101 replies to this topic

[matux]

Game is still in a pre beta state as its not a complete feature. The client is unstable with known bugs causing major problems for its users, things that most sane people would not call "light obscure errors" as you like to keep posting MischiefSC,

Edited by matux, 06 April 2013 - 07:51 PM.

[anonymous175]

[MischiefSC]

matux, on 06 April 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

Game is still in a pre beta state as its not a complete feature. The client is unstable with known bugs causing major problems for its users, things that most sane people would not call "light obscure errors" as you like to keep posting MischiefSC,

So where did I say 'light obscure errors' at any point? When I removed graphics tweaks (film grain removal, SweetFX) I stopped having any bugs. HUD or map bug about 1 game in 20 or 30 at most. Core features are present (big stompy robot combat) but there's more to come. I'm not sure where the line for 'feature complete' gets drawn but generally more features get added in any beta - the point of beta is to test to the core product and see what features it can take, what may have to be removed, what's broken and what needs fixed.

The game is out of alpha because it's clearly past white box and black box testing. Is it 'feature complete'? Core features but there's more being added. Are they 'features' or 'content'? That'd be a semantics argument. There is no basis for trying to say MWO is in alpha however as the core concepts of alpha are established - the core code of the game is closed. They're not deciding to change it from mechs to airplanes and tanks for example.

I'm going to link this again because clearly 4 times hasn't been enough.
Software release cycle.

Peoples opinions are important. It's how they feel. They are not however necessarily true, nor do they have any impact on reality. Because you don't like something or feel something should be called something else doesn't change what it is or what the term 'open beta' means.

Open beta is a term that is defined. MWO fits, clearly and fully, into the definition of 'open beta'. There's no arguing that. It's not something you can logically or rationally debate. You can talk about how you feel or share your opinions but you can't change what 'open beta' means because of how you feel.

Here's another term I think is really valuable on these forums.

Postmodernism.

If you keep trying to say that MWO isn't in 'open beta' in spite of the definition of the term being quoted here and linked to here repeatedly then please read that. It'll be good for you.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

<loud noises>

sure, game is open beta. Doesn't stop PGI from being skeevy and taking money during apparently such an important testing phase. It doesn't matter how hard you rave or how large your text is, people equate giving money to getting a product. They will judge that product regardless of what the semantics are because 1) they're people and 2) many gave money. What PGI is hoping is that enough don't mind the clearly inferior product and give money anyway. In fact most F2P games bank on that naivete.

don't like your precious open beta being judged? then dont frackin do it. Don't release a 'minimum viable product' and demand 30$ for a virtual nonexistent item. I could keep going with how a large part of this mess was brought on, but its 1:40am, maybe in 8 hrs.

Edited by Aaron DeChavilier, 06 April 2013 - 09:40 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 06 April 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

sure, game is open beta. Doesn't stop PGI from being skeevy and taking money during apparently such an important testing phase. It doesn't matter how hard you rave or how large your text is, people equate giving money to getting a product. They will judge that product regardless of what the semantics are because 1) they're people and 2) many gave money. What PGI is hoping is that enough don't mind the clearly inferior product and give money anyway. In fact most F2P games bank on that naivete.

don't like your precious open beta being judged? then dont frackin do it. Don't release a 'minimum viable product' and demand 30$ for a virtual nonexistent item. I could keep going with how a large part of this mess was brought on, but its 1:40am, maybe in 8 hrs.

Here's the thing.

You want to argue about the value of the money you're spending on the game? I wouldn't argue. I dropped almost 2k matches before I really felt comfortable buying $30 worth of MC, if only because I felt like I'd gotten $30 worth of value out of the game. I've got complaints about how the MC purchased items are handled, ECM/missile balancing and a few other things. That'll probably be what pushes me out of the game.

Monetizing in beta isn't bad though, nor uncommon or new or inappropriate. When creating a product (game or otherwise) you have to fund it. You can get venture capital up front (essentially selling ownership of your product to people who are only vested in getting their money plus some out of it. Rarely a great idea unless it's people you know and trust) or you can finance it (try to get a $5 million business loan if you're not signing the papers 'Electronic Arts' or some such at the bottom) or you can get a publisher (because big publishers like EA have such an amazing record of producing top quality games and products.... oh, wait, no) or you can attempt some sort of crowd sourcing.

PGI went crowd sourcing. Kickstarter is a great new example of this but it's not a new idea. Pre-selling was an old term for it and it's how a lot of the first custom computers were purchased - you'd pay someone to make it for you before the thing was developed. Applying it to games is a newer idea but the concept has been around a while.

