For crying out loud... The very definition of beta testing is testing with a limited audience. It is simply one of the testing phases in software engineering. Alpha testing is done by paid testing team.
this is not a good beta tester comment , its for crying out a beta , wait till release is what is killing a lot of games.
You want to perfect it as much as possible , sure some bugs will persist .
But nothing is more frustrating then doing quests or story arcs or using skills and find it bugged or exploitive .
And having it to be patched up on release , sorry once i buy a product , i dont want to be playing a beta game full of holes loops not guided quest , quest that doesn´t make sense , combat system thats not intuitive .
Broken envoirement glithces and other junk , i am paying for a product . its up to beta testers to fix it .
ALPHA tester are different , ALPHA is in development stage , thats where things are wastelands , where game mechanics are tested , concept ideas and other things are done .
You people are messing up a lot from alpha and beta .
Guess things has really changed nowadays , anyway dont cry its beta , offer solutions to problems , QoL issue and confront people with it .
Betas should be given to a select few who are active to the game forums and knows more about the game rather than throw in some random people who dont know what the game is all about.
It would make the game more polished and would be catered more to those who are interested in that genre (fantasy and pve gameplay). Of course the game would be tested by their devs but counting on experience, people out there have more and much diverse experience due to playing a variety of games and their feedbacks are important since the game is made for the players.
How does knowing more about the game and being more dedicated to their forums make you more qualified than some random people that also play MMO's? It's not like by visiting their forums you can follow the development process. You get spoonfed updates that are about classes or features that are as vague as they've ever been. The main website is story/lore, so no real advantage there. So basically a guy that knows the story would be a better tester than one that doesn't... even though 95% of the people that join RIFT won't have a clue about the story.
There is a point to having a certain way of giving out Beta invites.
I will try to explain this with an example for you.
Example: You hear about a new movie you have always wanted to see made. You follow any updates you can find and join the fan club way before release. Realizing they have a possible sleeper hit the producers give out early screening e-mails to you and other long time fans.
Example 2: You get to another movie you have wanted to see on opening day 2 hours ahead of time. You are waiting in a line but you are first or second. The doors open and they let everyone in but since you waited that time you are rewarded with a great seat. Now if you waited in line all that time and they let the line in out of order having random people go in even though you waited alot longer you would feel bummed and it wouldn't be fair to you.
This is why I think random click-fest website crash-fests should not be the way of things. There is already an established set of examples for rewarding fans for thier efforts. the game companies just need to take stock in this and start doing things more contructively.
This game might be more polished and further along than the other Betas I have been involved with. At least they are not charging people for the "honor" of playing an un-complete game.
I was arguing that being a close follower of the game does not at all mean you're a better beta tester. I wasn't arguing about controversial beta key giveaways. How Trion gets people into beta is their own business and giving out keys this way has been done a thousand times before.
To expand upon your examples, just because you follow a movie for a long time doesn't make you a better critic than someone who never followed it.
No I didn't try for a beta key. I did follow the game development from way before they renamed it Rifts. The facebook site was all that existed initially. I signed up thru there and was sent announcements about the beta. I might have been able to get in early via those means but.....as I have stated before, I am a bit soured on Betas since my last one. I payed way in advance to be an early part of a game called Mortal Online.
Mortal Online was another game that held within it's design, a true gem of an idea. Problem was the devs were small and wanted to stay small no matter what. They hit every bump and snag you could think of along the way and it showed. My system could barely handle the game when it worked. The GUI was the most annoying of any game I have tried so far. I had huge expectations and they all got shot to hell on top of me handing over some cash.
If you couldn't tell Mortal Online was a Titantic sped up to a matter of minutes, I can see why you're skeptical this time.
im so so on the OPs post but i don't disagree. I just honestly dont know what happened. Different crowed i guess. I've allways been a true beta tester. Sure i play the game like its supposed to be played. But when i find a bug i do everything i can to recreate the bug.
then i submit my bug report with a step by step process on how to recreate the bug itself. so anyone trying to fix it isn't completely lost and at least has some direction on how to deal with it.
Sure it taints my experience but i take pride in the privilege that i was given the opportunity to make the game better for everyone.
its just really too bad that more people aren't the same way. We might even have better games if more people put forward the effort to submit a bug report now and then. but that of course is just speculation.
im so so on the OPs post but i don't disagree. I just honestly dont know what happened. Different crowed i guess. I've allways been a true beta tester. Sure i play the game like its supposed to be played. But when i find a bug i do everything i can to recreate the bug.
then i submit my bug report with a step by step process on how to recreate the bug itself. so anyone trying to fix it isn't completely lost and at least has some direction on how to deal with it.
Sure it taints my experience but i take pride in the privilege that i was given the opportunity to make the game better for everyone.
its just really too bad that more people aren't the same way. We might even have better games if more people put forward the effort to submit a bug report now and then. but that of course is just speculation.
No what you do is correct infact the old way of beta reporting bugs .
You save developers a lot of time , and thus making it possible to solve it faster .
