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

To be completely honest; I believe that the beta should be community based. So people with no less than like 50posts(all legitimate not full of spam) At least the first beta and allow them to do the Let's Plays; after a certain date of course. So as to prevent a whole bunch of people seeing them. Etc, and than have a press demo. For the big names(kotaku etc).

 

Yes do not give this game to youtubers or anyone else before releasing it to everyone else, terraria did that and it was god damn horrible and ruined it for myself and a lot of people.

 

you don't have to watch it though, i know i didn't watch any terraria let's plays.

 

Some people watch, and get interested. And then it spoils the game for them.

 

I really don't know why this thread went to the "who deserves beta" topic but anyway

I think community-based closed beta would be the best way to do it.
Another thing I would love to see is: Get people from around the globe in the beta if you are interested in allowing them to do LP's. Having one in german and one in spanish is a biiiiig deal. A lot of people don't like to watch english LP's even though a game like starbound would appeal to them.

 

How did it ruin the game for you?

 

If they're the kinds of people who have the game "spoiled" for them by watching a video of it, you'd think they'd know better than to watch videos of games.

 

Man, all this talk about who'd "deserve" to be in a beta. Don't forget that this would first and foremost be a beta test, and not necessarily a treat for you.

A beta test means actually making sure that the game is playable for a variety of testers. You get to deal with all the kinks that the regular players won't have to deal with. Dedication!!

Of course I can't know what the devs will do, but usually, beta testing involves a group of people of different ages, different hardware setups, different operating systems, and possibly different locales, so your product is actually tested.

This is just common sense, but they're planning to release it on all major platforms, so logically they'd want a sample group of Windows, Mac, and Linux users. If, after release, your game runs like tar mixed with molasses going uphill and crashes constantly on Linux because none of the testers had that, even though you advertised Linux support, then that's bad PR. If Terraria had been tested by someone with a non-US keyboard layout such as QWERTZ, that embarrassing bug with keyboard text input might not have persisted until 1.1.2.

 

^This man Is quite correct, actually. I Beta tested before. It's fairly hard to enjoy yourself when
A) Nothing Is working right.
Your character is deleted nearly Every patch.
C) A lot of features are Missing.
However, Face it. Many Lurkers will probably be... "Generic".
Eg, Windows 7/XP, A(n) Acer/Dell PC with default settings, and Either from the UK, The Asian areas, or the US.
For example: Every avid poster I know happens to be from a different area, and Each of them have some sort of Gaming PC with different specs.
Eg: I have my ACER with Intel Dual Core and a NvIdia GFX That runs Skyrim on ultra, but I turn off shadows and High lighting. I live in Lebanon and Have the basic QWERTY Keyboard.
A friend of mine from the US has a Similar tech, but he has a much better video card AND he's American.
Avid posters are usually more diverse because there's less of them.

 

My two cents:

Firstly, however they wish to commence testing of the game will most likely work. Some routes of testing will delay the game, others may miss out on bugs, but no matter what, the game will be playable when it's released.

To the topic itself:

“I want to protect the community” is one of the most abused, and in some cases absurd, defenses in the history of censorship. If someone would like to remove something they deem inappropriate, rude, or offensive, all they would have to say is, “But think of the children/people/<insert religious beliefs>/etc.!”. I'm really sick of it being put out into play for every little thing someone wishes to “Not see”, and while I respect a person's wish to abstain from reading and watching things that bother them; I do -NOT- like it when I'm told that “Well the community doesn't need to know”. I'm a part of this community, and I may want to know!

Note that Chucklefish has the right, as a company working for a profit, to share and/or keep all information relating to their product at their disposal, and in whatever way makes them the most money. If they choose to withhold every single bit of information from us from this point forward, I would still buy the game, and so would most of us here. They could release all the information on the game right now, and I would still buy the game.

The amount of information I know about something usually does not affect whether or not I will buy it, or prequels would never sell.

You may speak for part of the community, but I also speak for another part of the community: The ones who want to know everything about this game that they can, and eventually, enjoy it in the way WE want. We are here too, and you are not speaking for all of us.

