I really think that you guys should consider a long (closed Alpha or beta). I think I the people that are in here the most, the ones that have contributed the most, are some that can be trusted and invited. I was here from the game was announced, but I probably wont be good until the beta. I am not as dedicated as the others I have seen, here. I want to play the game, but I can wait.
With that being said, I really think that this game deserves a real world situations to make sure that everything is in working order.
I know that the developers would like to engage the community as early as possible and start getting some feedback from them in my discussions with one previously. Unfortunately I have no idea when or if this will actually happen. I have literally no details from them except that they'd like to do it, but don't really have a plan or time frame at this time.
This is months-old information though so something could have definitely changed. Once E3 winds down a little bit I'm going to start pumping my sources for information on stuff like this and community involvement, but right now is not an opportune time for obvious reasons!![]()
I have a really weird feel about betas...I agree, they are needed especially now when networking becomes so important. Watch Dogs is a good example, as matchmaking was very difficult to get working right away. However, I personally like to see the developer flesh out their vision for the game too fully, before too much feedback comes from the general public. Everyone will have their own opinion of this that or the other, but you can;t have it your way all the time ya know? So its a tough situation.
Betas are important so really test your system, how the players use it, find flaws in the system and so on. But it is also important how you process the feedback and if you process it at all. Some games have a very long beta and at launch you still have a lot of game breaking bugs that were reported in Beta and should have been fixed long ago... so it is one thing to do a beta, and another thing to really use it to fix / change / and optimize your game for launch, so that the player have a long and also motivating experience with as few bugs as possible.
So i would recommend one at a stage when the system is established and is ready for polishing. But they should build the vision first and then we can continue from that.
Betas are for testing for bugs, functionality and balance, not for generating game ideas and suggestions. The game story mode should be more or less complete by the end of alpha stage. There are only two development related reasons for holding public betas (open or closed) and they are to broaden the range of machines on which the software is tested for bugs and to load test matchmaking and game servers.Originally Posted by Dead-Sync Go to original post
However the marketing guys like to have betas because they generate hype for the game and allow them to do some public opinion polling prior to release. Unfortunately, the latter sometimes results in poorly thought out last minute changes to the game story or play modes when small but vocal elements of the test community start making loudly voiced, emphatic demands.
i would like to see a closed beta a minimum of 6 months before release then open it up to the public for 3-4 days to stress test the severs and find exploits that can be patched, cram as many people in as possible.
considering it's an online only game if it doesn't get off to a good start it would turn alot of people off picking it up.
BF4 only start working properly 6 months after release hopefully massive/ubisoft will not make such a huge mistake.
i really want the game but i think i will wait till after launch day to see how it plays out. it would be so frustrating waiting so long for the game, picking it up and not been able to play it.
Typically the developers are many builds ahead of whatever beta build is put out at the time it comes out anyway. So a lot of bugs or problems in betas are sometimes already fixed in the release build and it didn't actually have anything to do with people reporting those bugs at all. It's definitely good to get some early player feedback on your game when there's still time to do game-altering changes before release. Otherwise you'll get a release that could potentially have something that no one is a really big fan of.