35 replies to this topic

[Obelus]

Any body else get the feeling this game will still be in beta in 6 months? And that we'll still be waiting for faction play?

I know the devs are working as fast as they can and I'm sure it will be great when its done (if ever) but...

Edited by Obelus, 17 December 2012 - 04:46 PM.

[Deadoon]

Some games stay in beta for years or more.

[Rotaugen]

How many betas have you done? I've seen many go longer than this.

[Obelus]

Been in a ton of betas...lots of MMOs like City of Heroes/villians, WoW, SWTOR, Planetside 2, Secret World but other stuff as well like Starcraft 2. More than I can remember honestly.

I'm curious, which betas went on for years?

[Hellen Wheels]

Obelus, on 17 December 2012 - 04:46 PM, said:

Any body else get the feeling this game will still be in beta in 6 months? And that we'll still be waiting for faction play?

I know the devs are working as fast as they can and I'm sure it will be great when its done (if ever) but...

If they don't pull their heads out, this game will go the way of MPBT:3025

It is that bad.

[Rotaugen]

I don't know which has gone several years, but I was in Red Orchesta 2 and Battlefield 3 betas most recently. They went on for months, and had a lot of major overhauls.

[Obelus]

Oh yeah I'm remembering a few more...DC Universe Online...Age of Empires online...Aion...Rift...D&D online...Star Trek Online...Vindictus...Warhammer Online...

umm think that's it.

Of the list Mechwarrior is probably my favorite still even though I gripe about it taking forever (which it is). I played the crap out of Star Trek Online but it was ultimately disappointing (space combat was a grind).

Edited by Obelus, 17 December 2012 - 05:09 PM.

[Deadoon]

Obelus, on 17 December 2012 - 04:58 PM, said:

Been in a ton of betas...lots of MMOs like City of Heroes/villians, WoW, SWTOR, Planetside 2, Secret World but other stuff as well like Starcraft 2. More than I can remember honestly.

I'm curious, which betas went on for years?

Quite a few free to play games stay in beta for a long time, wow jumps into and out of beta for new content. Everquest had a whole server dedicated to beta content and testing of possible new game changes months ahead of release. Those are for comercial games, NS2 was in alpha and pre release beta for a long time.

Most games tend to forgoe the true beta phase or use the term "beta" as a form of "prerelease demonstration". We are in alpha stage though, they are still implementing key features and changine the game greatly.

[Obelus]

I was in Battlefield 3 beta as well but toward the end so I didn't notice the long wait. Wasn't open beta pretty short? I seem to remember it was...

Yeah this definitely feels like an alpha stage.

Edited by Obelus, 17 December 2012 - 05:12 PM.

[Ro Cin]

Natrule selection 2 beta came out about a year ago and lasted till about august. it was a closed beta which you could get into by preordering $42 at the start it was very unfinished and unplayable buggy but they kept at it and it now a realeased game pretty dam good too.

Edited by Ro Cin, 17 December 2012 - 05:29 PM.

[Obelus]

I've been tempted to try Natural Selection 2. When I was in Starcraft 2 beta I felt that took forever to end. Blizzard was obsessive about balance in that game.

Edited by Obelus, 17 December 2012 - 05:19 PM.

[dF0X]

No.

and...

No.

(At least not like you think)

[Obelus]

Waiting for faction play is killing me. I want to paint a Davion symbol on my mech and whoop some Kurita *** already.

Have they announced a rough date when we might see faction play? I can't remember seeing one.

[Zphyr]

Nowadays a 6 months beta is... the longest ever? My my... those games which were or are still in beta after a couple years or more must be as old as the universe itself! Although those are mostly F2P (like this one?). Some of them never remove the beta tag.

CW in 6 months? Maybe.

[Arafinar]

Eve-Online was over a year in beta, dont recall them trying to sell anything before it went gold either...

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

I see this game being in beta for way more than 6 months

if it me or do you see a point in them ever taking this game OUT of beta? They lose their number one criticism shield, they already are making money; they will be able to be reviewed and there wont be the "but its beta" argument for the reviews either.

There IS NO real benefit to PGI releasing this game as full release. Its a MMO it will never be "done". Im starting to wonder if this isnt a prototyping process. See if people will play a game forever in beta and it still turn a profit

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 17 December 2012 - 08:53 PM.

[Postumus]

1. Go read the dev blogs.

2. 6 months is not a long time for game development. A lot of popular games released nowadays are in development for several years. The only difference here is that the developers of THIS game have opened that process up much sooner, in order to have large scale playtesting, and also as a profitable business model. I'm really glad that they have, it means that I get to play,and there are a huge number of features or tweaks that have been implemented because of community feedback during this beta process. And calling beta beta isn't a criticism shield, its just the truth, the game is in an intermediate phase of development, "Release" is when the finished or mostly finished product is available.

[Fate 6]

Deadoon, on 17 December 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

Quite a few free to play games stay in beta for a long time, wow jumps into and out of beta for new content. Everquest had a whole server dedicated to beta content and testing of possible new game changes months ahead of release. Those are for comercial games, NS2 was in alpha and pre release beta for a long time.

Most games tend to forgoe the true beta phase or use the term "beta" as a form of "prerelease demonstration". We are in alpha stage though, they are still implementing key features and changine the game greatly.

We are testing things that would be fixed generally in an early or mid stage beta. But they are treating the game like it is released (just look at the way they release content, it's not like a beta at all). Instead of making Christmas decoration for cockpits which they are selling for money, they should be working on real content. If they want to make Beta-only content, they should be giving it to the beta testers in my opinion.

I paid for Founder's to support development, but I would expect them to work on developing the game not silly peripheral crap that means nothing to how the game functions.

Having done the Planetside 2 beta, I know developers can suddenly go from beta to release even if the beta seems quite unpolished. This game is still pretty far away from that point even. There is nothing social about this game right now, and they can't expect to do much with a multiplayer game that does not allow socializing.

Edited by Fate 6, 17 December 2012 - 09:29 PM.

[Fooooo]

PotBS was in beta for a year+..

EvE Online was close also afaik. ( I was a late entry )

Dark Reign had a decent length alpha/beta also, same with Dark Reign 2.

ET:QW was in beta for almost a year also from what I remember.

WoT also had a lengthy alpha / early beta, and then another lengthy 2nd beta, then to open beta for a few months........


These are just the ones I can remember being in that went for longer than 6months, and close or past a year. There would be a ton more imo.......MWO would not be alone in this regard by any means.

Edited by Fooooo, 17 December 2012 - 09:39 PM.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

gmail was in beta for 5 years. I'm all for PGI staying in beta until it's done, which they will be able to do as long as they have money, and money is why they had to go OB and start selling things. I think we are accustomed to the open phase of beta being short for games, but this is launching as a f2p game and they needed to open the shop early.