So, in counter to "IT IS ABOUT THE COMMUNITY BEING BLACKED OUT", I simply say:

“There is a part of this community that does NOT want to be blacked out, nor do we want to be kept in the dark, nor do we want to always 'Be surprised', and especially nor do we want to discover the game the way you would.”

 

Agreed.

 

If watching a video of someone else playing game ruins the game for you, then I don't think you'd have liked the game very much even if you hadn't seen the video.

 

I've been watching this thread for a few days and it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say. Here goes. (Warning: kinda long)

It's a tough split, in my opinion. Personally, I'm for the blackout.

When a new game, especially a sandbox, has mechanics that you've never seen in play before, you definitely get interested.
Exploration and discovery, I get the feeling, are a huge part of Starbound. And I would argue that discovering these mechanics empirically and experientally deliver the greatest sense of awe.
What I'm trying to say is that the experience of figuring things out the first time, or by yourself, is something valuable enough to be shipped with the product.

As was raised, this is especially the case with gameplay mechanics.
Taking an example from the horror genre, the second you figure out how the big stalky monster's AI works, your fear of it is lessened.
The more you come to fully understand a gameplay mechanic, the less awe it has to offer you.
And that's normal. You shouldn't be surprised every time a zombie bashes through the front door of your fortress on a blood moon.
But you shouldn't expect it to happen before the game is even released, or else the entire mechanic will have been for nothing (there are easily ways to circumvent it, but the point is that you wouldn't know to at first).

Of course I'm not saying this should apply to all gameplay mechanics, but with a larger beta where people can share all the information they want, it definitely does take away from experiental learning.

That's how it could take away from the individual.

Take a breather, there's more.

It's also important to note that the player base is going to be far larger than the community.

There's a balance between knowing enough to get a prospective buyer to become interested in a game and knowing so much that they are turned away.
It definitely does happen. It's happened to people in this thread, or more widely, it happens with some movie trailers.
That balance becomes hard to maintain when the beta testers are freely spoken.
Sometimes, even the developers/publishers don't handle it well (see: movie trailers).
I don't think for a second that most members of this community would not purchase Starbound because they learned too much about it in the beta phase. The case is not the same for everyone, though.

Launch hype will be a large factor in determining the game's momentum of popularity, and I can definitely see the community population spiking once the release announcement is made on Steam (if that does indeed happen).
They'll come here, they'll try to learn as much as possible, but probably with the expectation of not learning everything.

The reason I mention the second part is because I think that's only normal.

I personally don't hold that to be true. It would be far less tempting to buy a game if you felt you had a thorough understanding of its mechanics, just as it would be far less tempting to watch a movie if you knew its entire plot.

Prequels take an established plot and then work their way backwards. You know the outcome, but the process to get there is still unknown, and that's why they sell. In the same way, it would be good to know that some gameplay mechanics exist, but not necessarily exactly how they work.

There is a difference between having this information pre-release and post-release. Actually, this leads to a valid point that has been raised by several members in this thread. Pre-release, you wouldn't expect to know everything about the game (or a movie). I reiterate, this is normal. Post-release, you would expect to find it, so you wouldn't go looking if you didn't want to know.

It's pretty natural to grow excited and curious, but they won't have been here as long as we have, and people judge fast.
If they were able to go from having never heard of the game to seeing a thorough examination of the gameplay mechanics within a few hours, it makes a purchase far less tempting. Fortunately, they will be less likely to do this after the game has been released, because of the difference in what they might expect to learn.

This is a case in which saturation of information in a community would be detrimental.

Therefore, I'd like to see the developers handle the reveal of the game mechanics rather than the testers. I think they will be the ones who know how much they want to show and how much is too much. They're doing a pretty good job of it right now.

Now, I do understand the other side of the picture as well. I believe that saying that a blackout would be what's best for the community when the community itself can't wholly agree with such a notion is inherently wrong.
And ultimately, it's not up to us. But we can give feedback and suggestions as to how we want to see it played out, which is what this thread is. "Why I think that..." etc. is the OP's opinion and that's fine.
You may disagree with it, as some of you are, and that's okay too. I think it's a worthwhile discussion.

