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Will TOR have an open beta?
BarakIII
Member Posts: 800
I've been wondering about this for awhile now. They've been in a closed beta since about july of last year and they are still accepting play testers for it. Yet they still have a targeted release date of spring 2011.
Also, one of the main selling points of this game is it's story. Wouldn't they want to keep the story as much under wraps as possible until release? An open beta would be counterproductive to a story based game in my opinion.
Add to that the idea that open betas are no longer really used as a real testing of the game, but rather they are used as a sort of marketing tool. With that in mind I see no real need for an open beta. The only reason most games even have betas now is for, like I said, marketing and just because it's always been done that way so it's expected. Is that a good enough reason to have an open beta for a game such as TOR? What say you all?
Comments
I just read about this actually. You appear to be of the same mind as Bioware, which I do think is the smarter idea.
There is a stickied post in their General Discussion forums explaining the beta, and it does not seem they are interested in an open beta. To sum it up, they are only allowing testers to play certain parts, never the whole game, and they will constantly test new areas with new testers until release.
So as you said, no one is going to get to ruin the game for themselves, as well as comment on the entirety of the game until it is released it appears. I personally never liked the idea of players just trying the game to see if they are going to buy it, although I do think game companies should have 2 week free trials or whatever.
Open beta assures that the devs have nothing to hide. Also, open betas work well for stress tests. You can choose not to hear other people's spoilers.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
This is the first game that I think that I may not want to be a part of the Open Beta after being disappointed I didn't yet get into Closed Beta.. In fact, now I am thinking that its best not to be part of Closed Beta either. Why? Because story is going to be such a huge part of the game...much more than any other MMO before it. I don't want any of that spoiled when the game is finally going to be released. I want it to feel fresh and exciting like it was for me 8 years ago before I even knew about MMOs and World of Warcraft was about to arrive. I do want some game play video of a recent build that is more than a 1 minute snippet so I can see how the graphics, animations and various options are progressing (as well as to see if my excitement remains), but not necessarily to see the entire story unfold. On the other hand I'm so bored of what is out there I can't wait to get my hands on the game. I'm torn on this topic lol.
There Is Always Hope!
Yes I sure we will se an open beta probably a months worth or so. Right now we know they are in closed beta. How many folks are in closed beta who knows. All we know is possibly late this year sometimes, or as late as march of next year. Depends on wif they meant by rlease before end of phyical year.
if tested properly they dont need one. And I hope thats the way they keep it.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
my guess would be that to stress test the servers they will have a open beta, nothing like server crashing every hour on release day
You make some very good points BarakIII. Still though, I do believe that they will have an Open Beta of sorts. I have been thinking about this for a while now and it would actually make sense if they did a "Closed Open Beta" along the same lines they have been doing their closed beta now, in order to stress test the servers and the game. The way I see it working is that very large groups would be allowed in to play very small portions of the game for a week (or so) with no NDA restrictions to stop them from saying what they think. Play that out over a month or so and you get some very good data mining.
This gives them a better chance to gauge the vulnerabilities of the game as well as get some free advertising from people like us.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Marketing seems a quite good reason to have an open beta, so why would Bioware not use it? AS for the story... also WoW cataclysm was all based on the revamping of the old world, but they had an extensive open beta anyway.
As for the release date, I doubt strongly that this will come out in Spring. I've heard the original "Spring 2011" had been changed to "2011". I fully expect this game to come out around Christmas and so there is plenty of time for Open betas and the like.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
I have no idea actually but I would think they'd have a limited open beta instead of an all out open one.
i think they are doing some major changes otherwise, OBT would have already started i guess. Bioware is good.
As a game tester, I'll say this: you can never overtest a game, and you will never find all of the bugs in any 3D game no matter how long you test or how big your testing department is. That's just for any single player 3D game or limited multiplayer game; an MMO is exponentially harder to truly test for. MMOs, by their very nature have lots and lots of open terrain, with hundreds of players and npcs interacting at once, with typically hundreds of different abilities to use creating thousands of possible interactions. I would hate to have to write up test cases for an MMO. Closed betas are great because you can control the amount of players in a space and possibly teach them how to write up a decent bug, but that is far and away still not enough to really test an MMO. You only have to look at WoW to see that even the most successful MMO out there continues to have bugs and balance issues with every update or change in code from a patch.
I know they don't want to give away any of the story, but they are going to shoot themselves in the foot, if they don't at least do a massive stress test. They can do a stress test, and disable much of the story elements for each world, and they will still have tons of players to stress not only their servers but also their mechanics. Maybe if this were some quietly made MMO it wouldn't be an issue, but aside from a new WoW expansion and Guild Wars 2, there is no other MMO on the horizon that holds as much potential for mega success as The Old Republic. On day one, this game will get savaged brutally by the public, regardless of whether they have an open beta or stress test, but without either of those, they will not be as well equipped to handle it otherwise.
http://natethegamer.wordpress.com
They might or might not have it.
