that not even the public knew about.
Darkfall for example also had Private inhouse testers. Thats why very few leaks came along.
I miss real beta where things are really broken and the char wipe is everyday or every other day to fix the game play. How many real betas you been in over the last decade?
How many times have you logged into beta and seen a create character screen instead of your characters?
How many of you would /RAGE QUIT if this happened?
I mean beta weekend was Friday make a character, Saturday afternoon make new character and Sunday make another char because something broke on Friday was fixed on Saturday but what was fixed on Saturday broke something on Fridays update. I know many think that the game will get better but now days what you play in beta is what you get minus a few minor bug fixes.
Beta now is about pre launch marketing for those that want to play rather than wait.
It depends on what people are criticizing. If it's the first day of beta and things are buggy or the servers are unstable or whatever, then it's crazy to declare the game a failure and move on to waiting for the next game. It's in beta for a reason, and things like that are fixable.
But there are some problems that are far more fundamental, and aren't going to be fixed between beta and live. If combat basically consists of pulling mobs and then waiting for your auto-attack to kill them, then it's fair to say the game is bad and move on.
If you're saying, I found some bugs for the company to fix and here they are, then there's nothing wrong with that. It's also fair to criticize play balance and advocate doing this or that to fix it. Saying, here are some things that can and should be changed between beta and live is what beta is for.
first people need to learn how to spot an actual beta, and how to spot a marketing beta.... both are vastly different...
a real beta, the devs actually post things they want tested they ask for players views on changes before saying the change is 100% in final build..
marketing beta, they make you sign up or spam links to people to join.. and basicly say "go nuts" aka play the game not test..
a good example.. is stuff like the GW2 beta going on, that is more of a marketing beta and not a beta test.. as you arent really testing its just boosting popularity for it.. may as well call it a demo..
while people love to throw out the "its beta" alot of the time its BS.. once a game enters "gold" status its not a beta. sure MMOs are nothing like single player games.. in thatthey are always having new content and patches... its safe to assume the minute they start charging money.. or the patches take long periods of time to come about.. its not a beta.
games try to sucker people in to thinking they are betas when they arent. i can throw a beta tag on WoW ... but does that make it a beta?? nope... even if it keeps getting patches its a "gold" game. GW2 is pretty much "gold" now as well.
you see beta used alot for games that are f2p or on facebook alot.. doesnt make them betas... people use it way to much to cover up for game failings... rather sad
Hold on. I think you are spot on about a real beta vs a marketing beta.
But I think immeidately mis identify GW2's current beta as a marketing beta.
Have you seen how developer response there was? Literally tons. The head of the story content for the Personal Story was asking for feedback in like 10 different threads with multiple posts each.
Don't get me wrong Anet WILL do a marketing beta, I guarantee it. They are often even honest enough to call them Preview weekends and not Betas. But this beta was not a marketing beta.
The problem is that people are increasingly seeing beta's as finished products when it comes to forming an opinion. They let unfinished content guide their perception and immediately run to a forum to say "This game is da worst! Back to WoW guyz!!!".
Most of the time when people say "it's beta" they don't mean "it didn't happen"; it usually means "there's a good chance X will be improved before release", which is more or less reasonable depending on the developer and time remaining before release.
"Beta is beta" is not a statement that contradicts expressing legitimate flaws in a game. However, it is a defense against people that inexblicably see 'beta' and 'release' as the exact same thing and then jump on the forums to display their 100% total knowledge and understanding of the game and to deem it universally 'bad' as if they're a hero saving people from forming their own opinion.
The problem is that people are increasingly seeing beta's as finished products when it comes to forming an opinion. They let unfinished content guide their perception and immediately run to a forum to say "This game is da worst! Back to WoW guyz!!!".
Most of the time when people say "it's beta" they don't mean "it didn't happen"; it usually means "there's a good chance X will be improved before release", which is more or less reasonable depending on the developer and time remaining before release.