So PGI needs to make money to fund making the game and they need to get the people who want the finished product to effectively pay them in advance for it. That's what has us where we are. They effectively sold in game perks during closed and now open beta to fund the games development to completion. That doesn't mean it's not a beta. It's just a funding model. It's not a bad one - ask Chris Roberts and Star Citizen (The SC at the end of my name here. IMO one of the best examples of how this sort of project should be handled, no offense PGI) about how that works. He's, what, $8 million + into it and still about a year away from a basic alpha. He'll continue to let people fund his game in return for in game perks all the way into the gold release and has already said so. No reason not to. If people want to pay for the product regardless of the state it's in, why not take their money?

You're supposed to give feedback on an open beta. Judge the sh*t out of it, tell them what you like and don't like. They're not obligated to listen to you but that's ostensibly the whole point of having an open beta and not a closed one. In business software it's often called UAT, or User Acceptance Testing. You pretty much turn a mostly functioning beta version over to some would-be consumers, let them screw with it and tell you what the like and don't like, use and don't use, want and don't want.

They're not demanding any money. It's F2P and being funded by people who are willing to pay those prices. I haven't and don't intend to buy a hero mech, not at these prices. Not worth it to me.

You can't spend someone elses money though. People will buy what they want and the value of something is based on what people will pay, not your personal opinion.

Judge the game but don't pretend it's not a beta. If you don't let the fact that it's an open beta affect your judgement of it, well, great for you. Realize that the impact of that however is that it devalues the worth of your feedback - not that it somehow changes the nature of what MWO is right now. Yelling because you feel XYZ is overpowered or you've got HUD bugs or you think consumables are P2W is one thing. Yelling because you feel that nobody else should pay for a game that's still in beta because you think that once they pay it's not a beta (which is not correct) is just.... well, silly.

[Aim-Bot]

If its going on like this after 1.0 its something different. I will still accept mistakes but if they didnt fix the issues and going on like this i would be disappointed also.

[Appogee]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

(ginormous text!)

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but opinions don't become any more or less correct based on their font size.

Just sayin'...

Edited by Appogee, 06 April 2013 - 11:11 PM.

[Appogee]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 08:03 PM, said:

I'm going to link this again because clearly 4 times hasn't been enough.
Software release cycle.

Posting the same thing over and over doesn't make it any more relevant or accurate than the first time you posted it.

Use your eyes, man. What have the devs actually been doing/releasing this past four months? That's what matters to us, the people funding and using the product.

Even if software development still conformed to the old neat defintions, what PGI declare about what state of development they're in is actually irrelevant, vs the truth of what they are - and aren't - focusing on.

Edited by Appogee, 06 April 2013 - 11:46 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Appogee, on 06 April 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but opinions don't become any more or less correct based on their font size.

Just sayin'...

I agree completely. Saying that taking money for a product doesn't make it other than an open beta though isn't an opinion. Please show me an example of any statement on product lifecycle management that shows taking money having anything, what so ever, to do with what point in the development a product is in. Hence the statements were just that - statements, not opinions.

Taking money has nothing to do with something being in open beta. Or closed beta, or alpha, or pre-production, or any other stage of development.

Appogee, on 06 April 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

Nor does posting the same thing over and over make it any more relevant or accurate than the first time you posted it.

Use your eyes, man. What have the devs actually been doing/releasing this past four months? That's what matters to us, the paying public.

Even if software development still conformed to the old neat defintions, what PGI declare about what state of development they're in is actually irrelevant, vs the truth of what they are - and aren't - focusing on.

As far as I can tell they're working on content production and testing, UAT (user acceptance testing), feature balancing, some feature introduction and completion, bug correction, etc.

You know, all the stuff you do in an open beta.

Saying that taking money has nothing to do with the game being in open beta (or any other point in development) isn't an opinion. That's what's making all of this so funny. PGI taking money for MWO is utterly, completely and totally irrelevant to it being in a beta. People paid $29.95 for the OS X open beta access for an example of an open beta taking money. Just as a rather big example. There are countless others.

If you don't think an open beta is worth money.... don't spend any money on it. PGI is coincidentally using the F2P model so you can play the game without spending anything. You don't have to. Don't like the speed of development? Leave and come back when it's out of beta.

Again though. It's in open beta. There's nothing about that to debate. It's not a judgement call or an opinion. It's an observation of the state of something like it being a liquid or a solid. It's like telling a painter who's painting a portrait that the picture is done as soon as he takes money for it. This would have been a huge surprise to all the artists of the Renaissance.

Software release cycle.

Definition of the term open beta. Pretty much the whole rest of the world gets it. Created the term itself to describe exactly what MWO is right now. You don't have to like paying for or even playing a game that's in open beta - that's fine. That's an opinion that's perfectly valid.