And you should take pride , infact when CoX was live reported tons of bugs that in time helped others solves there frustrations.
But nowadays it seems the new breed of beta testers just want to play a game ...
One of the reason i forgo on beta nowadays , sorry its just a bunch of people playing a game instead of helping to make it beter.
For crying out loud... The very definition of beta testing is testing with a limited audience. It is simply one of the testing phases in software engineering. Alpha testing is done by paid testing team.
this is not a good beta tester comment , its for crying out a beta , wait till release is what is killing a lot of games.
You want to perfect it as much as possible , sure some bugs will persist .
But nothing is more frustrating then doing quests or story arcs or using skills and find it bugged or exploitive .
And having it to be patched up on release , sorry once i buy a product , i dont want to be playing a beta game full of holes loops not guided quest , quest that doesn´t make sense , combat system thats not intuitive .
Broken envoirement glithces and other junk , i am paying for a product . its up to beta testers to fix it .
ALPHA tester are different , ALPHA is in development stage , thats where things are wastelands , where game mechanics are tested , concept ideas and other things are done .
You people are messing up a lot from alpha and beta .
Guess things has really changed nowadays , anyway dont cry its beta , offer solutions to problems , QoL issue and confront people with it .
I was only pointing out to the OP what alpha and beta testing mean.
And while alpha testing is done in the development phase, so is beta testing. It is not a word to describe how far in development the software is (although alpha is usually more primitive than beta ), but what kind of testing is done for the software. There are no "public alpha tests" or "professional beta testers".
EDIT: To clarify even more: Beta is for players.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Ok i will explain the steps good old companies do to make a solid product
Design Phase , Concept and Idea .(nobody but select few participate)
Alpha programing and putting it all together
Closed Alpha for families and friends . (a workable model with tons of flaws and chuncky part but shows design idea needs tons of tweaks and improvements, usually professional testers involved )
Closed Beta (idea roughly worked out and now need playtesting and outside input, usually fans or other known beta testers)
beta (final workable model but need polishing a lot of polishing , this is the stage where they hire select few to participate, need feedback and bug reports , glitches and bugs squashed . annoyance of the game reported and QoL issue solved)
Open beta (stress test and now for everybody to play , if bugs would be happy if you can report that )
Now the open beta is made for players .
Thats what people dont understand , beta is where you can have a tons of input either ships sinks or floats .
In beta do not ask a complete rework of the product , its not possible anymore .
Small reworks yes , if its not fun explain why its not fun , not only sucks , but think how it would be fun in this system.
If its not possible then explain what can be done in future expansions to make it fun .
Do not ask them overhaul the whole engine (thats not possible)
now people often confuse open beta (so test for everyone, goof around ) with a beta (thats work for the product without pay )
Cause it sounds to be cool , i was in the beta .... (doing what i always ask)
I think a lot of games get to the open beta stage too soon. That's a different discussion though.
The open beta stage is for tuning the game for the general public...not for making sure everything works. Everything is supposed to be functional by open beta. It's at least supposed to be "good enough". The open beta tuning stage has to happen. You can do it in open beta or you can do it at release. In open beta, you can make sure people don't use any weak tuning as an exploit to progress too fast by wiping everyone's progress before release.
I don't think there's any issue with the open beta concept. You can take issue with how companies do it, when they do it and the state of the games when they reach open beta, but the open beta stage itself is a necessary step.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Trion worlds is doing Beta a bit differently. Beta right now is focused mostly on stress testing and MARKETING the game. While every developer cares about bugs, that is not the focus of these Rift Betas, its also why they loosely handed out keys left and right. As reported earlier (article) the Alpha phase included heavy amounts of testing resulting in an already polished and surprisingly stable game so far. Beta, for trion, is just to wrap things up, market the game (build hype), stress test and possibly get some feedback for balance purposes.
Dont treat Trion's beta like another companies closed beta.
Trion worlds is doing Beta a bit differently. Beta right now is focused mostly on stress testing and MARKETING the game. While every developer cares about bugs, that is not the focus of these Rift Betas, its also why they loosely handed out keys left and right. As reported earlier (article) the Alpha phase included heavy amounts of testing resulting in an already polished and surprisingly stable game so far. Beta, for trion, is just to wrap things up, market the game (build hype), stress test and possibly get some feedback for balance purposes.
Dont treat Trion's beta like another companies closed beta.
I know what they are doing right now saw it already coming , just explaining to people what beta is about .
Cause enough people are dissapointed with gameplay , they should report that , instead of saying it stinks.
And explain why it stinks .
This is the basic philosophy why so many people are dissapointed , beta are being handed out as candy in mmos nowadays.
Instead of actually improving the product , anyway its a stress test beta they are handling out cause your levels are limited.
Comments
this is not a good beta tester comment , its for crying out a beta , wait till release is what is killing a lot of games.
You want to perfect it as much as possible , sure some bugs will persist .
But nothing is more frustrating then doing quests or story arcs or using skills and find it bugged or exploitive .
