Those Against A Beta and Pro Release Date

Anyone else out there think that we should NOT have an Open Beta? That instead the game should be released on a SINGLE date with a SINGLE download? I feel that most people who support an Open Beta right now are just being slightly selfish and want to get their paws on the game. (Understandable)


Please comment on this and show support. Chucklefish does NOT feel that they need to release an Open Beta just because a large swarm of their community is getting uneasy.




I do support Pre-Orders though however. It could be a GREAT way for the developers to raise money, if the need for it did arise.


This thread is not meant for flaming and rants. That was never it's intent. So post intelligently and respect everyone's opinions.

If people actually wanted to help game development, they wouldn't demand to play the game, they would actually donate to the production team through purchasing Wanderlust.



Ockpii pretty much sums it up right here at 50 ;
http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_detailpage&v=lo6WvNcqxa0#t=332s





Edit By Blue : If you are just joining this discussion please read THIS and be aware that the OP has every right to post his opinion here. And any posts that state that you may disagree with it, should not be posted in the form of an argument or attack on the OP. Please keep the thread about the subject in question, and not the posters themselves as that is in every way a deviation from the threads subject matter.

 

I think people who pressure for a release date need to have patience, and, in your own words, "is(are) just being selfish and wants to get their paws on the game.". If we have some patience, we could let the developers work as much as they need to.

 

Agreed. They will finish the game on their own time. They don't need our help. A large part of the community is just growing restless and impatient. We just need to let them do their thing.


As for that "typo", definitely not. Everyone is describing "every" and "one", which you could think of as singular. http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowEveryoneSingular/hrzvw/post.htm

 

He was posting the (are) <-- [Clearly in a different font color,] to make the quote correct in his usage, where are would be acceptable.

 

truth be told, tiy admitted that he considered the idea before people on the forum even remotely started pressuring for such a release and he said himself in a tweet that a "pre-order beta release" would help make the game progress faster.
And since some devs openly admitted that they put theire professional live on the sideline so that they could dedicate themselve entirely to this project, the financial income of such a practice would help them a lot too.

so yes, some people are being impatient and selfish, but lets not forget that there are also good sides to doing it

 

Agreed. That's why personally I am a supporter of a closed beta. As to their financial situations, It isn't really any of our business, but they could always do pre-orders without a beta reward. I'm sure they could come up with something else to give out as a reward. I didn't add it on this post, but on another page I discussed how pre-orders could be a great way to help the company financially if they ever needed it, but then again, that isn't any of our business.

 

Oh woops, my apologies.

 

Something I've observed in the gaming scene is that nowadays, an "open beta" means "play the game early and bitch about bugs in the least constructive manner possible". Just look at Minecraft. The forums there used to be full of threads complaining and bitching and moaning about the game. Instead of being constructive and reporting bugs in a useful manner, many chose to be annoying as hell and cause arguments all the time.

I'd personally prefer a closed beta. I don't know how Chucklefish would choose their testers though, that's not up to me.

 

This is EXACTLY the point I have been trying to make to everyone recently.

 

To be constructive to this thread:

I think that a closed beta would be beneficial to development, finding bugs, etc. That's all good and stuff, and an NDA might be necessary for the purposes of "Aw man! Why aren't I in the beta?!?!"

On the topic of pre-ordering, I think a nice "reward" would be a demo form of the game. Perhaps the character creation screen, or the ability to watch the intro cinematic and run about on the escape pod-thingy. Then (almost) everyone would be happy. (My speculation, of course.)

 

The developers will do what they want, when they want. If they decide an open beta is best for development, I don't see how anyone is qualified to say differently. It is much the same if they choose not to.

I think everyone needs to stop assuming that they know what is best for the game and let the developers do what they need to do.

 

I kind of like the reward you mention. It's not like in other games where your "reward" will be special content, dividing those who bought the game before and those who bought it after, but just a small sneak peek, nothing too big, to satisfy the ravenous hunger of many players. As long as it's not too much, I agree.

Nobody is assuming they know what's best for the game. We're merely sharing our opinions and thoughts of an open or closed beta. If you don't like the contents of the thread, at least don't try to stop the discussion.

