Star Trek Online: Talking About Closed Beta

Stradden

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood recently spoke with Cryptic Star Trek Online Producer Daniel Stahl about the game's closed beta stage and its importance in the development cycle.

MMORPG.com:

Can you tell us a little bit about the structure of Star Trek Online's beta process?

Daniel Stahl:

While employees and our friends and family have been playing the game for the last year, Star Trek Online started the Beta process this last fall by inviting players to help us with focused weekly play tests. We would prepare a new patch of content, and then ask players to focus on a specific area of testing to give us quality feedback on the system under scrutiny. In addition we have been monitoring the technology behind the game making detailed changes to how our servers perform. Now that we've passed some of our technical hurdles, we are opening up the content in the game and letting players progress as far as possible and give feedback.

Read Talking About Closed Beta.

erictlewis

I see where they say everybody is in closed beta.  I know 3 folks who did the champ thing, they are not. I also know several folks who like me applied via the web and they are not.

So I guess they got a good subsection hopefully.

Funny thing is they are offering an open beta??  According to their own website the only folks who get into open beta are the pre-orders.  Thats not very open.

 

Nikopol

Originally posted by erictlewis



Funny thing is they are offering an open beta??  According to their own website the only folks who get into open beta are the pre-orders.  Thats not very open.
 

 

Apparently, nowadays "open beta" does not mean anyone can play it, it just means there's no NDA. As more and more companies do limited open betas, this is becoming the new definition. Whereas six or seven years ago, pretty much any gamer you asked would say the "open" in open beta meant anyone can test it.

Anyway, I think this interview asks quite a few of the right questions you can ask about a closed beta (particularly the one Cryptic is running). Ultimately the whole thing may all end up being rhetorical in hindsight, and the developers say what they've gotta say, but still...

 

Jpizzle

A Little over a month for the first disappointment of 2010! Hooray for low standards and bad business practice!

This "beta" is nothing more then a hype machine for Cryptic and Atari. 2 hours a day twice a week for 4 months? LOL. Preview, not beta. See Jack "Microtransactions make me want to die" Emmert's own words -

"It's easy to pour valuable development time into things which won't really sell any more copies. That's the key during beta: what changes will net more sales, more subscriptions."

http://www.massively.com/2009/11/30/developer-round-table-mmo-betas-page-2/

so, it's all about sales w/ Beta. Actually improving the game is further down on the list.

You'll get $0 dollars from me ever again, Cryptic. Good luck not having your doors closed by this time 2011.

Techleo

  Meh, Cryptic has a long way to go before they face closure. Look at there publically stated income records. They aren't doing that bad.

Pagoas

Originally posted by erictlewis


... Funny thing is they are offering an open beta??  According to their own website the only folks who get into open beta are the pre-orders.  Thats not very open.
 

 

This concerns me.  Open beta is their chance to hook a lot of people if they have a solid, fun game to offer.  My boyfriend and I played the open beta of LOTRO, adored it, pre-ordered, and bought three lifetime accounts for ourselves and a friend.  I really liked being a LOTRO "founder" and we continue to buy the expansions... we don't play nearly as much as we did the first couple of years... but I feel we got our money's worth even if we seldom touch it again. 

There's just something appealing about starting in ground level on a bright, shiny new game, test driving it, and then becoming a part of it.  It seems like they're missing an opportunity by not giving more players a chance to fall in love with their mmo.

MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Pagoas 
There's just something appealing about starting in ground level on a bright, shiny new game, test driving it, and then becoming a part of it.  It seems like they're missing an opportunity by not giving more players a chance to fall in love with their mmo.

Perhaps they feel their game is unworthy of love?

Xondar123

And of course he completely dodged and ignored the question about the game being seen as unfinished by the beta testers.

Of course, it looks like the beta testers are being kept on a very tight leash, only testing things they are allowed to test, so they might not have any idea how finished the game is or not. We may have to wait until open beta to find out about that.

MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Xondar123


And of course he completely dodged and ignored the question about the game being seen as unfinished by the beta testers.
Of course, it looks like the beta testers are being kept on a very tight leash, only testing things they are allowed to test, so they might not have any idea how finished the game is or not. We may have to wait until open beta to find out about that.

We may have to wait a lot longer than that.

Other than Elder testers (who were under a separate NDA) no-one knew what Warhammer Online's end game was like at release. For good reason, as it turns out.

Lanthir

Well the open beta should tell us alot about the game.  Even if it is limited to the beta testers and those that preordered without a NDA  we should hear alot about the actual game then.

TookyG

Originally posted by Lanthir


Well the open beta should tell us alot about the game.  Even if it is limited to the beta testers and those that preordered without a NDA  we should hear alot about the actual game then.

 

And when the NDA is lifted the forums will experience a s**t storm like none seen before as Trekkers fight Trekkies and both fight non-fans and STO fanboy fights STO hater.

Blurr

As far as "Open Beta", not only will anyone who preordered get in, you can pretty much guarantee that they'll give a large amount of keys out to sites like Fileplanet, etc. Typically Fileplanet gives out a bunch of keys to first-come-first-serve style, and keeps a set of keys reserved for it's subscribers. Likely there will also be people that have preordered but also have a Fileplanet subscription, and therefore will have an extra key to give away or something.

I wouldn't worry too much about trying to get in to OB, as there'll be plenty of ways to do it.

Lanthir

Originally posted by Blurr


As far as "Open Beta", not only will anyone who preordered get in, you can pretty much guarantee that they'll give a large amount of keys out to sites like Fileplanet, etc. Typically Fileplanet gives out a bunch of keys to first-come-first-serve style, and keeps a set of keys reserved for it's subscribers. Likely there will also be people that have preordered but also have a Fileplanet subscription, and therefore will have an extra key to give away or something.
I wouldn't worry too much about trying to get in to OB, as there'll be plenty of ways to do it.

 

I would think MMORPG will get a few to give out as well.

Cerion

So can we expect two STO articles a day until it launches in February? Just wonderin'.

 

Badem

Originally posted by Xondar123


And of course he completely dodged and ignored the question about the game being seen as unfinished by the beta testers.
Of course, it looks like the beta testers are being kept on a very tight leash, only testing things they are allowed to test, so they might not have any idea how finished the game is or not. We may have to wait until open beta to find out about that.

 

Who says they are on a tight Leash? they are under NDA and seeing the changes that are occuring are probably figuring no point posting a leak that might be redundant by the time the next session occurs?

and also sources for beta testers who say the game is incomplete? as a seasoned Beta Tester I will take these 'leaks' with a hefty pinch of salt,

Orthelian

Originally posted by Pagoas

Originally posted by erictlewis


... Funny thing is they are offering an open beta??  According to their own website the only folks who get into open beta are the pre-orders.  Thats not very open.
 

 

This concerns me.  Open beta is their chance to hook a lot of people if they have a solid, fun game to offer.  My boyfriend and I played the open beta of LOTRO, adored it, pre-ordered, and bought three lifetime accounts for ourselves and a friend.  I really liked being a LOTRO "founder" and we continue to buy the expansions... we don't play nearly as much as we did the first couple of years... but I feel we got our money's worth even if we seldom touch it again. 

There's just something appealing about starting in ground level on a bright, shiny new game, test driving it, and then becoming a part of it.  It seems like they're missing an opportunity by not giving more players a chance to fall in love with their mmo.

 

I'm almost certain that open betas are becoming more limited simply because the popularity of the genre has continued to grow. In recent years, the market for MMOs has grown so dramatically that the number of people a 'free preview' open beta would need to support has become impractical, being an especially massive expense for studios which are already short on money and need those subscriptions now.

Besides, with the trend Warhammer Online recently started, I suspect that Star Trek Online will immediately or very quickly have a 'newbie forever' trial like Champions Online, which one must say is a more reliable preview than a beta.