162 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

Hello thread, I've missed you

[Gremlich Johns]

Syllogy, on 26 March 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

Actually, it is a Beta.

Here is the Official Milestone Designation of Beta:

The Beta Development Phase generally begins when the software is feature complete. Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing. The process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it.

The users of a beta version are called beta testers. They are usually customers or prospective customers of the organization that develops the software, willing to test the software without charge, often receiving the final software free of charge or for a reduced price. Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization and to prospective customers. Some developers refer to this stage as a preview, prototype, technical preview (TP), or early access. Some software is kept in perpetual beta—where new features and functionality are continually added to the software without establishing a firm "final" release.

As far as your "Ability to Reset MC" gripe... you knew that purchases were permanent. If you want to test stuff out for free, grind out some C-Bills and purchase it that way instead of with real money.

PGI takes money - this makes MW:O "Not Beta"

[OneManWar]

Its simple really... The ENTIRE business model from the start has been different from games of 5 years ago. It was publicly funded and continues to be so with people paying for unfinished content to upkeep the game and fund ongoing development. There are MAJOR features not implemented yet including community warfare and the entirety of the clans. If you dont want to call it beta, fine. If you do, fine. Perception is interpretable, but no one can say the main part of the game is FINISHED. Is it playable? Yes, but it is lacking MAJOR features that still need to be put in.


The times are changing, and this is a new business model. Forget beta or not beta, just take it for what it is, and right now thats limited game modes with big stompy robots shooting each other to death.



Edit: Oh, and lastly the banner on the site says beta, even that says it's closer to beta than it is a finished product. The devs arent trying to trick anyone. Show me a game of this scope that's been finished and out the door in less than a year and a half. There are none, only sequels where you had TONS of already made content and a team that knew all the tricks of the trade. A year and a half people, playable for barely a yrar. Think about that.

Edited by OneManWar, 26 March 2013 - 03:10 PM.

[Fate 6]

hammerreborn, on 26 March 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

OH LOOK ITS THIS THREAD AGAIN

Star Citizen and Marvel Heroes are glad you just defined their games as release!

Edit: Oh, and also Banner Saga: factions and Path of Exile

PoE could be released, and it would still be better than most of the games out there (certainly D3 at least)

[anonymous175]

[Bren McGuire the 2nd]

Aposiopesis, on 26 March 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

Edit: Not beta drivel.

This game is not fit for release. Hence beta. Simple. Why people have paid..... I don't care. Openly encouraging others to pay to test or leave? Disgraceful.

Edited by Bren McGuire the 2nd, 26 March 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[Psikez]

Dear Not Beta Thread:

It's been a few weeks since we talked last, how are you?

Still maintaining that old line about Not Beta?

Oh you card!

Love, Psikez.

[nightsniper]

Hey I joined in the kickstarter and invested in Roberts industries sight unseen. It is a new business model by these small independent developers the industry is full of them the days of the Microsoft giants in the room are just behind us until someone comes up with a new model. This is called crowd source funding pay for a founders pack invest today for a happy day down the road. It has risk but so does crossing the street.

[Child3k]

It's not beta - it's more like an alpha. Why? Because there're major features missing from the game. Sure PGI can call their milestones whatever they want - there's not law against it. But by general software development conventions, it's alpha or sth before beta, because it is not feature complete.

That's just it. I don't know why someone is actually able to argue about that ...

... all that doesn't really matter. I'm looking forward to CW. Already curious about how exactly PGI will implement that.

Edited by Child3k, 26 March 2013 - 03:54 PM.

[Zolaz]

What you are expecting PGI to be honest with you? Beta is when you dont pay money or have an investment. The game is live and the beta tag is just there so that customers dont leave because the game isnt finished.

[Syllogy]

[Belorion]

Gremlich Johns, on 26 March 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

PGI takes money - this makes MW:O "Not Beta"

I used to work for a company that charged 250 per month. Some of the stores agreed to be beta stores, they were still charged 250 a month, even though they were usually in beta.

[Roadbeer]

Two of these going on at once

That's fantastic.