And having it to be patched up on release , sorry once i buy a product , i dont want to be playing a beta game full of holes loops not guided quest , quest that doesn´t make sense , combat system thats not intuitive .
Broken envoirement glithces and other junk , i am paying for a product . its up to beta testers to fix it .
ALPHA tester are different , ALPHA is in development stage , thats where things are wastelands , where game mechanics are tested , concept ideas and other things are done .
You people are messing up a lot from alpha and beta .
Guess things has really changed nowadays , anyway dont cry its beta , offer solutions to problems , QoL issue and confront people with it .
I was arguing that being a close follower of the game does not at all mean you're a better beta tester. I wasn't arguing about controversial beta key giveaways. How Trion gets people into beta is their own business and giving out keys this way has been done a thousand times before.
To expand upon your examples, just because you follow a movie for a long time doesn't make you a better critic than someone who never followed it.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
If you couldn't tell Mortal Online was a Titantic sped up to a matter of minutes, I can see why you're skeptical this time.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
im so so on the OPs post but i don't disagree. I just honestly dont know what happened. Different crowed i guess. I've allways been a true beta tester. Sure i play the game like its supposed to be played. But when i find a bug i do everything i can to recreate the bug.
then i submit my bug report with a step by step process on how to recreate the bug itself. so anyone trying to fix it isn't completely lost and at least has some direction on how to deal with it.
Sure it taints my experience but i take pride in the privilege that i was given the opportunity to make the game better for everyone.
its just really too bad that more people aren't the same way. We might even have better games if more people put forward the effort to submit a bug report now and then. but that of course is just speculation.
No what you do is correct infact the old way of beta reporting bugs .
You save developers a lot of time , and thus making it possible to solve it faster .
And you should take pride , infact when CoX was live reported tons of bugs that in time helped others solves there frustrations.
But nowadays it seems the new breed of beta testers just want to play a game ...
One of the reason i forgo on beta nowadays , sorry its just a bunch of people playing a game instead of helping to make it beter.
I was only pointing out to the OP what alpha and beta testing mean.
And while alpha testing is done in the development phase, so is beta testing. It is not a word to describe how far in development the software is (although alpha is usually more primitive than beta ), but what kind of testing is done for the software. There are no "public alpha tests" or "professional beta testers".
EDIT: To clarify even more: Beta is for players.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Ok i will explain the steps good old companies do to make a solid product
Design Phase , Concept and Idea .(nobody but select few participate)
Alpha programing and putting it all together
Closed Alpha for families and friends . (a workable model with tons of flaws and chuncky part but shows design idea needs tons of tweaks and improvements, usually professional testers involved )
Closed Beta (idea roughly worked out and now need playtesting and outside input, usually fans or other known beta testers)
beta (final workable model but need polishing a lot of polishing , this is the stage where they hire select few to participate, need feedback and bug reports , glitches and bugs squashed . annoyance of the game reported and QoL issue solved)
Open beta (stress test and now for everybody to play , if bugs would be happy if you can report that )
Now the open beta is made for players .
Thats what people dont understand , beta is where you can have a tons of input either ships sinks or floats .
In beta do not ask a complete rework of the product , its not possible anymore .
Small reworks yes , if its not fun explain why its not fun , not only sucks , but think how it would be fun in this system.
If its not possible then explain what can be done in future expansions to make it fun .
Do not ask them overhaul the whole engine (thats not possible)
now people often confuse open beta (so test for everyone, goof around ) with a beta (thats work for the product without pay )
Cause it sounds to be cool , i was in the beta .... (doing what i always ask)
I think a lot of games get to the open beta stage too soon. That's a different discussion though.
The open beta stage is for tuning the game for the general public...not for making sure everything works. Everything is supposed to be functional by open beta. It's at least supposed to be "good enough". The open beta tuning stage has to happen. You can do it in open beta or you can do it at release. In open beta, you can make sure people don't use any weak tuning as an exploit to progress too fast by wiping everyone's progress before release.
I don't think there's any issue with the open beta concept. You can take issue with how companies do it, when they do it and the state of the games when they reach open beta, but the open beta stage itself is a necessary step.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Trion worlds is doing Beta a bit differently. Beta right now is focused mostly on stress testing and MARKETING the game. While every developer cares about bugs, that is not the focus of these Rift Betas, its also why they loosely handed out keys left and right. As reported earlier (article) the Alpha phase included heavy amounts of testing resulting in an already polished and surprisingly stable game so far. Beta, for trion, is just to wrap things up, market the game (build hype), stress test and possibly get some feedback for balance purposes.
Dont treat Trion's beta like another companies closed beta.
I know what they are doing right now
saw it already coming , just explaining to people what beta is about .
Cause enough people are dissapointed with gameplay , they should report that , instead of saying it stinks.
And explain why it stinks .
This is the basic philosophy why so many people are dissapointed , beta are being handed out as candy in mmos nowadays.
Instead of actually improving the product , anyway its a stress test beta they are handling out cause your levels are limited.
On a closed beta usually your levels are not .