Why Beta Testing Sucks
<div class="IPBDescription">Seeing the Good go Bad</div> Argh, this sucks. Im in a Beta for a game which I can't disclose (I could, but the rest of the thread would be illegal under the NDA).
Unfortunatly this game went from needing some simple additions and tweaks to completly eliminating fractions of its soon to be population, and forcing players to spend obscene ammount of time (24+ hours) in order to recover from a single death.
As if this wasnt bad enough, its going to be released in less then a month. Meaning that paying customers will be forced to sit through 4-6 months of patching before the devs address issues that were brought up in BETA.
Just makes me so mad, how can game developers not realize that releasing a game with many of the bugs, problems, and imbalances reported in beta still remaining is going to cost them more then 1/2 their customer base.
Unfortunatly this game went from needing some simple additions and tweaks to completly eliminating fractions of its soon to be population, and forcing players to spend obscene ammount of time (24+ hours) in order to recover from a single death.
As if this wasnt bad enough, its going to be released in less then a month. Meaning that paying customers will be forced to sit through 4-6 months of patching before the devs address issues that were brought up in BETA.
Just makes me so mad, how can game developers not realize that releasing a game with many of the bugs, problems, and imbalances reported in beta still remaining is going to cost them more then 1/2 their customer base.
Comments
forcing players to spend obscene ammount of time (24+ hours) in order to recover from a single death.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you serious or just kidding? Thats horrible, especialy for a game you have to pay for, I mean, what if you are TKed?
That would soooo anger me to no end. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
a) You need to dole out cash or else you need to do a corpse run for your gear.
b) You need to pay to bind.
Now heres the kicker: It costs more money to carry out missions then you actually make from the missions in some cases. The devs want you to make 500 per hour, but it costs <b>10,000</b> unless you want to do a corpse run everytime you die. Oh yes, and the mandatory stat penalty, which remains until you find a healer to heal your stats.....for a fee of course. And no, there are no NPC healers like this, so hope you don't die at 5am when no ones on.
I could go on and on about how much potential this game had, it just baffles me. There was the possiblity for massive inner city PvP fights, but problems with PvP rules were never addressed for balance.
Considering you can be killed in 3 hits in PvP, and with how much it costs both time and money wise to get back on your feet after a death, they not only ripped off the balls of PvP, but they put them in a blender and set it to frappe.
It just really really hurts to see a game with so much potential go down the drain so fast. *Sigh* After its released I can actually give you some more info without being so vague, but I can guarentee you will be pretty saddened to find out what game it is <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
money is the root of all evil (and buggy software IS evil, dont try to deny it)
I have trouble seeing Half Life 2 as a game where you are paid 500 per hour and it costs money to live again, unless you want to do a corpse run. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Reading topics before posting is your friend...
I have trouble seeing Half Life 2 as a game where you are paid 500 per hour and it costs money to live again, unless you want to do a corpse run. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Reading topics before posting is your friend... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
But jumping to conclusions in the hope someone will take what you said and run with it, is even better than a friend ;p
I hope the devs wouldn't be stupid enough to put something like that in...
The NDA will be lifted soon any way.
The NDA will be lifted soon any way. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
A couple days, if I remember right.
evidently the only thing worse than the bugs and crashes is the content itself.
quote from beta tester, "glorified chat room for star wars geeks"
Others say, well it isnt targeting the hardcore mmorpg fan, its for casual gamers.
Now i am a casual gamer, but that statement makes me wince.
check out this thread:
<a href='http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=42386' target='_blank'>http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?...&threadid=42386</a>
i have a bunch of other, but cause of the nda, not meant to release them. ohh and i am NOT a beta tester, nor did anyone i know who is tell me anything they shouldnt have.
*wink*
gg shuttle bug.
augh, yes, what badkarma said!
If it is, reply that it isn't :-) Thats not 'really' breaking the NDA
As far as I can see and where the patches are leading HL2 will end up being a 3rd person shooter sort of like dues ex in it's final release. There are stats that you learn, like being able to control higher end aliens, and your accuarcy increases the more you use a weapon. The AI is completely revamped and it's now viable to have a companion all the way through the game because their skill increases also, you can teach your AI partners how to use certain skills and tactics. Two of the biggest suprises will be the extent to which you can use the physics engine, and the extent to which you can destroy the enviorment. As far as the phsyics engine goes they are implementing hand to hand combat, so instead of just swinging your crowbar you can actually go off with it on people, gordon can now also kick which comes in handy when you're out of ammo. The enviorment as you've heard before will be fully destroyable the most extreme case I can provide is when using a Tau like weapon that realeases massive blasts of energy and actually turns walls into molten rock that burn your enemies. The plot has also been given an incredible amount of attention and makes HL1's plot look like UTK3, you start off as a marine working for the Neocron 17 organization, you work for the gman, and the whole organization is run by a mysterious man called the Administrator. It starts of simply enough you are in city 17 where Necron HQ is located and you have been ordered to investigate a strange alien infestation. Xen has been purged of alien presence at this point and is being farmed for its resources so the presence of the aliens is a surprise to everyone. Eventually you discover there has been a rift in time dynamic equilibrium and aliens have actually been spawning in from the past, your ordered to find the source of the rift and in the process discover that Necron has been developing a device to shift the time continium. After discovering this fact the Administrator gives orders to have you killed, the gman in turn questions his motives and finds out he was planning on using the device to destroy the world, gman warns you of all this and is in turn killed by Neocron, or so it seems at the time, he comes back in the end. well this is about 1/3 of the way through the game and you become kind of a rogue, but the cool part is you eventually get your hands on one of the Time Dynamic Differantiators (that's what your scientist buddy calls it) and use it to travel through time.
So you can see it get's pretty complicated, about 60+ solid gaming hours.
btw none of this is true.
That was one of the best ones EVER!
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm beta-testing for a game as we speak *coughthematrixonline*. It's pretty good but my spidey senses tell me I won't be an EQ sized hit, it'll mainly attract bussiness from the fans of the movies. Luckily my NDA doesn't forbid me from acknoledging that I'm a tester, merely that I can't disclose any of the super-secret secrets from the game. There sure are a few doozies. But you'll probably find them out come Revolutions, hopefully. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't make me get kung-fu on your ****!
Just waiting for the NDA to be lifted....*yawn*
I was a tester for Sierra "The Realm" in wich it went public before the head dev wanted it to.
The amuzing this is that they figgured out how to work it out:
They had a 'working' game but it wasn't what they wanted, so they through up 2 servers, one for normal play, and one for testing (the testing server would be wiped rather frequently).
the amuzing thing about the testing server was that you got to carry over your toon, with all its skill points unspent <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> so every wipe you start out as a newb with a few hundred skill points to alocate <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> (that was FUN!, tested out all the schools of magic and other fun things like that).
ROTFL