Doesn't change the definition of open beta though.

[Aim-Bot]

Agree with MischiefSC.
Thats what i wanted people to understand and also what i already said more than once.
1.Its open beta
2.Help them developing

Edited by KuritaGuard, 06 April 2013 - 11:58 PM.

[darkfall13]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

blah blah blah

Not going to sully my post by re-qouting your trash. I never once said the game is closed beta. And I'm not upset that the game has been in beta for 5 month whatsoever, but apparently something is setting you off good. I merely said, we've been in open (see again, didn't say closed, I still have no clue where you got that) beta 5 months, we have 5 months to go for release, PGI has a sh*t ton to do between now and then. You sure read whatever you want to in everyone's posts don't you?

[Forestal]

Appogee, on 06 April 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

Posting the same thing over and over doesn't make it any more relevant or accurate than the first time you posted it.

Use your eyes, man. What have the devs actually been doing/releasing this past four months? That's what matters to us, the people funding and using the product.

Even if software development still conformed to the old neat defintions, what PGI declare about what state of development they're in is actually irrelevant, vs the truth of what they are - and aren't - focusing on.

In the style of the "objective/neutrual-trolls" who keep bringing up "counter-examples" to whatever issues there are with PGI/MWO (fallacy of distribution/anedoctal evidence-- the fact that there are worse betas out there does not make PGI/MWO good), I would like to give an example of a "good/working" open beta:

1) PATCH-DAY 1: Devs updates the game with ONE new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
2) PATCH-DAY 2: Player plays around with the new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
3) PATCH-DAY 3: Player rants/raves about the new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
4) PATCH-DAY 4: Devs discusses what can/should be done to the new map/unit/item/feature/etc. in order to PRESERVE THE META-GAME.
5) PATCH-DAY 5: Devs announce nerfs/buffs/tweaks for the new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
6) PATCH-DAY 6: Devs patches the new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
7) PATCH-DAY 7: Player plays around with the patched map/unit/item/feature/etc.
8) PATCH-DAY 8: Player rants/raves about the new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
9) PATCH-DAY 9: Devs discusses what can/should be done to the new map/unit/item/feature/etc. in order to PRESERVE THE META-GAME.
10) PATCH-DAY 10: Devs Repeat (5) to (9) above until no further action is necessary in order to PRESERVE THE META-GAME.

11) PATCH-DAY 1: Devs updates the game with ONE new map/unit/item/feature/etc.
12) PATCH-DAY 2: Player plays around with the new map/unit/item/feature/etc....

Of course, I'm talking about the comparatively simple game of Airmech-- but on top of actually having at least one Dev in the forums and the game every day, it's real advantage over PGI/MWO is having a Dev team (AND a player base) who are very clear about the META-GAME they want... In the words of an Airmech caster/commentator (areyouwhy0x): "In the history of Airmech, anything that gets over-used will be nerfed immediately."

Sure, Airmech is too niched to (ever gonna) be making huge waves-- but with all the fan tournaments that have been going on since it went into open-beta, the Dev team would have to be stupid to try "change direction" now... nothing wrong with having a small but steady stream of income (from fans who happily/regularly spend on the seasonally-introduced cosmetic "cash-grabs"), if it feeds you enough to keep patching/updating the game.

If PGI/MWO is in the one extreme of an incomplete game that went into open-beta much too early, Airmech's open-beta is in the other extreme of having reviewers and players treating it like an early release-candidate... So despite both of them going into open-beta within a week or so of each other, I wouldn't be surprised if Airmech (with Faction chat/features already enabled in-game) implemented Community/Faction Warfare before MWO does (assuming Faction tabs become available in Mechbay UI 2.0)?

Edited by Forestal, 07 April 2013 - 02:22 AM.

[Comguard]

I thought a Beta is basically feature complete and it is all about finding and removing bugs?

Here we have so many missing features and the number of bugs is growing. Looks more like an internal alpha build to me.

[RokkitSerjun]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 08:03 PM, said:

I'm going to link this again because clearly 4 times hasn't been enough.
Software release cycle.

Mischief the problem is your not starting with the basics. Remember some of these guys still drag their knuckles. So I'll help ya out here...

First they need to understand what a definition is. You can find the definition of definition here: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Definition

Since they seem to have definition confused with something else you should probably explain the concept of opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

Now you can risk it a bit, give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they comprehend the two and their differences, which leaves us with the final needed definition; reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality.