"Beta is beta" is not a statement that contradicts expressing legitimate flaws in a game. However, it is a defense against people that inexblicably see 'beta' and 'release' as the exact same thing and then jump on the forums to display their 100% total knowledge and understanding of the game and to deem it universally 'bad' as if they're a hero saving people from forming their own opinion.
Truth is, Beta vs release is NOTHING at all like alpha vs beta. Point being, the beta IS in most aspects IS the released product. Beta's nowdays are more used as stress tests(To test the servers ability under load) and to 'advertise' the game.
Beta's from 10 years ago were real tests, and usualy ran for a few months, and testers would be expected to fill out bug reports. you don't often see that nowdays, and even when you fill out a bug report, chances are its ignored.
Comments
Beta testing hasnt changed at all.
Its just being called something different.
Beta testing now is all Inhouse professional testing.
the public beta stuff we know now days is only marketing. aka a Paid Trial.
People on sites like this, are way to easily brainwashed by marketing gimmicks that they cant see past developer's marketeers.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
GW2 beta is marketing pal. thats all. all their testing is done inhouse, by professionals. Trion Worlds did the same thing for Rift. Most of the testing was done by private Alpha testers that were still on NDA, during the public beta. They test builds that not even the public knew about.
Darkfall for example also had Private inhouse testers. Thats why very few leaks came along.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I miss real beta where things are really broken and the char wipe is everyday or every other day to fix the game play. How many real betas you been in over the last decade?
How many times have you logged into beta and seen a create character screen instead of your characters?
How many of you would /RAGE QUIT if this happened?
I mean beta weekend was Friday make a character, Saturday afternoon make new character and Sunday make another char because something broke on Friday was fixed on Saturday but what was fixed on Saturday broke something on Fridays update. I know many think that the game will get better but now days what you play in beta is what you get minus a few minor bug fixes.
Beta now is about pre launch marketing for those that want to play rather than wait.
Beta is a joke.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
It depends on what people are criticizing. If it's the first day of beta and things are buggy or the servers are unstable or whatever, then it's crazy to declare the game a failure and move on to waiting for the next game. It's in beta for a reason, and things like that are fixable.
But there are some problems that are far more fundamental, and aren't going to be fixed between beta and live. If combat basically consists of pulling mobs and then waiting for your auto-attack to kill them, then it's fair to say the game is bad and move on.
If you're saying, I found some bugs for the company to fix and here they are, then there's nothing wrong with that. It's also fair to criticize play balance and advocate doing this or that to fix it. Saying, here are some things that can and should be changed between beta and live is what beta is for.
Hold on. I think you are spot on about a real beta vs a marketing beta.
But I think immeidately mis identify GW2's current beta as a marketing beta.
Have you seen how developer response there was? Literally tons. The head of the story content for the Personal Story was asking for feedback in like 10 different threads with multiple posts each.
Don't get me wrong Anet WILL do a marketing beta, I guarantee it. They are often even honest enough to call them Preview weekends and not Betas. But this beta was not a marketing beta.
The problem is that people are increasingly seeing beta's as finished products when it comes to forming an opinion. They let unfinished content guide their perception and immediately run to a forum to say "This game is da worst! Back to WoW guyz!!!".
Most of the time when people say "it's beta" they don't mean "it didn't happen"; it usually means "there's a good chance X will be improved before release", which is more or less reasonable depending on the developer and time remaining before release.
"Beta is beta" is not a statement that contradicts expressing legitimate flaws in a game. However, it is a defense against people that inexblicably see 'beta' and 'release' as the exact same thing and then jump on the forums to display their 100% total knowledge and understanding of the game and to deem it universally 'bad' as if they're a hero saving people from forming their own opinion.
Truth is, Beta vs release is NOTHING at all like alpha vs beta. Point being, the beta IS in most aspects IS the released product. Beta's nowdays are more used as stress tests(To test the servers ability under load) and to 'advertise' the game.
Beta's from 10 years ago were real tests, and usualy ran for a few months, and testers would be expected to fill out bug reports. you don't often see that nowdays, and even when you fill out a bug report, chances are its ignored.