Spoilers are of course a huge concern, but they really do need to stress test their game.
Maybe they will go for a semi open beta like RIFT is doing right now though, inviting tons of people through giveaways and such.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
My forecast is: there will be no open beta, there will be a massive stress test a month prior to release, it will be very limited in scope and people will fkin moan and smack talk their asses off as the devs try to crash the servers continually.
If not that I still forecast the moaning and smack talk (yay I win!)
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I havent applied and am not reading boards etc as fantically as I have with other MMO's.
Its not just the story but the fact I have generally been burned out by playing the game in its buggiest state, knowing everything already, knowing builds already on every MMO I have played in the last few years.
I just want a MMO to be a discovery again so am reading lore have bought the lore books but am avoiding a lot of what I would usually snap up in a heartbeat in terms of gameplay and mechanics and certainly will be avoiding beta.
Only info on a open beta I have seen is from an inteview in 2009:
"About 4 weeks before launch is a good time to open the game up to consumers. If you have done your job right, you will know if the game is ready before you open beta. If not, you dont't open it until it is. It doesn't hurt a company at all to open the game up to players four weeks before launch. It allows them to try before they buy and it allows us to make sure the game holds under pressure as well as providing a rolling launch so day one is not so crowded." - Richard Vogel
Game testing seems to be important to them as seen from Stephen Reid's post here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5167882#edit5167882
So I believe there will be an open beta, but that is just an opinion.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
I won't buy an MMO that doesn't offer an Open Beta or Free Trial these days..... anymore then I'd buy a care without test driving it first. Simple fact is that there are way too many lemons produced these days....and you really can't trust advertisements/reviews or even forums.... the best way to know if something is worth playing is to get your hands on it for a bit to see for yourself. I've saved myself alot of wasted entertainment dollars by following this policy. If a Dev believes they've produced a quality product...then they shouldn't be afraid to let a consumer test drive it before they commit to a purchase...that's my take on the matter.
Let me give you a counterpoint... this is the most expensive MMO to ever launch and by your car analogy, is the lambourgini/ferrari of the MMO landscape and ferrari/lambourgini's are not test driven, you buy as is and have no regrets because you trust the product. Bioware currently has been king of the rpg landscape for nearly a decade, and you can compare it to the top of quality for vehicles and are not test driven unless you are driving it out of the factory. Cars that are test driven are usually the lower end/middle end of the production line and the most exclusive and expensive cars are not test driven, and I assure you they would laugh at you if you want into an exotic car lot and ask to test drive a ferrari before paying for it. Open beta's and server tests are fine and needed for the smaller names and games to get the good word out and create publicity, for the highest quality of game like SWTOR there is zero need for an open beta and they have EA funding their servers so they are probably confident on their server's ability to hold up against the stress. If you have faith in a high quality development team like Bioware, or in a high end car like a ferrari, there is no need for a test drive rather just buy it and accept it as is because it is the cream of the crop.
1) Your analogy falls down with the fact thar Bioware has never actualy made a "car" (MMORPG) before. They've made Single-Player RPG's which are very different animals....in other words just because they make a decent SPRPG (and I consider Biowares recent SPRPG offerings no better then decent) doesn't mean they can make a good MMORPG. Add to that it's different division of Bioware that's making the game (Bioware - Austin not Calgary) and I see no particular reason for confidence...and the involvement of EA detracts rather then adds to any. We have no ones word but thier own that the finnished product will be any good.
2) Luxury Car Dealers do indeed, let buyers test drive... IF they believe the buyer is serious about purchasing. They turn down test drives for people that they suspect only want a joy ride....because it puts wear and tear on the vehicle and wastes the salesmans time..... and there are alot of people that are only interested in taking a joy ride in a Ferrari.
3) If they want my business then they will offer an open beta or free trial.... same holds true for MANY other MMORPG players these days. ALOT of people won't buy software without a trial. They can claim thier a ferrari all they want...doesn't make it so. Fact is they have ZERO reputation as an MMORPG developer so far.
4) Luxury car manufacturers can afford to be alot more discriminating about thier customers, because at $100K plus per unit...they don't need much volume of sales to be profitable. Last time I heard, SWTOR wasn't being sold at $600 per box. If they want to be profitable they need a high volume of sales....eliminating large segments of potential buyers right out of the gate is a bad way to get started with that.... unless they are afraid they won't convert many people who have tried out the game into buyers for some reason.
5) If you want to buy software sight unseen....good luck to you...it's your dime to throw away as you wish.
To follow up on my previous post if the point wasn't clear. SWTOR is NOT the Ferrari of MMORPG's....it's the Honda Accord. It's intended for VOLUME of sales....NOT as a luxury item sold in limited qualities at an extravagent price point. The amount of money sunk into it's development is no assurance of a good quality end product. I can account for a depressingly large number of vastly expensive boon-doggles in the software industry.
