Brink beta and my pov

[Slade05]

Open beta you mean.

[DepressedOptimist]

It has to be, because, like it or not, the beta has a clear promotional purpose.

Indeed, it does. A horrible Beta can cause a dramatic hit in sales. APB is going to take a hit by having a hyper restricted beta where many of the none customization features were not shown off. People were upset and deterred by the lack of action.

[ehrw]

Indeed, it does. A horrible Beta can cause a dramatic hit in sales. APB is going to take a hit by having a hyper restricted beta where many of the none customization features were not shown off. People were upset and deterred by the lack of action.

APB had way more problems. The game itself had just flaws everywhere. It allowed people to just play lame. Drive around in their car in 10 min. If you were lucky you could time the direction they drove and flip them over.

So screw apb!

I doubt this game will have such flaws. This is more thought through and more competitive

[Szakalot]

Starcraft 2 beta has a clear purpose, to make sure that the game balance is right (Starcraft is all about the balance between the three races), and to stress test the new battle.net. RTS-games are harder to balance than FPS-games with two similar sides.

There is a significant problem with this analogy.
Game balance is something that will require updating over and over again, once people find new unbreakable tactics, ways of fixing it need to be advanced. This is why QW is now swarmed with ridiculously overpowered flyers, under-megatexture exploiters, MCP invulnerability, tormentor-dive on quarry; resulting in a general whine, wherever i play.

When thinking of QW: Most of the BIGGEST problems with the game itself were spottable in the first week of playing the beta. Things as boringly powerful grenades (which were significanlty nerfed, considering that beforehand a stroycell would give you one nade), the net issues or the obliterator reload time (it used to take around 2-3 seconds to reload oblit).

Those are the things people sticking to the game throughout its development somehow missed. How anyone could have missed that 3 oblits sitting anywhere could prevent any MCP repair is beyond me, but it was. Which proves that NEW beta testers are necessary.

Naturally, the problems that QW faces NOW required a little more time to develop, for example in the case of flyers, it took me a couple of months of dedicated flying to achieve an overwhelming enough efficiency, something that could block most enemy vehicles&deployables from doing anything.

And I’m not arguing against Brink beta test, I’m just saying that beta is not that important part of the development as gamers seem to believe. Modern Warfare 2 had no beta, and it did not hurt the success of the game at all, there were few nasty exploits left in the game, but those were fixed fairly quickly with a small patches.

I feel tempted to agree, but for different reasons, it just seems that under Bethesda, and with their experience, SD will know what they can go with, and what to avoid. Modern Warfare however, is hardly a shooter so heavily relying on teamwork, and that is where a lot of the issues come up.

In case Bring will have beta, they should stay away from Gamespy and other third-parties, and just distribute the beta themselves (preferably to the people with pre-orders). If I remember correctly, getting into ETQW beta required a paid subscription to Fileplanet/Gamespy, which sucked.

Naah, you didn’t have to pay squat, just register online.

[Joe999]

Those are the things people sticking to the game throughout its development somehow missed. How anyone could have missed … is beyond me, but it was.

don’t worry. if you have no idea about the complexity of software development, a lot is beyond you. maybe you should consider that when you joined the beta, the game wasn’t final. meaning that the tweaking didn’t start with you and stuff had already been tweaked but needed a counter-tweak and such which then needed another tweak in order to make this complex asymmetric gameplay balanced

[Senyin]

[QUOTE=ehrw;231542]

What do you think?
Lets make the most awesome game ever! :stroggflag:[/QUOTE]

A game is only as awesome as the people who play it.

If Brink had a beta and I had a chance to join, I would pass up.
It ruins the ‘fresh game’ experience a bit.
An open beta is not good imho since often people threat it as a demo
or even a finished product and spread (negative) nonsense

[tokamak]

[QUOTE=Senyin;232119]A game is only as awesome as the people who play it.
[/QUOTE]

I beg to differ, it’s up to the game to inspire people to be awesome.

[ehrw]

[QUOTE=Senyin;232119]A game is only as awesome as the people who play it.

If Brink had a beta and I had a chance to join, I would pass up.
It ruins the ‘fresh game’ experience a bit.
An open beta is not good imho since often people threat it as a demo
or even a finished product and spread (negative) nonsense[/QUOTE]

It might take away some of the fresh game experience. But you’ll have to choose to either try to help the game become awesome and let go of the fresh experience. Or buy a game where you’re bouncing up and down until its reached your mailbox and then you might miss out on some stuff the developers just didn’t think of.

This is why I prefer a smaller closed beta. At least to start with.

I beg to differ, it’s up to the game to inspire people to be awesome.

I agree very much indeed. Just take these forums. Its more educated and grown up then I’ve ever seen. It’s not like any EA game and all the kids spamming and whining.
This game has brought more then I’ve ever seen to a forum. By reading this forum gives me really good hope about the competitive scene.