[Belorion]

Its like beta pong.

[Iron Hyena]

Aposiopesis, on 26 March 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

This is something I feel that the game is long due to get past. It is not a Beta. It has not been a Beta for months. The faster the devs get past arbitrarily using this terminology and be more honest with the state of the game, the better.

What is Beta about MWO? The fact that it's an incomplete game with a lot of missing features and a lot of bugs? Sorry, that doesn't make something a beta. I suppose EA could just start calling half their released titles betas. Stardock could have called Elemental: War of Magic a beta, and stated that it was still a work in progress and buyers were helping fund the game. Instead of going down that morally shady road, however, the devs in charge came and flat out said it was a colossal fuckup, they were going to try and patch it and move on, and offered varying levels of discounts for players who had purchased or pre-ordered the game.

The reality is that there's no such thing as an Open Beta in a f2p/pay-for-goodies style MMO, if those purchases are non-resettable and non-refundable. The only thing that will differentiate this game from now when the devs decide to start calling it released instead of beta is that it will (hopefully) be less buggy and (hopefully) more features will be complete. You see, this is what most games refer to as "patches."

MWO has been a released game with buyable, non-resettable, non-refundable features since closed beta ended. It is a small-time, niche genre game that was pushed to release by the publisher. Personally, I am willing to accept that. I do not regret my founder's purchase as I viewed it as an investment into future entertainment, and so far, despite an awful state of balance and plenty of bugs when the game was released, I am entertained (are you not entertained?).

However, I am getting tired of "x thing is broken" or "y feature is imbalanced" getting the "oh, it's a beta" response. No, sorry, I'm paying for features. I am actively using those features. There will be no reset of my funds to buy the features I prefer (over what I am helping to "test" now) when the game is in its "complete" state. What I pay for now is what I get now. Let me repeat that I am willing to accept that. It shouldn't be any surprise, though, that this sort of attitude turns a lot of people off and could be taken as insulting.

I have zero issues with purchases being non-refundable. However, if you want to keep calling this thing a beta, you've gotta put some mechanics into place that a paying user would expect from a beta. An ability to reset MC and MC-purchases? Some sort of accumulative discount per purchase that will result in a deposit of MC into users' accounts when the devs arbitrarily decide to stop calling the game a beta? Something along those lines. Alternatively, if you're out to sell the games features "as-is" be honest and stop calling it a beta. I think enough of the playerbase here realizes that you're developing a niche game catered towards them and are willing to buy into that, for all of its flaws, as long as there's more honesty and transparency.

On the other hand, if we're paying for a beta (and expected to pay more for features in the actual 'release'), I suppose we could just start calling this MWO: Vista.

"Beta" is more than just a synonym for "incomplete".


Edit:

In case I wasn't clear enough in the OP, I have no problems with my own investment and may actually put more money into the game (though I don't delude myself into thinking its a beta because someone stuck a blue word on a logo). It's very relevant to my interests and I enjoy it despite its flaws.[/color]

However, I don't drink the kool-aid enough to realize this nonchalant attitude toward the game's issues isn't a turn off for a very large amount of people. A number of other founders on here are some of the worst about that, sadly. Some newer user will have massive issues and get the "it's a beta" reply. No matter what kind of label you put on something, when the average person buys something, they expect a certain amount of results. If they don't get results, they expect good communication on why there are no results. Both are commodities in low supply here at the moment in the eyes of a lot of people.[/color]

As someone who enjoys playing this game, and has no problems investing in this game, I think this attitude is something that needs to be addressed for the good of the game. The "it's a beta" culture is having a negative effect and I'm not a fan.

Its a beta, go die troll.

[Haroldwolf]

I agree, it's more of an incomplete game simulation than a feature complete game in beta to work out bugs.

Edited by Haroldwolf, 04 April 2013 - 04:39 PM.

[Syllogy]

[Senior Knight Steele]

I feel like just the fact that the developers of the product are saying it's in beta means it's in beta. I get why you might be upset or whatever, and I understand the point you are trying to make, I just think that if the people responsible for the product's creation are telling you it's in beta... it's in beta!

