Those Against A Beta and Pro Release Date

I love how all the buggiest games happen to be Bethesda ones, and one's that I love the most. LOL.

 

This is the point I'm trying to make.

 

I -really- don't see why everyone is so against having a beta. Really, would it affect your gameplay substantially? No, I don't think it would. Having an open beta would help them to quickly get rid of glitches and improve the game on other aspects too. I personally think that an open beta would work well and I see practically no downsides to it.​

 

We are particularly against Open Beta, and pro Closed Beta. A small dedicated beta team would rule out bugs very fast and efficiently. Open Beta would allow for more chance of abuse of the system. There are always those who do not understand what "Beta" means, and those who wish to break NDAs and give the game a bad reputation. Closing the beta would lower these chances.

 

Starbound doesn't seem like a super competitive game that'd require everyone to start on equal grounds. It's not an MMO either so it's not like you will run across people in the best armor all the time. Most of the time you'll know the people you are playing with, atleast on some level. Open beta would practically be releasing the game early, but not declaring that it's finished or completely rid of bugs.

 

Yea, and that last line is what we are against. We want the game to come out as the finished product. I could care less about people getting items early or anything, I just don't want people giving the game a bad reputation or judging the game based on it's development stage.

 

That's a pretty bad point in my opinion. If they clearly state that's it's in BETA, it's not going to give it a bad name. It'd probably just help the game to gain some popularity and to reach a more finished state faster.

 

This topic has been pretty much touched on every week by someone for the past year, why are there always new threads for it...

 

That's what you'd think right? People always take the term Beta out of context. I HATE to use this example, but Minecraft is a good one. People always used to comment on the game's value, when it wasn't even finished. Lol. People forgot that the game was still in Beta.


Basically what I am saying is that you and I in a Beta would be responsible yes? But there are people out there who simply are not and there is nothing we can do about it besides trying to avoid it.

 

In other words, no one.

Unless you're paying them, you're not going to be able to figure out which one honestly wants to beta test and which one is mostly in it to just play early.

 

There's always a "closed beta" of some kind in development. Completely internal to the devs, friends and family, or some segment of a wider population depending on what the devs feel is necessary.

 

Which is, probably, why the closed beta testing that is reportedly going on, was among family and close friends, which are people that you can know with better certainty that will not violate the NDA and will actually try and help.

Anyway, this discussion is sterile beyond the love of discussion itself. Tiy already said that, if there is a pre-release, it will be "when the beta is done".

 

These anti-beta threads are getting as annoying as the beta ones.

 

Skyrim and Dishonored are pretty bug-free, the other two though...

Yes, I think I'm done posting in them after this.

 

My taste for debate and chaos prevents me from ignoring them.

Must... have... debateandchaos!

 

I'm not really going to read another one of these threads in full, so forgive me if this has already been said, but why do people who "don't want a beta" or "don't want the game to come out early" or "don't like pre-orders" or "don't want to play an unfinished product" even care sooo much about if there does happen to be one?

I'm going to let all of those people in on a magical little secret.No one will force you to pre-order, or play an early release if you don't want to. The way I see it, if you're not interested, then the whole situation has barely anything to do with you. It won't detract from your personal game experience..The game will be under constant updates and maintenance when it's released anyway, so I hate to break it to all of you, but the "finished product" that you want to play, and ONLY want to play will not even exist on the actual release date.

There will be bugs. There will be glitches. There will be new items/classes/terrain/weapons/NPCs/tools/etc. released past that magical release date, and those updates and releases themselves will also have bugs and glitches.

So why worry about it? I have no clue what this weird fetish about not wanting something but not wanting to see anyone else get it either is, but I think it's high-time we stop seeing threads like this...

...but of course we won't.

 

You really should have read the first posts (before shit hit the fan). This thread actually had some good arguments for once.

The original arguments were (note, these are not MY arguments):

• People would violate the NDA, spill the beans and shit would be talked about the game because bugs, ignoring the fact that it's beta. This would in turn hurt the game's reputation and result in lower sales.
• It would result in the devs being influenced by the community which would result in the game changing to suit the community; OP cited Minecraft as an example, saying that it stopped being good because of this.
• More people playing the beta wouldn't even be beneficial, because most don't know how to report bugs in a helpful manner.

At least this was what I got out of this thread.

 

Perfection can not be achieved. One patch more, one less, what's the difference? I vote for early release.

 

... Are you talking to hear yourself talk in this thread? You're the one who has replied the most, but you seem to just revolve around hating betas and don't seem to know what betas you might like, or what they do or how they're structured. For example, your last statement is hilarious. Closed betas are the only form of beta with any possibility of breaching an NDA, because Open betas simply do not have them, that's part of what "open" means in its title. You can't breach an NDA if it isn't there, after all.

If you don't know what a beta is or how it works, all you needed to do was ask.

I... I can't believe... did you really just say Skyrim was pretty bug free? Did you actually play the game and somehow not encounter any of the hilarious (and sometimes game breaking) bugs? For example, here's a gigantic list of them. A lot of those bugs are on the console versions as well, which can't be fixed as easily as the PC version due to needing official sources for fixes instead of modders. I've never played Dishonored so I can't say one way or another if there's a lot of bugs, but probably not since it wasn't actually developed by Bethesda, just published by them and using a different engine than GameBryo and GameBryo 2.0 (Creation).

 

With an "OPEN BETA" or "pre-release" there is no NDA... By very nature of it being public, who are you not disclosing it to...?

That's an opinion, one that makes little sense to me.. If a community at large (from what I understand here, I've never played minecraft) is asking for the game to be a specific way, then why not change it to better suit what your customers want? Minecraft is a multi-million dollar game, with millions of players of all ages, clearly they're doing something right. That the OP thinks it's "not good anymore" doesn't really mean much when they just sold half-a-million copies on Christmas alone.

This part here, is where I say that is something for the DEVS to worry about, and for the DEVS to consider.. That does nothing for Freddy Joe Forumface not playing the game waiting for a "final" release.. Not wanting a pre-order beta to "save costumers from themselves and quitting Starbound forever" is noble, but pretty stupid as far as objectives go. Not to mention that this feeds off the horrible notion that anything in BETA is definitely going to be a bug-ridden and unplayable mess, and that final releases are always pristine and bug free.

It makes little sense, and it's a horrible assumption to base arguments off of.