It may end up being a very good product...or a lousy one....or it may be a very good product that only appeals to certain gamers tastes. Bottom line is alot of people won't know for sure which one it is until they try it.
Grumpy, i'm going to agree with your viewpoint on testing it first. if your unsure of a product your best bet is to wait until you are sure. No reason to risk 60 bucks and then later not like it for one reason or another. Now i'm going to be buying it first thing but thats because i'm about 95% sure that i will like it, but thats just me.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I agree. In fact, I preordered lol.
There Is Always Hope!
Thanks for understanding....and I honestly think a big part of the reason many Dev's do Open Beta's these days is to give buyers like me the opportunity to get a bit of hands on time with the Product in the hopes we'll like it enough to make a purchase.
With the market for entertainment dollars as crowded as it is these days.....most Devs (if they have confidence in thier product) make the calculation that they have a better chance of making a sale if they can get thier product into a consumers hands and give them the potential to get hooked.
If there are 10 titles out there and I have the budget to buy and subscribe to one.... If 7 of those titles give me the opportunity to try them out risk free.....all other things being equal.... the smart consumer is not going to plunk down money on one of the 3 that doesn't.
That being said....I totaly understand some-one who is an absolute fan of a particular IP or a particular Developer willing to plunk down money regardless. I've just seen too many titles I would have been burned on.
Speaking for myself, I'm not particularly in love with either Star Wars or Bioware.....but I've an open enough mind to try it out and see if some of my doubts are unfounded.
Heck, I was super-critical of STO...but I still tried out thier Beta.... and while I didn't think it was a particularly good game....and definately wasn't worth a purchase on my part..... it wasn't actualy as bad as I expected it to be.
Yeah i totally love the idea of try before you buy, it gives you the chance to see what the game is really like for yourself. I mean your the only one that really matters when you decide to pick up the box or not. Naturally if the game looks exactly like you want, (like it does for me) then you don't need one, though one is always nice just to make extra sure. However if your unsure, it's always better to see it in action. Last thing i ever want is someone in the game being mad they didn't get what they wanted based on what someone else said.
As for if there would be an open beta? i don't see why there wouldn't be. Good chance to stress test the servers and a chance for people to see the game in action. I haven't seen any official word on it though. Unless i missed it. I'll keep searching, if i find something official then i'll report back here with the link/source
Edit: found it
Ten Ton Hammer: Since Ultima Online's original beta testing period, the concept of the beta test seems to have shifted toward pure marketing tactics rather than any actual testing by the player base. Do you think that beta tests will continue along this trend until we no longer see any form of open beta "test" any longer? Besides stress testing, is there any benefit to having a large closed beta or true open beta?
Richard Vogel: The Open Beta test has changed. It is more of a “try before you buy” marketing push as well as a soft launch. You really don’t get much data from “Open” tests. It is really just making sure everything holds under stress and allows us to get people in the game early vs. everyone getting into the game on launch day. The reality of beta testing is that most people don’t play the game the way they do when it is launched. If there are exploits, they usually keep them to themselves to exploit later when the game goes live.
Ten Ton Hammer: When is it appropriate to let a lot of gamers see your upcoming game? Does it hurt a company to never have a truly public display before a game launches?
Vogel: We feel that limiting the [number of] beta testers is a good thing. We get better data with fewer, more dedicated players and we are able to focus test specific areas of the game. You can’t do that with tens of thousands of players. It is a coordination issue. It is good, however, to allow enough players into the game to make sure it can handle the load under stress.
About 4 weeks before launch is a good time to open the game up to consumers. If you have done your job right, you will know if the game is ready before you open beta. If not, you don’t open it until it is. It doesn’t hurt a company at all to open the game up to players four weeks before launch. It allows them to try before they buy and it allows us to make sure the game holds under pressure as well as providing a rolling launch so day one is not so crowded.
Enjoy. It appears about 1 month before release is when they plan to do open beta. comes from here http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67008
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Nah son. Bioware is rich enough, they can hire testers for stress testing. I believe they wouldn't bother with an open beta.
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
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I'd be shocked if they didn't go with an open beta at some point, not because of stress tests or marketing, but open beta is the limited opening of the flood gates. It lets in all the riff raff, wana be hackers, and exploit finders. It is the time when devs end up getting gray hairs, and mainly it works as a test to see where the wholes in their game are. Closed beta testers are running around looking for bugs, seeing what needs nerfing and what needs strengthening and what if anything is fully broken. In open beta is when you get the kids that want to break things to make the game easier for them.
Does BioWare need to do an open beta? Not really. Will I be shocked if it doesn't happen? Yes. Why? because EA is the publishing company for the game, and EA is nothing if not predictable about wanting to drum up more sales. People seem to forget that BioWare is owned by EA now and that EA, while not messing about in their work, still calls the shots.