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Paying to Play Beta/Alpha new concept.
Dradiin
Member Posts: 259
So with all the new releases coming out and the large portion of them seemingly riddled with bugs, i was curious if other players would be interested in literally paying to be in a beta/alpha program in other mmo releases.
I am not advocating 15.00 a month fee more like the bare minimum to cover bandwidth costs like say 5.00 a month with a limited amount of slots avail.
I was thinking if maybe developers took this route even added a few appreciation items for those paying beta testers it might alleviate alot of the release growing pains we see so often with mmo releases.
Anyhow, just a thought, maybe others could sound off on this ?
Comments
I'd like to advocate letting a few of these games crash and burn - to teach the devs that we won't be buying garbage anymore.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Werent players already paying to beta? I think its called a launch...
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
Even if they do set a fee for beta testing, they'll still handpick the beta tester, and there will still be limited slots.
It's not likely their just open alpha/beta to anyone who pay.
No, I think the problem is most Beta testers are just in it for the free ride and don’t help with any testing so the game will release with many bugs...I think mmorpg dev should take beta testing more seriously and expect some sort of week, fortnightly or monthly report from each of their testers or they be kicked
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
If people are paying that makes them customers.
At that point the Developer is responsible to them - not the other way around.
If Developers are serious about improving the quality of the final product then they should spend more time on quality control of the 'testers' during 'testing'.
Monitor the hours each tester plays and establish a benchmark of performance for those testers.
Those that fail to measure up are thanked for their time and replaced.
Early in testing 2 (quality) bug reports per hour of 'play' and later in testing 1 bug report per 3 hours 'play' for example.
Testers who submit poor quality reports are given an opportunity to improve (and an explanation of why) and if they don't then they are replaced.
Testers who 'complain' about bugs - rather than reporting them ("My sword just went missing OMG give it back!") are promptly replaced too.
From the Developer's side their has to be commitment to actually fix the bugs too.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Which is what Bioware is doing. Basically they're going to allow testers a limited time testing certain features and only invite a very few, if any, for the next phase.
I guess Bioware has the right idea then
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
Personally I have played more MMOs that are still in alpha or beta stage, than the released versions. It's some kind of sick hobby of mine, to actually like tracking down bugs or possible exploits and report them. And as a reward I get to play the game and still have a chance to affect on some of it's features.
And usually the community is pretty tight and very friendly during alpha or closed beta stages. That's the moment when the atmosphere in MMOs is still very enjoyable. That's the moment where Devs still listen to you and react if you have a great idea that makes the game even better. That's the moment where people still have the time to talk with each others. After launch, most people just exp exp exp and run around like headless chickens.
Usually I just lose my interest in most MMOs during the open beta or after launch. It's when the dark side of Internet roams in and the community IQ drops below zero. Chats get swarmed with ignorant questions "How do I attack? What key opens inventory?" etc. when every game has the options and key configs... The kill stealing starts, the "cool kids" swearing and spamming on every possible channel makes the chat unusable and people just start acting like complete assholes on every possible level.
Eew, no thanks. The game has to be really good to put with all that. I still like the betas more, but no, not so much I'd pay them. I think being a beta tester that does bug reports is enough.
I think paying to support server costs, development costs, whatever is all a question of scale.
Would I pay Bioware to test there game? No. They have more than enough money to cover it.
Would I pay for Mortal Online or some other game? Likely, if I actually like the project.
Would I pay for Love or another very small/niche game? Definitely, if it was what I was looking for in a game.
---
There is this project for micro-loans for poor people. Basically lots of people donate a little and the end person gets the loan. The money gets paid back with interest. I think if gamers were truly seeking new, independent and niche games this model might work to support their development. The "money" that would be sustaining the projects would be the gamers themselves, instead of some venture capitalist looking to make a quick buck.
I think there are better ways to improve betas, which have already been mentioned - requiring bug reports based on hours played, booting testers who don't report and giving someone else a chance, etc. If the beta is well managed in that way, and the devs are responsive to their testers, I think the end product would be much improved.
I like to track down bugs, but I report only some of them.
The most "special" ones I keep for me and my friends. Game Companies fuck up too much, they dont deserve my help, thats why I exploit the hell out of their games all the time. But I give them the chance to do as I told them, since they dont listen, then to hell with it.
I work in QA and I can tell you the main reason this is happening. Three reasons actually. Number one is the product being rushed on to the market so they can get some of that wow money their venture capitalist over lords have been rubbing their hands in anticipation for ever since they saw the first wow commercial. Number two is the fact that most companies these days either have a very small or non-existent quality assurance team. These days quality assurance is outsourced to companies that specialize in game testing so all the testing is done from a remote location sometimes continents away from the developers. This means quick fixes stop being quick fixes and the deeper issues take even longer to address. The quality is then dictated by the outsourced QA team and not the dev house. Number three affects quality the most. Agile development. This development process takes the testing out of the hands of the QA engineers and puts it in the hands of the developers themselves and are addressed as they pop up in the middle of development. This means people that aren't qualified to guarantee quality are handling bug hunting and fixing. This might sound smart for a normal single player game but for an MMO it's a nightmare. MMO dev teams are usually pretty big. Not everyone on the team knows what other people are doing so when they try to fix a bug it usually opens other bugs because that dev didn't know that the code etc. that caused the initial bug was still being worked on. It creates a giant clusterf*ck and takes away the only job a non-dev can get to get in to the industry. These three issues are currently a cancer that has been caused by corporate greed and a failure of developers to realize quality over quantity matters more in the long run. If you want to get rich quick, stick to xbox development. If you want a product to make money for the next 10 years, invest in proper quality assurance.