 

Well, THIS FIRST PART IS MAINLY TO GEEK but also this thread, I will contuer your agreement, by saying this, a true sandbox game should have infinate game play regardless of being spoiled, I will go back to the example each thing should have a thousand uses, for example, I spent a day of gameplay of minecraft(normally 20-30 mintunes while am watching a video) just playing with the new stair mechanic. While it was fun to discover how to make windows, and not have that be "spoiled", that also brings up the question, "how could this be used to be better then glass" and so on.

And, I think the reason people had problems with terrarai being leaked is because it was linear. If they can find a way to avoid this, not only sould it remove this problem, but also improve gameplay.

In closing, what would discovery bring to the table? The abiltiy to find out some that everyone else knews? If this game is about adventing, shouldn't you explore the unknown anyways?

 

I'm really looking into not knowing anything about this game, to play it blind. I knew too much about Terraria before I played it.

 

I'm the exact opposite of you, I want to know EVERYTHING about this game ^_^

 

Well, If you don't want to know and there is a beta/video you dont have to watch it.

If you want to know and there is not a beta/video you cant watch it.

 

I'd first like to say I can agree with most of what you said, and I understand wholly the points I snipped out. I just didn't want to quote your entire post xD. It's really all about opinion, so I'm trying not to call out your post even if I'm quoting it. I'd like to expand further on what we've both said.

I'm a huge MMO gamer, and I come from a society that believes wholly in "Knowledge is power". Those players who refuse to learn everything they can, be it in game or outside of the game, are shunned. Unless the people in question are exceptional this generally will irritate others, and in the wost case scenario, hurt them during their game play.

As a matter of fact, you can apply this to any game with a multiplayer option. How many times have you entered an ARTS/FPS/Raid/Map and the poor newbies get chewed out of their headsets?

Now, this may sound like it doesn't apply to Starbound, but remember that some of us will be playing in large groups with others, and I like to take the effort that I can to make sure I'm not detrimental to anyone's game play. It's just part of my nature.

What an open beta would do is satisfy my need to fix that. I am more than willing to wait for release, but I will take any information that I can, as soon as I am allowed.

---

I'd also like to point out that not always knowing what will happen can ruin everything. For instance, knowing you will be having a surprise party won't necessarily make the rest of the night boring.

So what I'm really trying to say is that there are some people who do not play for surprises. I like to be surprised as anyone else, but to me, I can do something and be satisfied even if I know every detail.

I mean, try looking up skydiving mechanics and tell me if it's the same as doing the actual thing xD. (PS. It's scary as crap and I will never do it.)

 

Okay, here is my point. If you don't want info on the game and it is an open beta, couldn't you just avoid the information yourself? Be responsible instead of making everyone who wants to play it suffer. You're on a site that gives out spoilers on the game for heaven's sake. Also, if it's an open beta that's not really spoiling the game because you're playing the game yourself anyhow. So I don't really see this argument valid at all.

 

My opinion on this is pretty straightforward. Beta testing isn't a free chance to play the game before it comes out. It's not a chance to effectively pre-play the game. An ideal beta runs in a few variable phases that assist in fully testing the game. The closed phase is post-alpha, not everything is included in the game - or better yet, small chunks are rolled out for more thorough testing on individual parts and functions of the game. This part usually remains closed except for obvious leaks on spoiler sites that can be well avoided. After the game is fairly thoroughly bug checked and tested, it's opened in the form of open beta for widescale stress testing - download server/update server testing, multitudes of systems to determine system requirements, and finding weird errors associated with the multitudes of drivers, software, and hardware out there. This phase is open - the game is very nearly complete and this purpose is just to get as many people trying to break the game as possible before it goes out. When this is done, the product is good to be released.

Complete community blackout can not occur. There is no controllable way to do this. Even under an NDA, someone will still tell their buddy who might tell another buddy who might post about it on his blog. Someone might put up a spoiler site, then all it takes is a few people to see it and talk about it on IRC or the forums to get word spread around, and the blackout broken. The only way to combat this is to heavily enforce it by way of moderation and developer intervention. Petitioning web providers to take down spoiler sites, kicking people from IRC who talk about it, and deleting forum posts/issuing bans. That kind of totalitarian blackout will not only offend your community, but give your moderators and developers, and by proxy the entire company a name as customer un-friendly. That's the last thing you want to do as a fresh company.