Pre-order/beta thoughts

I agree with what is said above. I do not think the team should release a beta. I mean, everyone that is voting that they should are just being selfish and want to get their hands on the game early. The development team can finish the game themselves and don't need an open beta to get it done. If, however, they do decide to a beta. It should be closed.


The game needs one release date. We don't want to start a Minecraft fiasco in which we are given an unfinished game, and then the developers just patch the hell out of the game until we are left with something that wasn't even the game we started with.

 

I support a beta, actually. I just selected "Yes" on the poll by accident. A beta would allow player input on the game and allow players to crack down on bugs and glitches easily.

 

Lol. When I said "said above" I didn't mean your post, I meant all the above posts.


If the devs want to check for bugs and glitches then they should have a closed beta.

 

They've got closed beta right now
EDIT: if we are talking about Chucklefish right now and it means that game should be released really soon (i hope )

 

The problem is that at this moment, there are also no pre-orders.

A combined effort then? To get pre-orders that will allow for a Closed-Beta period.

 

Beta or not as long as the content and gameplay is smooth and polished I'm fine!

Now don't expect it to be perfect. Alpha versions have glitches, Beta versions have glitches, ANY game has glitches, full release or not.
When you fix one problem, ten more come up.

But it's okay, as long as the MAJORITY of the game is spit and polished then we can ignore these faults and have a good time.

However, again, idiots. Beta or not some people are very stubborn and bias there opinions with false info, lies, and bad attitude. I'm just afraid if there is a beta people will ignore the "beta" title and intentionally accept it as the full game just so they can have a pathetic excuse to criticize and b*tch about it.

 

And that just proves that they are worth ignoring as well. Some of those idiots even break NDA.

 

And what good would a person's opinion be after ignoring such a clear fact? It wouldn't be worth anything.

 

I think that PREPURCHASE open beta can create many problems. The biggest of which is player expectations, they paid already, they expect the game to go their way and will be quite loud about it.

A free open beta might be better in order to keep people from being overzealous and change what would otherwise be potentially sound design decisions into community pressured design decisions. Yknow, I'd rather play the game the way the creators want it rather than how the loud portion of feedback community wants it.

At the very least the state of the game should be close to final before pre-order beta, that way feedback can be based on balancing and tweaks rather than full feature decisions.

 

My random musings.

-I'm thinking the best time for an Invite-Beta (or Pre-Order Beta), is when you're ready to start generating buzz heading up to release.
That's a good time for pre-orders as well. But don't drag it out past that point...I've seen what happens, and it ain't pretty.

-Haters...they hate, even for the stupidest reasons, and you can't fix "stupid".
As for "judging" the game...yeah, we want that.
For technical issues, criticism is necessary. Ideally if it's given in a way that isn't ham-fisted and stupid.
But the mere existence of "haters" should not be a deterrent for doing a Beta. That just shows a lack of confidence on the part of the developers.

-Such a Beta would be useful for identifying and crushing major bugs and compatibility issues.
Please, do NOT wait until after launch to check for those!

Broken games are a death sentence for word of mouth and sales. (like Kerberos and Sword of the Stars 2.)
Minor bugs can wait; even gameplay balancing bugs and tweaks can wait. But lets make sure the game is stable and somewhat optimized before rigorous bug crushing.

I must stress that on a varied platform like PC, nipping performance, interface issues, and widespread incompatibilities is important before the official launch.
(Bethesda regularly FAILS to do this with their games, resulting in the community having to create fixes for them if at all.)

I'm not saying that all bugs should be found before launch; given a game of any complexity, that's completely unrealistic to assume. Even well after launch, it's highly probable that all bugs won't be found.
(it took a dedicated community over 20 years to get Nethack to its current state, and even then I still question if it's entirely bug-free)

 

STARBOUND open beta = unwrapping a box of legos on Christmas eve, but not being allowed to build with them until Christmas. it just wont be the same which is why i wont partake in an open beta.

 

Here's my couple of pennies:

* I think they should have a larger closed beta. More hands testing theoretically means more bugs squashed.
* People who want to get into this beta should have some good reason to get into it besides "I want it now." Previous testing experience, doing QA for a living, etc. Something that will make them a valuable tester. There should be an official application thread on these here forums.
* There should be a temporary login that will not be in the finished game to limit the people that can get in.
* Anybody who doesn't want a beta can safely ignore it.
* Chucklefish can have an NDA or not, depending on how tight-lipped they want to be. Up to them. If they do, more work for them, taking down Youtube videos and all that.
* To encourage people to actually test the game instead of just playing it, they could have incentives for the best testers. Maybe a free copy of the game for the #1, 50% off for #2, 25% off for #3, just as examples. How they rate this is up to them.

 

Where have they ever released that? Game Production is not a closed beta.....

 

Hater's gonna hate. But we Starbounder's (im sure) are ready to appreciate.

 

All I'm saying is that we need to just stop being selfish and realize that an open beta would not be beneficial due to the amount of "haters" that will be on it. Let's just wait for the game to come out alright? The development team does not need our help, trust me. They have been perfectly fine this far.

 

The game is currently in closed beta for close friends and family only.

 

I think that an open beta would be a bad idea.
Yes, it would alleviate some of the desire the players have had for a trial of the gameplay.
Yes, it would help the game progress to being completed.
But,
It's simply a bad marketing decision.
Ill informed players (People who aren't already part of the community) will more than likely shy away from purchasing the game
due to the actions of "haters" or anyone who decides to nitpick at the incomplete game. An open beta is commonly prone to
induce bad publicity and Team Chucklefish does not deserve to have their game nuked by reviews from a beta.

To summarize, an open beta will not affect our community in any way. It is a marketing decision that can easily lead away potential buyers.
Its a quicker release vs a stronger release.

 

My primary reason to be against any form of public beta is twofold, half grand scale and half selfish.

Firstly, the selfish one.
I like playing complete games, I like playing games I don't know everything about, and I don't like spoilers. Avoiding all three negative circumstances implied by those statements is nearly physically impossible in the event of an open beta of any form.

Secondly, the grand scale one.
The term "beta" in any form.
Once again, complete products, we used to buy them. a "beta" is the period of time in game development after the primary coding and content is finished and bugtesting and polish are the primary goals, a public beta is not this, a public beta is a bullshit reason to sell an unfinished game, something Chucklefish doesn't need to do as they seem fully capable of delivering quality without resorting to the many seedy marketing practices in use amongst corporate publishers, or are we all ok with indie developers becoming just like EA or similar publishers?

 

If they wont release any kind of open/closed beta for possible pre-orders.

How about at least some sort of pre-order with no open/closed beta so we can still support them another way.

 

No?