So for you Neanderthals out there please, for the love of god, put the above three definitions together and stop attempting to re-define things based on your opinion of what constitutes a certain phase in the production cycle. If you do this then you are left with the reality of MWO being in Open Beta.

The fact that you can spend money for in game items to support their product's development has absolutely NOTHING (nada, zip, zilch, doo-dah) to do with what phase of production it is in.

So give it a rest and stop...

[Lonestar1771]

RokkitSerjun, on 07 April 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Mischief the problem is your not starting with the basics. Remember some of these guys still drag their knuckles. So I'll help ya out here...

First they need to understand what a definition is. You can find the definition of definition here: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Definition

Since they seem to have definition confused with something else you should probably explain the concept of opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

Now you can risk it a bit, give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they comprehend the two and their differences, which leaves us with the final needed definition; reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality.

So for you Neanderthals out there please, for the love of god, put the above three definitions together and stop attempting to re-define things based on your opinion of what constitutes a certain phase in the production cycle. If you do this then you are left with the reality of MWO being in Open Beta.

The fact that you can spend money for in game items to support their product's development has absolutely NOTHING (nada, zip, zilch, doo-dah) to do with what phase of production it is in.

So give it a rest and stop...

Wait, so PGI can redefine things, but we can't? Sorry, I must be a neanderthal then cause that shi t does not compute.

[Psikez]

so...what phase of beta are we in again? Theres a lot of dissenting opinion in here

[Odins Fist]

MischiefSC, on 06 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

I Like Semantics..

An unfinished product brought to "MARKET", and selling goods and services, is still an unfinished product that has been brought to market.

Sad and tired old excuses are still sad and tired excuses, regardless of yet to be released content.
Anyone that wants to argue sematics can go ahead and do so.. Semantics is just white noise.
Call it what it is "yet to be released content".. END OF STORY...

Edited by Odins Fist, 07 April 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Odins Fist, on 07 April 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

An unfinished product brought to "MARKET", and selling goods and services, is still an unfinished product that has been brought to market.

Sad and tired old excuses are still sad and tired excuses, regardless of yet to be released content.
Anyone that wants to argue sematics can go ahead and do so.. Semantics is just white noise.
Call it what it is "yet to be released content".. END OF STORY...

It's not semantics. There is no argument. That you don't understand that is a personal issue and not something that PGI did or did not do. Hence why I posted a link to the definition of 'postmodernism'. It's the idea that your personal reality is more important than reality itself, that your opinions and feelings are more real than the rest of reality. The idea that, for example, someone who reads an article on something knows just as much if not more than someone who's got an 8 year degree and 25 years experience in the field.

There is nothing to debate about MWO being in open beta. That's the term created to define a software product in the exact state that MWO is in.

You want to argue about how long it's taking to develop the game in beta that's fine. You want to argue about how they're funding their game and that they choose to do it that's fine. It's not new but it's fine. I would recommend you read up on product funding and just what 'bringing a product to market' means to the rest of the world and not your personal definition of it but that's not something that's stopped you so far so.... shine on you crazy diamond.

I'm gonna call this topic good now. I've adequately expressed my point (did so in the first point) and settled my curiosity on the responses.

Best of luck to you.

[Greyfyl]

MischiefSC, on 07 April 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

It's not semantics. There is no argument.

Actually your whole argument is based on semantics.

In case you haven't noticed, the F2P market has completely redefined the use of alpha/beta/released tags - usually in a way that helps them charge money for a game that really would be in alpha by traditional terms, and at the same time use the beta status to keep away bad reviews.

This has been happening for a few years now, I guess you haven't been paying attention.

Edited by Greyfyl, 07 April 2013 - 10:41 AM.

[Psikez]

MischiefSC, on 07 April 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

It's not semantics. There is no argument. That you don't understand that is a personal issue and not something that PGI did or did not do. Hence why I posted a link to the definition of 'postmodernism'. It's the idea that your personal reality is more important than reality itself, that your opinions and feelings are more real than the rest of reality. The idea that, for example, someone who reads an article on something knows just as much if not more than someone who's got an 8 year degree and 25 years experience in the field.

There is nothing to debate about MWO being in open beta. That's the term created to define a software product in the exact state that MWO is in.

You want to argue about how long it's taking to develop the game in beta that's fine. You want to argue about how they're funding their game and that they choose to do it that's fine. It's not new but it's fine. I would recommend you read up on product funding and just what 'bringing a product to market' means to the rest of the world and not your personal definition of it but that's not something that's stopped you so far so.... shine on you crazy diamond.

I'm gonna call this topic good now. I've adequately expressed my point (did so in the first point) and settled my curiosity on the responses.

Best of luck to you.

Your a braver individual than I, kudos sir