Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Big Mistakes by these online cookie cutter games
Tsen
Member Posts: 58
I find this really stupid in more ways then one.
They get free beta accounts to play the game before its released.
Two things i find wrong with this. One is the beta testers are people more interested in getting a status of " I played the game from the begging." Instead of doing the real beta testing of the games. I laughed when i was working for vivendi out of 3000 beta testers we would get only 100 beta reports and most people did not even submit beta reports in a format that the developers can understand. I still do not understand this free beta crap. It should be called " FU Period "aka free user period, basically these people who sit home and have nothing better to do but play games. I got an idea. Why doesnt someone/anyone open a company based out of beta testing rules and pay min-wages to these so called beta testers. That way these games get proper reports and completed before they are released.
If you are one of the few tring to beta for real. I feel for you. I noticed on 5 games i beta tested people never get the big picture. I saw players camping items which made me laugh so hard it not funny and complained to people in the game but failed to report that bug. Then when release they run there expliot it for what it worth.
lol
FOOLS.
If you beta test a game it should be done with intent to correct the bugs not level characters to boost your non-important status.
That 100-300 people beta testing for real good job. Sorry there is nothing in place to actually build your name as a professional beta tester.
I hope someone comes out with a respected company to do beta testing from. The developers are blinded from code. The so called beta tester are mostly kids that want to play before release. The very .. very few that do the beta testing with correct reporting . good job.
Its not the beta testers fault as much as its the company's fault for choosing people with no real method of knownings who can really do the job.
Lastly, I really feel the game is only as good as the people helping with the beta reports and ingame reports.
Helllo, My name is Indego Montoya, You killed my father prepare to die.
(Repeat)
Helllo, My name is Indego Montoya, You killed my father prepare to die.
(Repeat)
Comments
Even after a game has been around for a long time, there are still bugs to be reported, or suggestions to be made on play mechanics, this is how online games evolve and hold players' interests. The only difference in beta testing is that these people are likely to come across more of these issues than after a game has been up and running for a while, and as compensation for this, the beta testers get to experience the game before anyone else.
So in effect, there really is no difference between beta testers, and regular players after release. I'm sure no more is expected from them as far as reporting problems they come across than there is from anyone after the title launch.
As for your poll, I doubt you'll get many responses on that one unless you make the choices a bit more fair. I mean, in essance, the choices say, "I agree with you", "I'm a moron", or "I want to scam folks". Also I highly doubt anyone enters a beta with the singular goal of seeking out every single discrepancy and glitch they can find. Most, I'm sure, do it for the opportunity to have access to something not many others do, and if that means letting the company know when something goes wrong, or how something could be made better, well that's a small price to pay especially since even when a game goes retail most players do that anyway.
I will agree, however, that there are a lot of folks dont really know the premise behind beta testing, and just complain about bugs as if they were not to be expected, but I seriously doubt those people make up the majority. Still, the current beta testing system seems like a win/win situation for companies. They still get the feedback they need to improve the game at little cost, while the testers get to play those hot new games that cause conflict and contreversy among the fanboi's on discussion boards such as this one before everyone else, and free no less. Sounds like a good deal to me.
I just think paying for a beta product is not the way to go. Something about it rings wrong. I understand that the evolution of a game is always solving bugs, But not the bugs introduced in games such as shadowbane, AO, DAOC, so on. These bugs are more code unwrites. NO QA seemed to happen before they charged people money to play a game that not really in the BETA phase .. I guess i am tring to stress that some of these games are really awsome if they would be fixed. But they never get fixed because the developement teams have moved off the game once it hits retail and it is sad.
only a small group of developers are left to handle the real bugs that cannot be fixed within a time frame that is well atleast to me acceptable.
I think the whole process needs to be changed. It unacceptable period to charge for a game that is not been through a QA process that meets certain guilde lines not inplace today.
Its very sad .. but i agree and have no answer to these problems but then again i am not providing a service to the public with a charge attached to it. If i was i would be more serious about when a product get released and the phases of beta are done to a point that serous problem do not exist.