 

Personally. I would prefer just a pre-order and no beta. Despite the fact that I'd love to play the game early, I would much rather wait and play the finished game, knowing that it's what the game Dev's were aiming for. Minecraft had way to many bugs and issues at the start because they released an unfinished game, and while the Starbound Dev's have stated that they would be releasing a finished sandbox portion of the game if they did beta, it's still unfinished. A lot of what Starbound is going to be is the story and if there's no story or missions then people are going to get burnt out on the game just in the beta stage. Which I'd hate to see.

I just want to pre-order so I can get the game as soon as it comes out, and it would help the Dev's out. I could care less about getting rewards for pre-ordering.

 

Opinions and thoughts that have been expressed dozens and times in other threads. One side says an open beta is good because it will help development, the other side says the first side is wrong and is just being greedy/selfish. It will go back and forth indefinitely, and discuss it as you like the result will be the same.

 

If the result will be the same, then what's it matter if people discuss it? Let us, it's not doing anyone harm and debating is pretty fun.

 

I am participating, am I not? I just find it silly that one side keeps pointing a finger at the other.

 

I can agree on that.

 

... Did I just see the "that's what happened to Minecraft" statement again?

Dudes... This is getting pretty damn old now.

Starbound is not Minecraft. I don't see anything wrong with this community.




Sure, you do have some good points, people like that will complain about any game they have issues with. Despite what happened with Minecraft, it did have a large community, it got very popular, in fact people are still playing it today. Minecraft is well known.

I don't see how Minecraft failed, please feel free to explain.

 

Well, it wont be a single download because they plan on supporting the game with more and more updates down the line rather then a one off download. But that's nitpicking at that part.

Anyways, I don't see the issue with an open beta, but I can also see the how leaving it closed can be benificial as well. This really all comes down to what they the developers feel like they need to do to see their game thrive. Staying away from the Minecraft example, I'll use a more recent one. Don't Starve is an indie game that released pretty much an open beta on steam and have been diligently adding content to their game while stating that no the game is not done yet, and they're using the open beta as more of a trial period for them to figure out balance and to catch bugs with the community hand in hand. Now this way, the developers are capable of being open with the community, get the help of finding exploits thanks to the larger amount of testers. I know for a fact that in closed beta testing no matter how much those people test, there is always a group of people not in the beta that will think differently to the beta testers, and purposely try and go outside the box to find things. This allows in the long run a much more polished game because more minds working at something in two different versions (the mind of the gamer, and the mind of the bug hunter) and also allows for interesting communications between tactics of gameplay. In turn the developers can, if they choose to use the energy, find ways to stop the exploits or just be impressed what people come up with to figure out survival in their game that they never thought of.

Of course, the open beta also has ramifications. People don't understand what it means to be an 'open beta' game anymore, and seem to think that it is the whole game right there in front of them. That's the gamers fault though, for not reading what's on the tin and all. Then you get a whole bunch of grumpers who don't understand that they get to be apart of helping out a game developer in a more open way rather then invitations. After all, look how well Terraria thrived at the very beginning thanks to the amount of publicity it got even though it was very bare bones then continued to grow thanks to the updates. Trust me, if it wasn't for people exploding with videos, popular youtubers, etc that game probably wouldn't have made it very far to actually sell 1 million copies. The concept alone was able to carry that game and the content just made it even better.

Then it also depends on what stage of the beta the company would want to release. If they go DayZ way, where it's alpha but the concept alone brought in so many people that the company couldn't handle it at first, or like said above Don't Starves way where a good chunk of the idea is there but they keep the games narrative deep within the confines of the developers treasure chest until it's to the point they want.

With a game like Starbound, I can very easily see how it could thrive on concept alone, and being able to actually do the open beta thanks to the strength of the concept and gameplay alone. There's a lot to play with there, but at the same time they can easily keep key things hidden away until full release. For example, they could allow very little to limited exploration or whatever else until full release then becoming truly open world.

It would not harm the game if it went open beta, unless the concept really isn't as strong as it could be. I fail to see how in this day in age where open betas and even alphas are widely tossed about to test the indie game developers concept.

Blahblahblah tl;dr version: Open or closed, they both have their positives or negatives. I think Starbound could do open beta thanks to strength of concept, but it's all up to the developers choice on how they want to handle the game.

 

The Pre-Order gives the beta, which is in sandbox mode. No story or such whatsoever.