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Closed Beta Expectations
Mordeath
Member Posts: 131
I'm curious to those people who have played in a closed beta, and even those who haven't I guess, what are your expectations of a game at this point. I say this because often I see bashing about games in closed beta but a closed beta is not a complete game. So, is it that you expect it to be farther along, you expect it to be done but just bug testing? Word of mouth can kill games, so if you are in a closed (as in not open to the public) beta, what do you expect in terms of things being completed, working etc.
Comments
In a closed beta, I expect the game to have all features implemented which were planned initially.
It is okay if they are buggy. It is not okay if they are still unplayable although you "use them the way they are intended".
For instance you have some sort of battleground pvp. It is okay when winning conditions sometimes are calculated in a wrong manner. It is a pure epic fail if queuing up doesn't even work.
Beta is for medium to light bug-fixing. Heavier issues need to done in alpha already. Though I can understand that you have (in terms of MMOs) a somewhat different situation with the mere amount of players rushing your servers at once.
To me it depends how far away the release date is. The farther away I expect less from the content, closer to release I expect almost all content to be complete and only the details need to be tested.
I would expect major issues to be worked out before going open beta/live. Major issues would include ranging from performance, crashes, balancing, fun-killers, etc.
If I actively participate in a Closed Beta it will be because the system allows me to create "savepoints" for my character so i can retest something over and over again so i can actually submit a bug report, not just a "well maybe it was a bug i kinda did this and that but since the quest is now over i can't even try to reproduce" which i despise when i get a bug reported to me when i program something because after investigating for several hours if you find something its usually a user error not a bug.
If its not possible to do such a thing in a beta, its more of a joke than a beta imo.
Adding: I must not be the only one either, NDAs in jokes really don't need to be respected. They can't even setup tests right, how can they have enough ressources to ban the accounts that breach the NDA.
Buttermilch hit a lot of it, but the most important thing for me about CB for any game is that the dev team respond to and try to fix problems highlighted by testers. If you have a 6 month CB, followed by a 10 day OB, and a bug that was highlighted on day 1 of CB (and bugged through all phases of testing) is still there at launch.... well, it doesn't bode well.
I expect games to be buggy in CB, I expect there to be myriad problems encountered for the first time, as the volume of players, coupled with vastly different hardware/OS systems can produce problems unforseen in even the tightest Alpha. If those problems are addressed over the course of the beta, and the game that hits launch is smoother and relatively bug-free - then it has been a great beta.
I've never seen closed beta as a "free play" of a game, that's what OB is for (well, not really, but it may as well be these days).
If you hear people complaining about a game that is still in CB, look at the complaints closely. If they say the game is buggy/laggy, that's par for the course. If they say there are huge problems that the devs are ignoring (broken quests, broken abilities, frequent ctds) and it's coming near the end of CB, then they might deserve a listen.
I never post on any game I'm testing in a closed beta (NDA always in place) but my opinion of a game and decision on whether to purchase it post-beta or not will be influenced by the responsiveness of the dev team when it comes to dealing with major problems players are having with the game - we've beta tested it, said "here are the problems", what's the point of it all if the problems don't get fixed pre-launch?
Yeah, developer responsiveness is absolutely crucial during CB. I expect bugs to crop up with the larger pool of hardware combinations, I expect imba issues, and perhaps some fluff features to not be fully implemented. But when problems are reported, I expect them to be addressed. When exploits are discovered, I expect them to be cracked down on, with a zero-tolerance warning issued at the very least, if a coding fix isn't immediately practical.
And one other thing - I absolutely hate it when F2P's operate their cash shop during CB. Very little sours my outlook and opinion of the developer's credibility faster than when they try to sell crap to players playing a game that's still in CB and still full of bugs and rough spots, especially when it's likely going to see a server wipe before OB.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
I expect to have to actually play a bit and try things out in order to find a bug. If I log on and am immediately seeing UI problems, missing text, broken functionality, etc., then I stop, on the grounds that the game is not yet ready for beta-testing, it's still at an alpha or pre-alpha phase, and the developer is wasting their time getting the public in.
And I expect the design of the game to be in place: following on from this, if the game is not already fun in closed beta, I consider it extremely unlikely that it will be fun come release time.
you have beta testing witch starts many months before release and this time is used for actually testing bugs even implement more featers or testing speciall areas.
Many betas these days are short and just before release they call them close beta but its just for promotion.
Also many of those close betas are a joke(Darkfall was a complete joke)you have many major bugs you even report them but still game launched and many bugs even tho known by dev team are not fix and game never stress tested eather.
It can be rushed launch becouse out of money or development took so long publisher just want game to be released.
For me always a CB is testing and report and even tho maybe something are still not ingame while promised or major bugs i just keep testing and hoping they fix problems.
Majority who join beta's are just for free ride and manytimes annoying as hell whine and whine while not testing at all they just wanne free play, most of them you will not see after release.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I think my expectations are higher than most. I'm getting really sick of games being released early to sell boxes, items, or beta access.
In my opinion, by the time a game hits closed beta, it needs to have its (simple) bugs worked out. This includes things like quests working properly, NPCs acting accordingly, typos, UI, and tooltips. It doesn't take 1000 people stress testing a server to get this stuff right. If a quest is bugged, the programmer messed up. If a tool tip reads incorrectly, someone isn't doing their job.
Closed beta focus should be on more complicated bugs, ones created by masses of players. Also, exploits, things that a dev team may not have thought of on their own. And to a degree PvP class balance. (a never ending job, but should be close enough at this point that there isn't anything game breaking) They should also provide mid and max level playable characters. We don't get to test end game content enough. And these are the gamebreaking bugs that go overlooked untill 3 months after launch. People have quit your game by that point.
Basically, I feel everything should be done before Open Beta. (asking too much? probably) Open beta should be for stress testing only, and perhaps fixing up the final few glitches before the game goes live.
STO was (and could still be, I don't play anymore) a absolute bug fest after launch. So many were turned off the game immediately when you look at the chat, and half of it is people sating stuff like: "Oh that quest is bugged, skip it.." Another one was AoC. An entire instance unplayable, with bugged bosses and quests that were broken. How the hell this kind of stuff makes it through Alpha, CB and OB without getting fixed blows my mind.
People (myself included) need to stop paying for garbage. Put pressure on the devs right out of the gate and let them know that we aren't buying a retail version of their game anytime before launch. And we won't pay to beta test their game after launch either.