Why I think that the beta should be nearly completely closed...

EDIT: THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT OVER RUINING THE GAME FOR ONE PERSON, OR THE INDIVIDUAL HIDING FROM VIDEOS. IT IS ABOUT THE COMMUNITY BEING BLACKED OUT. AN INDIVIDUAL WITHOUT INFORMATION IS ONE THING, A COMMUNITY IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING. DO NOT POST ANYMORE ABOUT HOW I OR ANYONE ELSE COULD JUST NOT WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEOS OR SOMETHING OF THAT NATURE. YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT.


Look, I understand. A LOT of people want to play this game. And that's good! But part of any game is discovery.

Now, if we let a ton of people play the game before release (and not everybody), then that would hamper some of the discovery. It would remove discovery from the community. It would take a vital part of the game away.

Minecraft players, think back to secret update Friday. No... further back. Yeah, those old ones. Remember everyone getting together to try and figure out what Notch added, and how it worked? It was great fun, and most of the community had to work together to figure it out!

Now apply that on a bigger scale. If we have a giant beta, lots of info WILL be released before the game's release. Footage will be leaked, and a lot of info will be spoiled.

I'm saying don't give us a giant beta. If anything let no more than 100 people into the beta, and all of them under a very strict NDA. That would protect the game from being abused by things like PBat's let's play. Let's have very little footage of the game, let's go in dark. Sure, give us some footage, show us some of the key features, but keep the majority of the game in the dark!

There's a massive part of a game that a LOT of developers forget about, and it's that part of the game comes with the community itself. Don't forget about the community devs, and that by having a big beta you remove some of the community's enjoyment!

 

You raise a valid point. But, what about the procedural generation? Presumably, almost everything will be new, so you will still discover things. I guess it's what the Devs decide.

Also, if it was closed, how would the testers be picked?

 

You'd only find some new things. Mechanics are mechanics, and those can't be randomly generated. So yeah, they'd find a "Greater plasma rifle of greenitude" that nobody else would find, but they'd also find out a ton about mechanics. And the mechanics are the important thing to hide.

As far as picking testers, run a computer scan for specs and get a fairly average testing group across multiple computer types, high end and low end, windows and mac and linux, the usual way people pick testers. Randomly.

 

What do you mean abused by PBat's let's play? I think he did a wonderful job.

 

Exactly. And everyone knew a TON about the game before release. It ruins the aspect of mystery for not only a lot of players, but for the community.

 

Well, so much stuff was changed and added after the let's play. I even played the leak for like 2 days straight and when the game was released I was still astonished by all the content I still had not experienced.

 

What content in particular would that be?

 

Well in the leak and let's play there was only; The 4 basic armors (metals), Meteor, Necro, COBALT(The one that was revamped ALOT), and Molten.
Cobalt armor was revamped into Jungle, and a few other things but it's dinner now so I'll edit this post after I'm done eating

 

The content that was not in the leak but in the final release, I would imagine.

 

That's not hardly in particular at all.

...What? Cobalt armor was cobalt armor on release. Drew, you played the leak and then switched to a MUCH later version.

 

I'm not trying to be particular. It was nearly a year ago and sadly I for one do not keep a notepad around filled with information of such and it's such a trivial topic that I don't feel inclined to spend a portion of my evening searching through a wiki just to satisfy your picky question.

Simply put - There is no harm in allowing a beta even if content is leaked because you have the choice of watching the Lets Plays and reading the threads filled with leaked content information or you have the choice to not do either of those things. Regardless, there will be more in the final release of Starbound than there will be in the Beta so your entire gaming experience won't be ruined as a result.

 

Yes, you as a person has a choice. But there's a community interaction that makes a unique experience when you have hidden content. People no longer figure things out themselves, but being breaking into groups to work together. It's a beautiful thang. ;P

 

I meant the first few patches after terraria was released. Don't know their numbers off the top of my head. But for me there was still tons of content left to explore. If anything Pbat's Let's Plays made me want to play 100x more.

 

G33K, you bring up a valid point, but there are just as many combinations of computer machinery and rigs as there are dust mites in my closet. If the beta is released to a larger public, more bugs can be revealed and fixed.

Though, not everyone in the community is so inclined to post reports on bugs, or even type legibly...

There should be a compromise, a Closed Beta, and then an Open Beta. Bugs and glitches can be ironed out the whole way through, IMO.

EDIT: On top of what I just posted, ALL participants must have it drilled into their heads that the game will be better without x exploit or y glitch.

 

If I were offered the chance to beta I honestly wouldn't take it. The mystery of not knowing what to do is half the fun in these kinds of games. Think back to the first time you played Super Metroid or Castlevania, Finding hidden items felt special!

 

I hate not growing up with these games. I try to play them, but it just doesn't keep me.

 

I think the millions (yes millions a Dev said so in IRC) of weapon combinations will keep any player interested.

 

I think a beta would work, but it would have to be RELEASE STYLE. Anyone who pre-orders basically (like minecraft's really). That's effectively the same thing as a release, and it compromises people's desire for a... beta...

 

I think a payed beta would be nice sorta like minecraft did. But let's not keep it beta/alpha for years.

 

Couldn't they get people to agree to an NDA?

The real question is: If there are actually millions of weapons, how different are they from each other? I have a hard time that they would be particularly unique after a while. Or they just exaggerated, its happened before.