We're in a capitalistic economy. Alpha/Beta slots are high-demand items. It's therefore unsurprising that beta slots are being sold, and also wouldn't surprise me to hear of companies selling alpha slots.
The main concern I'd have would be research on whether players who pay to get into alpha/beta provide similar levels of bug reporting and feedback.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I agree with that completely, however there is a very small (but noteworthy) downside to such a process. Someone would have to be responsible for running reports on who is doing what to hold those accountable for not reporting, etc... They would also have to then take time to select appropriate candidates to take the place of said booted tester, give that person time to respond, download, and get in game etc... This could take away from time they would have to explore the actual input of testers reporting or time that could be spent fixing known issues prior to launch.
Also, if bugs are overwhelmingly prevalent, then most will report them, no problem. Once the obvious ones are reported, one may not run into anything to report (even if genuinely looking) and thereby get booted by default, resulting in a disgruntled subscriber before subscribing is even an option.
Again, I agree with this approach 100%. My point is simply that it is not without some drawbacks and would have to be very well thought out in its implementation (which again is time that may be better spent doing other things - I don't know though, I am not a dev.)
I think I can honestly say I agree with everything you said ("think" only because I do not work in QA, but your logic is sound.) I just have to point out that I truly enjoyed how eloquently you summed it all up in the end - AMEN!
Anyone who's ever worked in QA/Testing understands that anytime you put any sort of importance on Bug Count metrics, you end up with a lot of useless junk bugs that don't actually help the product succeed.
So booting alpha/beta players for not submitting bugs would be an incredibly stupid move.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
the masses approve, they want the next, new, best, flaming shit... there are beta games, like battlefield heroes, where you can purchase item mall stuff already... and people do.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
You don't have to be 100% rigid on this - you wouldn't say (for example) that your target is 1 bug per 3 hours of play and kick a tester whos average came out at 1 bug per 3.1 hours - particularly if that tester provided quality reports and feedback.
But, there is a definite difference between testers that report bugs and provide feedback and those that simply 'play for free'.
We've all seen it.
The kids who can't even follow instructions to the point where they break their NDA before they even get the game installed and put up posts that are unintelligible.
Other things developers could do to improve the quality of games is be more honest pre release.
If it's a Pre Release trial call it that... not Open Beta.
If it is for FilePlanet subscribers only call it a Restricted Beta... not Open Beta.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Do you seriously think the reason buggy games are released is the developers didnt' get enough bug reports, and they would have fixed ALL the bugs if only those darn beta testers had done their job? They know the bugs are there, they don't have the budget to fix them all before release.
I don't think you understand how beta testing works. It's not all about reports from the players. You are putting WAY to much emphasis on that.
yes, players can report bugs, and that helps.
But more than that beta testing generates logs from diagnostic programs that are running in the background. That is even more important, the statistics that are generated from these diagnostic programs, than players writing a report which devs dont' really have time to read, or may not be useful since it's redundant, for example 500 detailed reports about the same bug.
Beta testers ARE doing their job by just playing the game, which generates the stats on the diagnostic programs. Things like average time for class/skill x to level, most picked skill/sclass, most deaths by skill/class/level, average dps per class/skill/level.
Read a bi-weekly report from ALL testers? That would slow down development, not help it.
The only way you can be a bad beta tester is to not use your account and not play the game.
Everything should be reported and put in the database. Everything from animation clipping to a miscolored pixel on the skybox. It's up to the directors, usually, to go through and prioritize what gets fixed. Even if a bug has the lowest priority it should eventually be addressed. When devs start cutting corners and just ignore certain issues those issues will never go away quality will just drop. The problem with MMO bugs is companies like to constantly add new content to the game before the old content has been declared bug free so old bugs just get older and older as devs race to fix high priority issues that pop up with the new content they are adding. The entire industry needs to slow the heck down and take a breath and actually look at what they are doing instead of racing everything out of the door in the hopes that it will be the new wow overnight. Greed is responsible.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Everything should be reported and put in the database. Everything from animation clipping to a miscolored pixel on the skybox. It's up to the directors, usually, to go through and prioritize what gets fixed. Even if a bug has the lowest priority it should eventually be addressed. When devs start cutting corners and just ignore certain issues those issues will never go away quality will just drop. The problem with MMO bugs is companies like to constantly add new content to the game before the old content has been declared bug free so old bugs just get older and older as devs race to fix high priority issues that pop up with the new content they are adding. The entire industry needs to slow the heck down and take a breath and actually look at what they are doing instead of racing everything out of the door in the hopes that it will be the new wow overnight. Greed is responsible.
