Fine, make it obvious but optional. The point is getting feedback from a wider base of beta participants. Including a means to do that in game sounds a lot better than expecting people to join a forum and post.
Not saying it should be the only means of feedback but for finger in the air I’d say it’s preferable to poll all the active players than listen to people in a forum who may not have even played the latest patched version of the game.
[QUOTE=SockDog;234368]Fine, make it obvious but optional. The point is getting feedback from a wider base of beta participants. Including a means to do that in game sounds a lot better than expecting people to join a forum and post.
Not saying it should be the only means of feedback but for finger in the air I’d say it’s preferable to poll all the active players than listen to people in a forum who may not have even played the latest patched version of the game.[/QUOTE]
While I may agree on a community like bc2 or cod’s ones, I guess you can have pretty much good reviews and feedback from this forum’s “figures”. Not saying its a bad idea, but not so much people will take the time to use the survey.
Peace
Survey would certainly need to be quick, 60secs or less, multiple choice with perhaps an optional text box for comments. The other positive I think this would bring is a chance to reinforce that what people are playing is a BETA! Maybe needing to fill out questions etc will give people pause before publicising the game as a demo.
Forum’s I agree can offer a lot more but your demographic there isn’t perhaps representative of the entirety of your Beta participants.
Beta Beta Beta it’s really just a band wagon everyone thinks they deserve and the games need.Betas are nothing more then Fan fair derived from devs who want general opinions of their games or throw them to the sharks to see what happens.No company owes anyone a beta and no company is good or bad for making a beta release for a game.Everyone acts like pretty little princess who have strict tastes in everything gaming.Some people say no split screen no buy thats ridiculous on so many levels and yes I understand peoples point of views and I respect them but that doesn’t change the fact you guys really shouldn’t be making demands and accusations based on things such as to beta or not to beta and split screen or LAN.if you dont like a game for whatever reason thats fine but you dont need to belittle the product or its creators for not doing something you wanted.They have the money and the creative tools not you yes they make this for you but its not a specific you its a general you just remember your opinions matter but more along the lines of horse shoes and hand grenades 
You may want to read the forum, there is very little entitlement issues around here. Heated, pointless and sometimes petty discussion sure but rarely an attitude that SD has to do what we say. This thread for example in no way demands SD does one thing or another, we’re merely chewing the cud on the merits of different beta related topics. This is after all a discussion forum. 
That said. Welcome to the forums. :stroggbanana:
Love the closed beta idea. I really don’t see how a pre-order beta would be a good idea to DICE and the other dev’s that went with that. Great post!
At quakecon this weekend on the Q&A the questions was asked about the beta.
Sponge was keeping us up to date through irc with some stuff that was said. More of that in this thread
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21779
The answer to the question was that there won’t be any focus on an open beta. Sucks if you just wanna play the game earlier but there probably is way to much side stuff to handle with such a big beta.
Instead we’re hoping for a smaller beta in which they can really get some hardcore testing going on. People who has been playing fps games and handling servers on the competitive scene before might have lots of useful information and solution to bring to the table!
Though as badman said on irc, there’s lots of events going on at the moment, so I doubt we can’t expect any news on this yet.
you make it sound like a demo, when an open beta is normally used to nip & tuck a few loose ends if released in a few weeks but like with the halo reach beta, it was to balance out multiplayer (example: active camo used to stay on all the time but now when you move to quickly the camo is disrupted)
Developers have used betas for various reasons and with what I meant at first was to stress test and hype the game. I suggest that you read the whole thread since we’ve been through some points that people had with the different stages of a beta
Yeah we’ve been through all this before, so how come you still think that it’s a good idea to hype with an unfinished game?
With that attitude why even bother to promote the game until it has gone gold? Screw the game shows and everything?
The only thing I was saying was that if a game is awesome and they want to stress test some servers it will hype the game by releasing a demo/open beta. Like the medal of honor beta that’s currently running. If the game is really awesome people who didn’t even care about the game could try it and become a fan. Like I did with starcraft 2. Now I’m playing that everyday just because of the beta.
Like the medal of honor beta. It’s only open for a few days just to stress test before the release. That doesn’t mean that the game is unfinished?
Beta means unfinished game by definition, and Splash Damage knows about open beta testing and how bad it can turn out. Demo on the other hand means finished product available for trial and usually a better response. But all I’m hearing is “I want the game early”
I’m pretty sure Bethesda knows how to market games better than anyone on this forum and you only need 16 people to stress test a server or P2P on a console for Brink
I’m very aware of the terms. And who would want to play an unfinished game and then judge by that?!
The reason I made this post from the very beginning is to make an example how you could do a beta. I’m interested in playing a beta because I wanna help out and I really feel that I can. I might not be the guy that’s played splash damage that much before but I’m still very dedicated to helping out. The hard thing is to get people who’s dedicated to helping out and got some experience. Screw playing early for no cause. No one would like forum full of whine.
I’m not going to do a wall of text but you get the idea.
With stress testing I was referring to stats and how that is going to be stored. Like in Bad Company 2 they had some problems with that. There’s login servers and whatnot. I was only making an example. When you’re a closed core group testing a game out you might miss some stuff. You get blind with your group. Having a closed beta will probably increase the chance dramatically to eliminate those.
We want the best game evaah! 
The hard thing is to get people who’s dedicated to helping out and got some experience.
It’s actually quite easy - it’s called closed testing, which they are doing now.
Well I meant closed beta with outsiders. That’s probably why they don’t have that. Last interviews I’ve heard/read is the game still in alpha
Phunny guy there. They’ve already stated that they won’t have any open beta. We’ll see!