But i disagree on the part about paying for a beta. That to me is not what i pay for when i buy a game.
Helllo, My name is Indego Montoya, You killed my father prepare to die.
(Repeat)
Helllo, My name is Indego Montoya, You killed my father prepare to die.
(Repeat)
I think it is you that dont understand the companies motives.
They know pretty well most bugs in the game, they just need to prioritize what they need to work on.
Alpha testers did that job. They dont need silly beta testers to do it again. They need to see peoples playing the game for real.
They dont even need to read your reports, they read titles only. If they read your report, they dont read for insight about bugs, they read it to judge your feelings as a player.
This is a game, and someone doing beta do it for FREE. If a company is actually using beta to learn of game bugs, they are so backward I will not even comment on this.
- "Solo is, will always be, the main market. A MMORPG that succeed with little or no solo appeal is doing great considering they are ignoring the main player base.''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
An alpha version or alpha release represents the first version of a computer program/game. A computer program (often simply called a program) is an example of computer software that prescribes the actions ("computations") that are to be carried out by a computer. . .its more about mechanics.
The beta version of a product still awaits full debugging or full implementation of all its functionality, but satisfies a majority of the requirements In software engineering, a requirement is a description of what a system should do. Beta versions (or just betas) stand at an intermediate step in the full development cycle. Developers release them to a group of beta testers (or, sometimes, to the general public) for a user test. The testers report any bugs that they found, features they would like to see in the final version, etc.
Alpha testing does not really look for game-play bugs. That's the realm of beta testing. Alpha testing looks for background bugs - bugs in the ways people interact with the geographics of the game. For instance, DAOC was released with several "holes" in the geometry where folks from one realm could slip into another realm. This is an example of something that should have been caught during Alpha testing. The same could be said of EQ's many "fall through the floor" points.
Closed beta testing takes place when mechanics are put into the game. Interaction among NPCs and players; functionality of processes between them, etc., are all tested.
Companies don't expect much serious feedback from players in OPEN beta, except for processes that break down when too many people are trying to use/misuse them. What they are looking at is how well the servers respond (stress testing); what system specs are having problems in the game; bottlenecks; and getting an idea of the bewilderment level of new players (i.e., how high is the learning curve).
All testers, those who seriously go about leveling their characters, those who search every nook and cranny uncovering the most minute of bugs, those who spend all their time trying like hell to break things, those who spend all their time looking for exploits, as well as those who can't get in the game at all, are ALL valuable.
We may not agree on everything, but on this, we completely, and totally agree...they need to see peoples playing the game for real, which is pretty much what you describe.
A silly player like me will scowl at the idea of doing beta alone, or play on the ''test'' server. I dont mind encoutering an alpha stage of a feature rather then the company holding on it, however, it need to be in the game, not in a helping situation...I talk a lot and overeact...players like me are often the last ''rempart'' before massive lost of subscriptions...or daydreaming in our worlds! Most of the time, when I react, it is to late for them to adapt!
I do mind if they dont adapt their alpha stage that they implement directly into the game, the worser the feature, the faster they need to adapt and correct it...exemple: Leadership, they would have like a week at most to correct it in EQ, after that they lost a customer...however, let take buffing ''EQ style'', well, they didnt fix it in years, I was bitching at it, but didnt left over it, I could have left over it and it prolly reduce my tolerance toward others unresolve stuff, so when leadership come out, wow, I was not going to endure that long, not at all. Having fixed the buffing would have make me more patient, but the feature was so bad I doubt I would have endure it 1 month, even in the perfect game(1 person only in the group earning reward on a regular basic = total BS unworthy of any consideration).
I respect alpha and beta testers, althought, I am not by any way going to go throught those, and they better all start level 1 when the game go ON for real, or be on their reserved server LOL, not affecting negatively me in any way I can think of(and I have a very wild imagination).
- "Solo is, will always be, the main market. A MMORPG that succeed with little or no solo appeal is doing great considering they are ignoring the main player base.''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren