A Special Kind of Beta: Trying to Please Everyone

Forgive me if this isn't the right place to put this, but I couldn't find another suitable place.

First step: Release a beta version of Starbound, Minecraft-style

Step two: Divide the buyers into two groups

The VIP Testers:
The best of the best. Hand-picked by the devs themselves. The VIPs' job would be to deliberately search for ways to break or exploit game systems. They would be allowed access to a secure area (in the forums, maybe) where they could speak directly to the devs about bugs and the circumstances they're found in.

Casual Players:
Like Minecraft players, these people would simply play the game and have fun, while also passively searching for bugs or anomalies. They would have access to a form that they could fill out and submit to a searchable, sortable database that could only be accessed by the devs, authorized players (like the VIPs), etc. I've included an idea of this form below.


Please provide feedback.

EDIT: a typo

 

Potentially useful idea, though in terms of resources I don't think they'd necessarily be able to execute it.

 

The devs have said they wanted to have a closed beta for Starbound, perhaps because of what happened to Terraria.

 

They aren't sure if they're going to do a beta, but if they do it will most likely be public.

 

fixed that for you

 

@ HellFireSoul: I know, I know. I just wanted to throw this idea out there.

@ Sadron: That's a pretty good point...

@ Voyager: What happened to Terraria?

 

Despite how excited I am for the game, I would much rather wait to see a finished product before it is available to the public. I think it would give people an incorrect impression of the game having a release with missing features. It may also create more work for the dev team and delay the final product, which nobody wants.

 

Yeah, public betas are not good for a sandbox in my opinion, voted no.

 

No, you messed it up. Originally Tiy was saying they would prefer a closed beta. But, recently he has stated that if they have a beta it will be open.

 

and then in a more recent interview he said he would want a closed beta.

In short, he's on the fence about it, I'm hoping they choose closed if at all, preferably with NDAs.

 

I guess I missed that one, can you link to it?

Also, I do agree with having a closed beta with NDAs. It's no fun when opening a thread risks revealing everything about the game to you. Games are always more fun when you have to figure stuff out on your own.

 

A Minecraft type beta is essentially the same as releasing the game.

 

Name VIP-Beta --> closed Beta, delete Casual option and maybe it will work. But i like the bug report formular P:

 

no beta, this has been discussed to death,brought back to life and killed off multiple times

if there will be a beta, then let the dev's hand pick people to do(although they kinda already have a few people who help with that)

i think about starbound every day and want to get my hands on it ASAP! however I'd rather just not have a beta, i want the game to be released in full: not almost done and wait for patches til we get the whole game(no minecraft style..that's a whole lot of do not want)

EDIT: if anything, people should be volunteering to help with code and other bug fixes etc. instead of asking for a beta

 

i say no to any sort of open beta. with games like starbound, an open beta is almost always considered the official game release.
in fact, nowadays, many games do open beta and hype it up as they would the release of the game itself (like hawken does)
it makes people forget whats the real purpose of it. i'd rather have chucklefish do a closed beta with people they can trust in

 

I say that Tiy wants the content to season like fine wine in a cellar, and not allow what's already available to be burned out from players.
They don't want to feel rushed when adding content, whilst the community suggests or nags about whats there and what's not.

On the other side, an open Beta would benefit in catching bugs and adding content from the community's ideas to give the customized feel for as many people as possible.

If they decide on developing the game past the end of the year, I would definitely not mind at all if they compensated with a beta.

 

I agree. I would love to be able to help out like that, but I think I'm a bit late to the party.

 

See, the whole controversy over this beta thing is the fact that some people just don't want to play an unfinished game, and most of the others are just greedy. In all honesty, only about 5% of beta testers are actually in it to contribute to development. And a good percentage of beta testers have never submitted a bug report. Out of this topic, I'd suggest the VIP group as the only beta testing group; hand-picked by the developers. I'm still quite against beta, though. Remember when you payed for a finished game?

 

tl;dr: you can never please everyone.