[Apples]

Open beta bring :

• no feedback whatsoever
• thread spammage of QQ “this weapon is overpowered, I cant aim, I want my caracter to have a mustache…” etc ie: useless stuffs

Beta key for preorder bring :

• a bit more of feedback
• every “clan” trying to get their hands on the game to create more tactics and win the first competitions scheduled
• the feeling that if you pay you can have a beta is lame, beta is for testing, not for 12 years old moma boyz who can afford everything they want, ruin a game and then yell at their parents to have a new one.

Closed beta problem :

• Who do you choose to test your game? I would go for known mapper/modder + some figure of the previous communities (pub wise) who ran servers for ages ala nail n co.
• The testing competition wise can come later, with the promod development.

My 2 cents.

[AnthonyDa]

Quality assurance is here to test the game … if they can’t test properly the game, then you have to laid off some peoples …

[Senyin]

I beg to differ, it’s up to the game to inspire people to be awesome.

Awesome as in having good sportsmanship, teamwork and being laid back.
Fun to play with in other words.
The game is already awesome and but can be ruined somewhat by rude or uptight… people

[H0RSE]

The game is already awesome and but can be ruined somewhat by rude or uptight… people
you mean like bringing the game to consoles? Ooooo, low blow

[Seyu]

I’d say a closed beta would be best but then SD won’t be able to receive feedback from the mainstream gamers which in a high budget title is as crucial as that of core gamers, I guess.

[murka]

Still, what would a closed beta look like?
People send applications and some 1k people are chosen based on their knowledge on this engine and possible bugs, previous game experiences etc?
Getting a beta to be effective will cause more trouble than good. To make a proper sign-up you need to set aside some people to organize it. Or if you do a randomz beta, 99% will play it as demo and spread that “x, y and z is b0rked”, 1% actually report the bugs they find.

Even 2yrs after etqw got released, a new bug popped up(the vehicle exit thing).

So lets throw in a quote.

Notheeeeeeeng is final!

[SockDog]

[quote=Senyin;232161]Awesome as in having good sportsmanship, teamwork and being laid back.
Fun to play with in other words.
The game is already awesome and but can be ruined somewhat by rude or uptight… people[/quote]

This!

After L4D2 being on sale the past two weeks I have to say the number of terrible games has increased. It is not necessarily due to people just being new to the game, I’ve actually had great games too with people who’ve never played L4D before it’s just a lot less frequently. I guess one bad apple taints a whole game.

I had one guy this weekend. Constanly ran ahead of the team on his own, screwed with every witch he saw only to get killed or get someone else killed 90% of the time, triggered every event the second he saw it, double dipped the medkits in the safe room and took up as many as he could find along the way. Advice like “stick together and plan event before starting” was met with “why, just shoot the zombies in the head”. Ultimately the team had to race off after him, heal him, struggle along with half health etc while the guy being so self obsorbed thought everything was fine. Ultimately, finale of Swamp Fever is won and I’m on the dock just letting off rounds at the zombies, then the nob tops off his antics by shooting me in the back because I wasn’t getting on the boat.

So, sorry for the massive off topic but I think people bring a huge deal to the game. Sure the game needs to work but if the people playing it are idiots or unwelcoming then it doesn’t matter at bit you’ll just not have any fun.

I guess in the subject of a beta this has little relevance. A games audience is largely decided by the collective and what they deem as permissible. However I do think having tools to Train and control players who degrade the experience is an area that games could focus on more. But we’ve been through that subject probably one too many times already.

[tokamak]

[QUOTE=Senyin;232161]Awesome as in having good sportsmanship, teamwork and being laid back.
Fun to play with in other words.
The game is already awesome and but can be ruined somewhat by rude or uptight… people[/QUOTE]

Sure but manners aside, a game should be able to pushed to it’s limits by the most obnoxious unsportive players there are and still be fun to play.

[AnthonyDa]

After L4D2 being on sale the past two weeks I have to say the number of terrible games has increased. […]

You can vote kick easily a player, I guess that the 3 others guys were complete noob or didn’t find the rusher strategy annoying :rolleyes:

[SockDog]

Sure but manners aside, a game should be able to pushed to it’s limits by the most obnoxious unsportive players there are and still be fun to play.

Any examples?

[SockDog]

You can vote kick easily a player, I guess that the 3 others guys were complete noob or didn’t find the rusher strategy annoying :rolleyes:

Just pointing out people’s attitude and actions does have a dramatic effect of the quality of a game. His actions may not have warranted a kick (he had a friend with him to swing the vote anyway) but they did mean myself and others had to struggle through a map while he deluded himself he was our saviour.

[AnthonyDa]

Just pointing out people’s attitude and actions does have a dramatic effect of the quality of a game. His actions may not have warranted a kick (he had a friend with him to swing the vote anyway) but they did mean myself and others had to struggle through a map while he deluded himself he was our saviour.

I don’t understand, on L4D(2) if you are playing a versus (4v4) you can only vote kick player on your team BUT only your team have to vote, and if the majority is reached, then the player will be kicked.
You are saying that he had friend to counter balance the vote, but he had friend on his team? And if it others players didn’t vote him, then it wasn’t a problem for him and his team to let him rush alone, so the game is fine as it is …