[Magic Murder Bag]

Damn, where's my fine bottle of Merlot....

[watches the horde argue amongst itself once again]

[MischiefSC]

As soon as I saw 'drinking the kool-aid' it clarified for me where the OP is coming from.

Look. This is incredibly simple.

Here is the wikipedia entry:

Software Development Cycle

Even beyond that it's not a difficult concept.

Beta means that the developer considers it largely feature complete and being released to testers to test. That's us. We're beta testers. We're using a beta product - it's not complete, there's a ton of things (CW, clans, VOIP, a ton of mechs and equipment, balancing, etc) still being developed and tested for eventual full release.

This is a beta product. PGI has been absolutely clear about that in every way shape and form. Now, if PGI had said it was a full release when in fact it was a beta product I'd say you have reason to complain.

Instead though what you've got is a product that is in beta, presented as beta and still being tested, that you are inexplicably and without reason or justification demanding somehow magically just get released complete. There is no logic or rational to your statements.

How do you think things get made? Food, cars, software, you have to spend the money to develop it FIRST. THEN YOU SELL THE FINISHED PRODUCT FOR MONEY. One nifty thing that software products (from the public beta of Apples OS X to many game titles) can do is sell access to the beta product. People are willing to pay money for an unfinished product under the hope that it will be completed. There's no promise inherent in this though.

If PGI closes tomorrow you have no leg to stand on. You paid money for a clearly labeled beta product in order to get access early.

Saying that somehow because, what, you don't want it to be I guess, MWO isn't in open beta is like saying you should get to fly to the moon. Okay. Great. You made words into a sentence. That is the only productive thing you've done.

Sorry for how confrontational this comes across but these threads, these statements are not simply wrong they are irrational.

If I tell you 'This painting is unfinished. Right now it looks like this. You can hang it on your wall and look at it and I'll come every week and work on it until it's finished. Is that worth money for you?'

If you say 'yes' and pay me and then come back the next week and say 'I bought a painting. Quit saying it's unfinished and just finish it and be done with it' then you're being irrational and foolish. You got told up front what it was and what was happening. It wasn't a surprise.

There is no magic trick here. The game only has 2 modes, a handful of maps and not even all the chat/VOIP functions out. It's still finishing up vision modes. The game isn't done, it's months from being done. The point of an open beta is to get tons of people to test it to make getting it done faster. The point of letting people spend money on things in the game is to help fund the completion of it because otherwise you need to fund it through a publisher like EA who will destroy the idea of the game and add 2 more years to the development cycle. Instead you do open beta with crowd funding through MC purchases and you let the players fund the games development in advance, leading to a faster and more indie-approach to the games creation. Better for everyone.

Listen very carefully. Please. The game is in open beta. Open beta means exactly what PGI is doing with MWO right now. MWO is in the current text book definition of the term 'open beta'. It has been referred to as being in open beta since it came out of closed beta. There's no magic. No trick. No dishonesty.

This whole concept isn't simply wrong. People can be wrong. It's irrational, illogical and shows a complete lack of understanding of the whole concept of business, software, software development, even generally how society works. It's an example of the worst aspects of postmodernism, bordering on narcissism. Just because you're feeling impatient and frustrated does NOT change the nature of reality, MWO or the meaning of the term 'open beta'.

Again, I apologize for the bordering on inflammatory nature of this post. It's not simply pointed at the OP who certainly doesn't deserve the whole brunt of it but the entire oblivious, entitlement-minded undercurrent of people on the forum spouting this same irrational, ridiculous crap.

The game is in open beta. There is no rational, reasonable debate of that. It's like arguing over it being before noon or after noon. Is it noon yet where you are? Is it before noon or has noon come and gone? You could probably get in some pointless esoteric argument over the nature of time but the reality is that it's either one or the other, pretty clearly. Saying it's not noon yet because you prefer to eat lunch at noon and you haven't eaten lunch yet so thusly it can't be noon is indicative of a disorder, not some problem with the nature of clocks, time or lunch.