You make it sound like alpha/beta is the only testing the product is getting. If that's true, the product's already doomed to failure.
There's a difference between "everything" getting reported and a bunch of useless or duplicate bugs being spammed at the system (which someone has to waste manhours sifting through; in my experience that someone is often a tester who would be testing themselves if they weren't busy sifting through bugs.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Everything should be reported and put in the database. Everything from animation clipping to a miscolored pixel on the skybox. It's up to the directors, usually, to go through and prioritize what gets fixed. Even if a bug has the lowest priority it should eventually be addressed. When devs start cutting corners and just ignore certain issues those issues will never go away quality will just drop. The problem with MMO bugs is companies like to constantly add new content to the game before the old content has been declared bug free so old bugs just get older and older as devs race to fix high priority issues that pop up with the new content they are adding. The entire industry needs to slow the heck down and take a breath and actually look at what they are doing instead of racing everything out of the door in the hopes that it will be the new wow overnight. Greed is responsible.
You make it sound like alpha/beta is the only testing the product is getting. If that's true, the product's already doomed to failure.
There's a difference between "everything" getting reported and a bunch of useless or duplicate bugs being spammed at the system (which someone has to waste manhours sifting through; in my experience that someone is often a tester who would be testing themselves if they weren't busy sifting through bugs.)
I'm talking about the QA team not the beta testers. Beta testers should be reporting progression stoppers and crashes etc. Open beta tests from the dev standpoint is more focused on server and client stability.
I've been in numerous alphas and betas. The bugs are being reported, a lot. The last beta I was in, the beta boards and the in-game bug submission feature were filled with submissions.
About that report thing, I doubt that it will happen. People beta test for free. They literally spend their free time helping developers make a better game. You expect them to submit reports for doing the developers a favor? Yes, let me come home after an 8+ hour workday and write a report on the progress of a video games.
The reason that most MMOs are released in a piss poor state is simply because the developers do not listen to the testers and do not fix bugs in a timely manner. I've seen it in AoC, WAR and CO, the three recent betas I was in. Bugs and various other issues were being submitted but for the most part fell on deaf ears.
Anyway, the developers need to read the beta forums and communicate with their testers. That is a sure fire way to make a good MMO. Most of the beta testers are willing to put up with buggy game play because they care about the game. Those who want a free game to play, usually don't stick around because of the bugs and lack of content.
We are getting there. Many companies already are giving away beta keys to people that preorders their games.
But as I see it they should be paying us. I have beta tested some games before and in some cases it was pretty fun. In others frustrating. A true beta test (not a stress test) is about testing certain parts of a game after buggs and misstakes.
It is not supposed to be fun. And if you try to make it too fun you will either prolong the beta or not getting what you could from it.
No, either will the devs actually be forced to release the games when they are actually finnished (like Arenanet did with Guildwars) or they will have to fix the buggs but releases the game with little content and work as fast as they can with patching the content in later (like LOTRO did).
Anything else is just crap. If a company can't afford to work on a MMO as long as it takes to make the game finnished they should not make MMOs at all.
How does selling beta spaces and releasing a game too early actually differs from eachother? They are the same, you are paying money for a product that should have been finnished. The only difference is that in the paid beta they also expect you to report in bugs. And that is actually worse than releasing the game too early. Only a few complete morons or fanbois would fall for that.
Bad idea.
I've been in numerous alphas and betas. The bugs are being reported, a lot. The last beta I was in, the beta boards and the in-game bug submission feature were filled with submissions.
About that report thing, I doubt that it will happen. People beta test for free. They literally spend their free time helping developers make a better game. You expect them to submit reports for doing the developers a favor? Yes, let me come home after an 8+ hour workday and write a report on the progress of a video games.
The reason that most MMOs are released in a piss poor state is simply because the developers do not listen to the testers and do not fix bugs in a timely manner. I've seen it in AoC, WAR and CO, the three recent betas I was in. Bugs and various other issues were being submitted but for the most part fell on deaf ears.
Anyway, the developers need to read the beta forums and communicate with their testers. That is a sure fire way to make a good MMO. Most of the beta testers are willing to put up with buggy game play because they care about the game. Those who want a free game to play, usually don't stick around because of the bugs and lack of content.
I agree. The community liaisons need to be directly linked to the devs and not just some remote forum mod. For every 5 people that don't report bugs during a beta test there are at least 2 that do and that amounts to a huge amount of bug submissions. Thousands. Most of them are dupes and shuffling through all that is what the QA team is paid to do. But even then a quick txt search of the submission titles will tell you exactly what the biggest issues are. And you're right, they get ignored and it's because new content is always more important than old content these days. They don't fix the buggy crap they have before adding new buggy crap lol